Now let us generalize. It needn't be a sound maxim to seek
the person who benefits by a crime--not always--for often enough the
actual legatee of a murdered man may have had nothing whatever to do
with his death. Albert, for example, will inherit Mr. Bendigo
Redmayne's estate when leave to assume his death is granted by the
law; and Mrs. Doria will inherit her late husband's estate in due
course. But it isn't suggested that your wife killed her first
husband, Signor Doria; and it isn't suggested that my friend here
killed his brother.
"None the less, it's a safe question to ask what a suspected man
gains by his crime. And, if we put that question, we find that
Robert Redmayne gained nothing whatever by killing Michael
Pendean--nothing, that is, but the satisfaction of a sudden,
overpowering lust to do so. Pendean's murder made Redmayne a
vagabond, deprived him of his income and resources, set every man's
hand against him and left him a wanderer haunted by the gallows.
Yet, while he evaded the law in a manner that can only be called
miraculous, he made no attempt to avert suspicion from himself.
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