"I'm not making any accusation," retorted Calliston, violently. "I only think it was Sir Rupert. I'm not accusing him of anything. Is that all you want to know? If so, you'll oblige me by leaving my rooms." Both men arose to their feet and looked at one another, and so absorbed were they that they did not hear the door softly open behind them. "Not yet, Lord Calliston," said Dowker calmly. "I want to know what you did those two hours you were in the fog." "Do! nothing, except walk about looking for the woman I thought Lena Sarschine." "And you found her?" "No." "Bah! what jury would believe that?" "Do you mean to accuse me of this murder?" asked Calliston furiously, clenching his fists. "I accuse you of nothing," retorted Dowker coolly. "I merely put a case to you--here is a man, yourself, going to run off with another woman, when his mistress, as he thinks, comes to stop him--he sees her leave his chambers in a furious rage, follows her--what is more natural than that he should meet her, and she heaps reproaches on him----" "Wait a minute," interrupted Calliston with a sneer, "your picture is very tragic but quite wrong. Suppose I did meet the woman who left my chambers, I would find not Lena Sarschine but Lady Balscombe, the very woman I wanted to meet." Dowker rubbed his head, being for once in his life nonplussed by a man as clever as himself. "It does sound wrong I confess," he said ruefully, "still you are in an awkward situation. If you did not kill Lady Balscombe, what is the name of the person who did?" "Lena Sarschine!" It was a third voice that uttered the name, and both men turned round to see Lena Sarschine looking at them with blazing eyes. "Yes!" she said, advancing towards Dowker. "I knew you suspected Calliston when you came to the yacht yesterday, and I came up to prevent him meeting you. I am too late for that, but not too late to prevent you arresting an innocent man. You want to know who murdered my sister--I did--I was mad with rage and jealousy, I followed her from her own house and saw her leave these rooms, we met and she told me she was going down to Shoreham and defied me, so I killed her with this dagger," and throwing a small silver mounted stiletto at the detective's feet, her unnatural strength gave way and she sank on the floor in a dead, faint, while the two men stood looking blankly at one another. "My God!" said Calliston, "this is terrible!" "Yes," replied Dowker, "if it is true." "Don't you believe it?" "Not one word!" CHAPTER XVIII. WHAT MYLES DESMOND THOUGHT. Imprisonment is not calculated to raise a man's spirits, consequently poor Myles, having now been shut up for some weeks, was in rather a dismal frame of mind. Norwood informed him from time to time of the discoveries that were being made, so, in spite of his quixotic ideas concerning the promise he had made to Lady Balscombe, there seemed every chance that he would soon be released from his perilous position.