Amy had changed to a black dress which set off the unrelieved pallor of her skin like alabaster. The little creature now had a consecrated air like a priestess that added inches to her stature. Greg, who was wretchedly ill at ease, regarded her with a kind of awe. She was the leader now. A strange hush brooded over the little house. The shutters of the store were up.
Amy led the way up-stairs. De Socotra, notwithstanding his pretended assurance, was impressed by the change in her dress and manner. All the way up he talked lightly to conceal his uneasiness.
"What an odd retreat you have chosen! I thought we should never get here. My chauffeur had never heard of Gibbon Street, nor any one else for that matter. What shocking streets we came through. Picturesque though, if one cares for that sort of thing."
No one paid the slightest attention to this babble. At the head of the stairs Amy opened the door of Bessie's bedroom and passed in. De Socotra was still talking as he followed her. Greg was behind him.
"Houston Street reminded me of Rome, Rome in Juvenal's day with its——"
The sentence was caught up on a gasp. It was never completed. Bessie's room had been transformed into a little mortuary chapel. Everything in it had been removed and the walls hung from ceiling to floor in grim black draperies. The effect was startling in the extreme; it had been designed to startle. In the center of the room, the sole object it contained, rested a plain black coffin on a severely draped bier. Six tall candles stood about the head lighting the face of the corpse strangely. It was the face of de Silva—peaceful, waxen, and faintly yellow.
Greg fascinated watched de Socotra. Amy disdained to look at him. Her gaze was bent like Nemesis on the poor clay. De Silva's face showed a dignity it had never known in life. One saw the man he might have been. Stilled now was the wild spirit that had been touched too late by kindness.
De Socotra's bronzed face turned gray, and a network of tiny dark veins showed under his skin. One realized the man's age. He breathed like something hurt. But he kept his back straight and his gaze never faltered from the dead man's face.
"Where did you—where did you—" he began twice, but did not finish.
Amy without speaking pointed to a note pinned on de Silva's breast. De Socotra, seeing that he was expected to read it, came forward. His nostrils twitched, a pained look showed deep in his eyes; one guessed that it afflicted him with nausea to approach the body of his hired assassin, but his iron will was not yet broken. He stooped, and in the light of the candles began to read with a sneer. It was the note de Silva had left for Greg.