For an instant we stared into each other's eyes. When I could speak, I stammered a question—I don't know what, and I don't think he understood. But the spell broke.
"You heard?" he faltered.
"The cry? Yes. It was——"
"She's dead."
"Dead! You killed her?"
"My God, no! But if you think that, what will—others think?"
"If you had killed her, you couldn't be blamed," I tried to encourage him. "Only——"
"Didn't she make some threat to you? I hoped she had. She told me——"
"Yes, there was something—I hardly remember what. It was like drunkenness. She said—I think—that if you wouldn't take her back, you'd be arrested—as her murderer."
"That was it—her ultimatum. She must have been mad. I offered a big allowance, if she'd go away and not make a scandal. I'd have to give up Shelagh, of course, but I wanted to save my poor little love from gossip. That devil would have no compromise. It should be all or nothing. I must swear to acknowledge her as my wife on board this yacht—to-morrow morning—before Shelagh—before you all. If I wouldn't promise that, she'd kill herself at once, in a way to throw the guilt on me. She'd do it so that I couldn't clear myself or be cleared. I wouldn't promise, of course. I hoped, anyhow, that she was bluffing. But I didn't know her! When nothing would change me, she showed a tiny phial she had in her hand, and said she'd drink the stuff in it before I could touch her. It was prussic acid, she told me—and already she'd poured enough to kill ten men into a tumbler she'd stolen from my cabin on purpose. She'd mixed the poison with brandy from the storeroom. Even if I threw the tumbler through the porthole, mine would be missing. There's one to match each room, you see. A small detail, but important.