"But this lady?" I inquired, indicating the handsome woman who had been my travelling companion in the wagon-.
"I am the mother of Reginald Thorne," she herself explained.
"You! Reggie's mother!" I cried, scarcely able to believe her words.
"Yes," she answered. "I was spending the winter in Cairo. Hearing of my poor son's death, I crossed from Alexandria, and arrived in Nice, only to find that the Vispera had sailed. A letter was awaiting me with full explanations, asking me to travel to Malta, and there join the yacht. This I did; but in order that my presence should not be known to those on board, I was placed secretly in the deck-cabin, and never left it. The blow that had fallen upon me on hearing of poor Reggie's death, combined with the constant imprisonment in that cabin, I believe upset the balance of my mind, for one night—the night before we put into Leghorn—I became unconscious. I was subject to strange hallucinations, and that night experienced a sensation as though someone was attempting to take my life by strangulation."
"I must explain," said old Mr. Keppel, addressing her. "It is only right that you should now know the truth. On the night in question you were unusually restless, and becoming seized by a fit of hysteria, commenced to shout and shriek all sorts of wild words regarding your poor son's murder. Now I had concealed you there, and fearing lest some of the guests should hear you, and that a scandal might be created, I tried to silence you. You fought me tooth and nail, for I verily believe that the close confinement had driven you insane. In the struggle I had my hands over your mouth, and afterwards pressed your throat in order to prevent your hysterical shrieks, when suddenly I saw blood upon your lips, and the awful truth dawned upon me that I had killed you by strangulation. Tewson, the chief steward—who, with the exception of Cameron, was the only person on board who knew of your presence—chancing to enter at that moment, made the diabolical suggestion that in order to get rid of the evidence of my crime I should allow him to blow up the ship. This I refused, and fortunately, half an hour later, I succeeded in restoring you to consciousness. Then we landed at Leghorn on the following evening, not, however, before I discovered that the real motive of Tewson's suggestion was that he had stolen nearly three thousand pounds in cash, notes, and securities from a box in Lord Stoneborough's cabin, and wished to destroy the ship so that his crime might thus be concealed. The man, I have discovered, has a very bad record, and has now disappeared. But time was pressing, so we all three left Leghorn for Paris, and I gave orders to Davis to take the yacht into the Adriatic, where I intended to rejoin it."
Then, briefly, I explained what I had seen and overheard on that wild, boisterous night in the Mediterranean; how I had followed the millionaire and the woman who was bent upon avenging the murder of her son; how I had sent the yacht on to Genoa, and how carefully I had watched the movements of all three during those days in Paris. All seemed amazed by my story—Ernest most of all.
"During that night in the wagon-lit," I said, addressing Mrs. Thorne, "I noticed two curious marks upon your neck. Upon your poor son's neck were similar marks."
"Yes," she replied; "they were birth-marks—known as the marks of thumb and finger. Poor Reggie bore them exactly as I do."
"And the woman who murdered him, and who so ingeniously attempted first to fasten the guilt upon Miss Rosselli, and then afterwards upon myself, is there!" cried Ernest, pointing at the trembling, pallid woman before us. "She killed him, because she feared the revelations he could make to the police regarding the place in which we are standing."
The woman Fournereau raised her head at Ernest's denunciation, and laughed a strange, harsh laugh of defiance.