"Yes, I refused it. I spoke to him once again, when we met on a social occasion. We had a sort of dispute then. I never saw him again to speak to."
"It was all done," said Mr. Duncombe, describing the scene, "in a repressed way that was very effective—to a house that knew the circumstances
most effective. And the other fellow—Kilshaw—he gave some sport too. The coroner (they told me he was one of Medland's men, and I noticed he spared Medland all he could) was inclined to be a bit down on Kilshaw. Kilshaw was cool and handy in his answers, but, Lord love you! his game came out pretty plain. A monkey! You don't give a man a monkey unless there's value received! So people saw, and Mr. Kilshaw looked a bit uncomfortable when he caught Medland's eye. He looked at him like that," and Mr. Duncombe assumed the finest wronged-hero glance in his repertory.
"Oh, come, old chap, I bet he didn't," observed Captain Heseltine. "We've seen him, you know."
Duncombe laughed good-humouredly.
"At any rate he made Kilshaw look a little green, and some of the people behind called out 'Shame!' and got themselves sat upon. Then they had Medland up again and twisted him a bit about his acquaintance with Gaspard; but the coroner didn't seem to think there was anything in it, and they found murder against Gaspard, and rang down the curtain. And when we got outside there was a bit of a rumpus. They hooted Kilshaw and cheered Medland, and yelled like mad when a dashed pretty girl drove up in a pony-cart and carried him off. Altogether it wasn't half bad."
"Glad you enjoyed yourself," observed Captain Heseltine. "If it amuses strangers to see our leading celebrities mixed up in a murder and other
distressing affairs, it's the least we can do to see that they get it."
The Captain's facetiousness fell on unappreciative ears. Most of Mr. Duncombe's audience were too alive to the serious side of the matter to enjoy it. To them it was another and a very striking scene in the fight which had long gone on between Medland and Kilshaw, and had taken a fresh and fiercer impetus from the well-remembered day when Medland had spoken his words about Kilshaw and his race-horses. Nobody doubted that Kilshaw had kept this man Benyon, or Benham, as a secret weapon, and that the murder had only made the disclosure come earlier. Kilshaw's reputation suffered somewhat in the minds of the scrupulous, but his partisans would hear of no condemnation. They said, as he had said, that in dealing with a man like Medland it would have been folly not to use the weapons fate, or the foe himself by his own misdeeds, offered. As for the disapprobation of the Kirton mob, they held that in high scorn.
"They'd cheer burglary, if Medland did it," said one.