Part 31 (1/2)

”Clearly,” Gifford a.s.sented in a calm tone. ”That is why I asked you to come here this afternoon.”

Henshaw was looking at him with a sort of malicious curiosity. In spite of his smartness he seemed at a loss to divine what the other was driving at, unless it were a well-studied line of bluff. But that Gifford could have, apart from what Edith Morriston might have told him, any intimate knowledge of the tragedy was inconceivable.

”I shall be glad to hear what you have to say, Mr. Gifford,” he responded, in perhaps much greater curiosity than he chose to show.

”Then I have to inform you positively,” Gifford answered, ”that your brother's fatal wound was the result of a pure accident.”

Coming from Edith Morriston's champion, there was nothing surprising in that a.s.sertion. Certainly if that were the other's strong suit he could easily beat it. It was therefore in a tone of confidence and relief that he demanded, ”You can prove it?”

”I can.”

”By Miss Morriston's testimony?”

”Not at all. By my own.”

”Your own?” Henshaw's question was put with a curling lip.

”My own,” Gifford repeated steadfastly.

”May one ask what you mean by that?”

Henshaw's contemptuous incredulity was by no means diminished even by the other's confident att.i.tude.

Gifford gave a short laugh. ”Naturally you do not take my meaning.

Obviously you think I am not a competent witness, that I know nothing except by hearsay. You are, extraordinary as it may seem, quite wrong.

My testimony would be of nothing but what I myself saw and heard.”

”What do you mean?” Henshaw had for a moment seemed to be calculating the probability of this monstrous suggestion being a fact, and had dismissed it with the contempt which showed itself in his question.

”I mean,” Gifford replied with quiet a.s.surance, ”that I happened to be a witness of the interview in the tower-room between your brother and Miss Morriston, that I was there when he received his death-wound, and that it was I whom the girl Haynes saw descending by a rope from the top window.”

Henshaw had started to his feet, his face working with an almost pa.s.sionate astonishment. ”You--you tell me all that,” he cried, ”and expect me to believe it?”

”I have told you and shall tell you nothing,” was the cool reply, ”that I am not prepared to state on oath in the witness-box.”

For a while Henshaw seemed without the power to reply, dumbfounded, as his active brain tried to realize the probabilities of the declaration.

”It seems to me,” he said at length in a voice of which he was scarcely master, ”that, whether your statement is true or otherwise, you are placing yourself in an uncommonly dangerous position, Mr. Gifford.”

”I am aware that I am inviting a certain amount of ugly suspicion,”

Gifford agreed, ”but the truth, which might have remained a mystery, has been forced from me by the necessity of protecting Miss Morriston.

Perhaps you had better hear a frank account of the whole story, and the explanation of what I admit you are so far justified in setting down as concocted and wildly improbable.”

”I should very much like to hear it,” Henshaw returned in a tone which held out no promise of credence.

Thereupon Gifford gave him a terse account of the events and the chance which had led him into the tower and to be a secret witness of what happened there. Remembering that he was addressing the dead man's brother, he recounted the details of the interview without feeling; indeed he threw no more colour into it than if he had been opening a case in court. He simply stated the facts without comment. Henshaw listened to the singular story in an att.i.tude of doggedly unemotional attention. Lawyer-like he restrained all tendency to interrupt the narrative and asked no question as it proceeded. Nevertheless it was clear he was thinking keenly, eager to note any weak points which he could turn to use.

When the recital had come to an end he said coolly--