When I awoke the next morning from a short and unrestful interval of sleep, it was with an oppressive sense of something being wrong. Then I remembered. Wrong it was, certainly, but it was not my affair. The only way in which it touched me (so I thought then) was as it affected my client, Clyde. How would he take the news? I imagined his receiving it in one way and another, and I felt that there were embarrassing contingencies connected with the matter. Finally I determined to call him up by my room telephone, if possible, and tell him the news as news. I rang him up, therefore, before going down to my breakfast.

Perhaps "Central" was sleepy or tired, or the wires were crossed at some unknown point on the circuit. I didn\'t get Clyde and I couldn\'t attract Central\'s attention after the first response, though I shook the receiver and made remarks. Then suddenly, across the silence, out of space and into space, a man\'s voice spoke with passion:

"But Barker is dead, I tell you! You are free! Now will you marry me?"

And then again the buzzing silence of the "dead" wires!

Talk about the benefits of modern inventions! They don\'t come without their compensating disadvantages. I hung to that telephone till Central finally woke up and sleepily inquired if I were "waiting."

"Who was on this wire just now?" I demanded.

"Nobody," she said sweetly.

I called for "Information," and laid the case before that encyclopedic sphinx. Someone had been talking across my wire and in the interests of justice and everything else that would appeal to her, I must know who it was. With a rising accent and perfect temper she assured me that she didn\'t know, that no one knew, that if they knew they wouldn\'t tell, and that I probably had been dreaming, anyhow. I knew better than that, but I saw that there was no way of getting the information from her. I should have to go to headquarters,--and then probably the girl would not be able to answer. But who was it that knew, before the papers were fairly on the street, that Barker was dead? Who was it that would cry, with passion, "Now will you marry me?" I gave up the attempt to get Clyde, and went down to breakfast.

I had a suite of rooms in a private family hotel where everybody knew everybody else, and as I entered the common breakfast room I was assailed by questions. Never before had I so completely held the center of the stage! I could hardly get a moment myself to read the account in the paper which had set them all to gossiping. It was fairly accurate. The police reporter had his story from headquarters. It was not until I read at the end, "At this writing the police have found no clue," that I realized, by my sense of relief, the anxiety with which I had followed the report.

I wanted to see Clyde, but I thought it best to go to my own office first, and communicate with him from there. Fellows had not arrived when I reached there,--the first time in years that I had known him to be late. When he came he looked excited, though with his usual stoicism he tried to conceal all evidence of his feelings.

"Well, your friend Barker has met with his come-up-ance," I said at last, knowing he would not speak.

"Yes," he assented, and a nervous smile twitched his lips involuntarily. "But not at the hands of the law. I told you the law couldn\'t reach him."

"The law will probably reach the man who did it."

Fellows did not speak for a moment. Then he said slowly, "He was killed as justly as though it had been done under the order of the court. Shall I look up these cases for you now, Mr. Hilton?"

"Was Barker married?" I asked abruptly, disregarding his readiness to get to work.

"I don\'t know." He looked surprised.

"I wish you would find out. Also, if possible, who she is, where she lives, any gossip about her,--everything possible."

"How shall I find out?"

"Oh, I leave that to you," I said confidently. Fellows was not learned in law books, but he was a great fellow for finding out things. I was usually content to accept the results without inquiring too closely how he obtained them.

"All right," he said, shortly. Some minutes later he looked up from his work to remark, with his familiar bitterness, "I suppose, like as not, he has a wife who will be heart-broken over his death, scoundrel as he was, though if he had once been in prison no woman would look at him."

I had been thinking. "I\'m not so sure she will be heart-broken, but you might find out about that, with the other things. Now call up Mr. Clyde\'s office, and find out if he can see me if I come over."

"Mr. Clyde is ready to see you," he reported after a minute.

I went over at once,--the distance was not great. Clyde was alone, and he looked up and nodded when I entered. His manner was pleasant enough, yet I was instantly aware of something of reserve that had not been there at our former interview. "He is sorry he took me into his confidence, now that it has turned out this way," I thought to myself.

