“But Nora introduced you as Feo Ashwicke on the first occasion we met after our marriage,” I remarked.
“I well remember it. Nora must have discovered the secret of my birth, although, when I questioned her after your departure, she declared that she had only bestowed a fictitious name upon me as a joke.”
“Yet Ashwicke was your actual name,” I observed.
“You will find the register of your birth in York,” interposed Graham. “I have told you the truth.”
“I will hear it from my father’s own lips,” she said.
“Alas!” the grey-haired man answered very gravely, “that is impossible. Your father is dead.”
“Dead?” I echoed. “Tattersett dead?”
“Yes; he was found lifeless in his rooms in Piccadilly East yesterday afternoon. His man called me, and discovered upon the table a tiny tube containing some crystals of the secret vayana. He had evidently touched them accidentally with his fingers, and the result was fatal. The police and doctor believe it to be due to natural causes, as I secured the tube and destroyed it before their arrival. The news of the discovery is in the evening papers;” and, taking a copy of the Globe from his pocket, he handed it to me, indicating the paragraph.
I read the four bare lines aloud, both my well-beloved and the dead man’s widow standing in rigid silence.
The elucidation of the bewildering mystery and its tragic dénouement held us speechless. It staggered belief.