The Classic Mystery Collection - Arthur Conan Doyle [4191]
The next entries were made after some interval, a long interval, --no doubt, after the terrible deed had been done,--and the words were traced with trembling fingers, so that the writing was most irregular and scarcely legible.
"Ugh! I am still trembling with horror and fear. I cannot get it out of my mind; I never shall. Why, what tempted me? How could I bring myself to do it?
"But for these two women--they are fiends, furies--it would never have been necessary. Now one of them has escaped, and the other-- she is here, so cold-blooded, so self-possessed and quiet--who would have thought it of her? That she, a lady of rank and high breeding, gentle, delicate, tender-hearted. Tender? the fiend! Oh, shall I ever forget her?
"And now she has me in her power! But have I not her also? We are in the same boat--we must sink or swim, together. We are equally bound, I to her, she to me. What are we to do? How shall we meet inquiry? _Santissima Donna!_ why did I not risk it, and climb out like the maid? It was terrible for the moment, but the worst would have been over, and now--"
There was yet more, scribbled in the same faltering, agitated handwriting, and from the context the entries had been made in the waiting-room of the railroad station.
"I must attract her attention. She will not look my way. I want her to understand that I have something special to say to her, and that, as we are forbidden to speak, I am writing it herein--that she must contrive to take the book from me and read unobserved.
"_ Cos petto!_ she is stupid! Has fear dazed her entirely? No matter, I will set it all down."
Now followed what the police deemed such damaging evidence.
"Countess. Remember. Silence--absolute silence. Not a word as to who I am, or what is common knowledge to us both. It is done. That cannot be undone. Be brave, resolute; admit nothing. Stick to it that you know nothing, heard nothing. Deny that you knew _him_, or me. Swear you slept soundly the night through, make some excuse, say you were drugged, anything, only be on your guard, and say nothing about me. I warn you. Leave me alone. Or--but your interests are my interests; we must stand or fall together. Afterwards I will meet you--I _must_ meet you somewhere. If we miss at the station front, write to me Poste Restante, Grand Hôtel, and give me an address. This is imperative. Once more, silence and discretion."
This ended the writing in the note-book, and the whole perusal occupied Sir Charles from fifteen to twenty minutes, during which the French officials watched his face closely, and his friend Colonel Papillon anxiously.
But the General's mask was impenetrable, and at the end of his reading he turned back to read and re-read many pages, holding the book to the light, and seeming to examine the contents very curiously.
"Well?" said the Judge at last, when he met the General's eye.
"Do you lay great store by this evidence?" asked the General in a calm, dispassionate voice.
"Is it not natural that we should? Is it not strongly, conclusively incriminating?"
"It would be so, of course, if it were to be depended upon. But as to that I have my doubts, and grave doubts."
"Bah!" interposed the detective; "that is mere conjecture, mere assertion. Why should not the book be believed? It is perfectly genuine--"
"Wait, sir," said the General, raising his hand. "Have you not noticed--surely it cannot have escaped so astute a police functionary--that the entries are not all in the same handwriting?"
"What! Oh, that is too absurd!" cried both the officials in a breath.
They saw at once that if this discovery were admitted to be an absolute fact, the whole drift of their conclusions must be changed.
"Examine the book for yourselves. To my mind it is perfectly clear and beyond all question," insisted Sir Charles. "I am quite positive that the last pages