Fred Fred - The Mystery of the Ravenspurs

The red lips tightened for an instant, a strange gleam came into the dark magnetic eyes as they fell upon Tchigorsky. Then the Indian Princess advanced with a smile, and held out her hand to the Russian.

"So you are still here!" she said.

There was the suggestion of a challenge in her tones. Her eyes met those of Tchigorsky as the eyes of two swordsmen might meet. There was a tigerish playfulness underlying the words, a call-note of significant warning.

"I still take the liberty of existing," said Tchigorsky.

"You are a brave man, doctor. Your friend here?"

"Is my cousin Nicholas Tchigorsky? The poor fellow is blind and dumb, as the result of a terrible accident. Best not to notice him."

The Princess shrugged her beautiful shoulders as she dropped gracefully into a seat.

"I heard you were in London," she said, "and something told me that we should meet sooner or later. You are still interested in occult matters?"

Again Ralph detected the note of warning in the speech. He could see nothing of the expression on that perfect face; but he could judge it fairly well.

"I am more interested in occult matters than ever," Tchigorsky said gravely, "especially in certain discoveries placed in my hands by a traveler in Tibet."

"Ah, that was your fellow-countryman. He died, you know!"

"He was murdered in the vilest manner. But before the end, he managed to convey important information to me."

"Useless information unless you had the key."

"There was one traveler who found the key, you remember?"

"True, doctor. He also, I fancy, met with an accident that, unfortunately, resulted in his death."

Ralph shuddered slightly. Princess Zara's tones were hard as steel. If she had spoken openly and callously of this man being murdered, she could not have expressed the same thing more plainly. A beautiful woman, a fascinating one; but a woman with no heart and no feeling where her hatreds were concerned.

"It is just possible I have the key," said Tchigorsky.

The eyes of the Princess blazed for a moment. Then she smiled.

"Dare you use it?" she asked. "If you dare, then all the secrets of heaven and hell are yours. For four thousand years the priests of the temple at Lassa and the heads of my family have solved the future. You know what we can do. We are all powerful for evil. We can strike down our foes by means unknown to your boasted Western science. They are all the same to us, proud potentate, ex-meddling doctor."

There was a menace in the last words. Tchigorsky smiled:

"The meddling doctor has already had personal experience," he said. "I carry the marks of my suffering to the grave. I remember how your peasants treated me and this does not tend to relax my efforts."

"And yet you might die at any moment. If you persist in your studies you will have to die. The eyes of Western men must not look upon the secrets of the priests of Lassa and live. Be warned, Dr. Tchigorsky, be warned in time. You are brave and clever, and as such command respect. If you know everything and proclaim it to the world – "

"Civilization will come as one man, and no stone in Lassa shall stand on another. Your priests will be butchered like wild beasts; an infernal plague spot will be wiped off the face of the outraged earth!"

The Princess caught her breath swiftly. Just for one moment there was murder in her eyes. She held her fan as if it were a dagger ready for the Russian's heart.

"Why should you do this thing?" she asked.

"Because your knowledge is diabolical," Tchigorsky replied. "In the first place, all who are in the secret can commit murder with impunity. As the Anglo-Saxon pushes on to the four corners of the earth that knowledge must become public property. I am going to stop that if I can."

"And if you die in the meantime? You are bold to rashness. And yet there are many things that you do not know."

"The longer I live, the more glaring my ignorance becomes. I do not know whence you derive your perfect mastery of the English tongue. But I do know that I am going to see this business through."

"Man proposes, but the arm of the priests is long."

"Ah, I understand. I may die to-night. I should not mind. Still, let us argue the matter out. Say that I have already solved the problem. I write a detailed account of the whole weird business. I write twenty detailed statements; I enclose the key in each. These statements I address to a score of the leading savants in Europe.

"Then I place them in, say, a safe deposit until my death. I write to each of those wise men a letter with an enclosure not to be opened till I die. That enclosure contains a key to my safe, and presently in that safe all those savants find a packet addressed to themselves. In a week all Europe would ring with my wonderful discoveries. Think of the outcry, the wrath, the indignation!"

The Princess smiled. She could appreciate a stratagem like this. With dull, stolid and averted face, Ralph Ravenspur listened and wondered. He heard the laugh that came from the lips of the Princess; he detected the vexation underlying it. Tchigorsky was a foeman worthy of her steel.

"That you propose to do?" she asked.

"A question you will pardon me for not answering," said Tchigorsky. "You have made your move and I have made mine. Whether I am going to do the thing, or whether I have done so, remains to be seen. Whether you dare risk my death now is a matter for you to decide. Check to your king."

Again the Princess smiled. She looked searchingly into Tchigorsky's face, as if she would fain read his very soul. But she saw nothing there but the dull eyes of a man who keeps his feelings behind a mask. Then, with a flirt of her fan and a more or less mocking curtsey, she turned to go.

"You are a fine antagonist," she said; "but I do not admit yet that you are a check to my king. I shall find a way. Good-night!"

She turned and plunged into the glittering crowd, and was seen no more. A strange fit of trembling came over Ravenspur as Tchigorsky led him out.

"That woman stifles me," he said. "If she had only guessed who had been seated so near to her! Tchigorsky, you played your cards well."

Tchigorsky smiled.

"I was glad of that opportunity," he said. "She meant to have me murdered; but she will hesitate for a time. We have one great advantage – we know what we have to face and she does not. The men are on the board, the cards are on the table. It is you and I against Princess Zara and the two priests of the temple of Lassa. And we play for the lives of a good and innocent family."

"We do," Ralph said grimly. "But why – why does this fascinating Asiatic come all those miles to destroy one by one a race that she can scarcely have heard of? Why does she do it, Tchigorsky?"

"You have not guessed who the Princess is, then?"

Tchigorsky bent down and whispered three words in Ralph's ear. And not until Brant Street was reached had Ralph come back from his amazement to the land of speech.

The terror never lifted now from the old house. There were days and weeks when nothing happened, but the garrison did not permit itself to believe that the unseen enemy had abandoned the unequal contest.

The old people were prepared for the end which they believed to be inevitable. A settled melancholy was upon them, and it was only when they were together that anything like a sense of security prevailed. For the moment they were safe – there was always safety in numbers.

But when they parted for the night they parted as comrades on the eve of a bloody battle. They might meet again, but the chances were strong against it. For themselves they cared nothing; for the younger people, everything.

It was fortunate that the fine constitutions and strong nerves of Geoffrey and Vera and Marion kept them going. A really imaginative man or woman would have been driven mad by the awful suspense. But Geoffrey was bright and sunny; he always felt that the truth would come to light some day. And his buoyant, sanguine nature reacted on the others.