hen
you went to the rooms the morning of Mr. White's death. How do you mean
it was unlatched?"

"I mean," he answered, "that the catch was so fixed that it could be
opened from the outside without a key. This was hardly ever the case
that I remember, and never before over night."

I asked him how the catch was fixed when he left, and he answered that
he could not say because the door was open, and Mr. Davis still in the
room.

"And you did not go back that night?" I asked.

"No, sir," he answered promptly, "certainly not. You saw me going home
yourself."

"So I did," I admitted; "and how about the front door when you left, was
that unfastened, too?"

He said that he had closed the door after him when he went out, but did
not know whether it was fixed to open from the outside or not as he had
not tried it, but that it was fastened when he returned in the morning
because he had to use his key to get in.

"Had Winters a key?" I asked.

"No," he admitted, "I am very sure he hadn't."

"Then in case the door was locked," I said, "how could he have gotten
in?"

He looked puzzled for a moment, but brightened up, and suggested that
Mr. White might have let him in, as he never refused him admission.

"But in that case," I suggested, "Mr. White would have been awake and he
was apparently asleep when he was killed." He had nothing to say to
this, except to suggest rather doubtfully that Mr. White might have laid
down and gone to sleep again while Winters was there.

"Do you think that likely?" I inquired.

"No," he said, "I do not."

"Then," I continued, "why do you feel so sure that Winters killed him?"

After looking at me in a surprised way, he asked:

"If he didn't kill him, sir, who did?"

I admitted I did not know, but suggested that we ought not to be too
hasty in our conclusions.

"Well, sir," he answered, "perhaps he didn't, but everybody thinks he
did, and I think so too."

I felt that the examination was at an end, and that I had not made very
much of it. If Benton was guilty he had successfully avoided giving
evidence of it, and if he was innocent, then his attitude was a pretty
fair sample of the estimate the average man or juror would be apt to
place upon my conjectures and theories.

"You may go," I told him; "I am much obliged to you for coming, and you
must tell me anything more you may learn or that occurs to you about the
case."

"I will, sir. Good-night, sir," he answered, and went o