"Friends," he said blandly, "your man--your murderer. Caught as red-handed as one could wish--and as innocently as a babe, too!" And pointed toward the manacled, fighting figure of James Tavish! CHAPTER XXVIII THE SECRET OF THE SINGING WHEEL The scene that followed this startling announcement can well be imagined rather than described. For even as the man stood glowering at them, his mouth muttering the curses that his heart held, came a new diversion from another quarter. For Catherine Dowd had called out sharply, "Quick! quick! some smelling-salts here--and brandy!" and as the women of the party endeavoured to produce one item, while the men more successfully produced the other, it was seen that Johanna McCall was the object of this aid, for she half-lay, half-sprawled upon the floor, mouth open, face twitching, eyes already glazing over, and the white froth forming about her pale lips. Cleek leaned down and lifted her head in his uninjured arm; and looked down into her upthrown ghastly face. "Gad!" he said under his breath, "and now the other one--self-confessed! Who'd have thought it?--who, indeed? And for what reason, I wonder?" "For him--for Ross--for the man I love," the pale lips framed the words brokenly as the strength of the girl sagged and ebbed slowly away. "He would have disinherited him--disinherited Ross, turned him out--penniless! Cruel--wicked--I stabbed him with--the stiletto--the light went out--caught it off the table--wiped it on _her_ dress--must have been mad--mad--but you can't get me. It's poison--arsenic. I had it ready. And I needn't have done it--after all!" Then she sighed a little, opened her eyes suddenly and closed them again, and then slumped forward in Cleek's arms--dead. Cleek caught at a cushion, pushed it under the sagging head, slipped his own arm out from under it, and got slowly to his feet. His face was pale, his lips set. "Ladies and gentlemen," he said quietly, pointing a hand at the still figure, so pitifully small and childlike, huddled together upon the floor, "the other--murderer. Poor, misguided little creature! Of such folly can Love only be held to blame. A hopeless passion, a breaking heart, a suddenly maddening resolution made and carried out in a red-hot moment, and--another soul gone to meet its Maker with the red blot of death upon it. Tragic, is it not?... Lady Paula, take a seat. There is so much more to tell, and this has slightly precipitated matters. Tavish, my friend, you will do better not to glower and struggle like that. The Law has you, and _the Law will make you pay_--in spite of all your efforts to fix the blame upon someone else. I think, my friends, if we might adjourn to the drawing-room, the rest of the riddle would make easier and better telling. It is hardly fitting--here and now."