A Shot in the Night

by J. S. Fletcher

A Shot in the Night

by

J. S. Fletcher

Whose Detective Tales
President Wilson Read for Relaxation

A Mystery Story of a heartless flirt who
Might Just as Well Have Been the Guilty Party

AFTER some unseen hand had thumped loudly and steadily at the panels of his bedroom door for the better part of five minutes, Manson pulled himself out of the seductive embrace of his blankets to realize that the wintry dawn was at hand, and that the moon, just then at its full, was dipping towards the horizon beyond the pine woods in front of his uncurtained window. He slipped out of bed and switched on the electric light at its head all in one action, and as he crossed to the door glanced at the watch which lay on his dressing-table. Six forty-five—two hours and a quarter before his usual time! And who the devil could this be, thundering so persistently at his door?

A man he knew well enough stood there when he opened it—a young man of about his own age, who had evidently flung on his clothes in a tearing hurry, and showed signs of strange and unusual excitement. He thrust out both hands and shoved Manson back into the room, closed the door behind them, and began to blurt things out, staccato fashion.

“Thought I'd never wake you, by George!—bother about rousing your servants too! And by George, here's the very devil. I've run all the way from town.”

Manson was wide awake by then, and his lawyer's brain was as cold as the wooden parquetry of the floor. He turned away, and thrusting his feet into a pair of wool-lined slippers, reached. for a dressing-gown.

“What's the trouble, Campion?” he asked in his most matter of fact tones. “Something unusual, of course——”

“Unusual!” groaned the other. “Good Heaven, I should say so. It's Leaver—Dick Leaver! He——”

“Take your time,” said Manson. “What about Dick Leaver? Steady—if you want me to comprehend.”

Campion dropped on the lounge at the foot of the bed. He puffed out his cheeks as if to blow something away from him. Then he shook himself.

“Comprehend, ah,” he muttered. “Hanged if can comprehend! Dick Leaver's arrested! Midnight! He is in the lock-up at Southminster. That's where I've come from. He sent for me d'you see, Manson—about half-past five this morning. And it's murder—charge of murder, you know.. You see——”

Manson motioned him to silence, opened the door, and went out on the landing. Campion caught a glimpse of a housemaid and her dustpan and brush.

“Jane,” said Manson, “go down and tell the cook to make coffee at once.and to put it in the library with some biscuits. I shall be down there in ten minutes.” He closed the door again, and passing Campion laid a hand on his clothes. “Now, Campion—clear talking, if you please. If you want to tell, begin at the beginning.”

“If you knew the beginning,” retorted Campion. He was recovering his wits and his breath, and his voice grew steadier. “And some tales begin in the middle, don't they?—this does, anyway! But I tell you, about five-thirty this morning a policeman came to tell me that Dick Leaver was detained at the lock-up and wanted to see me at once—of course I'm a pal of his and our house is near. I went there, quick as I could. And what I heard there, put briefly, amounts to this—and hanged if I can understand it. You know that piece of common, wild wasteland outside the town on the north side? The Warren, they call it. There's a wood runs along the east side of it, part of Sir John Bower's estate.

“Well, just before eleven o'clock last night Sir John's game-keeper, Richards, and a watcher who was with him, were in that wood on the look-out for poachers. They suddenly heard a couple of shots, fired almost simultaneously close by. They made in the direction of the sounds. On the Warren, just outside the wood, there's an old sand-pit, grown over with bramble mostly, but with a clear space in it. On this clear space—it was full moon remember—they saw a man lying and another man standing close by. They went up and found the standing figure to be Dick Leaver. He'd an automatic pistol in his hand which had just been fired. The man lying in the sand was his cousin, Gerald Paisley. He was dead.”

“Quite dead,” asked Manson.

“As a door-nail. And of course, Richards, who knew both Leaver and his cousin well enough, at once asked Dick what all this meant? What do you think he replied?”

“Tell me,” said Manson.

“All he said was 'Good God, I believe this is my pistol.' That was all, and Richards told the police that as soon as he'd said it he turned straight away and marched off towards the town—never even looked round. What d'you make of that now?”

“What did Richards do?” asked Manson.

