The Snare
by Rafael Sabatini
(first published in 1917)
Chapter XVII
Bitter Water
Major Swan may or may not have been a gifted soldier. History is silent on the point. But the surviving records of the court-martial
with which we are concerned go to show that he was certainly not a
gifted speaker. His vocabulary was limited, his rhetoric clumsy,
and Major Carruthers denounces his delivery as halting, his very
voice dull and monotonous; also his manner, reflecting his mind on
this occasion, appears to have been perfectly unimpassioned. He had
been saddled with a duty and he must perform it. He would do so
conscientiously to the best of his ability, for he seems to have
been a conscientious man; but he could not be expected to put his
heart into the matter, since he was not inflamed by any zeal born
of conviction, nor had he any of the incentives of a civil advocate
to sway his audience by all possible means.
Nevertheless the facts themselves, properly marshalled, made up a
dangerous case against the prisoner. Major Swan began by dwelling
upon the evidence of motive: there had been a quarrel, or the
beginnings of a quarrel, between the deceased and the accused; the
deceased had shown himself affronted, and had been heard quite
unequivocally to say that the matter could not be left at the stage
at which it was interrupted at Sir Terence's luncheon-table. Major
Swan dwelt for a moment upon the grounds of the quarrel. They were
by no means discreditable to the accused, but it was singularly
unfortunate, ironical almost, that he should have involved himself
in a duel as a result of his out-spoken defence of a wise measure
which made duelling in the British army a capital offence. With
that, however, he did not think that the court was immediately
concerned. By the duel itself the accused had offended against the
recent enactment, and, moreover, the irregular manner in which the
encounter had been conducted, without seconds or witnesses, rendered
the accused answerable to a charge of murder, if it could be proved
that he actually did engage and kill the deceased. Major Swan
thought this could be proved.
The irregularity of the meeting must be assigned to the enactment
against which it offended. A matter which, under other
circumstances, considering the good character borne by Captain
Tremayne, would have been quite incomprehensible, was, he thought,
under existing circumstances, perfectly clear. Because Captain
Tremayne could not have found any friend to act for him, he was
forced to forgo witnesses to the encounter, and because of the
consequences to himself of the encounter's becoming known, he was
forced to contrive that it should be held in secret. They knew,
from the evidence of Colonel Grant and Major Carruthers, that the
meeting was desired by Count Samoval, and they were therefore
entitled to assume that, recognising the conditions arising out of
the recent enactment, the deceased had consented that the meeting
should take place in this irregular fashion, since otherwise it
could not have been held at all, and he would have been compelled
to forgo the satisfaction he desired.
He passed to the consideration of the locality chosen, and there
he confessed that he was confronted with a mystery. Yet the
mystery would have been no less in the case of any other opponent
than Captain Tremayne, since it was clear beyond all doubt that a
duel had been fought and Count Samoval killed, and no less clear
that it was a premeditated combat, and that the deceased had gone
to Monsanto expressly to engage in it, since the duelling swords
found had been identified as his property and must have been
carried by him to the encounter.
The mystery, he repeated, would have been no less in the case of
any other opponent than Captain Tremayne; indeed, in the case of
some other opponent it might even have been deeper. It must be
remembered, after all, that the place was one to which the accused
had free access at all hours.
And it was clearly proven that he availed himself of that access
on the night in question. Evidence had been placed before the court
showing that he had come to Monsanto in a curricle at twenty minutes
to twelve at the latest, and there was abundant evidence to show that
he was found kneeling beside the body of the dead man at ten minutes
past twelve—the body being quite warm at the time and the breath
hardly out of it, proving that he had fallen but an instant before
the arrival of Mullins and the other witnesses who had testified.
Unless Captain Tremayne could account to the satisfaction of the
court for the manner in which he had spent that half-hour, Major
Swan did not perceive, when all the facts of motive and circumstance
were considered, what conclusion the court could reach other than
that Captain Tremayne was guilty of the death of Count Jeronymo de
Samoval in a single combat fought under clandestine and irregular
conditions, transforming the deed into technical murder.
Upon that conclusion the major sat down to mop a brow that was
perspiring freely. From Lady O'Moy in the background came faintly,
the sound of a half-suppressed moan. Terrified, she clutched the
hand of Miss Armytage, and found that hand to lie like a thing of
ice in her own, yet she suspected nothing of the deep agitation
under her companion's outward appearance of calm.
