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Updated: June 18, 2025
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.
She clasped her hands tightly over her mouth so that the sound of her sobbing might not reach to the table in the centre of the big marquee; and with her lips whispering in all sincerity the vain wish that she were dead she stumbled along the corridor. But the sound had reached into the big marquee and coming after the silence it wrung Thresk's heart.
"That's true," and he spoke in the same strange mechanical voice he had used before. "That he was found dead outside his tent," Thresk added. "It's quite true," Repton agreed. "We are very sorry." "Sorry!" The exclamation burst from Thresk's lips. "Yes." Repton moved away from the chandelier. He had not looked at Thresk once since he had entered the room; nor did he look towards his wife.
She heard Ballantyne call to Thresk to sit firm while the camel rose; and still she had not found them. She heard Thresk's voice saying good-night. "The last words, Henry, I wanted to hear in the world. I thought that I would wait for them and the moment they had died away then. But I hadn't found the cartridges and so the search began again."
For if I don't consent your suspicions at once are double what they were. But I am not pleased." "Oh, we practised a little diplomacy," said Hazlewood, making light of his offence. "Diplomacy!" For the first time a gleam of anger shone in Thresk's eyes. "You have got me to your house by a trick. You have abused your position as my host.
"Oho!" he said with a smile. "Stella's coming over and I know nothing of it. Mr. Thresk's lazy, so remains at Little Beeding and delivers a lecture to me over breakfast. And you, father, seem in remarkable spirits." Mr. Hazlewood seized upon the opportunity to interrupt his son's reflections. "I am, my boy," he cried.
It was clear that no conviction could be obtained while this story held the field and in due course Mrs. Ballantyne was acquitted. Of Thresk's return to the tent just before leaving the camp nothing was said. Thresk himself did not mention it and the counsel for the Crown had no hint which could help him to elicit it. Thus the case ended.
But until this moment of disappointment she had not realised how completely the hopes had gained the upper hand with her and how extravagantly she had built upon Thresk's urgent questioning of her at the dinner-table. "Very likely he never found the Ballantynes at all," she argued. But he might have sent her word.
His face was livid, and yet the sweat stood upon his forehead. Stella Ballantyne drew back, but Ballantyne saw her as she moved and drove her to her own quarters. "I have a private message for Mr. Thresk's ears," he said, and when she had gone he took out his handkerchief and wiped his forehead. "Now you must help me," he said in a low voice.
Nevertheless Ballantyne knew very little as he acknowledged but more than his fellows. And groping drunkenly in his mind he drew out now this queer intrigue, now that fateful piece of history, now the story of some savage punishment wreaked behind the latticed windows, and laid them one after another before Thresk's eyes his peace-offerings. And Thresk listened.
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