roceedings 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 s