Captain Tremayne rose slowly to address the court in reply to the
prosecution. As he faced his judges now he met the smouldering
eyes of Sir Terence considering him with such malevolence that he was
shocked and bewildered. Was he prejudged already, and by his best
friend? If so, what must be the attitude of the others? But the
kindly, florid countenance of the president was friendly and
encouraging; there was eager anxiety for him in the gaze of his
friend Caruthers. He glanced at Lord Wellington sitting at the
table's end sternly inscrutable, a mere spectator, yet one whose
habit of command gave him an air that was authoritative and judicial.
At length he began to speak. He had considered his defence, and he
had based it mainly upon a falsehood—since the strict truth must
have proved ruinous to Richard Butler.
"My answer, gentlemen" he said, "will be a very brief one—as brief,
indeed, as the prosecution merits—for I entertain the hope than
no member of this court is satisfied that the case made out against
me is by any means complete." He spoke easily, fluently, and calmly:
a man supremely self-controlled. "It amounts, indeed, to throwing
upon me the onus of proving myself innocent, and that is a burden
which no British laws, civil or miliary, would ever commit the
injustice of imposing upon an accused.
"That certain words of disagreement passed between Count Samoval and
myself on the eve of the affair in which the Count met his death, as
you have heard from various witnesses, I at once and freely admitted.
Thereby I saved the court time and trouble, and some other witnesses
who might have been caused the distress of having to testify against
me. But that the dispute ever had any sequel, that the further
subsequent discussion threatened at the time by Count Samoval ever
took place, I most solemnly deny. From the moment that I left Sir
Terence's luncheon-table on the Saturday I never set eyes on Count
Samoval again until I discovered him dead or dying in the garden here
at Monsanto on Sunday night. I can call no witnesses to support me
in this, because it is not a matter susceptible to proof by evidence.
Nor have I troubled to call the only witnesses I might have called
—witnesses as to my character and my regard for discipline—
who might have testified that any such encounter as that of which I
am accused would be utterly foreign to my nature. There are officers
in plenty in his Majesty's service who could bear witness that
the practice of duelling is one that I hold in the utmost abhorrence,
since I have frequently avowed it, and since in all my life I have
never fought a single duel. My service in his Majesty's army has
happily afforded me the means of dispensing with any such proof of
courage as the duel is supposed to give. I say I might have called
witnesses to that fact and I have not done so. This is because,
fortunately, there are several among the members of this court to
whom I have been known for many years, and who can themselves, when
this court comes to consider its finding, support my present assertion.
"Let me ask you, then, gentlemen, whether it is conceivable that,
entertaining such feelings as these towards single combat, I should
have been led to depart from them under circumstances that might
very well have afforded me an ample shield for refusing satisfaction
to a too eager and pressing adversary? It was precisely because I
hold the duel in such contempt that I spoke with such asperity to
the deceased when he pronounced Lord Wellington's enactment a
degrading one to men of birth. The very sentiments which I then
expressed proclaimed my antipathy to the practice. How, then,
should I have committed the inconsistency of accepting a challenge
upon such grounds from Count Samoval? There is even more irony than
Major Swan supposes in a situation which himself has called ironical.
"So much, then, for the motives that are alleged to have actuated me.
I hope you will conclude that I have answered the prosecution upon
that matter.
"Coming to the question of fact, I cannot find that there is
anything to answer, for nothing has been proved against me. True,
it has been proved that I arrived at Monsanto at half-past eleven
or twenty minutes to twelve on the night of the 28th, and it has
been further proved that half-an-hour later I was discovered
kneeling beside the dead body of Count Samoval. But to say that
this proves that I killed him is more, I think, if I understood him
correctly, than Major Swan himself dares to assert.
"Major Swan is quite satisfied that Samoval came to Monsanto for
the purpose of fighting a duel that had been prearranged; and I
admit that the two swords found, which have been proven the property
of Count Samoval, and which, therefore, he must have brought with
him, are a prima-facie proof of such a contention. But if we assume,
gentlemen, that I had accepted a challenge from the Count, let me
ask you, can you think of any place less likely to have been
appointed or agreed to by me for the encounter than the garden of
the adjutant-general's quarters? Secrecy is urged as the reason for
the irregularity of the meeting. What secrecy was ensured in such
a place, where interruption and discovery might come at any moment,
although the duel was held at midnight? And what secrecy did I
observe in my movements, considering that I drove openly to Monsanto
in a curricle, which I left standing at the gates in full view of
the guard, to await my return? Should I have acted thus if I had
been upon such an errand as is alleged? Common sense, I think,
should straightway acquit me on the grounds of the locality alone,
and I cannot think that it should even be necessary for me, so as
to complete my answer to an accusation entirely without support in
fact or in logic, to account for my presence at Monsanto and my
movements during the half-hour in question."
