TCHIGORSKY FURTHER EXPLAINS
"I don't quite follow it yet," said Geoffrey.
"And yet it is simple," Tchigorsky replied. "Here is a form of electric
battery in the vault connected by tiny wires to every sleeping chamber
occupied by a Ravenspur. In each of these bed-rooms a powder is
deposited somewhere and the wire leads to it. At a certain time, when
you are all asleep, the current is switched on, the powder destroyed
without leaving the slightest trace, and in the morning you are all as
dead as if you had been placed in a lethal chamber--as a matter of fact,
they would have been lethal chambers.
"Almost directly, by means of the chimneys, etc., the rooms would begin
to draw a fresh supply of air, and by the time you were discovered
everything would be normal again. Then the battery would be removed and
the wires withdrawn without even the trouble of entering the rooms to
fetch them. Then exit the whole family of Ravenspur, leaving behind a
greater mystery than ever. Now do you understand what it all means?"
Geoffrey nodded and shuddered.
"What do you propose to do?" he asked. "Leave the battery where it is,
and----"
"Unless I am mistaken, the battery is removed already," said the
Russian.
He was correct. Investigation proved that the whole thing had been
spirited away.
"As I expected," Tchigorsky muttered. "Done from the vaults under the
sea, doubtless. That woman's servants keep very close to her. It is
wonderful how they manage to slip about without being seen. They have
ascertained that an accident has happened to their mistress, and they
have removed signs of the conspiracy. But for the present they cannot
remove their mistress."
Tchigorsky chuckled as he spoke.
"You seem pleased over that," said Geoffrey.
"Of course I am, my boy. It enables one to do a little burglary without
the chance of being found out. And you are to assist me. But I am not
going to start on my errand before midnight; so till then I shall stay
here and smoke. At that hour you will please join me."
"I am to accompany you, then?"
"Yes, you are going to be my confederate in crime."
Geoffrey joined the others downstairs. Delight and thankfulness were
written on every face. Never had Geoffrey found his family so tender and
loving.
Usually, Marion had had her feelings under control, but to-night it
seemed as if she could not make enough of her cousin. She hung over him,
she lingered near him, until Vera laughingly proclaimed that jealousy
was rendering her desperate.
"I cannot help it," Marion said half tearfully. "I am so glad. And if
you only knew--but that does not matter. I am beside myself with joy."
"I suppose that woman upstairs is all right," Ravenspur said coldly.
He was by no means pleased that Mrs. May should have intruded twice in
that way. And each time there had been some accident. With so much
sorrow weighing him down and with the shadow of further disaster ever
haunting him, Ravenspur was naturally suspicious.
It seemed absurd, no doubt, but that woman might be taking a hand
against the family fortunes. The last occasion was bad enough, but this
was many times worse. In the circumstances, as he pointed out, nothing
could exceed the bad taste of this intrusion into a deserted house.
"She may not have known it," Mrs. Gordon said quietly. "Who knows but
that she had discovered some plot against us and had come to warn us?
Perhaps the enemy divined her intentions--hence the accident."
"But was it an accident?" Geoffrey asked.
"Something mysterious, like everything that occurs to us," his wife
replied. "At any rate, she is breathing regularly and quietly now, and
her skin is moist and cool. Ralph said he had seen something like it in
India before. He is convinced that she will be all right in the morning.
Don't be angry, father."
Rupert Ravenspur constrained himself to smile.
"I will not forget what is due to my position and my hospitality, my
dear," he said. "After Geoffrey's miraculous escape, after the heavy
cloud of sorrow so unexpectedly raised, I cannot feel it in my heart to
be angry with anybody. How did you manage to get away, Geoffrey?"
Geoffrey told his tale again. It was not nice to be compelled to invent
facts in the face of an admiring family; but then the truth could not
have been told without betraying Tchigorsky and blowing all his delicate
schemes to the winds. He was not sorry when he had finished.
Marion wiped the tears from her eyes.
"It was Providence," she said. "Nothing more nor less."
"Little doubt of it," Gordon murmured. "Geoff, have you any suspicions?"
"I know who did it, if that is what you mean," Geoffrey said, "and so
does Marion."
