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Updated: June 5, 2025
Ballantyne's story this year is about the fire-brigade; but I don't think I'll have it, as he is getting rather informative, and I have one of his about the fire-brigade already. Of course I don't fix not to have it, only don't buy it at present. Don't buy "Dead Man's Rock" either. I am working diligently, and tell the housekeeper my socks is all right.
Given all that was known of Stephen Ballantyne and of the life he had led his unhappy wife, the defence would have been a good one, but for a single fact the discovery of Ballantyne's body outside the tent. No plea of self-defence could safely be left to cover that. Thresk himself wondered at it. It struck at public sympathy, it seemed the act of a person insensate and vindictive.
Colonel Ferguson breakfasted with us. I was detained at the Parliament House till the hour of poor Mrs. Ballantyne's funeral, then attended that melancholy ceremony. The husband was unable to appear; the sight of the poor children was piteous enough. James Ballantyne has taken his brother Sandy into the house, I mean the firm, about which there had formerly been some misunderstanding.
He said that I should be safe with it in Chitipur." "Chitipur's a long way from Poona," Thresk agreed. "But don't you see, this trial that's coming along in Calcutta makes all the difference. It's known I have got it. It's not safe here now and no more am I so long as I've got it." One question had been puzzling Thresk ever since he had seen the look of terror reappear in Ballantyne's face.
Repton came to Stella Ballantyne's door and was careful not to stop. She reached her own room, and once in shot the bolt; and in a moment or two she heard him breathing just outside the panels. "And to think that Stella is alone with him in the jungle months at a time!" she cried, actually wringing her hands. "That thought was in my mind all the time a horror of a thought.
If Captain Ballantyne was shot by a thief detected in the act of thieving why should that thief risk capture and death by dragging Captain Ballantyne's body out into the open? It seems to me the last thing which he would naturally do." Thresk shrugged his shoulders. "I can't explain that.
Thresk's fears were justified. Sympathy for Stella Ballantyne had already begun to wane. The fact that Ballantyne had been found outside the door of the tent was already assuming a sinister importance. Mrs. Ballantyne's counsel slid discreetly over that awkward incident. Very fortunately, as it was now to prove, he did not cross-examine the doctor from Ajmere at all.
Ballantyne, who printed the novel, alone corresponded with the author; the original manuscript was transcribed under Mr. Ballantyne's eye, by confidential persons; nor was there an instance of treachery during the many years in which these precautions were resorted to, although various individuals were employed at different times. Double proof sheets were regularly printed off.
Only Thresk was a guest not that that in Ballantyne's present mood would have mattered a great deal, but he was a guest whom Ballantyne had it in his mind to use. All the more keenly therefore he pounced upon Stella. But in pouncing he gave Thresk a glimpse into the real man that he was, a glimpse which the barrister was quick to appreciate. "How's London?
It was late ere I got home, and I did not do much. The letters I received were numerous and craved answers, yet the third volume is getting on hooly and fairly. I am twenty leaves before the printers; but Ballantyne's wife is ill, and it is his nature to indulge apprehensions of the worst, which incapacitates him for labour.
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