The next day was a more eventful one still in the annals of Danmouth,
and people stood in knots about the place discussing the new horror.
Doctor Asher was dying, and his colleague had sent for the nearest
magistrate that morning, to take down the dying man's deposition in the
presence of witnesses, Trevithick being of those summoned to the bed.
The deposition was brief, but convincing, telling how the dying man had,
when attending Gartram, found in his pocket-book sundry directions to
his executors, explaining how his wealth was bestowed. The temptation
had been too great for him, and after waiting long for an opportunity,
he had taken advantage one evening of being at the house to add a
certain drug to the chloral Gartram was in the habit of taking from time
to time.
"As a dying man about to appear before my Maker," he said, "I swear I
had no intention of taking his life. I wished to make his sleep so sure
that I could easily take what notes I wished, and this I did, to the
amount of forty thousand pounds, but I did not calculate that the drug
would be so strong, and I was horrified when I found that I could not
bring him back from his deadly sleep."
"What was the drug?" asked the magistrate, in the midst of a terrible
silence.
"Better that it should not be known," said the dying man feebly. "I
have told the truth. The money is in the iron safe in my study. All
but a few hundred pounds or so I sent abroad, and a note or two I passed
beside. I gave Glyddyr that one by mistake, and--"
The words that would have followed were never uttered, for insensibility
supervened, and Doctor Asher never spoke again.
The law moves slowly, but it is pretty sure, and in due course the two
men accused of complicity in Gartram's death were discharged without a
stain upon their character, so it was said, but Glyddyr was re-arrested
upon another charge.
A guilty conscience had kept him silent about the accusation of murder,
for he had added to the draught Gartram was in the habit of taking, but
other hands had thrown this away. Still, he had always suffered
mentally from the idea that he had murdered the man who had chosen him
as a son.
Against the charge of bigamy he fought savagely, for there was the
impending punishment to dread, and the loss of an almost princely
fortune; but Denise made good her claim. The pleas of her being an
alien fell to the ground, and the law cut asunder the tie that held
Claude Gartram to one who passed for ever from her sight. Glyddyr's
term of imprisonment was but short, for his health had been so shattered
that he was shortly after set at liberty, to die in Denise's arms.
Of the rest of the actors who played their parts in this life drama, no
more need be said than is contained in the French proverb: _Cela va sans
dire_.