CHAPTER XX
Hours afterward Brood sat alone in the room where the tragedy occurred. Much had transpired in the interim to make those hours seem like separate and distinct years to him, each hour an epoch in which a vital and memorable incident had been added to his already overfull measure of experience.
He had refused to see the newspaper men who came. Dr Hodder wisely had protested against secrecy.
“Murder will out,” he had said fretfully, little realising how closely the trite old saying applied to the situation. He had accepted the statements of Yvonne and Ranjab as to the accidental discharge of the weapon, but for some reason had refrained from asking Brood a single question, although he knew him to be a witness to the shooting.
Yvonne saw the reporters and, later on, an inspector of police. Ranjab told his unhappy story. He had taken the weapon from a hook on the wall for the purpose of cleaning it. It had been hanging there for years, and all the time there had been a single cartridge left in the cylinder unknown to anyone. He had started to remove the cylinder as he left the room.
All these years the hammer had been raised; death had been hanging over them all the time that the pistol occupied its insecure position on the wall. Somehow, he could not tell how, the hammer fell as he tugged at the cylinder. No one could have known that the revolver was loaded. That was all that he could say, except to declare that if his master's son died he would end his own miserable, valueless life.
His story was supported by the declarations of Mrs Brood, who, while completely exonerating her husband's servant, had but little to say in explanation of the affair. She kept her wits about her. Most people would have made the mistake of saying too much. She professed to know nothing except that they were discussing young Mr Brood's contemplated trip abroad and that her husband had given orders to his servants to pack a revolver in his son's travelling-bag.
She had paid but little attention to the Hindu's movements. All she could say was that it was an accident—a horrible, blighting accident. For the present it would not be possible for anyone to see the heart-broken father. Doubtless later on he would be in the mood to discuss the dreadful catastrophe, but not now. He was crushed with the horror of the thing that had happened. And so she explained.