"I beg your pardon, Miss Duggan? And where exactly did Captain Macdonald come in! Why, when one meets a man running agitatedly away from the particular part of the Castle where the crime had taken place—and just after it—one is inclined to be a little suspicious of that man. It is only natural. Though, thank Heaven, my suspicions were soon quieted, after I discovered that your gallant Captain had really come into the grounds—with your having left the gate ajar for him so that Rhea's bell would not sound—to meet you clandestinely, as he had been forbidden the house. Love will always find a way, you know. Only, it was unfortunate at the time that he should have chosen that night of all others to have come to meet you. You knew of the crime, then, Captain? Or what was it that sent you pelting away so hard from the house that held your affianced bride?"
"Simply because I had heard a woman's scream, had seen the lights all over the Castle switch up, and did not want my meeting with Maud to be discovered—lest a more certain means should be taken to keep us apart ever afterward," returned the Captain, a trifle heatedly. "And I must confess that I was a bit nonplussed and—and angered when you mistook me for a murderer and held me under suspicion."
"For which you might readily give your apology, as a better mannered man has already done," apostrophized Cleek inwardly. "Still, we can't help a man's nature, and he seems a likely enough chap, as men go. And she loves him. And it's no affair of mine as to how he behaves himself—so long as he was not the guilty party." Then, aloud, "I see. Well, Miss Duggan will explain to you how your hunting-boots came to be here, and to lead to your being suspected along with the other. Just ask her afterward—eh, Miss Duggan? And love her still more for her womanly sentiment, if I may be permitted to tender any advice.
"I think that is really all. Only, I should like just a word with Sir Ross and Cyril alone, if I may be granted the favour? And then I must be going. Mr. Narkom and I have other affairs to attend to in this neighbourhood which are very pressing and will want a lot of careful handling to bring home to their proper destination.... Thanks very much."
He got to his feet instantly as the women arose, followed by Captain Macdonald, and quietly left the room. Only Sir Ross, Cyril, and Mr. Narkom remained. As the door closed behind them, Ross Duggan spoke up.
"What is it that you wish to say, Mr. Cleek?" he said quietly. "I'll be glad if you will go easy with Cyril. He's not a bad boy, you know. Only a trifle misguided, and I shall make it my duty in future to keep a sharper eye upon him. The boy has had no other companions but his books of adventure and his own imagination."
"And a very unfortunate mess those two things have made of him," returned Cleek quietly, crossing over and laying a hand along Cyril's shoulder. "School, and boarding-school, is the best place for him, my friend, and good healthy companionship with others of his own age. It's just the devil of that reading which made him act as he did. I found him out, late last night in company with his uncle, doing some very nefarious work on the hillside below here."
"What?"
"Gently, gently, my friend. Don't forget, will you, that Cyril has not been given the same chances as other boys. And his is an active brain. The work in question was illicit whisky-stills—in fact, the very thing for which I originally came down here, Mr. Narkom. James Tavish and Antoni Matei and Cyril have all had a hand in it. And the still itself, you will find, if you go down to your own dungeon, Sir Ross, to where the Peasant Girl is supposed to have her haunts o' nights."
"Cinnamon! Cleek!"