"You have heard of this fearful deed, Lord Glisfoyle?" was the Queen's question on my entrance.
"I have learnt it within the last few minutes in the ante-chamber, your Majesty."
"I have told my lords here the strange charges you brought against Senor Quesada. Do you still maintain them?"
"In every word and detail, Madame," and, at her request, I repeated to them everything I had said before.
"It is certainly a most extraordinary story," said one of them, the Duke of Novarro, Minister of War, in a tone which suggested unbelief and hostility.
"And the most extraordinary part of it, my lord," I replied, "is the fact that he was enabled to lay all these plans without anyone of his colleagues or associates having a suspicion of the truth. No doubt if the dead man's papers are secured in time, they will yield abundant proof of everything." The hint was acted upon at once, and messengers were despatched to see that this was done.
"Can you throw any light upon the motive for this deed?" asked the Duke.
"I have not heard the actual circumstances, but the Minister was a man who had made many enemies, private as well as public. I should look for the murderer among his private enemies." And even as I spoke, my own words prompted a thought, and the closing scene at Calvarro's farm flashed across my mind.
"Do you mean you would not set this down to Carlist feeling?" he asked next, in the same tone of unbelief.
"It was an act of private revenge, no more and no less," I answered firmly, "and I believe that I can find the means to prove it so." The suggestion was welcome to all present. The murder of a colleague from private motives was obviously a far less disturbing event to Ministers than an assassination designed as a protest against Ministerial policy. But the Duke was none the less hostile to me.