THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 \
 
 PR 
 
 INTRODUCTORY (^ 
 
 Argwnentum ad Judicmm. 
 
 Imperial Parliament — the Mind of the Realm — 
 treats the question of constituting a Court of 
 Criminal Appeal with glaring indifference. The 
 peril of hanging the wrong man — a possible crime 
 of ghastly complexion — is grimly apparent and 
 coolly ignored. A Bill to create a Court of this 
 character was, in March, 1897, brought before 
 Parliament by Mr. Pickersgill; but, over- 
 whelmed by the modesty of humanity, he excluded 
 Capital Cases from its purview ! This diligent 
 concern for the conscience of the Commons met 
 its merited reward. A Bill so beautifully hum- 
 drum, so pliant and tentative, rendered the 
 course of the Government clear. They patron- 
 ised it affably and allowed a second reading. But 
 this indulgence was conceded on the understand- 
 ing that the troublesome measure should be 
 decently shelved, and the yielding member for 
 Bethnal Green bowed to the inevitable. 
 
 The March discussion resembled some meteoro- 
 logical incidents peculiar to that gusty month. 
 There was the usual clashing of legal opinions. 
 But a conflict among barristers is a harmless 
 novelty. A crowd of clever lawyers cavilling 
 
 lC6g347
 
 vi MURDER BY WARRANT 
 
 over a problem is a familiar spectacle. Position 
 and capacity, however, involve necessity to be 
 serious, and the constitution of a Court of 
 Criminal Appeal was advocated by politicians 
 whose eminence and responsibility justify sus- 
 picion of sincerity. 
 
 I intend to examine the following questions : — 
 (i) 7s responsible opinion on the side of the constitu- 
 tion of a Court of Criminal Appeal ? (2) 7s there a 
 peril of hanging the wrong yuan ? (3) 7s the Home 
 Office a satisfactory Tribunal for Criminal Appeals ? 
 
 Weighty opinion is obviously in favour of the 
 immediate creation of a Court of Criminal Appeal. 
 
 Sir Albert Rollit, M.P., LL.D., D.C.L., 
 D.L., J. P., addressing the House of 
 Commons, said : — 
 ** The absence of a Court of Criminal Appeal 
 had been a great blot upon our jurisprudence. 
 . . . There had been a gradually increas- 
 ing consensus of opinion that a reform in this 
 direction was needed. . . . The fudges, 
 recommended this reform. Lord Esher, the 
 Master of the Rolls, had spoken very strongly 
 in its favour." 
 Sir Robert Reid, Q.C, M.P. (ex-Attorney- 
 General), declared : — 
 "The condition of things existing in this 
 country was almost unique among civilised 
 nations. Ample opportunities were given for 
 appeal in civil actions . . . But what 
 was the case in regard to questions of
 
 INTRODUCTORY vii 
 
 character, of liberty, or even of life ? . . . 
 They had to consider . . . whether or 
 not there was to be any opportunity given 
 for the purpose of re-trying . . . the 
 question of guilt or innocence before a Court 
 of Criminal Appeal." 
 
 The Home Secretary (the Right Honourable 
 Sir Matthew White Ridley, Bart, 
 M.P.) said: — 
 " I think it is perfectly plain from the dis- 
 cussion that there is a general consensus of 
 opinion in favour of some alteration of the 
 law. . . • Public opinion is in the direc- 
 tion of something being done to increase the 
 power of appeal in criminal cases." 
 
 The Right Honourable Sir Henry Fowler, 
 G.C.S.I., M.P., D.L., J. P., added:— 
 " In a civil case, whether . . trivial or 
 serious, there was the opportunity of revision 
 . . . The judgment in a criminal case 
 blasts a mans character for the rest of his life, 
 and affects even his wife and family. He 
 could conceive no stronger case than that 
 . . . for an appeal m criminal cases." 
 
 Sir Richard Webster, G.C.M.G., Q.C., M.P., 
 Attorney General, said : — 
 "The matter . . deserved consideration 
 by Parliament, and he hoped the speeches 
 which had been made might lead the House 
 of Commons to be more willing to entertain
 
 viii MURDER BY WARRANT 
 
 proposals and amendments in the criminal 
 law of the country." 
 
 The Daily News pithily remarked: — 
 
 " Whereas a dispute about sixpence may 
 involve two appeals, or even three, a capital 
 conviction is final." 
 
 The late Mr. Montague Williams, Q.C. 
 
 (Metropolitan Magistrate), in "Leaves 
 
 of a Life " wrote : — 
 "There would have been" — alluding to the 
 three trials over the Hatton Garden murder — 
 " no necessity for more than one trial had a 
 Court of Criminal Appeal been in existence 
 . . . I mean a Court having power to 
 review a verdict or sentence in the light of 
 any facts that might transpire after the 
 trial. For years, the reform for which I am 
 pleading has been demanded of successive Govern- 
 ments. . . . Are the liberty of the subject, 
 and a question of life and death, mere secondary 
 considerations? " 
 
 But, despite opinions expressed by popular 
 men, the Mind of the Realm, indolently im- 
 practical, will, unless aroused from reckless 
 apathy, neglect to inspire this vital innovation. 
 
 Is there a peril of hanging the wrong man ? 
 
 Mr. PiCKERSGiLL, M.P., belicvcs the case of 
 Mrs. Maybrick " would have been amply met " by 
 " a Court of Criminal Appeal." Many of us 
 remember the painful perplexity of the Home
 
 INTRODUCTORY ix 
 
 Secretary, and the startling conclusions at which 
 he arrived. It is notorious that the highest legal 
 dignitary in the land is still convinced of Mrs. 
 Maybrick's innocence. Clever people may smile ; 
 but who, because Sir Charles Russell defended 
 her, would suppose that Lord Russell of 
 KiLLOWEN (Lord Chief Justice of England) is 
 blinded by the bias of advocacy ? A man of 
 marvellous acumen, of consummate experience, 
 he declares she was wrongly convicted. 
 
 Revive for a moment the Wainwright case. Is 
 anyone satisfied the right man was hanged ? 
 Possibly both the Wainwrights deserved capital 
 punishment. That, however, is beside the 
 question. Legal evidence, precisely applied, 
 should alone procure conviction. But here it is 
 an open secret that the brother acquitted of 
 murder was guilty of the crime ! 
 
 Now take the Pcnge case. 
 
 Of this the Daily News states : — 
 
 "The Penge murder was referred by the 
 present Lord Cross, then at the Home Office, 
 to several Judges, not including Mr. Justice 
 Hawkins, who tried it. The result was a 
 free pardon for one of four persons sentenced to 
 death, and a commutation of the penalty on 
 another." 
 
 I turn to the old Fenian days and the affair of 
 the Manchester rescue. 
 
 The New Review of February, 1890, contains 
 (p. 175) this statement : —
 
 X MURDER BY WARRANT 
 
 " The prison van that contained two con-- 
 
 victed Fenians had been stopped 
 
 At the desperate risk of their own Hves, a 
 handful of Fenians had determined on the 
 rescue of their friends, and . . . called 
 on Brett, the constable within, to deliver up 
 the keys. . . . Brett refused .... 
 and the bullet, intended only to break the 
 lock, gave him a mortal wound. . . Five 
 men were arrested, tried for the murder of 
 Brett, and all found guilty. Against one of 
 these evidence was so slight that the Press 
 reporters present at his trial signed a petition 
 for his release, and on further investigation 
 it was found that he was the wrong man, his 
 arrest a blunder, and the finding of the jury an 
 error." 
 The late Mr. Montague Williams, Q.C, 
 in " Leaves of a Life," wrote : — 
 ** Peace was found guilty. . . Mr. Justice 
 Lopes passed sentence of death. . . The 
 notorious culprit was executed at Armley 
 Gaol. . . On the preceding Wednesday, 
 he confessed to the clergyman who attended 
 him that he had murdered a Manchester 
 policeman in 1879 (for which offence an 
 innocent man had been sent to penal servitude 
 for life):' 
 
 " A man named Pelizzioni was tried for 
 murder " — the Hatton Garden murder' 
 whereof he was innocent — "and found guilty. 
 While he lay in the condemned cell, facts
 
 INTRODUCTORY xi 
 
 came to light which gave rise to the behef 
 that another man, of the name of Gregorio, 
 was the real author of the crime. Gregorio 
 was thereupon tried, and also found guilty, 
 not actually of murder, but of manslaughter. '' 
 Mr. Robert Ascroft, M.P., during the dis- 
 cussion in the House of Commons, 
 stated : — 
 *' It is a crying scandal that . . . the 
 liberty of the subject should be held at such 
 a cheap rate. . . . Above all things they 
 must have it thoroughly and clearly under- 
 stood that in cases where sentence of death 
 was passed, the prisoner should have the 
 right of appeal at once. . . . Personally y 
 he was aware of injustice having been inflicted 
 upon prisoners, injustice which would 
 assuredly have been removed had there 
 existed a Court of Criminal Appeal." 
 Sir Albert Rollit said : — 
 
 " It was a notorious fact that there had been 
 grave miscarriages of justice in criminal 
 proceedings, even in capital cases. Happily, 
 they seldom occurred, but still they did 
 occur, and the life of a perfectly innocent man 
 might be taken. . . . Some relics of 
 barbarism still existed in English law." 
 Sir Robert Reid also said: — 
 
 " He believed cases of real injustice occurred 
 under the present system. ... A man 
 was tried for his life and sentenced to death. 
 He was tried ... by a common jury.
 
 xii MURDER BY WARRANT 
 
 . . . Look at the consequences of a verdict. 
 They were expressed in . . . death or im- 
 prisonment, and yet there was no opportunity 
 allowed for reviewing the verdict. Such a 
 law was not humane, was not what the law 
 
 ought to be in a civilised country 
 
 There were persons best qualified to form 
 opinions about criminal trials who would say 
 that there were cases from year to year in 
 which innocent persons were convicted." 
 Notwithstanding these instances of the potence 
 of the peril, the Mind of the Realm — lethargic 
 and capricious — will continue nodding and dron- 
 ing and blinking the question, unless the Public, 
 the power it dreads, is resolved to have its safety 
 speedily secured. 
 
 7s the Home Office a satisfactory Tribunal for 
 Criminal Appeals ? 
 
 I deny that a Political Department, however 
 competent in legal affairs, is qualified to conduct 
 or deal with judicial investigations. The Judicial 
 Mind is a gradual creation, is compounded of 
 learning, practice, and experience, and is pecu- 
 liarly expert in examining, valuing, and adjusting 
 evidence, fact, and argument. These attributes 
 are impossible to legal Officials at the Home 
 Office ; and, as a consequence, there is the 
 serious comedy of a judicial trial being reviewed 
 by non-judicial minds. This distinctly involves 
 an absurdity. If a murder verdict merits review, 
 it demands, undeniably, judicial review. If it is
 
 INTRODUCTORY xiii 
 
 essential to consume labour in balancing Judge and 
 Jury, let the labour be Judicial — not Political ! 
 Apart, however, from the necessity of a 
 properly matured mind, there is grave danger 
 in the Home Office by reason of the secrecy 
 of its operations and the absence of obligation 
 to formulate detailed decisions. Men are in- 
 tensely careful when compelled to expose their 
 reasoning, and any disposition to perfunctoriness 
 is thereby jealously suppressed. But, in addition 
 to these reflections, the brutal callousness of the 
 existing system is transparent as we estimate its 
 revolting cruelty to the convict who has estab- 
 lished his innocence. The Daily News rightly 
 observed : — 
 
 " When a prisoner's innocence has been 
 discovered, to offer him a free pardon is an 
 insult . . . But it is nothing to the injury 
 of the wrongful conviction, which no power 
 can undo." 
 Sir Albert Rollit affirmed : — 
 
 *' Such a man ought not to go out into the 
 world with a taint which carried ruin with 
 it during the remainder of his life. What 
 was needed was a rehearing in which the 
 man might be vindicated and his character 
 established." 
 Sir Henry Fowler added : — 
 
 " One aspect of the question, the gravity of 
 which had been overlooked . . . was the 
 conviction of an innocent man . . . The 
 judgment in a criminal case blasts a man's
 
 xiv MURDER BY WARRANT 
 
 character for the rest of his life, and affects 
 even his wife and family." 
 
 Mr. Brynmor Jones, Q.C, M.P., thought : — 
 " It was an anomaly in the law that, while in 
 the simplest case in the County Court a 
 litigant might ask for a new trial, there 
 should be no possibility of reviewing verdicts 
 in cases involving life and liberty." 
 
 The Standard stated : — 
 
 " The existing machinery by which, in cases 
 of judicial blunders, free pardons have to be 
 granted to persons convicted of offences they 
 have not committed is in the highest degree 
 unsatisfactory. 
 
 The Daily News pointed out : — 
 
 "The Penge murder was referred by the 
 present Lord Cross, then at the Home Office, 
 to several Judges ... But this action 
 of Lord Cross was unprecedented, and has 
 not been followed. The Judges might have 
 refused to interfere, and the responsibility 
 was his alone." 
 
 Sir Albert Rollit, said : — 
 
 " The proceedings before the Home Secretary 
 were secret, and he ventured to say this 
 secret tribunal carried with it a grave dis- 
 advantage in connection with the administra- 
 tion of justice ... A person wrongly 
 convicted could only appeal to a secret 
 tribunal which, even though it set him at 
 liberty, sent him forth to the world with the 
 brand of the criminal still upon him."
 
 INTRODUCTORY xv 
 
 Enough has been said to convince any 
 reasonable mind of the existence of a flagrant 
 anomaly ; but the denseness of the Mind of the 
 Realm in non-party reforms is proverbial. No 
 power, save the Public, can quicken its conscience, 
 and to the Public I therefore appeal. In the 
 ensuing pages I propound a problem which I 
 prescribe for public consumption. If valid, it 
 sustains my plea for the immediate establishment 
 of a Court of Criminal Appeal. If otherwise — 
 " Well, thereby hangs a tale." 
 
 I conclude these lines with the warning words 
 of the most experienced, perhaps the most 
 celebrated, criminal lawyer of modern times — the 
 late Mr. Montague Williams, Q.C. : — 
 
 " You are told that circumstantial evidence 
 is convincing. Now I deny that. Para- 
 phrase it, and what does the statement 
 mean ? It means that human intellect is 
 infallible. Is it to be said that circumstantial 
 evidence has never been wrong ? Have not 
 convictions taken place where evidence has 
 been proved to be wrong ? In our own 
 times you will see that over and over again, 
 life has been sacrificed by circumstantial 
 evidence ; homes have been wrecked by circum- 
 stantial evidence." 
 
 E. T. C. 
 
 See The Times, The Daily News, and The Standard, of 
 25th March; 1897, for verification of extracts not otherwise 
 identified.
 
 NOTE 
 
 rHE other day (March 76th, 1898), Mr. 
 Picker sgill again besought the House of Com- 
 mons to grant his Bill for creating a Court 
 of Criminal Appeal a second reading. This time 
 he included murder verdicts in his measure. Of 
 course the lawyers were divided ; but that barristers 
 and solicitors shoidd differ is as natural as the 
 saltness of the sea. Mr. Asquith participated in 
 the debate, and voted for the principle. He was, 
 however, oppressed by the boding that the elasticity 
 of the doctrine of mercy might be contracted by the 
 innovation. How the clemency of the Crown coidd 
 be curtailed by the advisory intervention of an 
 appellate tribunal is a question too abstruse for 
 plain understandings. Once more the " Daily 
 News," in a powerful leader, gave the aid of its 
 strenuous advocacy. Its concluding words are a 
 warning. They are these : — 
 
 "The principle of Mr. PickersgilVs Bill 
 seems to us a sound one, and we believe that, 
 sooner or later, a Court of Criminal Appeal 
 will be established. But one cannot help 
 recognising that there is no popular demand 
 for it, and that until there is, no Government 
 will take the trouble of setting up so elaborate 
 a piece of ^nechanism." 
 
 E. T. C.
 
 ilDurber b^ Martant 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 Mr. Basil Lempriere was in the prime of life. 
 He was verging on fifty-five, but, as he did not 
 look his age, he was disinclined to misrepresent 
 the fact. He possessed many endearing endow- 
 ments, and, having justifiable grounds for personal 
 idolatry, credited himself daily with a choice 
 percentage of undissembled flattery. While those 
 grim evils, greyness and baldness, were using him 
 gently, he boasted an enviable array of features 
 and genteel pretensions to undiminished sym- 
 metry. But, setting aside physical advantages, 
 Mr. Lempriere consistently claimed the lustre of 
 a glorious ancestry. A pedigree is pestering — • 
 puzzling the lawyer and maddening the layman ! 
 When unravelled it reveals chaos — is never a joy, 
 often a curse, invariably a rigmarole. I hence 
 eschew any disposition to sift the descent of Basil 
 Lempriere. Whether he came down from the 
 Conqueror, or dated himself from the Deluge, I 
 B '
 
 2 MURDER BY WARRANT 
 
 will not stay to enquire. I accept the fable he 
 was fond of relating — that his forefathers won 
 spurs on fields of chivalry, and framed his name 
 with honour and distinction. 
 
 Mr. Lempriere had never coveted spurs, nor 
 had he, indeed, sought distinction. He was a 
 man of equable tendencies — temperate in ambi- 
 tion, subdued in affection, smooth and just in every 
 social department. Still, famous exploits had 
 distinguished his career in the field of finance. 
 He was a banker. But now he was retiring into 
 the elegant ease of luxurious independence. 
 
 A banker is a lucky man. He must have 
 money and brains — must always be on the 
 " Make," unquestionably in the " Know." 
 Lempriere started business equipped with brains 
 and stocked with cash. All along life he achieved 
 success. His worst mistake was profitable, his 
 wildest speculation a victory. He only touched 
 dirt to transmute it into gold, the conversion 
 being effected by flirtation with the " Know." 
 He had been more than fortunate in making his 
 money, making his friends, making his enemies. 
 Having, at length, grown weary of inflated 
 sufliciency, he was withdrawing from the glitter- 
 ing arena where character and conscience yield 
 alike to cupidity. 
 
 The stage on which Mr. Lempriere had 
 rehearsed and performed his parts was the Archi- 
 episcopal City of York, a place placid enough for 
 banking aspirations, but scarcely embracing those 
 ineffable charms prized by indolent affluence. He-
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT 3 
 
 was therefore on the point of swooping down on 
 that bright spot of our metropoHs styled the West 
 End. 
 
 Mr. Lempriere already sported a reputation 
 which was riveted in Yorkshire memories ; but he 
 was now beginning to revolve in a different orbit, 
 and a new reputation, or one for something new, 
 was necessary. After prolonged cogitation, so 
 searching and severe that it threatened to extend 
 his area of baldness, he decided to translate him- 
 self into a Member of Parliament. 
 
 There are numerous types of the senatorial 
 species comprised in the compendious abbrevia- 
 tion, M.P. There is the Member of general 
 utility, with his fad, his foolery, or his figment. 
 Again, there is the Member of inconvenient 
 activity, always brimming over with captivating 
 questions. Following, are the respectable 
 mediocrities, the diners, the dozers, and the 
 dreamers. But Lempriere could outshine medi- 
 ocrities. He could speak pretty well ; he could 
 undeniably dine pretty well ; and, if dozing was 
 beneath his dignity, his dream of a future was 
 prophesied by his snore. 
 
 House of Commons vacancies are constantly 
 occurring. An old English gentleman, chilled 
 by debate, catches a cold and applies for the 
 Chiltern Hundreds. Down goes a new writ, and 
 up comes a new member. This sort of perform- 
 ance played Lempriere into Parliament. The old 
 English gentleman, the hero of the catarrh, was 
 seated for somewhere in Yorkshire — somewhere
 
 4 MURDER BY WARRANT 
 
 suiting the picturesque pattern of Lempriere's 
 political creed. Away flew the ex-banker, longing 
 to embrace his future constituents, though not 
 destined to vault into fame until he had van- 
 quished a nondescript noodle who had the 
 temerity to oppose. But the noodle was quickly 
 extinguished, being shut up and sat upon, put 
 down and walked over, and otherwise visited 
 with metaphorical chastisement. 
 
 Lempriere entered the House cherishing those 
 succulent sensations which swiftl}^ expand into 
 supreme satisfaction. He marched proudly up 
 the floor, between Government and Opposition, 
 under the guardianship of two conspicuous 
 celebrities. Everything passed off in flourishing, 
 that is, parliamentary, fashion. Miss Lempriere 
 witnessed the ceremony from the " Cage " ; and, 
 while she was not hysterical, she was, of course, 
 in raptures. Several congratulating and envious 
 relations viewed the scene from the same retreat, 
 some applauding the new member's bearing, 
 others the perfection of his tasteful toilette. 
 Having shaken hands with the Speaker, he 
 assumed his seat and his hat ; and, improvising 
 an air of senatorial wisdom, leaned back to enjoy 
 some parliamentary meditation. 
 
 Fortunes seldom fail to reflect gleams of 
 popularity. Once you are reputed rich, Society 
 will simper, attend your dinners, pronounce your 
 praise, remember you in the street. These 
 beguiling incidents befel Basil Lempriere. He 
 was soon nestling amidst items of aristocracy ;
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT 5 
 
 was speedily proposed at select clubs ; soon found 
 himself figuring in fashionable drawing-rooms. 
 
 Mr. Lempriere was lingering over The Times. 
 It was vastly entertaining, since it contained a 
 report of his speech on the theory of relieving 
 London from the plague of black smoke. He 
 had told the House he could not pledge himself 
 to banish smoke, but would extract colour and 
 reduce it to an invisible nuisance. This subtle 
 proposition was greeted vociferously, and hence 
 his position in the Parliamentary report. He was 
 gloating over the column for the fiftieth time, 
 when the post brought a letter he leisurely 
 opened. Languidly unfolding the missive, he 
 cast a vacant eye over the page. No sooner had 
 he comprehended the first line than his seeming 
 indifference vanished. Intense amazement visited 
 every feature, and, having read and re-read, he 
 turned with avidity to a third perusal. What 
 calamity had happened ? Had Anarchy prevailed 
 and drilled Democracy into rebellion ? Had 
 Consols collapsed and Capital cantered into 
 oblivion ? Nothing of the sort. The world was 
 in perfect repose. Somebody, however, had 
 quitted it ; and, before doing so, had bequeathed 
 to the lucky Lempriere a Legacy of One 
 Hundred Thousand Pounds !
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 The age of fifteen is not a ripe age — seldom an 
 age of sober reflection. Really, it is the age 
 of games and folly — hardly of old-fashioned 
 originality. Still, boys have been budding 
 generals or incipient poets at fifteen ; or, 
 abandoning juvenility, have recklessly espoused 
 gentlemanly dissipation. But the youth of Frank 
 Frogmore was unblessed by these showy 
 singularities — it was steeped with old-fashioned 
 originality. His youth finished at fifteen, at 
 which age he stopped growing, stopped schooling, 
 stopped looking young. Thenceforth he culti- 
 vated fixed views, fixed manners, a fixed 
 disposition. Dressing in one style, he was 
 faithful to his tailor. He dined — his repast being 
 simple — at one hour, in the same company — 
 alone ! At last he got wrinkled and withered ; 
 lived to eighty ; died a millionaire. 
 