“Left his man with the body and went off to the police. He told them everything of course. And they fetched Dick Leaver to the police station and after questioning him, detained him. They came for me, at his request—but I told you that.”

“Aye, but you haven't told me what he said to you. Now, what did he say?”

“To tell you the truth, next to nothing. I think he's mad! It was at his request that the police fetched me, but when I got there he'd nothing to say except that it was kind of me to come. The police had told me all about it by then, and I asked Dick if he hadn't better see a solicitor and suggested you. All he answered was that you would do as well as anybody else. So I ran out here.”

Manson had finished dressing while Campion was talking, and he now motioned him to follow downstairs to the library. He had swallowed half a cup of coffee and munched a couple of biscuits before he spoke again; then he turned sharply on his companion, who, cup in hand, was staring at the fire which the housemaid had just lighted.

“What do you make of this, Campion?” he asked peremptorily. “You've formed some theory, of course.”

Campion set down his cup, swallowed a mouthful of biscuit, and shook his head. And glancing at the door, he lowered his voice to a whisper, in spite of the fact that the door was shut.

“Manson—I don't think there's a doubt about it! It's the vicar's girl.”

Manson picked up another biscuit and nodded as he put it to his lips.

“Nancy Millersley, eh? Very likely. Jealousy, you mean?”

“Everybody-in the town knows that she's turned the heads of both those two—Leaver and his cousin,” assented Campion. “It's been talked about—no end. Leaver's been absolutely mad on her ever since she came home from school. Paisley's been pretty nearly as bad. It's known that they were jealous of each other. The wonder is that they continued to live together in those chambers they had in High Street. But that's it—no doubt of it. Of course, the girl is a born flirt—an arrant flirt.”

“Do you know if she favored either of 'em more than the other?” asked Manson.

“I've seen her with Paisley and I've seen her with Leaver. So has everybody. Sometimes it was Dick; sometimes it was Gerry. I don't know who could know, that is, except themselves. But there's the fact. One thing, however, I do know. Both were in the club last night—billiard room, I saw 'em—and there was a marked coldness between them. They used to be inseparable—till this girl came on the scene. Well—there it is! Paisley found dead—shot!—and Leaver standing by with a pistol in his hand.”

Manson helped himself to more coffee and pushed~the jug towards Campion.

“Just so,” he remarked. “But you know, I don't think Leaver shot Paisley!”

“No,” said Campion, “just why?”

“If he'd shot Paisley, it isn't likely he'd have said what he did—as you report it, 'Good God, I believe this is my pistol.' Do you think a man who'd just shot another would say that?”

“I don't know what to think, Manson! But I think—as I said upstairs—that Dick Leaver's—well, a bit off it. He looks it. Smiled—not quite sillily, but something very like it—at me when I went into the room-at the police station. His mind's affected I'm certain. And so——”

“That may be, and probably is, shock,” said Manson. “Well, let's be off; what's it like outside? Cold?”

“Good Heavens, I never noticed!” exclaimed Campion. “I was too full of this. And I ran all the way.”

 

A half an hour later, Manson walked, unaccompanied, into a dismal, badly lighted room in the police station, and found Dick Leaver sitting on a hard chair, his hands thrust into his pockets, his eyes staring straight and steady at a blank wall. He glanced at his visitor with lack-luster eyes, almost as if he wondered at his presence. Manson, pulling up another chair in front of him and sitting down on it, laid a hand on his knee.

“Look here, Dick,” he said. “You didn't shoot Gerry Paisley, of course! Now, what were you doing there?”

Leaver transferred his steady gaze from the blank wall to Manson's searching eyes. He sighed deeply and shook his head.

“Doing—there?” he repeated. “Oh!—I—I suppose I'd just wandered there.”

“From where?” asked Manson.

“Don't know, exactly. I'd been—wandering about.”

“Since when? Come, now—you were at the club during the evening. Where did you go after that?”

Leaver made no answer. But his eyes began to shift and his right hand went up to his chin and began to rub it.

“Now, listen,” continued Manson. “It's no use your trying to keep names out of it. They're bound to come out—as things are. Especially Nancy Millersley's! Make up your mind to that, Dick. Come now—when you left the club, you went to see her, didn't you?”

Leaver had winced at the girl's name, but he nodded his head in reply to the question.

