By four o'clock the next afternoon the Club had gathered ample materials for fresh gossip. The formalities attendant on the change of government, the composition of the new Cabinet, the prospects of the election—these alone would have supplied many hours, and besides them, indeed supplanting them temporarily by virtue of an intenser interest, there was the account of the inquest on Benyon's body. Medland had gone to it, almost direct from his final interview with the Governor, and Kilshaw had been there, fresh from a conference with Perry. The inquiry had ended, as was foreseen directly Ned Evans' evidence was forthcoming, in a verdict of murder against Gaspard; but the interest lay in the course of the investigation, not in its issue. Mr. Duncombe, a famous comedian, who was then on tour in New Lindsey and had been made an honorary member of the Club, smacked his lips over the dramatic moment when the ex-Premier, calmly and in a clear voice, had identified
the person in the photograph, declared the deceased man to have been Benyon, and very briefly stated how he had been connected with him in old days.
"The lady," he said, "is Mrs. Benyon. The other figure is that of myself. I had not seen the deceased for many years."
"You were not on terms with him?" asked the coroner, who, in common with half the listeners, had known the lady as Mrs. Medland.
"No," said Mr. Medland; "I lost sight of him."
"You did not hear from—from any one about him?"
"No."
He gave the dates when he had last seen Benyon in old days. Asked whether he had communicated with him between that date and the dead man's reappearance, he answered,
"Once, about four years ago. I wrote to tell him of that lady's death," and he pointed again to the picture, and went on to tell the details of Benyon's subsequent application to him for a post under Government.
"You refused it?" he was asked.