VOL. I.] A Journal of Choice Beading, SELECTED FROM FOREIGN CURRENT LITERATURE. SATURDAY, JUNE 30, 1866. THE TRAGEDY IN THE PALAZZO THE sun had been up for the best part of an hour; the golden haze in the east was slowly melting away; the sluggish tide of bullock-trucks had fairly set in along the Via Sacra; and a faint, universal stir of awakening life was to be felt rather than heard in the pleasant morning air, when a certain Englishman, Hugh Girdlestone by name, rose from his lounging attitude against the parapet of the Tower of the Capitol, and prepared to be gone. He had been standing there in the same spot, in the same attitude, since the first gray of the dawn. He had seen the last star fade from the sky. He had seen the shadowy Sabine peaks uplift themselves one by one, and the Campagna emerge, like a troubled sea, from the mystery of the twilight. [No. 26. through the spacious court-yard, past the bronze horse and his imperial rider, down the great steps, and along the Via Ara Coeli. Passing the church of the Jesuits, he paused for a moment to listen to the chanting. As he did so, a Campagna drover in a rough sheepskin jacket stopped his truck to kneel for a moment on the lowest step and then trudge on again; and presently an Albano woman lifted the ponderous leather curtain and came out, bringing with her a momentary rush of rolling harmonies. The Englishman listened and lingered, made as if he would go in, and then, with something of a smile upon his lip, turned hastily away. Going straight on, with his head a little thrown forward and his hat pulled somewhat low upon his brow, he then pushed on at a swift, swinging stride, proceeding direct to the post-office, and passing the Pantheon without so much as a glance. For his appearance, it was as insular as his gait or his accent. He was tall, strongly made, somewhat gaunt and swift-looking about the limbs, with a slight stoop in the shoulders, and a trick of swinging his gloves in his right hand as he went along. Manly, well-born, well-educated, gifted with a more Rome, with its multitudinous domes and bell-tow- than ordinary amount of brains, and, perhaps, with ers, its history, its poetry, its fable, lay at his feet. a more than ordinary share of insular stubbornness, Yonder the Coliseum, brown, vast, indistinct against Hugh Girdlestone was just one of those men whom the light, with the blue day piercing its topmost it does one good to meet in the streets of a contiarches; to the left the shapeless ruins of the Palace nental city. He was an Englishman through and of the Cæsars; to the right, faintly visible above through; and he was precisely that type of Englishthe mist, the pyramid of Caius Cestius, beside man who commands the respect, though seldom the which, amid a wilderness of sweet wild violets, lie liking, of foreigners. He expressed and held to his the ashes of John Keats; nearer still, the sullen opinions with a decision that they disliked intensely. Tiber eddying over the fast-vanishing piers of the His voice had a ring of authority that grated upon Pons Emilius; nearest of all, the Forum, with its their ears. His very walk had in it something charexcavations, its columns, its palace-fronts, its tri-acteristic and resolute that offended their prejudices. umphal arches, its scanty turf, its stunted acacias, its indescribable air of repose and desolation; and beyond and around all, the brown and broken Campagna, bounded on the one hand by long chains of snow-streaked Apennines, and on the other by a shining zone of sea. A marvellous panorama! Per- In complexion and feature he was not unlike the haps, taking it for all in all, the most marvellous earlier portraits of Charles II. The lines of his panorama that Europe has to show. Hugh Gird-face were less harsh, and his skin was less swarthy; lestone knew every feature of it by heart. He was familiar with every crumbling tower and modern campanile, with every space of open piazza, with every green enclosure, with the site of every famous ruin, and the outline of every famous hill. It was his favorite haunt, the one pageant of which his eyes and his imagination were never weary. He had seen the sun rise and set upon that scene many and many a time, both now and in years past. He might, in all probability, stand in the same spot and witness the same gorgeous spectacle to-morrow; and yet he lingered there as fondly as if this visit were his first, and left as reluctantly as if it were destined to be his last. Slowly and thoughtfully he went his way, out but there was the same sarcastic play of lip, and now and then a flash of the same restless fire in the eye. Nor did the resemblance end here. It came out strongest of all in a mere passing shadow of expression, that expression of saturnine foreboding which Walpole aptly defined as the "fatality of air common to the line of the Stuarts. The look was one which came to his face but rarely, rarely that many of his intimate acquaintances had never seen it there; but it started to the surface sometimes, like a hidden writing, and sometimes settled like a darkness on his brow. " -80 The main facts of his story up to the morning of this day this 13th of February, 1857 — may be told in