第61章 CHAPTER XVI(2)

"Not in the quadrangle, sir. But Lady O'Moy was on the balcony of her room all the time."

"Well, then, you fetched the guard. What happened when you returned?"

"Colonel Grant arrived, sir, and I understood him to say that he had been following Count Samoval ... "

"Which way did Colonel Grant come?" put in the president.

"By the gate from the terrace."

"Was it open?"

"No, sir. Sir Terence himself went to open the wicket when Colonel Grant knocked."

Sir Harry nodded and Major Swan resumed the examination.

"What happened next?"

"Sir Terence ordered the captain under arrest."

"Did Captain Tremayne submit at once?"

"Well, not quite at once, sir. He naturally made some bother.

'Good God!' he says, 'ye'll never be after thinking I kilt him? I tell you I just found him here like this.' 'What were ye doing here, then?' says Sir Terence. 'I was coming to see you,' says the captain. 'What about?' says Sir Terence, and with that the captain got angry, said he refused to be cross-questioned and went off to report himself under arrest as he was bid."

That closed the butler's evidence, and the judge-advocate looked across at the prisoner.

"Have you any questions for the witness?" he inquired.

"None," replied Captain Tremayne. "He has given his evidence very faithfully and accurately."

Major Swan invited the court to question the witness in any manner it considered desirable. The only one to avail himself of the invitation was Carruthers, who, out of his friendship and concern for Tremayne - and a conviction of Tremayne's innocence begotten chiefly by that friendship desired to bring out anything that might tell in his favour.

"What was Captain Tremayne's bearing when he spoke to you and to Sir Terence?"

"Quite as usual, sir."

"He was quite calm, not at all perturbed?"

"Devil a bit; not until Sir Terence ordered him under arrest, and then he was a little hot."

"Thank you, Mullins."

Dismissed by the court, Mullins would have departed, but that upon being told by the sergeant-major that he was at liberty to remain if he chose he found a seat on one of the benches ranged against the wall.

The next witness was Sir Terence, who gave his evidence quietly from his place at the board immediately on the president's right. He was pale, but otherwise composed, and the first part of his evidence was no more than a confirmation of what Mullins had said, an exact and strictly truthful statement of the circumstances as he had witnessed them from the moment when Mullins had summoned him.

"You were present, I believe, Sir Terence," said Major Swan, "at an altercation that arose on the previous day between Captain Tremayne and the deceased? "

"Yes. It happened at lunch here at Monsanto."

"What was the nature of it?"

"Count Samoval permitted himself to criticise adversely Lord Wellington's enactment against duelling, and Captain Tremayne defended it. They became a little heated, and the fact was mentioned that Samoval himself was a famous swordsman. Captain Tremayne made the remark that famous swordsmen were required by Count Samoval's country to, save it from invasion. The remark was offensive to the deceased, and although the subject was abandoned out of regard for the ladies present, it was abandoned on a threat from Count Samoval to continue it later."

"Was it so continued?"

"Of that I have no knowledge."

Invited to cross-examine the witness, Captain Tremayne again declined, admitting freely that all that Sir Terence had said was strictly true. Then Carruthers, who appeared to be intent to act as the prisoner's friend, took up the examination of his chief.

"It is of course admitted that Captain Tremayne enjoyed free access to Monsanto practically at all hours in his capacity as your military secretary, Sir Terence?"

"Admitted," said Sir Terence.

"And it is therefore possible that he might have come upon the body of the deceased just as Mullins came upon it?"

"It is possible, certainly. The evidence to come will no doubt determine whether it is a tenable opinion."

"Admitting this, then, the attitude in which Captain Tremayne was discovered would be a perfectly natural one? It would be natural that he should investigate the identity and hurt of the man he found there?"

" Certainly."

"But it would hardly be natural that he should linger by the body of a man he had himself slain, thereby incurring the risk of being discovered?"

"That is a question for the court rather than for me."

"Thank you, Sir Terence." And, as no one else desired to question him, Sir Terence resumed his seat, and Lady O'Moy was called.

She came in very white and trembling, accompanied by Miss Armytage, whose admittance was suffered by the court, since she would not be called upon to give evidence. One of the officers of the Fourteenth seated on the extreme right of the table made gallant haste to set a chair for her ladyship, which she accepted gratefully.

The oath administered, she was invited gently by Major Swan to tell the court what she knew of the case before them.

"But - but I know nothing," she faltered in evident distress, and Sir Terence, his elbow leaning on the table, covered his mouth with his hand that its movements might not betray him. His eyes glowered upon her with a ferocity that was hardly dissembled.

"If you will take the trouble to tell the court what you saw from your balcony," the major insisted, "the court will be grateful."

Perceiving her agitation, and attributing it to nervousness, moved also by that delicate loveliness of hers, and by deference to the adjutant-generates lady, Sir Harry Stapleton intervened.

"Is Lady O'Moy's evidence really necessary?" he asked. "Does it contribute any fresh fact regarding the discovery of the body?"

"No, sir," Major Swan admitted. "It is merely a corroboration of what we have already heard from Mullins and Sir Terence."

"Then why unnecessarily distress this lady?"

"Oh, for my own part, sir - " the prosecutor was submitting, when Sir Terence cut in: