"Did she wish it?"

"She meant to tease me, and said she would remain. Frank Beckett-Smythe and I agreed to fight, and settle whether she should go or stay."

"So you ask us to believe that not only did you engage in a bout of fisticuffs in order to convoy to her home a girl already hours too late abroad, but that you alone, of all these children, can give us a correct version of occurrences on the other side of the hedge?"

"I don't remember asking you that, sir," said Martin seriously, and the court laughed.

Mr. Stockwell betrayed a little heat.

"You know well what I mean," he said. "You are a clever boy. Are you not depending on your imagination for some of your facts?"

"I wish I were, sir," was the sorrowful answer.

Quite unconsciously, Martin looked at Betsy. Some magnetic influence caused her to raise her eyes for the first time, and each gazed into the soul of the other.

Mr. Stockwell covered his retreat by an a.s.sumption of indifference.

"Fortunately, there is a host of witnesses to be heard in regard to these particular events," he exclaimed, and Martin's inquisition ceased.

The superintendent whispered something to Mr. Dane, who rose.

"A great deal has been made out of this quarrel about a little girl," he said to the boy. "Is it not the fact that you have endeavored consistently to keep her name out of the affair altogether?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because Mrs. Saumarez is only a visitor here, and her daughter could not know anything of village ways. I was mostly to blame for allowing her to be there at all, so I tried to take it onto my shoulders."

It was interesting to note how Angle received this statement. Her black eyes became tearful. Her hero was rehabilitated. She worshiped him again pa.s.sionately. Someone else had peached. She brushed away the tears and darted a quick look at the Squire's eldest son.

He was the next witness. He saw George Pickering and Kitty go down the garden, the man's arm being around Kitty's neck. Then he fought with Martin. Afterwards he heard some screaming, but could not tell a word that was said--he was too dazed.

"Is it not possible the hubbub was too confused that you should gain any intelligible idea of it?" asked Mr. Stockwell.

"Yes, that might be so."

"You are a bigger boy than young Bolland. Surely he could not pummel the wits out of you?"

"I don't think he will next time. He caught me a stinger by chance."

A roar of laughter greeted this candid confession of future intentions.

Even Mr. Beckett-Smythe and the vicar joined in.

"Why did you wish to keep this girl, Angle Saumarez, away from her residence?"

"She's a jolly sort of girl, and I think we were all a bit off our heads," said Frank ruefully.

"But you had some motive, some design. Remember, you fought to retain her."

"I wish I hadn't," said the boy, glancing at his father. His most active memory was of a certain painful interview on Wednesday night.

"_You_ were not groggy on your legs," was Mr. Stockwell's first remark to Ernest. "What did you hear or see beyond the garden hedge?"

"There was a lot of yelling, and two women ran toward the hotel. The woman with a knife was threatening to stick it into somebody, but I couldn't tell who."

"Ah. She was running after the other woman. Don't you think she might have been threatening her only?"

"It certainly looked like it."

"Can't you help us by being more definite?"

"No. Frank was asking for a pump. I was thinking of that more than of the beastly row in the garden."

He was dismissed.

"Angle Saumarez."

The strangers present surveyed the girl with expectant interest. She looked a delightfully innocent child. She was attired in the dark dress she wore on the Monday evening. Her hat, gloves, and shoes were in perfect taste. No personality could be more oddly at variance with a village brawl than this delicate, gossamer, fairy-like little mortal.

She gave her evidence without constraint or shyness. Her pretty continental accent enhanced the charm of her manners. In no sense forward, she won instant approbation, and the general view was that she had drifted into an unpleasant predicament by sheer force of circ.u.mstances. The mere love of fun brought her out to see the fair, and her presence in the stackyard was accounted for by a girlish delight in setting boys at loggerheads.

But she helped the police contention by declaring that she heard Betsy say:

"I'll swing for him."

"I remember," she said sweetly, "wondering what she meant. To swing for anybody! That is odd."

"Might it not have been 'for her' and not 'for him'?" suggested Mr.

Stockwell.

"Oh, yes," agreed Angle. "I wouldn't be sure about that. They talk queerly, these people. I am certain about the 'swing'."

Really, there never was a more simple little maid.

"You must never again go out at night to such places," remarked the Coroner paternally.

She cast down her eyes.

"Mamma was very angry," she simpered. "I have been kept at home for days and days on account of it."

She glanced at Martin. That explanation was intended for him. As a matter of fact, Mr. Beckett-Smythe called at The Elms on Thursday morning and told Mrs. Saumarez that her child needed more control. He had thrashed Frank soundly the previous evening for riding off to a rendezvous fixed with Angle for nine o'clock. He whispered this information to Mr. Herbert, and the vicar's eyes opened wide.

The other non-professional witnesses, children and adults, did not advance the inquiry materially. Many heard Kitty shrieking that her sister had murdered George Pickering, but Kitty herself had admitted saying so under a misapprehension.

P. C. Benson raised an important point. The pitchfork was first mentioned about eleven o'clock, when Mr. Pickering was able to talk coherently, after being laid on a bed and drinking some brandy. Neither of the two women had spoken of it. And there were footprints that did not bear out the movements described in the dead man's deposition.

"But Mr. Pickering's first lucid thought referred to this implement?"