"That fact also will admit of no dispute," answered Gerald. "I left home with the intention of calling on the Baron on a matter of importance; but at the last moment I changed my mind and determined to write to him instead. I, too, heard a shot; but as the Baron has a range for pistol-practice in his grounds, I thought nothing of it."
Very glum indeed looked Mr. Starkie. "And now we come to the last item of evidence, which is perhaps the most singular of all. Had you not, a little while ago, a groom in your service of the name of Pedley?"
"I had. About two months ago, I had occasion to discharge him for insolence and insubordination."
"And a few days later he came to you for a character, telling you that he had a chance of getting into the employ of the Baron von Rosenberg?"
"He did; and as I thought he was sorry for his behaviour, I gave him a note to the Baron's man, whose name I don't just now remember."
"The day Pedley came to see you, do you recollect whether you left him alone in the room where the interview between you took place?"
"Now you mention it, I believe I did leave him alone for a couple of minutes while I went into the next room to write the note I had promised him."
"He seems to be a dangerous sort of customer. According to his account, it would appear that during your absence from the room, observing a half-burnt piece of paper in the fender, he took it up and carefully opened it. He had only just time to glance at its contents before you returned; but what he saw was sufficient to induce him to take the paper away with him so as to enable him to decipher it at his leisure."
"May I ask the nature of the contents of the paper in question?" said Gerald, who had turned a shade or two paler in spite of himself.
"When Pedley heard that you were suspected, he spoke to Drumley, and came along with him to see my father. There he produced the half-burnt piece of paper, the contents of which he stated to be in your writing, though how he should be able to speak so positively on the point is more than I can understand. Anyhow, Brooke, if the document should prove to be in your handwriting, it seems a somewhat singular composition, to say the least of it. I had only time to glance hurriedly over it; but from what I could make out, it appears to be a sort of warning addressed to Von Rosenberg, telling him that his life is in great and imminent danger, and that he has been condemned to death; and then there was something about escaping while there was yet time; but the whole thing was so fragmentary, and here and there there were such gaps in the sequence of the sentences, that I may perhaps scarcely have gathered the right sense of what I read. As there seemed to be no time to lose, I did not wait to hear more, but had my mare saddled at once, and rode straight across country, taking everything as it came, in order that I might be the first to bring you the news, bad as it is, and so put you on your guard."