Her heart lifted slightly with the relief and fell again. She had been frightened and had not got over the shock.
"It is a perfectly absurd business, Lady O'Gara. Your husband will—I have no doubt"—he emitted a perfectly unnatural chuckle—"be immensely amused. I should not have mentioned it … I should have shown the ruffian the door, only that new District Inspector … Fury … a very good name for him … mad as a hatter, I should say … brought the fellow to me."
"What is it all about, Sir Felix?" asked Lady O'Gara, in a voice of despair.
"My dear lady, have I been trying you? I'm sorry." Sir Felix pulled himself together by a manifest effort.
"I apologize for even telling you such a thing, though I don't believe one word of it. The fellow was obviously drunk and so I told D.I. Fury. I absolutely refused to swear him, but I had to issue a summons. Yes, yes, I'm coming to it now! Don't be impatient, my dear lady. A low drunken tramp went to the police with a ridiculous story that your husband was privy to the death of young Terence Comerford, poor fellow! Ridiculous! when every one knows there was the love of brothers between them. The ruffian maintains that he was on the spot,—that your husband and Comerford were quarrelling, that your husband struck him repeatedly, he not being in a way to defend himself, finally that he lashed the horse, a young and very spirited horse who would not take the whip, saying: 'You'll never reach home alive, Terence Comerford! You've forced me to do it.' My dear lady, don't look so terrified. Of course there's nothing in it. Your husband will have to answer the charge at Petty Sessions. It won't go any further. If it were true itself they couldn't bring it in more than manslaughter. Indeed, I doubt if any charge would lie after so many years."
He stopped, panting after the long speech.
"It was very kind of you to ride over this dark night to tell us. Of course it is a ridiculous tale. But the mere suggestion will upset my husband. As you say, they were so devoted, dearer than brothers. Why should this person come with such a tale at this time of day?"
"That is exactly what I asked, my dear lady. Trumped up, every bit of it, I haven't the smallest doubt. Only for Fury it would end where it began. The fellow says—I beg your pardon, Lady O'Gara,—that Sir Shawn paid him to keep silence—that he has grown tired of being bled and told him to do his worst. As I said to Fury, you had only to look at the fellow to see that the truth wasn't in him."
Lady O'Gara was very pale.
"Would you mind waiting a second, Sir Felix?" she said gently. "You were not here at the time of the dreadful accident. The one who really all but witnessed it is here, close at hand. You might like to hear his version of what happened."