"Don't be a fool," said Hench brusquely. "Your daughter has married an honourable man, whom you ought to be proud of as your son-in-law." "But I wanted you," sobbed Madame piteously, and suddenly passing from anger to pleading sorrow. "I know, and I pointed out to you that the thing was not possible. Zara loves Bracken, and I have arranged for money to be given to them so that they can make a fresh start in life." "Money; my money," moaned the old woman. "Your money! What do you mean by saying that?" Madame Alpenny dropped her handkerchief from her eyes and stood up with as great a dignity as her stout ungainly figure permitted. "Your money is mine, Monsieur. You owe it to me that you inherited the money." "Indeed!" Hench trapped her at once. "So you admit your guilt." "My guilt?" "Yes. It was you who murdered my uncle." "I?" Madame Alpenny stood stock still and stared hard. "It is a lie." "It is the truth. You learned from my father how matters stood twenty years ago, and our conversation in this very room revived your memory when I mentioned the place where my father had passed his youth. You went down to see my Uncle Madoc and arranged with him that I should be brought to meet him in Parley Wood by means of that advertisement which you showed me. And----" Madame Alpenny interrupted his flow of words by waving her fat hand for silence. "I admit all this, although I don't know how you found it out." "Never mind how I found it out. You are guilty." "What? You tell me a long story of what I have done and which I admit to be true. But you have said nothing which can prove that I murdered the man." "I was coming to that when you interrupted me," said Hench calmly. "You knew that I would go to the meeting, although I was then ignorant of my relationship to Squire Evans. Therefore you travelled down to Cookley on the first of July and----" "I never did; I never did," interrupted Madame Alpenny violently, but looking very anxious in spite of her denial. "You did, and when you arrived at Cookley you went to the Gipsy Stile before I did to stab my uncle." "Oh!" Madame Alpenny waved her arms grotesquely. "La! la! la! la! I murdered him, did I? And why should I murder him?" "So as to place me in possession of the money," said Hench solemnly. "So as to implicate me in the death, as you knew that I would arrive to find the dead body of the man you had killed. In this way you hoped to force me to marry your daughter and handle my fortune." Madame Alpenny sat down with a cool ironical air. "A very clever tale indeed, Monsieur. And who can prove its truth?" "Two people at least. You were followed when you first went to Cookley to join my uncle in laying the trap by means of the advertisement; you were followed on the occasion of your second visit, when you killed him." "Who followed me? Who saw me?" "Simon Jedd, who is a page here, and his brother Peter, who is in the service of Mrs. Perage at Cookley."