Pietro in Vinculis, where all the family except the sister were assembled in apparent harmony. He quitted it in company with his eldest brother, who was never again seen in life, and having visited his father at a late hour to receive a benediction, he left Rome before dawn. When an alarm was raised on the Duke of Gandia's disappearance, a boatman deposed to having seen, about one o'clock on Thursday morning, a body thrown neck and heels into the Tiber, at the present port of the Ripetta, by four attendants of a mounted gentleman, who had brought it to the bank swung across his horse. The river was dragged, and the Duke's body was found pierced with wounds. He was said to have spent the preceding hours with a lady in whose favours the Cardinal was his avowed rival. Public opinion, though distracted by conflicting rumours, branded the latter with fratricide, and scandal gave to that charge a still more loathsome dye, by naming the lady Lucrezia Borgia. History has received the former accusation as established, the latter as uncontradicted, adducing against its truth no better argument than its revolting improbability. It is, however, but just to pause ere we lend our faith to charges so hideous. Burchard, though greedy of gossip, and seldom scrupulous in exposing the Vatican immoralities, mentions no fact, breathes no hint, tending to inculpate Cesare. Neither do contemporary accounts from residents in the Holy City, preserved by Sanuto, attach any such foul slur to his name, but chiefly mention Cardinal Ascanio Sforza as then suspected of the murder.[261] They even prove that, four days after it took place, the latter thought it necessary to rebut the allegation by the mouth of the Spanish ambassador, in a full consistory, from which he alone was absent. But this negation does not appear to have quashed a surmise which gathered strength by scenting out motives for the outrage. By some, Ascanio was regarded as an unscrupulous instrument of the Orsini in their vengeance against the Pontiff's family; others traced his evil purpose to a recent feud between the Duke of Gandia and some guests at an entertainment given by him, where mutual insults had led to bloody reprisals, imputed to the implacable Borgia. Again, we are told by Burchard that the victim was last seen in company with a masked figure, who had been observed to follow him during several days, and whom he that night took up on the crupper of his horse, probably to keep an assignation; a statement easily reconcileable with the bargeman's evidence, and pointing probably to some dark intrigue, whereto it does not appear that his brother was necessarily privy.