Half a Hero: A Novel

Notwithstanding his dissipation, Gaspard was afoot very early in the morning. It was hardly light, and the deep scratch of finger-nails on his face—it is so awkward when drunken fools wake at the wrong minute—attracted no attention from the few people he encountered. He did not give them long to look at him, for he hurried swiftly through the streets, towards the quays where the ships lay loading their cargoes. He seemed to have urgent business to transact down there, business that would brook no delay, and that was, if one might guess from his uneasy glances over his shoulder, of a private nature. With one hand he held tight hold of something in his trousers pocket, the other rested on his belt, hard by a little revolver. In his business it is necessary to be ready for everything.

Meanwhile Mr. Benham, having no affairs to trouble him, and no more business to transact, stayed where he was.

CHAPTER XIX.

The Governor and his family drove to the Cathedral, according to their custom, Eleanor Scaife having pleaded in vain for leave to walk about the streets instead. Lady Eynesford declined to recognise the occasion, and Eleanor had to content herself with stealthy glances to right and left till the church doors engulfed her. The only absentee was Alicia Derosne, and she was not walking about the streets, but sitting under the verandah, with a book unopened on her knees, and her eyes set in empty fixedness on the horizon. The luxuriant growth of a southern summer filled her nostrils with sweet scents, and the wind, blowing off the sea, tempered the heat to a fresh and balmy warmth; the waves sparkled in the sun, and the world was loud in boast of its own beauty; but poor Alicia, like many a maid before, was wondering how long this wretched life was to last, and how any one was ever happy. Faith bruised and trust misplaced blotted out for her the joy of living and the exultation of youth. If these things were true, why did the sun shine, and how could the world be merry? If these things were true, for her the sun shone no more, and the merriment was stilled for ever. So she thought, and, if she were not right, it needed a philosopher to tell her so; and then she would not have believed him, but caught her woe closer to her heart, and nursed it with fiercer tenderness against his shallow prating. Perhaps he might have told her too, that it is cruel kindness unasked to set people on a pinnacle, and, when they cannot keep foothold on that slippery height, to scorn their fall. Other things such an one might well have said, but more wisely left unsaid; for cool reason is a blister to heartache, and heartache is not best cured by blisters. Never yet did a child stop crying for being told its pain was nought and would soon be gone. Yet this prescription had been Lady Eynesford's—although she was no philosopher, to her knowledge—for Alicia, and it had left the patient protesting that she felt no pain at all, and yet feeling it all the more.

"What do you accuse me of? Why do you speak to me?" she had burst out. "What is it to me what he has done or not done? What do you mean, Mary?"

Before this torrent of questions Lady Eynesford tactfully retreated a little way. A warning against hasty love dwindled to an appeal whether so much friendliness, such constant meetings, either with daughter or with father, were desirable.

"I'm sure I'm sorry for the poor child," she said; "but in this world——"

"Suppose it's all a slander!"

"My dear Alicia, do they say such things about a man in his position unless there's something in them?"

"It's nothing to me," said Alicia again.

"Of course, you can do nothing abrupt; but you'll gradually withdraw from their acquaintance, won't you?"

Alicia had escaped without a promise, pleading for time to think in the same breath that she denied any concern in the matter. She was by way of thinking now, and all that Lady Eynesford had said repeated itself in her mind as she looked out on the garden and the glimpses of the town beyond. She understood now Dick's banishment, her sister-in-law's unresting hostility to the Medlands, and the reason why she had been pressed to go to Australia. She spared a minute to grief for Daisy, but her own sorrow would not be denied, and engrossed her again. In the solitude she had sought, she cried to herself, "Why didn't they tell me before? What's the use of telling me now?" Then she would fly back to the hope that the thing was not true, that her friends had clutched too hastily at anything which would save her from what they dreaded, and, she confessed to herself, rightly dreaded. No, she would not believe it yet; and, if it were not true, why should she not be happy? Why should she not, even though she did what Dick had not dared to do, and what, when Coxon asked her, she had laughed at for an absurdity?

There began to be more movement outside the gates. The first note of band-music was wafted to her ear, and the roll of wheels announced the return of the church-goers. She roused herself and went to meet them. They were agog with excitement, partly about the meeting, partly about the murder. While Eleanor was trying to tell her of the state of popular feeling, the Governor seized her arm and began to detail the story of the discovery.

"You remember the man?" he asked. "He was at our flower-show—had a sort of row with Medland, you know. Well, he's been found murdered (so the police think) in a low part of the town! The woman who keeps the house found him. He didn't come down in the morning, and, as she couldn't make him hear, she forced the door, and found him with his throat cut."

"Awful!" shuddered Lady Eynesford. "He looked such a respectable man too."

"Ah, I fancy he'd gone a bit to the bad lately—taken to drinking and so on."

"He was a friend of Mr. Kilshaw's, wasn't he?" asked Alicia.

"A sort of hanger-on, I think. Anyhow, there he was dead, and with his pockets empty."

"Perhaps he killed himself," she suggested.

"They think not. They've arrested the woman, but she declares she knows nothing about it!"

"Poor man!" said Alicia; and, at another time, she might have thought a good deal about the horrible end of a man whom she had known as an acquaintance. But, as it was, she soon forgot him again, and, leaving the rest, returned to her solitary seat.

