the porter who let me into the house where monkton lived directed me to the floor on which his rooms were situated. on getting upstairs, i found his door on the landing ajar. he heard my footsteps, i suppose, for he called to me to come in before i could knock.
i entered, and found him sitting by the table, with some loose letters in his hand, which he was just tying together into a packet. i noticed, as he asked me to sit down, that his express ion looked more composed, though the paleness had not yet left his face. he thanked me for coming; repeated that he had something very important to say to me; and then stopped short, apparently too much embarrassed to proceed. i tried to set him at his ease by assuring him that, if my assistance or advice could be of any use, i was ready to place myself and my time heartily and unreservedly at his service.
as i said this i saw his eyes beginning to wander away from my face — to wander slowly, inch by inch, as it were, until they stopped at a certain point, with the same fixed stare into vacancy which had so often startled me on former occasions. the whole expression of his face altered as i had never yet seen it alter; he sat before me looking like a man in a death-trance.
“you are very kind,” he said, slowly and faintly, speaking, not to me, but in the direction in which his eyes were still fixed. “i know you can help me; but —”
he stopped; his face whitened horribly, and the perspiration broke out all over it. he tried to continue — said a word or two — then stopped again. seriously alarmed about him, i rose from my chair with the intention of getting him some water from a jug which i saw standing on a side-table.
he sprang up at the same moment. all the suspicions i had ever heard whispered against his sanity flashed over my mind in an instant, and i involuntarily stepped back a pace or two.
“stop,” he said, seating himself again; “don’t mind me; and don’t leave your chair. i want — i wish, if you please, to make a little alteration, before we say anything more. do you mind sitting in a strong light?”
“not in the least.”
i had hitherto been seated in the shade of his reading-lamp, the only light in the room.
as i answered him he rose again, and, going into another apartment, returned with a large lamp in his hand; then took two candles from the side-table, and two others from the chimney piece; placed them all, to my amazement, together, so as to stand exactly between us, and then tried to light them. his hand trembled so that he was obliged to give up the attempt, and allow me to come to his assistance. by his direction, i took the shade off the reading-lamp after i had lit the other lamp and the four candles. when we sat down again, with this concentration of light between us, his better and gentler manner began to return, and while he now addressed me he spoke without the slightest hesitation.
“it is useless to ask whether you have heard the reports about me,” he said; “i know that you have. my purpose to-night is to give you some reasonable explanation of the conduct which has produced those reports. my secret has been hitherto confided to one person only; i am now about to trust it to your keeping, with a special object which will appear as i go on. first, however, i must begin by telling you exactly what the great difficulty is which obliges me to be still absent from england. i want your advice and your help; and, to conceal nothing from you, i want also to test your forbearance and your friendly sympathy, before i can venture on thrusting my miserable secret into your keeping. will you pardon this apparent distrust of your frank and open character — this apparent ingratitude for your kindness toward me ever since we first met?”
i begged him not to speak of these things, but to go on.
“you know,” he proceeded, “that i am here to recover the body of my uncle stephen, and to carry it back with me to our family burial-place in england, and you must also be aware that i have not yet succeeded in discovering his remains. try to pass over, for the present, whatever may seem extraordinary and incomprehensible in such a purpose as mine is, and read this newspaper article where the ink-line is traced. it is the only evidence hitherto obtained on the subject of the fatal duel in which my uncle fell, and i want to hear what course of proceeding the perusal of it may suggest to you as likely to be best on my part.”
he handed me an old french newspaper. the substance of what i read there is still so firmly impressed on my memory that i am certain of being able to repeat correctly at this distance of time all the facts which it is necessary for me to communicate to the reader.
the article began, i remember, with editorial remarks on the great curiosity then felt in regard to the fatal duel between the count st. lo and mr. stephen monkton, an english gentleman. the writer proceeded to dwell at great length on the extraordinary secrecy in which the whole affair had been involved from first to last, and to express a hope that the publication of a certain manuscript, to which his introductory observations referred, might lead to the production of fresh evidence from other and better-informed quarters. the manuscript had been found among the papers of monsieur foulon, mr. monkton’s second, who had died at paris of a rapid decline shortly after returning to his home in that city from the scene of the duel. the document was unfinished, having been left incomplete at the very place where the reader would most wish to find it continued. no reason could be discovered for this, and no second manuscript bearing on the all-important subject had been found, after the strictest search among the papers left by the deceased.
the document itself then followed.
