Plume looked up in sudden joy. "You mean to tell me you didn't--you
weren't there till after--the cry?"
Wren's stern Scottish face was a sight to see. "Of what can you
possibly be thinking, Major Plume?" he demanded, slowly now, for wrath
was burning within him, and yet he strove for self-control. He had had
a lesson and a sore one.
"I will answer that--a little later, Captain Wren," said Plume, rising
from his seat, rejoicing in the new light now breaking upon him.
Westervelt, too, had gasped a sigh of relief. No man had ever known
Wren to swerve a hair's breadth from the truth. "At this moment time
is precious if the real criminal is to be caught at all. You were
first to reach the sentry. Had you seen no one else?"
In the dead silence that ensued within the room the sputter of hoofs
without broke harshly on the ear. Then came spurred boot heels on the
hollow, heat-dried boarding, but not a sound from the lips of Captain
Wren. The rugged face, twitching with pent-up indignation the moment
before, was now slowly turning gray. Plume stood facing him in growing
wonder and new suspicion.
"You heard me, did you not? I asked you did you see anyone else
during--along the sentry post when you went out?"
A fringed gauntlet reached in at the doorway and tapped. Sergeant
Shannon, straight as a pine, stood expectant of summons to enter and
his face spoke eloquently of important tidings, but the major waved
him away, and, marveling, he slowly backed to the edge of the porch.
"Surely you can answer that, Captain Wren," said Plume, his clear-cut,
handsome face filled with mingled anxiety and annoy. "Surely you
should answer, or--"
The ellipsis was suggestive, but impotent. After a painful moment came
the response: "Or--take the consequences, major?" Then slowly--"Very well, sir--I
must take them."