“Then came a day,” he said, “when a lunatic escaped from that asylum at Repstow. You had news of it one night, and told Raymond and me. He was a homicidal fellow, and he got hold of one of your keeper’s guns. Next morning Raymond went to shoot pigeons, and I bicycled on my motor to play golf. And then—then, father, we must suppose that the devil himself came to Raymond. It wasn’t Raymond who planned what Raymond did.... He expected me to come back along the road from the lodge, and he—he hid in the bushes at that sharp corner with his gun resting on the wall, and his plan was to shoot me. It would have been at the distance of a few yards only.”
Lord Yardley interrupted; his voice was hoarse and nearly inaudible.
“Wait a minute, Colin,” he said. “All this reminds me of something I have heard, and yet only half heard.”
Colin nodded. “I know,” he said. “I’ll tell that presently.... There was poor Raymond waiting for me to come round the corner. There was this madman loose in the park somewhere, and if the—the plan had succeeded, it would have been supposed that it was the madman who had killed me. But an accident happened: my bicycle punctured, and I walked back for the trudge along the ridge of the Old Park.”
“I caught the glint of sun on a gun-barrel by the wall at that sharp corner,” he said, “and I wondered who or what that could be. It could not be the escaped madman, for they had told me at the lodge that he had been caught; and then I remembered that Raymond was out shooting pigeons, and I remembered that Raymond hated me. It occurred to me definitely then, and I felt sick at the thought, that he was waiting for me. And then, father, the mere instinct of self-preservation awoke. If it was Raymond, if I was terribly right, I could not go on like that in constant fear of my life.... I had to make myself safe.
“I stole down, taking cover behind the oaks, till I got close and then I saw it was Raymond. I was white with rage, and I was sick at heart. I had a revolver with me, for you or Vi—you, I think—had persuaded me to take it out in case I met the wretched madman, and, father, I had met a wretched madman. I covered him with it, and then I spoke to him. I told him that if he moved except as I ordered him, I would kill him. He collapsed; every atom of fight was out of him, and he emptied his gun of its cartridges and laid it down. And all the time there wasn’t a cartridge at all in my revolver: I had taken them out and forgotten to put them back. It was after he had collapsed that I found that out.”
A wan smile, as unlike to Colin’s genial heat of mirth as the moonlight is to the noonday sun, shivered and trembled on his mouth and vanished again, leaving it so serious, so tender.
“He confessed,” he said. “But I had to make myself safe. I told him he must put that confession into writing and sign it, and you and I would witness it. That was done. I told you—do you remember?—that Raymond and I had a secret pact, and we wanted your witness to his signature. That was it; and it is that you hold in your hand now. I sent it to my bank, Bertram’s, again in self-defence, for I knew that he would not dare to make any attempt on me, since, if it were successful, however far from suspicion he seemed to stand, there would come into your hands the confession that he had attempted to kill me. Look at the envelope, father. In case of my death, you will read there, it was to be delivered to you.”
Philip did not need to look.