The Church of San Michele proved to be a building of fine architectural proportions, dating from the end of the fifteenth century. Underneath it were row after row of spacious vaults: in one corner of which, on a slab of dark-blue slate, partly covered with a velvet pall, and with two tall wax tapers burning at its head, they found the object of their search.
General St. George went forward and stationed himself at the head of the coffin. Mr. Drayton took up a position on one side of it, and Mr. Whiffins on the other. But Kester lingered in the background among the shadows of the crypt. It seemed as if his feet refused to drag him any nearer.
Drayton and Whiffins had seen death often, and in various forms. They were men not easily impressed; but there was something in the circumstances and surroundings of the present case that appealed to them with more than ordinary force. There, before them, lay the lifeless body of the man who had escaped so strangely from their clutches; on whose head a price had been set; who had broken his heart in a vain struggle against the destiny which had crushed him down; and who had now escaped from them again, and this time for ever. Did the red right hand of a murderer lie in that coffin, or was it really as guiltless of the stain of blood as the dead man himself had asseverated; and as those who knew him best had been ready to swear? Could those white lips but have spoken now, could they have given utterance to but one word from beyond the confines of the grave, surely the truth would have been proclaimed. But not till the great day of all would their awful silence ever be broken.
Drayton and Whiffins, drawing nearer to the coffin, gazed down through the glass plate at the immovable features underneath. Kester, leaning against one of the cold stone pillars, shuddered, but drew no nearer. Beyond the faint circle of light which radiated from the tapers, all was obscurity and gloom the most profound. Far away among the black recesses of those far-reaching aisles, among those endless rows of time-stained pillars, he heard, or seemed to hear, faint chill whisperings as from lips long dead, and the all but inaudible rustle of ghostly garments sweeping slowly across the floor.
“This is really our man, I suppose?” whispered the Scotland Yard officer to Mr. Drayton.
“Yes, that’s him, sure enough,” answered Drayton, in the same tone. “He was close-shaved when he got out of prison, but his moustache and beard have had time to grow again since then. Yes, that’s him, sure enough. I could swear to him anywhere.”
There was nothing more to do or see, and they moved slowly away.
“Will you not take one look?” said General St. George to Kester.
“Yes, one look,” whispered Kester; and with that he dragged himself close up to the coffin, and stood gazing down for a moment at the marble face below.
His own cheeks had faded to the colour of those of the dead man. In the yellow candlelight his features looked cadaverous and shrunken, but his two burning eyes glowed with a strange light, eager yet terrified. He wanted to see—he would not have gone away satisfied unless he had seen—the face which lay there in all its awful beauty; and yet his whole soul sank within him at the sight. Fascinated—spellbound he stood.