Half a Hero Part 32

"How did he go, and where?"

"Not known, sir."

"Good Lord!" moaned the Superintendent, "and what's your salary?"

The sergeant's good-humour was impregnable.

"Give me time," he said, and the sentence was almost drowned in a loud knock at the door. An instant later Kilshaw rushed in.

"What's this, Dawson?" he cried to the Superintendent; "what's this about the murder?"

"You haven't heard, sir?"

"I went out of town to avoid this infernal row to-day, and am only just back."

Dawson smiled discreetly. He could understand that the proceedings 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 circ.u.mstances.

"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 steams.h.i.+p _Pride of the South_ was ploughing her way through the waves, bound from Kirton to San Francisco, with liberty to touch at several South American ports. A thick-set, short man, s.h.i.+pped at the last moment as cook's mate, in subst.i.tution for a truant, was lying on his back, smoking a cigarette, looking up at the bright stars, and ever and again gently pressing his hand on a little lump inside his s.h.i.+rt. He seemed at peace with all the world, though he was ready to be at war, if need be, and his knife, burnished and clean, lay handy to his fingers. He turned on his side and composed himself to sleep, his chest rising and falling with regular, uninterrupted breathing. Once he smiled: he was thinking of Ned Evans, the doorkeeper; then he gave himself a little shake, closed his eyes, and forgot all the troubles of this weary world. So sleep children, so--we are told--the just: so slept M. Francois Gaspard, on his way to seek fresh woods and pastures new.

CHAPTER XXI.

ALL THERE WAS TO TELL.

The custom in New Lindsey was that every Monday during the session of Parliament the Executive Council should meet at Government House, and, under the presidency of the Governor, formally ratify and adopt the arrangements as to the business of the coming week which its members had decided upon at their Cabinet meetings. It is to be hoped that, in these days, when we all take an interest in our Empire, everybody knows that the Executive Council is the outward, visible, and recognised form of that impalpable, unrecognised, all-powerful inst.i.tution, the Cabinet, consisting in fact, though not in theory, of the same persons, save that the Governor is present when the meeting is of the Council, and absent when it is of the Cabinet--a difference of less moment than it sounds, seeing that, except in extreme cases, the Governor has little to do but listen to what is going to be done. However, forms doubtless have their value, and at any rate they must be observed, so on this Monday morning the Executive Council was to meet as usual, although n.o.body knew where the Cabinet would be that time twenty-four hours. Lady Eynesford, who wanted her husband to drive her out, thought the meeting under the circ.u.mstances mere nonsense--which it very likely was--and said so, which betrayed inexperience, and Alicia Derosne asked what time it took place.

"Eleven sharp," said the Governor, and returned to the account of the murder.

Time after time in the last few days Alicia had told herself that she could bear it no longer. At one moment she believed nothing, the next, nothing was too terrible for her to believe; now she would fly to Australia, or home, or anywhere out of New Lindsey; now a straightforward challenge to Medland alone would serve her turn.

Sometimes she felt as if she could put the whole thing on one side; five minutes later found her pinning her whole life on the issue of it. Under her guarded face and calm demeanour, the storm of divided and conflicting instincts and pa.s.sions raged, and long solitary rambles became a necessary outlet for what she dared show to none. She shrank from seeing Medland, and yet longed to speak with him; she felt that to mention the topic to him was impossible, and yet, if they met, inevitable; that she would not have strength to face him, and yet could not let him go without clearing up the mystery. She told herself at one moment that she hardly knew him, at the next that between them nothing could be too secret for utterance.

What she hoped and feared befell her that morning. She went out for a walk in the Park, and before long she met the Premier, with his daughter and Norburn. The two last were laughing and talking--their quarrel was quite forgotten now--and Medland himself, she thought, looked as though his load of care were a little less heavy. The two men explained that they were on their way--a roundabout way, they confessed--to the Council, and had seized the chance of some fresh air, while Daisy was full of stories about yesterday's triumph, that left room only for a pa.s.sing reference to yesterday's tragedy.

"I didn't like him at all," she said; "but still it's dreadful--a man one knew ever so slightly!"

Alicia agreed, and the next instant she found herself practically alone with Medland; for Daisy ran off to pick a wild-flower that caught her eye in the wood, and Norburn followed her. Not knowing whether to be glad or sorry, she made no effort to escape, and was silent while Medland began to speak of his prospects in that evening's division.

Suddenly she paused in her walk and lifted her eyes to his.

"You look happier," she said.

Medland's conscience smote him: he was looking happier because the man was dead.

"It's at the prospect of being a free man to-morrow," he answered, with a smile. "You know, Cincinnatus was very happy."

"But you're not like that."

"No, I suppose not. Say it's----"

"Never mind."