“I am,” said Bray.
“And a man—I can see that,” she went on, her flashing angrily at Hughes. “I appeal to you to protect me from the brutal questioning of this—this fiend.”
“You are hardly complimentary, Countess,” Hughes smiled. “But I am willing to forgive you if you will tell the inspector the story that you have recently related to me.”
The woman shut her lips tightly and for a long moment gazed into the eyes of Inspector Bray.
“He”—she said at last, nodding in the direction of Colonel Hughes—“he got it out of me—how, I don’t know.”
“Got what out of you?” Bray’s little eyes were blinking.
“At six-thirty o’clock last Thursday evening,” said the woman, “I went to the rooms of Captain Fraser-Freer, in Adelphi Terrace. An argument arose. I seized from his table an Indian dagger that was lying there—I stabbed him just above the heart!”
In that room in Scotland Yard a tense silence fell. For the first time we were all conscious of a tiny clock on the inspector’s desk, for it ticked now with a loudness sudden and startling. I gazed at the faces about me. Bray’s showed a momentary surprise—then the mask fell again. Lieutenant Fraser-Freer was plainly amazed. On the face of Colonel Hughes I saw what struck me as an open sneer.
“Go on, Countess,” he smiled.
She shrugged her shoulders and turned toward him a disdainful back. Her eyes were all for Bray.