On the next morning at seven o’clock a superintendent¹ of police called at the house of Mr Gresham and informed the Prime Minister that Mr Bonteen, the President of the Board of Trade, had been murdered during the night. There was no doubt of the fact. The body had been recognised, and information had been taken to the unfortunate widow at the house Mr Bonteen had occupied in St James’s Place. The superintendent had already found out that Mr Bonteen had been attacked as he was returning from his club late at night — or rather, early in the morning, and expressed no doubt that he had been murdered close to the spot on which his body was found. There is a dark, uncanny-looking passage running from the end of Bolton Row, in May Fair, between the gardens of two great noblemen, coming out among the mews in Berkeley Street, at the corner of Berkeley Square, just opposite to the bottom of Hay Hill. It was on the steps leading up from the passage to the level of the ground above that the body was found. The passage was almost as near a way as any from the club to Mr Bonteen’s house in St James’s Place; but the superintendent declared that gentlemen but seldom used the passage after dark, and he was disposed to think that the unfortunate man must have been forced down the steps by the ruffian who had attacked him from the level above. The murderer, so thought the superintendent, must have been cognizant of the way usually taken by Mr Bonteen, and must have lain in wait for him in the darkness of the mouth of the passage. The superintendent had been at work on his inquiries² since four in the morning, and had heard from Lady Eustace — and from Mrs Bonteen, as far as that poor distracted woman had been able to tell her story — some account of the cause of quarrel between the respective husbands of those two ladies. The officer, who had not as yet heard a word of the late disturbance³ between Mr Bonteen and Phineas Finn, was strongly of opinion that the Reverend Mr Emilius had been the murderer. Mr Gresham, of course, coincided in that opinion. What steps had been taken as to the arrest of Mr Emilius? The superintendent was of opinion that Mr Emilius was already in custody⁴. He was known to be lodging⁵ close to the Marylebone Workhouse, in Northumberland Street, having removed to that somewhat obscure neighbourhood as soon as his house in Lowndes Square had been broken up by the running away of his wife and his consequent want of means. Such was the story as told to the Prime Minister at seven o’clock in the morning.

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