"Hedley, you are talking rubbish," Brott said. "Up here you would see things with different eyes. Letheringham is pledged."
"If any man ever earned hell," Hedley continued, "it is you, Brott, you who came to us a deliverer, and turned out to be a lying prophet. 'Hell,'" he repeated fiercely, "and may you find it swiftly."
The man's right hand came out of his long pocket. They were in the thick of Piccadilly, but his action was too swift for any interference. Four reports rang suddenly out, and the muzzle of the revolver was held deliberately within an inch or so of Brett's heart. And before even the nearest of the bystanders could realise what had happened Brott lay across the pavement a dead man, and Hedley was calmly handing over the revolver to a policeman who had sprang across the street.
"Be careful, officer," he said, "there are still two chambers loaded. I will come with you quite quietly. That is Mr. Reginald Brott, the Cabinet Minister, and I have killed him."
"For once," Lady Carey said, with a faint smile, "your 'admirable Crichton' has failed you."
Lucille opened her eyes. She had been leaning back amongst the railway cushions.
"I think not," she said. "Only I blame myself that I ever trusted the Prince even so far as to give him that message. For I know very well that if Victor had received it he would have been here."
Lady Carey took up a great pile of papers and looked them carelessly through.
"I am afraid," she said, "that I do not agree with you. I do not think that Saxe Leinitzer had any desire except to see you safely away. I believe that he will be quite as disappointed as you are that your husband is not here to aid you. Some one must see you safely on the steamer at Havre. Perhaps he will come himself."
"I shall wait in Paris," Lucille said quietly, "for my husband."
"You may wait," Lady Carey said, "for a very long time."
Lucille looked at her steadily. "What do you mean?"
"What a fool you are, Lucille. If to other people it seems almost certain on the face of it that you were responsible for that drop of poison in your husband's liqueur glass, why should it not seem so to himself?"
Lucille laughed, but there was a look of horror in her dark eyes.
"How absurd. I know Victor better than to believe him capable of such a suspicion. Just as he knows me better than to believe me capable of such an act."