 Frogmore was a financial favourite. He 
 speculated keenly and lent money liberally. His 
 interest was high, but it could conveniently 
 accumulate and merge into capital. Nobody — 
 until he was ruined — pleaded in vain with old 
 Frogmore. Properly enticed, his purse would 
 open its eloquent lips and pour forth brilliant
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT 7 
 
 promise of the transient solace of postponing 
 inevitable insolvency But the usurer counted for 
 more than physicking demented patrimonies and 
 propping up paralysed estates. He ruled potent 
 companies, dominated secret syndicates, and 
 dared to venture where others quailed. 
 
 Money ! — ah, what fantastic power appertains 
 to money ! How enslaving is its fascination — 
 what faults and failings it glosses and obliterates ! 
 It mingled Frogmore in society, buying cant 
 and civility. The man was despised — his wealth 
 welcomed. Successful as a schemer, he was 
 pardoned as a miser. He bequeathed several 
 millions, so his memory was preserved. 
 
 Frogmore's death brought divers benefits to the 
 public purse, but the public heart throbbed no 
 gratitude. An official heart, however, belonging 
 to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, palpitated 
 amends. As the immense estate disgorged its 
 duty to the Treasury this benevolent official 
 smiled his public amiability. Knowing that 
 Madam Britannia ruled the waves by " Brass," 
 he viewed the glittering accretion with unalloyed 
 delight. Then came individuals of less con- 
 summate excellence, who reaped glowing tribute 
 from testamentary errors. Some rascally cousins, 
 who had been shunned and abhorred by old 
 Frogmore, profited handsomely by his aloofness. 
 Standing as successors to legatees who had dis- 
 continued that attitude, they coolly inherited and 
 seized unmerited spoils. Other items of humanity 
 gleaned more than grass by his unlamented
 
 8 MURDER BY WARRANT 
 
 demise. Winding up and whittling down his 
 property was wonderful work for the lawyers ; and 
 many members of that classic craft rubbed pro- 
 fessional hands and beamed professional joy, 
 and sunned professional souls with professional 
 congratulation. Lastly, a group of interested 
 busybodies basked contentedly in gilt-edged satis- 
 faction ; and the only gloomy individual was the 
 dissatisfied underta/ker. Frogmore had cruelly 
 insisted upon a plain funeral, and the actual 
 mourner in the cortege was the moody master of 
 the ceremony. 
 
 Frogmore's habits were impressed with mys- 
 tery. He lived somewhere, but nobody knew 
 his house. He periodically disappeared without 
 the slightest explanation. Possibly, emulating 
 Diogenes, he dived from sight into an out-of- 
 the-way tub ; or, imitating the unspeakable 
 Timon, haunted a wilderness, digesting roots, and 
 digging financial plots on the breast of mother 
 Earth. No explanatory intelligence was available, 
 except some disjointed utterances b}^ the old 
 miser implying possession of an estate in fee in a 
 sterile corner of the universe. After his death the 
 lawyers discovered a musty deed conveying to 
 Frogmore a freehold house surrounded by waste 
 land. Was this a clue to his concealed corner of 
 the universe ? 
 
 Murkwoop Moor was a gloomy picture of desola- 
 tion. It was in a remote part of the Midlands, 
 and formed a sullen solitude. There were no 
 roads or tracks, no trees or shrubs. Men avoided
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT . 9 
 
 it, birds shunned it. It was estranged from civilisa- 
 tion — a dreamless, dreary waste. Near the middle 
 rose a gaunt house, massive and strong, and 
 hemmed in by high walls. Probably it had a 
 history ; but not one to warm the fancy. The 
 beholder stood chilled as he gazed on the house in 
 the wilderness. No wonder the deed was musty. 
 Fit deed for a weird retreat ! How was known 
 this sombre abode ? What name had tradition 
 bestowed ? A voice from the past was heard ex- 
 claiming, *' Murkwoop ! "
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 Frogmore's will bristled with queerness. Every 
 bequest was queerly characteristic ; each legatee 
 was symptomatically queer, excepting, of course, 
 Mr. Lempriere. The charities selected succoured 
 queerish candidates. One provided artificial legs 
 for limbless paupers, and, being a sound-standing 
 institution, demanded a bootless search into the 
 means of every applicant. Another reclaimed 
 thieves from pilfering proclivities, filling them 
 once a year with boiled beef and hymns — the 
 blend being designed as a staying lesson on the 
 loveliness of honesty. Following w? s a Single- 
 blessedness Association, which distributed blankets 
 to decayed bachelors cast down by a lofty zeal in 
 preaching the refinement of celibate asceticism. 
 Then came a queer crowd of claimants, founding 
 right to benefaction on abnormal appearance, 
 mental angularity, distinguished deformity, or 
 exceptional longevity. But the legacy to Lem- 
 priere elicited endless criticism. Apparently it 
 was motiveless, and so, naturally, excited lively 
 suspicion. It was exactly calculated to rivet the 
 gaze of the curious on the astounded legatee — 
 astonishment nearly stifling Lempriere. But if 
 he was stunned, he was equally pained. He 
 wished for the legacy — he wished it further. He 
 was jammed indeed between hostile desires. The 
 
 10
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT ii 
 
 cash was bewitching — the terms forbidding. The 
 will banished him from society periodically, im- 
 posing a dreary condition — solitary residence in a 
 mansion on Murkwoop Moor. In this dismal 
 retreat he was to pass December to March, a self- 
 sacrifice to be endured five times consecutively. 
 Denied and removed from conversational raptures, 
 he was to perform his penance, and until its com- 
 pletion not a penny of the legacy could be touched. 
 But what chastening moments would herald the 
 last expiring fraction of five years of hope 
 deferred ! 
 
 " Yes, Josephine, Frank Frogmore was a cousin 
 of mine. We never met — at least, if we did, we 
 were mutually unconscious of the accident. He 
 lived a singular life, and died without a friend 
 near him in the old mansion of Murkwoop." 
 
 " But, papa," cried the young lady, proud to 
 acknowledge such a fine-looking parent, "this 
 legacy is most extravagant." 
 
 "Truly. An extraordinary price to pay for 
 obliging me to submit to imprisonment in " 
 
 " Imprisonment ! " exclaimed Josephine. " In 
 prison you sometimes see your keeper. In Murk- 
 woop you will only see your shadow." 
 
 The thought of this unsubstantial companion- 
 ship gave Lempriere uneasiness — a feeling he 
 betrayed by meandering aimlessly about the 
 hearthrug. 
 
 " And— Murkwoop ! " continued the girl, dis- 
 dainfully shrugging her shoulders. "The very 
 name makes one shudder."
 
 12 MURDER BY WARRANT 
 
 Poor Mr. Lempriere, having no consolatory 
 defence, stooped and stroked his daughter's 
 poodle. 
 
 Josephine Lempriere was an interesting young 
 lady, who had passed her twenty-first year. An 
 only child, a constant companion to her father, 
 no school had been responsible for improving or 
 retarding her mental capacity — the governess and 
 master, receiving lavish fees, having scrupulously 
 managed her education. Lempriere lost his wife 
 while Josephine was a child; and, unhappily 
 deprived of her best natural guardian, she 
 bloomed into girlhood unguided by the love 
 flowing from maternal solicitude. But she owned 
 a well-trained heart, and possessed many gifts 
 interwoven with talent. She might be described 
 as elegant of figure, with beauty of an intellectual 
 type. Wherever she went she won love and 
 respect ; and, superintending her father's house- 
 hold, gained the gratitude of his servants, while 
 commanding the admiration of his guests. 
 
 If Lempriere, in most of his waking intervals, 
 was a happy man, he had his galling moments. 
 The conviction that his daughter would marry 
 begot despondency, and fomented fits of friction 
 with particular young men. Whenever he 
 detected a particular young man pajnng marked 
 attention to Josephine, the would-be suitor was 
 subtly warned the daughter's disobedience meant 
 a dowerless wife. Not that he allowed this unre- 
 fined manoeuvre to reach the ears of his precious 
 child. No, he was a practical politician, and the
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT 13 
 
 paths of duplicity, or social diplomacy, were 
 familiar tracks. In her presence he would lapse 
 into mellific murmurings. Why should he be 
 robbed of his treasure ? Why ? — seeing he had 
 ignored the felicity of a second wife ! But his 
 sorrowing apprehensions would oft-times be 
 replaced by thoughts of a tranquil tenor. 
 Josephine would surely marry a handsome, clever 
 man. "Was not I," he would whisper, "seized 
 of these attributes when I entered gilt-edged 
 wedlock? Did not I marry cash and accom- 
 plishments ? " Aye, he had, and was proud to 
 remember it. And relishing this review of his 
 past, and banishing unpicturesque forebodings, 
 he would musingly ignite a fragrant cigar, and 
 dreamily transport his satisfied soul into the 
 lulling shade of seductive reverie. 
 
 Had Miss Lempriere been catechised con- 
 cerning the condition of her heart, she would have 
 avowed it was totally free from the flutterings of 
 love. Truly ; because the mysterious attraction 
 which draws together yielding hearts had not 
 exerted its alluring influence. She held no specific 
 enchantment for shielding her bosom against its 
 secret assaults. " Barkis is willing," translated 
 into more engaging language, had been breathed 
 by insinuating asides ; but, not having listened to 
 this fervid disclosure from the future controller of 
 her affection, the author of the implied passion 
 was left to wonder or whistle according to the 
 mood suggested by disappointment. 
 
 " What could have been Mr. Frogmore's motive
 
 14 MURDER BY WARRANT 
 
 in leaving this legacy ? " questioned Josephine. 
 
 ** Not family affection, my dear." 
 
 " Perhaps he disliked you, and " 
 
 " Perhaps so," mused the father, the ghost of a 
 smile on his lips. 
 
 " And this money may be meant for a purpose 
 — some harmful purpose," added Josephine, with 
 true feminine logic. 
 
 The father strolled thoughtfully on the hearth- 
 rug. He fancied his daughter was right. Frog- 
 more had always been jealous of the Lemprieres. 
 They were so superior, and left him so much 
 alone. Yes, it was jealousy, and Lempriere 
 smiled afresh. The old miser meant to prevent' 
 his making a position in Parliament. 
 
 " Then Mr. Frogmore was an enemy to Parlia- 
 ments ? " pouted Josephine. 
 
 " I believe he envied orators," softly hinted 
 the M.P. 
 
 " Why accept this legacy, papa ? What is 
 money compared with fame ? " 
 
 *' Fame is a fair flower, but it withers ; whereas 
 cash is never aifected by frost." 
 
 " But imagine passing months in an ugly 
 building on a dreadful moor ! " 
 
 " That description is not very flattering." 
 
 *' Flattering ! " cried the girl, scorn curling her 
 lips. " Mr. Lambert said it was so horrid that it 
 might send a man out of his mind." 
 
 Lampriere was visibly perturbed. A prospect 
 of solitude followed by insanity was indeed unex- 
 hilarating. Still, it was a peril he could realise.
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT 15 
 
 Was not a thing of beauty a joy for ever ? 
 ** Well," cutely reasoned the ex-banker, " if a 
 lovely thing is a joy for ever, a vile thing is a bore 
 for ever ; and perpetual boredom is deucedly 
 maddening." Indulging this elegant vein of 
 reverie, he drifted into his family past to test 
 whether symptoms of insanity had disturbed his 
 ancestral intellect. Finding unbidden or refrac- 
 tory hallucinations had not incommoded his 
 forefathers, he resolved to earn the legacy by 
 a lively submission to the dulness of Murk- 
 woop. 
 
 " But," remonstrated Josephine, " Mr. Lambert 
 says the place is quite unprotected." 
 
 " So it is," confessed Lempriere, allowing his 
 chin to droop on his matchless shirtfront. 
 
 ** I am sure we can do without this stupid 
 legacy ! " exclaimed the daughter, heedless of the 
 father's start at this flippant definition of a 
 hundred thousand pounds. " We are rich enough, 
 and I am really afraid of Murkwoop," whimpered 
 the girl, handling her handkerchief, and seriously 
 threatening to use it. 
 
 " It will only be for five years," remarked her 
 father, drawing a mental picture of penal 
 servitude. 
 
 " What protection would two elderly servants 
 be if robbers were to attack the place ? " 
 
 This allusion to elderly servants invested 
 Lempriere with a surprise he pathetically 
 expressed by lifting his eyebrows. 
 
 *' Mr. Frogmore's will says," explained
 
 i6 MURDER BY WARRANT 
 
 Josephine, hastening to extricate her parent from 
 his perplexity, " that only Job Jenkins and his 
 wife may be permitted as servants at Murkwoop." 
 
 " Ah, yes," sighed her papa. " I fear I shall 
 have to groom my horse, and perhaps have to 
 polish my boots." 
 
 " But what would you do if burglars were to 
 break in ? " 
 
 " Shoot them, to be sure." 
 
 " How awful ! " shuddered Josephine, rehearsing 
 the fashionable feminine wincing at the mere 
 mention of a revolver. " But you might not shoot 
 them — you might miss them 1 " 
 
 " Ye — ye — ye-es," quavered the ex-banker. 
 
 " Is it the correct thing to shoot a robber ? " 
 
 " Certainly not, my dear; but " 
 
 " Papa," interjected Josephine, " I am in dread 
 of this horrid Murkwoop ! " 
 
 ** So am — er — er " Lempriere modestly 
 
 checked himself. 
 
 The conversation was here interrupted by the 
 entrance of George Lambert senior, the lawyer 
 who purveyed legal and friendly advice to the 
 Lempriere family. 
 
 Lawyers seldom exhibit surprise. It hardly 
 ever ruffles the professional manner or visits the 
 professional countenance. Seamy delinquencies 
 and rickety reputations are viewed with pro- 
 fessional complacency. In all phases of moral 
 iniquity the lawyer preserves an unblemished 
 calm, recording no sign of surprise, except in his 
 bill of costs, where it always appears in the total !
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT 17 
 
 Something had really surprised Lambert senior 
 — Frank Frogmore's will. 
 
 " Ah ! " remarked the old lawyer, tenderly toy- 
 ing with the few hairs still clinging to his scalp, 
 " Frank Frogmore was a most extraordinary man. 
 He drew his will himself — not a word was invented 
 by the lawyers. A most extraordinary man," con- 
 cluded the old gentleman, giving his opinion 
 gratis. 
 
 Lambert senior, was a tall, well-made man, 
 whom age had not bowed nor infirmity weakened. 
 The only faulty faculty was his voice, an organ 
 which nevertheless inculcated firmness into frail 
 or tottering clients. He was upright in his prac- 
 tice — squaring nearly all his actions. A staunch 
 adherent to compromise, his judgment was as 
 • mellow as his punctilio ; and he had been known 
 to disdain accepting fees by declining infamous 
 cases. His clients swore by — never at — him ; and 
 evinced their unalterable esteem by paying his 
 handsome charges to the uttermost six-and-eight- 
 pence. 
 
 "And what have you decided I ought to do ? " 
 asked Lempriere of the lawyer. 
 
 " You must be a most obedient legatee. Frank 
 Frogmore determined that nobody should pluck 
 the fruits of his fortune without first labouring for 
 the privilege. All the legatees stand committed 
 to various penalties. Some must abstain from 
 alcohol, others from tobacco. One must renounce 
 family, another reside in Africa. The condition 
 attaching to your legacy is really insignificant — 
 c
 
 i8 MURDER BY WARRANT 
 
 an annual recurrence of periodical solitude." 
 
 Lempriere looked..as if periodical solitude was 
 what he most imperfectly understood. 
 
 " By the way," remarked the lawyer, " do you 
 happen to know your whimsical relative was a 
 victim to religious enthusiasm ? " 
 
 " Did that persuade him to send papa to Murk- 
 woop ? " 
 
 " Not likely, Miss Lempriere. His enthusiasm 
 took the form of peculiar charity." 
 
 " Then it was no ingredient in his prescription 
 for my dear papa." 
 
 *' I agree," said Lambert, smiling quietly. 
 
 " Now what is my position ? Where am I ? " 
 pleaded Lempriere. 
 
 " If you disobey," said the lawyer, removing 
 his pince-nez definitely, " the terms of the, legacy 
 by so much as a jot, it will be forfeited, without 
 reclaim, to the Crown." 
 
 "Such conditions are — er — well — confound 
 them ! " 
 
 ** They are onerous," said Lambert, replacing 
 his pince-nez. " The legacy has to be earned by 
 strict attention to irksome obligations ; for I 
 assume, Lempriere, you regard solitude and 
 silence as irksome, as I am bound to recollect 
 you are a Member of Parliament." 
 
 " The Government will send down a detective 
 by every train," groaned the ex-banker. 
 
 ** Not improbable," replied the lawyer. 
 " Governments are greedy. Then a General 
 Election — don't start, Lempriere— is approach-
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT 19 
 
 ing ; and each year brings more expenditure and 
 louder grumbling. I am not a Liberal, neither 
 am I a Conservative," meekly avowed Lambert, 
 who, for professional purposes, neatly balanced 
 himself between extremes. " No ; the Govern- 
 ment that rules wisely, spends wisely, and secures 
 a surplus — disdaining mob clamour and traffic in 
 votes — is the Government I venture to support." 
 
 *' Ah," said Lempriere, who had become recon- 
 ciled to the slavery demanded by Parliamentary 
 Whips, " you would have gods to adorn the 
 Treasury, and angels to answer the division bell. 
 Until you get such a celestial assembly you must 
 put up with party tricks and political subser- 
 viency to the mob. The mob, after all, really 
 governs. It may not comb its hair, change its linen, 
 or use sufficient soap and water ; but, despite 
 these unsavoury drawbacks, the mob really rules." 
 And, pleading painful recollections of the afore- 
 said drawbacks to excuse the freedom, Lempriere 
 craved his daughter's permission to kindle a 
 fragrant cigar. 
 
 " Well," answered Lambert, " we will not 
 argue the incidents of mob government. I am 
 old-fashioned, and lean to a Government unawed 
 by the unthinking mob. I say unthinking, be- 
 cause when, if ever, does the mob think ? People 
 err in saying thinking is easy. It is a difficult 
 and tedious operation, and requires much training 
 and care. My professional habit of pondering 
 steps before I take them induces a circumspection 
 which, I imagine, is foreign to — er — er — But
 
 20 MURDER BY WARRANT 
 
 let us cease to concern ourselves about our grand 
 old country, as thus we shall best imitate the 
 conspicuous manner of our modern master, the 
 mob." And, slyly rubbing his handsome old 
 nose, the seasoned lawyer drifted easily back to 
 the business in hand. 
 
 " Papa will never be able to invite a soul to 
 Murkwoop," burst in Josephine. 
 
 " Certainly — one visitor a month, and no shelter 
 for the night," assented Lambert, quietly polishing 
 his pince-nez. 
 
 Again Lempriere shot up his eyebrows, and 
 was lost in the interior of wonderment ; and again 
 his daughter, assisted by the lawyer, rescued him 
 from the danger of dilemma. 
 
 " Oh," he gasped, realising the point, " then I 
 must eat, drink, and smoke alone, and never listen 
 to a visitor's voice, unless — er " 
 
 "Purchase a phonograph — the mechanical enemy 
 to silence — and let your monthly visitor talk into 
 it ; and, if you wish, by the same substitute a 
 solo or sermon can be had for the asking." 
 
 Lempriere looked his gratitude, and pressed 
 the lawyer's hand. 
 
 And now the trio turned to the topic uppermost 
 in their minds — whether the father could claim 
 the companionship of his daughter during the last 
 month of each incarceration. This knotty point 
 had exercised the acumen of Lambert senior, had 
 taxed the astuteness of the Treasury, had tested 
 the ingenuity of the Trustees. It had resulted — 
 guess the joy of parent and child ! — in the united
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT 21 
 
 opinion that Josephine could share the solitude 
 of Murkwoop in the month of March in every 
 term.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 SiGNOR Victor Corelli was a wealthy and 
 accomplished Italian. The extent of his wealth 
 was a mystery ; but his polish was more acces- 
 sible, since it reposed on the surface and was 
 lavishly displayed. He still wooed trade, passing 
 as a merchant. He had never, owing to senti- 
 mental or occult objection, traded in his native 
 land. Although the attractions of Italy were 
 unfading, Corelli evinced a retiring disposition 
 whenever its charms were the subject of eulogy. 
 Perchance Italians were not commercial enough, 
 or Naples, where he was born, was too impecu- 
 nious for the fever of financial finesse. Perhaps 
 native cookery failed to tickle his palate, or he 
 had profited more by leaving than by living with 
 his countrymen. Whatever it was, whether banish- 
 ment by self or circumstances, it was obvious the 
 date and drift of the wind which wafted him to 
 distant climes were twin points of speculation. 
 But to compensate for this uncertainty it was 
 common knowledge he had centred his enterprise 
 on a South American Republic, and, in return, it 
 had yielded him a magnificent portion of its 
 inestimable riches. He was a handsome man, 
 
 22
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT 23 
 
 his features being cast in a mould of pure Italian ; 
 and, patronising a common folly, he conceived he 
 had sprung from an ancient stock ; but his stock 
 of merchandise had made his money, and this 
 imposing testimonial Society had approved. 
 
 Some sneering people spoke scornfully anent 
 the Italian, saying he dared not show up at 
 Naples, and that queer stories slurred his early 
 life. What on earth did it matter ? Was he not 
 vastly wealthy ? Was he not versed in all the 
 tricks of South American Securities ? Who ever 
 suspected his fame was spotless ? Where is the 
 record that is stainless — the escutcheon which 
 brooks no blur or blemish ? Fame may be fair, 
 even if tarnished. Who claims it can be spotless ? 
 Corelli had sipped his enjoyable indiscretions, 
 had indulged his tender foibles. Nobody knew 
 this better than his enemies, a clique including 
 those conscientious prigs who coveted the knack 
 of making cash as quickly as Victor Corelli. 
 
 The foreigner's name was creating a stir in 
 City circles. He owned a colossal South American 
 Railway Concession, which, comprising deviously 
 devised estimates and fictitious prices, fore- 
 shadowed brilliant prospects of surreptitious 
 profit. Corelli, therefore, was emphatically the 
 person to be petted by that prudent and plastic 
 party who keeps one eye on hospitality and the 
 other on the look out. 
 
