The Mystery of Philip Bennion's Death

Chapter I Found Dead We

had been discussing, the night before, De Quincey's essay " On Murder, Considered as One of the Fine Arts." Bennion, in that self-opinionated v/ay which was a characteristic of his, and to which I always objected, maintained that the essayist had not been true to his subject. He had it that the particular case of murder on which De Quincey had founded his paper, was a work of butchery, and not a work of art. Bennion insisted that murder might be considered as one of the fine arts, possibly as the finest of all the fine arts. But in that case it would have to be regarded from a very different point of view from that in which De Quincey had approached the subject. Bennion observed, and stuck to his observation with all that strength of obstinacy with which he was so divinely gifted, that the artist in murder — the true artist, that is, as distinct from the commonplace butcher — would pay careful attention to particular points.

As thus : BENNION'S DEATH 2 In an artistic murder, Bennion declared, the first thing necessary was to make it appear that there had been no murder at all. There should be no mark of injury upon the corpse, either internal or external ; no trace of poison, no suspicion of violence, no sign of a blow. It should seem as if the dead person had been struck down by the visitation of God. The more completely this condition was fulfilled, the more clearly would the artistic sense — in the operator, that is — be evidenced. Even supposing some person, or persons, suspected that murder had been done, and the exact manner of its doing, still there should be no evidence in existence which should enable him, or them, to prove their suspicions true. And, to go one step farther, should some wholly unforeseen circumstance — the artist in murder would, before all men, know that it is the unforeseen which happens — place in the hands of those suspicious persons something which looked like evidence of guilt, it should still be utterly impossible to father on the criminal his crime.

If, said Bennion, all these conditions were fulfilled, then, and only then, should we see the fine arts applied to murder. His dogmatism half-amused and wholly irritated me, as, indeed, it had a trick of doing. There never was a man like Philip Bennion for laying down what he maintained was the letter of the law. I told him that there was only one person in my acquaintance who had in him the qualities which were required to realise his conception of the artistic homicide. He indulged in that vulpine distortion of his coun tenance which he was wont to call a grin. "You mean my precious nephew?" I did mean Raymond Clinton, and I told him so. In my opinion there was no crime which would bring FOUND DEAD 3 him money from which that young man would turn aside. Bennion rose from his chair. I well remember that he stretched himself, which was another trick he had.

" To tell you the truth, Otway, I am not sure that you are very wrong. I have not myself the highest opinion of my sister's son. Which is the more unfortu nate since he is the only relative I have in the world, and — my heir." He pronounced those last two words, " my heir," with a satiric emphasis which, it struck me, did not augur too well for the prospects of Air. Clinton. I never imagined when I parted that night with Philip Bennion, having discussed with him the theory of murder as a fine art, that I should have, in the morning, an instance of murder as a fine art presented to me in actual practice ; and, what is more, with the theorist as an example of his theory. I was at breakfast when Ryan, Bennion's servant, came rushing into my room. He had a face as long as my arm. " Oh, sir ! " he gasped.

" The governor ! " I asked him what was the matter with the governor, which was his way of speaking of his master. He never had treated his employer with what I judge to be proper respect, and still Bennion had suffered him. " He's dead ! " gasped Ryan. " Dead ? " I confess that I was startled ; so startled that I rose from my breakfast — which I would not have done for a trifle — and followed Ryan. Bennion and I shared the same flat in Piccadilly Mansions. Only I had my four little rooms, and Philip Bennion, as became a rich man, had his gorgeous suite. BENNION S DEATH 4 So all I had to do was to follow Ryan across the landing. We entered the room, which was rich with the triumphs of a collector. There, amidst the treasures which would have been welcome in any museum, lay their owner — dead.

Philip Bennion lay on the floor. He lay on his left side. His left cheek was pressed against the carpet, his right cheek was turned upwards towards the ceiling. A pipe lay in front of him, where it had fallen from his nerveless hand. It was one of those gorgeous examples of bygone pipes which he was so fond of collecting and of smoking. It's owner was quite dead. It needed but a momentary examination to show that he had been dead some hours — he was stiff and cold. "How came you not to discover him before?" I inquired of Ryan. The man seemed troubled. "Well, sir, I was out all night, and I've only just come in." I knew that the man was something of a scamp, and that Bennion had allowed him liberties which I would never have allowed to a servant of mine. Ryan went on : " It's a fit, sir, isn't it ?

