“Bless me, so it did.  I expect, enraged by the factory being discovered, Maraquito wished to revenge herself on your uncle.  She may have thought that he gave information to Jennings about the place.”

“She might have thought so,” said Mallow.  “I am returning to the Avon Hotel.  If you want to see me you can send for me there.  But Jennings knows everything.”

“What about his lordship?”

“He will die,” said Cuthbert abruptly, and departed, leaving the inspector full of regrets that Maraquito had not lived to figure in the police court.  He looked at the matter purely from a professional standpoint, and would have liked the sensation such an affair would have caused.

When Mallow came back to the hotel he found that his uncle had recovered consciousness and was asking for him.  Yeo would not allow his patient to talk much, so Cuthbert sat by the bedside holding the hand of the dying man.  Caranby had been badly burnt about the temples, and the sight of one eye was completely gone.  Occasionally Yeo gave him a reviving cordial which made him feel better.  Towards evening Caranby expressed a wish to talk.  The doctor would have prevented him, but the dying man disregarded these orders.

“I must talk,” he whispered faintly.  “Cuthbert, get a sheet of paper.”

“But you have made your will,” said Yeo, rebukingly.

“This is not a will.  It is a confession.  Cuthbert will write it out and you will witness my signature along with him, Yeo.”

“A confession!” murmured Cuthbert, going out of the room to get pen, ink and paper.  “What about?”

He soon knew, for when he was established by the side of the bed with his writing materials on a small table, Caranby laughed to himself quietly.  “Do you know what I am about to say?” he gasped.

“No.  If it is nothing important you had better not exhaust yourself.”

“It is most important, as you will hear.  I know who murdered the supposed Miss Loach.”

Cuthbert nearly dropped the pen.  “Who was it?” he asked, expecting to hear the name of Mrs. Octagon.

“I did!” said Caranby, quietly.

“You!—­that’s impossible.”

“Unfortunately it is true.  It was an accident, though.  Yeo, give me more drink; I must tell everything.”

Yeo was quite calm.  He had known Caranby for many years, and was not at all disposed to shrink from him because he confessed to having committed a murder.  He knew that the Earl was a kind-hearted man and had been shamefully treated by three women.  In fact, he was secretly glad to hear that Emilia Saul had met her death at the hand of a man she had injured.  But he kept these sentiments to himself, and after giving his patient a strong tonic to revive his energies, he sat by the bedside with his fingers on the pulse of the dying man.  Caranby rallied considerably, and when he began his recital spoke in stronger tones.