"Well, somebody saved us the trouble of paying further attention to Mr. Barker," he said lightly.

"So it seems."

"Did you speak to him at all?"

"No."

"I didn\'t know but that you might have seen him since--since I spoke to you about him."

"I did see him the other day, but not to speak to him." And I told him of the incident in the Ph?nix Building. He listened with close attention.

"I have no doubt he had enemies on all sides," he said with a certain tone of satisfaction. "From what we know of his methods, it is easy to guess that. He has lived an underground life for years, but always keeping on the safe side of the law. His end was bound to come sooner or later."

"Do you know whether he was married?"

"I don\'t know. How should I?"

"I merely wondered." For some reason I did not care to repeat that puzzling communication I had heard over the phone.

"I know nothing about him. If he has any family, they will probably come forward to claim the body. But I doubt very much that the man who fired the shot will ever be taken."

"What makes you so sure?"

"He planned things carefully. And he is probably supported this minute by a sense of right,--and my sympathies are with him."

He flung up his head with open defiance of my supposed prejudices.

"Don\'t forget that Barker may have committed some of his valuable secrets to writing," I warned.

He looked startled for a moment, then he threw up his head.

"I don\'t believe it. He\'s dead, and a good job done."

It was not my place to croak on such an occasion, but as I walked down the street to my own office, I reflected that the law would not look at a shot from ambush in that light, no matter what the judgment of the Lord might be.

I stopped at Barney\'s stand for my buttonhole rose,--and at once I knew, by the gleam in his eye, that he had something special to tell me.

"So it\'s yourself is the celebrity this morning, Mr. Hilton," he said eagerly.

"I? Oh, no. I wasn\'t killed and didn\'t kill anybody."

"But ye know a power about the happenin\'s, I\'ll be bound."

"Yes, I know as much as anybody does," I said, supposing that he wanted to ask me about some particular.

"It\'s the hard and revengeful heart he must have, and him so young, to shoot a man that the law has set right," said Barney, craftily.

"What?" I said sharply. "What do you mean, Barney?--if you mean anything!"

"Sure, an\' I can\'t be tellin\' ye anything that ye didn\'t know!"

"Have they found the murderer?" I asked, yet with a nervous dread of his answer.

"Divil a bit. He found himself, and couldn\'t keep the secret," Barney said, entirely happy in being able to give me this surprising information. "The officer on the beat this morning tould me that the whole departmint fell over itself when the young lad walked into the station with his head up like a play-actin\' gossoon, and says, \'I killed him for that he killed me fayther.\' The exthra will be out by now."

I heard the boys calling an extra as he spoke, and I waited and beckoned the first one that hove into sight. There, on the glaring front, I read:

"MURDERER CONFESSES
Eugene Benbow gives himself up
to the Police.
Fired the Fatal Shot
to Avenge his Father.

"Barker killed Senator Benbow ten years ago and was acquitted on the plea of self-defense.

"The slayer of Alfred Barker has been found. Driven by the spur of a guilty conscience, he gives himself up to the police. The fatal shot was fired by Eugene Benbow, the son of Senator Josephus Benbow, who was shot and killed by Barker in Saintsbury just ten years ago.

"Senator Benbow, whose home was in Deming, was in attendance on the State Legislature when he fell foul of Barker, who was trying to lobby through a measure which Benbow did not hesitate to call a steal. He was instrumental in defeating Barker\'s measure, and this led to bitterness and threats on both sides. One day they met on the street, and after some hot words Barker drew his revolver and shot Benbow dead. When brought to trial, he succeeded in convincing the jury that he believed (?) his life to be in danger from a motion which Benbow made toward his pocket, although it was proved that the senator was, as a matter of fact, unarmed.

"Young Benbow was at that time a lad of ten. The tragedy made a deep impression upon him, and he grew up, dreaming of revenge. Yesterday he heard that Barker was in town, and at once armed himself. Last night he carried his deadly purpose into effect.

