They would be found to have become obsolete at the
date when the crime was committed, and on Perez would fall
the blame.
[Footnote 4: See p. 38, _supra_.]
Such is Major Hume's theory, if I correctly apprehend it.
The hypothesis leaves the moral character of Philip as black
as ever: he ordered an assassination which he never even
countermanded. His confessor might applaud him, but he knew
that the doctors of the Inquisition, like the common
sentiment of mankind, rejected the theory that kings had the
right to condemn and execute, by the dagger, men who had
been put to no public trial.
III
_THE CAMPDEN MYSTERY_
I
The ordinary historical mystery is at least so far clear that one or
other of two solutions must be right, if we only knew which. Perkin
Warbeck was the rightful King, or he was an impostor. Giacopo Stuardo
at Naples (1669) was the eldest son of Charles II., or he was a
humbug. The Man in the Iron Mask was _certainly_ either Mattioli or
Eustache Dauger. James VI. conspired against Gowrie, or Gowrie
conspired against James VI., and so on. There is reason and human
nature at the back of these puzzles.
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