 It always happens so. You don't wish to meet 
 a particular person, and you tilt aj^ainst him the 
 very next morning. You don't want to be
 
 24 MURDER BY WARRANT 
 
 pleasant to him, and he coaxes you into the 
 happiest of dialogues. You crave to believe him 
 crafty and false, and he wheedles you into the 
 flattest confidence. Lempriere had no desire to 
 meet Corelli, loving foreigners in the fashion of 
 Britons who sturdily distrust competitors and 
 rail consistently at protective tariffs. But he did 
 meet Corelli, and was duly delighted. He 
 admired the man ; praised his style ; relished his 
 compliments ; invited him to dinner. 
 
 " You see, my dear Lempriere," said Corelli, 
 glancing complacently at his well-shaped hand, 
 "the scheme of which I am Concessionaire 
 requires delicate manipulation." 
 
 Lempriere, famed for astuteness, nodded 
 acquiescence. 
 
 " My Concession," resumed Corelli, toying with 
 his cigar, " must be sold out-and-out like a pound 
 of beef steak; but," and the guest eyed the host 
 wistfully, " the price I obtain must be as invisible 
 as the heat of a stove that cooks the meat." 
 
 There was a pause. Cooking meat was not in 
 Lempriere's line ; but cooking concoctions con- 
 trived to tickle public taste had engaged the 
 cunning of his skill. As his soft foreign accent 
 died away, the Italian looked curiously at 
 Lempriere, lingering in the attitude of an expec- 
 tant listener ; but the latter having assumed a 
 similar pose, Corelli returned to his subject with 
 a deferential smile. 
 
 " The lovely railway contained in my grand 
 Concession will cost two millions of sovereigns."
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT 25 
 
 " A very heavy capital. How did you arrive at 
 it?" 
 
 " It was carefully invented by me and my 
 coadjutors." 
 
 " And your Republic have passed and agreed to 
 it ; and have guaranteed interest on it at six per 
 cent.," remarked Lempriere, studying the clauses 
 of the Concession. 
 
 " I told my Republic that, if they wished 
 Europeans to subscribe, they would have to 
 guarantee interest on capital." 
 
 " Precisely. Now, what are you to get out of 
 it?" 
 
 " By my estimate — the estimate annexed to 
 the Concession — I am to receive one per cent, on 
 the amount of the capital, or, in other words, the 
 insignificant sum of twenty thousand pounds." 
 
 " It ought to have been more. You " 
 
 " It is more," answered the foreigner, glancing 
 significantly at Lempriere. " My estimate, as I 
 have said, was prepared by me and my co- 
 adjutors. How did I convince my Republic a 
 capital of two millions was necessary ? Well, 
 you see, to illustrate the necessity, I presented a 
 distracting array of figures, and I said many 
 things to appease their scruples and preserve 
 their confidence, and — er — er — they believed 
 every word." 
 
 "The official mind of your Republic is un- 
 commonly elastic." 
 
 " How could the official mind check my mind, 
 which conceived and contained this scheme ? "
 
 26 MURDER BY WARRANT 
 
 " No doubt," said the ex-banker, smiling, 
 " they could have coined some awkward ques- 
 tions." 
 
 " In my glorious Republic the official mind 
 forgives the sin of accepting bribes and breeding 
 corruption. Immediately an official suggested an 
 increase to my estimate, from that moment he 
 became my coadjutor." 
 
 The two gentlemen drained their glasses and 
 exchanged amicable glances. 
 
 " I was constrained," continued the imperturb- 
 able Italian, " to pose before my Republic as a 
 patriot, and so I feigned to be content with my 
 puny commission. But my estimate was my 
 saviour. Alas, how like a lovely woman is that 
 fickle estimate ! To human vision the woman is 
 pure and captivating, but concealed beneath her 
 charms are germs of infidelity. So with my 
 bewitching estimate. To the eye of my Republic 
 it is immaculate, but concealed in its proportions 
 are interstices of profit which you and I, my 
 friend, may enjoy at our leisure." 
 
 " And on which the guarantee of your Republic 
 will fall ? " 
 
 " Precisely," assented the foreigner. " Why 
 not ? " 
 
 " Well, I was thinking " 
 
 " Don't ! — at least, never in — er — a matter like 
 this. Why should we ? Will not my glorious 
 Republic gain immensely by this scheme ? " 
 
 " Probably ; but any other man with your 
 opportunities ' '
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT 27 
 
 " Would not have succeeded. The essence of 
 the art of deceiving others is first to hoodwink 
 yourself. I gammoned myself this scheme would 
 succeed beyond the dreams of extravagance. I 
 stored my imagination with visions of vast results 
 to my compatriots, and — er — er " 
 
 " Now, tell me, Corelli," hastily interrupted 
 Lempriere, " why you pretend to act the part of 
 a patriot ? " 
 
 " I aspire to hold a portfolio in the ministry of 
 my Republic." 
 
 Lempriere was instantly overcome with sym- 
 pathy. Was he not a senator who suffered the 
 twitchings of envy ? Was he not cultivating a 
 bloom predestined to flower into ambition ? Was 
 he not secretly comparing and contrasting 
 members of Her Majesty's Ministry with himself? 
 Aye, really : nor was he ashamed to own it — to 
 himself. 
 
 " I was moved," said Corelli, " to obtain my 
 Concession by the prompting of ambition. I was 
 a merchant ; I am now a politician. Money has 
 radiant features ; but, tiring of her smiles, you 
 turn to ambition." 
 
 " It is a noble passion." 
 
 " When nobly pursued," cried Corelli, laying a 
 hand on his heart. 
 
 Lempriere, looking a long way off, failed for 
 several seconds to realise his surroundings. 
 
 " Now, Corelli, putting humbug aside, suppose 
 your countrymen were to find out they had been 
 fleeced by your estimate ? "
 
 28 MURDER BY WARRANT 
 
 " It would not matter a pin." 
 
 " Then why play the patriot ? " 
 
 " Because I love novelty." 
 
 " Hum — er — hum," murmured the ex-banker 
 musingly. 
 
 " In my glorious Republic corruption is 
 accounted a trifle. It is a sort of fashion — con- 
 cealed, of course — permeating our political fabric. 
 Not that we confess to our deviations. Oh, dear 
 no. That weakness would be too provoking. 
 Our plan is to cloak artifice with dissembled 
 fairness. Every man knows his neighbour will 
 strive to undermine him — being himself conscious 
 of a similar inclination. It follows, everybody is 
 strategic — everybody on his guard. Being part 
 of our national conduct, the danger is minimised, 
 the inconvenience scarcely felt. If I apologise 
 for my glorious Republic, it is because I am 
 addressing an Englishman. We regard life as a 
 game — you as a serious purpose. We are alert 
 and crafty — you moderate and straightforward." 
 
 Corelli ceased, and returning to his cigar lost 
 himself in appropriate reverie. Lempriere, having 
 begun to listen in amazement, subdued his 
 emotion to surprise, and was soon restored to 
 equability and reinstated in comfort. He re- 
 called the rules of business proportion, and 
 revived moral curiosities esteemed strictly com- 
 mercial. On the whole he inferred that an 
 impartial visit to Capel Court would cure mis- 
 conception of British obtuseness. 
 
 " Then," remarked Lempriere, emerging from
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT 29 
 
 reflection, " we only have to fear the investor." 
 
 " And your joint stock laws." 
 
 It is needless to portray the plan of burying 
 these accomplished conspirators among the totals 
 of that bloated estimate. The concession was 
 sold with the usual artistic trickery — was sold, 
 re-sold, sold again, the price leaping with every 
 digital move — mounting on golden wings to a 
 highly inflated finish. Everybody was swindled 
 — everybody satisfied — the plot having proceeded 
 on fashionable lines. But a day will come when 
 — no matter !
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 " How many years have you known Mr. Lambert, 
 papa ? " inquired Josephine. 
 
 " Ever since I was a boy, my dear." 
 
 " He looks a very old gentleman." 
 
 " Getting on for seventy. But the lawyer is 
 celebrated for long life. He avoids worry — unless 
 it belongs to somebody else, when it is too 
 precious to disregard." 
 
 " A strange profession," rejoined Miss Lem- 
 priere. " Lawyers exist on the misery and 
 misfortune of mankind. Aunt Fleecemewell says 
 they are always inventing disputes, and " 
 
 " A silly notion, my dear. The lawyer is a sort 
 of undertaker to the living — he inters disputes." 
 
 " And never rakes them up ? " 
 
 *' There is no occasion. The composition of 
 our social system is too combustible to need a 
 lawyer to start an explosion. Jealousies and 
 vindictiveness ignite " in an instant, and men 
 friendly one night are foes the next. Parents and 
 children are flung into conflict, bite each other's 
 heads off, and — er — eat them, too," added Lem- 
 priere, inadvertently smacking his lips. 
 
 " But, papa," pursued Josephine, congratulat- 
 ing herself, and the United Kingdom, that her 
 eloquent parent was in Parliament, " the lawyer 
 
 3Q
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT 31 
 
 cannot allay ill-feeling by casting estates into 
 Chancery." 
 
 " Indeed, he can, my love," returned the 
 member for Breeze, contracting a legislative 
 frown. " The law is a process whereby tempers 
 are tamed. A lion trying to kill his keeper is 
 cooled with red-hot iron. A man declining to do 
 the right thing, in the right spirit, at the right 
 time, is reconciled to his duty by legal coercion — 
 the sobriety of his submission being due to com- 
 pulsion. Then if a husband and wife " 
 
 " But a husband would never " 
 
 " Beat his wife ? Well, matrimonial complica- 
 tions are peculiar. Sometimes the fray is one- 
 sided, sometimes mutual. In the latter instance 
 each yearns for the solace of divorce, and a little 
 imperceptible perjury secures the desired separa- 
 tion." 
 
 " It is very wicked to aid people to commit 
 perjury." 
 
 Lempriere had many legal friends, and rejoiced 
 in their society. Their anecdotes were broad, 
 their jokes racy, well seasoned, well delivered — 
 very enjoyable. Then they were so useful, 
 defining perilous pitfalls in the paths of financial 
 explorers. So, after a spell of inward debate, he 
 assured his beloved child lawyers were neither 
 Apollos nor Pagans, appreciating vice and pleasure 
 very much as other people, and capable of 
 varnishing their sins with the unction of special 
 pleading. 
 
 Mr. Lempriere was quitting the room when he
 
 32 MURDER BY WARRANT 
 
 ran against George Lambert junior, son and heir 
 of the gentleman whose personaHty had inspired 
 the foregoing dialogue. The young lawyer — he 
 was only thirty — was a frequent visitor, his 
 interviews, especially with Josephine, being more 
 friendly than professional. Lempriere scented no 
 objection. The Lambert practice was splendid, 
 and a solicitor son-in-law always at his elbow 
 might be an acquisition. 
 
 The greeting between the young and the elderly 
 was speedily over. Lempriere was off to a Board 
 meeting — two guineas hanging to it — with a 
 champagne luncheon thrown in at the finish. 
 
 " So you see a good deal of Victor Corelli," 
 said Lambert junior, after some interesting 
 passages of introductory. 
 
 " Yes, he is often here. Papa thinks he will 
 strike a figure in the future policy of his 
 Republic." 
 
 " Does he still play the role of patriot ? " smiled 
 the lawyer. 
 
 " I have observed," answered the lady, thought- 
 fully, " that after dinner, when he and papa have 
 lingered over dessert, his great Concession makes 
 a noise in the drawing-room." 
 
 " And then his love of country overflows ? " 
 
 " Is quite a cataract," replied the girl, de- 
 murely. 
 
 " Ah ! he is a curious man." 
 
 "An Italian who, adoring art and despising 
 trade, had to abandon the ideal for the profits of 
 the practical."
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT 33 
 
 " He quitted Italy when young, so rumour 
 says, and became a naturalised South American 
 citizen. Some people, the busybodies chiefly, 
 suggest he is a little under a cloud." 
 
 " If true, would that disqualify him " 
 
 " Would do nothing so unkind," interjected 
 Lambert, divining his companion's surmise. " He 
 is within the charmed circle of Society, a 
 gratifying guarantee of respectability." 
 
 " I have sometimes thought otherwise." 
 
 " Well, it is, at least, equal to a bank balance. 
 The balance is no indication of a correctly 
 dissimulated career, but the approving glance of 
 Society ratifies the semblance of a just moral 
 deportment." 
 
 Miss Lempriere sighed pensively. Even 
 George Lambert junior was very worldly. 
 
 " You wish me to explain this Concession ? " 
 asked the young lawyer, making ready to prolong 
 his visit. " Nothing would please me more," he 
 continued, with animation. Nor was he senten- 
 tious in his narration, the intrusion of the ghost 
 of the tender passion being responsible for 
 irrelevant excursions. 
 
 ** Corelli, having acquired riches, grew weary 
 of commercial exclusiveness, longing for diversion 
 and renown by coquetting with Republican politics. 
 Commercial enterprise is the ruling passion of his 
 Republic, and anybody seeming to incur sacrifice 
 to extend its possibilities is hailed as a hero by 
 the giddy populace. Corelli perceived he could 
 easily win the acclamation of his countrymen by 
 
 D
 
 34 MURDER BY WARRANT 
 
 endeavouring to open up a large undeveloped 
 province to the adventurous spirit of the merchant. 
 Forming a party of explorers, he penetrated into 
 the interior and projected a railway, which, it is 
 predicted, will marvellously extend mercantile 
 effort." 
 
 " And what happened after he had ex- 
 plored ? " 
 
 " He offered to disclose his scheme if his Re- 
 public would grant him a concession." 
 
 " But how is a concession so valuable ? " 
 
 " Well, you see, a concessionaire is nearly 
 identical in character with a patentee — the former 
 owning a concession, the latter a patent. The 
 concessionaire has disclosed a scheme, the patentee 
 has divulged an invention. One may be as mad 
 as the other — that often signifying little. The 
 madder the plan, the more it may impress the 
 malleable investor. But to return. Just as the 
 patentee acquires control over his invention, so 
 the concessionaire gains power over his project. 
 Corelli's scheme is valuable " 
 
 " Then why is he anxious about papa's influ- 
 ence ? " 
 
 " Because he wants to be introduced to certain 
 financiers." 
 
 " What will they do ? " 
 
 " Fleece him if they can." 
 
 " How shocking ! " 
 
 " No, really, because so common," said Lam- 
 bert, smiling his business smile. 
 
 " Are financiers indifferent to honour ? "
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT 35 
 
 " They like it wherever found, much preferring 
 to find than to provide." 
 
 " That is saying httle to extenuate." 
 
 " Commercial morality stringently exacts that 
 every man should be competent to fake care of 
 himself. Mr. Fuddlehead, omitting to distinguish 
 gold from brass, must not look for ethical sign- 
 posts in Lombard Street. Cash is the god of the 
 greatest city in the world, and pride of pelf is on 
 his right hand. Thus enthroned, votaries sacrifice 
 virtue on his altars to widen his sway and extend 
 his blessings." 
 
 The young lady and gentleman changed the 
 strain of their dialogue. Militant opinions of cash 
 and concessions no longer inhabited their breasts. 
 The imbecilities of pride dwelt no more in their 
 memories. Their manner became extremely in- 
 teresting, their faces enchantingly expressive ; but 
 as their voices dropped into the inaudible I can- 
 not convey their ensuing conversation.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 The Silly Season was slowing its erratic pendu- 
 lum, and the Ministerial performers in the noisy 
 game of governing the British Empire were 
 shaking themselves into condition in different 
 climates of the globe. One was eating curry in 
 Calcutta ; a second killing crocodiles in Africa ; 
 a third, in Iceland, comparing geysers with 
 debates ; a fourth, far north, climbing the Pole. 
 Each was restored to his family except the last. 
 It was said he was only half-way up, and when 
 he reached the top he meant to stick there. 
 
 Lempriere and Corelli had completed their 
 plan for gulling the glorious Republic. Such 
 artful designs were accounted clever in those 
 indifferent days. They were popular until they 
 exploded and submerged multitudes in the waves 
 of ruin. The essence of fraud is its fantastic 
 invisibility by virtue of subtlety. It was a fine 
 art with those who worshipped the acme of 
 metallic currency, and cared not how it was got 
 so long as strategy was neatly severed from 
 criminal jurisdiction. We are more austere now, 
 because, indeed, the cheat is not so easily veiled. 
 Joint Stock Law is less pliant, and compels 
 cupidity to subsist within temperate latitudes of 
 restraint. 
 
 36
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT 37 
 
 The Concession — a stupendous triumph — was 
 winging its gleeful way into limited liability — was 
 the central figure of an eloquent prospectus ; and 
 a thirsting public would soon be scrambling 
 for copious allotments. Cautious steering had 
 guided the scheme from the sumptuaus sanctum 
 of the capitalist into the umbrageous avenues 
 leading to Joint Stock limitations ; but, being an 
 adventure with interest guaranteed by a glorious 
 Republic, it needed no privileged mendacity to 
 float it fairl}^ on the English market. 
 
 Within the walls of a swagger hotel, four 
 gentlemen were gaily dining. The party recog- 
 nised and revered the convivial hour. Their 
 merriment was excellent — their wit as wicked as 
 the wine. Every mood was mellow, every whim 
 a fancy. It is harrowing to think their jokes, 
 which banished waiters into corners to release 
 their pent-up mirth, were allowed to sink for ever 
 in the voiceless abyss of oblivion. 
 
 What meant this festive entertainment — this 
 random sociability yielding to the sway of 
 Bacchus ? It was indeed a frolicsome celebra- 
 tion of the exuberance of mutual satisfaction. 
 Four men v/ere delighted with the rare fruits 
 plucked from a great Concession, and were 
 invoking the generous grape to stimulate their 
 gratitude. 
 
 " Gentlemen," said a soft foreign voice, " let us 
 drink to the prosperity of my glorious Republic." 
 
 " And to her honour," chimed in Lempriere. 
 
 " Aye," sarcastically added Lambert senior,
 
 38 MURDER BY WARRANT 
 
 "but only by her prosperity will she honour her 
 guarantee." 
 
 " Nations," remarked Corelli, shrugging his 
 shoulders, " are like individuals — honest while 
 Providence smiles. Immediately she frowns they 
 sneer at the wisdom of rectitude. And why not ? " 
 inquired the foreigner, looking quizzically round. 
 "Is it not decreed by natural law that nobody 
 should starve ? If I hunger, and my neighbour 
 has a loaf he cannot eat, is it not by natural law 
 confiscated to me ? If you English have more 
 money than you need, should not my glorious 
 Republic, being financiall}^ famished, consume it 
 for her comfort ? " 
 
 "Then an excess of riches justifies appro- 
 priation of the surplus by a penurious stranger ?" 
 suggested Lambert senior, looking philosophic. 
 
 " Vraiment. Be honest as long as you can. 
 Wlien fortune changes, turn rogue and plead the 
 law of nature." 
 
 " And be ruled out of court by the authority 
 of- " 
 
 " I have authority," urged Corelli, dramatically 
 
 lifting his arm. "A great poet in famous 
 
 lines declares that — 
 
 ' They shall take who have the power, 
 And they shall keep who can.' " 
 
 " Which," said Lambert junior, cruelly im- 
 posing on Corelli, " refers to the omnipotent 
 collector of taxes." 
 
 " But your estimable bard says — ' They shall 
 keep who can ! ' "
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT 39 
 
 " Meaning the unhappy tax-payer with his 
 one chance of evasion." 
 
 " And that is " 
 
 " A clean pair of heels, and no portable 
 property." 
 
 " Let us drink to the downfall of despotism," 
 laughingly cried Corelli. 
 
 " I give the next toast," said Lempriere, 
 winking merrily at the Lamberts. " Heaven 
 bless the lawyers." 
 
 " Stop ! stop ! " exclaimed the foreigner, feign- 
 ing lively alarm. " Pray modify the exhortation. 
 Blessings are precious, and heaven has limits." 
 
 " We surely deserve a few," urged Lambert 
 junior, highly amused. 
 
 " A few ! " said Corelli, casting up his eyes. 
 " Your irrepressible fraternity — like flies you are 
 everywhere — need manifold benedictions ; and 
 
 " Well, give my father and me as many as may 
 be valued at six-and-eightpence." 
 
 " Is there any origin to that eccentric figure ? " 
 asked Lempriere, raising his glass to depress any 
 dryness in the answer. 
 
 " The origin," said Lambert senior, clearing 
 his throat and mocking pomposity, " is folded in 
 the impenetrable past ; but this ancient verse has 
 travelled down through ages : — 
 
 One shilling for myself, 
 Another for my clerk, 
 A third for saving shelf, 
 A fourth for freakish lark ;
 
 40 MURDER BY WARRANT 
 
 A fifth I will apply 
 To wants I can't deny ; 
 The sixth to what I will, 
 According to my skill ; 
 And then — before too late — 
 
 Unto my wife — 
 
 My life of life — 
 I q ive the pennies eight." 
 
 " In my glorious Republic the lawyer earns his 
 fee immediately he looks at you — he receives it in 
 advance. What is the effect ? The successful 
 litigant only feels two flights of emotion — grief 
 at the beginning, joy at the finish. In England 
 he suffers three ecstasies — confidence as he starts, 
 rapture as he wins, sorrow as he pays." 
 
 " The difference seems to be," said Lempriere 
 learnedly, " that in your country the client knows 
 his fate when he has forgotten the fee, but here 
 he pays the fee when he has forgotten his fate." 
 
 " Ah, my friend, what a fee you will be working 
 for when you arrive at melancholy Murkwoop. 
 What a place ! — Murkwoop ! Had you the gift 
 of poesy you might catch inspiration from solitude 
 and write a tragedy full of thrilling situations." 
 
 '^ I shall not be so lonely as you suppose. 
 Murkwoop has a reputation for ghosts ; so I shall 
 have a society that keeps society hours." 
 
 This turn of the conversation immediately 
 dispatched the party into a digression on goblins 
 — on apparitions and their causes. Intoxication, 
 it was told, developed grotesque fancies ; and a 
 smattering of delirium tremens created comedies 
 of wild cats and contorted bedposts into reptiles.
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT 41 
 
 Then ghosts and their vagaries led to weird 
 revelations, all vouched and sealed by vocal 
 emphasis. 
 
 " I once heard," said Lambert junior, " an 
 incredible story of a vision. It was told by a 
 native of Naples. A girl of that city wasfso 
 villainously betrayed that her miner"' was reviled 
 and hounded from the place. Soon after, the 
 girl — deserted and in poverty — died in misery. 
 Her seducer wandered through different climes ; 
 but, wherever he went, on the night of the 
 anniversary of hia victim's death her vision 
 appeared and warned him the dagger of an 
 assassin would avenge her. Dreading the 
 haunting return of this terrifying apparition he 
 spent the night gambling in a noisy casino. But 
 there loomed the fateful phantom ; and while it 
 stayed— in spite of frenzied play and reckless 
 hazards — his luck was supreme, his play in- 
 vincible. At break of dawn he sallied forth, his 
 brain dazed, his pockets gorged with gold. Two 
 hours later his body was discovered — stabbed in 
 the back — all his winnings gone ! " 
 
 " Are you ill ? " cried Lambert senior, turning 
 to the Italian. 
 
