The Filigree Ball | Page 8

when my
lantern suddenly went out, leaving me in total darkness.
This was far from pleasant, but the effect it produced upon my mind
was not without its result. For no sooner did I find myself alone and in
the unrelieved darkness of this grave-like room, than I became
convinced that no woman, however frenzied, would make her plunge
into an unknown existence from the midst of a darkness only too
suggestive of the tomb to which she was hastening. It was not in nature,
not in woman's nature, at all events. Either she had committed the final
act before such daylight as could filter through the shutters of this

closed-up room had quite disappeared, - an hypothesis instantly
destroyed by the warmth which still lingered in certain portions of her
body, - or else the light which had been burning when she pulled the
fatal trigger had since been carried elsewhere or extinguished.
Recalling the uncertain gleams which we had seen flashing from one of
the upper windows, I was inclined to give some credence to the former
theory, but was disposed to be fair to both. So after relighting my lamp,
I turned on one of the gas cocks of the massive chandelier over my
head and applied a match. The result was just what I anticipated; no gas
in the pipes. A meter had not been put in for the wedding. This the
papers had repeatedly stated in dwelling upon the garish effect of the
daylight on the elaborate costumes worn by the ladies. Candles had not
even been provided - ah, candles! What, then, was it that I saw
glittering on a small table at the other end of the room? Surely a
candlestick, or rather an old-fashioned candelabrum with a half-burned
candle in one of its sockets. Hastily crossing to it, I felt of the
candlewick. It was quite stiff and hard. But not considering this a
satisfactory proof that it had not been lately burning - the tip of a wick
soon dries after the flame is blown out - I took out my penknife and
attacked the wick at what might be called its root; whereupon I found
that where the threads had been protected by the wax they were
comparatively soft and penetrable. The conclusion was obvious. True
to my instinct in this matter the woman had not lifted her weapon in
darkness; this candle had been burning. But here my thoughts received
a fresh shock. If burning, then by whom had it since been blown out?
Not by her; her wound was too fatally sure for that. The steps taken
between the table where the candelabrum stood and the place where she
lay, were taken, if taken at all by her, before that shot was fired. Some
one else - some one whose breath still lingered in the air about me - had
extinguished this candle-flame after she fell, and the death I looked
down upon was not a suicide, but a murder.
The excitement which this discovery caused to tingle through my every
nerve had its birth in the ambitious feeling referred to in the opening
paragraph of this narrative. I believed that my long-sought-for
opportunity had come; that with the start given me by the conviction

just stated, I should be enabled to collect such clues and establish such
facts as would lead to the acceptance of this new theory instead of the
apparent one of suicide embraced by Hibbard and about to be
promulgated at police headquarters. If so, what a triumph would be
mine; and what a debt I should owe to the crabbed old gentleman
whose seemingly fantastic fears had first drawn me to this place!
Realizing the value of the opportunity afforded me by the few minutes I
was likely to spend alone on this scene of crime, I proceeded to my task
with that directness and method which I had always promised myself
should characterize my first success in detective work.
First, then, for another look at the fair young victim herself! What a
line of misery on the brow! What dark hollows disfiguring cheeks
otherwise as delicate as the petals of a rose! An interesting, if not
absolutely beautiful face, it told me something I could hardly put into
words; so that it was like leaving a fascinating but unsolved mystery
when I finally turned from it to study the hands, each of which
presented a separate problem. That offered by the right wrist you
already know - the long white ribbon connecting it with the discharged
pistol. But the secret concealed by the left, while less startling, was
perhaps fully as significant. All the rings were gone, even the wedding
ring which had been placed there such a short time before. Had she
been