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Updated: June 22, 2025
"You are wrong, sir," said Jorce, with a wave of his skinny hand. "My friend, Count Ferruci, was in my house at Hampstead on that evening." "Was he?" remarked Lucian, astonished at this confident assertion. "And at what time did he leave?" "He did not leave till next morning. My friend the Count remained under my roof all night, and left at twelve o'clock on Christmas morning."
Quite an exceptional man was Dr. Jorce, and, as the Italian said, "most strange." "My good friend," said Ferruci, laying his stern hand on the shoulder of this oddity, "this gentleman wishes you to decide a what do you say? bet?" "A bet!" cried the little doctor in a deep bass voice, but with some indignation.
I do not wish you to think that I am in league with Signor Ferruci. What I did was done honestly. I am not afraid of telling my story." "I am sure of that," said Lucian heartily. "I guessed that Ferruci had not trusted you altogether, from the time he feigned that your evidence was needed only to decide a bet." "Trust me!" echoed Jorce, with scorn. "He never trusted me at all.
Clear explained that," replied Lucian quickly. "You made that scar, Count, with vitriol, or some such stuff. You don't know chemistry for nothing, I see." "I am quite ignorant of chemistry," said Ferruci sullenly. "Jorce heard a different story in Florence." "In Florence! Did Jorce ask about me there?" said the Count in alarm. "He did, and heard some strange tales, Count.
"Because he was not dying quickly enough for that woman's purpose. She did not kill him herself, if her alibi is to be credited, but she employed Ferruci to murder him." "You forget Signor Ferruci also proved an alibi." "A very doubtful one," said Miss Vrain scornfully. "You did not ask that Dr. Jorce the questions you should have done.
"This is a trap," said Mrs. Clear, hoarsely, looking from the one to the other. "Who are you?" "I," said Lucian, politely, "I am the man who met your husband before " "My husband! I have my husband in an asylum. You can't have met him!" "You are telling a falsehood," said Diana fiercely. "The gentleman in the asylum of Dr. Jorce is not your husband, but my father!" "Your father? And who are you?"
Clear came to me with Ferruci, and brought back the cloak which I gave afterwards to Rhoda. She wanted to see her husband again, but I refused to let her risk the visit. Ferruci came to tell me that he was arranging to place Vrain who was becoming too violent to be restrained in the private asylum of Dr. Jorce, at Hampstead. Mrs. Clear was to go with him, and we conversed about the matter.
"Rhoda! Wrent! What strange names you talk of!" cried Ferruci vivaciously. "No stranger than that of your friend Jorce." Ferruci laughed. "Oh, he is altogether most strange. You see." It was as the Italian said. Dr. Jorce who was waiting for them in the Count's room proved to be a small, dried-up atom of a man, who looked as though all the colour had been bleached out of him.
Bertha's Road, Bayswater," replied Jorce; and when the barrister, for his private information, had made a note of the address, he continued: "It then appeared that Clear was married. The wife told Ferruci that she was afraid of her husband, who, in his fits of drink for he drank likewise often threatened to kill her. They had lost their money, and the poor woman was at her wit's end what to do.
If that is so, Ferruci could not have killed him, because, as I said before, he was here at half-past ten on that night." "I don't say he actually killed the man," explained Lucian eagerly, "but he certainly employed some one to strike the blow, else what was he doing in the Jersey Street yard on that night? You can say what you like, Dr. Jorce, but that man is guilty of Mark Vrain's death."
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