d 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--"

Her voice broke and she took out a handkerchief. Again that odor of
lilacs in the room.

"For a time I saw the captain often in London; and then I began to
notice a change. Back among his own kind, with the lonely days in
India a mere memory--he seemed no longer to--to care for me. Then--last
Thursday morning--he called on me to tell me that he was through; that
he would never see me again--in fact, that he was to marry a girl of his
own people who had been waiting--"

The woman looked piteously about at us.

"I was desperate," she pleaded. "I had given up all that life held
for me--given it up for a man who now looked at me coldly and spoke
of marrying another. Can you wonder that I went in the evening to his
rooms--went to plead with him--to beg, almost on my knees? It was no
use. He was done with me--he said that over and over. Overwhelmed with
blind rage and despair, I snatched up that knife from the table and
plunged it into his heart. At once I was filled with remorse. I--"

"One moment," broke in Hughes. "You may keep the details of your
subsequent actions until later. I should like to compliment you,
Countess. You tell it better each time."

He came over and faced Bray. I thought there was a distinct note of
hostility in his voice.

"Checkmate, Inspector!" he said. Bray made no reply. He sat there
staring up at the colonel, his face turned to stone.

"The scarab pin," went on Hughes, "is not yet forthcoming. We are tied
for honors, my friend. You have your confession, but I have one to match
it."

"All this is beyond me," snapped Bray.

"A bit beyond me, too," the colonel answered. "Here are two people who
wish us to believe that on the evening of Thursday last, at half after
six