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Instead of that, they were honest men, fighting bravely for what they believed a righteous cause," he observed, as he read the accounts of what had taken place. It is scarcely necessary to say how Alice Tufnell felt. Though she had warned and entreated Stephen Battiscombe not to take up arms, she knew that he was prompted by the highest and purest of motives.
The butler escorted him to the library, and entered after him. Musard was in the room alone, standing by the fireplace, smoking a cigar. He looked up as Caldew entered. "I have just learnt something which I think you ought to know," he said. "The information comes from Tufnell.
On his return to England she came to live at Eversden Manor, where she married Mr Harry Tufnell, the younger son of a gentleman of property in the county. He, however, soon afterwards died, leaving his widow and infant daughter slenderly provided for. Two years elapsed from his death, when Mrs Tufnell, who was then staying at the manor-house, followed him to the grave.
It was there Tufnell thought he saw somebody hiding; it was there I found a scrap of khaki adhering to a bramble at the spot indicated by Nepcote as his hiding-place. Tufnell admits that he called out in alarm when his eye fell on the crouching figure. Nepcote says that he saw Tufnell, heard his cry, and plunged deeper into the bushes for safety.
Sergeant Lumbe's brain such as it was was in too much of a whirl to permit him to talk coherently; Tufnell, habitually a taciturn individual, had been rendered more so than usual by the events of the night; and Caldew was plunged into such a reverie of pleasurable expectation, regarding the outcome of his investigations of the moat-house murder, that the stages of his promotion through the grades of detective, sub-superintendent, and superintendent, flashed through his mind as rapidly as telegraph poles flit past a traveller in a railway carriage.
Whilst Miles was taking note of these things, and moralising in spite of his distaste just then to that phase of mental occupation, the other lady of the Institute appeared and spoke hurriedly to her companion. "Go," she said, "tell Mrs Martin that her husband is not on board the Orontes. Let Tufnell, if he is at the shed, or our missionary, take her up to the Institute without delay.
As soon as he had concluded, they took the places left vacant for them, Stephen managing to place himself next to Mistress Alice Tufnell, while Roger, who cared not where he sat, went to one on the opposite side of the table between his father and the parson, who had at first humbly taken a lower position.
It was Colwyn who broke the silence. "Tufnell!" he said. "Yes, sir?" The butler deposited a dish on the sideboard and stepped quickly to the detective's chair. "I want to ask you a question or two. It was you who found the back door of the left wing unlocked on the night of the murder, was it not?" The butler gravely bowed, but did not speak. "What made you try the door?
The butler's meek tones conveyed such an inflection of surprise that Colwyn was convinced that he, at all events, had no suspicion of the secret between Mrs. Heredith and Nepcote. "Your confidence is quite safe with me, Tufnell," the detective added after a pause. "But I cannot answer your question at present." "Very well, sir."
Turning suddenly round, Mr Tufnell, the manager of the Portsmouth Institute, confronted the visitor with a stern but perspiring visage, which instantly became illuminated with a beaming smile. "What! Tufnell!" exclaimed our hero, in amazement. "Ay, Miles; as large as life." "Larger than life, if anything," said Miles, grasping the proffered hand, and shaking it warmly.
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