d 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 towar