“Just so,” said Manson. “Where did you meet her?”

“Where we'd often met—at night,” answered Leaver with a sudden change to readiness. “In the vicarage grounds—back of the house.”

“What happened? Whatever it it was—something upsetting.”

Leaver laughed harshly. A flush of color came into his face and his eye brightened.

“Out with it!” said Manson.

“Well, this,” replied Leaver. “You see, she'd been—well, it seemed as if she'd been encouraging both Gerry and myself, We'd got jealous of each other—it was getting serious. Especially as we lived together. And—and last night I determined I'd settle it. So I went there—I knew how we could meet—we'd met before there at night—often. And I asked her straight out which it was going to be—Gerry or me?”

“Well?” asked Manson.

“Well, it was a job to get anything out of her. She—she didn't want to say. Then I said that if she wouldn't say, I should just clear out—Colonies, or somewhere—and I guessed Gerry would do the same. Things got a bit heated. And, at last, she said she hadn't the slightest intention of marrying either of us—not the very slightest in the world. I got a sort of look-in at her real self then—damn her.”

“Just so,” agreed Manson. “That sort deserve to be damned. Good—and what next?”

“She went off—and so did I. I was mad—angry. I don't know where I went, first. Wandering round—anywhere. Then I got to the Warren—maundering about there. I sat down, doing a think. I saw she'd been playing with us, and I made up my mind I'd have it out with Gerry if I saw him that night, or first thing next morning, and tell him all about it, and put it to him that she was heartless, and that it wasn't worth while letting her come between us. And then I heard either a shot, or two shots fired simultaneously, not far off. I ran in the direction of the sound and I found Gerry in that old sand-pit. He——”

“Be careful,” interrupted Manson. “Tell me the exact details.”

“As far as I can realize them, yes. He was dead, just dead, I should think. He'd a pistol, grasped in his right hand. I took it out, and I was examining it in the moon light—full moon, you know—when Sir John's gamekeeper, Richards, and another man hurried up. I left them with—him—and went home.”

“Why?” asked Manson.

“For one thing, I don't think I quite knew what. I was doing; for the other, I wanted to know if it was my pistol that I'd picked up. I felt sure it was; I said so to Richards. It's an automatic that I've had since the war. I kept it in a bureau in my bedroom. Gerry knew I had it there.”

“And was it your pistol?”

“Oh, yes, it's my pistol. It's got my initials on it. Oh, yes. He must have taken it out of my bureau—to shoot himself with.”

“Suicide, eh?” suggested Manson.

“What else?” said Leaver.

“You thought you heard two shots, you know.”

“That I can't be sure of. If there were two shots they were fired almost exactly together. But I think, on reflection, there can't have been two. There's a deep pine wood behind that sand-pit: what I took for a second shot may have been the immediate echo of the first.”

Manson remained silent for a minute or two; then he got up and gave Leaver a friendly clap on the shoulder.

“All right, Dick,” he said, cheerily. “Leave it to me—I'll see to things. You haven't said anything much to these police people yet, have you?”

“No more than I've said to you. That is, about the actual business at the sand-pit. I said nothing—nothing whatever about the—the girl.”

“All right,” repeated Manson. “Now I'll have a word with them.” He nodded and walked out, and in the corridor met a couple of officials with whom he went into the office. “Pretty obvious, all this,” he remarked in an off-hand manner. “Case of suicide. I see no reason for your detention of Mr. Leaver.”

But the man at whom he looked smiled and shook his head.

“Don't you, Mr. Manson?” he said. “Well, we do. And we don't see that it's obviously a case of suicide. Whether you know it or not—and you must know something, for there's precious little secrecy in a small country town like this—it's well known that young Leaver and his cousin have both been running after that pretty daughter of the vicar's, and that, of late, they've been so madly jealous of each other that relations had become strained between them. Common talk, Mr. Manson, common talk. Leaver and his cousin were seen at the club last night to be on very bad terms—ignored each other's presence and that sort of thing.”

“Do you think that a man who'd just shot another would make the remark that Leaver made to Richards and his companion?” asked Manson. “I mean—about the pistol?”