a few lines. He was the son of a wealthy Derbyshire squire, had taken honors at Cambridge, and had been called to the bar some four or five years back. As yet he could scarcely be said to have entered actively upon his professional life. He had written an able treatise on the law of International Copyright, and edited an important digest of Chancery practice. He had also been for years in the habit of contributing to the best periodical literature of the day. Within the last four months, after a prolonged opposition on the part of her nearest relatives, he had happily married a young lady of ancient Roman Catholic family and moderate fortune, to whom he had been attached from boyhood. They were now spending a long honeymoon in Rome, and were as perfectly happy as a pair of lovers in a fairy-tale. When it is added, that she was just twenty-two and he thirty-four years of age, the outline of their little history is made out with sufficient clearness for all the purposes of this narrative. the streets, were gathered little knots of priests and mendicant friars, deep in pious gossip and redolent less of sanctity than garlic. But to Hugh Girdlestone these sights and sounds were all too familiar to claim even passing attention. He went on his way, preoccupied and unobservant, with a face of happy thoughtfulness and a head full of joyous hopes and projects. Life had, perhaps, never seemed so bright for him as at that moment. The happy present was his own, and the future with all its possible rewards and blessings lay, as it were, unfolded before him. It was not often that he was visited by a holiday mood such as this; and, English as he was, he could scarcely forbear smiling to himself as he went along. Coming presently, however, into a long, picturesque street lined with shops on both sides from end to end, he slackened his pace, shook off his revery, and began loitering before the windows with the air of a pur chaser. Pushing on, then, at his eager pace, Hugh Girdle- Pausing now at a cameo-cutter's, now at a mosaistone came presently to the post-office and inquired eist's, now at a jeweller's, hesitating between the for his letters. There was but one, a square, blue-bronze medals in this window and the antique gems looking, ill-favored sort of document, sealed with a in that, he came presently to one of those shops for big office seal and addressed in a trim business hand. the sale of devotional articles, one or more of which He had to show his passport before the clerk would are to be found in almost every street of Rome. trust it beyond the bars of the little cage in which Here were exquisitely carved rosaries in cedar and he sat, and then it was overweight, and he was called coral and precious stones, votive offerings in silver upon to pay forty-six bajocchi for extra postage. and wax, consecrated palm, colored prints of saints This done- and it seemed to him that the clerk was and martyrs in emblematic frames, missals, crosses, wilfully and maliciously slow about it - Hugh Gir- holy water vessels, and wreaths of immortelles. dlestone crushed the letter into an inner breast Here also, occupying the centre of the window, and pocket, and turned away. At the door he hesitated, relieved against a stand of crimson cloth, stood an looked at his watch, crossed over, withdrew into the ivory crucifixion designed after the famous Vandyke shade of a neighboring porte cochère, took his letter at Antwerp, and measuring about ten inches in out again, and tore it open. It contained two en-height. It was a little gem in its way,-a tiny closures: the one a note from his publishers, the masterpiece of rare and delicate workmanship. other a letter of credit upon a great Roman bank- Hugh Girdlestone had seen and admired it many a ing-house. He drew a deep breath of satisfaction. time before, but never till now with any thought of He had been expecting this remittance for several purchase. To-day, however, the aspect of affairs days past, not altogether with anxiety, for he was was changed. His letter of credit troubled his peace in no immediate need of money, but with some de- of mind and oppressed him with an uneasy sense of gree of impatience; for the fate of more than one wealth. He longed to buy something for his little project was involved in the sum which this letter of bride at home, and he knew that he could find nothcredit might chance to represent. The extensioning in all Rome which she would prefer to this. She of their tour as far as Naples, the purchase of certain bronzes and cameos, and the date of their return to England, were all dependent upon it. It was no wonder, then, that Hugh Girdlestone's brow cleared at sight of the amount for which he found himself entitled to draw upon the princely establishment in the Piazza Venezia. It exceeded his expectations by nearly one half, and made him a rich man for the next three months. would appreciate it as a piece of art, and prize it as a most precious adjunct to her devotions. She would love it, too, for his dear sake, and her eyes would rest upon it when she prayed for him in her orisons. Dear, pious, tender little heart! it should be hers, cost what it might. He would take it home to her this very morning. What pleasure to see the glad wonder in her eyes! What pleasure to give her back smile for simile and kiss for kiss, when she should fly into his arms to thank him for the gift! So Hugh Girdlestone went in and bought it, reckless of the breach it made in his purse, and caring for nothing but the delight of gratifying what he so dearly loved. 