leaving his
match-box in the room where he had dined with Mr. Glenthorpe. Benson
found the match-box on looking into the room to see that everything was
all right when his guests had retired, and determined to commit the
murder that night, and leave it by the murdered man's bedside, as a clue
to direct attention to Penreath. His next idea, to murder Mr.
Glenthorpe with the knife which Penreath had used at dinner, probably
occurred to him as he considered the possibilities of the match-box.

"It is difficult to decide why Benson chose to enter the room from the
window instead of by the door when he had a second key of the room. He
may have attempted to open the door with the key, and found that Mr.
Glenthorpe had locked the door and left the key on the inside. Or he may
have thought that as Penreath was sleeping in the next room, he ran too
great a risk of discovery by entering from the door, and so decided to
enter by the window. We must presume that Benson subsequently found Mr.
Glenthorpe's key, either inside the door or under his pillow, and kept
it. He entered the window, stabbed Mr. Glenthorpe, and placed the
match-box and the knife at the side of the bed. His next act would be to
search for the money. Finding it difficult to search by the light of the
tallow candle, he decided to go downstairs and turn on the gas.

"During his absence Peggy entered the room, saw the dead body, and
picked up the knife and the match-box. Then she picked up the
candlestick by the bed, and fled in terror. Benson, after turning on the
gas at the meter, returned to find the room in darkness. Thinking that
the wind had blown out the candle, he walked to the gas with the
intention of lighting it. In doing so he knocked his head against the
globe, cutting his forehead, and smashing the incandescent burner.

"Benson, when he found that the candlestick had disappeared must, in his
fright, have rushed downstairs for another. He could not light the gas,
because he had smashed the burner. In no other way can I account for the
second lot of candle-grease that I found in the room underneath the
gas-light, which made me believe at first that the room had been
visited by two persons on the night of the murder. There _were_ two
persons, Benson and his daughter, but Peggy did not bring a candlestick
into the room. It looks to me as though Benson, on returning with the
second candle, attempted to light the gas with it and failed. That
action would