ot warned? Did you follow the girl from
the hotel? I was a fool. I tried to stop the inquiry by getting rid of
David Hume-Frazer. As if he had brains enough to get on my track! About
that girl! She believes in me. She does not know anything of my past. Do
not tell her. Try to help her. She is coarse, one of the people, as you
say here, but she has courage and is faithful. Help her!"

His head drooped. The action of the brandy, whilst momentarily stimulating
the heart, helped the stupefaction of the brain. It was a question of a
minute, perhaps two.

"Why did you come here to-day?" asked Brett quickly.

"To see Margaret She would give me money. I was going away. That man--I
threw from the train--was her husband? He was not--a proper mate--for a
Frazer--or a Hume. We are--an old race--of soldiers. We know--how to die.
Four of us--fell fighting--in Japan. I am dying! What a pity!"

His head sank lower. His breath grew faint His voice died away in
unintelligible words. After a brief silence he spoke again.

The words he used were Japanese. In his weakened consciousness all he
could recollect was the language he learnt from his Japanese mother--the
mother he despised when he became a man and knew his history.

Winter and Brett were now holding him. The others drew apart. They
afterwards confessed that the death of this murderer, this tiger-cub of
their race, affected them greatly. He was fearless to the end. The way in
which he quitted life became him more than the manner in which he lived.

There was a bustle without, and the local doctor entered. He looked wise,
profound, even ventured on a sceptical remark when the barrister explained
that Ooma had injected snake-poison into his arm. But he lifted the
eyelids of the figure in the chair and glanced at the pupils.

"Whatever the cause of death may be, he is undoubtedly dead!" was his
verdict.

CHAPTER XXXIII

THE LAST NOTE IN BRETT'S DIARY

Winter and Holden were invaluable during the trying hours that followed.
Acting in conjunction with the local police, they caused a search to be
made for Capella's body. It was found easily enough. Only once did the
line cross such a place as that described by Ooma, and a bruised and
battered corpse was taken out of the boulder-strewn stream beneath the
viaduct.

Meanwhile Winter, writing from Brett's dictation, drew up a complete
statement of all the facts retailed by the Japanese in relation to the
murders of Sir