 " The heat of the room — nothing more," gasped 
 the foreigner, whose face was ashen. Painfully 
 disturbed, he lifted a decanter, filled a glass, and 
 tremblingly tossed the brandy down his throat. 
 
 " What made you recite the tale of the poor 
 Naples girl in that dramatic fashion ? " inquired
 
 42 MURDER BY WARRANT 
 
 old Lambert of his son as they strolled from the 
 swagger hotel. 
 
 " I did not intend histrionic action. That 
 decoration was an accident." 
 
 " I observed Corelli didn't relish the conversa- 
 tion when it veered to the supernatural. I cannot 
 understand fear arising from visions — the common 
 result of a disordered liver. Depend upon it," 
 said the practical old gentleman, " if that man 
 funks the shifting shadows of his imagination, 
 jaundice is at the bottom of the business."
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 Lempriere was denied the salubrious precaution 
 of passing the winter at Cannes, the air and 
 scenery of Murkwoop being substituted. Although 
 debarred from indulging his mood, he flattered 
 himself he might find the moor a congenial area 
 for sport. Yes, indeed, he might enjoy the 
 privilege of shooting over Murkwoop repeatedly, 
 and find an unconquerable difficulty in hitting — 
 excepting the mansion — any material object. 
 Nevertheless, he promised himself to persevere 
 and subject his patience to prolonged and salutary 
 drilling. 
 
 Frogmore's famous bequest was a prime topic 
 for impertinent gossip and garrulous conjecture. 
 Lempriere's friends quizzed and queried, and 
 wished they wore his boots. Manufacturers of 
 specious paragraphs for periodicals prying into 
 affairs of prominent people had splendid oppor- 
 tunities of puffing the public with edifying 
 theories and engaging conclusions. The legatee's 
 popularity was immense — his audience joining in 
 a chorus of congratulation too profound for words. 
 Wherever he went vacant obtrusion or gaping 
 curiosity crossed his path or barred his passage. 
 Pomposity button-holed him ; interviewers dodged 
 
 43
 
 44 MURDER BY WARRANT 
 
 him ; calculating Yankees guessed him worth 
 exploiting. Lempriere suifered with superlative 
 equanimity. He was pleasant during chaff; calm 
 under catechism ; mute towards periodicals. He 
 sent guns, books, and horses to Murkwoop, and 
 prepared to follow with factitious resignation. 
 
 Lempriere imagined he would stud}' and 
 assimilate subjects he had hitherto merely 
 skimmed. Though no lover of books, he regarded 
 them respectfully. Society enjoined a certain 
 conversance v/ith literature, to screen its votaries 
 from the imputation of ignorance, and the ex- 
 banker's acquaintance with authors was sufficiently 
 superficial to win audible applause in the circuit 
 of small-talk. 
 
 On the last day of November Lempriere was 
 
 p&ing the platform of the station of B , the 
 
 village nearest Murkwoop, pining for the 
 appearance of Job Jenkins. He paced and chafed, 
 watched and waited, and now and then picked a 
 word from his private vocabulary to mollify his 
 irritation. An hour expired, and still no sign of 
 Jenkins. Determining to travel alone, he 
 astonished the station-master by enquiring the 
 shortest road to Murkwoop. Had he asked for 
 the Eddystone Lighthouse he could not have 
 occasioned greater amazement. Request a person 
 to direct you in London, and you are sent inter- 
 minably right and left until the torture of 
 turnings drives you distracted ; but to seek the 
 briefest path across a trackless moor was as racy 
 as if — well . The veteran of the village had
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT 45 
 
 heard distantly of Murkwoop, but only as a sweep 
 of country infested by footpads. Carefully storing- 
 this enlivening detail, Lempriere, bestowing some 
 trifles on attentive porters, obtained refuge at the 
 crack inn, bearing the sign of " The Bell." Two 
 hours later, as he was poising a glass of port 
 between his eye and the lamp, a low knock was 
 dealt on the door, which, opening, admitted an 
 elderly man attired in clothes that seemed to 
 divide his duties between garden and stable. 
 
 Job Jenkins was the only male servant at 
 Murkwoop. Frogmore, in the flesh, was a diminu- 
 tive man with limited wants. He deputed Job to 
 rule the estate and stable, and to Job's wife he 
 consigned the cares of the household. He rubbed 
 along life at' Murkwoop many years, but at last 
 Job turned physician and Mrs. Jenkins nurse. 
 Frogmore refused to see a medical man, a freak 
 that resulted in an inquest. But we are forget- 
 ting the guest at " The Bell." Jenkins stood 
 inspecting Lempriere as he might have studied a 
 specimen of horse flesh, presenting to the latter a 
 muscular figure, modified by a stoop, shrewd and 
 furrowed features, with hair and whiskers cut 
 close and iron grey. 
 
 " I ask your pardon, sir," said Jenkins, in hard 
 but respectful tones. " I didn't get your letter 
 until half-an-hour ago." 
 
 " Half-an-hour ago ! " exclaimed Lempriere. 
 
 " Yes, sir. I happened to be in the village with 
 the dog-cart, and called at the post-office. Letters 
 are never delivered at Murkwoop."
 
 46 MURDER BY WARRANT 
 
 " How did Mr. Frogmore get his ? " 
 
 " He never had any." 
 
 Lempriere groaned enviously in spirit. 
 
 " But I am a Member of Parliament, and must 
 keep in touch with my borough." 
 
 " I think," said Job, rubbing his chin reflec- 
 tively, " I can get the son of the landlord of this 
 inn to bring over your letters. But he must only 
 be paid on delivery ; else he might get drunk and 
 drop them into a ditch." 
 
 Lempriere loved his constituents, but rebelled 
 at their epistolary insolence. He managed to 
 neutralise its intolerance by oily notes and sim- 
 pering post-cards ; but notwithstanding his clever- 
 ness in evasion — of which he was growing un- 
 feignedly proud — he conceived an accommodating 
 ditch might fittingly inter many missives indited 
 from the borough of Breeze. 
 
 "Yes, sir," resumed Jenkins, " Tom Butcher is 
 a boosing fellow, and a worry to his old father. 
 Howsoever, sir, I will get him to bring over your 
 letters, if you are willing." 
 
 Lempriere was quite willing, venturing to buoy 
 up the hope — assisted by an extra glass of port — 
 that a kindly ditch might still extinguish sundry 
 batches of troublesome correspondence. 
 
 The drive to Murkwoop was dreary and fretful. 
 The moon was hidden ; the stars were obscured ; 
 a light mist veiled the face of nature. Somewhat 
 depressed — the pleasing effects of the port having 
 fled — Lempriere strained his eyes, but every trace 
 of outline was shrouded, space and stillness filling
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT 47 
 
 the passing scene. Suddenly the noiselessness of 
 the wheels and a swaying motion apprised him he 
 was speeding over moorland. Not a sound broke 
 the solitude save the thud of the horse's hoofs. 
 Miles and moments swiftly flew, and still the 
 travellers dashed along. A towering object loomed 
 — the cart stopped — Job jumped down. A chal- 
 lenge was screamed, a dog growled, bolts and 
 doors receded and yielded — a waving lantern greet- 
 ing the guest as he passed the portals of Murk- 
 woop.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 The mansion of Murkwoop was a massive struc- 
 ture surrounded with a wide courtyard. Lofty 
 and ugly, it was, as are many giants, extremely 
 modest, the enclosing walls completely concealing 
 the lower windows. A spacious gateway faced 
 north, while an entrance of lesser dimensions 
 pierced the southern wall. Apart from its solidarity 
 it presented nothing to excite comment, save a 
 broad verandah girding the entire building. 
 Whether the architect imagined occupiers of this 
 graceless abode would need abundant exercise to 
 counteract the freezing effects of residence, or 
 would never tire^of contemplating the unrefreshing 
 tameness of the moor, were points of speculation 
 unassisted by physical testimony. Nevertheless 
 he had determined to gratify people possessing 
 active or meditative tastes, since the verandah 
 affixed to the first floor was broad enough to 
 permit pedestrians to perambulate or ruminate 
 without jostling into disputes concerning the area 
 of elbow room. 
 
 The morning after his ride in the dog-cart, 
 Lempriere was roaming the verandah striving to 
 appreciate the aspect. He was unsuccessful, and 
 was dismissing a whiff of cigar smoke with a 
 
 48
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT 49 
 
 sigh of discontent, when a prim Httle woman 
 confronted him, sweeping a prim httle curtsey, 
 and tipping a prim httle smile. She was a neat 
 sample of the precise housekeeper, wearing plain 
 black, a muslin cap, and a bunch of keys dangling 
 at her waist. Far from tall, she insisted she was 
 anything but short ; and her face, though con- 
 fessing to age, was pleasant and healthy. Alto- 
 gether she embodied a picturesque specimen of 
 domestic nattiness and household integrity. 
 
 Lempriere eyed his cook, chambermaid, and 
 housekeeper with curiosity. He thought he 
 should like her, having no lurking fear she 
 would doctor his soup, or play vicious pranks 
 with side dishes. He felt sure she would air his 
 shirts, and keep him from damp beds ; and, in 
 the fewest of minutes, he got coniident that Mrs. 
 Jenkins really included Mr. Jenkins, and that the 
 latter in the presence of the former would always 
 be neatly extinguished. 
 
 The hall of Murkwoop was roomy and square, 
 and resounded the ticking of an eight-day clock. 
 An ample staircase landed the climber in a gallery 
 traversing the mansion from each extremity, the 
 rooms on one side being allotted to Lempriere, 
 and those on the other sealed and inaccessible. 
 The rest of the house, except the apartments 
 occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Jenkins, seemed 
 wrapped in silence and guarded from intrusion. 
 Lempriere's rambles within were confined, indeed, 
 to the staircase, the gallery, and the hall — his 
 excursions outside being conducted in the court-
 
 50 MURDER BY WARRANT 
 
 yard, or on the soft surface of the sombre moor. 
 
 Lempriere's life at Murkwoop was absolutely 
 free from bustle and excitement. Amusement 
 was a difficulty, but occupation easier. He wiled 
 away some tedious hours over books. He began 
 by believing he was interested in Childe Harold ; 
 but the wandering Childe was speedily abandoned 
 for the unblushing Don Juan. Then followed the 
 prodigalities of Peregrine Pickle, and the riotous 
 blundering of Roderick Random — the chivalries 
 of Don Quixote being specially digested. He 
 fancied he was budding into an introspective 
 reader, and congratulated himself accordingly. 
 Plus these serious tasks, he wrote regularly to 
 his daughter, read the London newspapers 
 unflaggingly, and replied, with a politeness he 
 seldom felt, to epistolary pulings of querulous 
 constituents. 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Jenkins had their daily duties, 
 and were not gifted with conversational instincts. 
 Job was taciturn, and, when he spoke, was rather 
 blunt. Still he was a useful man — grooming 
 horses, making bread, mending stockings, milking 
 the cow. Mrs. Jenkins was always astir, always 
 spruce, always busy — a good cook, a good maid, 
 a good woman — always bobbing a prim little 
 curtsey, always tipping a prim little smile. 
 
 Frowning December was over, and gloomy 
 January was dragging its tiresome pace. Lem- 
 priere was dejected, but not disconsolate. Already 
 he was anticipating the relief in expectancy to be 
 afforded by his daughter's society. Twice had he
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT 51 
 
 met her at B — , a trysting place to which she 
 was escorted by the gallant old family lawyer. 
 Immense was the happiness of those moments ; 
 many were the witticisms of genial Lambert 
 senior ; sad and heavy was the journey back over 
 the moor to Murkwoop. 
 
 Lempriere's electoral letters did not receive 
 decent extinction in a roadside ditch. Tom 
 Butcher was regular in his intervals of intoxica- 
 tion ; but the correspondence continued, his 
 ill-used parent being converted into deputy 
 messenger. Tom w^as a local curiosity. A firm 
 believer in specific periods of dissipation and 
 recurring circuits of sobriety, he would disappear 
 for a fortnight into lush, and, re-appearing 
 thoroughly soaked, would recuperate by steady 
 exercise and strict abstinence. It was during 
 one of his swilling recreations that old Butcher 
 brought the letters to Murkwoop and poured 
 bitter complaints into Lempriere's sympathising 
 ear. 
 
 " I gave that boy a good education, yet he 
 cannot keep away from the drink. What is the 
 use, sir, of learning the rule of three, unless it 
 teaches you to save money, keep steady, and 
 marry and populate the country ? " 
 
 This peculiar problem in proportion had never 
 been studied by Lempriere. 
 
 "And, sir," continued the innkeeper, "does 
 not grammar forbid bad language and the telling 
 of wicked stories ? " 
 
 Lempriere started visibly and forced a smile.
 
 52 MURDER BY WARRANT 
 
 Why? Had the Member for Breeze broken 
 these novel aims of grammar ? 
 
 "Now, sir," said Butcher, employing solemn 
 emphasis, " I should like to know whether you 
 think it right for a gentleman to be walking about 
 with a pretty village wench and making believe to 
 be courting her for the bond of holy wedlock ? " 
 
 Lempriere was fifty-five, and a father, and, 
 whatever his predilections to pretty women, he 
 could not condone the folly of allowing the world 
 to witness a weakness. He therefore frankly dis- 
 countenanced all such irregular displays. 
 
 " Well, sir," said Butcher, " you will pardon me 
 for mentioning it, but your friend, Mr. Victor 
 Corelli, goes gadding about with a girl named 
 Mary Maguire, She is a fast and silly little 
 wench, I admit ; but then, sir, Mr. Corelli has the 
 mind and ought to know better. I have nothing 
 else to say against him. He has stayed at my 
 inn many times, and has always been most 
 liberal. My wife took the liberty, sir, to hint at 
 what he was doing, in a gentle sort of way ; but 
 lor, sir, he only laughed, and said it was what 
 they all did in his glorious Republic. Howso- 
 ever, sir, wrong will come of it— and sin, too, sir ; 
 and perhaps, sir, there will be crime, sir — yes, 
 sir, crime!" with which prophetic peroration 
 Butcher departed like an injured elephant. 
 
 Lempriere was a little irritated at the indis- 
 cretion of his friend. The Italian had frequently 
 visited " The Bell," matters touching the division 
 of spoils of the great Concession having brought
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT 53 
 
 him intermittently to B . More than once he 
 
 had prolonged his stay at the inn, avowing himself 
 enchanted with the wintry aspect of the sylvan 
 surroundings. It seemed to Lempriere's sagacity 
 that the aspect in chief was Miss Mary Maguire. 
 
 " Oh, the humbug of the world ! " muttered 
 the ex-banker. " But, after all," he mused, 
 speaking beneath his breath and helping himself 
 to a cigar, " Corelli's diversion was not so very 
 deucedly unpleasant." 
 
 Who was Mary Maguire ? A pretty female 
 residing at B — — , who supported herself by 
 dressmaking. This pursuit, esteemed an art, 
 excited the local envy of her sex ; and, no aspirant 
 in the village rivalling her skill, she stood 
 practically first and last in the monopoly of 
 manipulating bodices and skirts. Being inde- 
 pendent, she regulated her reputation very much 
 as she pleased. It had been successfully soldered 
 in the unregretted past ; but if she chose to 
 impair it afresh, what did it matter to anyone ? 
 So long as she sinned respectably and paid her 
 way, who had a right to complain ? 
 
 If a woman is pretty, it is immaterial whether 
 she is worthless. Admirers will abound — 
 jealousies will uprise. So it was with Mary 
 Maguire. She cast her glances freely about her, 
 but they settled nowhere steadily. If one man 
 was her favourite, it was boosy Tom Butcher. 
 He was better educated than the rest of her 
 adorers, and so he satisfied some feathery whim 
 affecting this fickle young lady.
 
 54 MURDER BY WARRANT 
 
 When Corelli, with his bland manners and 
 foreign accent, entered the village, Mary Maguire 
 was instantly smitten. Conscious of her charms 
 she cast herself in his way. Willing to be amused 
 he softly played the amiable. They speedily 
 indorsed mutual opinions of undisguised import, 
 and basked in the blissful tete-a-tete with alter- 
 natives in spooning. 
 
 Corelli's interloping created a fine uproar among 
 Mary's crowd of cajoled serfs. They vented 
 valorous threats, declaring he should be shipped 
 back in a box of questionable shape to the shores 
 of his glorious Republic. Tom Butcher was 
 particularly truculent, breathing bitter impreca- 
 tions into the interior of empty beer tankards. 
 Mary, persisting in her frolic, treated them all 
 with queenly contempt, acting the part of the 
 pert tyrant with vivacious grace and address. 
 
 Lempriere drove over to B to make private 
 
 inquiries. After dry investigation — the mind of 
 the man of the world predominating — he dismissed 
 his apprehensions of Corelli's indiscreetness, 
 thinking, possibly, that old Butcher was too pious 
 for an innkeeper, and a bit over-meddlesome in 
 the matters of his neighbours. 
 
 As time crept along, Lempriere became con- 
 scious of a growing sense of oppression. It 
 stuffed up his chest, invaded his head, and flitted 
 about the region of his stomach. What could it 
 mean ? Did Murkwoop disagree with his liver ? 
 Horrid thought ! A sluggish liver and he in the 
 fifties ? Not if he knew it ! Perish lucre !
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT 55 
 
 Legacies were common — livers were not. Jaun- 
 dice and beastly waters in Bath pump-rooms 
 were past a joke. Oddly enough, his complaint 
 worried him mostly at night. If he was dismayed 
 — it was his shadow. Whenever he started — it 
 was his footfall. He was vastly uneasy, imagining 
 himself a prey to an insidious disorder, and 
 thinking very feelingly of physicians, their stuffs, 
 and their fees. 
 
 One evening, buried in his arm-chair, gazing 
 indolently into the fire, and musing on the 
 symptoms of his ailment, he suddenly hit upon 
 both cause and remedy. Physical exercise — a 
 simple but potent prescription — was the cure his 
 case commanded. Yes — his frame needed the 
 salutary agitation of pedestrian drill before he 
 retired to rest. Acting on this happy solution of 
 constitutional difficulties, he wrapped himself in 
 his greatcoat, and arming himself with a stick, 
 started at a brisk pace across the moor. A deadly 
 darkness and silence rendered the situation grimly 
 impressive; but, clutching well his stick, Lem- 
 priere worked his blood into excellent circulation. 
 Feeling easier, and cogitating on the equable 
 tenor of mind that results from resolve to shun 
 fancied evils, he bravely pushed ahead. But 
 what was that ? A stealthy step was stealing 
 along — was near, nay, almost on him ! He was 
 no coward, but, well, he was unnerved — a 
 bewitched listener — doubting, perhaps dreading, 
 and deciding on discreet, not desperate, resistance. 
 Something was moving, he was sure. What was
 
 56 MURDER BY WARRANT 
 
 it ? He might challenge — " Halloo ! who the 
 deuce are you ? " Not a valiant defiance, but 
 heroic enough for noise. Why was he feeling 
 queer ? Was he really rooted to the ground ? 
 He was wondering, when a figure clad in cloak 
 and hood stood almost at his elbow. Awaiting a 
 genteel salutation, Lempriere remained motion- 
 less ; but the mysterious wayfarer was mute, and 
 sweeping along with stately strides melted from 
 sight on the soundless moor. 
 
 " What ! " exclaimed the incensed M.P., 
 gasping intense relief. "A figure pass the 
 Member for Breeze in that form ? " Turning 
 round, he started in pursuit. In vain ! — too late ! 
 He had plenty of pluck, but, like disarranged 
 furniture, it wasn't in order, and the speechless 
 inhabitant of cloak and hood had vanished 
 unquestioned into the shadows of night. 
 
 The extraordinary encounter just narrated 
 engendered annoyance in Lempriere's fearless 
 breast. He reproached himself for his lack of 
 expedition. Why, he asked himself, was he so 
 long ere he began the chase ? Ah ! why ? How- 
 ever, to make amends he would walk the moor the 
 following night, and if he met the suspicious 
 stranger, he would confront him. What right, 
 quoth Lempriere, had anyone to prowl the moor 
 in that ghostly guise ? A cloak and hood indeed ! 
 Honesty needed no unusual attire, and dishonesty 
 should be called to account everywhere. 
 
 Once more the night was lowering. Again, 
 Lempriere, grasping his stick, stood sentry on the
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT 57 
 
 spot where the shrouded figure had passed. For 
 several minutes he Hstened. Not a sound. The 
 moor was impenetrably still. Hush ! what was 
 that ? A thudding noise — thump, thump, thump ! 
 It was a horse's gallop — a horse going a 
 tremendous pace. What could it be ? — the owner 
 of cloak and hood enjoying equestrian exercise ? 
 Presently he distinguished horse and rider swiftly 
 approaching. Hailing loudly — he did not reckon 
 it pleasant to be ridden down and trampled — the 
 steed was reined in, and the horseman bent in his 
 saddle. 
 
 " Why are you wandering about Murkwoop ? " 
 
 " Why are you ? " curtly retorted Lempriere. 
 
 " That is my business." 
 
 " And my stroll is mine." 
 
 " I am in Her Majesty's service, and " 
 
 "A Treasury detective, eh ? " 
 
 " Oh, you are Basil Lempriere ? " 
 
 " I may or may not be." 
 
 " You are Basil Lempriere ? Yes ? Well, I 
 am interested in your welfare. You understand. 
 Have the exceeding goodness to exchange cards." 
 
 " Why should we ? " 
 
 " It will save trouble. Here is mine. Thank 
 you. This is not a lively locality. Good-night." 
 Clapping spurs to his horse, the man was out of 
 sight in an instant. 
 
 " I wonder," pondered Lempriere, pensively 
 entering the library, " whether that fellow in cloak 
 and hood was a detective in disguise ? Detectives 
 are uncommonly cute. I remember hearing of
 
 58 MURDER BY WARRANT 
 
 one who took a situation as cook. He was toler- 
 ably well up in culinary matters, but spoiled 
 himself. He put some nasty stuff in a curry. It 
 was an important dish, friends of the family having 
 arrived from India. No sooner was that curry 
 down than all the party rose. Doctors were 
 summoned, stomach-pumps fetched — the cook 
 
 fled. He had detectives after him, but " 
 
 Lempriere finished his reverie by lifting a decanter. 
 Finding it contained liquid of the approved colour, 
 he took a tumbler and mechanically mixed whiskey 
 and seltzer. Discussing this invaluable aid to 
 reflection, he stepped to the verandah and sur- 
 veyed the morose solitude. The sky was casting 
 off layers of clouds, and the denseness of the night 
 was lifting ; but the desolate waste, stretching 
 away everywhere, presented a frowning aspect. 
 ** Yes, the Treasury detective was quite right. 
 This is not a lively locality." 
 