"It seems that after shooting Barker in his office in the Ph?nix Building, young Benbow returned to the rooms which he occupies in the house of Mr. Howard Ellison, who is his guardian and a distant relative. He spent the night there, and apparently decided then to give himself up, for he appeared at police headquarters at half-past six, in a highly nervous condition, and astonished the sergeant by declaring himself the person who shot Alfred Barker. The special officers who had been detailed to investigate the murder have been recalled."

"The poor little girl!" I said to myself. The vision of Jean Benbow as I had seen her last night, gallant and boyish, rose before me. This would be a terrible morning for her. I do not often make the mistake of rushing in where I know that only angels may safely tread, yet I was filled with a well-nigh irresistible impulse to go and look out for her. That was absurd, of course, since she was with friends,--only I should have liked some assurance that they would understand her! I hardly thought of her brother, though, since he was her twin, he could be nothing but a boy, and certainly presented a touching figure, with his medieval ideas of personal vengeance.

But I was to have ample occasion to think of Eugene. Before the morning was over, Mr. Howard Ellison\'s card was brought to me. Mr. Ellison, who followed his card, was elderly, rather small and somewhat bent, but alert mentally and active physically. He had the dry, keen, impersonal aspect of a student, and I could see at a glance why Mrs. Whyte thought him cold-blooded. He was given to a sarcastic turn of speech which heightened this impression--and did him an injustice if, as a matter of fact, he was especially tender-hearted.

"You have probably seen the papers this morning, Mr. Hilton."

I bowed.

"I have come to see if you will undertake that young fool\'s defense. As his guardian, I suppose it devolves on me to see that he is provided with a lawyer."

I am not in criminal practice, and ordinarily I should not have cared for such a retainer, but in this instance I did not hesitate for a moment.

"I shall be very glad to do so."

"That\'s all right, then. You look after things, and let me know if there is anything I have to know. I am engaged in some important researches, and it is most inconvenient to have interruptions, but of course in such a case I shall have to put up with it."

"Possibly you may even find them interesting," I said, in amaze. He took me up at once.

"Events are not interesting, Mr. Hilton. They are merely happenings,--unrelated and unintelligent. Take this case. Gene dislikes Barker. That is interesting in a measure, although it is rather obvious. But he goes and shoots him, and what is there interesting in that? It is the mere explosive event. Besides, Gene was a fool to go and tell the police about it. That was hardly--gentlemanly."

"I suppose it weighed on his conscience."

"Conscience,--fiddlededee! What is conscience? Merely your idea of what someone else would think about you if he knew. If you are satisfied yourself that your actions are justified, what have you to do with the opinions of other people or the upbraidings of conscience? If it was right to kill Barker, it was sheer foolishness to tell."

"Do you think it is ever right to kill?"

"Young man, your experience of life is limited if you can put that question seriously and sincerely. I studied surgery as a young man and spent three years in a hospital in Vienna. After that I was for two years connected with the English army in India. I have no foolish prejudices left about taking life--when necessary."

"You have belonged to privileged classes," I said, striving to match his nonchalance. "But unfortunately your young cousin does not."

"No, he has been merely a young fool," he said concisely. "But Jean insisted that I should come and see you about it. She is his sister."

"I am honored by Miss Benbow\'s confidence," I said. I felt a good deal more than I expressed. If I didn\'t do the best that could be done for her brother, it would be merely because I didn\'t know how. "Will you tell me something about the young man? He lives with you?"

"Yes. He has the library for his study. Of course he has the run of the house. The only stipulation I ever made was that he should keep out of my way and not distract my mind. This is the consideration which he shows!"

"How long has he lived with you?"

"Why, ever since the family was broken up. Barker shot Senator Benbow, you know, and his wife died soon after. Shock. You know, there is something interesting in the question how a purely mental blow can have effect on the physical plane. Well, Benbow was a cousin, and as my own wife was dead, there seemed to be plenty of room in the house for the boy, so I took him. I supposed he would grow up the way other boys did. I simply told him never to bother me. For the rest he could do as he liked."

"He seems to have followed your teaching. How old is he?"

"Just twenty. It was his birthday yesterday. He was celebrating last night with some of his college mates."

"How? Where, and with whom?"

"At his Fraternity House. They had a supper for him. He is a senior at Vandeventer College."

