"What's that?" roared out the colonel furiously. "By the Lord Harry, do you dare to assert that I—I sir—killed the man?"
"No, I do not. And for the best of reasons. The assassin was shut up in that compartment with Lord Stavornell from the moment he left London Bridge; and I happen to know, Colonel, that although you were in town to-day, you never put foot aboard the 5.28 from the moment it started to the one in which it stopped. And at that final moment, Colonel," he reached round, took something from his pocket, and then held it out on the palm of his hand, "at that final moment, Colonel, you were passing the barrier at the Crystal Palace Low Level with a lady, whose ticket from London Bridge had never been clipped, and with this air-pistol, which she had restored to you, in your coat pocket!"
"W-w-what crazy nonsense is this, sir? I never saw the blessed thing in all my life."
"Oh, yes, Colonel. Loader, of Tottenham Court Road, repaired the valve for you the day before yesterday, and I found it in your room just—— Quick! nab him,
Petrie! Well played! After the king, the trump; after the confederate, the assassin! And so——" He sprang suddenly, like a jumping cat, and there was a click of steel, a shrill, despairing cry, then the rustle of something falling. When Captain Crawford and Lady Stavornell turned and looked, he was standing with both hands on his hips, looking frowningly down on the spot where the Hon. Mrs. Brinkworth lay, curled up in a limp, unconscious heap, with a pair of handcuffs locked on her folded wrists.
"I said that when the murderer was found, Mr. Narkom," he said as the superintendent moved toward him, "it would be no man you ever saw or ever heard of in all your life. I knew it was a woman from the bungling, unmanlike way that pistol was laid in the dead hand; the only question I had to answer was which woman—Fifi, Lady Stavornell, or this wretched little hypocrite. Here's your 'little dark man,' here's the assassin. The Norfolk suit and the false moustache are in her room at the hydro. She made Stavornell think that she, too, was going to the fancy ball, and that the surprise Fifi had planned was for her to meet him as she did and travel with him. When the train was under way she shot him. Why? Easily explained, my dear chap. His death made her little son heir to the estates. During his minority she would have the handling of the funds; with them she and her precious husband would have a gay life of it in their own selfish little way!"
"Her what? Lord, man, do you mean to say that she and the colonel——"
"Were privately married seven weeks ago, Mr. Narkom. The certificate of their union was tucked away in Colonel Murchison's private effects, where it was found this evening."
* * * * *
"How was the escape from the compartment managed after the murder was accomplished?" said Cleek, answer