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Page 89
Sir Walter spoke.
"Thank Heaven, signor, thank Heaven! All is well with you?"
"All is absolutely well with me, but then I have slept refreshingly
for some time. You, I fear, have not closed your eyes."
"Would you have any objection to Masters hearing what you may have
to tell us? By so doing a true and ungarbled report will get out
to Chadlands."
"My report will go out to the whole world, Sir Walter. All is
accomplished and established on certain proofs. Your good spaniel
has played his part also. I salute him--the old Prince."
Henry now observed that the dog was stretched on the floor at
Signor Mannetti's feet.
"Still asleep?"
Mary knelt to pat the spaniel and started back.
"How horribly cold he is!"
"For ever asleep--a martyr to science. He was to die on Friday,
remember. He has received euthanasia a little sooner, and nothing
in his life has become him like the leaving of it. The last victim
of the Grey Room. Mourn him not, he passed without a pang--as
did his betters."
"But, but--you spoke of crime and criminals!" gasped Sir Walter.
"And truly. Great crimes have been committed in this room and
great criminals committed them. Is a crime any less a crime
because the doers have mouldered in their dishonored graves for
nearly five hundred years?"
"Your handling of speech is not ours, and you use words differently.
The old dog did not suffer, you say? How did he come to die--in
his sleep?"
"Even so. Without a sigh, the last venerable victim of this
murdering shadow."
"You saw him die, and yet were safe yourself, sir?" asked Lennox.
"That is what happened. Now sit down all of you, father Abraham
also, and in five minutes all will be as clear as day."
They obeyed him silently.
"Yes, a master criminal, one whose name has rung down the ages and
will from to-morrow win a further resonance. Would that we could
bring him to account; but he has already gone to it, if justice
lies at the root of things, as all men pray, and you and I believe,
Sir Walter. An interesting reflection: How many suffer, if they
do not actually perish, from the sins of the dead? Not only the
sins of our father are visited upon us, but, if we could trace the
infliction, the crimes of countless dead men accomplished long
before we were born into this suffering world. I speak in a
parable, but this is literal, actual. Dead men committed these
murders, and left this legacy of woe."
Signor Mannetti stroked the lifeless spaniel.
"When we were left alone I picked him up and set him on the bed.
He did not waken, and I knew that he would never waken again. Now
let us look at this noble bed, if you please. Here is the link,
you see, without which so much that I told you yesterday must have
sounded no more than the idle chatter of an old man. Come and use
your eyes. Ah, if only people had used their eyes sooner!"
They followed him, and he pointed to a framework of carved wood
that connected the four posts.
"What is this on the frieze running above the capitals of the
little Ionic pillars?"
"The papal crown and keys," said Mary.
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