"Did any one call to see Mr. Wilson?"
"No one. All the time he was here not one person called."
"Did he receive any letters?"
"No. Not one letter arrived."
"Queer," murmured Steel. "What newspaper did he take?"
"The Morning Post. Also he took the World, Truth, Modern Society, and M. A. P. He was fond of the fashionable intelligence."
"Oh, he was, was he? Would you have called him a gentleman?"
"He always paid his rent duly," hesitated Mrs. Benker, "so far he was a perfect gentleman. But I have lived as a lady's maid in the best families, sir, and I don't think Mr. Wilson was what you or I would call an aristocrat."
"I see. So you were a lady's maid once. In what families?"
Mrs. Benker was not at all averse to relating her better days, and did so with pride. "I was with the Countess of Flint, with Mrs. Harwitch, and with Lady Susan Summersdale."