" said Travers. "Now, will you tell me what the Captain-sahib was
doing while you were clearing the table?"

Baram Singh reflected.

"First of all the Captain-sahib offered a box of cheroots to his visitor,
and his visitor refused and took a pipe from his pocket. The
Captain-sahib then lit a cheroot for himself and replaced the box on the
top of the bureau."

"And after that?" asked Travers.

"After that," said Baram Singh, "he stooped down, unlocked the bottom
drawer of his bureau and then turned sharply to me and told me to hurry
and get out."

"And that order you obeyed?"

"Yes."

"Now, Baram Singh, did you enter the room again?"

Baram Singh explained that after he had gone out with the table-cloth he
returned in a few moments with an ash-tray, which he placed beside the
visitor-sahib.

"Yes," said Travers. "Had Captain Ballantyne altered his position?"

Baram Singh then related that Captain Ballantyne was still sitting in
his chair by the bureau, but that the drawer of the bureau was now open,
and that on the ground close to Captain Ballantyne's feet there was a red
despatch-box.

"The Captain-sahib," he continued, "turned to me with great anger, and
drove me again out of the room."

"Thank you," said Mr. Travers, and he sat down.

The prosecuting counsel rose at once.

"Now, Baram Singh," he said with severity, "why did you not mention when
you were first put in the witness-box that this gentleman was present in
the camp that night?"

"I was not asked."

"No, that is quite true," he continued, "you were not asked specifically,
but you were asked to tell all that you knew."

"I did not interfere," replied Baram Singh. "I answered what questions
were asked. Besides, when the sahib left the camp the Captain-sahib
was alive."

At this moment Mr. Travers leaned across to the prosecuting counsel and
said: "It will all be made clear when Mr. Thresk goes into the box."

And once more, as Mr. Travers spoke these words, a rustle of expectancy
ran round the court.

Travers opened the case for the defence on the following morning. He had
been originally instructed, he declared, to reserve the defence for the
actual trial before the jury, but upon his own urgent advice that plan
was not to be followed. The case which he had to put before the
stipendiary must so infallibly prove that Mrs. Ballantyne was free from
all complicity in this crime that he felt he would not be doing his duty
to her unless h