Alastair read his thoughts.
“I fear, sir, that your entertainment is not what you hoped, but I have done my best to provide a recompense. Since his Grace of Kingston could not send a garrison, I have brought Mr. Hay’s Scots. Since Sir John Norreys is summoned elsewhere, I have provided Mr. Hay in his stead. And since the ladies upstairs cannot honour us, I have bidden another lady, who will shortly arrive.”
The news seemed to move Kyd to action. Hope from Kingston’s horse was over, and the only chance lay in carrying matters with a high hand, and bluffing his opponent who must be largely in the dark. His plans had been too deep-laid to be discovered by a casual moss-trooper.
“Most considerate, I’m sure,” he said. “But let’s have an end of these riddles. I come here to a well-kenned house, expecting to meet an old friend, and find him mysteriously departed, and you in his place talking like an oracle. I venture to observe that it’s strange conduct between gentlemen of the same nation. What’s the meaning of it, sir?” He pushed back his chair, and looked squarely at the young man.
“The meaning of it is that Judas has come to judgment.”
Kyd laughed, with an excellent semblance of mirth, and indeed he felt relieved. This was a mere random general charge, for which he could readily invent a defence. “Oh, sits the wind that airt? It’s most extraordinary the way we of the honest party harbour suspicions. I’ve done it myself many’s the time. Weel-a-weel, if I’ve to thole my assize, so be it. I’ve a quiet conscience and a good answer to any charge. But who is to sit in judgment?”
The man’s composure was restored. He filled himself a glass of claret, held it to the light, and savoured its bouquet before he sipped.
As if in answer to his question the door opened to admit two newcomers. One was a small lady, with a black silk mask from her brow to her lips, so that no part of her face was visible. A velvet hood covered her hair, and her dress was hidden from sight by a long travelling-robe of fur. Behind her shambled a tall man, whose big hands strayed nervously to his dusty cravat and the threadbare lapels of his coat.
“Here is your judge,” said Alastair. “Madam, will you sit in the seat of justice?”
He pulled forward a high-backed Restoration chair, and placed before it a footstool. Solemnly like a cardinal in conclave the little lady seated herself.
“Who is the prisoner?” she asked. “And what bill does the Prince’s attorney present against him?”
The servants had moved to the back of the room, and stood in the shadow like guards at attention. By a strange chance the place seemed to have borrowed the similitude of a court—Kyd at one end of a table with the guards behind him, Mr. Johnson like a justice’s clerk sprawling beside the lady’s chair.
“His name, madam,” said Alastair, “is Nicholas Kyd of Greyhouses in the Merse, the principle doer of his Grace of Queensberry, and likewise a noted Jacobite and a member of His Highness’s Council.”
“And the charge?”
“That this Nicholas Kyd has for many months betrayed the secrets of his master, and while professing to work for the Cause has striven to defeat it by withholding vital information. Further, that the same Nicholas Kyd has sought for his own gain to bring about the ruin of divers honest gentlemen, by inducing them to pledge their support to His Highness and then handing such pledges to King George’s Government.”
“Heard you ever such havers?” said Kyd boisterously. This was what he had hoped for, a wild general accusation, the same he had heard brought against Balhaldy and Traquair and a dozen others, but never substantiated. “You’ll have a difficulty in proving your case, Mr. Attorney.”
Then Alastair told his tale from that hour when in the alehouse he met Kyd. He told of Kyd’s advice to go by Flambury and his troubles there, of the message given him in error, of Edom and his mission, of Sir John Norreys and his suspected doings, of his own kidnapping and imprisonment and the confession of Ben the Gypsy in the moorland farm.
“Your proofs, sir,” said the judge.
“They are here,” he replied, and drew from his breast a sheaf of papers. “There, madam, is the full account of the Duke of Beaufort’s purpose in Wales, written out and inscribed to the Duke of Kingston, for transmission to Mr. Pelham. There you have another document narrating conversations with the trusting Jacobites of the Marches. There you have a letter from Beaufort to his Prince, which would appear from its superscription to be directed afresh to the Duke of Cumberland.”
The lady looked at the papers shown her, knitted her brows and returned them. She glanced at Kyd, whose face was set in a mask which he strove to make impassive.
“Proceed with your second and graver charge, sir,” she said.
Alastair told of his conversation with General Oglethorpe and of Kyd’s visit to the General’s room at midnight. He told of the two hags upstairs who were in partnership. “And for proof,” he cried, “here are the rolls of three counties taken from the man’s saddlebags, giving a list of the gentlemen who are liable to fines for their political action, and noting the shares which will come to each of the conspirators. Do you require further evidence, madam?”
The room had grown very still, and no one of the company stirred, till Kyd brought his fist down on
