WHENCE DID THEY COME?
In the darkness nobody spoke for a moment. Not one of them could have
said anything for a king's ransom. Apart from the feeling of
suffocation, the gradual poppy sleep of death that filled the room as a
great wave suddenly engulfs some rocky cave, the dramatic horror of the
darkness held them fast.
At the same time there was something of a shock, a healthy shock in the
plunge from light to gloom. A fitful purple gleam still flickered where
the blazing paraffin had licked the hard oak polished floor; the breath
of the sea breeze was bracing. It was Marion who first came to herself
as one comes out of a horrid nightmare.
"Oh, oh," she shuddered. "Who opened the window?"
Nobody responded for a moment. Ralph had crept to Geoffrey's side. It
was marvelous how he found his way in the intense darkness.
"Say you did it," he whispered. "You must say you did it. Speak."
"I suppose I did," Geoffrey murmured. "I seem to recollect something of
the kind."
"You have saved our lives," said Marion. "Will somebody ring the bell?"
Servants came without much dismay or surprise. They were used to amazing
things at Ravenspur. It would have caused no more than a painful
sensation to come in some night after dinner and find the whole family
murdered.
"Bring more lamps," Ralph Ravenspur said quietly.
Lamps were brought. The disordered litter on the floor was swept up,
the broken globes, the dainty china, the glass and silver. The white
flowers were no longer there. This was a puzzle to everybody but Ralph,
who had gathered them at the first distraction, and thrown them out of
the window.
There was silence for a minute or two after the servants had withdrawn.
Then Rupert Ravenspur dashed his fist on the table in a passion of
despair.
"Great Heaven!" he said. "How long, how long? How much more of this is
it possible to bear and still retain the powers of reason? What was it?"
"Could it have been the flowers?" Vera suggested. "It was my fault."
"No, no," Marion cried. "Why your fault? Those white blossoms were
innocent enough; we packed them ourselves, we arranged them together."
"Still, I believe it was the flowers," Geoffrey observed. "Why should
they have fascinated us in that strange way? It was horrible!"
Horrible indeed, and not the less so because the horrible was not
conspicuous by its absence. That innocent flowers, pure white blossoms,
could lend themselves to a dark mystery like this was almost maddening.
And yet it must have been so, for no sooner had the flowers been removed
and the air of heaven had entered the room than the grip and bitterness
of death were past.
"I am sure we were near the end," Marion cried. "Geoff, was it you who
snatched the cloth from the table?"
Geoffrey was about to deny the suggestion when his eyes fell upon
Ralph's face. It was eager, almost pleading in its aspect. Like a flash
the changing expression was gone.
"It must have been mechanical," Geoffrey murmured. "One does those
things and calls them impulses. Inspiration would be a better
expression, I fancy."
They crowded round him and gave him their thanks, all save Ralph, who
sat drumming his fingers on the table as if nothing out of the ordinary
had happened. Nothing seemed to draw him out of his environment.
Still, it was another man who came creeping to Geoffrey's room when the
lights were extinguished and the castle was wrapped in slumber. There
was an inner room lying out over the sea, which Geoffrey used
indifferently for a smoking room and study.
"I can smoke my pipe here without a chance of our being overheard," he
said. "Well, was the adventure this evening creepy enough for you?"
Geoffrey shuddered slightly. Flagrant, rioting dangers would have had no
terrors for him. It was the unseen that played on the nerves of
imagination.
"Horrible," he said, "but why this mystery?"
"As far as I am concerned, you mean? My dear Geoffrey, it is imperative
that I should be regarded by everybody as a poor blind worm who is
incapable for good or evil. I want people to pity me, to make way for
me, to treat me as if I were of no account, a needless cumberer of the
ground. I want to see that you prevent these tragedies by sheer chance.
I will strike when the time comes!"
The hoarse voice had sunk to a whisper, the sightless eyes rolled, the
thin fingers crooked as if dragging down an unseen foe to destruction.
As suddenly Ralph changed his mood and laughed noiselessly.
"Let us not prophesy," he said. "What did you think of the episode?"
"I don't know what to think about it."
"Then you have no theory to offer?"
"No, uncle. I am in the dark. That is where the keen edge of the terror
comes in. I should say it was the flowers. As the atmosphere of the room
grew warmer, as the heat from the lamps drew out the fragrance of the
blooms, the perfume seemed to become overpowering. The perfume riveted
attention, arrested the senses, and gradually sense and feeling appeared
to go altogether."