" He alluded to the cause of Bennion's death. " It is murder," I said. " Murder ! " Ryan had been kneeling by the dead man's side. Suddenly he sprang up with a degree of agitation of which I did not think him capable, and which seemed to me unnatural, even under the circum stances of the case. " Murder ! " His jaws seemed to be chattering one against the other. "What — what makes you think that?" I could not tell him what made me think it, though I was as certain it was murder as I was that I myself FOUND DEAD 5 was still alive. There were no signs of bloodshed. There was nothing which obviously went to prove that he had met his death by sudden violence. He lay as if he had fallen, as Ryan suggested, in a sit. The only peculiarity about his appearance was that his withered, crab-apple countenance was distorted as by a convulsive anguish of sudden pain; as though the death which had come upon him had been unexpected, sudden, fierce, and awful.

Beyond that there was nothing in his outward appearance to show that he had not died the natural death which men die in their beds. Yet I knew that Philip Bennion had met his death in some way by the act of man. The question which I put to myself as Ryan stood trembling there so that he seemed scarcely able to stand, was, Had I done it ? Had I killed this man ? It was not an agreeable question to have to put to one's self as one knelt by the dead body of a man whom one had known since one's earliest days. But it was a question to which I had to find an answer, or perhaps some one else might — and an answer which I should not like. I have, through life, been a victim to that dual state of existence which men call somnambulism. As a somnambulist I am, I suppose, unique. I have been proved to have done things, while fast asleep, which, had they not been proved with strength of proof sufficient to convince even me, I should have deemed incredible.

I have written stories and dispatched them to editors while fast asleep, and they have been accepted and paid for. I have saddled horses, and ridden and driven them, while fast asleep. On one occasion, when I was staying in Wales, I got up, dressed myself, and, fast asleep, in the middle of the night ascended Snowdon, only waking to find myself knocking in the early morning at the door of the cottage at the top. A man who would do that, one might say, would be capable of anything, even, in a state of somnambulism, of the murder of Philip Bennion. Now, after Bennion had left me the night before, I had continued to think of what he had said, in his dogmatic way, of the fine arts as applied to murder. Even after I had retired to rest his words had haunted me in dreams. I had wrestled with nightmare horrors, and I had dreamed that I had gone to Philip Bennion's room and done something to him — even in my dream I knew not what — and said to him : " I will show you the artist in murder."

And as I said it he fell back upon the floor. I saw him fall, and I stood and looked upon him as he lay. Then I put out the electric light. I had a clear recollection of putting out the electric light, and then of waking and finding myself in my own bed. The fact of having put out the electric light — in my dream — was so present to my mind, that now, when wide awake and kneeling by the dead man's body, I noticed that the electric light was out. Who put it out? It seemed sufficiently obvious that Philip Bennion had not. There had surely not been time enough for him to do it, before the end. It was plain — there was the evidence of the pipe which lay at his side — that in that last dread moment, even, probably, while death was already actually upon him, he had been smoking. I picked up the pipe to make sure.

It was full of tobacco. But it had been lighted. Possibly death had overtaken him as he had been indulging in his first whiff. A man does not smoke in his drawing-room — and that museum of FOUND DEAD 7 curiosities Bennion called his drawing-room — in the dark. The whole building was lighted by electricity. There could be no sort of reasonable doubt that that particular apartment had been illuminated by the electric light when Philip Bennion had lighted his last pipe. And the first whiff of that last pipe had brought him death. Who — after he was dead — had put out the light? I had dreamed that I had done so. Had it been more than a dream ? Had I done, in reality, what I imagined I had only dreamed ? I am free to own that I put the question to myself with a sense of considerable discomfort.

I had done some queer things, in my time, when fast asleep ; but I had never before got so far as murder. I am not, so far as I am aware, a man of homicidal tendencies. But what psychologist shall tell us what changes take place in a man's nature when he passes from wakefulness to sleep ? I put a question to Ryan. " Did you turn off the light ? " He stared at me askance, with an evident lack of comprehension. " When ? I was out all night. I have only just come in." " I mean, did you turn it out when you just came in?" " Turn it out ? It was out. It was broad day. The fellow evidently missed the point. It was plain, if the light was out when Ryan entered, that some one had been in the room since Bennion's death and turned it out. It struck me that a judge and jury would con sider that the case looked ugly against that person, whoever he might chance to be.