In the town, the news of the murder was but one ruffle more on the wave of excitement, and not a very marked one. Few people knew Benham's name, and when the first agitation following on the discovery of the body died away and the onlookers found there was no news to be had, they turned away to join the processions or to stare at them. The police were left to pursue their investigations in peace, and they soon reached a conclusion. The landlady of the house where Benham died lived alone, save for the occasional presence of her son: he was away at work in an outlying district, and she had been the only person in the house that night. She let beds to single men, she said, and the night before two men had arrived, one the worse for drink. They had asked for adjoining rooms. As they went up-stairs, she had heard the one who had been drinking say to the other, "What are you bringing me here for? This isn't the place for what I want." His companion, the shorter of the two, whom she thought she would know again, had answered—"All in good time; you go and lie down, and I'll fetch what you want." Soon after, the short one came down and asked if she had any brandy; she gave him a bottle half full and he went up-stairs again. She heard voices raised as if in dispute for a few minutes, and one of them—she could not say which—said something which sounded like "Well, finish the drink first, and then I'll go." Silence followed, at least she could not hear any more talking; and presently, it not being her business to spy on gentlemen, she went to bed, and knew nothing more till she woke at seven o'clock. Going up-stairs, she found one door open and the room empty, not the room the two men had been in together, but the other. The second door was locked, and she did not knock; gentlemen often slept late. At half-past ten she ventured to knock, got no answer, knocked again and again, and finally, with the help of the man from next door, broke the lock and found the taller of the two men dead on the bed. She had at once summoned the police; and that, she concluded, was all she knew about the matter, and she was a respectable, hard-working woman, a widow who could produce her marriage certificate in case any person present desired to inspect it.

The Superintendent listened to her protestations of virtue with an ironical smile, told her the police knew her house very well, frightened her wholesomely, took down her very vague description of the missing man, and kept her in custody; but he did not seriously doubt the truth of her story, and, if it were true, the man he wanted was evidently the sober man, the shorter man, who had introduced his friend to the house on a pretext, had called for drink, and vanished in the early morning, leaving a dead man behind him. Who was this man? Where did he come from? Had he been missing since last night? On these inquiries the Superintendent launched several intelligent men, and then was forced for the time to turn his attention to the business of the day.

To search a large town for a missing man takes time, and the searchers did not happen to fall in with Company B of Procession 3, which at one o'clock had mustered in Digby Square, prepared to march to the Public Park. Had they done so, it might or might not have seemed to them worth noticing that Company B of Procession 3, which was composed of carpenters and joiners, had missed some one, namely the officer whom they called their "Marshal," and who was to have ordered their ranks and marched at their head; and the name of their Marshal was none other than François Gaspard. The Superintendent himself was keeping watch over Company B, but, in a professionally Olympian scorn of processions, he was far from asking or caring to know who the Marshal was, and indeed, if he had known, he would scarcely have drawn such a lightning-quick inference as that the missing Marshal and the missing murderer were one and the same. So Mr. Gaspard's absence was passed over with a few curses on his laziness, or, from the more charitable, a surmise that there had been a misunderstanding, and Company B, having appointed a new Marshal, went on its way.

One demonstration of the public will is much like another in the shape it takes and the incidents it produces. This Sunday's was, however, as friends and foes agreed, remarkable not only for the numbers who took part, but still more for the spirit which animated it, and when the Premier and his colleagues made their appearance on the great platform there was no room to doubt that somehow, by his gifts or his faults, his policy or his demagogic arts, his love of humanity or his adroit wooing of popularity, Medland held a position in the eyes of the common people of the capital which had seldom or never been equalled in the history of the Colony. He had caused them to be called together in order to raise their enthusiasm, and to elicit from them a visible, unmistakable pledge of support. But, when he stood before them, bareheaded, in vain beckoning for silence, their cries and cheers told him that his task was rather to moderate than to stir up, and the first part of his speech was a somewhat laboured proof of the consistency of gatherings of that nature with the proper independence of representative assemblies. The people heard him through this argument in respectful silence, clapping their hands when, at the end of it, he paused before he passed to the second part of his speech. At the first sign of attack, at the first quietly drawn contrast between what the seceders had promised and what they were doing, his audience was a changed one. Fierce murmurs of assent and groans became audible now, and when Medland, caught by the contagion that spread to him from his listeners, gave rein to his feelings, and launched into a passionate declaration that, to his mind, the liberty claimed for members did not mean liberty to betray those who had trusted them, the murmurs and groans rose into one tumult of savage applause, and men raised both hands over their heads and shook them, as though they would have clenched every word that fell from him with a blow of the fist.

Daisy Medland sat just behind her father, exulting in his triumph, and, at every happy stroke, glancing at Norburn, and by sharing her joy with him doubling his. When the Premier had finished, and the last resolution had been carried, she ran to him, crying, "Splendid! I never heard you so good. Wasn't he splendid?" and looking so completely joyful that Medland was sure she must quite have forgotten Dick Derosne. She took his arm, and they made their way together to a carriage which was in waiting. An escort of police surrounded it, to save the Premier from his friends, and he, with Daisy, Norburn, and Mr. Floyd, the Treasurer, got in without disturbance. The coachman drove off rapidly down the main avenue, distancing the enthusiasts who would have had the horses out of the shafts. They passed a long row of carriages, belonging to people who had not feared to come and look on from a distance, and at last, knowing the procession would go back another way, Medland bade his driver stop under the trees, and lit a cigar.

