steps. A black beard was all the disguise I used, save that I had
left my coat in the boat and appeared before Redmayne in shirt
sleeves.

With trembling accents I related to Assunta, who of course knew me
not, that Poggi was taken fatally ill and might hardly hope to last
an hour. It was enough. I returned to the boat and in three minutes
Albert joined me and offered me untold gold to row as I had never
rowed before. A hundred and fifty yards from shore I directed him to
pass into the bow of the boat, explaining that I should so make
greater speed. As he passed me, the little pole-axe fell. He
suffered nothing and in five minutes more, with heavy stones
fastened to feet and arms, he sank beneath Como. The pole-axe
followed, its work completed. In more spacious times the weapon
would have become an heirloom. All this happened not two hundred
yards from Villa Pianezzo under the darkness.

Then I rowed ashore swiftly, returned the boat to the beach
unobserved, hid my disguise in my pocket and strolled to a familiar
inn. I had occupied but twenty-four minutes from the time of setting
out under Brendon's eyes while he sat in the garden. I stopped at
this _albergo_ for a considerable period, that a sufficient alibi
might be established and the moment of my arrival there prove
uncertain, should any future question ever arise concerning it. Then
the crash came. I returned home suspecting nothing--to fall like
Lucifer, to find all lost, to hold my dead wife in my arms and know
that, without her, life was ended for me.

In seemly, splendid fashion she passed and it shall not be recorded
that the man this glorious woman loved made an end of his days with