The Snare Part 24

Tremayne stiffened suddenly. "Report myself under arrest?" he cried. "My G.o.d, Sir Terence, you don't believe that I--"

Sir Terence interrupted him. The voice in which he spoke was stern, almost sad; but his eyes gleamed with fiendish mockery the while. It was Polichinelle that spoke--Polichinelle that mocks what time he slays. "What were you doing here?" he asked, and it was like moving the checkmating piece.

Tremayne stood stricken and silent. He cast a desperate upward glance at the balcony overhead. The answer was so easy, but it would entail delivering Richard Butler to his death. Colonel Grant, following his upward glance, beheld Lady O'Moy for the first time. He bowed, swept off his c.o.c.ked hat, and "Perhaps her ladyship," he suggested to Sir Terence, "may have seen something."

"I have already asked her," replied O'Moy.

And then she herself was feverishly a.s.suring Colonel Grant that she had seen nothing at all, that she had heard a cry and had come out on to the balcony to see what was happening.

"And was Captain Tremayne here when you came out?" asked O'Moy, the deadly jester.

"Ye-es," she faltered. "I was only a moment or two before yourself."

"You see?" said Sir Terence heavily to Grant, and Grant, with pursed lips, nodded, his eyes moving from O'Moy to Tremayne.

"But, Sir Terence," cried Tremayne, "I give you my word--I swear to you--that I know absolutely nothing of how Samoval met his death."

"What were you doing here?" O'Moy asked again, and this time the sinister, menacing note of derision vibrated clearly in the question.

Tremayne for the first time in his honest, upright life found himself deliberately choosing between truth and falsehood. The truth would clear him--since with that truth he would produce witnesses to it, establishing his movements completely. But the truth would send a man to his death; and so for the sake of that man's life he was driven into falsehood.

"I was on my way to see you," he said.

"At midnight?" cried Sir Terence on a note of grim doubt. "To what purpose?"

"Really, Sir Terence, if my word is not sufficient, I refuse to submit to cross-examination."

Sir Terence turned to the sergeant of the guard, "How long is it since Captain Tremayne arrived?" he asked.

The sergeant stood to attention. "Captain Tremayne, sir, arrived rather more than half-an-hour ago. He came in a curricle, which is still waiting at the gates."

"Half-an-hour ago, eh?" said Sir Terence, and from Colquhoun Grant there was a sharp and audible intake of breath, expressive either of understanding, or surprise, or both. The adjutant looked at Tremayne again. "As my questions seem only to entangle you further," he said, "I think you had better do as I suggest without more protests: report yourself under arrest to Colonel Fletcher in the morning, sir."

Still Tremayne hesitated for a moment. Then drawing himself up, he saluted curtly. "Very well, sir," he replied.

"But, Terence--" cried her ladyship from above.

"Ah?" said Sir Terence, and he looked up. "You would say--?" he encouraged her, for she had broken off abruptly, checked again--although none below could guess it--by the one behind who prompted her.

"Couldn't you--couldn't you wait?" she was faltering, compelled to it by his question.

"Certainly. But for what?" quoth he, grimly sardonic.

"Wait until you have some explanation," she concluded lamely.

"That will be the business of the court-martial," he answered. "My duty is quite clear and simple; I think. You needn't wait, Captain Tremayne."

And so, without another word, Tremayne turned and departed. The soldiers, in compliance with the short command issued by Sir Terence, took up the body and bore it away to a room in the official quarters; and in their wake went Colonel Grant, after taking his leave of Sir Terence. Her ladyship vanished from the balcony and closed her windows, and finally Sir Terence, followed by Mullins, slowly, with bowed head and dragging steps, reentered the house. In the quadrangle, flooded now by the cold, white light of the moon, all was peace once more. Sir Terence turned into his study, sank into the chair by his desk and sat there awhile staring into vacancy, a diabolical smile upon his handsome, mobile mouth. Gradually the smile faded and horror overspread his face.

Finally he flung himself forward and buried his head in his arms.

There were steps in the hall outside, a quick mutter of voices, and then the door of his study was flung open, and Miss Armytage came sharply to rouse him.

"Terence! What has happened to Captain Tremayne?"

He sat up stiffly, as she sped across the room to him. She was wrapped in a blue quilted bed-gown, her dark hair hung in two heavy plaits, and her bare feet had been hastily thrust into slippers.

Sir Terence looked at her with eyes that were dull and heavy and that yet seemed to search her white, startled face.

She set a hand on his shoulder, and looked down into his ravaged, haggard countenance. He seemed suddenly to have been stricken into an old man.

"Mullins has just told me that Captain Tremayne has been ordered under arrest for--for killing Count Samoval. Is it true? Is it true?" she demanded wildly.

"It is true," he answered her, and there was a heavy, sneering curl on his upper lip.

"But--" She stopped, and put a hand to her throat; she looked as if she would stifle. She sank to her knees beside him, and caught his hand in both her own that were trembling. "Oh, you can't believe it! Captain Tremayne is not the man to do a murder."

"The evidence points to a duel," he answered dully.

"A duel!" She looked at him, and then, remembering what had pa.s.sed that morning between Tremayne and Samoval, remembering, too, Lord Wellington's edict, "Oh, G.o.d!" she gasped. "Why did you let them take him?"

"They didn't take him. I ordered him under arrest. He will report himself to Colonel Fletcher in the morning."

"You ordered him? You! You, his friend!" Anger, scorn, reproach and sorrow all blending in her voice bore him a clear message.

He looked down at her most closely, and gradually compa.s.sion crept into his face. He set his hands on her shoulders, she suffering it pa.s.sively, insensibly.

"You care for him, Sylvia?" he said, between inquiry and wonder.

"Well, well! We are both fools together, child. The man is a dastard, a blackguard, a Judas, to be repaid with betrayal for betrayal. Forget him, girl. Believe me, he isn't worth a thought."

"Terence!" She looked in her turn into that distorted face. "Are you mad?" she asked him.

"Very nearly," he answered, with a laugh that was horrible to hear.

She drew back and away from him, bewildered and horrified. Slowly she rose to her feet. She controlled with difficulty the deep emotion swaying her. "Tell me," she said slowly, speaking with obvious effort, "what will they do to Captain Tremayne?"

"What will they do to him?" He looked at her. He was smiling. "They will shoot him, of course."

"And you wish it!" she denounced him in a whisper of horror.

"Above all things," he answered. "A more poetic justice never overtook a blackguard."

"Why do you call him that? What do you mean?"

"I will tell you--afterwards, after they have shot him; unless the truth comes out before."

"What truth do you mean? The truth of how Samoval came by his death?"

"Oh, no. That matter is quite clear, the evidence complete. I mean--oh, I will tell you afterwards what I mean. It may help you to bear your trouble, thankfully."