"I see. You were out for dinner, too, last night, were you not?"

He looked up sharply, surprised, almost suspicious. "How do you know that?"

"I understood that no one was at home."

"Well, you are right, though I don\'t remember telling you. I had dinner at the club to meet a distinguished professor of psychology who is here. It is a subject in which I am interested."

"May I ask who compose your household?"

"Me, first. Then Gene. Then Mrs. Crosswell, the housekeeper, and Minnie, the houseworker. There\'s a yardman and a laundress, but they don\'t live in the house."

"Were both the women away last night?"

"No, Minnie was at home. Mrs. Crosswell has been away for a few days."

"Miss Benbow arrived last night."

"Yes, I believe so. I didn\'t see her till this morning. She came rushing into my room most inconsiderately with this confounded report in her hand,--the paper, I mean. What possessed Gene to do such a thing--"

"He must have been laboring under some excitement that carried him away--"

"Man, I am not talking about the shooting. That may or may not have been justified. But why he should make all this trouble by going to the police!"

"Do you know if anything happened at his supper to excite him?"

"Yes. His chum, Al Chapman, has been in to see me. It seems that some one spoke of seeing Alfred Barker, and it upset Gene. He came away early."

"What sort of a boy is he? Violent? Revengeful?"

"I can\'t say that I have noticed. He never bothered me much. I have an idea that he is a pretty hard student,--"

"Has he been working hard?--overstraining himself?"

He grinned. "Brainstorm idea? Well, perhaps you might work it. He has been doing a little extra Latin with a tutor. You might make the most of that."

"Who is his tutor?"

"Mr. Garney. One of the instructors at Vandeventer."

I made a note of Mr. Garney\'s name, also of Al Chapman\'s.

"You don\'t think of anything else that I ought to know,--anything having a bearing on Benbow\'s actions or his state of mind?"

He hesitated, looked at me and shifted his eyes to the window, and finally pursed up his lips and shook his head. "No."

"Then let us go down to the jail so that I can meet my client."

We went down together to the jail and were admitted to see Eugene Benbow. Certainly he did not look like a murderer as we are apt to picture one. He was a tall, slender youth, with a sensitive face, and in spite of his nervousness he had the best manners I ever saw. He was sitting with his face in his hands when we came in, but he sprang to his feet at once with a self-forgetful courtesy that made him seem like an anxious host rather than a prisoner.

"So good of you to come, Uncle Howard," he murmured. "I--I\'m afraid I have disturbed you,--I\'m so sorry,--"

"Sorry!" snorted Mr. Ellison. "Much good it does to think of that now. And what you ever expected to have come from your going to the police with that story--Well, there\'s no use talking. This is Mr. Hilton, Gene. He is a lawyer, and he is going to look after your case, now that you\'re in for it."

Eugene bowed. "Oh, that\'s most kind of you. It won\'t be any trouble? I\'m so sorry to put you to any inconvenience--"

"Don\'t let that disturb you," I said. "Mr. Ellison was kind enough to think I might be of use,--"

"And now I\'ll leave you to talk things over," said Mr. Ellison, plainly anxious to get away. "When I\'m wanted, you know where to call on me, Mr. Hilton." And he hurried away.

"That\'s what I wanted," I said, cheerfully. I could see that the boy was in so nervous a condition that the first necessity was to steady him. "We want to talk this over together. You know, of course, that anything and everything that you tell me is in professional confidence, and that you should not hesitate to be perfectly frank."

"I have nothing to hide," he said. "If you will tell me what you want to know,--"

"When did the idea of killing Barker come to you?" I asked, watching him closely.

An involuntary shudder ran through him at my words, but he answered at once and with apparent frankness. "I don\'t know. I don\'t remember thinking of it at all. Beforehand, I mean."

"When did you think of it?"

"Why, when I woke up. Then I remembered."

"You mean that you went home and went to sleep last night?"

"Yes. Not to bed. I threw myself down on the couch in the library and went to sleep with my clothes on. It was about five when I woke up--and remembered. Then I had to wait,--" He looked at me with anxious appeal for understanding,--"I had to wait until some one would be up at the station,--"

"Tell me what you were doing yesterday. It was your twentieth birthday, Mr. Ellison says."