1 The streets were now beginning to be alive with passengers. The shopkeepers were busy arranging That he, an ultra liberal thinker in all matters retheir windows; the vetturini were ranging them-ligious and political, should select such a gift for his selves in their accustomed ranks; the beggars were wife, was just one of those characteristic traits that lazily setting about their professional avocations for essentially marked the man. Setting but slight val- | the day; and the French regiments were turningue on all forms of creeds, and ranking that of the out, as usual, for morning parade on the Pincio. Romanist at a lower level than most, he could yet Here and there a long-haired student might be seen feel a sort of indulgent admiration for the graceful with his color-box under his arm, trudging away to side of Roman Catholic worship. The flowers, the his work of reproduction in some neighboring gal-music, the sculpture, the paintings, the perfumes, the lery; or a guarda nobile, cigarette en bouche, riding leisurely towards the Vatican. Here and there, too, on the steps of the churches and at the corners of gorgeous customs, gratified his sense of beauty; and, regarding these things from a purely aesthetic point of view, he was willing to admit that it was a Saturday pretty, poetical sort of religion enough-for a wo man. Carrying the ivory carving carefully packed in a little oblong box under his arm, Hugh Girdlestone then hastened homewards with his purchase. It was now ten o'clock, and all Rome was as full of stir and life as at midday. His way lay through the Piazza di Spagna, up the great steps, and on through the Via Sistina, to a certain by-street near the Quattro Fontane, where he and his little wife occupied an upper floor in a small palazzo situated upon one of the loftiest and healthiest points of the Quirinal hill. As he neared the spot, a sense of pleasurable excitement came upon him. He smiled, unconsciously to himself, and, scarcely knowing that he did so, quickened his pace at every step. To the accustomed beggar at the corner he flung a double dole in the joyousness of his heart; to a lean dog prowling round the cortile, a biscuit that chanced to be in his pocket. Happiness disposes some people to benevolence, and Hugh Girdlestone was one of that number. Up he went,-up the broad stone staircase which served as a general thoroughfare to the dwellers in the Palazzo Bardello; past the first landing, with its English footman, insolently discontent, lolling against the half-opened door; past the second landing fragrant with flowers, the temporary home of a wealthy American family; past the third, where, in an atmosphere of stormy solfeggi, lived an Italian tenor and his wife; and on, two steps at a time, to the fourth, where all that he loved best in life awaited his coming! There he paused. His own visiting card was nailed upon the door, and under his name, in a delicate female hand, was written that of his wife. Happy Hugh Girdlestone! There was not a lighter heart in Rome at that moment when, having delayed an instant to take breath before going in, he pulled out his latch-key, opened the gates of his paradise, and passed into the shady little vestibule beyond. -I have something here worth the opening of one's eyes to look upon!" Margherita clasped her hands in an ecstasy of devotional admiration. "Cielo!" she exclaimed. "How beautiful!" He placed the carving on the stand of red cloth, and then, going over to the balcony, gathered a handful of orange-blossoms and crimson azalias. "We must decorate our altar with flowers, Margherita," he said, smiling. "Fetch me those two white vases from the chimney-piece in the anteroom." The vases were brought, and he arranged his bouquets as tenderly and gracefully as a woman might have arranged them. This done, he stole to the bedroom door, opened it noiselessly, and peeped in. All within was wrapped in a delicious, dreamy dusk. The jalousies were closed and the inner blinds drawn down; but one window stood a few inches open, thus admitting a soft breath of morning air, and now and then a faint echo from the world beyond. He advanced very cautiously. He held his breath, he stole on a step at a time,he would not have roused her for the world till all was ready. At the dressing-table he paused and looked round. He could just see the dim outline of her form in the bed. He could just see how one little hand rested on the coverlid, and how her hair lay like a lustrous cloud upon the pillow. Very carefully he then removed her dressing-case and desk from a tiny table close by, carried it to the side of the bed, and placed it where her eyes must first greet it on waking. He next crept back to the salon for the ivory carving; then for the flowers; and then arranged them on the table like the decorations of a miniature shrine. And all this time she neither