“There was one obstacle which proved too great for him—Mrs. Sin. Although Juan Mareno was the spokesman of the group, Lola Mareno was the prompter. All Sir Lucien’s plans for weaning Mrs. Irvin from the habits which she had acquired were deliberately and malignantly foiled by this woman. She endeavored to inveigle Mrs. Irvin into indebtedness to you, Gray, as you know now. Failing in this, she endeavored to kill her by depriving her of that which had at the time become practically indispensable. A venomous jealousy led her to almost suicidal measures. She risked exposure and ruin in her endeavors to dispose of one whom she looked upon as a rival.
“During Sir Lucien’s several absences from London she was particularly active, and this brings me to the closing scene of the drama. On the night that you determined, in desperation, Mrs. Irvin, to see Kazmah personally, you will recall that Sir Lucien went out to telephone to him?”
Rita nodded but did not speak.
“Actually,” Seton explained, “he instructed Mareno to go across the leads to Kazmah’s directly you had left the flat, and to give you a certain message as ‘Kazmah.’ He also instructed Mareno to telephone certain orders to Rashîd, the Egyptian attendant. In spite of the unforeseen meeting with Gray, all would have gone well, no doubt, if Mrs. Sin had not chanced to be on the Kazmah premises at the time that the message was received!
“I need not say that Mrs. Sin was a remarkable woman, possessing many accomplishments, among them that of mimicry. She had often amused herself by taking Mareno’s place at the table behind Kazmah, and, speaking in her brother’s oracular voice, had delivered the ‘revelations.’ Mareno was like wax in his sister’s hands, and on this fateful night, when he arrived at the place—which he did a few minutes before Mrs. Irvin, Gray and Sir Lucien—Mrs. Sin peremptorily ordered him to wait upstairs in the Cubanis office, and she took her seat in the room from which the Kazmah illusions were controlled.
“So carefully arranged was every detail of the business that Rashîd, the Egyptian, was ignorant of Sir Lucien’s official connection with the Kazmah concern. He had been ordered—by Mareno speaking from Sir Lucien’s flat—to admit Mrs. Irvin to the room of seance and then to go home. He obeyed and departed, leaving Sir Lucien in the waiting-room.
“Driven to desperation by ‘Kazmah’s’ taunting words, we know that Mrs. Irvin penetrated to the inner room. I must slur over the details of the scene which ensued. Hearing her cry out, Sir Lucien ran to her assistance. Mrs. Sin, enraged by his manner, lost all control of her insane passion. She attempted Mrs. Irvin’s life with a stiletto which habitually she carried—and Sir Lucien died like a gentleman who had lived like a blackguard. He shielded her—”
Seton paused. Margaret was biting her lip hard, and Rita was looking down so that her face could not be seen.
“The shock consequent upon the deed sobered the half crazy woman,” continued the speaker. “Her usual resourcefulness returned to her. Self-preservation had to be considered before remorse. Mrs. Irvin had swooned, and”—he hesitated—“Mrs. Sin saw to it that she did not revive prematurely. Mareno was summoned from the room above. The outer door was locked.
“It affords evidence of this woman’s callous coolness that she removed from the Kazmah premises, and—probably assisted by her brother, although he denies it—from the person and garments of the dead man, every scrap of evidence. They had not by any means finished the task when you knocked at the door, Gray. But they completed it, faultlessly, after you had gone.