All eyes turned towards Seymour Michael, who stood half-cringing, trembling with fear and hatred towards his relentless judges.
“Years ago,” pursued Ruthine, “at the outset of life, he committed a wanton crime. He did a wrong to a poor innocent woman, whose only fault was to love him beyond his deserts. He was engaged to be married to her, and meeting a richer woman he had not the courage to ask to be released from his engagement. It happened that by a mistake he was gazetted 'dead' at the time of the Mutiny. He never contradicted the mistake—that was how he got out of his engagement. He played the same trick with Jem Agar's name. I recognised it.”
Then the last link of the chain was forged.
“So did I,” said Anna Agar. “I was the woman.”
Before the words were well out of her mouth Mark Ruthine's voice was raised in an alarmed shout.
“Look out!” he cried. “Hold that man; he is mad!”
No one had been noticing Arthur Agar—no one except Seymour Michael, who had never taken his eyes from his face during Ruthine's narration.
With a groan, unlike a human sound at all, Arthur Agar had rushed forward when his mother spoke, and for a few seconds there was a wild confusion in the room, while Seymour Michael, white with dread, fled before his doom. In and out among the people and the furniture, shouting for help, he leapt and struggled. Then there came a crash. Seymour Michael had broken through the window, smashing the glass, with his arms doubled over his face.
A second later Arthur wrenched open the sash and gave chase across the lawn. In the confusion some moments elapsed before the two heavier men followed him over the smooth turf, and the ladies from the window saw Arthur Agar kneeling over Seymour Michael on the stone terrace at the end of the lawn. They heard with cruel distinctness the sharp crackling crash of the Jew's head upon the stone flags, as Arthur shook him as a terrier shakes a rat.
Instinctively they followed, and as they came up to the group where Ruthine was kneeling over Seymour Michael, while Jem dragged Arthur away, they heard the Doctor say—