"Perfectly right, Geoffrey. Still, there is nothing very wonderful
about it. Lucretia Borgia used the same means to despatch her victims. A
poisoned bouquet was a favorite weapon of hers, you remember."
"But the poison there was conveyed through the palms of the hands. Why
do we never hear of that sort of poison nowadays?"
Ralph smiled as he refilled his pipe.
"I've got some of it myself," he said, "or at least Tchigorsky has. It
is poor, inartistic stuff, compared to some of the poisons known to
Tchigorsky and myself. There are Eastern poisons unknown to science;
toxicology little dreams of the drugs that Tchigorsky and your poor
uncle wot of.
"You are right. Those flowers were impregnated with the deadly drug that
comes out with warmth. It comes as quickly as a breath of wind and does
its work and vanishes almost immediately, leaving no trace behind.
Another minute and the whole family of Ravenspur had been no more. There
would have been a fearful sensation: doctors would have discoursed
learnedly--and vaguely--and there would have been an end to the matter.
Not a soul in England would have had the remotest idea of the source of
the tragedy. Look here."
From under his coat Ralph produced a single white carnation.
"That was on the table to-night," he said. "Take it in your hands. Smell
it. Do you recognize anything beyond the legitimate perfume?"
Geoffrey held the perfect bloom to his nostrils. He could detect nothing
further.
"It seems to me to be as innocent as beautiful," he said.
"So it is, so it is--at present. Give it me back again. See, I have here
a little white, dull powder. In it is the one-thousandth part of a grain
of the deadly drug. I dust the powder on the carnation, thus. The
natural moisture in the leaves absorbs it and the flower presents a
normal aspect. Smell it."
"I smell nothing at all," said Geoffrey.
"Not yet. Hold it to the lamp for ten seconds."
Geoffrey did so. At the end of the brief space he placed it to his
nostrils as Ralph suggested. Immediately a drowsy feeling came over him,
a desire for sleep, a desire to be at rest in body and mind, in heart
and pulses. Indeed, it seemed to him as if his heart had stopped
already.
Through a yellow scented mist he seemed to see his uncle and hear the
latter's voice commanding him to drop the carnation. He could not have
done it to save himself from destruction. Then the flower was plucked
away.
"How long have I been asleep?" he asked, suddenly opening his eyes.
"You have been across the Styx and back in exactly fifty seconds," Ralph
said gravely. "Now you see the effect of that stuff. Wonderfully
artistic, isn't it?"
Geoffrey gazed at the flower with sickening horror. Ralph seemed to
divine this, for he picked it up, sniffed it coolly and placed it in his
button-hole.
"The evil effect has gone, believe me," he said. "The dose was very
small, and I did not mix it with water, which makes a difference."
"Still, I don't follow," Geoffrey said. "We know those flowers were cut
and arranged by Vera and Marion. It would have been impossible for any
one to have entered the dining-room and replaced them with other white
flowers. And for anybody to have had the time to impregnate them one by
one--oh, it is impossible!"
"Not at all, Geoffrey. A mystery is like a conjuring trick--seemingly
insoluble, but you know how it is done, and then it becomes bald and
commonplace. Suppose the stuff is mixed with water and the mixture
placed in a small spray worked by an india-rubber ball. Then one goes
into the dining hall for half a minute, gives two or three rapid motions
of the hand, and the thing is accomplished."
"Yes, that sounds easy. You speak as if you knew who did it."
"Yes," Ralph said, with one of his spasmodic smiles, "I do."
"You know the author of this dastardly thing. Tell me."
"Not yet. I dare not tell you, because you are young and might betray
yourself. I could not confide my secret to any one, even the best
detective in England. It is only known to Tchigorsky and myself. You
shall help me in drawing the net around the miscreants, but you must not
ask me that."
"And to-night's doings are to remain a secret?"
"Of course. Nobody is to know anything. They may conjecture as much as
they like. Good heavens, if any one in the house were to know what I
have told you to-night, all my work would be undone. You are my
instrument, by which I ward off danger without attracting attention to
myself. You are the unsuspecting boy, who by sheer good luck foils the
enemy. Keep it up, keep it up; for so long as you appear young and
unsophisticated, there is less of the deadly danger."