He could not have failed to notice that motionless form lying there, in its awful eloquence, and why had he not given the alarm ? Yes, why ? And the worst of it was that I had such a vivid con sciousness of having, in my dream, looked down upon Bennion, silent on the floor — my God ! just as he was silent now — and of then moving two or three paces from him, touching the electric button, and plunging the whole room into darkness. If this had been more than a dream, what ought I to do ? In any case, what ought I to do? I imagine that Ryan mistook the horror which began to settle on my mind, as I mentally contemplated the extraordinary nature of the situation I was in, for the stupor of grief at the death of my old friend. Because I became conscious that he was regarding me with what seemed to me to be extraordinary intensity.

I was about to make some remark, anything, as it were, to break the spell — the spell of horrid silence — when the door opened, and Raymond Clinton entered.

Chapter II Mr

CLINTON I AM willing, at the outset, to own that I always did have an intense objection to Mr. Raymond Clinton. The objection extends to the whole class of men of which he was but a type. Personally, Mr. Clinton was something under thirty years of age, tall, slight, and, I believe, by some women, esteemed good-looking. He was what used to be called a " swell," but what, I understand, in the current slang of the day is called a " chappie." I have no notion what that sort of person will be called to-morrov.-, but I know that he will be, as he always has been, a fool. Mr. Clinton was left a small fortune on the death of his mother. But that soon went, if it had not gone before he had it. Then his uncle made him a regular allowance, which was as regularly exceeded. Philip Bennion was always giving him a helping hand out of financial ditches.

I strongly suspect that he was in a very tight place at that particular moment, and that he had been making overtures, and hitherto unsuccessful overtures, to his uncle for assistance. Raymond Clinton, I was always convinced, had in him, as is the case with most fools, the making of a sirst-rate rogue ; a finer natural liar, on his own lines, I never yet encountered. In dealing with him, the best thing was to take it for granted that he was always lying, and even then he deceived you by lapses into truth. He stood in the open door leaning on his stick, his glass in his eye, as if he were at a loss to understand my presence, at that hour, in Philip Bennion's room. "Hallo, what are you doing here?" He spoke in that lifeless drawl which he so much affected. Then he caught sight of what was lying on the floor.

As he did so, a marked change took place in his looks and his bearing. Staggering slightly forward, he clutched at the back of a friendly chair. " Hallo," he repeated, " what are you doing here ? " As I marked, what seemed to me, the evident effort which he made to appear at ease — and, as a rule, no man needed to make less effort in that direction, a cooler, easier-going, more impertinent scamp than Raymond Clinton never lived — an instant conviction entered my mind that either he or I had slain old Bennion. The unfortunate part of the matter was that the conviction went no further than it did. The balance of probability was against Mr. Clinton. But then, what could a man think who knew himself to be a somnambulist, and who had dreamed, in the silent watches of the night, the dream which I had dreamed ?

I stood up. I looked Mr. Clinton intently in the face. I pointed to the dead man lying on the floor. " Mr. Clinton, do you not see who is lying here ? " " Gracious ! " He said, " gwacious," but I do not wish unnecessarily to emphasise his continued and, apparently, constitutional misusage of his mother tongue. " It's old Ben ! How doosed funny ! " " What is deuced funny, Mr. Clinton ? Your uncle is dead." MR. CLINTON 11 " Dead ! " Mr. Clinton dropped into the chair, the back of which he had been clutching. In spite of his affectation of surprise — which, by the way, was very badly done — something told me that he had been well aware of his uncle's death, not only before my statement of the fact, but before he had entered the room. " How doosed odd ! " I will do him the justice to say that he never made the slightest pretence at sorrow ; but, as he sat there, focussing me with his eye-glass, he seemed to become conscious that something else was demanded of him besides a mere empty exclamation.

So he gave vent to his feelings in these eloquent words : " Poor old cock ! " He paused ; then added : "What's he died of?" I purposely waited a moment or two before I answered. " Your uncle, Mr. Clinton, has been murdered." I had hit him hard. He showed more signs of being moved than, in one of his lymphatic nature, I had thought was possible. " Murdered ! " He stood up ; he let his stick fall to the ground. Unless I am much mistaken he changed colour. " Gracious ! " There was silence for a moment or two. I never took my eyes from off his face. Conscious that this was so, he looked in every direction but towards me. I could see that he was trembling. I could also see that he was making a strong attempt to preserve his self control. At last, removing his hat, for the first time he moved to where the dead man lay.

