“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.
“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.
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--”
“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--”