He paused. So far his clear reasoning had held and impressed the
court. This he saw plainly written on the faces of all—with one
single exception. Sir Terence alone the one man from whom he might
have looked for the greatest relief—watched him ever malevolently,
sardonically, with curling lip. It gave him pause now that he stood
upon the threshold of falsehood; and because of that inexplicable but
obvious hostility, that attitude of expectancy to ensnare and destroy
him, Captain Tremayne hesitated to step from the solid ground of
reason, upon which he had confidently walked thus far, on to the
uncertain bogland of mendacity.
"I cannot think," he said, "that the court should consider it
necessary for me to advance an alibi, to make a statement in proof
of my innocence where I contend that no proof has been offered of
my guilt."
"I think it will be better, sir, in your own interests, so that you
may be the more completely cleared," the president replied, and so
compelled him to continue.
"There was," he resumed, then, "a certain matter connected with the
Commissary-General's department which was of the greatest urgency,
yet which, under stress of work, had been postponed until the
morrow. It was concerned with some tents for General Picton's
division at Celorico. It occurred to me that night that it would
be better dealt with at once, so that the documents relating to it
could go forward early on Monday morning to the Commissary-General.
Accordingly, I returned to Monsanto, entered the official quarters,
and was engaged upon that task when a cry from the garden reached my
ears. That cry in the dead of night was sufficiently alarming, and
I ran out at once to see what might have occasioned it. I found
Count Samoval either just dead or just dying, and I had scarcely made
the discovery when Mullins, the butler, came out of the residential
wing, as he has testified.
"That, sirs, is all that I know of the death of Count Samoval, and
I will conclude with my solemn affirmation, on my honour as a
soldier, that I am as innocent of having procured it as I am ignorant
of how it came about.
"I leave myself with confidence in your hands, gentlemen," he ended,
and resumed his seat.
That he had favourably impressed the court was clear. Miss Armytage
whispered it to Lady O'Moy, exultation quivering in her whisper.
"He is safe!" And she added: "He was magnificent."
Lady O'Moy pressed her hand in return. "Thank God! Oh, thank God!"
she murmured under her breath.
"I do," said Miss Armytage.
There was silence, broken only by the rustle of the president's
notes as he briefly looked them over as a preliminary to addressing
the court. And then suddenly, grating harshly upon that silence,
came the voice of O'Moy.
"Might I suggest, Sir Harry, that before we hear you three of the
witnesses be recalled? They are Sergeant Flynn, Private Bates and
Mullins."
The president looked round in surprise, and Carruthers took
advantage of the pause to interpose an objection.
"Is such a course regular, Sir Harry?" He too had become conscious
at last of Sir Terence's relentless hostility to the accused. "The
court has been given an opportunity of examining those witnesses,
the accused has declined to call any on his own behalf, and the
prosecution has already closed its case."
Sir Harry considered a moment. He had never been very clear upon
matters of procedure, which he looked upon as none of a soldier's
real business. Instinctively in this difficulty he looked at Lord
Wellington as if for guidance; but his lordship's face told him
absolutely nothing, the Commander-in-Chief remaining an impassive
spectator. Then, whilst the president coughed and pondered, Major
Swan came to the rescue.
"The court," said the judge-advocate, "is entitled at any time
before the finding to call or recall any witnesses, provided that
the prisoner is afforded an opportunity of answering anything further
that may be elicited in re-examination of these witnesses."
"That is the rule," said Sir Terence, "and rightly so, for, as in
the present instance, the prisoner's own statement may make it
necessary."
The president gave way, thereby renewing Miss Armytage's terrors
and shaking at last even the prisoner's calm.
Sergeant Flynn was the first of the witnesses recalled at Sir
Terence's request, and it was Sir Terence who took up his
re-examination.
