"See! see!" he said loudly, "the head of a hat-pin!" He drew it out. "Yes, this poor wretched woman has been murdered by having a hat-pin thrust into her heart." I thought of the white-cloaked female who had stolen my car, but said nothing. CHAPTER IV. FACTS Next morning brought Cannington in a towering rage to Mootley. He arrived in a motor while I was breakfasting at nine o'clock, and explained with many apologies that he had become aware of my difficulties only one hour previously. "That silly blighter you sent," said the boy volubly, "never came to the Barracks last night. After telling the police what had happened, he started to come to me--this is his story, remember--but on the way dropped into a pub. There he talked about the murder, and was supplied with so many free drinks that he wasn't in a fit state to leave." "Humph!" said I, going on with my breakfast, "Giles was right it seems. This Ashley animal is a wastrel. Well?" "Well," echoed Cannington, fuming, "there is no well about it. The intoxicated beast only turned up this morning at nine o'clock. I was in bed when my servant brought in the message, and when I saw him I told him off, confound him for a silly ape. Then I got Trent to loan me his car and came along here as soon as I could bathe and dress." "Have you had breakfast?" "Oh, damn breakfast! No." "Well, sit down and have some, if Mrs. Giles," glanced at the little woman, who was hovering round the fire, "permits." "I'll set another cup and plate at once, sir," she said, evidently fluttered at the idea of entertaining a real live lord, "but I'm afraid, sir, that eggs and bacon and tea ain't what the young gentleman's used to." "I don't know anything better," said Cannington graciously, and soon was occupied industriously in filling up. "And I do call it beastly," he said between mouthfuls, "that I should have been out of all the fun. If I'd only come along with you, Vance----" "You'd have been arrested, as I am," I finished. "Oh, come now, that's a bit too thick. You didn't rob this woman, or murder her for one of your melodramas, did you?" "Who said she was murdered?" I asked, taking another cup of tea. "That blighter who came this morning." "How the deuce does he know? The murder was only found out after he went to Murchester. Everyone--myself included--thought that it was merely robbery of a glass eye." "A glass eye!" Cannington stared. "Who the deuce would steal a glass eye?" "The woman who annexed my motor car, and who murdered Mrs. Caldershaw by sticking a hat-pin into her heart, stole it." "Whose glass eye was it?" "Mrs. Caldershaw's." "Who is she?" "The dead woman."