 Lempriere closed the casement, but did not 
 draw the blinds. Dropping into his arm-chair, he 
 stirred the fire. The library was a snug room, and 
 the blaze on the hearth and the cosy surroundings 
 conspired to foster a spirit of contentment. He 
 sank into pleasing meditation on the approaching 
 visit of his daughter, and remained wrapt in 
 enjoyable reflection. Deeming it time to retire, 
 he roused himself, and prepared for a languid 
 departure. He only half rose. There, on the 
 verandah, was that confounded detective in cloak 
 and hood ! The impudence of this espionage was 
 exasperating ! The ex-banker straightened himself
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT 59 
 
 and went to the window. Stepping boldly forth, 
 he confronted an intellectual face peering earnestly 
 upon him from the ample depths of a capacious 
 hood.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 " Yes, Mr. Lempriere," said the singular visitor, 
 sauntering into the library and casting back his 
 hood, " I am your fellow prisoner in this retired 
 tenement." The speaker was standing in a negli- 
 gent attitude, regarding Lempriere with luminous 
 eyes. His arms were gracefully folded, and the 
 displaced hood brought to view a finely-moulded 
 head. 
 
 "Then," said Lempriere, reviving from the 
 shock of discovering such a handsome man, " you 
 also are a legatee ? " 
 
 " Not so fortunate," answered Caspar St. John. 
 
 " You live here by choice ? " incredulously cried 
 the other. 
 
 " Aye," answered St. John, sighing. Lempriere 
 also drew a long breath. "Years ago I abjured 
 society, and, by right of purchase, came to reside 
 here." 
 
 Lempriere glanced an unspeakable curiosity. 
 
 Caspar St. John was tall and elegantly formed ; 
 and a high forehead, aquiline nose, and ascetic 
 lips imparted force to a face lit with singularly 
 luminous eyes. His complexion was clear, and 
 he wore no trace of beard. Although possibly 
 approaching fifty, his countenance was youthful, 
 but his black hair was streaked with grey. His 
 
 60
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT 6i 
 
 clothes, beneath the cloak, were of dark material, 
 the coat being shaped as a blouse. He was a 
 student, an ardent thinker, a habit of life intensi- 
 fied by a natural lofty abstraction. For the rest, 
 his voice was musical, his speech fluent and 
 deliberate, his smile extremely winning. 
 
 " I am astonished," said Lempriere, " we have 
 never met before." 
 
 " It is hardly to be wondered at. Frogmore's 
 executors have sealed up the passage comm.uni- 
 cating with my rooms." 
 
 " Where are they ? " 
 
 " On the floor above this." 
 
 Lempriere was mystified — not that he imagined 
 his visitor had dropped from a window, or had 
 used a rope ladder, or 
 
 " I daresay," said St. John, divining this 
 rational confusion of thought, "you marvelled at 
 my unannounced appearance on the verandah ? " 
 
 The ex-banker did not deny he had yielded to 
 the sin of surprise. 
 
 " I am able to gain access to the verandah by a 
 window of one of the sealed rooms on the eastern 
 side — a staircase leading from my floor into that 
 room." 
 
 " I have never met you on the moor, except — " 
 
 " I roam the moor at night." 
 
 " So do I — er — well — once — er " 
 
 " Then I always use the southern gateway." 
 
 " And I the northern," remarked Lempriere, 
 mentally resolving to alter his manner of exit. 
 
 " I fear I am a selfish recluse," said the
 
 62 MURDER BY WARRANT 
 
 student, gazing at the books that stocked the 
 library shelves. 
 
 Lempriere thought the same, but was too 
 circumspect to confess. Still, he had passed six 
 companionless weeks, while, forsooth, a conver- 
 sational fellow was occupying the second floor, 
 enjoying the very misery he detested, and preferring 
 nocturnal rambles to matutinal strolls. " This 
 inequality of inclination touched him tenderly. 
 He was not selfish — he was hurt. 
 
 " Yes," continued St. John, " I am a student, 
 and love the solitude that maddens most mortals. 
 Books are my friends — unchangeable in fidelity, 
 never wanting in zeal. But the bookman is, 
 perhaps, too exclusive — a willing slave to anchor- 
 etic leanings. It is natural; for he is a being who 
 buries himself in folios and spurns the pastimes 
 of life." 
 
 There was a silence, each man indulging a 
 private reflection he secretely desired his com- 
 panion to disturb. 
 
 " I frankl}/ admit," said St. John, excusing the 
 uninventiveness of his companion, " I had no 
 wish to meet you. I dreaded inroads upon my 
 studious industry. But now I avow I repent my 
 disinclination, and hope we may join in subduing 
 the monotony of Murkwoop." 
 
 The next morning the gentlemen breakfasted 
 together. This led to other mutual meals, to 
 strolls and cigars. The two, in a measure, were 
 suited to each other. The ex-banker amused his 
 friend with anecdotes culled from society, and gave
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT 63 
 
 telling descriptions of spirited exploits in the fertile 
 regions of finance. St. John, in turn, perplexed 
 and staggered Lempriere ; for, notwithstanding 
 his compassion, the student could not invariably 
 restrain his erudition. But he was no bore, and 
 indirectly, and by elementary paths, beguiled the 
 ex-banker into many lucid intervals. In the 
 course -of an entertaining fortnight the recluse 
 renewed acquaintance with the high condition of 
 the world he had abandoned ; and the ex-banker 
 bridged the thorny method of comprehending 
 topics overlapping the level of average col- 
 loquialism. 
 
 The great Concession was trotted out for St. 
 John'sedification. All its advantages to the Republic 
 were duly extolled— the benefits to the concession- 
 aire and his satellites being duly kept stih rosa. 
 Nobody should object to reticence. It is an 
 excellent shroud for facts to be wrapped up and 
 neatly tied and put aside for posterity to unfold. 
 Only silly people clamour for universal veracity — 
 as if one could persuade the tawdry upstart to 
 admit how he sneaked from blank penury into 
 redolent realms of lavish luxury! Others swell 
 for an open mind — another name for a weak 
 one. Ingenuousness is a capital trait ; but to 
 introduce it on a familiar footing into commercial 
 combinations would bring all sound business to a 
 standstill. 
 
 Lempriere had noticed the positive aversion 
 nurtured by St. John towards Italians. What 
 was the cause ? Had the outrages of organ-
 
 64 MURDER BY WARRANT 
 
 grinders driven him from the amenities of a West 
 End Square ? Had some haughty beauty of the 
 sunny south enslaved his heart on purpose to jilt 
 his hopes ? Who could tell ? Lempriere was 
 not inquisitive, but 
 
 A letter had come from Corelli, who had been 
 invited to Murkwoop, stating he would pay his 
 visit the next morning. Lempriere, having left 
 the room to give necessary instructions to the 
 Jenkinses, returned to discover St. John bending 
 over the Italian's letter, his hands clenched, and 
 his face a tempest of passion. 
 
 " Victor ! Victor ! " hissed the student, 
 grinding his teeth — " a name that awakens a 
 ferocity seasons of solitude should have quelled. 
 Time imperfectly tames hate — blood alone, 
 
 yes, yes, blood " He paused and beheld 
 
 Lempriere. 
 
 " I came here," said St. John, forcing himself 
 to be calm, " to ask you to walk with me, and, by 
 misadventure, I glanced at this signature. The 
 sight of " Victor " aroused a fury I deemed dead. 
 It is pent up merely — ready to stir at the slightest 
 provocation. Listen ! To reclaim myself from 
 seeming folly, I must tell a tale of early life." 
 
 He was silent. Commencing, at length, he 
 pursued his recital with effort. 
 
 " I was born in Naples, my father, an English- 
 man, being senior member of a financial house in 
 that city. At his death I succeeded to a 
 considerable fortune, and became guardian of an 
 only sister. Always ardently studious, I ridiculed
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT 65 
 
 social transports, and scorned the trifles which 
 amuse mankind. Left my own master, I became 
 infatuated with astronomy and philosophy, dedi- 
 cating my days to occult speculation, my nights 
 to watching the wonders of the limitless solar 
 system." 
 
 The voice ceased, and the speaker paced 
 pensivel}^ 
 
 " Locked in the seclusion of my study, I passed 
 days alone, discarding friendships, neglecting the 
 duties of guardianship, leaving my sister, a 
 beautiful girl, to choose her own life and 
 intimates. I had a friend. His name was 
 Gaspiani. We ofttimes met. His love of prob- 
 lems in astronomical science drew us together. 
 He had a brother whose name was Victor — 
 who was handsome, accomplished, insinuating. 
 He met my sister — admired, loved, ruined 
 her ! It is idle to revile the seducer and the 
 fatuous folly of his victim. Each is equally 
 criminal. The man admits his villainy ; the 
 woman, dares the risks of degradation. Neither 
 yields to right suggestion. Neither avoids the 
 fell companionship. Days pass, love quickens, 
 sigh answers sigh — soon the killing blight 
 descends." 
 
 St. John was silent — a gloomy regret mantling 
 his brow. 
 
 " Had Victor Gaspiani atoned by matrimonial 
 alliance, I could have forgiven his guilt. But, 
 Mr. Lempriere," cried St. John, standing im- 
 pressively before his listener, " the fiend entrapped 
 F
 
 66 MURDER BY WARRANT 
 
 that frail girl while tied by the bonds of a secret 
 marriage ! Yes ; he had clandestinely contracted 
 an alliance with a woman of humble origin, and 
 when my sister besought him to marry her, his 
 answer was a confession of infamy. I was to 
 meet him — he fled ! That night my sister, seized 
 with insanity, died the death of a suicide ! " 
 
 The passionate man strode to the casement, 
 and looked steadfastly at the unresponsive moor. 
 
 " I pursued that man for two years," said St. 
 John, approaching close to Lempriere. " I meant 
 to slay him. From country to country I tracked 
 him, but, his cowardly instinct instructing him, 
 he constantly eluded my search. At length, lost 
 and shadowless to trace, no clue rewarded my 
 efforts. My wanderings bringing me to Con- 
 stantinople, I hazarded inquiries at the Italian 
 Embassy. I learned — yes, I confess — with 
 devilish delight, Victor Gaspiani had died in that 
 city of Asiatic cholera ! " 
 
 " I returned to Naples. I could not remain. I 
 had conjured up hatred of Italy — of all Italians. 
 Frank Frogmore had business relations with my 
 family. I knew him well. We met. I told him 
 all, how I pined for solitude, for forgetfulness, 
 feeling bitterly my neglect of my sister had 
 tended to her ruin. He offered me an asylum 
 here. I accepted. Thus, Mr. Lempriere, you 
 have the reason of my self-immurement in this 
 distant mansion."
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 This is a chapter of love — sweet, bewitching, 
 innocent love. Who shall portray the enslaving 
 emotion ? — who define its subtle illusion ? A feat 
 fitted for one who has roamed its dreary bliss, has 
 sipped its magic elixir. The unromantic shun 
 the conflicting ecstasy, decry its decoying dis- 
 traction. Dash their ineradicable timidity ! Why 
 be shy of the sinuous conceit ? Why eschew 
 the dazzling enchantment ? — or be inapt to paint 
 its beauty or depict its deformity ? 
 
 Yes — love is sweet ; for pretty kisses, tender 
 glances, and gentle sighs are the lover's stock-in- 
 trade. It is also bewitching ; easily wheedling 
 the sentimental into the fanciful mazes of 
 spooning. It is passing innocent — surely, 
 beginning in folly, ending in confusion. And it is 
 disappointing. Love in a cottage and no loaf is 
 a grim picture — blotted out by a long leap, a 
 brief struggle, and an inquest. Intoxicated and 
 inalert, love makes ducks and drakes of the 
 unconsidered future — crying for renewal of the 
 time taken in tying the nuptial knot. What a 
 strange physic ! Once swallowed, nobody seeks a 
 second dose. What a fickle flame ! — for, despite 
 fuel and fierceness, it is always snuffed out. 
 Why ? Ah !— why ? 
 
 67
 
 68 MURDER BY WARRANT 
 
 George Lambert junior was seated uncom- 
 monly close to Miss Josephine Lempriere, and 
 that young lady was looking radiantly happy. 
 Why ? What in the world was the young 
 gentleman saying ? Did his remarks refer to her 
 dear and absent papa ? Had some accident 
 befallen the family property ? Yes — but not the 
 real or personal. The family property under 
 mishap was the heart of Miss Josephine 
 Lempriere. 
 
 The fact was a great calamity was afflicting 
 Josephine — the irrecoverable loss of exactly half 
 her heart. She was feeling grieved and giddy, 
 when Lambert junior mended her case with an 
 even half of his. This restored her tottering 
 balance and easily kept her straight. 
 
 The above exchange, or fusion of hearts, ex- 
 hibited prudent foresight. Exchange it was, for 
 Josephine's loss was the lawyer's theft. She only 
 lost half — not the whole ! He offered a moiety — ■ 
 not the bulk ! But the foreign halves were very 
 active, and the owner of each looked marvellously 
 altered. Conversation was hushed into rippling 
 murmurs — eyes were glistening, lips were meeting. 
 The situation was very extraordinary, most in- 
 teresting, extremely provoking ! 
 
 That evening two young people were vastly 
 cruel. They threw Mr. Lempriere into throes of 
 distress. They explained their plan of happiness 
 and invited him to subscribe to the under- 
 taking. Poor Mr. Lempriere ! The news drove 
 him into many moods — from misery to despair.
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT 69 
 
 from despair to the dangers of liquid grief. He 
 launched in the sadness of approaching separa- 
 tion ; floated in the dulness of impending domestic 
 solitude ; foundered in the prospect of sundered 
 family ties. By degrees, however, he was buoyed 
 into acquiescence. A winning whisper filled the 
 breach of separation. A fondling arm forbade 
 the dread of isolation. Affection unfading would 
 never brook neglect. Yes, he would sometimes 
 go to her home, be reminded of former times, and 
 reconcile himself to the duties of a grandpapa. 
 And should he marry again and make a mistake, 
 he would debit his disgust — well,^perhaps to him- 
 self.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 " Do congratulate me, Martella," cried Jose- 
 phine, flinging her arms round a handsome 
 woman, who returned the embrace while vainly 
 attempting to conceal a cigarette. 
 
 " My — my dear " 
 
 " Never mind, Aunt. Don't hide your cigarette. 
 I'll forgive you. I have my weakness, too. I've 
 fallen in love. I'm going to be married ! " 
 
 " Oh, Josephine, Josephine ! " Martella could 
 say no more — she resumed her cigarette. 
 
 " Yes, Martella, dearest. I'm going to be 
 married — to — to — a solicitor." 
 
 Miss Seldon sprang to her feet, flinging her 
 cigarette in the grate. 
 
 " A solicitor ! " she cried, catching her breath. 
 
 " To George Lambert junior," demurely added 
 the niece. 
 
 The aunt's manner changed. 
 
 " Engaged to good looks, a splendid practice — 
 to — to — wealth — and — and — undoubted ancestry. 
 Let me embrace you, dear, dearest Josephine." 
 
 Martella Seldon was full of sense and determina- 
 tion, the imperious owner of no ordinary reputa- 
 tion. She had travelled through time for thirty 
 
 70
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT 71 
 
 years, and felt none the worse for the journey. 
 Immersed in mundane affairs, she was hardly the 
 person to plead to live in order to learn how to 
 die. Not that she was wicked or unscrupulous, 
 or ignored the bliss promised by futurity. Her 
 character was merely dashed with hauteur, and 
 interestingly unconventional. Balls and bustle and 
 receptions and conversation crowded every hour ; 
 and at elections and public meetings her canvassing 
 powers and speeches produced prized totals and 
 faultless diction. 
 
 Apart from her claim to originality, Miss 
 Seldon had striking personal qualifications. 
 A fine forehead, firm nose, and rounded 
 chin betokened the sterling characteristics she 
 possessed ; and her flashing eyes and thin lips 
 inspired homage mingled with awe. Her 
 masculine admirers resolved, without amend- 
 ment, that she excelled in grace and dignity of 
 deportment, their only indecision being whether 
 to worship the woman, her wisdom, or her 
 wealth. 
 
 Martella was first cousin to Lempriere, who (by 
 means of a father, a legal entity tricked with the 
 essentials of holy wedlock) was born nephew to 
 Priscilla Lempriere, who married Jonathan Sel- 
 don. Priscilla and Jonathan perceived in each 
 other at first sight the precise exposition of 
 reciprocal sentiments. They mutually accepted 
 life as probationary — wherein we are born to brief 
 youth, to enter marriage, rear children, save 
 money, make a will, expel a valedictory gasp
 
 72 MURDER BY WARRANT 
 
 and expire into immaterial blessedness. This 
 their simple creed, they united, and in due time 
 were blessed with Martella. Afterwards, believ- 
 ing it useless to dawdle here below and relinquish 
 {pro tanto) the rewards reserved above, Mr. Seldon 
 sent for his lawyer and drew his will, and then 
 was drawn to a churchyard from which he never 
 returned. Later, his relict took to her bed — 
 breathing her last in the presence of a prayer 
 preferred by the specially retained household 
 divine, and mingling with the great majority to 
 search for her missing Jonathan. 
 
 Martella, her parents having withdrawn from 
 terrestrial responsibility, exhibited at a compara- 
 tively early age tendencies of an emphatic type. 
 She remained under guardianship until she was 
 able to run alone ; and a disposition to this style 
 of progress disclosed itself promptly. It is 
 manifest from tradesmen's bills that she arrayed 
 herself in a remarkable outfit, and, accompanied 
 by a lady full of languages, travelled through the 
 countries of Europe. Her wanderings over, she 
 returned, and, with her splendid fortune, made 
 much intermittent display in London, Paris, and 
 Vienna. 
 
 Miss Seldon had never encouraged offers of 
 marriage. This was no wonder, her tastes being 
 admittedly fastidious. Handsome heads, minus 
 brains, she despised ; and clever ones, competing 
 with her own, she disliked. Modern art and 
 literature bored her ; and commercial eminence 
 magnified her disdain. She aspired to ascend
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT ^i 
 
 demonstrably — to flutter before a marvelling 
 public — to ventilate powers conspicuous and 
 pronounced. Her heart — usually beating a digni- 
 fied measure — throbbed responsively to the 
 passionate peroration of the accomplished orator. 
 She patronised celebrities who permitted the 
 liberty, and endured mediocrity in moments of 
 ennui. Authors, poets, and painters were 
 welcomed in the ante-room of her sympathy ; and 
 explorers, owning books praising their exploits, 
 received rare morsels of discriminating regard. 
 
 It might be surmised Miss Seldon was in 
 danger of the doubtful privilege of interminable 
 spinsterhood. Although she had never betrayed 
 the slightest symptom of the tender passion, she 
 had been suspected of casting connubial glances on 
 Signor Victor Corelli. If true, motive, not love, 
 formed the basis of her design — personal regard, 
 suffused with self-interest, possibly supporting 
 the superstructure. 
 
 Corelli had often visited Lempriere in Mayfair, 
 and had willingly basked in Martella's smiles. 
 But, if she aspired to be Lady President of his 
 glorious Republic, he apparently was unprepared 
 to gratify her aim. He was invincibly astute. A 
 bachelor, his own master, he had no desire to be 
 propped up and worried by a clever woman. He 
 embraced a refined discretion — opposing a 
 deferential ear to her lively assertiveness, a 
 solemn unconsciousness to her mildest blandish- 
 ment. Miss Seldon was not slow to perceive 
 Corelli was no " catch " ; so, bottling her chagrin
 
 74 MURDER BY WARRANT 
 
 — if she had any fit for corking — she became a 
 patient listener — a profound poHcy — to his crisp 
 anecdotes and novel political principles. 
 
 Democratic institutions supplied the means for 
 constant colloquial gymnastics in Mr. Lempriere's 
 drawing-room. Cant clauses and kindred plati- 
 tudes were examined and admired ; while a dollar 
 aristocracy and the sovereign value of the parvenu 
 were debated by Corelli with unflagging anima- 
 tion. The insidious influence flowing from 
 republican principles began to ramify Martella's 
 mind ; and by gentle but definite gradations she 
 was sensible of a puzzling shiftiness in the 
 sincerity of her convictions. She discovered her 
 reverence for Royalty was undergoing silent dis- 
 integration ; and insinuating encroachments were 
 threatening her attachment to a blue-blooded 
 aristocracy. These extraordinary departures from 
 conservative latitudes startled and alarmed her ; 
 but she soon grew accustomed to the dizzy 
 descents which perfected the modelling of her 
 political conversion. New principles, if novel, 
 are relished in any dressing ; but, to give piquancy 
 to the repast, the feasters must be appetized with 
 ignorance. Thus fortified, they will swallow any 
 quack monstrosity imposed by democratic dog- 
 matism. Being new and noisy, the blatant 
 theories are instantly popular — time for growth 
 and cultivation not figuring in the reckoning. At 
 the outset their collision with old tenets excites 
 uproar ; but repugnance subsides into contempt 
 in proportion as it appears that bluster is the
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT 75 
 
 oackground and hypocrisy the proscenium of an 
 improvised stage of unrehearsed actors. 
 
 Martella Seldon was indolently reclining in the 
 rocking chair which is the passion of frequenters 
 of South American Hotels. She had banished 
 herself to the privacy of her boudoir, and — ought 
 we to tell tales ? — was inhaling a delicately per- 
 fumed cigarette. Perhaps it was to cure a 
 captious digestion, or was allaying some nervous 
 excitement. Whichever excuse was uppermost, 
 she puffed and rocked herself contentedly, and 
 enjoyed the peculiar pleasure of unbroken 
 abstraction. 
 
 " Yes," muttered Martella, " a new era is dawn- 
 ing, and I must change my tactics. Yes — I must 
 marry ! In these days of fashionable activity the 
 fashionable spinster is a social anachronism. I 
 thought differently once, but truth is indomitable. 
 Marriage ! " exclaimed Miss Seldon, vehemently 
 puffing a perfumed cloud — " yes — marriage ! I 
 once dreamed I should unite myself to rank and 
 intellect. T was the dupe of my fancy. Rank 
 and intellect act, after all, very naturally. They 
 make matches of affection and become responsible 
 for families. Ah — I have no claim to motherhood. 
 Children, at best, are tiresome distractions. I 
 have lost nothing by missing to capture an 
 embryo Lord Chancellor. No, indeed — I am a 
 gainer. I have escaped the misery of rearing the 
 usual brood of boobies. How charily clever 
 parents bestow their abilities upon their progeny ! 
 Position ? Well, yes, I have certainly missed
 
 76 MURDER BY WARRANT 
 
 that. But in these democratic days political 
 office fails to fascinate imagination. The poetry 
 of publicity has vanished. What care the crowd 
 for the Premier disinclined to simulate the art of 
 the demagogue? And what now is political 
 eloquence ? An insufferable volume of trite 
 commonplaces, vapid pledges, and fabricated 
 abuse. Eloquence everywhere is in chronic 
 decline. The stuff used at the bar is fast wearing 
 to rags, if it is not already in tatters. Why think 
 of titled estates ? — wincing under the plague of 
 threatened confiscation, Far better hard cash — 
 free from perils of the contagion. No — titles are 
 tawdry playthings. Progress and science main- 
 stay communities, the foundation of these being 
 wealth. Without wealth, their forces would 
 spend themselves in vain. Wealth holds honour- 
 able place ; it is playing a conspicuous part. My 
 wealth joined to Corelli's — he President of his 
 glorious Republic — his talents shining — and — 
 I " 
 
 The enlightened sentence was never finished. 
 The door of the boudoir opened, and, ere she 
 could hide her cigarette, Martella was returning 
 the embrace of Josephine Lempriere. 
 
