Ray, a bailie of Perth, who had
been in the house, looking on, told the same tale, adding that Gowrie
gave the porter the lie. The porter corroborated all this at the trial,
and quoted his own speech about the key, as it was given by Lindores. He
had the keys, and must know whether the King had ridden away or not.

In this odd uncertainty, Gowrie said to Lennox, 'I am sure the King has
gone; but stay, I shall go upstairs, and get your lordship the very
certainty.' Gowrie thereon went from the street door, through the court,
and up the chief staircase of the house, whence he came down again at
once, and anew affirmed to Lennox that 'the King was forth at the back
gate and away.' They all then went out of the front gate, and stood in
the street there, talking, and wondering where they should seek for his
Majesty.

Where was the King? Here we note a circumstance truly surprising. It
never occurred to the Earl of Gowrie, when dubiously told that the King
had 'loupen on'--and ridden off--to ask, _Where is the King's horse_? If
the Royal nag was in the Earl's stable, then James had not departed.
Again--a thing more astonishing still--it has never occurred to any of
the unnumbered writers on the Gowrie conspiracy to ask, 'How did the
Earl, if guilty of falsehood as to the King's departure, mean to get over
the difficulty about the King's horse?' If the horse was in the stable,
then the King had not ridden away, as the Earl declared. Gowrie does not
seem to have kidnapped the horse. We do not hear, from the King, or any
one, that the horse was missing when the Royal party at last rode home.

The author is bound, in honour, to observe that this glaring difficulty
about the horse did not occur to him till he had written the first draft
of this historical treatise, after reading so many others on the subject.
And yet the eagle glance of Mr. Sherlock Holmes would at once have
lighted on his Majesty's mount. However, neither at the time, nor in the
last three centuries (as far as we know), was any one sensible enough to
ask 'How about the King's horse?'

We return to the question, 'Where was the King?'

Some time had elapsed since he passed silently from the chamber where he
had lunched, through the hall, with the Master, and so upstairs, 'going
quietly a quiet errand,' Gowrie had explained to the men of the retinue.
The gentlemen had then strolled in the garden, till Cranstoun came out to
them with the news of the Ki