es. Pocket may have
misconceived his own attitude of mind, as his elders and betters do daily;
he may have been thinking of his own skin more than he knew, or wanted to
know. In that case he had his reward, for the murdered man was not Dr.
Baumgartner. Phillida's first words on returning were to that effect; and
yet she trembled as though they were not the truth.

"Who was it, then?" the schoolboy asked suspiciously.

"Sir Joseph Schelmerdine."

"So he was the well-known man!"

He was well known even to the boy by name, but that was all. He had seen
it in newspapers, and he thought he had heard it execrated by Baumgartner
himself in one of his little digs at England. Pocket was not sure about
this, but he mentioned his impression, and Phillida nodded with swimming
eyes.

"Did the doctor know him?"

"Not personally; but he thought him a European danger."

"Why?"

"I can't tell you. It was something to do with politics and gold-mines,
and some financial paper. I never understood."

"May I see the paper you've brought in?"

The girl held it tight in her hand, and tighter still as he held out his.

"I'd rather you didn't," she said.

"Then there's something you haven't told me."

"There is!"

"I shall know it sooner or later."

"I know you will, and I know what you'll think! You may think what you
like, and still be wrong!"

There was a pause between the sentences, and in the pause the boy found
the paper at his feet. There was no need to open it at the place; it was
so folded already, the news standing out in its leaded type, and more of
it in the late corner. Sir Joseph Schelmerdine, Bart., M.P., the
well-known proprietor of the _Money-maker,_ had been shot dead in front of
his house in Park Lane. The murder had been committed in the early hours
of the morning, before anybody was about except Sir Joseph and his groom,
and the person whom the groom described as the only possible murderer.
The man had just seen his master mounted for the early morning ride, and
had left him in conversation with a photographer representing himself as
concerned with the press, and desirous of obtaining an equestrian
photograph for his paper. The groom thought it was to be taken in the
Park, and was himself on his way back to the mews when the riderless horse
overtook him. Mounting the animal, he had galloped round to find Sir
Joseph dead in the road, and no trace of the "photographer" but a false
beard and spe