"And I wonder if it will all make any difference!" said he, puffing delightedly. He had all an old political organiser's love for a big meeting, which does not exclude scepticism as to its value.

"Oh, you gave it 'em finely," said the Treasurer.

"I believe it'll frighten two or three anyhow," observed Norburn.

"I know we shall win to-morrow," cried Daisy, squeezing her father's arm.

"Ah! here's a special Sunday evening paper—how we encourage wickedness!" said the Premier, seeing a newsvendor approaching. "Let's see what they say of us!"

"I've seen it all for myself," remarked Daisy, and she went on chattering to the other two, who were ready to talk over every incident of the meeting, as people who have been to meetings ever are. On they went, reminding one another of the bald man in the third row who cheered so lustily, of the fat woman who had somehow got into the front row and fanned herself all the time, of rude things shouted about Messrs. Puttock and Coxon, and so forth. The Premier, listening with one ear, opened his paper; but the first thing he saw was not about his procession. He started and looked closer, then gave a sudden, covert glance at his companions; they were busy in talk, and, with breathless haste, he devoured the meagre details of Benham's wretched death. The end reached, he let the paper fall on his knees, lay back, and took a long pull at his cigar. He was shocked—yes, he supposed he was shocked. He had known the man, and it was shocking to think of his throat being cut; yes, he had known him, and he didn't like to think of that. But—The Premier gave a long-drawn sigh of relief. That unknown murderer's hand had done great things for him. His daughter was safe now—anyhow, she was safe. She could never be subject to the degradation the dead man had once hinted at; and when he thought of what the man had threatened, pity for him died out of Medland's heart. More—although Kilshaw no doubt knew something—there was a chance that Benham had kept his own counsel, and that his employer would be helpless without his aid. Medland's sanguine mind caught eagerly at the chance, and in a moment turned it into a hope—almost a conviction. Then the whole thing would go down to the grave with the unlucky man, and not even its spectre survive to trouble him. For if no one had certain knowledge, if there were never more than gossip, growing, as time passed, fainter and fainter from having no food to feed on, would not utter silence follow at last, so that the things that had been might be as if they had never been?

"Well, what do they say about us?" asked the Treasurer.

"Oh, nothing much," he answered, thrusting the paper behind him with a careless air. He did not want to discuss what the paper had told him.

"What's happened to-day," said Daisy, "ought to make all the difference, oughtn't it, father?"

"I hope it will," replied the Premier; but, for once in his life, he was not thinking most about political affairs.

CHAPTER XX.

Among the many tired but satisfied lovers of liberty who sought their houses that night, while an enthusiastic remnant was still parading the streets, illuminations yet shining from windows, and weary police treading their unending beats, was the doorkeeper, who had borne a banner in Company A of Procession 1. His friend the watchmaker came with him, to have a bit of supper and exchange congratulations and fulminations. Hardly, however, had the doorkeeper pledged the cause in a first draught when his wife broke in on his oration by handing him a letter, which she said a boy in a blue jersey had left for him about ten o'clock in the morning, just after he had started to join his company. The envelope was cheap and coarse; there was no direction outside. The doorkeeper opened it. It was addressed to no named person and it bore no signature. It was very brief, being confined to these simple words—"You did not see me last night. Remember Rule 3."

The doorkeeper laid the letter down, with a hurried glance at his friend, whose face was buried in a mug. He knew the handwriting; he knew who it was that he had not seen; he remembered Rule 3, the rule that said—"The only and inevitable penalty of treachery is death." He turned white and took a hasty gulp at his liquor.

"Who brought this?" he asked.

"I told you," answered his wife; "a lad in a blue jersey; he looked as if he might be from the harbour." She put food before them, adding as she did so—"I suppose you've been too full of your politics to hear much about the murder?"

"The murder?" exclaimed the watchmaker. The doorkeeper crumpled up his letter and stuffed it into the pocket of his coat, while his wife read to them the story of the discovery. The watchmaker listened with interest.

"Benham!" he remarked. "I never heard the name, did you?"

"You know him, Ned," said the doorkeeper's wife; "him as Mr. Gaspard used to go about with."

By a sudden common impulse, the eyes of the two men met; the woman went off to brew them a pot of tea, and left them fearfully gazing at one another.

"What stuff!" said the watchmaker uneasily. "It was only his blow. What reason had he—?" He paused and added, "Seen him to-day, Ned?"

"No," answered Ned, fingering his note.

"Wasn't he in the procession?"

"I didn't see him."

"When did you see him last?"

The doorkeeper hesitated.

"Night of our last committee," he whispered finally.

"Oh, there's nothing in it," said the watchmaker reassuringly. He had not a letter in his pocket.

The doorkeeper opened his mouth to speak, but seeing his wife approaching, he shut it again and busied himself with his meal.

"What was the letter, Ned?"

"Oh, about the procession," he answered.

"Then you got it too late. Who was it from?"

"If you'd give us the tea," he broke out roughly, "and let the damned letter alone, it 'ud be a deal better."

"La, you needn't fly out at a woman so," said Mrs. Evans. "It ain't the way to treat his wife, is it, mister?"

"Mister" gallantly reproved his friend, but pleaded that they were both weary, and weary legs made short tempers. Giving them the tea, she left them to themselves; her work was not finished till three small children were safely in bed.

