CHAPTER LV A SHOCK FOR THE PRINCESS
It was not a pleasant task, but it had to be done. Fortunately it was possible to do everything discreetly and in order, for the vaults were large, and there was not the slightest chance that any of the household would come near.
The bodies were laid out there and the key turned upon them. Geoffrey looked at his companions and inquired what was to be done next.
"Inform the head of the house and send for the police", Tchigorsky said; "so far as I can see, it will be impossible to keep the matter a secret. Nor are we to blame. Those men came here for no good purpose, and we took steps to prevent them from entering the house.
"Unfortunately, we forgot there would be an exceptionally high tide to-day, and consequently they have paid the penalty of their folly. But we can't bury these two fellows as we did the others."
"Hadn't we better search them?" Ralph suggested. "They came in response to the note sent them by their mistress. The note was opened and read. One of them is sure to have the letter on his person."
"Then let the police find it," Tchigorsky said promptly. "It will be the link in the evidence that we require. When you and I come to tell our story, Ralph, and the police find that letter, the net around Princess Zara will be complete. I have only to produce that diary and the case is finished."
Ralph nodded approval. Five minutes later and the head of the house, seated over a book in the library, was exceedingly astonished to see Ralph and Geoffrey, followed by Tchigorsky, enter the room.
He swept a keen glance over their faces; he saw at once they had news of grave import for him.
"I do not understand," he said. "Dr. Tchigorsky, I am amazed. I was under the impression that you were dead and buried."
"Other people shared the same opinion, sir," Tchigorsky said coolly. "The great misfortune of another man was my golden opportunity. It was necessary for certain people to regard me as dead—your enemies particularly. But perhaps I had better explain."
"It would be as well," Ravenspur murmured.
Tchigorsky proceeded to clear the mystery of Voski's death. He had to tell the whole story, beginning at Lassa and going on to the end. Ravenspur listened with the air of a man who dreams. To a man used all his life to the quiet life of an English shire it seemed impossible to believe that such things could be. And why should these people persecute him; why should they come here? What did those men mean by drowning themselves in the vaults?
"They came here at the instigation of Mrs. May," Tchigorsky said.
"But I don't see how that lady comes to be in it at all."
"You will in a minute," said Tchigorsky grimly. "You will when I tell you that Mrs. May and Princess Zara are one and the same person." Ravenspur gasped. The bare idea of having such a woman under his roof filled him with horror. Even yet he could not understand his danger.
"But why does she come?" he demanded. "For revenge on you two?"
"Oh, no. My being here was a mere coincidence. Of course, the princess would have removed me sooner or later. Ralph, strange to say, she does not recognize at all, possibly because he has disguised himself with such simple cleverness. Princess Zara came here to destroy your family."
"In the name of Heaven, why?"
"Partly for revenge, partly for money. I told you all about her husband, who was an English officer. I told you why she had married him. When she discovered the papers she wanted, then she killed him and returned to her own people, giving out that she and her husband had perished up country in a fearful cholera epidemic. She wanted money. Why not kill off her husband's family one by one so that finally the estates should come to her? Mr. Ravenspur, surely you have guessed who was the English officer Princess Zara married?"
Ravenspur staggered back as before a heavy blow. The illuminating flash almost stunned him. He fell gasping into a chair.
"My son, Jasper," he said hoarsely. "That fiend is his widow."
"And Marion's mother," Ralph croaked.
Geoffrey was almost as much astonished as his grandfather. He wondered why he had not seen all this before. Once explained, the problem was ridiculously simple. Ravenspur covered his face with his hands.
"Marion must not know," he said. "It would kill her."
"She knows already," Tchigorsky said. "That woman has great influence over her child. And the idea was for the child to get everything. The others were to be killed off until she was the only one left. With this large fortune at command Zara meant to be another Queen of Sheba. And she would have succeeded, too."
