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legendary diamonds by tiffany Download +128K - V3.3.2 "I don't see how anybody can have been in the room," he reflected, as he entered his house. "I saw that all was safe myself at midnight. The servants were abed, Sampson keeping vigil in the kitchen, and Jaggard sentry in the death-room. Moreover, I left the library door open, and the sound of footsteps stealing to the door of my poor lad would have wakened me out of the deepest sleep. Isabella's raps were light enough, yet I was up on the instant. No, I can't see myself that the devil who drugged the man could have been in the house; and yet the window opened from the inside. H'm! it is strange; very strange. I wish Jaggard were able to talk sensibly.","I have an excellent excuse," interrupted David, rising.,The major, owing to circumstances heretofore related, was a confirmed bachelor, but he did not intend that his boys should follow so bad an example. He wished Maurice to marry Miss Isabella Dallas, a charming blonde from the West Indies; and David he designed as the husband of Lady Meg Brance, daughter of Lord Seamere. But Jen was mistaken in thinking that he could guide the erratic affections of youth, as will hereafter be proved. Sure enough, the lads fell in love, but both with the same woman, a state of things not anticipated by the major, who was too simple to be a matchmaker.,Elinor blushed and shook her head.,"Ah!"，"I don't know so much about that," retorted Jen sharply. "You heard what Battersea confessed, that he had taken a message from Etwald to Dido about the devil-stick. Well, this doctor has some mysterious, influence over this negress--what sort of influence I do not know, but she appears to be afraid of him. I believe he incited her to steal the devil-stick, and that by his directions she filled it with a fresh poison."，Judith swept her adoring gaze from the Victory to her sister's face.，"Precisely the case with Isabella," said the doctor, nodding. "Come, major, I won't worry you any longer with inquiries. Dido hypnotized the daughter to commit the crime, as she had willed the mother to steal the devil-stick. Isabella is absolutely ignorant of what she did, and firmly believed that I was the guilty person. Now, of course, she thinks David--by his own confession--is the assassin.""The body is gone!" cried David, hurrying toward the bed.

"And where is Mr. Sarby?" asked the inspector, as they turned to leave the room.,"Dead!" wailed Isabella, catching at the word, "Maurice dead!",Evidence--in brief--of Major Jen: "I was the guardian of the deceased Maurice Alymer. I adopted him as my son. He was in love with, and engaged to, Miss Dallas, but the mother did not approve of the engagement. Dr. Etwald, the prisoner, also loved Miss Dallas, but she refused to marry him. I showed the prisoner the devil-stick and explained its use, whereupon he wished to purchase it. I declined to part with it, and afterward it was stolen. After its disappearance, Mr. Alymer was killed by means of the devil-stick poison. His hand was but slightly scratched, and he could not have died from so trivial a cause had not the weapon used been poisoned. Moreover, I recognized the perfume which emanated from the body as that of the devil-stick poison. Dr. Etwald had threatened the deceased once or twice. Afterward the body of deceased disappeared, and the drug used to stupefy the watcher of the dead was the poison of the devil-stick.","I didn't understand you were joking," he said quietly.,"I have to put him at the end of the table because he is my kinsman and the only host I've got at present, Aunt Bettie," I said regretfully. I always take every chance to rub in Tom's and my relationship on Aunt Bettie, so that she won't notice our friendliness.,As he said this in a monotonous tone, Dido looked across the tree-tops to where the red roofs of "Ashantee" showed themselves against a blue July sky. She shook her fist at the distant house, and again addressed herself imperiously to Battersea, commanding:,It was a funny glad-to-see-him I felt as I came into the surgery where he was standing over by the window looking out at my garden in its twilight glow. I gave him my hand and a good deal more of a smile and a blush than I intended.,"Lonely, lonely, Molly? You talk about the married state exactly like an old maid. Don't do it—it's foolish, and you will get the lone notion really fastened in your mind and let some man find out that is how you feel. Then it will be all over with you. I have only one regret; and it is that if I ever should be a widow Mr. Johnson wouldn't be here to see how quickly I turned into an old maid." Mrs. Johnson sews by assassinating the cloth with the needle, and as she talked she was mending the sleeve of Mr. Johnson's lounge coat.,"There will be a post-mortem, of course," said Etwald, carelessly.,"Major, major, I have heard all! I have been listening at the window.",Thus entreated, Isabella stepped out into the night, and in a moment or so she was swallowed up in the darkness with her companion. Left alone, the major closed the window, bolted and barred the shutters, and then hastened back to the death chamber, where he rang the bell. In a few minutes the footman, half-dressed and half-asleep, made his appearance; then came the policeman hastily from the kitchen; finally, as the bell still continued ringing, all the other servants, male and female, poured into the room. A single glance showed them what had occurred--the insensible Jaggard, the empty bed, the open window. A babel of voices ensued.,Patricia gasped, and in the moment's silence that fell she gave the promising authoress a little shake..