t
for you. This cheating to-night is only one thing. I know you are 'a
man on the market,' Mr. Hay."

"What do you wish to hear?" asked Hay, collapsing.

"All about Mrs. Krill's connection with this murder."

"She has nothing to do with it. Really, she hasn't. Aaron Norman was her
husband right enough--"

"And he ran away from her over twenty years ago. But who told Mrs. Krill
about him?"

"I did," confessed Hay, volubly and seeing it was best for him to make a
clean breast of it. "I met the Krills three years ago when I was at
Bournemouth. They lived in Christchurch, you know."

"Yes. Hotel-keepers. Well, what then?"

"I fell in love with Maud and went to Christchurch to stop at 'The Red
Pig.' She loved me, and in a year we became engaged. But I had no money
to marry her, and she had none either. Then Mrs. Krill told me of her
husband and of the death of Lady Rachel."

"Murder or suicide?"

"Suicide, Mrs. Krill said," replied Hay, frankly. "She told me also
about the opal brooch and described it. I met Beecot by chance and
greeted him as an old school-fellow. He took me to his attic and to my
surprise showed me the opal brooch. I wanted to buy it for Mrs. Krill,
but Beecot would not sell it. When next I met him, he told me that Aaron
Norman had fainted when he saw the brooch. I thought this odd, and
informed Mrs. Krill. She described the man to me, and especially said
that he had but one eye. I went with Beecot to the Gwynne Street shop,
and a single glance told me that Aaron Norman was Lemuel Krill. I told
his wife, and she wanted to come up at once. But I knew that Aaron was
reported rich--which I had heard through Pash--and as he was my lawyer,
I suggested that the Krills should go and see him."

"Which they did, before the murder?"

"Yes. Pash was astonished, and when he heard that Mrs. Krill was the
real wife, he saw that Aaron Norman, as he called himself, had committed
bigamy, and that Sylvia--"

"Yes, you needn't say it," said Miss Qian, angrily, "she's worth a dozen
of that girl you are going to marry. But why did you pretend to meet
Mrs. Krill and her daughter for the first time at Pash's?"

"To blind Beecot. We were standing at the door when the two came out,
and I pretended to see them for the first time. Then I told Beecot that
I had been introduced to Maud at Pash's office. He's a clever chap,
Beecot, and, being engaged to Sylvia Norman, I thought he might find out
too much."

"About th