conspiracy against the Ruthvens. It was said that nobody saw Henderson
slink away out of the narrow stair, though the quadrangle was crowded.
One Robertson, however, a notary of Perth, gave evidence (September
23) that he did see Henderson creep out of the narrow staircase and
step over the Master's dead body; Robertson spoke to him, but he made
no reply. If Robertson perjured himself on September 23, he withdrew
his evidence, or rather, he omitted it, at the trial in November. His
life would not have been worth living in Perth--where the people were
partisans of the Ruthvens--if he had adhered to his first statement.
In the absence of other testimony many fables were circulated as to
Henderson's absence from Perth all through the day, and, on the other
hand, as to his presence, in the kitchen, during the crisis. He was
last seen, for certain, in the house just before the King's dinner,
and then, by his account, was locked up in the turret by the Master.
Probably Robertson's first story was true. Other witnesses, to shield
their neighbours, denied having seen retainers of Gowrie's who most
assuredly were present at the brawls in the quadrangle. It was never
explained why Henderson fled at once if he was not the man in the
turret. I therefore conceive that, as he certainly was at Falkland,
and certainly returned early, his story is true in the main.

Given all this, only one of two theories is possible. The affair was
not accidental; James did not fall into a panic and bellow 'Treason!'
out of the window, merely because he found himself alone in a
turret--and why in a secluded turret?--with the Master. To that theory
the locked door of the gallery is a conclusive reply. Somebody locked
it for some reason. Therefore either the Ruthvens plotted against the
King, or the King plotted against the Ruthvens. Both parties had good
grounds for hatred, as we shall show--that is, Gowrie and James had
motives for quarrel; but with the young Master, whose cause, as