“Neither,” said White, without glancing at the questioner. “He shot himself.”
“Funked it, by Jove!” The words came under Brissy’s breath. He did not know what it was that shocked him—the suggestion of cowardice to his mind, or the staggering realisation of the extent of Alaric Lewin’s indiscretion to have driven him to such a course. It must indeed have been a disaster that had made Ally see no way out of it, but to take his own life. What, in God’s name, had he been doing?
“Does his wife know?” he said roughly, in his fear.
“Poor girl!—no, how should she?”
“Some one must tell her. It will leak out, and she’ll hear it straight, if they don’t.”
“I pity the man who breaks it to her, that’s all!” It was Rennie who spoke, and his tones were heartfelt. “I wouldn’t for anything the world contains!”
“Some one must.” Brissy set his white teeth and looked from one to the other. There was no response in their faces, and their eyes avoided his rather than otherwise. In the pause a heavy step sounded on the landing above, and the Administrator himself appeared, leaning over the rail of the stair. His gaunt form and harsh face showed not one sign of weakness—hardly even of pity or concern—but he signed imperiously to Arthur White.
“Can you come up and speak with me?” he said. “I want you.”
As if by a common impulse all the men turned and followed the Attorney-General up the stair, and crowded into the narrow passage, looking with stern earnestness into Gregory’s face. He held some letters in his hand, and beyond him, through the open door of the office he had just left, Alfred Halton’s figure was just visible, seated by the open window. It was so hot at this hour of the day—being barely past the Miroro—and in the narrow passage between the offices, that the sweat hung in beads round the lips and on the temples of every man present, without any movement or exertion on their part, while the smell of the air seemed the essence of heat—a baked atmosphere, without actual matter to flavour it.
“We were speaking of Mrs. Lewin, sir,” said the Attorney-General firmly. “Does she know of Captain Lewin’s death?”