“The scarab pin,” went on Hughes, “is not yet forthcoming. We are tied for honors, my friend. You have your confession, but I have one to match it.”
“All this is beyond me,” snapped Bray.
“A bit beyond me, too,” the colonel answered. “Here are two people who wish us to believe that on the evening of Thursday last, at half after six of the clock, each sought out Captain Fraser-Freer in his rooms and murdered him.”
He walked to the window and then wheeled dramatically.
“The strangest part of it all is,” he added, “that at six-thirty o’clock last Thursday evening, at an obscure restaurant in Soho—Frigacci’s—these two people were having tea together!”
I must admit that, as the colonel calmly offered this information, I suddenly went limp all over at a realization of the endless maze of mystery in which we were involved. The woman gave a little cry and Lieutenant Fraser-Freer leaped to his feet.
“How the devil do you know that?” he cried.
“I know it,” said Colonel Hughes, “because one of my men happened to be having tea at a table near by. He happened to be having tea there for the reason that ever since the arrival of this lady in London, at the request of—er—friends in India, I have been keeping track of her every move; just as I kept watch over your late brother, the captain.”
Without a word Lieutenant Fraser-Freer dropped into a chair and buried his face in his hands.
“I’m sorry, my son,” said Hughes. “Really, I am. You made a heroic effort to keep the facts from coming out—a man’s-size effort it was. But the War Office knew long before you did that your brother had succumbed to this woman’s lure—that he was serving her and Berlin, and not his own country, England.”