“Certainly I was.”
“Did anything occur?”
“The Prince was there.”
“Nothing has happened to the Prince?” said Chiltern.
“His name has not been mentioned to me,” said Mr. Low. “Was there not a quarrel?”
“Yes;”—said Phineas. “I quarrelled with Mr. Bonteen.”
“What then?”
“He behaved like a brute;—as he always does. Thrashing a brute hardly answers nowadays, but if ever a man deserved a thrashing he does.”
“He has been murdered,” said Mr. Low.
The reader need hardly be told that, as regards this great offence, Phineas Finn was as white as snow. The maintenance of any doubt on that matter—were it even desirable to maintain a doubt—would be altogether beyond the power of the present writer. The reader has probably perceived, from the first moment of the discovery of the body on the steps at the end of the passage, that Mr. Bonteen had been killed by that ingenious gentleman, the Rev. Mr. Emilius, who found it to be worth his while to take the step with the view of suppressing his enemy’s evidence as to his former marriage. But Mr. Low, when he entered the room, had been inclined to think that his friend had done the deed. Laurence Fitzgibbon, who had been one of the first to hear the story, and who had summoned Erle to go with him and Major Mackintosh to Downing Street, had, in the first place, gone to the house in Carey Street, in which Bunce was wont to work, and had sent him to Mr. Low. He, Fitzgibbon, had not thought it safe that he himself should warn his countryman, but he could not bear to think that the hare should be knocked over on its form, or that his friend should be taken by policemen without notice. So he had sent Bunce to Mr. Low, and Mr. Low had now come with his tidings.
“Murdered!” exclaimed Phineas.
“Who has murdered him?” said Lord Chiltern, looking first at Mr. Low and then at Phineas.
“That is what the police are now endeavouring to find out.” Then there was a pause, and Phineas stood up with his hand on his forehead, looking savagely from one to the other. A glimmer of an idea of the truth was beginning to cross his brain. Mr. Low was there with the object of asking him whether he had murdered the man! “Mr. Fitzgibbon was with you last night,” continued Mr. Low.
“Of course he was.”
“It was he who has sent me to you.”
“What does it all mean?” asked Lord Chiltern. “I suppose they do not intend to say that—our friend, here—murdered the man.”
“I begin to suppose that is what they intend to say,” rejoined Phineas, scornfully.
Mr. Low had entered the room, doubting indeed, but still inclined to believe—as Bunce had very clearly believed—that the hands of Phineas Finn were red with the blood of this man who had been killed. And, had he been questioned on such a matter, when no special case was before his mind, he would have declared of himself that a few tones from the voice, or a few glances from the eye, of a suspected man would certainly not suffice to eradicate suspicion. But now he was quite sure—almost quite sure—that Phineas was as innocent as himself. To Lord Chiltern, who had heard none of the details, the suspicion was so monstrous as to fill him with wrath. “You don’t mean to tell us, Mr. Low, that anyone says that Finn killed the man?”
“I have come as his friend,” said Low, “to put him on his guard. The accusation will be made against him.”
To Phineas, not clearly looking at it, not knowing very accurately what had happened, not being in truth quite sure that Mr. Bonteen was actually dead, this seemed to be a continuation of the persecution which he believed himself to have suffered from that man’s hand. “I can believe anything from that quarter,” he said.
“From what quarter?” asked Lord Chiltern. “We had better let Mr. Low tell us what really has happened.”
Then Mr. Low told the story, as well as he knew it, describing the spot on which the body had been found. “Often as I go to the club,” said Phineas, “I never was through that passage in my life.” Mr. Low went on with his tale, telling how the man had been killed with some short bludgeon. “I had that in my pocket,” said Finn, producing the life-preserver. “I have almost always had something of the kind when I have been in London, since that affair of Kennedy’s.” Mr. Low cast one glance at it—to see whether it had been washed or scraped, or in any way cleansed. Phineas saw the glance, and was angry. “There it is, as it is. You can make the most of it. I shall not touch it again till the policeman comes. Don’t put your hand on it, Chiltern. Leave it there.” And the instrument was left lying on the table, untouched. Mr. Low went on with his story. He had heard nothing of Yosef Mealyus as connected with the murder, but some indistinct reference to Lord Fawn and the topcoat had been made to him. “There is the coat, too,” said Phineas, taking it from the sofa on which he had flung it when he came home the previous night. It was a very light coat—fitted for May use—lined with silk, and by no means suited for enveloping the face or person. But it had a collar which might be made to stand up. “That at any rate was the coat I wore,” said Finn, in answer to some observation from the barrister. “The man that Lord Fawn saw,” said Mr. Low, “was, as I understand, enveloped in a heavy great coat.” “So Fawn has got his finger in the pie!” said Lord Chiltern.
Mr. Low had been there an hour, Lord Chiltern remaining also in the room, when there came three men belonging to the police—a superintendent and with him two constables. When the men were shown up into the
