"I do not know what oversight of mine put you on the track of the truth. There was one, but I do not see how that could have helped you. It was not until the following afternoon in the gun-room, when Musard drew your attention to the pistol-case, that I remembered that the pistol I had used was still at the back of the fireplace upstairs, where apparently it had lain undiscovered during my illness. I had taken the precaution of concealing the key of the case, but I decided to restore the pistol that night after you left. It was more difficult to recover than I anticipated, owing to the depth of the space behind the grate. I had to push back the bedstead and use the tongs before I could reach it. I believe it would have lain there undiscovered for years. There was nothing else that I can recall, except that when I restored the pistol I saw I had left the end of one of my experimental tinder-lighter wicks lying in the case.
"But I do not wish to know how you found out, now that Nepcote has escaped. I have nothing left to live for. The doctor thinks I am recovering, but I knew that it was only the hope of revenge which kept me going. Now that is gone I have not long to live. I rejoice that it is so. But whatever had happened, I would have saved that poor girl, Hazel Rath.... I ask you to believe that ... Violet...."
He ceased, and with a weary gesture, let his head fall on his outstretched arms, as though the strength which bore him up while he told his tale deserted him when he had made manifest the truth.
His two listeners sat for some minutes in silence, each engrossed in his own thoughts. Musard stared gloomily at Phil with unseeing eyes. He was as one who had passed through unimagined horrors in a space not to be measured by time, to emerge with a fatigued sense of the black malignity of unknown gods who create the passions of humanity for their own brutal sport. His moving lips betrayed a consciousness loosened from its moorings, tossed in a turbulent sea of disaster. Then they formed the whispered words:
"The house was founded in horror and it ends in horror. So the old tradition comes true."
The next moment he turned his eyes on Colwyn with a look askance, as though he saw in him the instrument of this misery.
"Why did Hazel Rath keep silence?" he asked.
"Women have made greater sacrifices for love," Colwyn gently replied. "Hazel Rath loved him, and kept silence to shield him. She would not have spoken at all if suspicion had not fastened on Nepcote, and even when she did speak she kept something back. We may now learn later what actually passed between Hazel and Mrs. Heredith in the bedroom that night. My own opinion is that, while Hazel was bending over her, the dying woman whispered the name of her murderer."
"What are you going to do now?" Musard abruptly demanded, in sudden change of mood, speaking as though there were nobody present but their two selves.
"There is only one thing to do."