“I didn’t touch her,” gasped Mrs. Octagon, trembling.

“No, but Emilia Saul did, and you condoned the crime.”

“I deny everything!  Go and get a policeman if you like.”

Cuthbert walked to the door and there turned.  “The statement of Emilia will make pleasant reading in court,” he said.

Mrs. Octagon bounded after him and pulled him back by the coat-tails into the centre of the room.  Then she locked the door and sat down.  “We won’t be disturbed,” she said, wiping her face upon which the perspiration stood, “what do you know?”

“Everything, even to that letter you wrote to my uncle, stating he should see the pretended Selina Loach.”

This was a chance shot on Mallow’s part, but it told, for he saw her face change.  In fact, Mrs. Octagon was the only woman who could have sent the letter.  She did not attempt to deny it.  “I sent that letter, as I was weary of that woman’s tyranny.  I thought it would get her into trouble.”

“She would have got you into trouble also.  Suppose she had lived and had told the story of Selina’s death.”

“She would have put the rope round her own neck,” said Mrs. Octagon in a hollow tone, all her theatrical airs gone.  “I was a fool to wait so long.  For twenty years that woman has held me under her thumb.  It was Emilia that made me consent to your engagement to Juliet.  Otherwise,” she added malevolently, “I should have died rather than have consented.  Oh,” she shook her hands in the air, “how I hate you and your uncle and the whole of the Mallows.”

“A woman scorned, I see,” said Cuthbert, rather cruelly, “well, you must be aware that I know everything.”

“You don’t know who killed Emilia?”

“Maraquito said it was you.”

“I” shrieked Mrs. Octagon, “how dare she?  But that she is dead, as Juliet told me, I would have her up for libel.  Maraquito herself killed the woman.  I am sure of it.  That coining factory—­”

“Did you know of its existence?”

“No, I didn’t,” snapped Mrs. Octagon.  “I knew nothing of Emilia’s criminal doings.  I let her bear the name of my sister—­”

“Why?” asked Mallow, quickly, and not knowing what Maraquito had said to Caranby.

“I don’t know,” replied Mrs. Octagon, sullenly, “Emilia was in some trouble with the law.  Her brother and mother were afterwards arrested for coining.  She might have been arrested also, but that I agreed to hold my tongue.  Emilia pushed Selina off the plank.  Then she turned and accused me.  As it was known that I was on bad terms with Selina, I might have been accused of the crime, and Emilia would have sworn the rope round my neck.  Emilia made me help her to change the dress, and said that as the face of the dead was disfigured, and she was rather like Selina—­which she certainly was, she could arrange.  I did not know how she intended to blind my father.  But my father died unexpectedly.  Had he not done so, the deception could not have been kept up.  As it was, I went to the inquest, and Emilia as Selina pretended to be ill.  I saw after her and we had a strange doctor.  Then we went abroad, and she came back to shut herself up in Rose Cottage.  I tried to marry Caranby, but Emilia stopped that.”