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.
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