“I don't know, Mr. Manson, I don't know!” replied the official. “I'm not given to speculations. What I know is that young Paisley was found lying dead, shot through the heart, and that Leaver was standing by him with an automatic pistol in his hand. That's quite sufficient ground whereon to charge him——”

“Mr. Leaver acknowledges that the pistol is his,” interrupted Manson. “And I suppose that when you fetched him from his room, he gave you the pistol—willingly?”

“Oh, certainly—he made no difficulty about that,” asserted the official. “We have the pistol here, if you'd like to see it. Here it is,” he continued, opening a drawer. “It has Leaver's initials on it. You see what it is—a Cotley's automatic, point 38 caliber, with a carrier which contained seven cartridges. One has been fired; there is one in the breech, and there are five left in the carrier. It is rifled you see, in three grooves.”

Manson took the automatic pistol in his hand, and examined it carefully. If the two police officials had been more observant, they would have seen a sudden curiously abstracted look come over his face. But they were exchanging whispered remarks and did not look at the solicitor. And Manson handed the pistol back. “I suppose there'll be an autopsy carried out on Paisley's body?” he asked. “There should be.”

“A post-mortem?—oh—yes,” said the official. “That's been arranged for already. Some time today. Dr. Summers has it in hand.”

“And you intend to detain Mr. Leaver?”

The official replaced the pistol in the drawer from which he had taken it, and turned the key with a decisive snap.

“We do, Mr. Manson,” he replied. “And to be plain, we intend to charge him! There's sitting of the magistrates this afternoon at three o'clock, and we shall bring him up then. Of course there'll be little beside formal evidence of arrest, and an adjournment, but if you're going to represent him in this affair, I suppose you'll attend?”

“I shall be there,” assented Manson. He left the police station without further remark, and once in the street began to murmur a formula to himself. “Cotley automatic. Point 38 caliber. Carrier had seven cartridges. One fired. One in breech. Five left in carrier. Rifled in three grooves. Three grooves. Therefore …” He stood thinking for a minute: then, as if he had suddenly seen his way across a hitherto darkened land, he turned back along the street and presently rang the bell at the door of a big house, on the panels of which was a brass plate bearing the name of Dr. Rupert Summers.

 

Manson usually went leisurely home to lunch about one o'clock, taking his time in going and returning. But on this day, routine and custom were thrown to the winds—he had his hands full. Still, a man who has broken his fast on coffee and biscuits at seven o'clock of a winter's morning, and has had nothing since, begins by noon to feel empty, and as the town clock} struck twelve Manson hurried to the Crown Hotel and fell upon hot soup and cold meat. He was wolfing chicken and ham at a prodigious rate when one of his clerks came in and made straight to his employer's elbow.

“Dr. Summers wants you to step round there at once, sir,” said the clerk. “He says you'll know the reason.”

Manson rose and raced out of the hotel and up the street. Within two minutes he was in Summer's surgery and Summers, seeing his eagerness, turned to a drawer, pulled out a small cardboard box, and held it out.

“This is the bullet, Manson. You see? Now, if what you told me this morning is correct—eh?”

Manson had the bullet in the palm of his hand by that time. He turned it over with the top of his index finger. And then he handed it back.

“Exactly!” he said. “Just what I thought. Well—you'll be at the police court at three. And now …”

Without another word he shot out of the house and went racing down the street to his own office.

 

During the next two and a half hours, Manson worked as he had rarely, if ever, worked in his life. There were people to see and to talk to whose attendance at court was absolutely necessary; in the case of one he left nothing to chance and took out a subpena. By five minutes to three he had perfected bis plans and went quietly round to the court-house. The news that young Leaver was to be brought before the magistrates on a charge of shooting his cousin had spread all over the town by that time, and Manson had to fight his way into court through a dense crowd. Once inside he was button-holed by the vicar, a limp, purposeless sort of man, who, it was well known, had no control over a large and headstrong family.

“Oh dear, Mr. Manson,” he exclaimed, striving to draw the solicitor aside. “It is really most distressing that you should have felt it necessary to subpena my daughter—a mere child—in this unfortunate affair. I really think you might have had more consideration for me. Can't I persuade you to dispense with her evidence?—though what evidence she can give I can't think. It is most painful to me. Just consider, Mr. Manson, what people will say. And my position with the Bishop. Really, Mr. Manson——”

“Mr. Vicar,” said Manson, in a tense whisper, “I've subpenaed your daughter, and she'll go into that box, and she'll answer my questions. There's a man's life at stake!

