With a sudden chill foreboding, he entered the hall and passed up the stairs to his wife’s apartments. He opened wide the door and stood within the chamber of the dead.
There lay the peaceful form—spread with a drapery of soft, white gauze around her, and only the sad and livid, poisoned face was visible above it; and kneeling by the side of her, his first love and his last—was Reuel Briggs.
Rising from the shadows as Aubrey entered, Charlie Vance, flanked on either side by Ai and Ababdis, moved to meet him, the stern brow and sterner words of an outraged brother and friend greeted him:
“Welcome, murderer!”
Dianthe was dead, poisoned; that was clear. Molly Vance was unduly done to death by the foul treachery of the same hand. All this was now clear to the thinking public, for so secluded had Aubrey Livingston lived since his return to the United States, that many of his intimate associates still believed that he had perished in the accident on the Charles. It was quite evident to these friends that his infatuation for the beautiful Dianthe had led to the commission of a crime. But the old adage that, “the dead tell no tales,” was not to be set aside for visionary ravings unsupported by lawful testimony.
Livingston’s wealth purchased shrewd and active lawyers to defend him against the charges brought by the Vances—father and son,—and Reuel Briggs.
One interview which was never revealed to public comment, took place between Ai, Ababdis, Aunt Hannah, Reuel Briggs and Aubrey Livingston.
Aubrey sat alone in his sumptuous study. An open book was on his knees, but his eyes were fixed on vacancy. He was changed and his auburn locks were prematurely grey. His eyes revealed an impenetrable mystery within into whose secret depths no mortal eye might look. Thus he sat when the group we have named above silently surrounded him. “Peace, O son of Osiris, to thy parting hour!”
Thus Ai greeted him. There was no mistaking these words, and gazing into the stern faces of the silent group Aubrey knew that something of import was about to happen.