“No doubt.  The trial made a great deal of noise in the world.  But they were not full enough for me.  Even if my memory of those newspaper reports were clear I should still hesitate to sit in judgment.  But my memory isn’t clear.  Let us see what I do remember.”

Pettifer took a chair and sat for a few moments with his forehead wrinkled in a frown.  Was he really trying to remember?  His wife asked herself that question as she watched him.  Or had he something to tell them which he meant to let fall in his own cautiously careless way?  Mrs. Pettifer listened alertly.

“The—­well—­let us call it the catastrophe—­took place in a tent in some state of Rajputana.”

“Yes,” said Mr. Hazlewood.

“It took place at night.  Mrs. Ballantyne was asleep in her bed.  The man Ballantyne was found outside the tent in the doorway.”

“Yes.”

Pettifer paused.  “So many law cases have engaged my attention since,” he said in apology for his hesitation.  He seemed quite at a loss.  Then he went on: 

“Wait a moment!  A man had been dining with them at night—­oh yes, I begin to remember.”

Harold Hazlewood made a tiny movement and would have spoken, but Margaret held out a hand towards him swiftly.

“Yes, a man called Thresk,” said Pettifer, and again he was silent.

“Well,” asked Hazlewood.

“Well—­that’s all I remember,” replied Pettifer briskly.  He rose and put his chair back.  “Except—­” he added slowly.

“Yes?”

“Except that there was left upon my mind when the verdict was published a vague feeling of doubt.”

“There!” cried Mrs. Pettifer triumphantly.  “You hear him, Harold.”

But Hazelwood paid no attention to her.  He was gazing at his brother-in-law with a good deal of uneasiness.

“Why?” he asked.  “Why were you in doubt, Robert?”

But Pettifer had said all that he had any mind to say.

“Oh, I can’t remember why,” he exclaimed.  “I am very likely quite wrong.  Come, Margaret, it’s time that we were getting home.”

He crossed over to Hazlewood and held out his hand.  Hazlewood, however, did not rise.

“I don’t think that’s quite fair of you, Robert,” he said.  “You don’t disturb my confidence, of course—­I have gone into the case thoroughly—­but I think you ought to give me a chance of satisfying you that your doubts have no justification.”

“No really,” exclaimed Pettifer.  “I absolutely refuse to mix myself up in the affair at all.”  A step sounded upon the gravel path outside the window.  Pettifer raised a warning finger.  “It’s midnight, Margaret,” he said.  “We must go”; and as he spoke Dick Hazlewood walked in through the open window.

He smiled at the group of his relations with a grim amusement.  They certainly wore a guilty look.  He was surprised to remark some embarrassment even upon his father’s face.