Miss Loach also?" interrupted Jennings, casting a glance
over his shoulder to make sure that the clerk was noting all this.

Hale laughed weakly.

"No!" he said. "I fancied you would ask that. I tell you honestly
that none of us know who killed her."

"That's rubbish. You do know."

"I swear I don't. Neither does Maraquito. You haven't caught her yet
and you never will. I'm not going to split on the pals I have left,
Jennings. You have nabbed some, but there are others, and other
factories also. I won't tell you about those."

"Clancy is captured--he will."

"Don't you make any mistake. Clancy is not the fool he looks. He has
the cleverest head of the lot of us. But I'd better get on with my
confession, though it won't do you much good."

"So long as you say who killed Miss Loach--"

"Miss Loach," sneered Hale, "why not Emilia Saul?"

Jennings was almost too surprised to speak. "Do you mean to say--"

"Yes, I do. All the time you and Miss Saxon and that idiot of a
brother thought she was Selina Loach. She wasn't, but she was very
like her. Emilia met Selina in the house that is now burnt and pushed
her off the plank. The face was disfigured and Selina was buried as
Emilia."

"Then Mrs. Octagon must know--"

"She knows a good deal. You'd better ask her for details. Give me a
sup of brandy, doctor. Yes," went on Hale, when he felt better, "I
laughed in my sleeve when I thought how Emilia tricked you all. She
was Maraquito's aunt. Her name--"

"Maraquito's name is Bathsheba Saul."

"Yes. I expect Caranby told you that. He was too clever, that old
man. I was always afraid that he would find out about the factory. A
long while ago I wished Maraquito to give up the business and marry me.
Then we would have gone to South America and have lived in peace on no
end of money. Emilia left six thousand a year, so you may guess that
Maraquito and I made money also. But she was in love with Mallow, and
would not come away. I feared Caranby should take it into his head to
search the house--"

"Was that why you had it burnt?"

"No. Tyke did that out of revenge, because Maraquito marked him with a
knife. Do you think I would have been such a fool as to burn the
house. Why, Caranby would have probably let out the land, and
foundations would have been dug for new villas, when our plant would
have been discovered."

"Who are you, Hale?"

"Who do you think?" asked the dying man, chuckling.