Colonel Thorndyke's Secret

by G. A. Henty

“He was dead before we could get down to examine him; he will not disturb the King's peace again. It happened about four miles from home, so we brought him in and gave him and his horse into the charge of the constable at Reigate.”

“And you have really killed a man?” Millicent said, looking up with an awestruck expression to Mark.

“Well, as the man would have killed us if I hadn't, I cannot say, Millicent, that his death weighs in any way heavily on my mind. If he were as good a shot as the other, my father's life would not have been worth much, for as we were driving fast, he was not above half as far away as the other had been when he fired. Just the same, I suppose, as it would be in a battle; a man is going to shoot you, and you shoot him first, and I don't suppose it ever troubles you afterwards.”

“Of course I don't mean that I blame you, Mark; but it does seem shocking.”

“I don't suppose you would think that, Millicent, if a burglar, who had taken one shot at you and was about to finish you with another, was cut short in the operation by a shot from my pistol. I believe that your relief and thankfulness would be so great that the idea that it was a shocking thing for me to do would not as much as enter your head.”

“I wish you had shot the other man as well as the one you did, Mark,” the Squire said, as he walked with his son down to Reigate to attend the inquest the next morning on the man he had brought in. Mark looked at his father in surprise.

“There is no doubt I hit him, father,” he said; “but I should not think that he will be likely to trouble us again.”

“I wish I felt quite sure of that. Do you know that I have a strong suspicion that it was Arthur Bastow?”

Mark had, of course, heard of Bastow's escape, but had attached no great importance to it. The crime had taken place nearly eight years before, and although greatly impressed at the time by the ill doings of the man, the idea that he would ever return and endeavor to avenge himself on his father for the part he had taken had not occurred to him. Beyond mentioning his escape, the Squire had never talked to him on the subject.

“It was he who bade us stand and deliver, and the moment he spoke the voice seemed familiar to me, and, thinking it over, I have an impression that it was his. I may be mistaken, for I have had him in my mind ever since I heard that he had escaped, and may therefore have connected the voice with him erroneously, and yet I cannot but think that I was right. You see, there are two or three suspicious circumstances. In the first place, there was this man down here making inquiries. Knapp went down early this morning with the innkeeper, and told me before breakfast that Peters at once recognized the fellow you shot as the man who had made the inquiries. Now, the natural result of making inquiries would have been that the two men would the next evening have broken into the house, thinking that during our absence they would meet with no resistance. Instead of doing this they waylaid us on the road, which looks as if it was me they intended to attack, and not the house.”