"It is pure surmise, Sir Hilary. Its chief merit is that it fits the facts. Of course, Lady Eileen may be the murderess after all. I am only working out an alternative. To carry it on a bit further. When Lady Eileen came, Ivan showed her up to the room. No one answered his knock. She went in and shut the door after her. It is my idea that there was no one in there when she discovered the dead man. She was dumbfounded at first, and probably the body being in the shade did not permit her to see the face clearly. She placed her hand on the hilt of the dagger, intending to withdraw it, but could not bring herself to use the necessary force."
"Why didn't she call out?" demanded Thornton. "It seems to me——"
"There is no accounting for actions arising out of sudden emotions. Lady Eileen Meredith is as extraordinary a woman in her way as the Princess Petrovska in hers. She had found a man murdered in her lover's study—and she may have had a shrewd idea of the reason why she was summoned there. You follow me? Probably as she stood there, hesitating what to do, Grell returned. I think it likely that he stood by the door, took in the situation quietly, and stole away with the impression that she had killed Goldenburg. If she was bending over the dead man, that was what he might naturally think.
"It is likely that he would make up his mind in an instant. To him the fact that she had raised no outcry would be significant of her guilt. She, let us suppose,
stole away, having made no attempt to examine the body closely and not daring to summon any one, for fear that Grell should prove to be the murderer. He watched her go, already determined to destroy the scent by taking the blame on his own shoulders.
"By the time she reached her own home reflection had shown her that there was one possible chance that Grell might not be guilty. She rang up the St. Jermyn's Club and asked for him. Fairfield answered, declaring that his friend was in the club, but busy—too busy to talk to the girl he was to marry next day, mark you. It is idle to suppose that she did not appreciate the excuse as a flimsy one—one manufactured perhaps for the purpose of an alibi. She must have gone to bed filled with foreboding.
"All this is hypothesis. I am supposing that she never closely inspected the features of the dead man. The next morning she is informed that Grell was the victim. At once the lie that Fairfield told her assumed a new aspect. She denounced him as the murderer. She dared not say that she was the first to discover the body, for that would have meant revealing that she knew he was being blackmailed.
"Then the Princess Petrovska paid her a visit and told her that Grell was not dead but in hiding. There was nothing for it, in default of any explanation, but to revert to the thought that he was the murderer. She went to extreme lengths to help him—even to forgery. She believes him guilty still; he believes her guilty."
"But Petrovska?" objected Thornton.
"I was coming to that. She is a clever woman. When Grell got in touch with her the following day she may