Then he pressed on to his seat at the solicitor's table, and beyond noticing that there was a full bench of magistrates and that the court, a big, somber hall, was packed to the doors, he seemed to those near him to be taking no particular interest in the preliminary stage of the proceedings; indeed, to all appearances, he might not have been in any way engaged in them. He had not come into court armed with any vestige of the usual paraphernalia; there was neither bag, book, nor bundle of papers before him on the table. He sat with his hands in his pockets, staring at the panels of the bench, apparently unconcerned and incurious where everybody else was excited and brimful of inquisitive speculation. But in reality Manson's mind was harder at work than it had ever been since he first started out on his professional career. He was obsessed by a notion. It shaped itself into definite words which rang over and over in the swiftly-moving evolutions of his active brain. Somewhere in that court was somebody who knew and could tell, if made, the precise truth!

Somebody!—somewhere! But where?—and who? Was it the girl? Probably not—the likelihood was that she knew most of the truth; that she could give a very clear indication of where the truth was to be found—but that she did not know everything. Yet Manson felt that the possessor of the whole truth was there—behind him, perhaps; at his side, perhaps, but there, hugging his secret.

The problem was how to get at him in swift and final fashion. For Manson had one object, and that was to settle this matter there and then. He knew what the police would want delay. But he wanted something sharp, rapid, decisive.

Just as the police had been speedy, too speedy, as he knew, in charging his client, so he wanted with equal swiftness to get the charge dismissed. He was certain of his own weapon; all he was uncertain about was the exact location of the vulnerable spot wherein to thrust it. And if he seemed apathetic and unconcerned it was all play-acting; in reality he was strung to the highest tension, and when the police after giving evidence of Leaver's arrest, asked for an immediate remand, he sprang into activity.

“You worships, I appear on behalf of the prisoner, Richard Leaver, and I oppose that application. I oppose it strenuously. The police authorities have acted in this matter with undue precipitancy. I am ready to prove, here and now, beyond doubt, that my client is absolutely innocent of the charge brought against him. I claim my right—his right—to have that evidence put before your worships at once.”

The Chairman glanced at the Superintendent of Police; the Superintendent glanced uneasily and suspiciously at Manson.

“Of course, if Mr. Manson is in a position to produce this evidence——” the Superintendent said hesitatingly. “But if your worships are going to accede to his request I should like first to call a witness on behalf of the prosecution. Mr. Manson has just remarked that we have acted with undue precipitancy. I think that if your worships will hear our witness you will admit that we have good grounds for charging the prisoner. Do I understand that your worships decide to go on now?”

The Chairman whispered for a while with his brother magistrates and turned to the Superintendent.

“After what Mr. Manson has said,” he announced, “we decide to go on.”

The Superintendent looked round at the crowded benches. Then he called a name.

“Charles Richards!”

Manson sat drumming his fingers on the table while the gamekeeper gave his evidence—plain, matter-of-fact, straightforward evidence. But when it came to an end he was on his feet.

“How far away from the sand-pit were you, Richards, when you heard the shots you have just spoken of?” he asked.

“About two hundred yards, sir.”

“In the wood behind the sand-pit”

“Just so, sir—in the wood.”

“Was it a still night?”

“Very still, sir—quiet as the grave.”

“Now tell me—did you hear one shot, or two?”

“Two, sir. Two shots distinctly. One fired immediately after the other.”

“In rapid succession, eh?”

“They were fired one—two, sir, just like that. I should say the second one was fired the fraction of a second after the first.”

“Tn fact, they were fired just about the same time?”

“Just about that, sir.”

“When you got to the sand-pit, you found Mr. Leaver there standing by the dead man. Now what was your impression about him?”

“Well, sir—queer. He seemed—flabbergasted, sir, that's as near as I can put it. Astonished—bewildered.”

“We've heard already what you say he said. Did he say nothing else?”

“Nothing, sir, but that. That he believed it was his pistol. Then he went off—sharp. I called to him—two or three times. He took no notice.”

