Dr. Baumgartner had left the house before six o’clock in the morning; now it was after twelve. If some tragedy had overtaken him in his turn, then there was an end to every terror, and for him a better end than he might meet with if he lived. The boy remembered Him who desireth not the death of a sinner, and was ashamed of his own thought; but that did not alter it. Unless his fears and his surmises were all equally unfounded, better for everybody, and best of all for Phillida, if this criminal maniac came to his end without public exposure of his crimes. Pocket may have misconceived his own attitude of mind, as his elders and betters do daily; he may have been thinking of his own skin more than he knew, or wanted to know. In that case he had his reward, for the murdered man was not Dr. Baumgartner. Phillida’s first words on returning were to that effect; and yet she trembled as though they were not the truth. “Who was it, then?” the schoolboy asked suspiciously. “Sir Joseph Schelmerdine.” “So he was the well-known man!” He was well known even to the boy by name, but that was all. He had seen it in newspapers, and he thought he had heard it execrated by Baumgartner himself in one of his little digs at England. Pocket was not sure about this, but he mentioned his impression, and Phillida nodded with swimming eyes. “Did the doctor know him?” “Not personally; but he thought him a European danger.” “Why?” “I can’t tell you. It was something to do with politics and gold-mines, and some financial paper. I never understood.” “May I see the paper you’ve brought in?” The girl held it tight in her hand, and tighter still as he held out his. “I’d rather you didn’t,” she said. “Then there’s something you haven’t told me.” “There is!” “I shall know it sooner or later.” “I know you will, and I know what you’ll think! You may think what you like, and still be wrong!”