The sensation of having one's neck for the first time within measurable distance of a rope must needs be somewhat disquieting. The doorkeeper, in spite of his secret society doings, was a timid man, with a vastly respectful fear of the law. To talk about things, to vapour idly about them over the cups, is very different from being actually, even though remotely, mixed up in them. Ned Evans was a man of some education: he read the papers, accounts of crimes and reports of trials; he had heard of accessories after and before the fact. Was he not an accessory after the fact? He fancied they did not hang such; but if they caught him, and all that about Gaspard and the society came out, would they not call him an accessory before the fact? The noose seemed really rather near, and in his frightened fancy, as he lay sleepless beside his snoring wife, the rope dangled over his head. The poor wretch was between the devil and the deep sea—between stern law and cruel Rule 3. He dared not toss about, his wife would ask him what ailed him; he lay as still as he could, bitterly cursing his folly for mingling in such affairs, bitterly cursing the Frenchman who led him on into the trap and left him fast there. How could he save his neck? And he restlessly rent the band of his coarse night-shirt, that pressed on his throat with a horrible suggestion of what might be. Where was that Gaspard? Had he fled over the sea? Ah, if he could be sure of that, and sure that the dreaded man would not return! Or was he lurking in some secret hole, ready to steal out and avenge a violation of Rule 3? The doorkeeper had always feared the man; in the lurid light of this deed, Gaspard's image grew into a monster of horror, threatening sudden and swift revenge for disobedience or treachery. No; he must stand firm. But what of the police? Well, men sleep somehow, and at last he fell asleep, holding the band of the night-shirt away from his throat: if he fell asleep with that pressing on him, God knew what he might dream.

"It's very lucky," remarked the Superintendent of Police, who had a happy habit of looking at the bright side of things, to one of his subordinates, "that this Benham seems to have had no relations and precious few friends."

"No widows coming crying about," observed the subordinate, with an assenting nod.

"Nothing known of him except that he came to Kirton a few months back, did nothing, seemed to have plenty of money, took his liquor, played a hand at cards, hurt nobody, seemingly knew nobody."

"Why, I saw him with Mr. Puttock."

"Yes; but Mr. Puttock knows nothing of him, except that he said he came from Shepherdstown. That's why Puttock was civil to him. The place is in his constituency."

"Got any idea, sir?" the subordinate ventured to ask.

The Superintendent was about to answer in the negative, when a detective entered the room.

"Well, I've found one missing man for you," he said, in a satisfied tone.

"One missing man!" echoed his superior, scornfully. "In a place o' this size I'd always find you twenty."

The sergeant went on, unperturbed,

"François Gaspard, known as politician and agitator, didn't go home to his lodgings in Kettle Street last night, was to have acted as Marshal in Company B of Procession 3 to-day, didn't turn up, hasn't turned up to-night, don't owe any rent, hasn't taken any clothes."

"Oh!" said the Superintendent morosely. "Left an address?"

"Left no address, sir."

"How did he go, and where?"

"Not known, sir."

"Good Lord!" moaned the Superintendent, "and what's your salary?"

The sergeant's good-humour was impregnable.

"Give me time," he said, and the sentence was almost drowned in a loud knock at the door. An instant later Kilshaw rushed in.

"What's this, Dawson?" he cried to the Superintendent; "what's this about the murder?"

"You haven't heard, sir?"

"I went out of town to avoid this infernal row to-day, and am only just back."

Dawson smiled discreetly. He could understand that the proceedings of the day would not attract Mr. Kilshaw.

"But is it true," Kilshaw went on eagerly, "that Mr. Benham has been murdered?"

"Well, it looks like it, sir," and Dawson gave a full account of the circumstances.

"And the motive?" asked Kilshaw.

"Robbery, I suppose. His pockets were empty, and according to our information he was generally flush of money; where he got it, I don't know."

"Ah!" said Kilshaw meditatively; "his pockets empty! And have you no clue?"

"Not what you'd call a clue. Did you know the gentleman, sir?"

Kilshaw replied by saying that Mr. Puttock had introduced Benham to him and the acquaintance had continued—it was a political acquaintance purely.

"You don't know anything about him before he came here?"

Kilshaw suddenly perceived that he was being questioned, whereas his object had been to question.

"You say," he observed, "that you haven't got what you'd call a clue. What do you mean?"

"You can tell Mr. Kilshaw, if you like," said the Superintendent to the sergeant, who repeated his information.

"Gaspard! why that's the fellow the Premier—" and Mr. Kilshaw stopped short. After a moment, he asked abruptly, "Were there any papers on the body?"

"None, sir."

"I suppose there's nothing really to connect this man Gaspard with it?"

"Oh, nothing at present, sir. Did you say you'd known the deceased before he—?"

"If I'm called at the inquest, I shall tell all I know," said Kilshaw, rising. "It's not much."

"Happen to know if he had any relations, sir?"

"H'm. He was a widower, I believe."

"Children?"

"Really," said Mr. Kilshaw, with a faint smile, "I don't know."

