most, as it were, into the midst of what I must regard as the
last wicked act of a most cowardly and brutal murder.

I did it, however, and after a short but grim communion with my own
heart, which would persist in beating somewhat noisily, I leaned forward
with all the precaution possible and let my gaze traverse the chamber in
which I had previously seen such horrors as should have prepared me for
this last and greatest one.

In a moment I understood the whole. A long square hole in the floor,
lately sawed, provided an opening through which the plain plank coffin,
of which I now caught sight, was to be lowered into the cellar and so
into the grave which had doubtless been dug there. The ropes in the
hands of the six persons, in whose identity I had made no mistake, was
proof enough of their intention; and, satisfied as I now was of the
means and mode of the interment which had been such a boundless mystery
to me, I shrank a step upward, fearing lest my indignation and the
horror I could not but feel, from this moment on, of Althea's children,
would betray me into some exclamation which might lead to my discovery
and a similar fate.

One other short glance, in which I saw them all ranged around the dark
opening, and I was up out of their reach, Lucetta's face and Lucetta's
one sob as the ropes began to creak, being the one memory which followed
me the most persistently. She, at least, was overwhelmed with remorse
for a deed she was perhaps only answerable for in that she failed to
make known to the world her brother's madness and the horrible crimes to
which it gave rise.

I took one other look around his room before I fled to my own, or
rather, to the one in which I had taken refuge while my own was under
lock and key. That I spent the next two hours on my knees no one can
wonder. When my own room was unlocked, as it was before the day broke, I
hastened to enter it and lay my head with all its unhappy knowledge on
my pillow. But I did not sleep; and, what was stranger still, never once
thought of sounding a single note on the whistle which would have
brought the police into this abode of crime. Perhaps it was a wise
omission. I had seen enough that was horrible that night without
beholding Althea's children arrested before my eyes.

_BOOK III_

FORWARD AND BACK

XXIII

ROOM 3, HOTEL CARTER

I rose at my usual hour. I dressed myself with my usual care. I was, to
a superficial observer at least