The girl started. Her nerves were in such a pitiable condition that any
little thing set them vibrating like the strings of a rudely handled
harp.
"If I did I should have spoken," she said.
"Then you have not guessed?" Geoffrey smiled. "The masts and the sculls
were sawn by a girl in a blue dress and red tam-o'-shanter cap. The girl
who is so like----"
He did not complete the sentence; there was something in Marion's
speaking eyes that asked him not to do so. Why he could not tell; but
there was nothing to be gained by what was little less than a breach of
confidence.
"What does it mean, Marion?" Ravenspur asked.
"Geoffrey and I saw such a girl not long before Geoff set out on his
eventful voyage," Marion explained quietly. All the fear had gone out of
her eyes; she met the gaze of the speaker tranquilly. "She passed me as
I was painting; I have been close to her once before. But I don't
understand why Geoff is so certain that the mysterious visitor tried to
drown him."
"I've no proof," Geoffrey replied. "It is merely an instinct."
As a matter of fact, he had plenty of proof. Had he not seen the girl
hastening away from his boat? Had he not seen her return after the boat
had been beached and mourn over the wreck like some creature suffering
from deep remorse?
But of this he could say nothing. To speak of it would be to betray the
fact that Tchigorsky was still alive and active in pursuit of the foe.
"That woman can be found," Ravenspur said sternly.
"I doubt it," said Geoffrey. "She has a way of disappearing that is
remarkable. You see her one moment and the next she has vanished. But I
am certain that she is at the bottom of the mischief."
And Geoffrey refused to say more. As a matter of fact, nobody seemed to
care to hear anything further. They were worn out with anxiety and
exertion. They had had little food that day; the weary hours on the
beach had exhausted them.
"For the present we can rest and be thankful," Ravenspur said as he rose
to go. "We can sleep with easy minds to-night."
They moved off after him, all but Geoffrey and Vera. Mrs. Gordon could
still be heard moving about one of the drawing rooms. Marion had slipped
off unobserved. She hardly felt equal to bidding Geoffrey good-night.
The tender smile was still on her face as she crept upstairs.
Then when she reached her room it faded away. She flung herself across
the bed and burst into a passionate fit of weeping. And then gradually
she sobbed herself into a heavy yet uneasy slumber.
"Well, I suppose I must go, too?" Vera said, tired out, yet reluctant to
leave her lover. "Tell me what it means, Geoff?"
"Have I not already explained to you, darling?"
"Yes, but I don't believe one word of it," Vera replied. A kiss sufficed
to wash the bitterness of the candor away. "I don't believe you were
picked up by a yacht. I don't believe that you were in any danger. I
don't understand it."
"Then we are both in the same state of benighted ignorance," Geoffrey
smiled. "You are right not to believe me, dearest, but I had to tell the
story and I had to play a part. It is all in the desperate game we are
playing against our secret foe. For the present I am a puppet in the
hands of abler men than myself. What I am doing will go far to set us
free later."
Vera sighed gently. She sidled closer to her lover. Mrs. Gordon was
coming out of the drawing room, a sign that Vera would have to go.
"I feel that I don't want to part with you again," she whispered, her
eyes looking into his and her arm about him. "I feel as if I had nearly
lost you. And if I did lose you, darling, what would become of me?"
Geoffrey kissed the quivering lips tenderly.
"Have no fear, sweetheart," he said; "all is coming right. See how those
people have been frustrated over and over again. They have come with
schemes worthy of Satan himself and yet they have failed. And it has
been so arranged that those failures seem to be the result of vexatious
accident. But they are not. And they will fail again and again until
the net is around them and we shall be free. Darling, you are to sleep
in peace to-night."
With a last fond embrace Vera slipped from her lover's side. She smiled
at him brightly from the doorway and was gone. Geoffrey lighted a
cigarette that presently dropped from his fingers and his head fell
forward.
He started suddenly; the cigarette smelt pungently as it singed the
carpet. Somebody was whispering his name; somebody was calling him from
the stairs. Then he recognized Ralph's croaking voice.
"Tchigorsky," he muttered sleepily. "I had forgotten that Tchigorsky
wanted me."