And he escaped from pertinacious Mr. Dawson with some alacrity. When he was outside, he stopped suddenly. "Shall I tell 'em to apply to Medland?" he asked himself, with a malicious chuckle. "No, I'll wait a bit yet," and he walked on, wondering whether by any chance Mr. Benham had been done to death to save the Premier. This fanciful idea he soon dismissed with a laugh; it never entered his head, prejudiced as he was, to think that Medland himself had any hand in the matter. After all, he was a man of common sense, and he quickly arrived at a conclusion which he expressed by exclaiming,

"The poor fool's been showing his money. Who's got my five hundred now, I wonder?"

His wonderings would have been satisfied, had Aladdin's carpet or other magical contrivance transported him to where the steamship Pride of the South was ploughing her way through the waves, bound from Kirton to San Francisco, with liberty to touch at several South American ports. A thick-set, short man, shipped at the last moment as cook's mate, in substitution for a truant, was lying on his back, smoking a cigarette, looking up at the bright stars, and ever and again gently pressing his hand on a little lump inside his shirt. He seemed at peace with all the world, though he was ready to be at war, if need be, and his knife, burnished and clean, lay handy to his fingers. He turned on his side and composed himself to sleep, his chest rising and falling with regular, uninterrupted breathing. Once he smiled: he was thinking of Ned Evans, the doorkeeper; then he gave himself a little shake, closed his eyes, and forgot all the troubles of this weary world. So sleep children, so—we are told—the just: so slept M. François Gaspard, on his way to seek fresh woods and pastures new.

CHAPTER XXI.

The custom in New Lindsey was that every Monday during the session of Parliament the Executive Council should meet at Government House, and, under the presidency of the Governor, formally ratify and adopt the arrangements as to the business of the coming week which its members had decided upon at their Cabinet meetings. It is to be hoped that, in these days, when we all take an interest in our Empire, everybody knows that the Executive Council is the outward, visible, and recognised form of that impalpable, unrecognised, all-powerful institution, the Cabinet, consisting in fact, though not in theory, of the same persons, save that the Governor is present when the meeting is of the Council, and absent when it is of the Cabinet—a difference of less moment than it sounds, seeing that, except in extreme cases, the Governor has little to do but listen to what is going to be done. However, forms doubtless have their value, and at any rate they must be observed, so on this Monday morning the Executive Council was to meet as usual, although nobody knew where the Cabinet would be that time twenty-four hours. Lady Eynesford, who wanted her husband to drive her out, thought the meeting under the circumstances mere nonsense—which it very likely was—and said so, which betrayed inexperience, and Alicia Derosne asked what time it took place.

"Eleven sharp," said the Governor, and returned to the account of the murder.

Time after time in the last few days Alicia had told herself that she could bear it no longer. At one moment she believed nothing, the next, nothing was too terrible for her to believe; now she would fly to Australia, or home, or anywhere out of New Lindsey; now a straightforward challenge to Medland alone would serve her turn. Sometimes she felt as if she could put the whole thing on one side; five minutes later found her pinning her whole life on the issue of it. Under her guarded face and calm demeanour, the storm of divided and conflicting instincts and passions raged, and long solitary rambles became a necessary outlet for what she dared show to none. She shrank from seeing Medland, and yet longed to speak with him; she felt that to mention the topic to him was impossible, and yet, if they met, inevitable; that she would not have strength to face him, and yet could not let him go without clearing up the mystery. She told herself at one moment that she hardly knew him, at the next that between them nothing could be too secret for utterance.

What she hoped and feared befell her that morning. She went out for a walk in the Park, and before long she met the Premier, with his daughter and Norburn. The two last were laughing and talking—their quarrel was quite forgotten now—and Medland himself, she thought, looked as though his load of care were a little less heavy. The two men explained that they were on their way—a roundabout way, they confessed—to the Council, and had seized the chance of some fresh air, while Daisy was full of stories about yesterday's triumph, that left room only for a passing reference to yesterday's tragedy.

"I didn't like him at all," she said; "but still it's dreadful—a man one knew ever so slightly!"

Alicia agreed, and the next instant she found herself practically alone with Medland; for Daisy ran off to pick a wild-flower that caught her eye in the wood, and Norburn followed her. Not knowing whether to be glad or sorry, she made no effort to escape, and was silent while Medland began to speak of his prospects in that evening's division.

Suddenly she paused in her walk and lifted her eyes to his.

"You look happier," she said.

Medland's conscience smote him: he was looking happier because the man was dead.

"It's at the prospect of being a free man to-morrow," he answered, with a smile. "You know, Cincinnatus was very happy."

"But you're not like that."

"No, I suppose not. Say it's——"

"Never mind."

After a pause she made another attempt.

"Mr. Medland!"

"Yes?"

"You've been very good to me—yes, very good."

He turned to her with a gesture of disclaimer. She thought he was going to speak, but he did not.

"Whatever happens, I shall always remember that with—with deep gratitude."

"What is going to happen?" he asked, with an uneasy smile.

"Oh, how can I?" she burst out. "How can I say it? How can I ask you?"

As she spoke she stopped, and he followed her example. They stood facing one another now, as he replied gravely,

"Whatever you ask—let it be what it will—I will answer, truthfully." A pause before the last word perhaps betrayed a momentary struggle.

"What right have I? Why should you?"

"The right my—my desire to have your regard gives you. How can I ask for that, unless I am ready to tell you all you can wish to know?"

"I have heard," she began falteringly, "I have been told by—by people who, I suppose, were right to tell me——"

In a moment he understood her. A slight twitch of his mouth betrayed his trouble, but he came to her rescue.

