While I fondled Gertrude's hand within my own, the Inspector related what Miss Destiny had written. The wicked little woman had intended to get the eye, even if she had to kill Anne Caldershaw to force it out of the woman's head. She had arranged to bring Striver, Gertrude, and Walter Monk to Mootley so as to implicate them, if possible, and save herself from being accused of murder. She therefore arranged with Lucinda, who was bound body and soul to her service, to drive over early to Mootley on the second day of her journey thither. Lucinda, with the trap, remained behind a hedge near Murchester, and Miss Destiny, evading notice, crept through the fields to the corner shop. Striver was up stairs, but she did not know that, as Mrs. Caldershaw said nothing. But she learned that Gertrude had been, and saw the white cloak left behind in the kitchen, along with one of the blue glass-headed pins. She also learned that Monk had paid a visit, so she was quite prepared to fasten the blame of her contemplated deed on anyone of them. "Oh, what a devil!" I murmured at this point of Dredge's narrative. "Indeed you may so," he said, somewhat moved, for the recital was really terrible. "Well, then, while seated in the back kitchen Miss Destiny, failing to get the eye from Mrs. Caldershaw, watched her chance to murder her. She took up the blue glass-headed pin, which she knew belonged to Miss here----" "She gave it to me herself," said Gertrude in a choked voice. "Of course," Dredge nodded, "and so was certain that when used the blame would fall on you. Now how she managed exactly to kill Mrs. Caldershaw she does not say," went on the Inspector, wrinkling his brow in perplexity. "I think myself she playfully touched Mrs. Caldershaw every now and then with the pin to emphasize what she was saying. Certainly Mrs. Caldershaw would suspect nothing, until Miss Destiny, placing the pin directly over the heart, drove it home with a sudden thrust. The woman fell----" "Dead! dead!" wailed Gertrude. "Not quite dead," said the precise Dredge: "she was bleeding from internal hemorrhage, for she lived for sometime afterwards. Striver found her still alive--" "And so did I," I interposed: "I heard her last moan." "She bled inwardly to death," said Dredge, rising and buttoning his coat. "I must go now, if you will excuse me." "But the rest of the confession. How did she get the eye?" I asked. "Pulled it out of Mrs. Caldershaw's head," said the Inspector brutally "she then escaped by the back door and went along a path leading through the wood of elms. She knew of that, having been to Mrs. Caldershaw's before." "Mrs. Caldershaw told me how to go by that path," said Gertrude. "One question before you go, Mr. Inspector," said I, following him to the door: "If Miss Destiny had the eye for so long in her possession, why did she not discover the secret?" "She could not read the cipher." "Strange. It is not a particularly difficult one."