Ralph sat stolidly smoking as if he had not moved for hours. He evinced not the slightest curiosity as to the success of his companions. Tchigorsky smote him on the back with unwonted hilarity.
"So you have been successful?" he croaked.
"Oh, you have guessed that!" Tchigorsky cried.
"It was a mere matter of time," Ralph replied. "It was bound to come. I knew that from the first day I got here."
"All very well," Tchigorsky muttered; "but it was only a 'matter of time' till the Ravenspurs were wiped out root and branch."
"You knew the day you got here?" Geoffrey exclaimed.
Ralph turned his inscrutable face to the speaker.
"I did, lad," he said. "I came home to ascertain how the thing was worked. Before I slept the first night under the old roof I knew the truth. And I came in time—guided by the hand of Providence—to save the first of a fresh series of tragedies.
"You wonder why I did not speak; you have asked me before why I did not proclaim my knowledge. And I replied that the whole world would have laughed at me; you would have been the first to deride me, and the assassin would have been warned. I kept my counsel; I worked on like a mole in the dark; and when I had something to go on, Tchigorsky came. Before you are many hours older the miscreants will stand confessed."