"I don't know how it reached you," he said. "Perhaps I think you might have been—you need not have known it. But there is only one thing you can have heard, that it would distress you to speak of."

She said nothing, but fixed her eyes on his.

"I am right?" he asked. "It is about—my wife?"

She bowed her head. He stood silent for a moment, and she cried,

"It was only gossip—a woman's gossip; I did wrong to listen to it."

"Gossip," he said, "is often true. This is true," and he set his lips.

The worst often finds or makes people calm. She had flushed at first, but the colour went again, and she said quietly,

"If you have time and don't mind, I should like to hear it all."

She had forgotten what this request must mean to him, or perhaps she thought the time for pretence had gone by. If so, he understood, for he answered,

"It's your right."

Her eyes sank to the ground, but she did not quarrel with his words. She stood motionless while he told his story. He spoke with wilful brevity and dryness.

"I was a young man when I met her. She was married, and I went to the house. Her husband——"

"Did he ill-treat her?"

"No. In his way, I suppose he was fond of her. But—she didn't like his way. She was very beautiful, and I fell in love with her, and she with me. And we ran away."

"Is—is that all? Is there no——?"

"No excuse? No, I suppose, none. And I lived with her till she died four years ago. And—Daisy is our daughter."

"And he—the husband?"

"He did not divorce her. I don't know why not, perhaps because she asked him to—anyhow he didn't. And he outlived her: so she died—as she had lived."

"And is he still alive?"

"No; he is dead now." He was about to go on, but checked himself. Why add that horror? How the man died was nothing between her and him.

"Have you no—nothing to say?" she burst out, almost angrily. "You just tell me that and stop!"

"What is there to say? I have told you all there is to tell. I loved her very much. I did what I could to make her happy, and I try to make up for it to Daisy. But there is nothing more to say."

She was angry that he would not defend himself. She was ready—ah, so ready!—to listen to his pleading. But he would not say a word for himself. Instead, he went on,

"She didn't want to come, but I made her. She repented, poor girl, all her life; she was never quite happy. It was all my doing. Still, I think she was happier with me, in spite of it."

A movement of impatience escaped from Alicia. Seeing it he added,

"I beg your pardon. I didn't want you to think hardly of her."

"I don't want to think of her at all. Was she—was she like Daisy?"

"Yes; but prettier."

"I don't know what you expect me to say," she exclaimed. "I know—I suppose some men don't think much of—of a thing like that. To me it is horrible. You simply followed your— Ah, I can't speak of it!" and she seemed to put him from her with a gesture of disgust.

He walked beside her in silence, his face set in the bitter smile it always wore when fate dealt hardly with him.

"I think I'll go straight home," she said, stopping suddenly. "You can join the others."

"Yes, that will be best. I'm not due at the Council just yet."

"I suppose I ought to thank you for telling me the truth. I—" Her false composure suddenly gave way. With a sob she stretched out her hands towards him, crying, "Why didn't you tell me sooner?" and before he could answer her she turned and walked swiftly away, leaving him standing still on the pathway.

She was hardly inside the gates of Government House when she saw Eleanor Scaife, who hurried to meet her.

"Only think, Alicia!" she cried. "Dick is on his way home, and with such good news. We've just had a cable from him."

"Coming back!"

"Yes. He's engaged! He met the Grangers on their tour round the world—you know them, the great cotton people?—at Sydney, and he's engaged to the youngest girl, Violet—you remember her? It all happened in a fortnight. Mary and Lord Eynesford are delighted. It's just perfect. She's very pretty, and tremendously well off. I do declare, I never thought Dick would end so well! What a happy thought it was sending him away! Aren't you delighted?"

"It sounds very nice, doesn't it? I don't think I knew her more than just to speak to."

"Dick'll be here in four days. I've been looking for you to tell you for the last hour. Where have you been?"

"In the Park."

"Alone, as usual, you hermit?"

"Well, I met the Medlands and Mr. Norburn, and talked to them for a little while."

"Alicia! But it's no use talking to you. Come and find Mary."

"No, Eleanor, I'm tired, and—and hot. I'll go to my room."

"Oh, you must come and see her first."

"I can't."

"She'll be hurt, Alicia. She'll think you don't care. Come, dear."

"Tell her—tell her I'm coming directly. Eleanor, you must let me go," and breaking away she fled into the house.

Eleanor went alone to seek Lady Eynesford. Somehow Alicia's words had quenched her high spirits for the moment.

"Poor child! I do hope she hasn't been foolish," she mused. "Surely after what Mary told her—! Oh dear, I'm afraid it isn't all as happy as it is about Dick!"

And then she indulged in some very cynical meditations on the advantages of being a person of shallow emotions and changeful fancies, until she was roused by the sight of Medland and Norburn walking up to the house, to attend the Executive Council. From the window she closely watched the Premier as he approached; her mood wavered to and fro, but at last she summed up her impressions by remarking,

"Well, I suppose one might."

CHAPTER XXII.

"What's the betting about to-night?" asked the Chief Justice, as in one of his restless turns the brooding politician passed near.

"We reckon to beat him by five," answered Coxon.

"Unless any of your men turn tail, that is? I hear Fenton's very wobbly—says he daren't show his face in the North-east Ward if he throws Medland over."

