A Servant of Satan: Romantic Career of Prado the Assassin — page 206: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

198 A SERVANT OF SATAN. unable to apply to the police for assistance, for these jewels were those stolen from Marie Aguetant, whom he, Pranzini, had killed, but for whose murder ‘‘ Prado” suffered death. Frederick, after leaving Dijon, made his way across country to Bordeaux, and from thence to Madrid, where he pawned the jewels, with the help of a woman of the name of Aimenes. It was mainly on the evidence adduced by this very woman, to the effect that the jewels in question had been pawned by Linska de Castillon, alias ‘‘ Prado” (the name which he gave on his arrest), that he was condemned for -. the murder of Marie Aguetant, which he had not commit- ted, but of which Pranzini alone was guilty. Pranzini always bore a grudge against l’homme en gris (the man in the gray coat), whose name he did not know, but whom he accused of having been his accomplice in the triple murder of the Rue Montaigne. Frederick, on the other hand, when the trial of Pranzini took place, recognized in the features of the prisoner those of his traveling companion from whom he had stolen the jewels subsequently identified as those of Marie Aguetant. For obvious reasons he remained silent at the time. But why did he not speak when, later on, his own life was at stake? The only explanation of this mysterious silence is to be found in the last lines of the confession which he intrusted to Louis Berard. They are, word for word, as follows: *‘l know that I yet could save myself. Why should I not say the truth, that Pranzini, the assassin of Marie Regnault, was also the slayer of Marie Aguetant, of whose murder I am unjustly accused! My reason for remaining silent and for refusing to sign my recours en grace (appeal for mercy) is that I am heartily sick of life. J am bound, in any case, to be condemned to penal servitude for robbery; a second time I would not escape from Noumea, My life is _ comicbooks.co