woke nor stirred. At last, his pretty preparations being all complete, the young husband, careful even now not to At the door of the salon he was met by Margher-startle her too rudely, gently unclosed the jalousies, ita, their Roman servant, - a glorious creature, who drew aside the blinds, and filled the room with sunlooked as if she might have been the mother of the shine. Gracchi, but who was married, instead, to an honest water-carrier down by the Ripetta, and was thankful to go out to service for some months in every year. "Hush!" she whispered, with her finger on her lip. "She sleeps still." The breakfast lay on the table, untouched and ready; the morning sunshine flamed in at the windows; the flowers on the balcony filled the air of the room with a voluptuous perfume. It was a day of days, a day when to be still in bed seemed almost like a sacrilege, - a day when, above all others, one should be up and doing, and revelling in the spring-time of the glad new year. Hugh Girdlestone could scarcely believe that Margherita was in earnest. 66 Sleeps!" he repeated. "What do you mean?" "I mean that the Signora has not yet rung her bell." "But is she still in bed?" "Still in bed, Signore, and sleeping soundly. I stole in about half an hour ago, and she never heard me. I would not wake her. Sleep is a blessed thing, and the good God sends it." The Englishman laughed and shrugged his shoulders. "One may have too much even of a blessing, my good Margherita," he said. "I shall wake her, at all events, and she will thank me for doing so. See, "Ethel," he said. "Ethel, do you know how late it is?" But Ethel still slept on. He moved a step nearer. Her face was turned to the pillow; but he could see the rounded outline of her cheek, and it struck him that she looked strangely pale. His heart gave a great throb; his breath came short; a nameless terror- a terror of he knew not what-fell suddenly upon him. "Ethel!" he repeated. My darling, my dar ling!" 66 He sprang to the bedside, he hung over her,he touched her hand, her cheek, her neck, then uttered one wild, despairing cry, and staggered back against the wall. She was dead. Not fainting. No; not even in the first horror of that moment did he deceive himself with so vain a hope. She was dead, and he knew that she was dead. He knew it with as full and fixed a sense of conviction as if he had been prepared for it by months of anxiety. He did not ask himself why it was so. He did not ask himself by what swift and cruel disease, by what mysterious accident, this dread thing had come to pass. He only knew that she was dead; and that all the joy, the hope, the glory of life was gone from him forever. A long time, or what seemed like a long time, went by thus; he leaning up against the wall, voiceless, tearless, paralyzed, unable to think, or move, or do anything but stare in a blank, lost way at the bed on which lay the wreck of his happiness. -- By and by it might have been half an hour, or an hour, later he became dimly conscious of a sound of lamentation; of the presence of many persons in the room; of being led away like a child, and placed in a chair beside an open window; and of Margherita kneeling at his feet and covering his hands with tears. Then, as one who has been stunned by some murderous blow, he recovered by degrees from his stupor. Salimbeni," he said, hoarsely. It was the first word he had spoken. "We have sent for him, Signore," sobbed Margherita. "But-but-" - He lifted his hand, and turned his face. aside. "Hush!" he replied. "I know it." Signor Salimbeni was a famous Florentine surgeon who lived close by in the Piazza Barberini, and with whom Hugh Girdlestone had been on terms of intimacy for the last four or five months. Almost as his name was being uttered he arrived, a tall, dark, bright-eyed man of about forty years of age, with something of a military bearing. His first step was to clear the place of intruders,-of the English family from the first floor, of the Americans from the second, of the Italian tenor and his wife, and of the servants who had crowded up en masse from every part of the house. He expelled them all, civilly but firmly; locked the door behind the last; and went alone into the chamber of death. Hugh Girdlestone followed him, dull-eyed, tonguetied, bewildered, like a man half roused from sleep. The surgeon bent silently over the corpse; turned the poor white face to the light; held a mirror to the lips; touched the passive hand; lifted first one eyelid, then the other; and felt for the last lingering spark of vital heat on the crown of the head. Then he shook his head. "It is quite hopeless, my friend," he said, gently. "Life has been extinct for some two hours or more." and less with his breath than by the motion of his lips, shaped out the one word, "Murdered!" II. " It was the most mysterious crime that had been committed in Rome since the famous murder in the Coliseum about seven years before. The whole city rang with it. Even the wretched little local newspapers, the Giornale di Roma, the Diario Romano, and the Vero Amico del Popolo, made space, amid the more pressing claims of Church festivals, provincial miracles, and the reporting of homilies, to detail