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Page 26
"Ah, colonel," he cried, "you make a good entrance! This morning,
when I discovered that I had the honor of having you associated
with me in the search for the captain's murderer, you were foolish
enough to make a little wager--"
"I remember," Hughes answered. "A scarab pin against--a Homburg
hat."
"Precisely," said Bray. "You wagered that you, and not I, would
discover the guilty man. Well, Colonel, you owe me a scarab.
Lieutenant Norman Fraser-Freer has just told me that he killed his
brother, and I was on the point of taking down his full confession."
"Indeed!" replied Hughes calmly. "Interesting--most interesting!
But before we consider the wager lost--before you force the
lieutenant to confess in full--I should like the floor."
"Certainly," smiled Bray.
"When you were kind enough to let me have two of your men this
morning," said Hughes, "I told you I contemplated the arrest of a
lady. I have brought that lady to Scotland Yard with me." He
stepped to the door, opened it and beckoned. A tall, blonde
handsome woman of about thirty-five entered; and instantly to my
nostrils came the pronounced odor of lilacs. "Allow me, Inspector,"
went on the colonel, "to introduce to you the Countess Sophie de
Graf, late of Berlin, late of Delhi and Rangoon, now of 17 Leitrim
Grove, Battersea Park Road."
The woman faced Bray; and there was a terrified, hunted look in
her eyes.
"You are the inspector?" she asked.
"I am," said Bray.
"And a man--I can see that," she went on, her flashing angrily at
Hughes. "I appeal to you to protect me from the brutal questioning
of this--this fiend."
"You are hardly complimentary, Countess," Hughes smiled. "But I
am willing to forgive you if you will tell the inspector the story
that you have recently related to me."
The woman shut her lips tightly and for a long moment gazed into
the eyes of Inspector Bray.
"He"--she said at last, nodding in the direction of Colonel Hughes
--"he got it out of me--how, I don't know."
"Got what out of you?" Bray's little eyes were blinking.
"At six-thirty o'clock last Thursday evening," said the woman, "I
went to the rooms of Captain Fraser-Freer, in Adelphi Terrace. An
argument arose. I seized from his table an Indian dagger that was
lying there--I stabbed him just above the heart!"
In that room in Scotland Yard a tense silence fell. For the first
time we were all conscious of a tiny clock on the inspector's desk,
for it ticked now with a loudness sudden and startling. I gazed
at the faces about me. Bray's showed a momentary surprise--then
the mask fell again. Lieutenant Fraser-Freer was plainly amazed.
On the face of Colonel Hughes I saw what struck me as an open sneer.
"Go on, Countess," he smiled.
She shrugged her shoulders and turned toward him a disdainful back.
Her eyes were all for Bray.
"It's very brief, the story," she said hastily--I thought almost
apologetically. "I had known the captain in Rangoon. My husband
was in business there--an exporter of rice--and Captain
Fraser-Freer came often to our house. We--he was a charming man,
the captain--"
"Go on!" ordered Hughes.
"We fell desperately in love," said the countess. "When he returned
to England, though supposedly on a furlough, he told me he would
never return to Rangoon. He expected a transfer to Egypt. So it
was arranged that I should desert my husband and follow on the next
boat. I did so--believing in the captain--thinking he really
cared for me--I gave up everything for him. And then--"
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