ut promptly and
quietly, like the well-trained servant he had always been.

If it had not been for my horrible suspicions I should have liked to
engage him myself. A man such as Benton is a great comfort to a
bachelor--that is, under ordinary circumstances--but not when you think
he may have murdered his last master.

When he was gone I looked at the clock, and saw it was after eleven. I
had been in my room with my thoughts and with Benton for three hours,
and I could not say that either companionship had been altogether
pleasant. I determined to go downstairs now and see what was going on.
It was the time of the evening when the club was likely to liven up with
men returning from the theatre or other places of amusement for an hour
of cards or gossip, and I hoped to find diversion in their society.

As I descended the stairs, Ned Davis was standing in the hall, and he
immediately locked his arms in mine and began talking of the case.

"Extraordinary, isn't it," he said, "that Winters should have done it?
Awful clever of the police, too, to ferret it out so soon, don't you
think so?"

I was annoyed at this unhesitating assumption of Winters's guilt, and
somewhat out of humor also, I have no doubt, and I asked him sharply:

"How do you know Winters did it?"

"Why, you haven't any doubt about it, have you?" he asked.

"Certainly," I said, "it isn't proven yet."

"Well, if it isn't proven, I never saw a case that was."

"Look here, fellows!" he called out to a lot of men who were seated
nearby talking and who looked up inquiringly at his hail; "Dallas don't
believe Winters did it."

I realized at once that a man holding my office could not afford to be
quoted as an exponent of Winters's innocence, and therefore disclaimed
any such expression of opinion.

"No," I said; "I merely decline to accept his guilt as a fact until he
shall be convicted."

"That's all right, Dallas," one of them answered, "we all understand you
mustn't express an opinion under the circumstances of course, but we all
know what you really think, and we hope you will go in and convict the
fellow quickly. Sit down and take a drink with us, we were just talking
about the case."

I declined the invitation, pleading some excuse, and leaving Davis to
accept it, walked on to the billiard-room, in the hope of escaping the
subject in a game, but it was of no avail, for there, too, it held the
floor.

As I entered the room I observed collected