Chapter 55

man's face."

Her voice died away and she looked a little hesitatingly at the superintendent. He nodded encouragingly.

"Don't be afraid, Lady Eileen. You had found a dead man in Mr. Grell's house--a man whom you suspected of blackmailing your fiancé. You not unnaturally thought that he had been killed by Mr. Grell."

"Yes." She was speaking in a lower key now. "I feared that Mr. Grell in an excess of passion had killed him. What was I to think?" She made a gesture of helplessness with her hands. "My brain was in a whirl, but I seemed to see things clearly enough. I dared not raise an alarm, for I recognised that my evidence as far as it went would be deadly agamst the man I loved. I laid my hand on the dagger to withdraw it, but at that moment I heard the door behind me open and close quickly. I turned, but not sharply enough to see who the intruder was.

"Then the idea came to me that I must get quietly out of the place. So far as I knew I was the only person who could guess that Mr. Grell had been blackmailed and so supply a motive for the crime. I slipped downstairs and went home. You will understand my state of mind. At about eleven o'clock I thought of a possible chance of speaking to Mr. Grell. I rang up his club. Sir Ralph Fairfield answered. He assured me that Mr. Grell had been there all the evening, but was too busy to speak to me. I was unspeakably relieved.

"Then in the morning, he, Sir Ralph Fairfield, came to see me. I partly guessed his mission, but the full shock came when he told me that it was Mr. Grell who was murdered. I think I must have been mad at the time. I said nothing about my own discovery--if Mr. Grell had been blackmailed, I did not want any details to come out. Besides, it seemed obvious to me that Fairfield had said Grell was at the club in order to shield himself." She flushed slightly. "I knew Sir Ralph loved me. I thought he was guilty and--and denounced him.

"I continued to believe that until the Princess Petrovska came to me with a note from Mr. Grell bidding me trust her. I gave her my jewels, and she told me he could communicate with me by cipher. I returned to my first idea that he had killed Goldenburg--the Princess told me the murdered man's name--rather than submit to blackmail. I determined to do all I could to help him, for, murderer or not, I loved him--I loved him. You know how our attempt to communicate by cipher failed.

"A day or two ago he sent me a note--a mysterious note--saying we were both in danger. I could not understand that part of it, but it was clear he wanted money. I could not get it except by putting my father's name to a cheque. You know all about that. I took a taxicab and arranged to meet him at Putney."

"You went to the General Post Office before that," interposed Foyle.

"Yes, I wanted to order a motor-car to meet us at Kingston. I thought it safer to do it from a public-call office so as to leave as little trace as possible. I picked Mr. Grell up at Putney, and gave him the money. Neither of us referred directly to the murder during the journey. He told me that he was making for his place in Sussex, and should there make a plan for getting out of the country. He argued that the less I knew of details the better."

"A reasonable feeling, under the circumstances," murmured Foyle. And then, with a smile, "Your finger-prints on the dagger have been partly responsible for a lot of bother, Lady Eileen. If you had followed my advice at first--but it's no use harping on that. You have believed Mr. Grell to be the murderer, I suppose, and made your own confession to shield him. I don't know that I oughtn't to congratulate you both, for he has certainly made enormous sacrifices, and taken enormous risks to shield you."

"To shield _me_?" Her astonishment was palpable.

"To shield you. He had at least as much reason--if you'll forgive me saying so--to believe you guilty as you had to think he was a murderer. It was he--if my guess is correct--who opened the door while you were stooping over the murdered man. He must have jumped to the conclusion that you had at that moment killed the man, and took his own way of diverting suspicion from you. That is the only explanation that appears plausible to me."

A new light of happiness was in her grey eyes, and she smiled. The direct common sense of the detective had brought home to her the motive for the portion of the mystery that until that moment had perplexed her. Robert Grell had laid down everything for her sake. And she had never thought--never dreamed.... The voice of Foyle, apparently distant and far away, broke in on her thoughts.

"I have sent for Mr. Grell. He will be here shortly. There is still some light that he may be disposed to throw on the affair--now. Meanwhile, if you do not object, I should like to have the statement you have just made put in writing. I will have a shorthand writer in and place this room at your disposal."

She murmured some words of assent and he disappeared. In a few minutes he returned with one of the junior men of the C.I.D., who carried a reporter's notebook in one hand and a pencil in the other.

Heldon Foyle strolled away to Sir Hilary Thornton's room. The Assistant Commissioner was just hanging up his overcoat. He turned quickly and held out his hand to the superintendent.

"Congratulations, Foyle. I hear it's all plain sailing now. Come and tell me all about it."