“I cannot tell with any certainty,” I added falteringly, “for without thinking very closely about it, I had assumed that the rooms on both sides the partition were the same depth, but the door on my side is at the extremity of my bedroom, and when you said that the Frenchman lived at the rear, I concluded from the appearance of the man I saw that I was looking into his rooms.”
“Well the matter can be settled very promptly,” remarked Pasquale. “If you will go with one of these gentlemen, Wyndham, and show him the doorway through which you saw the old man, we can easily connect with you here.”
This seemed the most natural thing to do, and we prepared to carry out Pasquale’s suggestion. As I was leaving the room the police sergeant inquired whether Pasquale had the key of the door connecting my rooms with his through the wall dividing the two houses, and before I passed out of hearing I heard Pasquale explain that he had never had a key of that door, and did not believe that there was one in existence.
When the policeman and I entered my apartments the former remarked that he thought that the door which I pointed out to him would, if opened, be found to lead into Mr. Pasquale’s rooms—“at least I judge so from the relative length of the rooms,” he added.
Our loud knockings at the door through which I had seen the midnight spectacle produced no result for a minute; evidently our friends were still in the rear rooms. Then we could hear voices indistinctly, and presently the sound of blows opposite to us showed that our friends had at last “located” us.
After a short interval of heavy blows on the opposite door the latter was burst open—that much we could hear by the volume of sound which reached us—there was a shout of excitement, and presently the door which had been forced was shut, and we could see and hear no more.
Something very amazing had happened; what was it?
How can I relate the story of the events which followed? Even now, at this lapse of time, the recital of them chills my inmost soul. When we returned to the other house, we found Pasquale, my friend and more than brother, in the custody of the police. The space between the double doors dividing his room and mine had revealed all the paraphernalia of the supposed murderer, and that it belonged to Pasquale was apparently beyond doubt.
The wig and beard; the clothes, the boots, the blood-stained gloves; and even the hare’s-foot with which the face had been painted to the semblance of age, all belonged to him and all were there; and worse and still more damning evidence was found in an oblong ivory box of antique pattern. Within this lay a stiletto handle, the ivory of which was yellow with extreme age. The weapon had no blade, but imbedded in the faded velvet of the lid were seven dagger points identical in every respect with those found in the heads of the dead men.
As we came forward the police sergeant removed a handkerchief from the pocket of the coat found in the recess.