"Oh! tell me no more lies!" I exclaimed. "Listen! You see I have you by the collar, and I have my cane. Now I am going to beat you till every bone in your body aches, till you will not be able to crawl about, until you tell me the real history of these things. For every lie—if I know it to be a lie—I shall strike you. Tell me who that man Delora is? Tell me who the girl is, posing as his niece, who meets you here after midnight? Tell me the name of that man who has just left us? Tell me how you are all bound together, and what your quarrel is? And tell me where Delora is now?"
"I have no strength," he gasped. "You are too rough. Let me sit down quietly. I must think."
"No!" I answered. "Speak! Speak now!"
I raised the stick as though to strike him. Then I saw a sudden change in his face. I looked toward the door. Almost as I did so I heard the faint flutter of moving draperies. Felicia stood there looking in upon us, her hands uplifted, her face full of terror.
"It is Capitaine Rotherby!" she cried. "Tell me, then, what has happened? Capitaine Rotherby!"
She came a little toward us, but I think that she read in my face something of what I was feeling, for she stopped suddenly and her lips quivered.
"What has happened?" she demanded. "Will neither of you tell me? Is my uncle worse? Has any one—any one tried to do him an injury?"
"Nothing is the matter," I answered, "except that we have come to an end of this tissue of lies and plots and counterplots. There is no uncle of yours in that room, nor ever has been. The man who was to have been murdered here has gone. And for the rest, I saw you here with Louis and I heard your conversation less than an hour ago."
"You saw us?" she gasped.
"From the transept there," I answered, pointing towards it. "I was brought into that room to personate your uncle, to receive an attack which was meant for him—a very clever scheme! I was drugged, and was to have lain there to cover this fellow's crime. But there, I don't suppose that I need tell you any of these things!" I added brutally.