Part 24 (1/2)
Stephen Gard stood up at once and all eyes settled on him. Then Peter Mauger was pushed along from the back, with friendly thumps and growling injunctions to speak up. But the looks bestowed on Gard were of quite a different quality from those given to Peter, and the men at the table could not but notice it.
”We will take Peter Mauger first. Let him be sworn,” said the Senechal, and Gard sat down.
The Greffier swore Peter in the old Island fas.h.i.+on--”Vous jurez par la foi que vous devez a Dieu que vous direz la verite, et rien que la verite, et tous ce que vous connaissez dans cette cause, et que Dieu vous soit en aide! (You swear by the faith which you owe to G.o.d that you will tell the truth, and only the truth, and all that you know concerning this case, and so help you G.o.d!)”
Peter put up his right hand and swore so to do.
”Now tell us all you know,” said the Senechal.
And Peter ramblingly told how he and Tom had been drinking together the night before, and how Tom had started off home and he had gone to bed.
”Were you both drunk?”
”Well--”
”Very well, you were. Did you think it right to let your friend go off in that condition when he had to cross the Coupee?”
”I've seen him worse, many times, and no harm come to him.”
”Well, get on!”
He told how Mrs. Tom woke him up in the morning, and how they had all gone in search of the missing man.
”Was it you that found him?”
”No, it was Charles Guille of Clos Bourel. But I found something too.”
”What was it?”
”This”--and from under his coat he drew out carefully the white stone with its red-brown spots, and from his pocket the b.u.t.ton and the sc.r.a.p of blue cloth. And those at the back stood up, with much noise, to see.
The men at the table looked at these sc.r.a.ps of possible evidence with interest, as they were placed before them.
”Where did you find these things?”
”Between Plaisance and the Coupee.”
”What do you make of them?”
”Seemed to me those red spots might be blood. The other's a b.u.t.ton torn off some one's coat.”
”Have you any idea whose blood and whose coat?”
”The blood I don't know. The b.u.t.ton, I believe, is off Mr. Gard's coat,”--at which another growl and hum went round.
”And you know nothing more about the matter?”
”That's all I know.”
”Very well. Sit down. Mr. Gard!” and Gard pushed his way among unyielding legs and shoulders, and stood before the grave-faced men at the table.
They all knew him and had all come to esteem what they knew of him. They knew also of his difficulties with his men, and that there was a certain feeling against him in some quarters. Not one of them thought it likely he had done this dreadful thing. But--there was no knowing to what lengths even a decent man might go in anger. All their brows pinched a little at sight of his torn coat and missing b.u.t.ton.