Manson nodded, waved his hand, and as the gamekeeper stepped down from the witness-box he said in quiet tones:

“Call Dr. Summers.”

Summers carried into the box the small cardboard case which he had shown to Manson in his surgery. He laid it on the ledge, and it was at it that Manson appeared to be looking when he began to examine his witness.

“Dr. Summers, you were called by the police early this morning to examine the dead body of Gerald Paisley. What was the cause of death—briefly?”

“He had been shot. Shot through the heart.”

“Since then, I believe, you have carried out a post-mortem examination.”

“Yes—in company with Dr. Brown.”

“Did you find the bullet which had killed Paisley?”

“We did. It had pierced the heart, traveled upward, and was embedded in the thick muscles of the shoulder.”

“You have it there, I believe. Thank you—I wish their worships to examine it. But first I want to direct your worships' attention to the automatic pistol—now lying here on this table before the Superintendent—which is undoubtedly that which was in my client's hand when Richards came upon him in the sand-pit, and was handed to the police by my client when the police arrested him. There is the pistol with which, say the police, the shot was fired which killed Paisley. Here is the bullet which, according to the police was discharged from the pistol. Dr. Summers, look at that bullet. Is it the one that you and Dr. Brown found in Paisley's dead body?”

“Certainly. That is the bullet.”

“Then that is all I want to ask you, doctor, thank you. Now call Stephen Ford. Mr. Ford, you are a gunsmith. Have you had experience, and done business as a gunsmith in this town for a great many years?”

“Twenty-five years, sir.”

“You are an expert as regards fire-arms, I think?”

“Well, I believe I may justly say I am, sir.”

“Take that pistol in hand, Mr. Ford; describe it to their worships.”

“Well, sir—your worships—this is a Cotley's automatic; point 38 caliber, rifled in three grooves, with a carrier containing seven cartridges. I see that there are five cartridges now left in the carrier and there is one in the breech. So one has been discharged.”

“Thank you, Mr. Ford. Put down the pistol. Now look at this bullet. And, Mr. Ford, be very careful about your:answer to my next question. It is this …”

Manson paused for a second, swept the court with one glance, and the bench of magistrates with another, and then bending toward the witness went on in tones of concentrated intensity.

“This, Mr. Ford! This! Has this bullet been fired from that pistol?”

A dead silence fell on the crowd. One of the magistrates, quicker of apprehension than his fellows, broke it with a sudden sharp sibilant purring of his lips—he saw Manson's point. And then came Ford's answer, quick but assured.

“No, sir! This bullet was never fired from that pistol.”

“You're certain of that?”

“Stake my reputation on it, sir.”

“Tell their worships how you know it was not fired from that pistol, Mr. Ford.”

“The reason is simple, sir. This automatic pistol, the Cotley, is rifled with three grooves. But this bullet has been fired from an automatic pistol, rifled with four grooves. Here are the plain, unmistakable indications—for anybody to see.”

“I see,” muttered Manson. “I saw some hours ago. Now, Mr. Ford, can you say what sort of pistol that bullet was fired from?”

“Yes, sir. From a Robinson's automatic of the same caliber, and with the same features, but rifled in four grooves.”

“You're familiar with the Robinson automatic, Mr. Ford?”

“Quite, sir. And with the Cotley, too; with both.”

“Sold a Robinson lately to anybody, Mr. Ford—anybody hereabouts?”

“No, sir. But—I've repaired one.”

Manson glanced at the magistrates. He kept silence for a moment; then, motioning the gunsmith to step aside, he turned to the officials and raised his voice.

“Call Nancy Millersley!”

 

In the midst of another dead silence, broken only by a half-suppressed murmur of protest from the vicar, a girl came forward and entering the witness-box looked stealthily around her. She was of middle height, a lissom-figured slip of a thing, some eighteen or nineteen years of age whose golden hair had a distinct tinge of red in it, whose nose was saucily tip-tilted, whose lips were full and red and inclined to curl upward at the corners. But they were firm enough and the somewhat sleepy violet eyes were steady enough when they presently faced Manson. And Manson, eyeing his witness just as steadily, went straight toward his point.