"Oh, he's all right."

"Been promised something?"

"You might allow some of us to have consciences, Chief Justice," said Coxon, with an attempt at geniality.

"Oh, some of you, yes. But I'll pick my men, please," remarked Sir John, with a pleasant smile. "Perry's got a conscience, and Kilshaw—well, Kilshaw's got a gadfly that does instead, and of course, Coxon, I add you to the list."

"Much obliged for your testimonial," said Coxon sourly.

"I add any man I'm talking to, to the list," continued the Chief Justice. "I expect him to do the same by me. But, honestly, I add you even in your absence. You're not a man who puts party ties above everything."

Mr. Coxon darted a suspicious glance at the head of his profession, but the Chief Justice's air was blandly innocent.

"My party's my party," he remarked, "just so long as it carries out my principles. I don't say either party does it perfectly."

"I dare say not; but of course you're right to act with the one that does most for you."

Again the Chief Justice had hit on a somewhat ambiguous expression. Coxon detected a grin on the face of Captain Heseltine, who was sitting near, but he could not hold Sir John's grave face guilty of the Captain's grin.

"I see," remarked the Captain, perhaps in order to cover the retreat of his grin, "that they've discharged the woman who was arrested last night for the murder."

"Really no evidence against her," said the Chief Justice. "But, Heseltine, wasn't this man Benham the fellow Medland had a sort of shindy with at that flower-show?"

"Yes, he was. Kilshaw seemed to know all about him."

"He was talking to Miss Medland."

"And the Premier had her away from him in no time. Queer start, Sir John?"

"Oh, well, he seems to have been a loose fellow, and I suppose was murdered for the money he had on him. But I mustn't talk about it. I may have to try it."

"Gad! you'll be committing contempt of yourself," suggested the Captain.

"Like that snake that swallows itself, eh?"

"What snake?" asked the Captain, with interest.

"The snake in the story," answered the Chief Justice; and he added in an undertone—"Why can't that fellow sit still?"

Mr. Coxon had wandered to the window again, and was thrumming on the panes. He turned on hearing some one enter. It was Sir Robert Perry.

"Well," he began, "I bring news of the event of the day."

"About to-night?" asked Coxon eagerly.

"To-night! That's not the event of the day. Ministers are a deal commoner than murders. No, last night."

Coxon turned away disappointed.

"The murder!" exclaimed the Captain.

"Don't talk to me about it, Perry," the Chief Justice requested, opening a paper in front of his face. He did not, however, withdraw out of earshot.

"They've got a sort of a clue. A wretched hobbledehoy of a fellow, something in the bookseller's shop at the corner of Kettle Street, has come with a rigmarole about a society that he and a few more belonged to, including this François Gaspard, who is missing. He protests that the thing was legal, and all that—only a Radical inner ring—but he says that at the last meeting this fellow was dropping hints about putting somebody out of the way. Dyer—that's the lad's name—swears the rest of them disowned him and said they'd have nothing to do with it, and hoped he'd given up the idea."

"I suppose he's in a blue funk?" asked the Captain.

"He is no doubt alarmed," said Sir Robert. "He gave the police the names of the rest of their precious society, and, oddly enough, Ned Evans, of the House—you know him, Coxon?—was one."

"Heard such an awful lot of debates, poor chap," observed Captain Heseltine.

"Well, they went to Evans' and collared him. For a time he stuck out that he knew nothing about it, but they threatened him with heaven knows what, and at last he confessed to having seen this Gaspard in company with the murdered man in Digby Square a little before twelve on the night."

"By Jove! That's awkward!" said the Captain.

Coxon showed more interest now, and remarked,

"Why, Gaspard was one of Medland's organisers. I saw him with both Medland and Norburn on Saturday."

"I don't suppose they were planning to murder this Benham. Indeed, I don't see that the thing can have been political at all. What did it matter whether Benham lived or died?"

"I don't see that it did, except to Benham," assented the Captain. "But what's become of Gaspard?"

"Ah, that they don't know. He's supposed to have taken ship, and they've cabled to search all ships that left the port that morning."

"He'll find the man in blue—or the local equivalent—on the wharf," said the Captain. "Rather a jar that, Sir Robert, when you're in from a voyage. What are they doing now?"

"Well, the Superintendent said they were going to have a thorough search through the dead man's lodgings, to see if they could find out anything about him which would throw light on the motive. The police don't think much of the political theory of the crime."

"Dashed nonsense, I should think," said the Captain, and he sauntered off to play billiards.

"That young man," said the Chief Justice, "is really not a fool, though he does his best to look like one."

"That queer conduct seems to me rather common in young men at home. I noticed it when I was over."

"Is it meant to imply independent means?"

"I dare say that idea may be dormant under it somewhere. My wife says the girls like it."

"Then your wife, Perry, is a traitor to her sex to make such confessions. Besides, they didn't in my time."

"Come, you know, you're a forlorn bachelor. What can you know about it?"

"Bachelors, Perry, are the men who know. Which gathers most knowledge from a vivisection, the attentive student or the writhing frog?"

"The operator, most of all."

"Doubtless."

"And that's the woman. Therefore, Oakapple, you're wrong and my wife's right."

"The deuce!" said the Chief Justice. "I wonder how I ever got any briefs."

