“Duson!” Mr. Sabin said sharply. “What does this mean?”
There was no answer. Mr. Sabin moved quickly forward, and then stopped short. He had seen dead men, and he knew the signs. Duson was stone dead.
Mr. Sabin’s nerve answered to this demand upon it. He checked his first impulse to ring the bell, and looked carefully on the table for some note or message from the dead man. He found it almost at once—a large envelope in Duson’s handwriting. Mr. Sabin hastily broke the seal and read:
“Monsieur,—I kill myself because it is easiest and best. The
poison was given me for you, but I have not the courage to become
a murderer, or afterwards to conceal my guilt. Monsieur has been
a good master to me, and also Madame la Comtesse was always
indulgent and kind. The mistake of my life has been the joining
the lower order of the Society. The money which I have received
has been but a poor return for the anxiety and trouble which have
come upon me since Madame la Comtesse left America. Now that I
seek shelter in the grave I am free to warn Monsieur that the
Prince of S. L. is his determined and merciless enemy, and that
he has already made an unlawful use of his position in the Society
for the sake of private vengeance. If monsieur would make a
powerful friend he should seek the Lady Muriel Carey.
“Monsieur will be so good as to destroy this when read. My will
is in my trunk.
“Your Grace’s faithful servant,
“Jules Duson.”
Mr. Sabin read this letter carefully through to the end. Then he put it into his pocket-book and quickly rang the bell.
“You had better send for a doctor at once,” he said to the waiter who appeared. “My servant appears to have suffered from some sudden illness. I am afraid that he is quite dead.”
CHAPTER XXIX
“You spoke, my dear Lucille,” the Duchess of Dorset said, “of your departure. Is not that a little premature?”
Lucille shrugged her beautiful shoulders, and leaned back in her corner of the couch with half-closed eyes. The Duchess, who was very Anglo-Saxon, was an easy person to read, and Lucille was anxious to know her fate.