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Updated: June 8, 2025
To-morrow morning Maude Cibras ends her life on the gallows. Thus I ended my narrative. Without a word Zaleski rose from the couch, and walked to the organ. Assisted from behind by Ham, who foreknew his master's every whim, he proceeded to render with infinite feeling an air from the Lakmé of Delibes; long he sat, dreamily uttering the melody, his head sunken on his breast.
Never without grief and pain could I remember the fate of Prince Zaleski victim of a too importunate, too unfortunate Love, which the fulgor of the throne itself could not abash; exile perforce from his native land, and voluntary exile from the rest of men!
It now began to be a grief to me to see the turgid pallor that gradually overspread the always ashen countenance of Zaleski; I grew to consider the ravaging life that glared and blazed in his sunken eye as too volcanic, demonic, to be canny: the mystery, I decided at last if mystery there were was too deep, too dark, for him.
Zaleski, I then concluded, had undoubtedly departed on a journey. I was deeply touched by the demeanour of Ham as the hours went by. He wandered stealthily about the rooms like a lost being. It was like matter sighing after, weeping over, spirit.
For the rest, you know my fancy for cremation: take me, if you will, to the crematorium of Père-Lachaise. My whole fortune I decree to Ham, the Lybian. Ham was all for knowing the contents of this letter, but I refused to communicate a word of it. I was dazed, I was more than ever perplexed, I was appalled by the frenzy of Zaleski. Friday night! It was then Thursday morning.
The covering was directed in the writing of Zaleski, but on it he had scribbled the words: 'This need not be opened unless I fail to reappear before Saturday. I therefore laid the packet aside unread. I waited all through Friday, resolved that at six o'clock, if nothing happened, I should make some sort of effort. But from six I remained, with eyes strained towards the doorway, until ten.
Then I resumed my seat by the side of Zaleski. 'As I have told you, he said, 'I am fully convinced that our messenger has gone on a bootless errand. I believe you will find that what has really occurred is this: either yesterday, or the day before, Sir Jocelin was found by his servant I imagine he had a servant, though no mention is made of any lying on the marble floor of his chamber, dead.
Failing for the moment to see the drift or the connection of the argument, I contented myself with waiting events. For the rest of that day and the next Zaleski seemed to have dismissed the matter of the tragedies from his mind, and entered calmly on his former studies. He no longer consulted the news, or examined the figures on the tablet.
His face, as far as I could see in the green-grey crepuscular atmosphere of the apartment, was expressionless. But when I had finished he turned fully round on me, and said: 'You perceive, I hope, the sinister meaning of all this? 'Has it a meaning? Zaleski smiled.
In this manner I had wandered on for perhaps a quarter of an hour, when my fingers came into distinct momentary contact with what felt like cold and humid human flesh. I shrank back, unnerved as I already was, with a murmur of affright. 'Zaleski? I whispered with bated breath. Intently as I strained my ears, I could detect no reply.
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