“There was no body in the coffin,” Roger said.
“Empty?” I gasped.
“Not empty. No. There was something there. Will you come to my cabin and see what it was? Don't look terrified. There's nothing to frighten you. And, princess, the rest of the plan you gave me has been carried out. Thanks to your woman's wit, I believe that my future and Shelagh's is clear. And, before Heaven, my conscience is clear, too.”
“Oh, Roger, it's thanks to your own courage more than to me. Is—is all safe?”
“The coffin isn't empty now. It is fastened up just as it was. The broken rope is round it again. It's covered with the tarpaulin as before. No one outside the secret would guess it had been disturbed. I owe more than my life—l owe my very soul to you. For I haven't much fear of what may come at St. Heliers to-morrow or after.”
“Nor I. Oh, I am thankful for Shelagh's sake even more than yours, if possible. Her heart would have broken. Now she need never know.”
“She must know and choose. I shall tell her everything I did. Only I need not bring you into it.”
“If you tell her about yourself, you must tell her about me,” I said. “I'd like to be with you when you speak to her—if you think you must speak.”
“I'm sure I must. If all goes well to-morrow, she can marry me without fear of scandal, if she's willing to marry me after what I've done to-night.”
“She will be. And she shall hear from me that this woman who killed herself and our spy of the Abbey were one. As for to-morrow—all must go well! But the thing you found in the coffin? You'll have to dispose of it somehow.”
“It's for you to decide about that, I think.”
“For me? What can it have to do with me?”
“You'll see, in my cabin. If you'll trust me and come.”
I went with him, my heart pounding as I entered the room. It seemed as if some visible trace of tragedy must remain, But there was nothing. All was in order. The brandy bottle had disappeared into the sea, no doubt. The tumbler so cleverly taken from this cabin was clean and in its place. There were no bits of broken glass from the vial to. be seen. And the odor of bitter almonds, with which the place had reeked, was no longer very strong. The salt breeze blowing through two wide-open portholes would kill it before dawn.
“But where is the thing?” I asked.
“In the study,” Roger answered. He motioned me to pass through the curtained archway, as I had passed before, and there I had to cover my lips with my hand to press back a cry. The desk, the big chair I had sat in, and a sofa were covered with objects as familiar to me as my own face in a looking-glass. There were Queen Anne's silver tea service and Napoleon's green-and-gold coffee cups; there were Li Hung Chang's box of red lacquer and the wondrous ; there were the snuff boxes, the miniatures, the buckles and brooches, the fat watch of George the Fourth; half unrolled lay Charles the First's portrait and sketch and the Gobelin panel which had been the Empress Josephine's. In fact, all the treasures that had been stolen from Courtenaye Abbey! Here they were in Roger Fane's cabin on board the Naiad; and they had come out of a coffin found floating in the sea.
When I could think at all, I tried to think the puzzle out, and I tried to do it alone, for Roger was in no state to bend his mind to trifles. But, in his almost-pathetic gratitude, he wished to help me; and when we had locked up the things in three drawers of his desk, we sat together discussing theories, Something must be thought out, something settled, before day!
It was Roger who unfolded the whole affair before my eyes, unfolded it so clearly that I could not doubt he was right. My trust—every one's trust, in fact—in the Barlows had been misplaced. They were the guilty ones! If they had not organized the plot, they had helped to carry it through, as no one else could have carried it through.