"Yes—it happened that way."
"And on that same day," I added, my recollections now thronging to my mind, "when I sent you to my wife, you purloined a parchment that lay on my table and that I had written upon?"
"Yes, Tetrik ordered me to—he heard Victoria refer to the parchment."
"Why, after the crime was committed, did you stay in this house down to to-day?"
"So as to awaken no suspicions."
"What induced you to poison your mistress?"
"The gift of these jewels that I was entertaining myself with putting on when you broke in upon me. I thought I was alone!"
"Tetrik came himself near dying of the poison—do you believe his equerry is guilty of that crime?"
"Every poison has its counter-poison," answered the Bohemian with a sinister smile. "He who poisons others, removes suspicion from himself by drinking from the same cup, and he is safe through the counter-poison."
The woman's answer was a flash-light to me. By an infernal ruse, and doubtlessly guaranteed against death, thanks to an antidote, Tetrik had swallowed enough poison to produce in him the identical symptoms that marked Victoria's agony and thus seem to share her fate.