“I recognised that I must defend my life,” Van Bleit finished with fine dramatic effect. “A man hasn’t time to consider on such occasions; he acts on impulse. But I solemnly declare I had no intention to kill the man. I fired wildly, and I am certain no one could have been more distressed than myself when I discovered that my shot had proved fatal. I was scarcely conscious that I had fired until Simmonds fell.”
Colonel Grey corroborated his statement as to the locking of the door; but he added that there was nothing hostile in the act. He believed it had been done to guard against interruption. He further allowed that Simmonds had been somewhat hasty. He had been the first to produce a revolver. He had not, however, covered the prisoner with it. The prisoner had been excited and had fired without provocation.
The jury retired for about ten minutes. When they returned they pronounced the prisoner Not Guilty. The verdict was received with cheers. When a man has stood on trial for his life the tension of feeling is sufficiently strained to cause a strong reaction on his acquittal in favour of the accused.
Van Bleit left the court with his friends, and Smythe, who was as much astonished as relieved at the turn affairs had taken, drove him home to his wife as the surest proof he could offer her that her cousin was a free man.
“I don’t know how he does it,” he confided in Van Bleit’s counsel, who was a personal friend, and whose fee he was responsible for. “I take it, he’s reserved for something worse than hanging.”
The strain had told on Van Bleit. He had recognised that he stood in a particularly tight place. Death had been his constant companion sleeping and waking for so long that his nerve was shattered for the time. Excitement had kept him up hitherto, now that the necessity to brace himself was ended he collapsed like a deflated paper bag.
When he got alone with his cousin he gave way and blubbered feebly as a child blubbers who has been beaten and desires to but cannot retaliate. Mrs Smythe was shocked. She pressed whisky on him with a heart overflowing with pity, and he helped himself liberally from the decanter until his lachrymose condition gave place to a bombastic assurance that was almost as pitiful to witness. Mrs Smythe sent her husband off to his club, unmindful that he should encounter Karl in his present mood, and she and her cousin dined alone.
“We’ll have a nice quiet time together,” she said gently. “You’ll sleep here to-night, Karl?”
“I might as well—yes,” he replied.
He got up, wandered aimlessly round the room, and then came back, put his arms round her shoulders and kissed her.