For half a second Mr. Francis's face altered. The perturbed, anxious look which he had worn throughout the interview gave place, though but for a moment, to a trouble of a different type. Annoyance, you would have said, became more poignant than his anxiety.
"Yes; the whole feeling I had was unaccountable," he said. "But poor Harry! What an awful moment for the dear lad! But how could a cartridge have been in the gun? What frightful carelessness on Kimber's part! He can not have cleaned it after Harry used it last."
Again Geoffrey paused with his mouth slightly open. Mr. Francis, he considered, was on dangerous ground.
"That was in February," he said; "eight months ago. I can not imagine, somehow, the cartridge being there all this time."
"He was shooting in Scotland, was he not?" asked Mr. Francis.
"Yes; but a man would not carry a loaded gun in the parcel rack," said Geoffrey. "It is more usual for a gun to be taken to bits, and put in its case when one goes by train. Besides, as a matter of fact, Harry didn't take that gun to Scotland. There are other circumstances as well which lead me, at any rate, to a different conclusion—a different way of accounting for the accident," he corrected himself.
"What circumstances?" asked Mr. Francis. "Do get on, my dear boy: I am in dreadful anxiety to learn all about this awful thing. Oh, thank God, there was no harm done!"
Before the words were out of his mouth Geoffrey, who for the moment had hesitated what to tell him, made up his mind. He stifled a yawn, and splashed some whisky and soda into his glass.
"Oh, various circumstances," he said in a slow, well-balanced tone of indifference, as if the subject were wearisome. "One, of course, must be well known to you. You had used Harry's gun yourself two days ago—the day we came down here. You wounded a hare, do you not remember, close to the pheasant feed, and returned home after firing only one shot? You also, unconsciously no doubt, transferred the second cartridge from the left barrel to the right. You will hardly remember that? But it explains, at least, why the left barrel was clean. Then your idle rascal of a man, who I am told always cleans your gun, omitted to do it, and there remained a cartridge in it. That, at least, is how Harry and I put the thing together!"
Mr. Francis's hands went suddenly to his head, as if they had been on wires, and he clutched despairingly at his hair.