 " Yes, Aunt," said the niece, " I am going 
 to be married to the most amiable lawyer in 
 London." 
 
 " Ah, Josephine, I hope his head is equal to 
 his heart." 
 
 Josephine had no doubt about the heart, and 
 less about the head.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 *' And so, my dear Lempriere," said Corelli, in 
 his soft foreign accent, "this is one of the days 
 set apart by your singular relative for the 
 reception of visitors ? " 
 
 " For the reception of one visitor. I may only 
 receive one a month from the outside world." 
 
 " From what other world would you have 
 one ? " 
 
 " There is a Mr. St. John living here whom I 
 may meet." 
 
 " St. John ! " echoed Corelli, thoughtfully 
 stroking his moustache. 
 
 " Otherwise, I may meet nobody within these 
 walls." 
 
 " Strange — most strange," murmured the 
 foreigner, stepping to the verandah and surveying 
 the moor. 
 
 " What do you think of the view ? " 
 
 " Sad looking — very." 
 
 Lempriere, folding his arms resignedly, nodded 
 assent. 
 
 " Ah," said the Italian, finishing a wistful 
 study, " have care, my friend, lest this life of 
 solitude sow the seeds of incurable melancholy." 
 
 77
 
 78 MURDER BY WARRANT 
 
 Lempriere sighed and laughed, and proposed 
 they should inspect the accessible portions of the 
 house. Corelli was amazed at the structure, and 
 noticing the resolute ugliness of everything, 
 inquired whether the architect was a genius. As 
 this information was wanting, he continued to 
 gaze and ruminate. Lempriere and Jenkins, 
 when applied to, only shook their heads ; and 
 finally the foreigner, being of the same mind, 
 gravely shook his. 
 
 " Let us have a stroll on the moor," said 
 Lempriere, leading the Italian through the gate- 
 way. 
 
 " Ah, my dear friend ! " cried Corelli, employing 
 his favourite phrase, " I have received supreme 
 intelligence trom my glorious Republic." 
 
 Lempriere rejoiced. He did not literally 
 appreciate how the supremacy arose, since, with 
 genuine British instinct, he disbelieved that any- 
 thing supreme existed beyond the pale of the 
 United Kingdom. He was, however, delighted, 
 with a dash of reserve, to find he had been fogged 
 by a national misconceit. 
 
 " Yes, the intelligence I have received enchants 
 my soul." 
 
 " Let me hear it," said Lempriere, forcing a 
 fitting smile. "I yearn to profess my joy of the 
 fortune favouring your destiny." 
 
 " My destiny ! " sighed Corelli, a serious ex- 
 pression subduing his vivacity. " Well, call it 
 destiny, if you will. But Destiny is cruel. She 
 fosters prospects only to disenchant ; promotes
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT 79 
 
 designs merely to destroy. We are her sport, her 
 victim, and applause is her brightest weapon. 
 Life is one long craving for applause. It is our 
 essence — yes ; and while it swells and the wings of 
 triumph spread, Destiny descends and vanquishes 
 our hopes. I falter, Lempriere, yes, I falter when 
 
 I . But I moralise, dear friend, do I not ? " 
 
 asked Corelli, whose fervour and philosophy died 
 away in an instant. 
 
 Lempriere had no difficulty in persuading the 
 Italian to divert his discourse from abstract 
 theories and turn its full tide upon himself. This 
 change was so easy, simple, and natural, that 
 Corelli embraced it with avidity. 
 
 " I have informed you of my political ambition. 
 Well, it is about to be consummated. My Conces- 
 sion is considered a grand stroke of luck for my 
 glorious Republic. It floated so finely on the 
 English market that my notoriety in my adopted 
 country has mounted by leaps and bounds — as 
 one of your orators declared of your beneficent 
 income tax." 
 
 Len^priere, while omitting to correct, thought 
 the famous phrase had been nimbly applied. 
 
 " I have been offered," continued the Italian, 
 clasping his hands, " a prized portfolio in the 
 ministry of my Republic." 
 
 " I congratulate you," cried Lempriere, casting 
 off British reserve. " And when must you accept 
 the honour ?" 
 
 " I accepted it by cable this morning," answered 
 Corelli, his swarthy features aglow with elation.
 
 8o MURDER BY WARRANT 
 
 "What! — accepted it off-hand? You have 
 raised no scruples ? — made no obstinate reserva- 
 tions ? Oh, CorelK, you are too honest for a 
 poHtician ! " 
 
 " In my glorious Republic politicians are 
 patriots. In this old country they are all pro- 
 fessionals." 
 
 " Quite true," said Lempriere, knocking the ash 
 from his cigar. "We are a practical people. 
 Government means keeping the public purse ; 
 spending the public money ; maintaining public 
 order; and defending the public stomach." 
 
 " Defending the public stomach ! " cried Corelli 
 in astonishment. 
 
 " Yes — a very important defence. We have 
 nothing to gain by conquest, but many things 
 to preserve, the chief being the preservation of 
 country. This must be accomplished by a 
 continuous sufficiency of food. In other words, 
 defending our shores means defending the public 
 stomach." 
 
 " Quite right ! " theatrically exclaimed Corelli. 
 " Long live the public stomach ! " 
 
 " Somebody is making odd use of his stomach 
 over there," remarked Lempriere. 
 
 Both gentlemen directed their gaze to the form 
 of a man prone on the earth in a dip or hollow of 
 the moor. He was so intent on surveying the 
 mansion through a telescope that he had not 
 been warned of their approach. 
 
 " Another confounded detective," muttered the 
 ex-banker.
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT 8i 
 
 " Ask yer parding," said the owner of the 
 telescope. " I'm jest takin' a bud's-eye sight uv 
 thet there bloomin' old brickstack." 
 
 " A photographer, I presume ? " ironically 
 inquired Corelli. 
 
 " No — a connoueyezer." 
 
 ** A what, my dear friend ? " 
 
 "A chap as can't make 'ead or tail uv anythin' 
 'e sees." 
 
 A shocking squint distorted the eyes of the 
 powerful man who now rose to his feet. 
 
 " Why are you studying my property ? " asked 
 Lampriere. 
 
 " Coz a cat may look at a king." 
 
 "The conduct of a cat is often suspicious." 
 
 " Suspect as much as yer please, guvnor. It 
 won't kill me." 
 
 Before Lempriere could reply, the rough fellow, 
 who was attired in a style denoting denizen- 
 ship of Whitechapel, pocketed his telescope and 
 slouched off. 
 
 " There's a cut-throat for you — perhaps a 
 burglar," remarked Corelli. "Are you well 
 defended, dear friend ? " 
 
 " I have fire-arms," answered Lempriere, 
 awaking out of an uncomfortable reverie. 
 
 The gentlemen returned to the mansion, and, 
 ascending to the library, plunged into arm-chairs. 
 
 " When do you leave England ? " 
 
 " I shall embark to-morrow week," replied the 
 Italian, lighting a cigar. 
 
 " So soon ? Well, the business of the 
 
 G
 
 82 MURDER BY WARRANT 
 
 Concession is in excellent order. Old Lambert 
 will continue to watch your interests." 
 
 " That man," said Corelli, forgetting the 
 lawyer's polished baldness, " has a wonderfully 
 clear head." 
 
 " Lambert senior is as clever a lawyer as any 
 in Lincoln's Inn." 
 
 "Ah, Lincoln's Inn," said the foreigner, 
 emitting an emphatic whiff to render the remark 
 conspicuous. " Your lawyers are as gregarious 
 as crows, and their costume is nearly as dark." 
 
 The gentlemen were agreeably startled by the 
 sound of the luncheon gong. Recovering 
 presence of mind, they rose to enjoy the palatable 
 meal prim Mrs. Jenkins had punctiliously 
 prepared to gratify the foreigner. Corelli was 
 urbane to the elderly housekeeper ; full of 
 sparkling badinage to Lempriere ; and assiduous 
 in his attention to the decanters. Lempriere gave 
 noble example of an Englishman's mid -day 
 appetite; of his love of jovial joking; of his 
 ability to keep pace with any European anti- 
 temperance advocate. The luncheon over, the 
 gentlemen returned to the library and restored 
 themselves to the luxury of arm-chairs and cigars. 
 
 Of course Corelli was full of his future. 
 
 "In my glorious Republic politics are familiarly 
 conversed. Every man is a politician." 
 
 " Not so here," returned Lempriere. " The 
 interest of the crowd in politics is a simmering 
 conceit. Follow my leader is the cue of our 
 country, and few appreciate the stormy questions
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT 83 
 
 that ruffle the stream of political life." 
 
 " But your careful countrymen read their 
 newspapers." 
 
 " Truly — for murders and divorces." 
 
 " I wish to report, sir," said Jenkins, speaking 
 from the verandah, " that a rough man has been 
 loafing on the moor ever so long. I've been 
 watching him through a telescope." 
 
 " Well done, Mr. Jenkins," laughed Corelli. 
 " An eye for an eye, eh ? Your friend on the 
 moor is equally qualified." 
 
 "I know he is, sir; and it strikes me he is 
 qualifying for a visit here. I'll have another look 
 at him. He's still about," said Jenkins, dis- 
 appearing to re-adjust his glass. 
 
 " Shall you visit Italy ? " asked Lempriere. 
 
 The foreigner started, and the hand holding the 
 cigar trembled. But his usual composure soon 
 re-appeared. 
 
 " No ; I shall not visit Italy. My native land 
 is dear to my heart, but there are circumstances 
 I never mention — memories I name to my God, 
 which I shall never efface, perhaps never atone. 
 Italy, dear Italy ! land of ineffable charm — land I 
 may love, pray for, but never revisit." 
 
 The dinner that night was a brilliant success. 
 Mrs. Jenkins exceeded herself, and outweighed 
 Lempriere's improvised calculations. Corelli 
 marvelled at her culinary expertness. Had she 
 been studying modern cookery ? Had some 
 savant in the toothsome art drawn aside the magic 
 veil and revealed an assortment of coveted
 
 84 MURDER BY WARRANT 
 
 dainties ? Neither savant nor study was 
 responsible for the wisdom which marshalled 
 the meal that night. It was prim Mrs. Jenkins 
 in the superlative apparel of original invention ! 
 
 " This wine is superb," said Corelli, exalting 
 his glass. 
 
 " Aye," remarked Lempriere, " poets and 
 painters have owed language and colour to the 
 prompting of Bacchus." 
 
 " He is a delightful fellow to meet after a hard 
 day's work." 
 
 " Not another deity is at once so worshipped 
 and reviled." 
 
 " The revilers are insipid grumblers. The man 
 of imagination loves the subtle excitement which 
 is the essence of elegant wine." 
 
 " Here, hear ! " exclaimed Lempriere, in 
 parliamentary style. " By the way, Corelli, you 
 promised to sing a song you have written and set 
 to music." 
 
 Corelli was never loth to exhibit his powers as 
 a pianist, but he had never before appeared in 
 the character of composer. Vanity had incited 
 him to subscribe to the weakness, and Lempriere 
 was curious to hear the production. 
 
 As the men entered the drawing-room they 
 moved intuitively towards the window. The 
 blinds were undrawn, and the richly constellated 
 heavens were bathing the changeless moor with 
 soft celestial light. The view was entrancing, 
 and the Italian gazed rapturously, the ardour of 
 his southern nature aroused into ethereal con-
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT 85 
 
 templation. Lempriere, standing stock-still, his 
 legs stretched apart, the tip of his nose at an 
 angle of forty-five, also absorbed the scene. But 
 no ideal rapture suffused his practical mind — the 
 prosaic gist of a blue book on epidemics better 
 pleasing his romanceless fancy. Heaving a faint 
 sigh, Corelli turned from the casement and 
 approached the piano. Running his experienced 
 fingers dreamily over the keys, he slowly 
 commenced this somewhat singular song : — 
 
 A land of rare beauty, of treasure sublime, 
 
 I pine to revisit once more — 
 To linger and love in its soft sunny clime, 
 
 And memory's vision restore. 
 Hard fate, unrelenting, denies me the bliss 
 
 To gaze where I once drew my breath. 
 Or imprint on one stone the heartbreaking kiss 
 
 Of the exile banished till death. 
 
 But why should I grieve ? Let us live for to-day ; 
 
 The unknown to-morrow we'll scout ; 
 The joy of the morning ere noon may decay. 
 
 Or sink in the shadows of doubt. 
 Altho' on the future, to fancy so fair, 
 
 I dwell with increasing delight. 
 She's fickle and false, casting hope in despair, 
 
 As the day fades into the night. 
 Away with sad omens ! I vow and acclaim 
 
 My heart throbs the burning desire 
 To mount and slake thirst at the fountain of fame, 
 
 The breath of ambition respire. 
 But, see, a dark phantom is crossing my path, 
 
 Obscuring the ravishing sight. 
 It beckons — it points — wildly seeming in wrath — 
 
 Far away in the mystic night. 
 
 The voice ceased — ending almost in a wail.
 
 86 MURDER BY WARRANT 
 
 Lempriere was startled. Before him, on the 
 verandah at the unveiled window, stood the form 
 of Caspar St. John, cloaked and hooded, stern 
 and motionless. His arms were folded, his head 
 bent, his face almost pressed the pane. But his 
 expression — the fierce and concentrated scorn, the 
 pale contracted hatred — thrilled and riveted 
 Lempriere. Rigidly stood the student, his dark 
 dilated eyes fixed and fascinated by the foreigner. 
 Corelli, turning and half rising, paused and 
 shrank before the fire of that withering glance. 
 Recovering, he rose erect, stepped forward, 
 hesitated 
 
 St. John had vanished. 
 
 "Are you lost in fatalistic musing?" said 
 Corelli, in his old voice, placing a hand coaxingly 
 on Lempriere's shoulder. 
 
 *' My dear fellow," said the other, awaking from 
 a trance and evading the Italian's question, 
 " what on earth made you write such a doleful 
 ditty ? " 
 
 "Ah, I daresay you think me odd, but I never 
 could compose a merry piece." 
 
 Half-an-hour afterwards Corelli, in high spirits 
 and accompanied a short way by Lempriere, rode 
 into the lonely star-lit night. The Italian was 
 overflowing with generous emotions. The 
 splendour of the heavens, the potency of a loving 
 cup just imbibed, and the captivation of brilliant 
 expectations breaking into bloom, combined to 
 exercise the idealism which dominated his varying 
 moods. His refined loquacity was diversified by
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT 87 
 
 allusions to his opening career, to his recognition 
 of the worthiness of British character — no 
 insignificant compliment — and to the happy hours 
 he had spent in England. At length the moment 
 for parting arrived. With clasped hands and 
 many a warm shake, the two men reiterated 
 assurances of undying friendship. A last 
 farewell, a wave of his arm, and Corelli cantered 
 out of sight into the lonesome night.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 " Good morning, Basil," said Martella, reining in 
 her horse and extending her hand. " And this is 
 how you spend your leisure at Murkwoop ? " 
 
 " To-day is not one for visitors," said Lem- 
 priere, peevishly saluting his cousin. 
 
 " Ugh ! " exclaimed the lady, shrugging her 
 shoulders and yielding to a grimace. " What a 
 dismal place ! " 
 
 Miss Seldon had ridden over from the village 
 
 of X , about five miles distant. Bold in 
 
 everything, she was unattended — astonishing 
 Lempriere out of a brown study by galloping 
 down and suddenly pronouncing his name. 
 
 " I know it is not a day for visitors, cousin. 
 But I suppose," said the lady, looking slyly at 
 Lempriere, " one may roam at rifle-range from 
 the mansion, and still not be infringing that 
 stupid legacy ? " 
 
 Poor Basil Lempriere ! Why was everybody 
 sneering at his legacy ? Calling it stupid was 
 calling him a fool ! Of course it was. Insuffer- 
 able ! Was he not pining for liberty ? That he 
 was, and 
 
 " I say, cousin," quietly remarked Martella, 
 *' could you manage to introduce me to that sour 
 recluse, Mr. Caspar St. John ? " 
 
 " Oh ! " impatiently answered Lempriere, " he 
 
 83
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT 89 
 
 has a fit of the blues, and is keeping his room. 
 He was to have breakfasted with me this 
 morning, but I got a Httle note begging me to 
 excuse him. CorelH was here yesterday, and St. 
 John, who was pacing the verandah, caught sight 
 of him through the window. I suspect the 
 appearance of the ItaHan has upset him." 
 
 " Upset him ? How curious ! " 
 
 *' It is simply ridiculous ! " assented Lempriere, 
 viciously flicking his glove. 
 
 " But why is it ? He does not know Corelli, 
 and " 
 
 " Oh, a dislike of — er — Italians runs in the 
 blood of the St. Johns." 
 
 " Very extraordinary. I more than ever desire 
 to be introduced. He must be extremely 
 interesting." 
 
 " Most interesting, except when you talk about 
 Italians. If you do that you must look out for a 
 terrific battery of refined abuse." 
 
 " If I am introduced I must not refer to " 
 
 '' On no account mention Italy or her inhabi- 
 tants." 
 
 " I promise. So you had Corelli here, 
 yesterday ? How did he like Murkwoop ? " 
 
 " Hated it at first sight. He is leaving 
 England. I suppose you know ? " 
 
 " I was not aware. Is he returning to South 
 America ? " 
 
 Basil informed his cousin of the foreigner's 
 acceptance of office, adding, many sighs punctu- 
 ating his remarks, that he wished he himself had
 
 go MURDER BY WARRANT 
 
 the chance of entering the ranks of a Ministry. 
 
 " Why not strive to become prominent in 
 Parliament ? " 
 
 *' Impossible in present circumstances." 
 
 " I never cease to wonder why you persist in 
 hiding yourself in this hideous corner of the 
 country." 
 
 " Well, there is — er — another House, a grander 
 House, an — er — in short, an Upper House." 
 
 Miss Seldon was so surprised that she 
 dismounted without assistance. 
 
 " Yes, Martella, a House you may enter by 
 means of — er — hard cash." 
 
 " You are aiming at a peerage, Basil ? " 
 
 " My first aim is a hospital — my next — er — is a 
 peerage." 
 
 " Is that why you are so patient here ? " 
 
 "It is ; and it was my reason for joining 
 Corelli in promoting his great Concession. Two 
 piles of cash are better than one ; and three piles 
 are — er — better than — er — " but here he lisped 
 and lingered, and was half inclined to pause. 
 
 Miss Seldon was too much of a woman to 
 allow her curiosity to be baulked by so silly an 
 obstacle as a man's hesitation. 
 
 " Three piles ! What do you mean? Where 
 will the third pile come from ? " 
 
 " It is a contingent pile," explained Lempriere 
 to his strong minded relative. " If anything 
 should happen to Corelli — I mean should he die 
 — I should receive the sum of money he stands 
 to make."
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT gi 
 
 <( 
 
 But he is not likely to die. It is more 
 probable he will become President of his glorious 
 Republic." 
 
 " In that case there would be no Lady President 
 to lead society, unless " 
 
 " Unless I could persuade him to marry me," 
 said the downright Martella. *' Well, I don't 
 care much for the man, but I confess the position 
 of Lady President " 
 
 " Would be attractive, and — er — would really 
 be novel." 
 
 "Decidedly. An Italian and an Englishwoman 
 ruling the political and social policy of an 
 important Republic. It certainly flavours " 
 
 " Of the romantic." 
 
 *' Precisely. I came over to tell you, cousin, I 
 shall be off to Vienna on Saturday." 
 
 " Will you be absent long ? " 
 
 '* A fortnight. Have you managed to * pair ' 
 with Montague, or do you want me to " 
 
 "Oh, bother the House of Commons!" cried 
 the member for Breeze, looking bombs and 
 dynamite and all manner of explosive purposes.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 It was a bright morning and Lempriere rose 
 refreshed. PulHng aside the bhnd he wondered 
 why the moor was so abominably flat. He next 
 argued that a Httle upheaval, arranged by an 
 earthquake, would nicely relieve the landscape 
 and shake Murkwoop into romantic ruins. He 
 would rather not be personally embroiled in the 
 business, but he believed a revision of outline — 
 the moor a mountain and the mansion a wreck — 
 would reduce the legacy into immediate 
 possession. 
 
 " Bless my soul," thought Lempriere, buttoning 
 his collar and breaking his thumbnail. " Bless 
 my — damn the stud ! " cried he, forgetting the 
 purity of speech acquired in Parliament. " Bless 
 my — well — what odd ideas enter one's head ! 
 Suppose," mused he, fondly fingering a lucifer, 
 " Murkwoop were burnt down to - morrow ? 
 Suppose such a thing ! Why, I should grab the 
 legacy the very next day. Old Frogmore only 
 condemned me to live in his Murkwoop. Well, 
 now, if his Murkwoop were burned down to- 
 morrow I should be free ;- for all the King's 
 horses and all the King's men could never erect 
 his Murkwoop again.'' 
 
 92
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT 93 
 
 Caspar St. John was to breakfast with 
 Lempriere. The student's startling appearance 
 on the verandah while Corelli was singing was 
 almost effaced from the ex-banker's memory. 
 Once or twice he had thought of it, but each time 
 he had considered St. John's conduct eccentric 
 and unsociable. 
 
 " Pshaw ! " exclaimed the ex-banker, after one 
 of these flights of retrospection, "why the deuce 
 didn't St. John tap at the window and come in ? 
 What is the good of hating Italians en masse ? 
 Victor Corelli has done him no harm. Yet he 
 abhors him because he's an Italian. I never 
 knew such nonsense in my life ! " And Lempriere 
 was so overcome with disgust that he ceased to 
 linger for St. John (who was late), and, seating 
 himself at the table, commenced a vigorous 
 attack on a capital breakfast. 
 
 At last St. John entered. He was pale — 
 wearing the air of a man afflicted with aching 
 thought. His manner was abstracted, his con- 
 versation desultory. Usually, he was prepared to 
 meet any dialectical opportunity; but now he 
 deliberately shunned every subject threatening to 
 involve him in the risk of controversy. 
 
