If Captain Ryecroft’s sudden departure from Herefordshire brought suspicion upon him, his reappearance goes far to remove it. For that this is voluntary soon becomes known. The returned policeman has communicated the fact to his fellow-professionals, it is by them further disseminated among the people assembled outside.
From the same source other information is obtained in favour of the man they have been so rashly and gravely accusing. The time of his starting off, the mode of making his journey, without any attempt to conceal his route of travel or cover his tracks—instead, leaving them so marked that any messenger, even the simplest, might have followed and found him. Only a fool fleeing from justice would have so fled, or one seeking to escape punishment for some trivial offence. But not a man guilty of murder.
Besides, is he not back there—come of his own accord—to confront his accusers, if any there still be? So runs the reasoning throughout the crowd on the carriage sweep.
With the gentlemen inside the house, equally complete is the revolution of sentiment in his favour. For, after the first violent outburst of grief, young Shenstone, in a few whispered words, makes known to them the particulars of his expedition to Boulogne, with that interview in the house of Major Mahon. Himself convinced of his rival’s innocence, he urges his conviction on the others.
But before their eyes is a sight almost confirmatory of it. That look of concentrated anguish in Captain Ryecroft’s eyes cannot be counterfeit. A soldier who sheds tears could not be an assassin; and as he stands in bent attitude, leaning over the table on which lies the corpse, tears are seen stealing down his cheeks, while his bosom rises and falls in quick, convulsive heaving.
Shenstone is himself very similarly affected, and the bystanders beholding them are convinced that, in whatever way Gwendoline Wynn may have come by her death, the one is innocent of it as the other.
For all, justice requires that the accusations already made, or menaced, against Captain Ryecroft be cleared up. Indeed, he himself demands this, for he is aware of the rumours that have been abroad about him. On this account he is called upon by the Coroner to state what he knows concerning the melancholy subject of their enquiry.
But first George Shenstone is examined—as it were by way of skirmish, and to approach, in a manner delicate as possible, the man mainly, though doubtingly accused.
The baronet’s son, beginning with the night of the ball—the fatal night—tells how he danced repeatedly with Miss Wynn; between two sets walked out with her over the lawn, stopped, and stood for some time under a certain tree, where in conversation she made known to him the fact of her being betrothed by showing him the engagement ring. She did not say who gave it, but he surmised it to be Captain Ryecroft—was sure of its being he—even without the evidence of the engraved initials afterwards observed by him inside it.
As it has already been identified by others, he is only asked to state the circumstances under which he found it. Which he does, telling how he picked it up from the floor of the summer-house; but without alluding to his own motives for being there, or acting as he has throughout.