y
turned away to join the processions or to stare at them. The police were
left to pursue their investigations in peace, and they soon reached a
conclusion. The landlady of the house where Benham died lived alone,
save for the occasional presence of her son: he was away at work in an
outlying district, and she had been the only person in the house that
night. She let beds to single men, she said, and the night before two
men had arrived, one the worse for drink. They had asked for adjoining
rooms. As they went up-stairs, she had heard the one who had been
drinking say to the other, "What are you bringing me here for? This
isn't the place for what I want." His companion, the shorter of the two,
whom she thought she would know again, had answered--"All in good time;
you go and lie down, and I'll fetch what you want." Soon after, the
short one came down and asked if she had any brandy; she gave him a
bottle half full and he went up-stairs again. She heard voices raised as
if in dispute for a few minutes, and one of them--she could not say
which--said something which sounded like "Well, finish the drink first,
and then I'll go." Silence followed, at least she could not hear any
more talking; and presently, it not being her business to spy on
gentlemen, she went to bed, and knew nothing more till she woke at
seven o'clock. Going up-stairs, she found one door open and the room
empty, not the room the two men had been in together, but the other. The
second door was locked, and she did not knock; gentlemen often slept
late. At half-past ten she ventured to knock, got no answer, knocked
again and again, and finally, with the help of the man from next door,
broke the lock and found the taller of the two men dead on the bed. She
had at once summoned the police; and that, she concluded, was all she
knew about the matter, and she was a respectable, hard-working woman, a
widow who could produce her marriage certificate in case any person
present desired to inspect it.

The Superintendent listened to her protestations of virtue with an
ironical smile, told her the police knew her house very well, frightened
her wholesomely, took down her very vague description of the missing
man, and kept her in custody; but he did not seriously doubt the truth
of her story, and, if it were true, the man he wanted was evidently the
sober man, the shorter man, who had introduced his friend to the house
on a pretext, had called for drink, and vanished i