Mr. Delamere related all that had taken place since he had left Belleview a couple of hours before, and as he proceeded, step by step, every word carried conviction to Carteret.  Tom Delamere’s skill as a mimic and a negro impersonator was well known; he had himself laughed at more than one of his performances.  There had been a powerful motive, and Mr. Delamere’s discoveries had made clear the means.  Tom’s unusual departure, before breakfast, on a fishing expedition was a suspicious circumstance.  There was a certain devilish ingenuity about the affair which he would hardly have expected of Tom Delamere, but for which the reason was clear enough.  One might have thought that Tom would have been satisfied with merely blacking his face, and leaving to chance the identification of the negro who might be apprehended.  He would hardly have implicated, out of pure malignity, his grandfather’s old servant, who had been his own care-taker for many years.  Here, however, Carteret could see where Tom’s own desperate position operated to furnish a probable motive for the crime.  The surest way to head off suspicion from himself was to direct it strongly toward some particular person, and this he had been able to do conclusively by his access to Sandy’s clothes, his skill in making up to resemble him, and by the episode of the silk purse.  By placing himself beyond reach during the next day, he would not be called upon to corroborate or deny any inculpating statements which Sandy might make, and in the very probable case that the crime should be summarily avenged, any such statements on Sandy’s part would be regarded as mere desperate subterfuges of the murderer to save his own life.  It was a bad affair.

“The case seems clear,” said Carteret reluctantly but conclusively.  “And now, what shall we do about it?”

“I want you to print a handbill,” said Mr. Delamere, “and circulate it through the town, stating that Sandy Campbell is innocent and Tom Delamere guilty of this crime.  If this is not done, I will go myself and declare it to all who will listen, and I will publicly disown the villain who is no more grandson of mine.  There is no deeper sink of iniquity into which he could fall.”

Carteret’s thoughts were chasing one another tumultuously.  There could be no doubt that the negro was innocent, from the present aspect of affairs, and he must not be lynched; but in what sort of position would the white people be placed, if Mr. Delamere carried out his Spartan purpose of making the true facts known?  The white people of the city had raised the issue of their own superior morality, and had themselves made this crime a race question.  The success of the impending “revolution,” for which he and his confreres had labored so long, depended in large measure upon the maintenance of their race prestige, which would be injured in the eyes of the world by such a fiasco.  While they might yet win by sheer force, their cause would suffer in the court of morals, where they might stand convicted as pirates, instead of being applauded as patriots.  Even the negroes would have the laugh on them,—­the people whom they hoped to make approve and justify their own despoilment.  To be laughed at by the negroes was a calamity only less terrible than failure or death.