Than that sort of thing nothing could have been more foreign to the regimental traditions. It had always been regarded as a matter of course that among the officers of the Guards there should be no differences of opinion; if there were, they were certainly not to make themselves heard in public. The regiment never had been concerned in any such inquiry as that which Dodwell suggested. If his suggestion was acted upon, all sorts of unpleasant consequences would follow. Not only would the whole disreputable business have to be made officially public, but outsiders would have to be called in to adjudicate in what after all was a family quarrel; which, in effect, would mean that other regiments would sit in judgment on the Guards. In the eyes of authority, than that a more inconceivable state of affairs there could scarcely be.
What was to be done to restore the harmony that had heretofore reigned it was not easy to see; a single jarring note is so apt to keep on ringing in the ears. Sydney Beaton had gone--where, no one, not even his nearest and dearest, seemed to know. He had been one of the most popular persons in the regiment, not only with his brother officers, but with the rank and file; his own company adored him. Not only was the one hideous scandal still fresh in men's memories, but now still worse stories were being whispered about it.
It was difficult to say how they had first gained currency. Someone must have been the first to whisper something, but who that someone was no one seemed to know. Two stories had gone right through the regiment; one, that Sydney Beaton had turned professional thief; the other, that he had murdered Noel Draycott.
Why Mr. Tickell had chosen the moment when these stories filled all the air to take up the position he had done, his friends and acquaintances were quite at a loss to determine. The thing was over and done with; Beaton had admitted his guilt by running away; what on earth possessed Tickell, they demanded, that he should want to start muddying the water all over again? If he had had any doubts on the matter, he might have kept them to himself; it was too late to declare them in public now; he ought to have done it ages ago; the thing was all settled and done with. Then there was the absence of Draycott. If Draycott had been about, and he had said what he had said, Mr. Tickell would soon have been disposed of; Draycott would have agreed with Dodwell, there would have been two to one, Tickell would have been compelled to bow to the weight of evidence. As things were, the case against Beaton rested on one man's word only--Anthony Dodwell's. Tickell had not directly impugned it; but he had done almost as bad. He had stood up to Dodwell in a quite unexpected fashion. Jackie Tickell was an easy-going, good-natured youngster, who in general preferred to do anything rather than come to an open rupture with anyone; yet he had stood up to Dodwell; and all the regiment knew that there was no more unpleasant man to quarrel with. He had said to him in the hearing of them all: