Spencer hesitated, but only for a moment.
"Certainly," he said. "I came because I knew that Mr. Fielding was half-way to America, and his daughter in Russia. Some friends of mine were curious to know who your guests could be."
Pelham raised his head.
"You lied to me then!" he exclaimed.
"I had as much right to lie to you," Spencer answered calmly, "as you had to ask me questions. I had——"
He stopped short in the middle of his sentence. The faces of the three men were a study in varying expressions. From some other part of the house there came to them the sound of a woman's sudden cry of terror—the cry of a woman who had awakened suddenly to look into the face of death. Duncombe's uplifted glass fell with a crash upon the table. The red wine trickled across the table-cloth.