“I believe I am right in saying that of late you have been intimately acquainted with Gerald Paisley and with his cousin Richard Leaver? Am I right?”

The girl hesitated, seemed to consider, and finally nodded her head. “I knew them both very well,” she replied. “Yes.”

“Were they both paying their attentions to you?”

“I—I suppose so.”

“Making love to you, in fact?”

“I—yes, I suppose they did.”

“You went out with them, sometimes with one, sometimes with the other, a good deal didn't you?”

“I have gone out with them.”

“And didn't you frequently meet, sometimes one, sometimes the other, secretly? To be precise, at night, in your father's grounds?”

“I—I have done that.”

“When did you last see Gerald Paisley?”

“Night before last.”

“Secret meeting?”

“Y—yes.”

“What happened?”

“Nothing much.”

“Did he ask you if you were going to decide between him and his cousin? I want a definite answer.”

“Yes.”

“What did you reply to him?”

“I said I wouldn't answer any question like that.”

“Did that satisfy him?”

I don't know. He went away—he seemed angry.”

“Very well. When did you last see Richard Leaver?”

“Last night.”

“Same place? Back of the vicarage garden?”

“Yes.”

“Did he, too, want a decision—between Paisley and himself?”

“Yes.”

“Well—what did you say to him?”

“I told him I wasn't going to be engaged to either of them—definitely.”

“You meant that?”

“Oh, yes, quite.”

“Although you'd been accepting their attentions, going out with them, and, more than that, meeting them secretly for some time? Now isn't it a fact that you'd encouraged both these boys—for they were little more—ever since you came home last summer?”

“They—they were always—well, after me.”

“We'll grant that—and you'll grant that up to within the last night or two, their pursuit of you was welcomed. But now—why did you suddenly throw cold water on them?”

“I—don't know. They—both of them—began to be—well, they wanted me to—to promise things.”

“They wanted—being downright young men—to know where they were, eh? Didn't it come to this—that if you weren't going to make a decision, they were going to be off?”

The girl hesitated, and glanced timidly toward the dock.

“Dick Leaver said that,” she answered, “but Gerry didn't.”

“Gerry didn't, didn't he? Now which did you really like best? Dick Leaver or Gerry Paisley? Come, now!”

“Well—Gerry.”

Manson leaned forward across the table looking sternly at the witness. “Then why didn't you accept him?” he asked. “Answer.”

But the girl made no answer. The color began to come and go in her cheeks; her fingers, resting on the ledge of the box, began to work nervously.

“Listen,” said Manson, in tense accents, “You had been carrying on with these two youngsters, clandestinely as well as openly, for some time, and suddenly when they want to know which is going to be the favored one you dismiss both, though you now admit that you had a preference—for Gerry. Now, why did you dismiss them? Was it—attend to me—was it because there was a third lover, a rival? Answer.”

The girl's agitation increased: she looked from left to right. But her eyes came back to Manson's, and Manson's grew more insistent.

“I say—answer,” he repeated sternly. “Had you a third lover?”

The answer came—in a whisper.

“There—there was somebody else.”

“Who was he? Who is he? I want his name! Tell——”

The vicar was on his legs by that time, lifting a shaking hand towards the bench.

“Your worships, I protest!” he began. Manson has no right——”

“I have my right,” thundered Manson. “Sit down, sir. I demand an answer to my question.” He faced the witness again, almost threateningly. “Who is this man—or boy, which is much more likely? His name.”

The girl hesitated, trembled, made as if to speak, hesitated again, and suddenly burst into tears. And on the instant, from among the crowd behind the solicitor's table, a young man, little more than a mere lad, started up, striving to force his way towards the front. He was flushed, sullen, defiant, and he lifted a clenched fist as he faced Manson.

“Here, stop that, you,” he vociferated, “Leave her alone, damn you. I am not going to sit here and listen to your damned bullying. You swine! I shot Gerry Paisley!—and I'd damn well shoot him again! Fair doings, too—a duel. He—he'd said things about her, and I called him out. Now you know—and you leave her alone.” Manson stood staring at his interrupter for the fraction of a minute after the last word. Then he suddenly made a formal bow to the startled magistrates and, with a sigh of satisfaction, dropped back into his seat.