“No one. I managed to get free. If I hadn’t, I might be there now, for it was miles from anywhere, and disused, I think.”
“But how did you contrive to free yourself then, when you had been unable to do so before?” asked Miss Morville, quite mystified.
“I suppose the cord must have frayed,” Martin said, hesitatingly. “Or perhaps it worked loose — no, that wasn’t it, because when I found I could move my arms at last, I strained and strained, and the cord broke, so I think it must have frayed, or was weak in one place. Look!” He thrust his sleeve up, and showed a bruised and chafed forearm.
“I will give you some arnica for it, if you would like it,” said Miss Morville kindly.
He swung round to face her. “I don’t want it! You think it’s all lies, don’t you?”
“Oh, no! Only one should never allow oneself to be carried away by exciting stories, and I am bound to observe that it would not be so very difficult to inflict such a bruise with one’s own hands. I daresay it all happened exactly as you have described, but one can readily understand why it was that Theo and Lord Ulverston would not believe you.”
“I am much obliged to you! Why don’t you say you think I’m a murderer, and be done with it?”
“Martin,” interrupted Gervase, “why were you stunned, kept in durance vile, and finally rolled into a sand-pit?”
“Good God, if I knew that — ! I suppose some desperate fellow meant to rob me!”
“And were you robbed?” asked Gervase.