And now the foremost reach the window.  Randolph, from behind, calls to them to enter.  They cry back that they cannot, the window being closed.  At this reply he seems to be overcome by surprise, by terror.  Some one hears him murmur the words, “My God, what can have happened now?” His horror is increased when one of the lads bears to him a revolting trophy, which has been found just outside the window; it is the front phalanges of three fingers of a human hand.  Again he utters the agonised moan, “My God!” and then, mastering his agitation, makes for the window; he finds that the catch of the sash has been roughly wrenched off, and that the sash can be opened by merely pushing it up:  does so, and enters.  The room is in darkness:  on the floor under the window is found the insensible body of the woman Cibras.  She is alive, but has fainted.  Her right fingers are closed round the handle of a large bowie-knife, which is covered with blood; parts of the left are missing.  All the jewelry has been stolen from the room.  Lord Pharanx lies on the bed, stabbed through the bedclothes to the heart.  Later on a bullet is also found imbedded in his brain.  I should explain that a trenchant edge, running along the bottom of the sash, was the obvious means by which the fingers of Cibras had been cut off.  This had been placed there a few days before by the workman I spoke of.  Several secret springs had been placed on the inner side of the lower horizontal piece of the window-frame, by pressing any one of which the sash was lowered; so that no one, ignorant of the secret, could pass out from within, without resting the hand on one of these springs, and so bringing down the armed sash suddenly on the underlying hand.

’There was, of course, a trial.  The poor culprit, in mortal terror of death, shrieked out a confession of the murder just as the jury had returned from their brief consultation, and before they had time to pronounce their verdict of “guilty.”  But she denied shooting Lord Pharanx, and she denied stealing the jewels; and indeed no pistol and no jewels were found on her, or anywhere in the room.  So that many points remain mysterious.  What part did the burglars play in the tragedy?  Were they in collusion with Cibras?  Had the strange behaviour of at least one of the inmates of Orven Hall no hidden significance?  The wildest guesses were made throughout the country; theories propounded.  But no theory explained all the points.  The ferment, however, has now subsided.  To-morrow morning Maude Cibras ends her life on the gallows.’

Thus I ended my narrative.

Without a word Zaleski rose from the couch, and walked to the organ.  Assisted from behind by Ham, who foreknew his master’s every whim, he proceeded to render with infinite feeling an air from the Lakme of Delibes; long he sat, dreamily uttering the melody, his head sunken on his breast.  When at last he rose, his great expanse of brow was clear, and a smile all but solemn in its serenity was on his lips.  He walked up to an ivory escritoire, scribbled a few words on a sheet of paper, and handed it to the negro with the order to take my trap and drive with the message in all haste to the nearest telegraph office.