So Mr. Banks and Jim arose stiffly from the floor.
Captain Wigmore, or Captain Jackson, or the Sultan of Turkey—call him what you will—glared at Timothy in silence for several seconds, with hate and despair in his eyes. His long, slender fingers plucked at his ashen lips. Again, as suddenly as a change of thought, he burst into mad laughter; this laughter grew and thinned to shrieking, then fell presently to sobbing and muttering. He seemed to crumple and shrink; and slowly he slid from the low chair to the floor. The company looked on without moving or speaking, some in a state of helpless horror, the doctor and old Timothy Fletcher with harsh curiosity. Nell Harley hid her face against Reginald's shoulder.
The murderer squirmed on the floor, sobbing and muttering; and by the time Doctor Nash had decided that he was really having a fit the old devil had finished having it. He was dead! Nash turned him over and felt for his heart. The heart was still.
"The ugliest death I ever saw," said Nash, glancing up at the horrified company.
"And the ugliest life," said old Timothy Fletcher.
Reginald led the girl from the room. They stumbled along the hall and sat side by side upon the bottom step of the stairs. Then the girl began to weep and the shaken young man to comfort her.
Old Wigmore's secret had not escaped with his wild and twisted spirit.
"Hoist him onto the sofa," said the doctor. "We'll sit on him here and now."
All agreed that the so called Captain Wigmore had died in a fit. Then Dick Goodine left the house, saying that a little fresh air would make him feel cleaner. Mr. Banks lit a cigar, remarking that he would fumigate this chamber of horrors. Then Dr. Nash, as coroner, and Jim Harley, who was a justice of the peace, agreed that they had the authority to search the belongings of the deceased. Timothy Fletcher said that he knew where the old devil kept all his private papers. So Rayton took Nell home, and Nash, Banks, Harley and the old servant drove over to the dead man's house, taking the shrunken and stiffened clay along with them in the back of the pung. They entered the empty house and Timothy lit a candle and led the way upstairs to the captain's bedroom. He pointed to a large, iron-bound wooden chest which stood at the foot of the bed.
"There's where he keeps his ungodly secrets," he said. "Mind the corp, gentlemen, or it'll turn over in agony when we unlock the box. Hell! how I do wish the old sinner was alive to see it. I shouldn't wonder but we'll find some bones of dead men in that box."