some few scanty particulars of the "tragedia deplorabile in the Palazzo Bardello. Each, too, hinted its own solution of the enigma. The Diario inclined to the suicidal point of view; the Giornale, more politically wise than its contemporaries, pointed a significant finger towards Sardinia; the Vero Amico, under cover of a cloud of fine phrases, insinuated a suspicion of Hugh Girdlestone himself. At every table d'hôte and every artist's club, at the public readingrooms, in the studios, in the cafés, and at every evening party throughout Rome, it was the universal topic. In the mean while such feeble efforts as it is in the nature of a Pontifical government to make were put forward for the discovery of the murderer. A post-mortem examination was appointed; official consultations were held; official depositions were drawn up; pompous gendarmes clanked perpetually up and down the staircase and court-yard of the Palazzo Bardello; and every one about the place who could possibly be supposed to have anything to say upon the subject was summoned to give evidence. But in vain. Days went by, weeks went by, and the mystery remained impenetrable as ever. Passing shadows of suspicion fell here and there, on Margherita, on a Corsican courier in the service of the American family, on Hugh Girdlestone himself; but they rested scarcely at all, and vanished away as a breath from a surface of polished steel. In the mean while Ethel Girdlestone was laid to rest in a quiet little Roman Catholic cemetery beyond the walls, a lonely, picturesque spot, overlooking the valley of the Tiber and the mountains about Fidena. A plain marble cross and a wreath of immortelles marked the place of her grave. For a week or two the freshly-turned mould looked drear and desolate under the spring sunshine; but the grass soon sprang up again, and the wild crocuses struck root and blossomed over it, and by that time Rome had found some fresh subject for gossip, and the fate of Ethel Girdlestone was wellnigh for He broke off abruptly, -so abruptly, and with such a sudden change of voice, that Hugh Girdle-gotten. stone was startled from his apathy. He looked up, and saw the surgeon staring down with a face of ashy horror at the corpse upon the bed. "Dio!" he faltered. "What is this? He had laid back the collar of the night-dress, and bared the beautiful white bosom beneath; and there, just above the region of the heart, like a mere speck upon a surface of pure marble, was visible a tiny puncture, -a spot so small, so insignificant, that but for a pale violet discoloration spreading round it like a halo, it would perhaps have escaped observation altogether. "What is this?" he repeated. "What does it mean?" Hugh Girdlestone answered never a word, but stood in stony silence with his eyes fixed on the fatal spot. Then he stooped, looked into it more narrowly, shuddered, rose once again to his full height, There was one, however, who forgot nothing,who, the first torpor of despair once past, lived only to remember and to avenge. He offered an enormous reward for the apprehension of the unknown murderer. He papered Rome with placards. He gave himself up, body and brain, to the task of discovery, and felt that for this, and this only, he could continue to bear the burden of life. As the chances of success seemed to grow daily more and more uncertain, his purpose but became the more assured. He would have justice; meaning by justice, blood for blood, a life for a life. And this at all costs, at all risks, at all sacrifices. He took a solemn oath to devote, if need be, all the best years of his life, all the vigor of his mind, and all the strength of his manhood, to this one desperate end. For it he was ready to endure any privation, or to incur any personal danger. For it, could his purpose have been thereby assured, he would have gladly died at any hour of the day or night. As it was, he trained himself to the work with a patience that was never wearied. | Castel Gondolfo, and the annual tide of English and American visitors set in. By the first Sunday in Advent, Rome was already tolerably well filled; and on the evening of that same Sunday an event took place which threw the whole city into confusion, and caused a clamor of dismay even louder than that which followed the murder of Ethel Girdlestone ten months before. III. A KNOT of loungers stood, talking eagerly, round the stove in Piale's reading-room. It was on the Monday morning following the first Sunday in Advent, and still quite early. None were reading, or attempting to read. The newspapers lay unopened on the tables. Even the last Times contained nothing so exciting as the topic then under discussion. It is to be hoped and expected that the government will bestir itself in earnest this time," said a bald-headed Englishman, standing with his back to the stove. 