In the afternoon, when these idlers had one and all set out for the Legislative Assembly, some to work, others still to idle, Mr. Kilshaw felt interest enough in the fate of his late henchman to drop in at the police office on his way to the same destination. He was well known, and no one objected to his walking in and making for the door of the Superintendent's room. An officer to whom he spoke told him that Ned Evans was in custody, and that it was rumoured that some startling discoveries had been made at Benham's lodgings.

"Indeed, sir," said the man, "I believe the Superintendent wished to see you."

"Ah, I dare say," said Kilshaw. "Tell him I'm here."

When he was ushered into the inner room, the Superintendent confirmed the officer's surmise.

"I was going to send a message to ask you to step round, sir," he remarked.

"Here I am, but don't be long. I don't want to miss the Premier's speech."

"Mr. Medland speaking to-day?"

"Of course. It's a great day with us at the House."

"I think it looks like being a great day all round. Well, Mr. Kilshaw, you told me you knew the deceased."

"Yes, I knew Benham."

"Benyon," corrected the Superintendent.

"Yes, that was his real name," assented Kilshaw.

"At his lodgings there was found a packet. That's the wrapper," and he handed a piece of brown paper to Kilshaw.

"In case," Kilshaw read, "of my death or disappearance, please deliver this parcel to Mr. Kilshaw, Legislative Assembly, Kirton."

"I'm sorry to say, sir," said the Superintendent, "that the detective sergeant conducting the search took upon him to open this packet in the presence of one or two persons. It ought to have been opened by no one but——"

"Myself."

"Pardon me, but myself," said the Superintendent, with a slight smile. "Owing to the inexcusable blunder, I'm afraid something about what it contains may leak out prematurely. Those pests, the reporters, are everywhere; you can't keep 'em out."

"Well, what does it contain?" asked Kilshaw. He was annoyed at this unsought publicity, but he saw at once that he must show no sign of vexation.

"That, for one thing," and the Superintendent handed Kilshaw a photograph of two persons, a young woman and a young man. "Look at the back," he added.

Kilshaw looked, and read—"My wife and M."

"That's the deceased's handwriting?"

"Yes."

"And you know the persons?"

"I've no doubt about them. It's the Premier—and—and Mrs. Medland."

"Exactly. Now read this," and he gave him the copy of a certificate of marriage between George Benyon and Margaret Aspland.

"Quite so," nodded Kilshaw.

"And this."

Kilshaw took the slip of newspaper, old and yellow. It contained a few lines, briefly recording that Mrs. Benyon had left her home secretly by night, in her husband's absence, and could not be found.

Kilshaw nodded again.

"It doesn't surprise me," he said. "I knew all this. I was in Mr. Benyon's confidence."

"Perhaps you can tell us how he lived?" hazarded the Superintendent, with a shrewd look.

Mr. Kilshaw looked doubtful.

"The inquest is fixed for to-morrow. The more we know now, the less it will be necessary to protract it."

"I have been helping him lately," admitted Kilshaw; and he added, "Look here, Superintendent, I don't want that more talked about than necessary."

"You needn't say a word to me now unless you like, sir; but I only want to make things as comfortable as I can. You see, the coroner is bound to look into it a bit. Had you given him money lately?"

"Yes."

"Much?"

Kilshaw leant forward and answered, almost in a whisper,

"Five hundred on Friday night," and in spite of himself he avoided the Superintendent's shrewd eye. But that officer's business was not to pass moral judgments. Law is one thing, morality another.

"Then the thing's as plain as a pikestaff. This Gaspard got to know about the money, and murdered him to get it. We needn't look further for a motive."

"I suppose all this will have to come out? I wonder if Gaspard knew who Benham was?"

"It's not necessary to suppose that, unless we believe all Evans says. Certainly, if we trust Evans, Gaspard hinted designs on some one before he could have known Benyon had this money. Could he have known he was going to have it?"

"Benyon may have told him I had promised to help him."

"Well, sir, we must see about that. We shall want you at the inquest, sir."

"I suppose you will, confound you! And I should think you'd want a greater man than I am, too."

The Superintendent looked grave.

"I am going up to try and see the Premier at the House to-day," he said. "I think we shall have to trouble him. You see, he knew Gaspard as well as the deceased."

"I'll give you a lift. You can keep out of the way till he's at leisure."

At this moment one of the police entered, and handed the Superintendent a copy of the Evening Mail.

"It's as you feared, sir," he remarked as he went out.

The Superintendent opened the paper, looked at it for an instant, and then indicated a passage with his forefinger.

"It is rumoured," read Mr. Kilshaw, "that certain very startling facts have come to light regarding the identity of the deceased man Benham, and that the name of a very prominent politician, now holding an exalted office, is likely to be introduced into the case. As the matter will be public property to-morrow, we may be allowed to state that trustworthy reports point to the fact of the Premier being in a position to give some important information as to the past life of the deceased. It is said that a photograph of two persons, one of whom is Mr. Medland, has been discovered among the papers at Mr. Benham's (or we should say Benyon's) lodgings. Further developments of this strange affair will be awaited with interest."

"I wish," commented the Superintendent grimly, "that my men could keep a secret as well as their man can sniff one out."

But Mr. Kilshaw was too excited to listen.

"By Jove," he cried, "the news'll be at the House by now! Come along, man, come along!"

And, as they went, they read the rest; for the paper had it all—even a copy of that marriage certificate.