She laughed, a nervous, unmirthful laugh.
"But there only remains Mr. Osborne," she protested.
"There is one other, the murderess," he said. Even while she gazed at him in wonder he had come quite near. His right hand shot out and grasped her arm.
"I arrest you, Hylda Prout," he said. "I charge you with the murder of Mirabel Furneaux, otherwise known as Rose de Bercy, at Feldisham Mansions, on the night of July 3d."
She looked at him in a panic to which she tried vainly to give a semblance of incredulity. Even in that moment of terror a new thought throbbed in her dazed brain.
"Mirabel Furneaux!" she managed to gasp.
"Yes, my wife. You committed a needless crime, Hylda Prout. She had never done, nor ever could have done, you any injury. But it is my duty to warn you that everything you now say will be taken down in writing, and may be used in evidence against you."
She tried to wrest herself free, but his fingers clung to her like a steel trap. Winter, too, approached, as if to show the folly of resistance.
"Let go my arm!" she shrieked, and her eyes blazed redly though the color had fled from her cheeks.