bed of death, surrounded by witnesses; nor did the imaginary burglars.
The earl therefore shot himself; and it was the small globular silver
pistol, such as this'--here Zaleski drew a little embossed Venetian
weapon from a drawer near him--'that appeared in the gloom to the
excited Hester as a "ball of cotton," while it was being drawn upward
by the Atwood's machine. But if the earl shot himself he could not have
done so after being stabbed to the heart. Maude Cibras, therefore,
stabbed a dead man. She would, of course, have ample time for stealing
into the room and doing so after the shot was fired, and before the
party reached the balcony window, on account of the delay on the stairs
in procuring a second light; in going to the earl's door; in examining
the tracks, and so on. But having stabbed a dead man, she is not guilty
of murder. The message I just now sent by Ham was one addressed to the
Home Secretary, telling him on no account to let Cibras die to-morrow.
He well knows my name, and will hardly be silly enough to suppose me
capable of using words without meaning. It will be perfectly easy to
prove my conclusions, for the pieces removed from, and replaced in, the
floorings can still be detected, if looked for; the pistol is still, no
doubt, in Randolph's room, and its bore can be compared with the bullet
found in Lord Pharanx's brain; above all, the jewels stolen by the
"burglars" are still safe in some cabinet of the new earl, and may
readily be discovered I therefore expect that the dénoûment will now
take a somewhat different turn.'

That the dénoûment did take a different turn, and pretty strictly in
accordance with Zaleski's forecast, is now matter of history, and the
incidents, therefore, need no further comment from me in this place.