This was the moment for which Major Carstairs had been waiting.
With a whispered word in Anstice's ear: "The light—quick!" he dashed aside the curtains and darted out into the room, while Anstice, hastily obeying orders, rushed to the wall and turned on the electric switch to such good purpose that the room sprang instantly into brilliant light.
There was a scream from the hooded figure in the middle of the floor—a scream of mingled anger, defiance and terror which rang in Anstice's ears for hours afterwards, and following the scream a mad, wild rush for the door—a blundering, stumbling rush in which the very garment, the long, loose cloak which was intended for a disguise, proved itself a handicap and effectually prevented its wearer making good her escape. By the time she had torn herself free of the encumbering folds which threatened to trip her up at every step Anstice had reached the door; and now he stood before it with something in his face which warned the panting creature in front of him that the way of escape was effectually barred.
Still hiding her face in the folds of her garment she turned round as though to rush towards the window and seek egress thereby; but facing her stood Major Carstairs, and the wretched culprit realized, too late, that she was trapped.
Yet as a cornered hare will turn and give battle, desperately, to her eager foes, the woman made a frantic rush as though to pass the avenging figure which stood in her path; and as she did so Major Carstairs moved forward and plucked the black hood with no gentle hand from the face it had so far partially concealed.
And as with wildly beating pulses Anstice bent forward to catch a glimpse of the mysterious visitor he knew that his surmise, unlikely as it had seemed, had been correct; that by a stroke of luck the expert, Clive, had been able to point unerringly to the clue which was to solve the mystery of those vile letters and restore to an innocent woman the fair name which had been so unjustly smirched.
For the hooded figure was none other than Tochatti.
"My God! Then it was you!" Major Carstairs' tone was so full of disgust, of loathing, of the just indignation of a righteously angry man that even Tochatti cowered in his grip; and as Anstice came forward the other man turned to him with an expression of wrath which quite transfigured his face. "Look at her, Anstice, the miserable, degraded creature! To think that she has been with my wife all these years—hanging over Cherry night and day—and all the time plotting this infamous thing ... by the way, where is that letter?"
He broke off suddenly and Anstice came a step nearer the two.