it purported to be an agreement privately drawn up between mr. monkton’s second, monsieur foulon, and the count st. lo’s second, monsieur dalville, and contained a statement of all the arrangements for conducting the duel. the paper was dated “naples, february 22d,” and was divided into some seven or eight clauses. the first clause described the origin and nature of the quarrel — a very disgraceful affair on both sides, worth neither remembering nor repeating. the second clause stated that, the challenged man having chosen the pistol as his weapon, and the challenger (an excellent swordsman), having, on his side, thereupon insisted that the duel should be fought in such a manner as to make the first fire decisive in its results, the seconds, seeing that fatal consequences must inevitably follow the hostile meeting, determined, first of all, that the duel should be kept a profound secret from everybody, and that the place where it was to be fought should not be made known beforehand, even to the principals themselves. it was added that this excess of precaution had been rendered absolutely necessary in consequence of a recent address from the pope to the ruling powers in italy commenting on the scandalous frequency of the practice of dueling, and urgently desiring that the laws against duelists should be enforced for the future with the utmost rigor.
the third clause detailed the manner in which it had been arranged that the duel should be fought.
the pistols having been loaded by the seconds on the ground, the combatants were to be placed thirty paces apart, and were to toss up for the first fire. the man who won was to advance ten paces marked out for him beforehand — and was then to discharge his pistol. if he missed, or failed to disable his opponent, the latter was free to advance, if he chose, the whole remaining twenty paces before he fired in his turn. this arrangement insured the decisive termination of the duel at the first discharge of the pistols, and both principals and seconds pledged themselves on either side to abide by it.
the fourth clause stated that the seconds had agreed that the duel should be fought out of the neapolitan states, but left themselves to be guided by circumstances as to the exact locality in which it should take place. the remaining clauses, so far as i remember them, were devoted to detailing the different precautions to be adopted for avoiding discovery. the duelists and their seconds were to leave naples in separate parties; were to change carriages several times; were to meet at a certain town, or, failing that, at a certain post-house on the high road from naples to rome; were to carry drawing-books, color boxes, and camp-stools, as if they had been artists out on a sketching-tour; and were to proceed to the place of the duel on foot, employing no gui des, for fear of treachery. such general arrangements as these, and others for facilitating the flight of the survivors after the affair was over, formed the conclusion of this extraordinary document, which was signed, in initials only, by both the seconds.
just below the initials appeared the beginning of a narrative, dated “paris,” and evidently intended to describe the duel itself with extreme minuteness. the hand-writing was that of the deceased second.
monsieur foulon, tire gentleman in question, stated his belief that circumstances might transpire which would render an account by an eyewitness of the hostile meeting between st. lo and mr. monkton an important document. he proposed, therefore, as one of the seconds, to testify that the duel had been fought in exact accordance with the terms of the agreement, both the principals conducting themselves like men of gallantry and honor (!). and he further announced that, in order not to compromise any one, he should place the paper containing his testimony in safe hands, with strict directions that it was on no account to be opened except in a case of the last emergency.
after thus preamble, monsieur foulon related that the duel had been fought two days after the drawing up of the agreement, in a locality to which accident had conducted the dueling party. (the name of the place was not mentioned, nor even the neighborhood in which it was situated.) the men having been placed according to previous arrangement, the count st. lo had won the toss for the first fire, had advanced his ten paces, and had shot his opponent in the body. mr. monkton did not immediately fall, but staggered forward some six or seven paces, discharged his pistol ineffectually at the count, and dropped to the ground a dead man. monsieur foulon then stated that he tore a leaf from his pocketbook, wrote on it a brief description of the manner in which mr. monkton had died, and pinned the paper to his clothes; this proceeding having been rendered necessary by the peculiar nature of the plan organized on the spot for safely disposing of the dead body. what this plan was, or what was done with the corpse, did not appear, for at this important point the narrative abruptly broke off.
a foot-note in the newspaper merely stated the manner in which the document had been obtained for publication, and repeated the announcement contained in the editor’s introductory remarks, that no continuation had been found by the persons intrusted with the care of monsieur foulon’s papers. i have now given the whole substance of what i read, and have mentioned all that was then known of mr. stephen monkton’s death.
when i gave the newspaper back to alfred he was too much agitated to speak, but he reminded me by a sign that he was anxiously waiting to hear what i had to say. my position was a very trying and a very painful one. i could hardly tell what consequences might not follow any want of caution on my part, and could think at first of no safer plan than questioning him carefully before i committed myself either one way or the other.
“will you excuse me if i ask you a question or two before i give you my advice?” said i.
he nodded impatiently.
“yes, yes — any questions you like.”
“were you at any time in the habit of seeing your uncle frequently?”
“i never saw him more than twice in my life — on each occasion when i was a mere child.”
“then you could have had no very strong personal regard for him?”
“regard for him! i should have been ashamed to feel any regard for him. he disgraced us wherever he went.”
“may i ask if any family motive is involved in your anxiety to recover his remains?”
“family motives may enter into it among others — but why do you ask?”
“because, having heard that you employ the police to assist your search, i was anxious to know whether you had stimulated their superiors to make them do their best in your service by giving some strong personal reasons at headquarters for the very unusual project which has brought you here.”