 " I have often marvelled," said Lempriere, 
 " why old Frogmore left me that confounded 
 legacy." 
 
 " Are you not delighted ? " asked St. John, a 
 sarcastic smile trembling on his lips. 
 
 " I shall die all the richer. Sometimes I fancy 
 old Frogmore had a motive."
 
 94 MURDER BY WARRANT 
 
 " He always complained that his relatives left 
 him severely alone," returned St. John. " I 
 suspect there was some misunderstanding, for his 
 wealth was sufficient to have attracted shoals of 
 claimants to kindred. This neglect of his welfare, 
 or his wealth, nettled him, and I believe he 
 determined that no relative should benefit by a 
 penny until he had bent his back to the command 
 of a testamentary decree." 
 
 " You think," said the ex-banker, shifting 
 uneasily, " that he meant to give all concerned a 
 taste of the testamentary birch ? " 
 
 "Well — yes ; and for every cut a gilded balm. 
 Any wound or pain can be cured by cash. All 
 admit the curative quality of that treasured 
 emollient. Dishonour can erase its stains and 
 vice vindicate its blemishes by blinding man's 
 memory with a golden band. Money may not 
 purchase escape from hangman or dungeon, but it 
 can effectually secure any sort of social immunity." 
 
 St. John rose and strode to the verandah. 
 Looking over the moor, he intently watched an 
 object moving in the distance. 
 
 " Whom have we here ? " he asked, at length. 
 
 Lempriere, with an effort, dragged himself from 
 the breakfast table, and, shading his eyes, 
 perceived a man in a cart approaching at a violent 
 pace. Going to the mantelpiece, the cautious 
 ex-banker took a field-glass and covered the 
 traveller, thus ascertaining that the occupant of 
 the cart was burly Mr. Butcher, the steady-going 
 landlord of " The Bell,"
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT 93 
 
 Butcher's face on ordinary days wore a fancy 
 colour composed of blended scarlet and blue, and 
 when he laughed laboriously this would deepen 
 to a purple in an agony ; but on entering the 
 room, on this occasion, he presented a graphic 
 group of diversified hues, which greatly astonished 
 the gentlemen. The keenness of the morning 
 had stamped his cheeks with broad spots of blue 
 and white, while scattered over the rest of his 
 visage were big blots of the regular blend, every- 
 where fringed with gooseberry green. It was not 
 a pleasant spectacle, and Lempriere secretly 
 resented his intrusion, which, under the super- 
 vision of Mr. Jenkins, had not been promoted 
 with any preliminary ceremony. 
 
 " Oh, gentlemen," said the innkeeper, rolling 
 his words as he rolled his beer-barrels, " I am the 
 bearer of evil tidings." 
 
 The gentlemen stared at him inquiringly. 
 
 " Mr. Victor Corelli," said Butcher, whose 
 ponderous solemnity boded a mighty discharge of 
 unpalatable news, " did not return to my inn the 
 night before last according to promise. I did not 
 trouble, sirs, or sit up very late, sirs, as I thought 
 he was gadding after that wicked young hussy, 
 Mary Maguire. Howsoever, sirs, this morning — 
 for, as I have said, sirs, he did not return to me 
 last night either, which was strange, as I thought 
 — well, this morning — ah, sirs ! the consequences 
 of our sins overtake us, sirs, they do, and no 
 mistake — this morning, sirs, I had news about 
 him which has frightened me out of my very wits."
 
 96 MURDER BY WARRANT 
 
 The innkeeper, who had risen from his seat, 
 now walked across the room quaking in every Hmb. 
 Arriving at the central window, he raised and 
 pointed his^ hand over the moor, exclaiming, 
 laconically : 
 
 " He is over there ! " 
 
 " Over there ? " cried Lempriere, half-puzzled, 
 half-alarmed, at the innkeeper's demeanour. 
 
 " Over there!" pointed Butcher, determined not 
 to be misunderstood. 
 
 " My good fellow, explain yourself," urged 
 Lempriere, showing petulance. 
 
 " Mr. Victor Corelli," retorted Butcher, in his 
 climax, " is lying over there — over there, dead ! — 
 aye, dead ! " 
 
 " Dead ! " shouted the ex-banker, aghast. 
 
 " Dead ! A labouring man, going to a new job, 
 came to the place where the body lies, about two 
 miles from the boundary of the moor. He turned, 
 and ran back all the way to the village. I am 
 here to say, also, sirs, that Mr. Corelli has been 
 brutally murdered ! " 
 
 " Murdered ? " gasped Lempriere, pale with 
 agitation. 
 
 " Murdered and robbed, and his body is lying 
 — over there ! " 
 
 There was a frenzied hurrying, and frantic, 
 horrifying thoughts coursed through Lempriere's 
 brain. He was quickly in the saddle, galloping 
 madly over the moor. Shrinking with dread, he 
 drew rein at the fatal spot. There was no 
 mistake. Corelli's corpse lay stark and cold —
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT 97 
 
 life, hope, ambition cast down and annihilated by 
 the dastardly blow of a godless assassin. There 
 were no signs of a struggle. He had been 
 stunned and — shot ! A bruise on the temple and 
 a wound behind the ear told the bitter tale of his 
 terrible end. 
 
 H
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 Lempriere was intensely shocked — nay, in a 
 maze of petrifying bewilderment. For hours 
 after the tragic discovery he was rambling through 
 that manly confusion of thought called grief, and 
 unpacking every sample of moderate sorrow for 
 Corelli's untimely departure. Later, he entered 
 the mansion of meditation, and occupied a gloomy 
 apartment in that pensive abode. Encircled by 
 the fitful shadows of his sacred retreat, his ideas 
 became clouded with mild contrition. He gently 
 blamed himself — old Frogmore in particular — as 
 indirectly instrumental to the ghastly catastrophe. 
 " If," soliloquised he, " Frogmore had not left me 
 the legacy, Corelli would never have come to 
 Murkwoop. Poor fellow!" sighed Lempriere, 
 casting up his eyes and transmitting the incense 
 of his sentiment to comfort Corelli's complaining 
 spirit. " I thought I should live to hail him 
 President of his glorious Republic. Ah ! he is 
 roaming a purer Republic now. But," pursued 
 the pondering ex-banker, " ministries up there are 
 made of angels, and there is no competition for 
 the post of President." 
 
 The corpse was carried by awed labourers to 
 
 the village of B , and on the fifth day from 
 
 the mysterions crime — for not a trace of the
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT 99 
 
 murderer existed — the Coroner convened his 
 Court to adjudge the cause of death. 
 
 The anxious villagers were early astir. Dotted 
 about the green, spreading pleasantly in front of 
 " The Bell," were groups of men and women in 
 earnest conversation. The exclusive topic of 
 discussion was the motive which had instigated 
 the crime. Robbery had followed the murder; 
 but apparently the Italian had been first stunned 
 and then shot. Why shot while insensible ? 
 Had the robber slaughtered his victim to arrest 
 the risk of pursuit ? — or was the theft to mask a 
 deed of unrelenting vengeance? 
 
 The cold inanimate clay of the once versatile 
 foreigner lay within a chamber of " The Bell." 
 That sometime frolicsome hostelry was the centre 
 of hushed remark and subdued comment, and 
 was arrayed in the symbols of mourning. Blinds 
 were drawn ; shutters were up ; the tap and 
 parlour were sombre solitudes. It is anomalous 
 that inquiries into circumstances of the violent 
 extinction of human life should be associated 
 with scenes of sublunary conviviality. But 
 custom ordains it, and claims the consonant 
 excuse of convenience. 
 
 Somewhat removed from the inn, another 
 habitation was attracting observation — the cottage 
 occupied by Mary Maguire and her mother. 
 Rumour averred the pretty dressmaker poignantly 
 deplored the death of the generous foreigner. 
 Her relations with him had not been modelled on 
 propriety ; but all the world respects sorrow when
 
 100 MURDER BY WARRANT 
 
 it is sincere. Villagers pitied the lonely grieving 
 heart bleeding beneath the bodice of her own 
 design and make. In the course of the gossip it 
 was stated that an explosion of wrath, culminating 
 in alienation, had occurred between Mary and 
 Tom Butcher. A maladroit jest of the booser 
 was the cause ; and Tom, full of rage and beer, 
 had quitted the village for London. Old Butcher, 
 eager to be rid of his disreputable offspring, 
 expedited his departure ; and Tom, having never 
 seen our wonderful Metropolis, and believing 
 beer was cheap and plentiful, packed himself off 
 to be supported by his ponderous parent at the 
 rate of one pound a week, paid in advance. 
 
 The jury, having viewed the body, assembled 
 in the club-room of the inn. Formal evidence 
 was tendered that Victor Corelli, an Italian, was 
 a naturalised citizen of the South American 
 Republic. Lempriere was called, and related the 
 circumstances of the visit to Murkwoop. He 
 was affected in a creditable manner, and gave 
 part of his evidence under the usual emotion. 
 He believed robbery was the motive, as, on the 
 night of his death, Corelli was wearing valuable 
 articles of jewellery, all of which, with important 
 documents and a roll of bank notes, were missing 
 when the body was found. Lempriere was about 
 to retire and make place for Mr. Butcher, who 
 was burning to distinguish himself, having 
 discovered the whereabouts of Corelli's horse 
 which, apparently, had bolted miles into 
 the country, nor stopped until it had taken
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT loi 
 
 refuge in the stable yard of a small farmer, who, 
 puzzled by his new possession, gladly restored the 
 animal to the pompous proprietor of "The Bell." 
 The ex-banker's withdrawal, however, was delayed 
 by the rising of a fair young gentleman, wearing 
 spectacles, who desired to cross-examine. 
 " Who are you ? " inquired the Coroner. 
 " I am a member of — the — the — bar." 
 " I understand that," briskly answered the 
 Coroner. " But who are you ? " 
 
 "A member — of— of " 
 
 " Yes, yes — I know," said the Coroner, testily. 
 " I want to know for whom you appear ? " 
 
 " Oh ! " exclaimed the bashful barrister, a new 
 light gleaming through his glasses. " I represent 
 the South American Republic." 
 
 " What is your name, sir ? " asked the Coroner. 
 " Makefame," answered the barrister, exhibiting 
 a tendency to stammer. 
 
 " Very well, Mr. Makefame, you may proceed," 
 said the Coroner, glancing quickly at the 
 jury. 
 
 This valuable permission being obtained, the 
 counsel learned in the law seemed at a loss to 
 employ it, polishing his glasses industriously, as 
 though they were to aid him to invent his 
 questions. 
 
 " Now, Mr. Makefame, we are waiting," cried 
 the Coroner, his eyebrows well up, and a germ of 
 badinage in his voice. 
 
 " Er — er — er — " began the barrister, raising a 
 hand impressively.
 
 102 MURDER BY WARRANT 
 
 Lempriere, seeing nothing to answer, looked 
 abstractedly before him. 
 
 " You are — er — Basil Lempriere, the Member 
 for Breeze ? " asked Makefame, holding a sheet of 
 paper covered with small writing. 
 
 Lempriere admitted he bore and cherished the 
 name he was born to ; also that he proudly 
 represented a borough ventilating democratic 
 principles under the aegis of a Tory caucus. 
 
 Makefame, resuming his spectacles, consulted 
 his sheet of paper, but finding his notes of one 
 pattern, none fitting the inquiry, he resolved to 
 try extemporaneous cross-examination. 
 
 " You and — er— er — the late Mr. Corelli were 
 great friends ? " 
 
 Basil answered in the affirmative, again 
 betraying that eloquent emotion permitted to 
 public men. 
 
 " You are — er — a public company promoter ? " 
 
 Mr. Lempriere indignantly denied the sugges- 
 tion, conveying rebuke in his voice. 
 
 " But — er — you promoted Mr. Corelli's Con- 
 cession ? " 
 
 " I helped to do so, being member of a 
 syndicate formed to promote it," answered the 
 ex-banker, blessing the syndicate in his heart. 
 
 "Well — er — yes — er — I see." 
 
 Lempriere breathed more freely, still blessing 
 his personal isolation by the happy medium of the 
 syndicate. 
 
 " I think," stammered Mr. Makefame, imagin- 
 ing he was gifted in the thought department, "that
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT 103 
 
 you will be — er — a large gainer by — er — the death 
 of this Italian ? " 
 
 " What on earth," interrupted the Coroner, 
 " has that to do with this inquiry ? " 
 
 " I am instructed," explained Makefame, who, 
 under that blissful ban, never dreamed of 
 discretion, " that Mr. Lempriere will pocket 
 many, many thousands of pounds because Corelli 
 is dead." 
 
 " Where is the remarkableness of that ? " asked 
 the Coroner, who, it was clear, would not be 
 trifled with. 
 
 " Surely the topic is — er — rel-e-vant ? " piteously 
 spluttered the counsel. 
 
 " It is relevant if you are ready with the theory 
 that the witness killed Corelli. Now, Mr. 
 Makefame, tell us what you are driving at." 
 
 Makefame felt he was being driven. Presently 
 he fancied he was at bay. Beside him sat a 
 determined-looking man— the instructing solicitor. 
 This person now rose and poured a volley of 
 remarks into Makefame's left ear. The learned 
 counsel, nodding dubiously, and beseechingly 
 eyeing the Coroner, again prayed for patience 
 from the presiding functionary. 
 
 " I can only suggest — a — a — theory — by — by — 
 cross-examination." 
 
 " I dechne," said the blunt Coroner, " to 
 sanction a cross-examination which is recklessly 
 intended to fling odious suspicion on an un- 
 corrupted witness. I should be permitting a 
 monstrous injustice. Mr. Lampriere has admitted
 
 104 MURDER BY WARRANT 
 
 he was last in the company of the late Corelli ; 
 and on that admission you may, if you please, 
 frame the theory that he is the murderer. But, 
 until I am so advised, I refuse to allow this cross- 
 examination." 
 
 Mr, Makefame, after whispering with the 
 instructing solicitor, ruefully resumed his seat. 
 
 The next witness was Job Jenkins. His shrewd 
 passive face was undisturbed by the novelty of 
 his surroundings ; and his evidence, that he got 
 the horses ready and watched the riders disappear, 
 was delivered with unaffected dryness. 
 
 The spectacled counsel again rose to cross- 
 examine. This time the instructing solicitor 
 also rose and kept his whispering lips sealed to 
 Makefame's left ear. 
 
 " Er — er — er — " began Makefame, repeating 
 sounds he was receiving from the solicitor. " Is 
 — is there a clock in the hall of — of — Murkwoop?" 
 
 Job said there was, and it had a loud tick. 
 
 " I don't think the ticking bears upon the 
 case," cried Mr. Makefame, brightening. 
 
 ** Not at all," added the Coroner, twirling his 
 quill and looking intently into a corner of the 
 ceiling. 
 
 " Are you a judge of horses ? " demanded 
 Makefame, with a knowing look. 
 
 " Pretty fair, sir." 
 
 " Was the horse ridden by Mr. Lempriere on 
 the night of the murder in good condition ? " 
 
 " Capital condition," answered Job, eyeing his 
 interrogator curiously.
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT 105 
 
 t( 
 
 Had it been out before on that day ? " 
 
 "No, sir." 
 
 " Now," said Makefame, inclining his ear for a 
 fresh volley of instructions, "when Mr. Lempriere 
 and Victor Corelli left Murkwoop it was ten 
 minutes past ten by the clock in the hall ? " 
 
 " Oh, was it ? " coolly remarked Job. 
 
 " Mr. Lempriere has said so. Don't you 
 confirm him? " 
 
 " I do not," emphatically replied Job. 
 
 " You do not ! " cried Makefame, growing 
 buoyant. " Why not ? " 
 
 " Because I got the horses ready in the stable, 
 and not in the hall ; and the clock was in the 
 hall, and not in the stable," sourly answered 
 Jenkins. 
 
 " Oh — I — I — yes — see," stammered Makefame, 
 bidding farewell to his confidence. " You, then, 
 were not in the hall ? " 
 
 " That's how it was, sir." 
 
 " Where did you happen to be," continued 
 Makefame, reviving under a new idea, " when Mr. 
 Lempriere returned to Murkwoop ? " 
 
 " I was in the hall." 
 
 " You were in the hall ? " repeated Makefame, 
 ducking his head and unfolding a smile. 
 
 " I was." 
 
 " Then you can tell us what time it was when 
 he got back ? " 
 
 " Oh," said Job, thoughtfully rubbing his chin, 
 " I should say it was about half-past eleven." 
 
 " So, Mr. Jenkins," exclaimed the exhilarated
 
 io6 MURDER BY WARRANT 
 
 Makefame, " on your own showing, it took Mr. 
 Lempriere one hour and twenty minutes to ride 
 five miles on a horse in good condition ? " 
 
 " Well ? "• laconically queried Jenkins. 
 
 " Do you consider, being a judge of horses, that 
 one hour and twenty minutes was a reasonable 
 time for riding such a distance on such a horse ? " 
 
 " It depends upon the pace," was the imper- 
 turbable reply. 
 
 " Oh — er — yes — I see — it — er — of course — 
 depends upon — er — the — er — pace," gurgled 
 Makefame, stammering until he broke down in that 
 singular style of speech. Finding he was barren of 
 further resource, he submitted himself to the in- 
 structing solicitor, and was safely steered to his seat. 
 
 During this sparkling display, the audience 
 stared first at the nervous barrister and then at 
 the astounded ex-banker. But staring- would fail 
 to impart any idea of Lempriere's method of 
 eyeing the forensic tyro. "What the devil does 
 it all mean ? " he muttered to himself. Unable to 
 answer this inimitable query, he applied himself, 
 in the same impressive way, to Lambert junior, 
 who was present at the inquest to watch the 
 interests of his interlocutor. 
 
 "This Makefame is a young man — a very 
 young man," explained Lambert. 
 
 " Oh ! is that all it means ? " 
 
 "Really, yes; a very young man who must 
 flutter his wings." 
 
 " Then he has been playing to the gallery at 
 my expense ? "
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT 107 
 
 " Precisely. They all do it while they are 
 young." 
 
 "Well, it would give me the greatest pleasure to 
 kick " 
 
 This finely-turned phrase died on Lempriere's 
 lips. A shuffling of feet and a turning of faces 
 announced the Coroner was summing up the case 
 to the jury. The speaker ironically sympathised 
 with Makefame's zeal to cultivate a reputation for 
 smartness. He explained that innuendoes were 
 common in every court, and grew on the lips of 
 greenish members of the bar like cherries on a 
 tree. 
 
 "No doubt, gentlemen of the jury," said the 
 Coroner, "the learned counsel acted strictly on 
 his instructions, a practice he will ameliorate as 
 his years ripen and his experience matures. He 
 has hinted, gentlemen, that, because Mr. 
 Lempriere dallied on Murkwoop Moor and 
 sauntered his horse to enjoy his meditation, he is 
 a fit object for infamous insinuations, made after 
 the manner of theatrical asides. For my part, 
 while I denounce Mr. Makefame's style, I feel 
 some indulgence for his conduct. I am satisfied 
 he was not a free agent, but was hampered by 
 that long piece of paper, which has been 
 flourished about in this case, and is called, I 
 . presume^ a brief." After further remarks on 
 portions of the evidence, the Coroner directed the 
 jury to consider their verdict. 
 
 • ••••• 
 
 The jury retired ; all village juries retire. In
 
 io8 MURDER BY WARRANT 
 
 half-an-hour they returned, and delivered their 
 verdict in these words: "We find Victor CorelH 
 met his death by an unknown hand; that the 
 hand in question is still at large ready for other 
 crimes ; and that it is the duty of the police to 
 seize such hand, without delay, as it belongs to a 
 murderer whose whereabouts are unknown."
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 " Is it not a horrid insinuation ? " demanded 
 Josephine. 
 
 " Abominable ! " assented Martella. 
 
 " To think of his cross-examining papa in that 
 dreadful way ! " 
 
 " Who is this wretched busybody, Makefame ? 
 Some miserable weakling, I'll be bound, who 
 meekly pockets fees and follows the behest of any 
 peddling attorney. I'll expose him at every 
 dinner-table I sit down to. No respectable 
 solicitor shall brief him if I can prevent it." 
 
 " It is downright wickedness," declared 
 Josephine. 
 
 " Ah, my love, lawyers can be perfect devils," 
 said Martella, rocking herself indignantly in her 
 favourite chair. 
 
 " If Mr. Makefame had even imagined papa 
 guilty " 
 
 " Imagined ! " echoed Martella, fanning herself 
 with The Tunes. " What imagination could 
 justify attaching the taint of a diabolical innuendo 
 to an ex-banker, a county magistrate, an honour- 
 able member of Parliament ? The House of 
 Commons may shelter plenty of boobies, but no 
 Commoner in his senses would think of committing 
 a higher form of offence than political tergiversa- 
 
 109
 
 no MURDER BY WARRANT 
 
 tion." Saying which, Miss Seldon rose, and, 
 muttering something inaudible about the torture 
 of neuralgia, lighted a cigarette. 
 
 " And now there is this shocking leading 
 article ! " plaintively cried Josephine, turning over 
 the pages of a provincial newspaper. 
 
 " The Breeze Mercury,'" said the worldly Martella, 
 " is the Opposition organ in your papa's con- 
 stituency, and is bitterly opposed to his political 
 views. It cannot, therefore, be expected to 
 breathe fairness or veracity when speaking of his 
 concerns." 
 
 " Oh, I wish you had beeij^ here," returned 
 Josephine, whose frame of mind fostered the 
 fancy that her clever relative could have averted 
 the misfortune. 
 
 Martella would would have been present at the 
 inquest, but she was in Vienna, and had slighted 
 English newspapers. She had reached London 
 the previous night, having travelled post haste to 
 be present at the nuptials of a dear friend. The 
 dear friend was the fiancee of a fine fellow who 
 had received an appointment in India, and the 
 dear friend and fine fellow were to be married in 
 haste, and quit country and kindred for many 
 waiting years. At the wedding Martella met her 
 niece, Josephine, who poured into Miss Seldon's 
 ears a tearful account of the cruel treatment 
 received by her papa at the inquest. Amazed 
 and disgusted, Martella tore herself from the 
 farewell embrace of the blushing bride, and 
 hurried her niece to her home and boudoir.
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT iii 
 
 In general, there is nothing remarkable about 
 a Coroner's inquest ; and even murders, unless 
 rounded off by romance, are common enough to 
 be stigmatised humdrum. But this inquest on 
 the hapless Italian had lugubriously affected the 
 equanimity of Miss Lempriere, owing to the 
 abusive tone adopted by different provincial 
 journals. Makefame had stutteringly theorised 
 that the peaceable ex-banker had possibly, in a 
 fit of absence, knocked poor Corelli on the head. 
 The downright Coroner had silenced the learned 
 counsel, and certain newspapers were denouncing 
 his highhandedness. Amongst the editorial 
 clamours which raged and roared was one 
 appearing in the Breeze Mercury. 
 