He stood looking down at him. " Has he been shot, or stabbed, or what ? " "That remains to be seen." He glanced up at me. " What do you mean ? " " The exact kind of foul play by which your uncle met his death remains to be shown. And it will be shown, just as surely as they will find his murderer." "Then you are not certain he was murdered?" " I am certain. I am as certain your uncle was murdered as I am certain that you are standing there." He continued to glance at me a moment longer. Then he turned to Ryan. " What do you think ? " "I think, sir, and so I've told Mr. Otway" — there was a certain doggedness in the fellows' tone — " that the governor's died in a fit." Mr. Clinton at once chimed in with Ryan's suggestion. " Of course he's died in a fit. Who'd want to murder him ? " He looked up, as it seemed to me, with defiance in his eyes. "You'll see that's what the doctors will say — that he died in a fit."

Chapter III The Verdict Mr

CLINTON proved a true prophet. That was what the doctors did say — that Philip Bennion had died in a fit. And, practically, that was the ver dict of the coroner's jury too. I attended the inquest, though I was not called as a witness. Mr. Clinton also attended the inquest, though he was not called as a witness. I wish he had been. I would have given a good round sum out of my own pocket to have seen and heard him answer a few ques tions put to him by a good cross-examining counsel. From my point of view, it seemed to me that the whole affair of the inquest was a farce. What was more, when I thought things quietly over by myself, I did not see what grounds I had to go upon which would enable the inquiry to take a wider range. I could scarcely volun teer to go into the box and detail the conversation which Philip Bennion and I had had upon the art of murder the night before he — died.

What good purpose would it serve? What were the deductions which I drew? That Philip Bennion followed up a conversation on mur der as one of the fine arts by committing suicide ? Without proofs, the thing seemed preposterous on the face of it. And yet I, who knew Philip Bennion better than any MYSTER Y OF PHILIP BENNION'S DEA TH 14 man in the world, was quite conscious that that was just the sort of thing which he was capable of doing, if only for the sake of puzzling me with a psychological problem. Should I go into the witness-box, and, having mentioned that I was a somnambulist, tell the story of my dream ? Not to dwell on the fact that no man is bound to criminate himself, what shred of evidence had I, somnambulist or no somnambulist, that, on that par ticular occasion, my dream had been anything but a dream ?

No. The question which had to be answered was the question as to how Philip Bennion met with his death. That question the doctors alone could answer. And they did answer it, in their own fashion. They declared that he had died, as Ryan phrased it, in a fit. The trouble was the heart. It was not quite clear what the precise nature of the trouble was, but the general con sensus of medical evidence seemed to show that Philip Bennion had died of valvular disease of the heart. Ryan was the first witness who was called. He stated that, on his entry into the drawing-room, he perceived his master lying on the floor. When it transpired that this was a few minutes after eleven o'clock, the coroner asked him, rather sharply, as I had asked him, how it was that he had not discovered his master sooner.

It then came out that he had been absent throughout the night, and had only just returned. When asked if this had been with his master's permission, Ryan hesitated, and then owned that his master had known nothing at all about it. The admission created, what the news papers call, a " slight sensation." Ryan, in dogged tones, went on to state that he had been in Philip Bennion's service nearly thirty years, and that he had been in the habit of spending a night out, now and then, "when he THE VERDICT 15 thought he would." This I knew myself to be true, though Ryan might have added that there always ensued a row royal with his master in the morning. In answer to further questions, Ryan went on to state that he had no reason to suppose that his master had ever meditated suicide ; that he was a sharp-tempered "gent," who said what he meant, and more than he meant, at times, but that, so far as he was aware, he had not an enemy in all the world.

" He was as kind and generous a gent, at bottom, in spite of all his sharp ways, as ever lived." Such was the postscript to his evidence which Ryan added of his own accord. The next witness was Bennion's own medical adviser, Fullalove Carter. He stated, what was news to me, that he had suspected for some time that his patient's heart was weak. He had made an examination, and he was of opinion that Philip Bennion had died of valvular disease of the heart. There might, or might not, have been some exciting cause, such, for instance, as a sudden shock. But it was well known that, in the case of a person with a weak heart, no exciting cause was absolutely needed, and that death was often, as it were, spontaneous. At the same time, he was bound to add that there were certain peculiarities about the case which had induced him, while making his post-mortem examination, to solicit the assistance of the eminent authority on diseases of the heart, Dr. Blakeham Warner.

