"The game's up," he said."I have done all I could.This will kill my father, I am afraid.Ours has been an honorable name, Colonel; you know that - a long line of military men whose loyalty to their country has never before been in question.I thought my confession would and the whole nasty business, that the investigations would stop, and that I might be able to keep forever unknown this horrible thing about him - about my brother."Colonel Hughes laid his hand on the boy's shoulder, and the latter went on: "They reached me - those frightful insinuations about Stephen - in a round about way; and when he came home from India Iresolved to watch him.I saw him go often to the house of this woman.I satisfied myself that she was the same one involved in the stories coming from Rangoon; then, under another name, I managed to meet her.I hinted to her that I myself was none too loyal; not completely, but to a limited extent, I won her confidence.Gradually I became convinced that my brother was indeed disloyal to his country, to his name, to us all.It was at that tea time you have mentioned when I finally made up my mind.I had already bought a revolver; and, with it in my pocket, I went to the Savoy for dinner."He rose and paced the floor.
"I left the Savoy early and went to Stephen's rooms.I was resolved to have it out with him, to put the matter to him bluntly; and if he had no explanation to give me I intended to kill him then and there.
So, you see, I was guilty in intention if not in reality.I entered his study.It was filled with strangers.On his sofa I saw my brother Stephen lying - stabbed above the heart - dead!" There was a moment's silence."That is all," said Lieutenant Fraser-Freer.
"I take it," said Hughes kindly, "that we have finished with the lieutenant.Eh, Inspector?"Yes," said Bray shortly."You may go."
"Thank you," the boy answered.As he went out he said brokenly to Hughes: "I must find him - my father."Bray sat in his chair, staring hard ahead, his jaw thrust out angrily.Suddenly he turned on Hughes.
"You don't play fair," he said."I wasn't told anything of the status of the captain at the War Office.This is all news to me.""Very well," smiled Hughes."The bet is off if you like.""No, by heaven!" Bray cried."It's still on, and I'll win it yet.
A fine morning's work I suppose you think you've done.But are we any nearer to finding the murderer? Tell me that.""Only a bit nearer, at any rate," replied Hughes suavely."This lady, of Course, remains in custody.""Yes, yes," answered the inspector."Take her away!" he ordered.
A constable came forward for the countess and Colonel Hughes gallantly held open the door.
"You will have an opportunity, Sophie," he said, "to think up another story.You are clever - it will not he hard."She gave him a black look and went out.Bray got up from his desk.
He and Colonel Hughes stood facing each other across a table, and to me there was something in the manner of each that suggested eternal conflict.
"Well?" sneered Bray.
"There is one possibility we have overlooked," Hughes answered.
He turned toward me and I was startled by the coldness in his eyes.
"Do you know, Inspector," he went on, "that this American came to London with a letter of introduction to the captain - a letter from the captain's cousin, one Archibald Enwright? And do you know that Fraser-Freer had no cousin of that name?""No!" said Bray.
"It happens to be the truth," said Hughes."The American has confessed as much to me.""Then," said Bray to me, and his little blinking eyes were on me with a narrow calculating glance that sent the shivers up and down my spine, "you are under arrest.I have exempted you so far because of your friend at the United States Consulate.That exemption ends now."I was thunderstruck.I turned to the colonel, the man who had suggested that I seek him out if I needed a friend - the man I had looked to to save me from just such a contingency as this.But his eyes were quite fishy and unsympathetic.
"Quite correct, Inspector," he said."Lock him up!" And as I began to protest he passed very close to me and spoke in a low voice: "Say nothing.Wait!"I pleaded to be allowed to go back to my rooms, to communicate with my friends, and pay a visit to our consulate and to the Embassy; and at the colonel's suggestion Bray agreed to this somewhat irregular course.So this afternoon I have been abroad with a constable, and while I wrote this long letter to you he has been fidgeting in my easy chair.Now he informs me that his patience is exhausted and that I must go at once.So there is no time to wonder; no time to speculate as to the future, as to the colonel's sudden turn against me or the promise of his whisper in my ear.I shall, no doubt, spend the night behind those hideous, forbidding walls that your guide has pointed out to you as New Scotland Yard.And when Ishall write again, when I shall end this series of letters so filled with -The constable will not wait.He is as impatient as a child.
Surely he is lying when he says I have kept him here an hour.
Wherever I am, dear lady, whatever be the end of this amazing tangle, you may be sure the thought of you - Confound the man!
YOURS, IN DURANCE VILE.
This fifth letter from the young man of the Agony Column arrived at the Carlton Hotel, as the reader may recall, on Monday morning, August the third.And it represented to the girl from Texas the climax of the excitement she had experienced in the matter of the murder in Adelphi Terrace.The news that her pleasant young friend - whom she did not know - had been arrested as a suspect in the case, inevitable as it had seemed for days, came none the less as an unhappy shock.She wondered whether there was anything she could do to help.She even considered going to Scotland Yard and, on the ground that her father was a Congressman from Texas, demanding the immediate release of her strawberry man.Sensibly, however, she decided that Congressmen from Texas meant little in the life of the London police.Besides, she night have difficulty in explaining to that same Congressman how she happened to know all about a crime that was as yet unmentioned in the newspapers.
So she reread the latter portion of the fifth letter, which pictured her hero marched off ingloriously to Scotland Yard and with a worried little sigh, went below to join her father.
