If it had not been for my horrible suspicions I should have liked to engage him myself. A man such as Benton is a great comfort to a bachelor--that is, under ordinary circumstances--but not when you think he may have murdered his last master. When he was gone I looked at the clock, and saw it was after eleven. I had been in my room with my thoughts and with Benton for three hours, and I could not say that either companionship had been altogether pleasant. I determined to go downstairs now and see what was going on. It was the time of the evening when the club was likely to liven up with men returning from the theatre or other places of amusement for an hour of cards or gossip, and I hoped to find diversion in their society. As I descended the stairs, Ned Davis was standing in the hall, and he immediately locked his arms in mine and began talking of the case. "Extraordinary, isn't it," he said, "that Winters should have done it? Awful clever of the police, too, to ferret it out so soon, don't you think so?" I was annoyed at this unhesitating assumption of Winters's guilt, and somewhat out of humor also, I have no doubt, and I asked him sharply: "How do you know Winters did it?" "Why, you haven't any doubt about it, have you?" he asked. "Certainly," I said, "it isn't proven yet." "Well, if it isn't proven, I never saw a case that was." "Look here, fellows!" he called out to a lot of men who were seated nearby talking and who looked up inquiringly at his hail; "Dallas don't believe Winters did it." I realized at once that a man holding my office could not afford to be quoted as an exponent of Winters's innocence, and therefore disclaimed any such expression of opinion. "No," I said; "I merely decline to accept his guilt as a fact until he shall be convicted." "That's all right, Dallas," one of them answered, "we all understand you mustn't express an opinion under the circumstances of course, but we all know what you really think, and we hope you will go in and convict the fellow quickly. Sit down and take a drink with us, we were just talking about the case." I declined the invitation, pleading some excuse, and leaving Davis to accept it, walked on to the billiard-room, in the hope of escaping the subject in a game, but it was of no avail, for there, too, it held the floor.