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Page 79
"Then, if you are not too sleepy, I will give you a
sketch of what has happened, and of what remains to be
done."
"I was sleepy before you came. I am quite wakeful
now."
"I will compress the story as far as may be done
without omitting anything vital to the case. It is
conceivable that you may even have read some account
of the matter. It is the supposed murder of Colonel
Barclay, of the Royal Munsters, at Aldershot, which I
am investigating."
"I have heard nothing of it."
"It has not excited much attention yet, except
locally. The facts are only two days old. Briefly
they are these:
"The Royal Munsters is, as you know, one of the most
famous Irish regiments in the British army. It did
wonders both in the Crimea and the Mutiny, and has
since that time distinguished itself upon every
possible occasion. It was commanded up to Monday
night by James Barclay, a gallant veteran, who started
as a full private, was raised to commissioned rank for
his bravery at the time of the Mutiny, and so lived to
command the regiment in which he had once carried a
musket.
"Colonel Barclay had married at the time when he was a
sergeant, and his wife, whose maiden name was Miss
Nancy Devoy, was the daughter of a former
color-sergeant in the same corps. There was,
therefore, as can be imagined, some little social
friction when the young couple (for they were still
young) found themselves in their new surroundings.
They appear, however, to have quickly adapted
themselves, and Mrs. Barclay has always, I understand,
been as popular with the ladies of the regiment as her
husband was with his brother officers. I may add that
she was a woman of great beauty, and that even now,
when she has been married for upwards of thirty years,
she is still of a striking and queenly appearance.
"Colonel Barclay's family life appears to have been a
uniformly happy one. Major Murphy, to whom I owe most
of my facts, assures me that he has never heard of any
misunderstanding between the pair. On the whole, he
thinks that Barclay's devotion to his wife was greater
than his wife's to Barclay. He was acutely uneasy if
he were absent from her for a day. She, on the other
hand, though devoted and faithful, was less
obtrusively affectionate. But they were regarded in
the regiment as the very model of a middle-aged
couple. There was absolutely nothing in their mutual
relations to prepare people for the tragedy which was
to follow.
"Colonel Barclay himself seems to have had some
singular traits in his character. He was a dashing,
jovial old soldier in his usual mood, but there were
occasions on which he seemed to show himself capable
of considerable violence and vindictiveness. This
side of his nature, however, appears never to have
been turned towards his wife. Another fact, which had
struck Major Murphy and three out of five of the other
officers with whom I conversed, was the singular sort
of depression which came upon him at times. As the
major expressed it, the smile had often been struck
from his mouth, as if by some invisible hand, when he
has been joining the gayeties and chaff of the
mess-table. For days on end, when the mood was on
him, he has been sunk in the deepest gloom. This and
a certain tinge of superstition were the only unusual
traits in his character which his brother officers had
observed. The latter peculiarity took the form of a
dislike to being left alone, especially after dark.
This puerile feature in a nature which was
conspicuously manly had often given rise to comment
and conjecture.
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