"You said, I think, that you were standing in the guardroom doorway
when Captain Tremayne passed you at twenty minutes to twelve on the
night of the 28th?"
"Yes, sir. I had turned out upon hearing the curricle draw up. I
had come to see who it was."
"Naturally. Well, now, did you observe which way Captain Tremayne
went?—whether he went along the passage leading to the garden or
up the stairs to the offices?"
The sergeant considered for a moment, an Captain Tremayne became
conscious for the first time that morning that his pulses were
throbbing. At last his dreadful suspense came to an end.
"No, sir. Captain Tremayne turned the corner, and was out of
my sight, seeing that I didn't go beyond the guardroom doorway."
Sir Terence's lips parted with a snap of impatience. "But you
must have heard," he insisted. "You must have heard his steps—
whether they went upstairs or straight on."
"I am afraid I didn't take notice, sir."
"But even without taking notice it seems impossible that you should
not have heard the direction of his steps. Steps going up stairs
sound quite differently from steps walking along the level. Try
to think."
The sergeant considered again. But the president interposed. The
testiness which Sir Terence had been at no pains to conceal annoyed
Sir Harry, and this insistence offended his sense of fair play.
"The witness has already said that the didn't take notice. I am
afraid it can serve no good purpose to compel him to strain his
memory. The court could hardly rely upon his answer after what he
has said already."
"Very well," said Sir Terence curtly. "We will pass on. After
the body of Count Samoval had been removed from the courtyard, did
Mullins, my butler, come to you?"
"Yes, Sir Terence."
"What was his message? Please tell the court."
"He brought me a letter with instructions that it was to be
forwarded first thing in the morning to the Commissary-General's
office."
"Did he make any statement beyond that when he delivered that
letter?"
The sergeant pondered a moment. "Only that he had been bringing
it when he found Count Samoval's body."
"That is all I wish to ask, Sir Harry," O'Moy intimated, and
looked round at his fellow-members of that court as if to inquire
whether they had drawn any inference from the sergeant's statements.
"Have you any questions to ask the witness, Captain Tremayne?" the
president inquired.
"None, sir," replied the prisoner.
Came Private Bates next, and Sir Terence proceeded to question him..
"You said in your evidence that Captain Tremayne arrived at Monsanto
between half-past eleven and twenty minutes to twelve?"
"Yes, sir."
"You told us, I think, that you determined this by the fact that you
came on duty at eleven o'clock, and that it would be half-an-hour
or a little more after that when Captain Tremayne arrived?"
"Yes, sir."
"That is quite in agreement with the evidence of your sergeant.
Now tell the court where you were during the half-hour that
followed—until you heard the guard being turned out by the
sergeant."
"Pacing in front of quarters, sir."
"Did you notice the windows of the building at all during that time?"
"I can't say that I did, sir."
"Why not?"
"Why not?" echoed the private.
"Yes—why not? Don't repeat my words. How did it happen that
you didn't notice the windows?"
"Because they were in darkness, sir."
O'Moy's eyes gleamed. "All of them?"
"Certainly, sir, all of them."
"You are quite certain of that?"
"Oh, quite certain, sir. If a light had shown from one of them I
couldn't have failed to notice it."
"That will do."
"Captain Tremayne—" began the president.
"I have no questions for the witness, sir," Tremayne announced.
Sir Harry's face expressed surprise. "After the statement he has
just made?" he exclaimed, and thereupon he again invited the prisoner,
in a voice that was as grave as his countenance, to cross-examine
he witness; he did more than invite—he seemed almost to plead.
But Tremayne, preserving by a miracle his outward calm, for all that
inwardly he was filled with despair and chagrin to see what a pit
he had dug for himself by his falsehood, declined to ask any
questions.
Private Bates retired, and Mullins was recalled. A gloom seemed to
have settled now upon the court. A moment ago their way had seemed
fairly clear to its members, and they had been inwardly
congratulating themselves that they were relieved from the grim
necessity of passing sentence upon a brother officer esteemed by all
who knew him. But now a subtle change had crept in. The statement
drawn by Sir Terence from the sentry appeared flatly to contradict
Captain Tremayne's own account of his movements on the night in
question.
"You told the court," O'Moy addressed the witness Mullins, consulting
his notes as he did so, "that on the night on which Count Samoval met
his death, I sent you at ten minutes past twelve to take a letter to
the sergeant of the guard, an urgent letter which was to be forwarded
to its destination first thing on the following morning. And it was
in fact in the course of going upon this errand that you discovered
the prisoner kneeling beside the body of Count Samoval. This is
correct, is it not?"
