"On the strength of a story related by a friend of yours, who----"
"I knew it," interrupted Brendon, starting up and beginning to pace the room. "That was why she asked Leonard Train to dinner."
"That's the man," said Bawdsey, coolly. "He occupied these rooms, I believe, and on the night of the murder you stopped with him."
"I did. In yonder bedroom. So he betrayed me?"
"My dear sir, I don't think he could help himself. Mrs. Ward is as clever as the devil, and as unscrupulous. She got out of him that you had been in the sitting-room of Mrs. Jersey at midnight."
"That is untrue----" began George, violently, when Bawdsey stopped him.
"So it is, to Mrs. Ward, to Lord Derrington, and to the public. But so far as I am concerned, Mr. Brendon, it is a fact. You were in Mrs. Jersey's room about the time she was murdered."
"How can you prove that?" asked George, quickly and very pale.
"Oh, I can prove it easily enough, and I will soon. But confess."
"That I killed the woman? No, I never laid a finger on her."