"I found Remond," he said. "He was about leaving the city by the steamer 'Ellen Bayne.' As he was about crossing the plank, I collared him and demanded the antidote. He was startled at first, and glared at me fiercely, then suddenly assumed a calmness that looked so much like acquiescence that I was completely deceived. He put his hand into his breast-pocket, and drew out a small vial of colorless liquid. I thought he was going to give it to me, and, thrown off my guard by his apparent coolness, released him and stretched out my hand. The cunning villain took instant advantage of my belief; he sprung away from me across the gang-plank, which was instantly drawn in, as the steamer was leaving the wharf. Standing on the deck, he looked at me with the leer of a fiend and immediately flung the vial into the river."
"The fiend!" Carmontelle said, hoarsely. "But it matters not. She is already dead."
And he led the dismayed and disappointed detective to the chapel, and showed him the silent sleeper there, with the cool white lilies on her breast.
"How beautiful, how unfortunate!" murmured the kind-hearted detective, in reverential awe. His profession had made him familiar with all sorts of tragedies and sorrows, but this one seemed to him as sad and pathetic as any he had ever encountered. He looked with deep sympathy upon the man beside him to whom the girl's death was such a crushing blow, but words failed him. He could only look his silent and sincere sympathy.
Suddenly there recurred to Carmontelle the remembrance of Eliot Van Zandt, whose fate was still wrapped in mystery.
"Come, we can do no good here now," he said, mournfully. "The fiends have done their work too well. We must try to get at the bottom of the mystery that enshrouds the fate of my poor friend."
After promising the mother superior to return and attend to the funeral obsequies of the dead girl, he went away, taking the detective with him to assist in the inquiry for the young journalist.
It did not seem possible that they could fail in this search, but though the anxious quest was kept up for many days and nights, not a single clew rewarded their efforts. Eliot Van Zandt had disappeared as completely as though an earthquake had opened and swallowed him into the bosom of old mother earth.
The detective could form but one conclusion, which he reluctantly imparted to his employer.
"The young man was most probably murdered that night, and his corpse flung into the river, but no proofs will ever be found implicating Remond as the murderer. Nor is it likely that the Frenchman will ever turn up again in New Orleans. Fearful of detection, he will go abroad and plunge into new crimes befitting his evil nature, and the disappearance of poor Van Zandt will most likely remain forever upon the terrible list of unexplained disappearance of human beings."