Only once did he look up—when he heard me endeavoring to incriminate myself—then a soft beautiful smile crept over his face, but he nevertheless shook his head with inflexible determination.
“You must accompany me, sir,” said the sergeant to Pasquale.
“To jail?” inquired the other. “A Pasquale to jail!” and he laughed softly, as if the thought amused him.
“Good-bye, Wyndham, dear old friend, faithful to the last; Heaven send you the best of luck,” and he kissed me fondly and even passionately on both cheeks. “God bless you twice over, once for yourself and once for me, who never had a blessing;” and as he spoke a tremor shook his frame and he was barely able to steady himself.
“And, Jacques, my faithful friend and guardian, God bless you too—pray for me.”
Then his gaze grew dim with tears and he turned again to the strange weapon still lying on the table.
“Who would have thought that these little bodkins could have wrought such fearful havoc?” As he spoke he took up one of the steel points and fitted it mechanically into its socket.
It was all over in a moment. With a rapid movement Pasquale directed the point towards himself, his wrist turned slightly, the hand tightened fiercely and then opened, and the ivory handle of the stiletto rolled on the floor as Pasquale reeled and fell into the arms of those behind him. His eyes opened wide, smiled the old smile into mine just for one brief instant, then the darkness of death blotted out their light, and the lids drooped slowly as if from overwhelming fatigue. Pasquale had entered into the rest which knows no waking.
They thought that he had fainted, but I knew differently. The deadly stiletto had done its last work faithfully and fatally. The quick turn of the wrist and the fierce grasp of the weapon had released the powerful spring concealed in the ivory handle, and the dagger point was now imbedded in Pasquale’s heart.
A week later two visitors entered my rooms. They were my dead friend’s father and the valet, Jacques. From the former I learned that his son had, for some years, been subject to fits of dementia. These usually occurred during the full moon. Mr. Pasquale’s reason for sending his son to London was a hope expressed by the family doctor that an entire change of scene might strengthen his mind and his body, and be the means of creating a break in those periodic attacks.