Ravenspur shuddered. He was torn by conflicting emotions. Perhaps tenderness and sympathy for Marion were uppermost. How much did she know? How much had she guessed? Was she entirely in the dark as to her mother's machinations, or had she come resolved to protect the relatives as much as possible?
Ravenspur poured out these questions one after another. Tchigorsky could or would say nothing to relieve the other's feelings on these points.
"What you ask has nothing to do with the case," he said. "I have proved to you, I am prepared to prove in any court of law, how your family has been destroyed and who is the author of the mischief.
"She is under your roof, where she is powerless to move. Her two confederates lie dead in the vaults yonder. I have already explained to you how it came about that the princess is here and how her infernal apparatus failed. It now remains to call in the police."
"There will be a fearful scandal," Ravenspur groaned.
Tchigorsky glanced at him impatiently. The cosmopolitan knew a great many things that were sealed books to Ravenspur—in point of knowledge it was as a child alongside a great master; but Tchigorsky knew nothing of family pride.
"Which will be forgotten in a week," he said emphatically. "And when the thing is over you will be free again. You cannot realize what that means as yet."
"No," Ravenspur said. "I cannot."
"Nevertheless, you can see for yourself that what I say is a fact," Tchigorsky resumed. "And as a county magistrate and a deputy-lieutenant you would hardly venture to suggest that we should bury those bodies and say nothing to anybody about it?"
Ravenspur nodded approval. A few minutes later a groom was carrying a note to the police inspector at Alton. Ravenspur turned to Tchigorsky with a manner more genial than he usually assumed.
"I have forgotten to thank you," he said. "And you, Ralph, have saved the house. If you can forget the past——" He said no more, but his hand went out. Ralph seemed to divine it and pressed it closely. There was no word uttered on either side. But they both understood and Ralph smiled. Geoffrey had never seen his uncle smile before. The expression of his face was genial, almost handsome. His wooden look had utterly disappeared and nobody ever saw it again. The transformation of Ralph Ravenspur was not the least wonderful incident of the whole mysterious affair.
The door opened and Vera came lightly into the room.
"What does all this mystery mean?" she asked. "Geoffrey, you are—Dr. Tchigorsky!"
The last words came with a scream that might have been heard all over the house. Tchigorsky closed the door and proceeded rapidly to explain. But it was not the full explanation he had given to the others. There was time enough for that.
Vera was too bewildered to ask questions. At a sign from Geoffrey she slipped from the room. Then she recollected that she had come downstairs on an errand of mercy. She promised to get a cup of tea for the woman whom she still knew as Mrs. May. She procured the tea from the drawing room and, in a dazed kind of state made her way up the stairs again.
Mrs. May was sitting up in bed. There was a pink spot on either cheek and her dark eyes were blazing.
"I hope nothing is wrong," she said. "It might have been my fancy, but it seemed to me that I heard you call Tchigorsky's name at the top of your voice."
The suggestion was made with a fervent earnestness that the woman could not repress. But Vera did not notice it.
"I did," she said. "I walked into the library, hearing voices there, and in a chair Dr. Tchigorsky was seated. No wonder that I cried out. It was a fearful shock. And when he began to talk I could not believe the evidence of my senses."
"Then who was it that was buried?"
The woman asked the question mechanically. She knew perfectly well what the reply would be; she knew that she had been discovered at last, and that the murder of Voski had been turned to good purpose by Tchigorsky. And she knew now who her new ally, Ben Heer, really was.
"Dr. Voski," Vera explained. "I have been hearing all about Lassa and a certain Princess Zara, who seems to be a dreadful wretch. But I fear that I am exciting you. And you haven't drunk your tea."
The woman gulped down her tea and then fell back on her bed, closing her eyes. She wanted to be alone, to have time to think. Danger had threatened her before, but not living, palpitating peril like this. Vera crept away and the woman rose again, but she could not get from her bed.
Passionate, angry tears filled her eyes.
"That man has beaten me," she groaned. "It is finished for good and all. But their revenge will not be of long duration."