"The paper--this morning!" she exclaimed incoherently. "It said--it said----"

Foyle rubbed his chin. "It said that we had detained a man in Suss.e.x,"

he said encouragingly.

She pulled herself together a little, but her whole form was trembling.

"It was Mr. Grell?" she asked eagerly.

He inclined his head in a.s.sent. "Yes, it was Mr. Grell."

Her face dropped to her hands and her frame shook. But when she raised her head she was dry-eyed. The emotion that possessed her was too deep for tears. She gazed in a kind of stupor at the immobile face of the detective.

"You have made a ghastly mistake," she said, and her voice was level and dull. "Mr. Grell had nothing to do with the murder. I killed that man. I have come here to-day to give myself up."

A twinkle of amus.e.m.e.nt shot into the blue eyes of Heldon Foyle. The girl, oblivious to all save the misery that enwrapped her, noticed nothing of his amus.e.m.e.nt. But his next words aroused her.

"That's curious," he said slowly, "very curious. You are the third person to confess to the murder. Really, I don't believe you can all be guilty."

She stared at him in dumb amazement. Her tortured mind was slow to accept a new idea. "The third!" she echoed mechanically.

"Yes, the third. The others are Mr. Robert Grell and the woman you know as the Princess Petrovska, who in our police jargon would be described as alias Lola Rachael, alias Lola Goldenburg." He smiled down at her as she turned her bewildered face towards him. "So you see, there is no great need to alarm yourself. The mystery is all but cleared up. If you will permit me, my dear young lady, I should like to congratulate you."

"But--but----" She struggled for words.

Foyle seated himself, and picking up a pen beat a regular tattoo on his blotting-pad. He went on, unheeding the girl's interruption.

"I won't deny that if you had told me you killed Harry Goldenburg a day or two ago, I might have believed you, and it might have made things awkward. But there is now no question of that. We know now that it was neither you nor Mr. Grell. If you had told us the real facts at first so far as you were concerned, it would have simplified matters. However, there is no reason why you shouldn't do so now."

The warm blood had suffused her cheeks. She had risen from her seat, unable at first to comprehend the full meaning of it all. "I cannot understand," she exclaimed.

"You will presently. Now, if you don't mind, sit down quietly, and tell me in your own way exactly what happened on the night this man was killed. Take your own time. I shall not interrupt."

A lurking fear at the back of the girl's mind that he was trying by some subtle means to entrap her into an admission that would implicate Grell disappeared. He dropped his pen. She searched the square face, but could see nothing behind the mask of smiling good-nature. Her own curiosity was alight, but she sternly suppressed it.

"You know about the letter?" she asked. "The letter I got from Goldenburg."

He shook his head. "a.s.sume that I know nothing. Begin at the beginning."

"Well, that was the beginning. I did not know it was from Goldenburg then, for it was unsigned, and both the address and the note itself were in typewriting. It was delivered by an express messenger. It said that the writer had something of importance affecting my future happiness to say to me, and that I could learn what it was by calling at Mr. Grell's house about ten. The writer advised me to keep my visit as secret as possible."

"Ah! What time did you get the note?"

"I am not quite sure. It was about half-past nine or quarter to ten."

"Very neatly timed to prevent you making inquiries beforehand. Go on."

"I was perhaps a little frightened and the note piqued my curiosity. The quickest way to learn what was wrong seemed to me to follow the writer's instructions. I went to Grosvenor Gardens, where I was apparently expected, for a man-servant let me in and took me to Mr. Grell's study.

I walked in by myself, not permitting him to announce me. The room was in semi-darkness, but I could make out a figure on a couch at the other end of the room. I walked over to it. The face was in shadow, and not until I was quite close could I see the stain on the shirt front. It took me a few moments to realise that the man was dead.

"Then I wanted to scream, to call out for help, but I could not. It was all too terrible--horrible--like a ghastly dream. Gradually my wits and my senses returned to me. It came into my mind like a flash that the letter I had received hinted at blackmail. I could not see the dead 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 fiance. 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 pa.s.sion 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 a.s.sured 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 Suss.e.x, 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 circ.u.mstances," 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 a.s.sent 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 a.s.sistant 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."

CHAPTER LV

For ten minutes the two heads of the detective service of London were in conference. Then there was an interruption. The door was pulled open without any preliminary knock, and Chief-Inspector Green strode swiftly in, with Robert Grell at his heels. Both men were plainly stirred by some suppressed excitement. Green laid a note down in front of Foyle.