“My boy,” he said, “I am sorry for you.  My course is clear.  If you will go with one of my men—­”

It was at this point that the door of the inspector’s room opened and Colonel Hughes, cool and smiling, walked in.  Bray chuckled at sight of the military man.

“Ah, colonel,” he cried, “you make a good entrance!  This morning, when I discovered that I had the honor of having you associated with me in the search for the captain’s murderer, you were foolish enough to make a little wager—­”

“I remember,” Hughes answered.  “A scarab pin against—­a Homburg hat.”

“Precisely,” said 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.