"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.