"Is this true?" Morgan asked the little widow, whose gaiety was all gone, and who suddenly looked twice her age.
"It is not true! It is not true!" she cried. "Mother and I were at Belldown. We went on to see Major Rebb at Denleigh."
"Hush, you fool!" muttered Mrs. Berch, shaking her.
"You never came near me there!" cried Rebb, and then became aware that, on the impulse of the moment, he had ruined the widow. In a paroxysm of shame and terror, for the man did love the miserable woman, he added: "Mrs. Crosbie is innocent. I swear she is. I know who is guilty."
"You?" everyone cried out, Inspector Morgan loudest of all. The scene was beyond his comprehension, and he was on the verge of an apoplectic fit. The whole scene was melodramatic and unreal, and, on the stage, or when written in a book, would have been described so by critics.
"Who is guilty?" demanded Morgan fiercely.
"Geary--Adonis Geary," said Rebb. "The knife was his, and I found him in the grounds when I arrived."
There was a savage shout before he could finish, and Geary sprang from behind the ruined river wall. He had been concealed there, and had heard everything: but he did not appear until his adored master accused him of the crime. Then terror and rage made him leap forward, half mad and half drunk. "You say one big lie, sah!" he shouted, with rolling eyes, and a thick voice. "I lubbed you once, but now you would kill me with a lie. I tell who did kill dat poor Bellaria."
"Who killed her?" asked Gerald, for Morgan was too bewildered to ask.
Geary looked slowly round, and pointed to Mrs. Berch.