"Look here!" snarled the man with the broken wrist, as he clasped it with his other hand, "aren't you—" he started back as a last flicker of the waning light fell across the colonel's face. "Who in the name of all the devils in hades are you?" he cried. "What right have you—"
"The right of the law," was the quiet answer. The colonel's hand slipped into his pocket, where something metallic clicked. "The right of the law. Langford Larch, I arrest you for the murder of Mrs. Amelia Darcy!"
It was so still for a moment that the rustle of a bird's wings in the tree overhead sounded like the rushing of wind. Colonel Ashley, drawing something from his pocket, took a step nearer the maimed man. As he did so Larch laughed wildly.
"Ah, so that's the game, is it?" he cried. "You have betrayed me,
Cynthia, you she-devil! You put up this little game with your lover
Grafton, did you? Well you—"
"Langford, I never—!"
"Bah! Well, I'll fool you all! Arrest me for murdering the old woman, will you? Like hell you will!"
He stepped back a pace, Colonel Ashley following.
"Keep back!" cried Larch. "If you touch me—! I'm not afraid of you. Yes, I did kill her! I didn't mean to, but I did. The game's up! I can see that. But you'll never get me to the chair. I'll fool you all! I'm not afraid to die!"
Before the colonel or Aaron Grafton, who just then burst through the bushes fringing the path, could make a move to prevent him, Langford Larch, with a cry like that of a stricken beast, threw himself over the edge of the rocky precipice, and his body went crashing down a hundred feet into the swirling waters below.