"Yes. Why, I attended lectures at the U all forenoon. Then after lunch Mr. Garney came over for an hour,--he\'s tutoring me in Latin. At four I went to the Gym,--guess I was there about an hour. Then I went home and read awhile, until it was time to go to the Frat house for supper. The fellows were giving me a spread because it was my birthday."

"Did anything come up that annoyed you? Was anything said--about Barker, for instance?"

The boy frowned. "Yes. Grig--I mean Jim Gregory--said that he saw Barker in town the other day. The other fellows shut him up. Grig is new here. He didn\'t know how it would make me feel."

"How did it make you feel?"

The boy\'s slim white hands were gripping the edges of his chair nervously. "Desperate," he said, in a voice to match. "Here I was, singing and laughing and drinking and having a jolly time, and there was my father dead, shot down and unavenged,--oh, it all seemed suddenly horrible to me. I couldn\'t stay."

"You went away early, then. What time was it?"

"I don\'t know. I never thought of looking. Does it make any difference?"

"I don\'t know that it does. Then what did you do? Did you go direct to the Ph?nix Building?"

He frowned thoughtfully. "No, I must have gone home first, mustn\'t I? Yes, of course I went home. My revolver was there. I went into the library and threw myself down on the couch to think it out,--and then--why, then I must have got my revolver and gone out."

"Was your revolver in the library?"

"Yes. In the table drawer. Uncle Howard gave it to me that morning, in the library, and I just locked it into the drawer."

"By the way, how did you know that Barker\'s office was in the Ph?nix Building?"

"I don\'t know. I just knew it, somehow."

"What made you think that he would be there at that time of the night? It wouldn\'t be likely, under ordinary circumstances."

"I don\'t know. I didn\'t think. I suppose I just took it for granted." He looked puzzled and anxious, as though he were afraid that he was not answering my questions satisfactorily.

"What did you have to drink at your spread?" I asked, thinking that perhaps there might be some explanation in that direction for his vague recollections.

"Oh, champagne," he said, quickly.

"Did you drink much?"

"Two glasses, I think."

"Are you accustomed to champagne?"

"I\'ve taken it only once or twice before."

"Then I don\'t wonder that your memory is not quite clear. But tell me what you can of your movements. I want to follow your actions from the time you left the house."

He leaned forward, one elbow resting on the table between us, and fixed his eyes with anxious intentness on a crack in the floor.

"I went down to the Ph?nix Building--"

"Did you walk?"

He hesitated a moment. "Yes."

"Go on."

"I went up to Barker\'s office on the second floor,--"

"How did you know that it was his office? Excuse my interrupting, but I want to follow all the details. Barker\'s name wasn\'t on the door."

"I don\'t remember how I knew. Perhaps I asked somebody."

"Whom?"

"I don\'t remember that I did ask. But I knew the place. I went in through the outer office to an inner room. There was no one there. I locked the door between the two rooms and waited inside for Barker to come. There was a light in the outer office, but the room I was in was lit only by the light that came in through the glass door between the two rooms. There was a curtain over this glass door, and I pulled it aside to watch. A man came in, sat down and waited awhile, and then went away. Then Barker came. I fired through the door,--one of the little panes of glass was broken, and I fired through that. Then--then I opened the window and climbed down the fire-escape and got out into the street. There were crowds of people going home from the theaters, and I fell in with the crowd."

"And went home?"

"Yes." He drew a sigh, as of relief, and looked up at me.

It is one of the indications that this universe is under divine direction that a lie cannot masquerade successfully for the truth for an extended period. As Eugene talked, it had been coming more and more strongly into my mind that he was not telling the truth. He was going too cautiously. He seemed to be picking his way among uncertainties with a studious design to present only irrefutable facts to my scrutiny. And yet the accident that had put me on the other side of that closed door should enable me to refute some of his facts, it seemed to me. I felt that I must make sure.

"You say that a man came into the office and waited awhile and then went away. Did you know him?"

"No. He was a stranger."

