ere are times in which one is
driven to regret that there has come an end to duelling, and there is
left to one no immediate means of resenting an injury."

As they were speaking Mr. Bonteen came out from the front door
alone, and seeing the three men standing, passed on towards the left,
eastwards. "Good night, Erle," he said. "Good night, Fitzgibbon."
The two men answered him, and Phineas stood back in the gloom. It
was about one o'clock and the night was very dark. "By George, I
do dislike that man," said Phineas. Then, with a laugh, he took a
life-preserver out of his pocket, and made an action with it as
though he were striking some enemy over the head. In those days there
had been much garotting in the streets, and writers in the Press had
advised those who walked about at night to go armed with sticks.
Phineas Finn had himself been once engaged with garotters,--as has
been told in a former chronicle,--and had since armed himself,
thinking more probably of the thing which he had happened to see
than men do who had only heard of it. As soon as he had spoken, he
followed Mr. Bonteen down the street, at the distance of perhaps a
couple of hundred yards.

"They won't have a row,--will they?" said Erle.

"Oh, dear, no; Finn won't think of speaking to him; and you may be
sure that Bonteen won't say a word to Finn. Between you and me,
Barrington, I wish Master Phineas would give him a thorough good
hiding."

CHAPTER XLVII

What Came of the Quarrel

On the next morning at seven o'clock a superintendent of police
called at the house of Mr. Gresham and informed the Prime Minister
that Mr. Bonteen, the President of the Board of Trade, had been
murdered during the night. There was no doubt of the fact. The
body had been recognised, and information had been taken to the
unfortunate widow at the house Mr. Bonteen had occupied in St.
James's Place. The superintendent had already found out that Mr.
Bonteen had been attacked as he was returning from his club late at
night,--or rather, early in the morning, and expressed no doubt that
he had been murdered close to the spot on which his body was found.
There is a dark, uncanny-looking passage running from the end of
Bolton Row, in May Fair, between the gardens of two great noblemen,
coming out among the mews in Berkeley Street, at the corner of
Berkeley Square, just opposite to the bottom of Hay Hill. It was on
the steps leading up from the passage to the level of t