Aladdin of London, or The Lodestar

"Is the Count dead?" Alban asked them in a low voice. He had taken a few steps toward the bed and there halted irresolute. "What is it, what has happened, sir?" he continued, turning to Zaniloff. That worthy merely shrugged his shoulders.

"The Count has been assassinated--we believe by a woman. The doctors will tell us by and by."

Alban shuddered at the words and took another step toward the bed. He felt giddy and faint. The words he had just heard were ringing in his ears as a sound of rushing waters. "Has Lois done this thing?"--incredible! And yet the man implied as much.

"I cannot stay here," he exclaimed presently, "I must go to my room, if you please."

He turned and reeled from the place, ashamed of his weakness, yet unable to control it. Outside upon the landing, he discovered that Zaniloff was at his elbow and had something to say to him. Speaking sharply and autocratically in the Russian tongue, that worthy realized almost immediately that he had failed to make himself understood and so called the Herr Director to his aid.

"They will require your attendance at the bureau," the Director said with an obsequious bow toward Alban--"you must dress at once, sir, and accompany this gentleman."

Alban said that he would do so. He was miserably cold and ill and trembling still. Knowing nothing of the truth, he believed that they were taking him to Lois Boriskoff and that she was already in custody.