“Mother, you don’t—you can’t think either of them capable of——”
Lady Selina cut her short.
“My dear, long ago I thought of them as firebrands, and firebrands they are.”
Goodrich, much perturbed, but ever the peacemaker, suggested blandly:
“If you are rested sufficiently, Lady Selina, shall we go on to my house? Another heavy shower impends.”
“Rested! . . . Do you think that rest is possible till I have got to the bottom of this?” She raised her voice again, glancing round at the circle of familiar faces, some of them not looking too friendly, inasmuch as Agatha and John were favourites in the village. Even to the rustic mind, prone to leap hastily to wrong conclusions, this indictment of two persons on so grave a charge, an indictment unsupported by evidence, seemed unjust and intolerable. A faint murmur of protest was heard.
“Does anybody present,” continued Lady Selina, “know anything that would throw light on this dreadful charge of arson? If so, I ask him or her to speak.”
Stimson stepped forward. He was hardly recognisable. The staid, respectable butler had covered himself with glory and grime in a beloved mistress’s service.
She smiled graciously upon him.
“Yes, my lady. I saved all the plate, every bit of it, my lady.”