"Suspicion pointed to so many people—even including yourself, Lady Brenton," he added with an odd little smile at the lady's start of surprise.
"Would it astonish you very much to know that you yourself were really in Cheyne Court on the nights of both murders?"
A little gasp of amazement came from the listeners and Lady Brenton looked up with blanched face and dilated eyes.
"Impossible!" she cried in quivering tones.
"No, you were the lady in the scarlet satin cloak," said Cleek.
"Dear," said Ailsa, interposing suddenly as Lady Brenton's pale face flamed with an angry colour, "it is all right. I understand now, you were walking in your sleep, and you took my scarlet opera-cloak—the one we had had such a talk over; don't you remember? When you commenced to worry over Sir Edgar and poor Miss Cheyne, you just wandered out in your sleep and visited the spot in the working out of your dreams."
"I saw you, Mother," said Sir Edgar with an emphatic nod of the head, as the good lady stared first at one face and then another in her amazement at this turn of events, "and it brought us both under suspicion."
"It certainly brought you under suspicion, Dr. Verrall," said Cleek, suddenly, "for what with your footsteps in the lane, and the fact that the prussic acid bottle had been tampered with in Dr. Wynne's surgery! But that's over and done with now, thank goodness, and I don't imagine that there is any more to tell. But if I am not mistaken, there's a shower of congratulations to be presented to both you and Sir Edgar, eh? Well, send me an invitation to the wedding, Doctor, and I'll come no matter what happens, just to see Miss Jennifer in bridal white with that look in her eyes."
Then Cleek's eyes turned to Lady Margaret and Sir Edgar, who were sitting with hands frankly clasped as though there were no one but themselves in the whole universe.
Cleek nodded at Lady Brenton.