Free The Mystery of a Hansom Cab by Fergus Hume

correct one.’
    All present agreed with Mr Calton’s idea, as it really did seem the most natural thing that would be done by a man desirous of escaping detection.
    â€˜Tell you what,’ said Felix to Brian, as they were on their way to the drawing-room, ‘if the fellow that committed the crime is found out, by gad, he ought to get Calton to defend him.’

CHAPTER EIGHT
    BRIAN TAKES A WALK AND A DRIVE
    When the gentlemen entered the drawing-room a young lady was engaged in playing one of those detestable pieces of music called Morceau de Salon ,in which an unoffending air is taken and variations embroidered on it till it becomes a perfect agony to distinguish the tune amid the perpetual rattle of quavers and demisemiquavers. The air in this case was ‘Over the Garden Wall,’ with variations by Signor Thumpanini, and the young lady who played it was a pupil of that celebrated Italian musician. When the male portion of the guests entered the air was being played in the bass with a great deal of power (that is, the loud pedal was down), and with a perpetual rattle of treblenotes trying, with all their shrill power, to drown the tune.
    â€˜Gad! it’s getting over the garden wall in a hailstorm,’ said Felix, as he strolled over to the piano, for he saw that the musician was Dora Featherweight, an heiress to whom he was then paying attention, in the hopes that she might be induced to take the name of Rolleston, together with the present owner of the same. So, when the fair Dora had paralysed her audience with one final bang and rattle, as if the gentleman going over the garden wall had tumbled into the cucumber frame, Felix was loud in his expressions of delight.
    â€˜Such power, you know, Miss Featherweight,’ he said, sinking into a chair, and mentally wondering if any of the piano strings had given way at that last crash, ‘you put your heart into it—(and all your muscle, too, by gad)’—he added mentally.
    â€˜It’s nothing but practice,’ answered Miss Featherweight with a modest blush, ‘I am at the piano four hours every day.’
    â€˜Oh, Lord,’ groaned Felix, ‘what a time the family must have of it;’ but he kept this remark to himself, and, screwing his eyeglass into his left organ of vision, merely ejaculated, ‘Lucky piano.’
    Miss Featherweight, not being able to think of any answer to this looked down and blushed, while the ingenuous Felix looked up and sighed.
    Madge and Brian were in one corner of the roomtalking together about Whyte’s death.
    â€˜I never did like him,’ she said, ‘but it was horrible to think of him dying like that.’
    â€˜I don’t know,’ answered Brian, gloomily, ‘from all I can hear chloroform is a very easy death.’
    â€˜Death can never be easy,’ replied Madge, ‘especially to a young man so full of health and spirits as Mr Whyte was.’
    â€˜I believe you are sorry he’s dead,’ said Brian jealously.
    â€˜Aren’t you?’ she asked in some surprise.
    â€˜ De mortius nil nisi bonum ,’quoted Fitzgerald; ‘but as I detested him when alive you can’t expect me to regret his end.’
    Madge did not answer him, but glanced quickly at his face, and for the first time it struck her he looked ill.
    â€˜What is the matter with you, dear?’ she asked, placing her hand on his arm, ‘you are not looking well.’
    â€˜Nothing—nothing,’ he answered hurriedly, ‘I’ve been a little worried about business lately—but come,’ he said, rising, ‘let us go outside, for I see your father has got that girl with the steam whistle voice to sing.’
    The girl with the steam whistle voice was Julia Featherweight, the sister of Rolleston’s inamorata, and Madge stifled a laugh as she went on to the verandah with Fitzgerald.
    â€˜What a shame of you,’ she said, bursting into