"It is, sir."
"Will you now inform the court to whom that letter was addressed?"
"It was addressed to the Commissary-General."
"You read the superscription?"
"I am not sure whether I did that, but I clearly remember, sir, that
you told me at the time that it was for the Commissary-General."
Sir Terence signified that he had no more to ask, and again the
president invited the prisoner to question the witness, to receive
again the prisoner's unvarying refusal.
And now O'Moy rose in his place to announce that he had himself a
further statement to make to the court, a statement which he had
not conceived necessary until he had heard the prisoner's account
of his movements during the half-hour he had spent at Monsanto on
the night of the duel.
"You have heard from Sergeant Flynn and my butler Mullins that the
letter carried from me by the latter to the former on the night
of the 28th was a letter for the Commissary-General of an urgent
character, to be forwarded first thing in the morning. If the
prisoner insists upon it, the Commissary-General himself may be
brought before this court to confirm my assertion that that
communication concerned a complaint from headquarters on the
subject of the tents supplied to the third division—Sir Thomas
Picton's—at Celorico. The documents concerning that complaint
—that is to say, the documents upon which we are to presume that
the prisoner was at work during tine half-hour in question—were
at the time in my possession in my own private study and in another
wing of the building altogether."
Sir Terence sat down amid a rustling stir that ran through the
court, but was instantly summoned to his feet again by the president.
"A moment, Sir Terence. The prisoner will no doubt desire to
question you on that statement." And he looked with serious eyes
at Captain Tremayne.
"I have no questions for Sir Terence, sir," was his answer.
Indeed, what question could he have asked? The falsehoods he had
uttered had woven themselves into a rope about his neck, and he
stood before his brother officers now in an agony of shame, a man
discredited, as he believed.
"But no doubt you will desire the presence of the
Commissary-General?" This was from Colonel Fletcher his own
colonel and a man who esteemed him—and it was asked in accents
that were pleadingly insistent.
"What purpose could it serve, sir? Sir Terence's words are partly
confirmed by the evidence he has just elicited from Sergeant Flynn
and his butler Mullins. Since he spent the night writing a letter
to the Commissary, it is not to be doubted that the subject would
be such as he states, since from my own knowledge it was the most
urgent matter in our hands. And, naturally, he would not have
written without having the documents at his side. To summon the
Commissary-General would be unnecessarily to waste the time of the
court. It follows that I must have been mistaken, and this I admit."
"But how could you be mistaken?" broke from the president.
"I realise your "difficulty in crediting, it. But
there it is. Mistaken I was."
"Very well, sir." Sir Harry paused and then added "The court will
be glad to hear you in answer to the further evidence adduced to
refute your statement in your own defence."
"I have nothing further to say, sir," was Tremayne's answer.
"Nothing further?" The president seemed aghast. " Nothing, sir."
And now Colonel Fletcher leaned forward to exhort him. "Captain
Tremayne," he said, "let me beg you to realise the serious
position in which you are placed."
"I assure you, sir, that I realise it fully."
"Do you realise that the statements you have made to account for
your movements during the half-hour that you were at Monsanto
have been disproved? You have heard Private Bates's evidence to the
effect that at the time when you say you were at work in the offices,
those offices remained in darkness. And you have heard Sir Terence's
statement that the documents upon which you claim to have been at
work were at the time in his own hands. Do you realise what
inference the court will be compelled to draw from this?"
"The court must draw whatever inference it pleases," answered the
captain without heat.
Sir Terence stirred. "Captain Tremayne," said he, "I wish to add
my own exhortation to that of your colonel! Your position has
become extremely perilous. If you are concealing anything that may
extricate you from it, let me enjoin you to take the court frankly
and fully into your confidence."
The words in themselves were kindly, but through them ran a note of
bitterness, of cruel derision, that was faintly perceptible to
Tremayne and to one or two others.
Lord Wellington's piercing eyes looked a moment at O'Moy, then
turned upon the prisoner. Suddenly he spoke, his voice as calm
and level as his glance.