Dr. Blakeham Warner, the eminent specialist thus referred to, followed Dr. Carter. He was inclined to be ultra-scientific. It seemed to me that he was more than half disposed to favour the court with a little learned medical disquisition on the human heart in general, and on Philip Bennion's heart in particular. The coroner MYSTERY OF PHILIP BENNION'S DEATH 16 had some difficulty in keeping him to the point. One thing was plain, that Dr. Blakeham Warner regarded Philip Bennion's as a particularly interesting " case." He had never seen a human heart present, in some respects, so peculiar an appearance as Philip Bennion's. The peculiarity consisted in the appearance it presented of extraordinary and violent constriction. It was difficult to say as to what such an appearance might be owing. There were features about it which, in his experience, were unique.

He detailed these features at considerable length — at rather more length, indeed, than the coroner seemed to relish. They might be owing to organic disease, or they might be owing to the action of certain poisons. Here I pricked up my ears, and I saw that Raymond Clinton pricked up his. As, for instance, such a poison as hydrocyanic acid. For himself, the attitude of his mind was an open one. He should like to hear what were the results of the analysis. If the presence of no poisonous matter was proved, and the other organs of the body were in a healthy condition, then he should say that the cause of death was valvular disease of the heart, though it was attended with features and certain peculiarities — on which, if the coroner had not stopped him, he seemed again disposed to enter into detail — which, in his experience, were unique.

The next witness was, in a certain sense, my witness. I had insisted on the contents of Philip Bennion's stomach being sealed up and forwarded, for analysis, to the famous toxicologist, Lewis Cowan. Mr. Cowan, when he appeared, made short work of the matter. The manner in which he gave his evidence was in striking contrast to the manner in which Dr. Blakeham Warner had given his. He came at once to the point. He stated that he had discovered nothing; that there THE VERDICT 17 was nothing to discover ; that Philip Bennion had not died of poison ; that there was not the slightest trace or suspicion of any sort of injurious matter to be found ; that the contents of his stomach had been in a perfectly normal and healthy condition. On that evidence the coroner briefly charged the jury. After a momentary hesitation they returned a verdict of "Death from natural causes."

As they did so, Raymond Clinton looked up at me with what was unmistakably a gleam of triumph in his eyes. As I was leaving the room in which the inquiry had been held, he came and whispered in my ear : " I told you so." And I felt that the first condition of Philip Bennion's artist in murder had been fulfilled ; that the criminal had wrought his crime with such ingenuity and skill as to leave upon the body of his victim no trace of the deed which he had done. o

Chapter IV Nina Pays Me

A VISIT THAT same day Nina Macrae came to see me. Bennion and I had been left as her trustees and guardians under her father's will ; but as I had felt that, for many reasons, Bennion had been more capable of filling such a trust than I, I had practically left the whole management of the young lady and her fortune in his hands. Thus she had come to look upon him, in many respects, almost in the light of a second father. I had not thought proper to acquaint her of the untoward fate which had overtaken Philip Bennion ; still, I had expected that she would have heard of the affair from other quarters. But now, to my surprise, she declared that she had only chanced upon the news by accident. She stood, holding the handle of the door in her hand, looking down at me. The young women of England are certainly growing taller every year.

I am not a dwarf, yet Nina Macrae is a good half-head taller than I am. " Mr. Otway, what is the meaning of this ? I knew very well what she referred to, but I dis sembled. "The meaning of what, my dear? NINA PA YS ME A VISIT 19 " Guardian's dead ! Is it true ? She saw the answer in my face. She came hurriedly forward. " Oh, Mr. Otway, why did you not tell me ? " I wished then that I had told her; but I did not say so. "There were reasons, my dear." " Reasons ! What reasons ? " I did not choose to tell her what the reasons were — that I had suspected foul play, and wished to keep the knowledge from her as long as possible ; still less did I choose to tell her that my mind had been so engrossed with other matters that I had scarcely thought of her at all. "There were reasons, my dear, although just now I am not able to speak of them to you."