"By whom have you been urged to this?" coldly asked Mr. Chattaway.
"By more than I should care to name: the public, to give them a collective term. But how you obtained cognisance of my being here, I can't make out," he added, turning to Mr. Flood. "Not a soul knew I was coming."
"As we have met here, we had better have it out," was Mr. Flood's indirect answer. "It is my advice to Mr. Chattaway, and he wishes it. If Captain Mynn hears your side unofficially he must, in justice, hear ours. That's fair, all the world over."
It was, doubtless, a very unusual, perhaps unorthodox, mode of proceeding; but things far more unorthodox than that are done in local courts every day. Captain Mynn knew all the doubts and rumours just as well as Mr. Peterby could state them, but he listened attentively, as in duty bound. Mr. Chattaway did not deny the encounter with Rupert: never had denied it. He acknowledged they were neither of them very cool; Rupert was the first to strike, and Rupert fell or was knocked down. Immediately upon that, he, Chattaway, heard a sound, went to see what it was, and found they had had an eavesdropper, who was then making off across the field, on the other side of the grove. Chattaway, angry at the fact, gave pursuit, in the hope of identifying the intruder (whom he had since discovered to be Jim Sanders), but was unable to catch him. When he got back to the spot, Rupert was gone.
"How long were you absent?" inquired Captain Mynn of Mr. Chattaway.
"About six or seven minutes, I think. I ran to the other end of the field, and looked into the lane, but the boy had escaped out of sight, and I walked back again. It would take about seven minutes; the field is large."
"And after that?"
"Finding, as I tell you, that Rupert had disappeared, I re-traversed the ground over the lower field, and went on to Barbrook, where I had business. I never saw Rupert Trevlyn after I left him on the ground. The inference, therefore—nay, the absolute certainty—is, that he got up and escaped."
A pause. "You did not reach home, I believe, until midnight, or thereabouts," remarked Captain Mynn. "Some doubts have been raised as to where you could have spent your time."
And this question led to the very core of the suspicion. Mr. Chattaway appeared to feel that it did, and hesitated. So far he had spoken freely and openly enough, not with the ungracious, sullen manner that generally characterised him, but he hesitated now.