第77章

"'In a year,' I said to him, 'you will die of cancer, if your crime be not previously discovered and punished.Your daughter will then be penniless.How much better for you to permit me in a few months to accuse you of the murder.You then confess; I claim and secure the reward and secretly divide with you; you are sentenced; but as considerable time will transpire between this and the date set for your execution, you in the meantime will die of cancer, leaving Jeannette well provided for.'

"I think my influence over him would have been sufficient to have compelled him to all this, could he have reasoned out no benefit accruing to himself or daughter by such a course, but with circumstances thus in my favour my task was an easy one.The public knows all it need know of what occurred after this.This man, Maitland, was in the next room to Latour's, overheard our conversation, and even phonographed our words and photographed our positions.It has always been a matter of pride with me to gracefully acknowledge that three aces are not so good as a full house, therefore I confess myself beaten, though not subdued.

"I consider this the very best tribute I can pay to the genius of the man who has undone me.I take my punishment, however, into my own hands.

"In my haste to have done with all this and to start on my long and chartless journey, I had well-nigh forgotten to tell just how I killed Mr.Darrow.No hypodermic syringe had anything to do with it.The while plan came to me while reading that fatal page upon which I left my telltale thumb-signature in my search for some feasible plan of making away with my victim.I need not go into particulars, for I know perfectly well that this Maitland knows to a nicety how the thing was done.The DaboiaRussellii, or Russell's viper, is one of the best known and most deadly of Indian vipers.I procured one of these reptiles at the cost of great delay and some slight risk.That is the whole story.On the night of the murder I took the viper in a box and went down to the water-front, near the Darrow estate.Here I cut a small pole from a clump of alders, made a split in one end of it, and thrust it over the tail of the viper.It pinched him severely and held him fast despite his angry struggles to free himself and to attack anything within his reach.All that remained to be done was to thrust this through the window into the darkened room and to bring the viper within reach of Mr.Darrow.This I did, being careful to crouch so as not to obstruct the light of the window.When I heard my victim's outcry I withdrew the pole, and with it, of course, the viper, and made good my escape.That the reptile bit Mr.Darrow under the chin while his back was toward the window was mere chance, though I regarded it as a very lucky occurrence, since it seemed to render the suicide theory at first inevitable.

"I had had some fear lest the hissing of the viper might have been heard, for which reason I hazarded the only question I asked at the examination, and was completely reassured by its answer.I should perhaps state that my purpose in keeping in the background at this examination was my desire to avoid attracting attention to my deformed foot and my halting gait.This latter I had taken pains to conceal at my entrance, but I knew that the first step I took in forgetfulness would expose my halting habit.I had no fear of either Osborne or Allen, but there was something about this Maitland that bade me at once be on my guard, and, as I have said before, I never take an avoidable risk.For this reason I sat at once in the darkest corner I could find and remained there throughout the examination.I thought it extremely unlikely, though possible, that an attempt might be made to track the assassin with dogs, yet, since that is precisely the first thing I myself would have done, I decided that the risk was worth avoiding.I accordingly set the boat adrift to indicate an escape by water, and then waded along the beach for half a mile or so, carrying the pole, boards, etc., with me.As I kept where the water was at least six inches deep I knew no dog could follow my trail.At the pointwhere I left the water I sat down upon a rock and put on my stockings and shoes, thoroughly saturating them at the same time with turpentine, and pouring the remainder of the bottle upon the rock where I had sat.As I had known prisoners escaped from Libby Prison to pass in this way undetected within twenty feet of bloodhounds upon their trail, I felt that my tracks had been well covered, and made all possible haste to get ready to attend the examination with the special detail.

"And now I have finished.Before this meets any other eye than mine I shall be dead - beyond the punishment of this world and awaiting the punishment of the next.Lest some may fancy I do not believe this, - thinking that if I did I could not so have acted, - let me say there is no moral restraining power in fear.Fear is essentially selfish, and selfishness is at the bottom of all crimes, my own among the rest.I leave behind me none who will mourn me, and have but one satisfaction, viz.: the knowledge that I shall be regarded as an artist in crime.I take this occasion to bid the public an adieu not altogether, I confess, unmixed with regrets.I am now on that eminence called 'Life'; in a few minutes I shall have jumped off into the darkness, and then- all is mystery."When I had finished reading this article we all remained silent for a long time.Gwen was the first to speak, and then only to say slowly, as if thinking aloud: " And so it is all over."