"Captain Tremayne—if the president will permit me to address you
in the interests of truth and justice—you bear, to my knowledge,
the reputation of an upright, honourable man. You are a man so
unaccustomed to falsehood that when you adventure upon it, as you
have obviously just done, your performance is a clumsy one, its
faults easily distinguished. That you are concealing something the
court must have perceived. If you are not concealing something
other than that Count Samoval fell by your hand, let me enjoin you
to speak out. If you are shielding any one—perhaps the real
perpetrator of this deed—let me assure you that your honour as
a soldier demands, in the interests of truth and justice, that you
should not continue silent."
Tremayne looked into the stern face of the great soldier, and his
glance fell away. He made a little gesture of helplessness, then
drew himself stiffly up.
"I have nothing more to say."
"Then, Captain Tremayne," said the president, "the court will pass
to the consideration of its finding. And if you cannot account for
the half-hour that you spent at Monsanto while Count Samoval was
meeting his death, I am afraid that, in view of all the other
evidences against you, your position is likely to be one of
extremest gravity.
"For the last time, sir, before I order your removal, let me add
my own to the exhortations already addressed to you, that you
should speak. If still you elect to remain silent, the court, I
fear, will be unable to draw any conclusion but one from your
attitude."
For a long moment Captain Tremayne stood there in tense, expectant
silence. Yet he was not considering; he was waiting. Lady O'Moy
he knew to be in court, behind him. She had heard, even as he
had heard, that his fate hung perhaps upon whether Richard Butler's
presence were to be betrayed or not. Not for him to break faith
with her. Let her decide. And, awaiting that decision, he stood
there, silent, like a man considering. And then, because no woman's
voice broke the silence to proclaim at once his innocence, and the
alibi that must ensure his acquittal, he spoke at last.
"I thank you, sir. Indeed, I am very grateful to the court for the
consideration it has shown me. I appreciate it deeply, but I have
nothing more to say."
And then, when all seemed lost, a woman's voice rang out at last:
"But I have!"
Its sharp, almost strident note acted like an electric discharge
upon the court; but no member of the assembly was more deeply
stricken than Captain Tremayne. For though the voice was a woman's,
yet it was not the voice for which he had been waiting.
In his excitement he turned, to see Miss Armytage standing there,
straight and stiff, her white face stamped with purpose; and beside
her, still seated, clutching her arm in an agony of fear, Lady O'Moy,
murmuring for all to hear her:
"No, no, Sylvia. Be silent, for God's sake!"
But Sylvia had risen to speak, and speak she did, and though the
words she uttered were such as a virgin might wish to whisper with
veiled countenance and averted glance, yet her utterance of them
was bold to the point of defiance.
"I can tell you why Captain Tremayne is silent. I can tell you
whom he shields."
"Oh God!" gasped Lady O'Moy, wondering through her anguish how
Sylvia could have become possessed of her secret.
"Miss Armytage—I implore you!" cried Tremayne, forgetting where
he stood, his voice shaking at last, his hand flung out to silence
her.
And then the heavy voice of O'Moy crashed in:
"Let her speak. Let us have the truth—the truth!" And he
smote the table with his clenched fist.
"And you shall have it," answered Miss Armytage. "Captain Tremayne
keeps silent to shield a woman—his mistress."
Sir Terence sucked in his breath with a whistling sound. Lady O'Moy
desisted from her attempts to check the speaker and fell to staring
at her in stony astonishment, whilst Tremayne was too overcome by
the same emotion to think of interrupting. The others preserved a
watchful, unbroken silence.
"Captain Tremayne spent that half-hour at Monsanto in her room. He
was with her when he heard the cry that took him to the window.
Thence he saw the body in the courtyard, and in alarm went down at
once—without considering the consequences to the woman. But
because he has considered them since, he now keeps silent."
"Sir, sir," Captain Tremayne turned in wild appeal to the president,
"this is not true." He conceived at once the terrible mistake that
Miss Armytage had made. She must have seen him climb down from
Lady O'Moy's balcony, and she had come to the only possible,
horrible conclusion. "This lady is mistaken, I am ready to—"
"A moment, sir. You are interrupting," the president rebuked.
And then the voice of O'Moy on the note of terrible triumph sounded
again like a trumpet through the long room.
"Ah, but it is the truth at last. We have it now. Her name! Her
name!" he shouted. "Who was this wanton?"
Miss Armytage's answer was as a bludgeon-stroke to his ferocious
exultation.
"Myself. Captain Tremayne was with me."
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