“i give no reasons. i pay for the work i want done, and, in return for my liberality, i am treated with the most infamous indifference on all sides. a stranger in the country, and badly acquainted with the language, i can do nothing to help myself. the authorities, both at rome and in this place, pretend to assist me, pretend to search and inquire as i would have them search and inquire, and do nothing more. i am insulted, laughed at, almost to my face.”
“do you not think it possible — mind, i have no wish to excuse the misconduct of the authorities, and do not share in any such opinion myself — but do you not think it likely that the police may doubt whether you are in earnest?”
“not in earnest!” he cried, starting up and confronting me fiercely, with wild eyes and quickened breath. “not in earnest! you think i’m not in earnest too. i know you think it, though you tell me you don’t. stop; before we say another word, your own eyes shall convince you. come here — only for a minute — only for one minute!”
i followed him into his bedroom, which opened out of the sitting-room. at one side of his bed stood a large packing-case of plain wood, upward of seven feet in length.
“open the lid and look in,” he said, “while i hold the candle so that you can see.”
i obeyed his directions, and discovered to my astonishment that the packing-case contained a leaden coffin, magnificently emblazoned with the arms of the monkton family, and inscribed in old-fashioned letters with the name of “stephen monkton,” his age and the manner of his death being added underneath.
“i keep his coffin ready for him,” whispered alfred, close at my ear. “does that look like earnest?”
it looked more like insanity — so like that i shrank from answering him.
“yes! yes! i see you are convinced,” he continued quickly; “we may go back into the next room, and may talk without restraint on either side now.”
on returning to our places, i mechanically moved my chair away from the table. my mind was by this time in such a state of confusion and uncertainty about what it would be best for me to say or do next, that i forgot for the moment the position he had assigned to me when we lit the candles. he reminded me of this directly.
“don’t move away,” he said, very earnestly; “keep on sitting in the light; pray do! i’ll soon tell you why i am so particular about that. but first give me your advice; help me in my great distress and suspense. remember, you promised me you would.”
i made an effort to collect my thoughts, and succeeded. it was useless to treat the affair otherwise than seriously in his presence; it would have been cruel not to have advised him as i best could.
“you know,” i said, “that two days after the drawing up of the agreement at naples, the duel was fought out of the neapolitan states. this fact has of course led you to the conclusion that all inquiries about localities had better be confined to the roman territory?”
“certainly; the search, such as it is, has been made there, and there only. if i can believe the police, they and their agents have inquired for the place where the duel was fought (offering a large reward in my name to the person who can discover it) all along the high road from naples to rome. they have also circulated — at least so they tell me — descriptions of the duelists and their seconds; have left an agent to superintend investigations at the post-house, and another at the town mentioned as meeting-points in the agreement; and have endeavored, by correspondence with foreign authorities, to trace the count st. lo and monsieur dalville to their place or places of refuge. all these efforts, supposing them to have been really made, have hitherto proved utterly fruitless.”
“my impression is,” said i, after a moment’s consideration, “that all inquiries made along the high road, or anywhere near rome, are likely to be made in vain. as to the discovery of your uncle’s remains, that is, i think, identical with the discovery of the place where he was shot; for those engaged in the duel would certainly not risk detection by carrying a corpse any distance with them in their flight. the place, then, is all that we want to find out. now let us consider for a moment. the dueling-party changed carriages; traveled separately, two and two; doubtless took roundabout roads; stopped at the post-house and the town as a blind; walked, perhaps, a considerable distance unguided. depend upon it, such precautions as these (which we know they must have employed) left them very little time out of the two days — though they might start at sunrise and not stop at night-fall — for straightforward traveling. my belief therefore is, that the duel was fought somewhere near the neapolitan frontier; and, if i had been the police agent who conducted the search, i should only have pursued it parallel with the frontier, starting from west to east till i got up among the lonely places in the mountains. that is my idea; do you think it worth anything?”
his face flushed all over in an instant. “i think it an inspiration!” he cried. “not a day is to be lost in carrying out our plan. the police are not to be trusted with it. i must start myself to-morrow morning; and you —”
he stopped; his face grew suddenly pale; he sighed heavily; his eyes wandered once more into the fixed look at vacancy; and the rigid, deathly expression fastened again upon all his features.
“i must tell you my secret before i talk of to-morrow,” he proceeded, faintly. “if i hesitated any longer at confessing everything, i should be unworthy of your past kindness, unworthy of the help which it is my last hope that you will gladly give me when you have heard all.”
i begged him to wait until he was more composed, until he was better able to speak; but he did not appear to notice what i said. slowly, and struggling as it seemed against himself, he turned a little away from me, and, bending his head over the table, supported it on his hand. the packet of letters with which i had seen him occupied when i came in lay just beneath his eyes. he looked down on it steadfastly when he next spoke to me.