Читать книгу The Crystal Stopper онлайн

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And he was very much surprised. It was a decanter-stopper, a little crystal stopper, like those used for the bottles in a liqueur-stand. And this crystal stopper had nothing particular about it. The most that Lupin observed was that the knob, with its many facets, was gilded right down to the indent. But, to tell the truth, this detail did not seem to him of a nature to attract special notice.

“And it was this bit of glass to which Gilbert and Vaucheray attached such stubborn importance!” he said to himself. “It was for this that they killed the valet, fought each other, wasted their time, risked prison... trial... the scaffold!...”

Too tired to linger further upon this matter, exciting though it appeared to him, he replaced the stopper on the chimney-piece and got into bed.

He had bad dreams. Gilbert and Vaucheray were kneeling on the flags of their cells, wildly stretching out their hands to him and yelling with fright:

“Help!... Help!” they cried.

But, notwithstanding all his efforts, he was unable to move. He himself was fastened by invisible bonds. And, trembling, obsessed by a monstrous vision, he watched the dismal preparations, the cutting of the condemned men’s hair and shirt-collars, the squalid tragedy.