"What is the confusion in the house?" she asked. "What is your name?"
"My name is Symonds. I was fetched here by the inspector of police. The bodies of two Asiatics have been found drowned in the vaults, and they are getting ready for the inquest to-morrow."
Once again the defeated murderess smiled. Fate was all against her. Those men had come to do her bidding and had perished. Doubtless the note sent by Vera Ravenspur would be found on one of them, and this would be no more than another link in the long chain.
She tried to rise but she could not. She lay on the bed fully dressed, her brain was as quick and as clear as ever, but the paralysis in the lower limbs fettered her. A blind fury shook her for the moment.
If she had only been free to move she would have triumphed even yet. Tchigorsky might have been a clever man, but she would have shown him that he was no match for her. And now she had walked into the trap he had laid for her. Doubtless she had been watched into the castle; doubtless the enemy had seen her lay those wires, and had arranged to give her a taste of that deadly stuff she had prepared for others. Then Marion had been spirited away, and the key of the safe taken from her. Subsequently Tchigorsky had ransacked the box. Oh, she saw it all.
The family of Ravenspur saw it all by this time, too. She was no longer a guest in the house of Ravenspur, but a prisoner in charge of a female warder. In a day or two she would be cast into prison. In due course she would undergo her trial and finally be hanged by the neck until she were dead.
It was this last thought that caused her to smile. She was too clever a woman not to accept the inevitable. A great many people in her position would have protested and lied and blustered. She saw the folly of it.
"I should like to see Mr. Ravenspur," she said. "Will you tell him so? You need not fear. I am helpless. I could not move."
Mrs. Symonds stepped into the corridor and gave the message to a passing servant. After a time a slow step came shuffling along up the stairs. It was Ralph, who presently came into the room.