“Do you suspect foul play?” Phil questioned. “Would the enemy have the daring to make way with him inside the town? Why should he alone be molested? And, besides, he carried his revolver, and could not be struck down without being able to fire a warning shot.”
“One sentry,” the captain replied quickly, “reported having heard a shot from the part of town near the sea, but he said it was very indistinct, and after all he was not sure.”
Phil and Sydney exchanged glances and the captain looked up sharply, a faint suspicion entering his thoughts.
“What I’d like to know,” he added coldly, “is who was in that closed carriage; the sentry says there were four people.”
Phil flushed as he read the insinuation in the captain’s voice.
“Juan Rodriguez, his daughter and a Filipino overseer by the name of Lopez,” he answered promptly, but he lowered his eyes before the direct, searching gaze of the judge-advocate general. The presence of Colonel Martinez need not be told. It would but complicate the case and not aid in the search for Tillotson; but the army officer knew human nature too accurately, and Phil was too poor a hand at telling less than the truth.
“There was besides a Filipino with the driver?” he questioned pointedly.
Phil shook his head in the negative.
“Was this Lopez within the carriage with Señor Rodriguez and his daughter?” the captain asked curtly, and Phil felt as if he were on the witness stand having the whole truth dragged from him. He might just as well make a clean breast of it. Before those piercing black eyes, he found that he was not good at dissembling.
“Lopez was driving,” Phil said blushing furiously in mortification at being so easily tripped in his testimony. “The other occupant of the carriage was Colonel Martinez!”