66 He studied to acquire the dialects, and to familiarize himself with the habits, of the lowest quarters of Rome. He frequented the small wine-shops of the Trastevere and the Rioni St. Angelo. He mastered the intricacies of the Ghetto. He haunted the street fountains, the puppet-shows, and the quays of Ripa Grande. Wherever, in short, the Roman people were to be found in fra di loro, whether gossiping, gaming, quarrelling, or holiday-making, there Hugh Girdlestone made his way, mingled with them, listened, observed, and waited like a trapper for his prey. It was a task of untold peril and difficulty, made all the more perilous and difficult by the fact of his being a foreigner. Fluent Italian as he was, it was still not possible that he should perfectly master all the slang of the Rioni, play at morra and zecchinetta as one to the manner born, or be at all times equal to the part which he had undertaken. He was liable at any moment to betray himself, and to be poignarded for a spy. He knew each time that he ventured into certain quarters of the city that his body might be floating down towards Ostia before daybreak, or that he might quite probably disappear from that moment and never be seen or heard of more. Yet, strong in his purpose and reckless of "Is more easily hushed up than investigated, eshis life, he went, and came, and went again, pene-pecially when the sufferers are in a humble station trating into haunts where the police dared not set of life, and cannot offer a large reward to the foot, and assuming in these excursions the dress and police." dialect of a Roman "rough" of the lowest order. Thus disguised, and armed with a deadly patience that knew neither weariness nor discouragement, Hugh Girdlestone pursued his quest. How, despite every precaution, he contrived to escape detection was matter for daily wonder, even to himself. He owed his safety, however, in great measure to a sullen manner and a silent tongue,-perhaps in some degree to his southern complexion; to his black beard and swarthy skin, and the lowering fire in his eyes. Thus the spring passed away, the summer heats came on, and the wealthier quarters of Rome were, as usual, emptied of their inhabitants. The foreign visitors went first; then the Italian nobility; and then all those among the professional and commercial classes who could afford the healthful luxury of villegiatura. Meanwhile, Hugh Girdlestone was the only remaining lodger in the Palazzo Bardello. Day by day he lingered on in the deserted city, wandering through the burning streets and piazzas, and down by the river-side, where the very air was heavy with malaria. Night after night he perilled life and limb in the wine-shops of the Trastevere; and still in vain. Still the murderer remained undiscovered and the murdered unavenged; still no clew, nor vestige of a clew, turned up. The police, having grown more and more languid in the work of investigation, ceased at last from further efforts. The placards became defaced, or pasted over by fresh ones. By and by the whole story faded from people's memories; and, save by one who, sleeping or waking, knew no other thought, the famous" tragedia deplorabile" was quite forgotten. Thus the glowing summer and sultry autumn dragged slowly by. The popular festivals on Monte Testaccio were celebrated and over; the harvest was gathered in; the virulence of the malaria abated; the artists flocked back to their studios, the middle-class Romans to their homes, and the nobles to their palaces. Then the Pope returned from Hope is one thing, my dear sir, and expectation is another," replied his nearest neighbor. "When you have lived in Rome as long as myself, you will cease to expect anything but indifference from the bureaucracy of the Papal States." "But a crime of this enormity "Mr. Somerville puts the question quite fairly," observed another gentleman. "There is nothing like public spirit to be found throughout the length and breadth of his Holiness's dominions." "Nor justice either, it would seem, unless one can pay for it handsomely," added another. 66 Nay, your long purse is not always your short cut to justice, even in Rome," said Mr. Somerville. "There was that case of the young bride who was murdered last winter in the Palazzo Bardello. Her husband offered an immense reward—a thousand guineas English, I believe- and yet the mystery was never cleared up." Ay, that Palazzo Bardello murder was a tragic affair," said the bald-headed Englishman; "more tragic, on the whole, than A sudden change of expression swept over his face, and he broke off in the midst of his sentence. By Jove!" he exclaimed, “I feel as if I were on the brink of a discovery.” "Plunge away, then, my dear fellow," laughed Somerville. "What is it?" "Well, then,-what if both these murders had been committed by the same hand?" "Most unlikely, I should think," said one. "Altogether improbable," added another. "Do you opine that Othello smothered the princes in the Tower?" asked a third. "Listen to my premises before you laugh at my conclusions," said he of the bald-head, obviously nettled by the general incredulity. "Look at the details: they are almost identical. In each case the victim is stabbed to the heart; in each case the wound is almost imperceptibly small. There is no effusion of blood; no robbery is committed; and no trace of the assassin remains. I'd stake my head upon it that these are not purely accidental coincidences!" "I beg your pardon," said a gentleman, who till now had been standing by a window at the further end of the room with his back to the speakers; |