“And it is thought,” added the colonel, “that—that Captain Tanerton did it.”
“Good mercy, Letsom! You can’t mean it.”
Colonel Letsom’s answer was to read out portions of the two letters. One of them was written to his daughter Mary Ann by Coralie Fontaine; three sheets full. She gave much the same history of the calamity that has been given above. It could not have been done by any hand but Captain Tanerton’s, she said; though of course not intentionally; nobody thought that: her father, Sir Dace, scorned any worse idea. Altogether, it was a dreadful thing; it had struck Verena into a kind of wild despair, and bewildered them all. And in a postscript she added what she had apparently forgotten to say before—that Captain Tanerton denied it.
Tod looked up, a flush on his face. “One thing may be relied upon, colonel—that if Tanerton did do it, he will avow it. He would never deny it.”
“This other letter is from Sir Dace,” said the colonel, after putting Coralie’s aside. And he turned round that we might look over his shoulder while he read it.
It gave a much shorter account than Coralie’s; a lighter account, as if he took a less grave view of the affair; and it concluded with these words: “Suspicion lies upon Tanerton. I think unjustly. Allowing that he did do it, it could only have been done by a smartly-provoked blow, devoid of ill-intention. No one knows better than myself how quarrelsome and overbearing that unfortunate young man was. But I, for one, believe what Tanerton says—that he was not even present when it happened. I am inclined to think that Pym, in his unsteady state, must in some way have fallen when alone, and struck his head fatally.”
“Sir Dace is right; I’ll lay my fortune upon it,” cried Tod warmly.
“Don’t talk quite so fast about your fortune, Joe; wait till you’ve got one,” rebuked the pater. “I must say it is grievous news, Letsom. It has upset me.”
“I am off now to show the letters to Paul,” said the colonel. “It will be but neighbourly, as he is a connection of the Fontaines.”