id Lord Cantrip.

"I do not know that we need believe it, or the reverse. It is a case
for the police."

"Of course it is;--but your belief and mine will have a weight.
Nothing that I have heard makes me for a moment think it possible. I
know the man."

"He was very angry."

"Had he struck him in the club I should not have been much surprised;
but he never attacked his enemy with a bludgeon in a dark alley. I
know him well."

"What do you think of Fawn's story?"

"He was mistaken in his man. Remember;--it was a dark night."

"I do not see that you and I can do anything," said Mr. Gresham. "I
shall have to say something in the House as to the poor fellow's
death, but I certainly shall not express a suspicion. Why should I?"

Up to this moment nothing had been done as to Phineas Finn. It was
known that he would in his natural course of business be in his place
in Parliament at four, and Major Mackintosh was of opinion that he
certainly should be taken before a magistrate in time to prevent the
necessity of arresting him in the House. It was decided that Lord
Fawn, with Fitzgibbon and Erle, should accompany the police officer
to Bow Street, and that a magistrate should be applied to for a
warrant if he thought the evidence was sufficient. Major Mackintosh
was of opinion that, although by no possibility could the two
men suspected have been jointly guilty of the murder, still the
circumstances were such as to justify the immediate arrest of both.
Were Yosef Mealyus really guilty and to be allowed to slip from their
hands, no doubt it might be very difficult to catch him. Facts
did not at present seem to prevail against him; but, as the Major
observed, facts are apt to alter considerably when they are minutely
sifted. His character was half sufficient to condemn him;--and then
with him there was an adequate motive, and what Lord Cantrip regarded
as "a possibility." It was not to be conceived that from mere rage
Phineas Finn would lay a plot for murdering a man in the street. "It
is on the cards, my lord," said the Major, "that he may have chosen
to attack Mr. Bonteen without intending to murder him. The murder may
afterwards have been an accident."

It was impossible after this for even a Prime Minister and two
Cabinet Ministers to go about their work calmly. The men concerned
had been too well known to them to allow their minds to become clear
of the subject. When Major Mackintosh went off to Bow Street with
Er