CHAPTER XV

RAVENGAR IN CAPTIVITY

‘Ravengar, what a fool you are!’

The dome was in darkness.  Hugo, who stood concealed near the switch, turned on all the lights as soon as he had uttered this singular greeting, and stepped forward.  He had decided to kill Ravengar.  The desire to murder was in his heart, and in order to give all his instincts full play he had chosen a theatrical method of welcoming his victim into the fastness from which he was never to escape.

‘D—­n!’ exclaimed Ravengar, evidently astounded to the uttermost to find himself in Hugo’s dome, and in the presence of Hugo.

He sprang back to the door of the dressing-room by which he had so unsuspectingly entered.

’What a fool you are to fall into a trap so simple!  No; don’t try to get away.  You can’t.  That door is locked now.  And, moreover, I have a revolver here, and also a pair of handcuffs, which I shall use if I have any trouble with you.’

Ravengar gazed at his captor, irresolute.  His clean-shaven upper lip seemed longer than ever, and his short gray beard and gray locks gave him an appearance of sanctimony which not even his sinister eyes could destroy.  Then he sat down on a chair.

‘I should like to know—­’ he began, trying to speak steadily.

‘You would like to know,’ Hugo took him up, ’why I am here alive, instead of being in that vault, suffocated.  It was a pretty dodge of yours to get me down there.  You counted on my curiosity about the Tudor mystery.  You felt sure I should yield to the temptation.  And I did yield.  You were right.  I was prepared to commit a breach of faith in order to satisfy that curiosity.  No sooner was the door closed on me by that scoundrel Brown, and I found the vault not Polycarp’s vault at all, than I knew to a certainty that you were at the bottom of the affair.  So easy to make out afterwards that it was an accident!  So easy to spirit Brown away!  So easy to explain everything!  Why, Ravengar, you intended to murder me!  I saw the whole scheme in a flash.  You have corrupted many of my servants to-day.  But you didn’t corrupt all of them.  And because you didn’t, because you couldn’t, I am alive.  You would like to know how I got out.  But you will never know, Ravengar.  You will die without knowing.’

Ravengar put his hands in his pockets.

‘I can only assume that you are going mad, Owen,’ said he.  ’I have long guessed that you were.  Nothing else will explain this extraordinary action of yours towards me.’

‘You act well,’ replied Hugo, sitting down and eyeing Ravengar critically.  ’You act well.  But you gave the whole show away by the tone in which you swore two minutes ago.  If there is anyone mad in this room, it is yourself.  Your schemes show that queer mixture of amazing ingenuity and amazing folly which is characteristic of madmen.  Let us hope you are mad, at any rate.’