"
"They ought to have been guilty," said Barrington Erle.
"They were guilty," protested Mr. Bonteen.
Mr. Palliser was enjoying ten minutes of recreation before he went back to
his letters. "I can't say that I attended to the case very closely," he
observed, "and perhaps, therefore, I am not, entitled to speak about it."
"If people only spoke about what they attended to, how very little there
would be to say, eh, Mr. Bonteen?" This observation came, of course, from
Lady Glencora.
"But as far as I could hear," continued Mr. Palliser, "Lord George
Carruthers cannot possibly have had anything to do with it. It was a
stupid mistake on the part of the police."
"I'm not quite so sure, Mr. Palliser," said Bonteen.
"I know Coldfoot told me so." Now, Sir Harry Coldfoot was at this time
Secretary of State for the home affairs, and in a matter of such
importance, of course, had an opinion of his own.
"We all know that he had money dealings with Benjamin, the Jew," said Mrs.
Bonteen.
"Why didn't he come forward as a witness when he was summoned?" asked Mrs.
Bonteen triumphantly. "And as for the woman, does anybody mean to say that
she should not have been indicted for perjury?"
"The woman, as you are pleased to call her, is my particular friend," said
Lady Glencora.
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