"Would you know him if you saw him?" He hesitated. "No, I think not. I can\'t recall his face."

"Or how he was dressed? Business suit, or evening dress?"

"Oh, business suit, I should think."

"You naturally would think so,--unless you knew," I added to myself. Then I asked abruptly, "Are you fond of apples, Mr. Benbow?"

He looked surprised and politely puzzled. "Apples?"

"Yes. Raw apples."

"No, I don\'t care for them."

"But you eat them?"

"Why, no, I don\'t, as it happens. I don\'t like them."

"Now let\'s go back to Barker\'s office," I said, thinking hard. "Can you describe the office,--the arrangement of the furniture, for instance?"

He dropped his eyes again to the floor, and frowned intently, as though he were searching his memory. But in a moment he looked up with a whimsical, deprecatory smile. "I\'m afraid I can\'t! I can\'t seem to remember things connectedly. Do you suppose it was the champagne?"

"That is possible," I said, thoughtful in my turn. It was quite possible that the champagne was accountable for his vagueness. Then I remembered another point. "You say that you went home after you climbed down the fire-escape."

"Yes. Not at once, I think. I seem to remember walking the streets."

"When you woke up this morning, where were you?"

"On the couch in the library."

"Dressed?"

"Yes."

"Then you threw yourself down there when you came in and went to sleep, just as you did earlier in the evening, when you came home from the supper?"

"I suppose so."

"When you woke up and remembered what you had done, you wanted to give yourself up at once to the police?"

"Yes, of course. A gentleman would have to do that, wouldn\'t he?"

"Undoubtedly," I said, with gravity to match his own. "But why didn\'t you think of doing that last night?"

He looked nonplussed. "I--don\'t know! I couldn\'t have been quite myself." Then he looked up earnestly. "But if I remember shooting Barker, that is the main thing, isn\'t it?"

"I\'m afraid so," I said, looking at him steadily. "You do remember that?"

"Yes. Distinctly." But he looked absent and thoughtful, as though the memory were not quite as clear as his words would imply.

"By the way, how did you know Barker when he came in?"

A sharp change came over his expression. His young face looked set and stern as that of an avenging angel. "I was by my father\'s side when Barker shot him," he said quietly.

"I didn\'t know. I can understand your feeling. But this idea of avenging him,--have you cherished it all these years?"

"No, not in that way," he said thoughtfully. "I think it just came over me of a sudden."

"What did you do with the revolver afterwards?"

"I threw it into an alley as I went by." (It was never found.)

"You spoke to no one of your plan?"

"No."

"And there was no one with you? You were quite alone all the time?"

"I was quite alone."

I talked with him for some time, but there was nothing more definitely bearing upon the problem which was forming in my mind,--and which was a very different problem from the question how to handle the case of a confessed murderer. I went away with this new and puzzling question putting everything else out of my mind,--Was his confession true? Of course on the face of it, the question looked absurd. Men don\'t go about confessing to crimes they have not committed,--unless there is some powerful reason for their belying themselves. If Eugene Benbow was lying, he had chosen his position well to escape detection. I could see that it would have been hard to defend him in the face of such circumstantial evidence as surrounded him, if he had been arrested on suspicion instead of on his own confession. And yet--I could not get rid of the idea that he was concealing or inventing something which might put a very different light on things. He might not have recognized me as the man who sat waiting in Barker\'s office, he might even have failed to notice that I was in evening dress, but how explain away the eaten apple? A man very fond of apples might have eaten one while waiting and given no special thought to the matter, but a man who didn\'t like apples wouldn\'t pick one up casually and eat it without taking notice of what he was doing. And those apple parings were quite fresh. That was a small but obstinate fact. I could not forget it. Had someone been with Benbow? Then I remembered his vagueness, his failure to identify me as the strange visitor, and I was inclined to change my question to--Had Benbow been there at all?

And yet what possible motive could he have for making a false confession? The only reasonable explanation would be that he was trying to shield someone. But no one else had as yet been accused. The psychology of that situation was not complete. I must try to understand the boy\'s nature, before theorizing.

And, first of all, I must verify my facts.