 Extract from "The Breeze Mercury." 
 
 It is impossible to suggest that the Coroner's inquiry was 
 decently conducted. The Coroner and Mr. Lempriere 
 manifested suspicious eagerness to suppress material facts. 
 Imagining himself a master of the acumen adornmg Her 
 Majesty's judges, this inflated official bellicosely closed Mr. 
 Makefame's lips. Apart from the courtesy due to the repre- 
 sentative of a foreign nation, his truculent demeanour was 
 most discreditable. Had Mr. Lempriere been poor or insignifi- 
 cant, what a difference would have denoted this functionary's 
 bearing! But Mr. Lempriere is designated a gentleman, 
 and is, with greater certainty, a member of Parliament ; 
 and so he received such christianised regard, that the affair 
 savoured rather of service in a conventicle than of a court 
 of inquest in a country tavern. 
 
 Now, of what do we pointedly complain ? We complain 
 that Mr. Lempriere declined to disclose a disgraceful 
 company-promoting contract made between himself and 
 Victor Corelli. We complain that, to avoid confession of
 
 112 MURDER BY WARRANT 
 
 this essential article of evidence, he shielded himself behind 
 a ruling of the Coroner which shamefully outraged justice 
 and common sense. We complain that, while treading the 
 vilest by-ways of joint stock company intrigue, he steered 
 pusillanimously through a brewing storm of cross-examina- 
 tion. We complain that, if his conscience is clear, which 
 we reject, if his linen is clean, which we deny, he was scared 
 by a sound — Mr. Makefame's voice — not louder than a 
 penny whistle. We complain that he has not resigned his 
 Parliamentary position and joined the ranks of a third rate 
 vestry I 
 
 When Lord Macaulay threatened to dust a 
 poet's jacket, he meant, literally, to draw a 
 certain amount of attention to his victim and a 
 particular amount of attention to himself. So 
 with the Breeze Mercury. Honest belief was no 
 ingredient in the dose of editorial vituperation 
 administered to the backsliding Lempriere. They 
 poured odium in order to vaunt the superior 
 virtues of the party whose politics they were 
 pledged to support. In place of the Mercury 
 being depressed by indignation, it had risen with 
 the warmth of exultation. If we can curse our 
 friends on account of their benevolence, we can 
 bless our foes because of their iniquities ! 
 
 " Josephine," cried Martella, a sudden energy 
 exercising her limbs and faculties, "we will go 
 and see my cousin, Gerald Seldon. I don't think 
 you know him. He is a cousin a few times 
 removed, but he is every way worthy of the name 
 of Seldon." 
 
 •" Do you think he will be able to help us? " 
 
 " He is a barrister, my love. What more need 
 I say?"
 
 113 MURDER BY WARRANT 
 
 " Only I was thinking " 
 
 " Leave that to Gerald. He must think for us. 
 Whatever we do, let us do it under his direction. 
 The advice of a lawyer is an excuse to the under- 
 standing and a saving clause to the conscience."
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 Pump Court, Temple, is flag-paved and quad- 
 rangular, and is within touch of that ornate edifice, 
 the Temple Church. On three sides are lofty 
 houses belonging to a period when jerry builders 
 were unborn. These have no outer doors ; the 
 windows are undecorative, but artistically be- 
 grimed ; and the floors are reached by creaking 
 stairs and dingy landings. Every tenement 
 sports a black door bearing names in brilliant 
 white. Why black and white should be so 
 intimately connected baffles critical study. If 
 anything the black speaks more plainly than the 
 white, the latter merely suggesting, " What's in a 
 name ? " 
 
 Pump Court contains a pump ; but the origin 
 of that passive monster has little to do with this 
 fitful tale. Nevertheless, a pump, being profound, 
 appeals to philosophic imaginations ; and its 
 monotonous melody, although discordant, reminds 
 of restless resource and tireless activity. But the 
 Temple pump is disused, decrepid, and despised, 
 and the evil which once flowed from its iron 
 throat has ceased to appease or poison mankind. 
 
 Pump Court has immemorially attracted two 
 divergent classes of human creatures — lawyers 
 and laundresses. These orderly and sanitating 
 members of society, though widely divided in 
 
 114
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT 115 
 
 habits, pleasures, and channels of thought, have 
 active concurrent sympathies. Whilst the 
 laundress cherishes cleanliness, she lives by virtue 
 of dirt. Whilst the lawyer purifies subtleties, he 
 delights in rhetorical dust. On a first floor, in 
 Pump Court, Gerald Seldon pursued a lucrative 
 practice — so lucrative, indeed, that vacant minds 
 in the vicinity were constantly tenanted by silly 
 envy and furtive dislike. 
 
 Pacing the principal room of Mr. Seldon's 
 chambers was a compact man of five-and-forty. 
 His head was bent in forensic thought, his hands 
 forensically folded behind. This attitude was 
 favoured by gentlemen of the long robe. Its 
 usefulness in Court was indisputable, enabling 
 the speaker to gracefully project a distinguished 
 part of his physical frame and briskly enforce 
 his argument from the hips. The gentleman 
 pacing the room was not handsome, neither was 
 he ill-looking. Imagine a good forehead, firm 
 mouth, strong chin, and deep-set eyes, and — the 
 nose understood — you have an excellent snatch- 
 portrait of Gerald Seldon. As with many 
 counsel, he wore no ornamental hair on the face ; 
 and averred that every barrister, briefless or busy, 
 should commit equitable waste on his upper lip. 
 
 Gerald Seldon was a lucky man. Not that all 
 lawyers are lucky. Far from it. The lawyer 
 without capital or clients is cruelly unlucky ; and 
 he of crude or inconspicuous ability deserves 
 unstinted commiseration. The lawyer whose 
 knowledge of bankruptcy is culled in conducting
 
 ii6 MURDER BY WARRANT 
 
 himself " through the Court," is a queer tale with 
 a moral attached ; while the one who believes in 
 himself, and awakens to disenchantment, is a 
 touching instance of explicable failure. But 
 Seldon had never been victimised by adversity. 
 His head boasted the proper stuff; his practice 
 comprised capital clients. His earnings were 
 trebling ; his reputation bounding. Take him all 
 round, he was a lucky man ! 
 
 " ' Buzz V. Buzz' is on, sir," cried a shrill voice, 
 belonging to a boy who vanished with incredible 
 swiftness. 
 
 Twisting his body into a faded gown, and his 
 head into a dingy wig, Seldon, seizing a bundle of 
 papers, shot down stairs three steps to the jump. 
 Dashing into Nisi Prius, he was in a litigious 
 theatre decked with wigs and war paint. Posing 
 on the stage was our national arbiter, the Law, 
 discerned through a dim light and deleterious 
 atmosphere. If unenlivened by gilded accessories, 
 his throne was illumined by forensic philosophy. 
 Efforts to square the circle were brilliantly 
 manoeuvred, merging magnitude into nothing 
 was featly undertaken. Rancour and error 
 roamed his realm, revolving sophistry and whirling 
 rhetoric encompassing their pretensions. But the 
 judicial mind — equal to circumstances, impartial 
 to fact, even in thought — is straight to the 
 quibbler and corners the trickster. This Court, 
 however, was not rehearsing dialectical hair- 
 splitting. It was waging a full-dress rough-and- 
 tumble. The essentials to forensic sparring were
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT 117 
 
 present in full force. Packed like sardines was the 
 docile jury ; and leaning jauntily over the rail of the 
 witness-box was a saucy perjurer, with a twist of 
 triumph ornamenting his visage. Attired in 
 shining silk, a foot on the floor, another on his 
 seat, a paper in one hand, his pince-nez in the 
 other, was a smart Q.C. engaged in removing the 
 twist of triumph from the testifier to nothing but 
 the truth. From his manner of extending his 
 pince-nez, it was imaginable the learned " Silk " 
 was proffering the loan thereof in order that the 
 perky witness might better see his way to 
 disfavour himself and discredit his cause. Sitting 
 above the rest, at a dignified elevation, was the 
 reposeful figure of the grave-looking Judge. 
 Calmly resting an elbow on his desk, and couching 
 a judicial cheek in his upraised palm, he allowed 
 the listless fingers of his idle hand to clasp a 
 passive pen. Alert and persuasive, his twinkling 
 eye cautioned the witness, and a winning smile 
 instructed the jury. Standing below was a 
 marvelling usher, his gaze riveted on the cross- 
 examining Q.C, and the thumbs of his locked 
 hands twirling slowly to the tenor of his thoughts. 
 Other actors filled the scene, including the gaping 
 audience, the satisfied and dissatisfied solicitors, 
 and that wide-awake official familiarly called 
 " Associate." 
 
 A hush began to curb the humour of the 
 comedy, and " Buzz v. Buzz " showed signs of 
 breaking down. The rupture of defeat was 
 rapidly widening, and uneasiness was pervading
 
 ii8 MURDER BY WARRANT 
 
 the parties in the "Well." The Judge was the 
 first to detect it ; next the shining " Silk " looked 
 knowing ; and lastly the nonchalant witness grew 
 glum. Then the jury waxed restless ; the usher 
 boldly shouted " Silence ! " and Seldon stooped 
 and whispered " Compromise ! " That healing 
 word settled the case. Wigs were huddled and 
 wagged and shaken, and sprays of white powder 
 rose and clouded the question. A piece of blue 
 paper was signed and flourished, and was handed 
 by usher to Judge. His Lordship read, nodding 
 pleasantly to the jury. The gentlemen twelve 
 uprose, nodding pleasantly to the Judge. A 
 general unseating ensued, and a squeezing en 
 masse to the exit. In a very few minutes the 
 Court was cleared, and " Buzz v. Buzz" was heard 
 no more.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 " Can I have some conversation with you, 
 Gerald ? " said a musical voice at Seldon's 
 elbow. 
 
 The barrister's eye rested wistfully — he was a 
 bachelor — on the daintily-gloved hand touching 
 the sleeve of the shabby coat his high professional 
 position entitled him to wear. 
 
 Martella introduced Josephine. 
 
 Seldon had no hat to lift, but he bent the bow 
 of humility reserved for influential ladies. 
 
 Lawyer though he was, Seldon stood in awe of 
 the mental energy and superb fortune of the 
 handsome and imperious Martella. Always 
 clever, he had once been a struggling young man. 
 The law received him, but not with open arms. 
 His chance was as threadbare as the coat he was 
 wearing until Martella marshalled a cohort of 
 flourishing solicitors to his small chambers in Fig 
 Tree Court. From that moment his fortunes 
 burned into a spreading flame, and now their 
 beams were irradiating a widening expanse of the 
 vast forensic firmament. 
 
 Seldon was delighted to be acquainted with 
 Miss Lempriere. He was charmed to hear they 
 
 U8
 
 120 MURDER BY WARRANT 
 
 were in a way related ; remembered Lambert 
 junior perfectly ; fondly recollected fees paid by 
 junior's firm ; had high opinion of their practice ; 
 junior was in a sense his friend ; met at club, 
 dined, conversed; didn't always talk "shop;" 
 knew junior wanted to marry. 
 
 The barrister escorted the ladies across the 
 Strand to Pump Court, Temple. With bent head 
 and brain alert, he absorbed Martella's swift 
 relation of the murder and the inquest. 
 
 "Who is this Makefame ? " inquired Miss 
 Seldon, as her cousin bowed her into the room 
 where he devised pleadings and opinions, and 
 other professional knick-knacks, with ceaseless 
 celerity. 
 
 Had Makefame boasted a scintilla of celebrity, 
 Seldon would have simpered a languid recogni- 
 tion. As it was he arched his brows and shook 
 his head, mutely doubting the existence of such a 
 being. On second thoughts, however, he took 
 down a portly volume, bound in scarlet and 
 black, and labelled " Law List," and dipped into 
 the names and descriptions of the numerical legal 
 strength of the United Kingdom. 
 
 "Ah, I see it all now," said the barrister, 
 sorrowfully fingering a particular page. " Make- 
 fame was only called to the bar last year. He 
 must be a very, very young man." And Seldon 
 mournfully closed the book. 
 
 "His youth," said the strong-willed Martella, 
 " seems to give him license to abuse truth and 
 traduce an honourable gentleman."
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT 121 
 
 " Nay," deprecated Seldon, who once was quite 
 as green, " this very young man could not help 
 himself. He was instructed " 
 
 " Not by his conscience. But there " 
 
 Martella did not finish. Seldon, smiling com- 
 placently and removing wig and gown, sank into 
 his working chair. Resting his elbows and inter- 
 lacing his well-kept fingers, the shrewd lawyer 
 waited suavely for the next remark. 
 
 "Well," said Martella, whose merit for patience 
 had never been extolled, " it seems cousin Lem- 
 priere must submit to these calumnies." 
 
 " Not necessarily. He may repudiate them 
 at " 
 
 " His own expense ! Precisely. A splendid 
 privilege ! " 
 
 " He was cross-examined, and the latitude 
 allowed " 
 
 " Should be kept within the bounds of decency," 
 cried the incensed Martella. 
 
 The calm counsel raised his hands in genteel 
 reproach. He would have said something to tally 
 with his gesture, but the door suddenly opened 
 and disclosed Lambert junior. 
 
 A barrister's sanctum must not be stormed ; it 
 must be approached peacefully. The Temple 
 formula, although ancient, is still in vogue. The 
 counsel is engaged with a client, but the confer- 
 ence has lasted too long. Legal advice has 
 strayed into idle chat, and a fresh client is craving 
 admission. The junior clerk, grasping the situa- 
 tion, resolves on strategy. Writing stirring words
 
 122 MURDER BY WARRANT 
 
 on a slip of paper, he creeps stealthily to the 
 sanctum. The opening door disturbs the 
 colloquy, and the clerk, displaying the slip, 
 crosses the threshold. Resolutely facing principal 
 and client, his hand, working craftily behind him, 
 shuts the door. This lulls the gossip, and the 
 barrister half turns in his chair. The client — 
 looking first at the clerk, then at the slip, last at 
 his watch — stoops and picks up his hat and 
 papers. There is a movement to depart, a 
 mutual discovery that each has been detaining the 
 other. The junior clerk, solving the situation, 
 steps forward and presents the slip. The counsel 
 scans it, and lisps an apology. The client, rising, 
 bends a graceful acknowledgment. Hands are 
 shaken, doors opened, clients shuffled, the junior 
 clerk retires victorious ! 
 
 "No excuses, pray," said Seldon, stemming 
 Lambert's stream of polite inanities. " You are 
 here at an opportune moment." 
 
 Lambert, his eye on his beloved Josephine, 
 thought the same thing in another key. 
 
 " Miss Seldon," began the barrister, " is natu- 
 rally very indignant with the Breeze Mercury, and 
 would like to have the paper prosecuted. Of 
 course," sighed the counsel, looking com- 
 passionately at Martella, "she is unacquainted 
 
 with the niceties of libel, and " 
 
 " Tell me truly, Mr. Lambert, whether the 
 Coroner acted warrantably in stopping Mr. 
 Makefame," demanded the invincible Martella. 
 The solicitor of thirty paused to polish his hat.
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT 123 
 
 " Speaking for myself," intervened Seldon, " I 
 think the Coroner " 
 
 " Did not stop Makefame too soon," impru- 
 dently admitted Lambert. 
 
 " Why did you not re-examine Mr. Lempriere ? " 
 asked Seldon, toying with his pince-nez. 
 
 " It would never have done. Those agreements 
 with Corelli " 
 
 " But," said the barrister, who never omitted, 
 however unpleasantly, to exhibit his worldly 
 wisdom, " Mr. Lempriere might have volunteered 
 an explanation." 
 
 " That unhappy Concession has confused every- 
 thing," rather hotly rejoined Lambert. 
 
 " Possibly," mercilessly added the barrister. 
 " But as a matter of policy " 
 
 (« 
 
 It is all very well to talk about policy," 
 
 answered Lambert, pacing the room impatiently. 
 
 " We had to face two evils, and the lesser one 
 
 was holding our tongue." 
 
 "Which," said Seldon, a suspicion of sarcasm 
 
 in his voice, " was the evil you embraced ? " 
 
 " We were compelled to yield " 
 
 " To the conditions of an arbitrary situation." 
 
 " I confess you have hit the mark." 
 
 " You had received a price for the Concession 
 
 which " 
 
 "We dared not disclose." 
 
 " Because it was extortionate ? " 
 
 " Because it was bloated beyond — er " 
 
 " But big prices are common," drily remarked 
 Seldon.
 
 124 MURDER BY WARRANT 
 
 "The price here was a pack of tricks. Corelli 
 had palmed on his Republic a false estimate, 
 stuffed with illicit " 
 
 " Is — er — Miss Lempriere equal to listening to 
 this ? " blandly asked the barrister of the 
 astounded ladies. 
 
 " She is brave, Gerald," answered Martella — a 
 compliment timidly acknowledged by Josephine. 
 
 " We — er — are only speaking — er — logically — 
 nothing more." 
 
 Poor Lambert junior was forced to proceed. 
 
 " Corelli's estimate was prepared by him and 
 his confederates — bribed officials of the Republic. 
 The whole affair was steeped in falsehood, 
 and " 
 
 ** Do you mean to say," cried Martella, her 
 eyes flashing and nostrils distended, " that my 
 cousin Basil was aware " 
 
 " Do not misunderstand him," interposed 
 Seldon, wishing he had been more reticent. 
 
 " I mean," said Lambert, carried away by the 
 ingenuousness of thirty, " that Lempriere knew, 
 as a man of business, the Concession necessarily 
 contained undercurrents of profits. No man in 
 his senses expects immaculate honesty in com- 
 mercial concerns. Purity, in its essence, is 
 unknown in the financial world. Beneath every 
 undertaking lurk seams of lucre to satisfy the 
 demands of undisclosed claimants. Were it 
 otherwise the scheme would fail and fall flat, as 
 often does the finest invention of unfinanced 
 genius."
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT 125 
 
 " Then why need we be scared ? " demanded 
 the undaunted Martella." 
 
 "A traitor is in London — a confederate has 
 turned informer." 
 
 " Is he preparing an exposure ? " enquired the 
 barrister. 
 
 " Yes, Seldon, I believe so ; and it might mean 
 repudiation by the Repubhc." 
 
 " But surely the fellow is purchasable ? " 
 
 " Oh, I dare say he has his price." 
 
 " Of course he has," said Seldon, reassured. 
 " Then you have a syndicate — a syndicate of 
 honourable names? " 
 
 " Of first- :lass names. Each was pretty hand- 
 sctoely paid for — a necessary precaution." 
 
 " Quite so," assented Seldon, heaving a sigh of 
 relief. " Your syndicate was sufficient for the 
 public? " 
 
 " Undeniably." 
 
 " And your honourable names would move 
 heaven and earth to avert exposure ? " 
 
 " Exactly." 
 
 " And this traitor is purchasable ? " continued 
 Seldon, dangling his pince-nez with polite gusto. 
 
 Before the solicitor could answer, the small boy 
 hurried in and delivered a card to the barrister. 
 
 " Good gracious ! " exclaimed Seldon. Then, 
 taking Lambert aside, he said in undertones, 
 " Makefame is here wishing to speak with me ; I 
 must see what he wants." And the barrister 
 withdrew ; not, however, until he had assumed 
 a carriage of easy unconcern.
 
 126 MURDER BY WARRANT 
 
 The door re-opened and admitted Seldon 
 accompanied by the learned Makefame, who, 
 regarding the company compassionately, bowed 
 his head all round. 
 
 As Seldon seated himself a portentous gravity 
 settled on his face. He had grown a deal heavier 
 since his dialogue outside. Leaning back 
 languidly, he discoursed deliberately, not for- 
 getting meantine to fastidiously finger his pince- 
 nez. 
 
 " Mr. Makefame," said the successful barrister, 
 bending his head condescendingly, " has called to 
 do me a friendly office." 
 
 " Seeing we — er — are members of the bar," 
 stammered Makefame. 
 
 " Exactly," concurred Seldon drily. " He tells 
 me that certain officials of the Italian Consulate 
 believe Mr. Lempriere is the murderer of Corelli." 
 
 "Thinking they have goo — goo — good cause," 
 stuttered the agonised tyro, already in deadly fear 
 of Martella. 
 
 " Good cause ! " echoed Lambert junior, whose 
 face was a study. 
 
 " Mr. Makefame, you are killing my niece ! " 
 
 Josephine, supported by Martella, was in a 
 fainting condition. 
 
 Makefame was situated behind tolerably big 
 spectacles, but he found them far too small to 
 shield him from the fiery effects of the fierce rays 
 flashing from the eyes of the haughty Martella. 
 
 " I am better," whispered the shrinking girl. 
 " Pray go on ! "
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT 127 
 
 Seldon, with studied hesitation, explained that 
 the extraordinary agreement between Lempriere 
 and Corelh, and which, by the ItaHan's death, 
 had added something Hke thirty thousand pounds 
 to Lempriere's fortune, was the foundation of the 
 suspicion of the officials of the Consulate. They 
 considered the agreement — which Corelli had 
 deposited with them — had inspired the ex-banker 
 with the desire to get Corelli out of the way, and 
 that he had removed him accordingly. 
 
 That ill-advised meeting broke up with sorrow 
 and remorse — with anger and tears. The sorrow 
 was shared by all concerned; but Makefame alone 
 suffered the remorse. The anger was entirely the 
 property of Martella — the tears being those that 
 freely flowed from the grieving eyes of Josephine.
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 " Yes, my dear, bad news, very bad. I'm so 
 sorry." 
 
 The speaker was a little lady, in visiting dress, 
 with hooked nose, ferrety eyes, and a voluble 
 tongue. She was lady to a belted knight, Sir 
 Giles Quandary, whose rank sprang from a civic 
 luncheon, and savoured of Leadenhall. 
 
 Josephine's face wore a pained and worried 
 expression. 
 
 " My husband— he tells me, you know— he's in 
 with the police, you know— a past sheriff, you 
 know. He was honoured with knighthood — 
 didn't want it — awful bother — couldn't refuse." 
 
 " But," said Josephine, essaying to stem the 
 wordy torrent, " do the police " 
 
 " Yes, really. The police, my husband says — 
 I'm only reporting him, you know— the police 
 suspect your papa, that is— er— they only suspect 
 him logically, you know ; but all the same it's a 
 ghastly bore." 
 
 Her ladyship paused, for Josephine paled with 
 indignation. 
 
 "I'm dreadfully sorry. I'm only a friend, my 
 dear, that is — er — you see, my dear, I've only — er 
 
 18$
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT 129 
 
 — come as a friend — er — to warn you that your 
 papa may possibly be arrested." 
 
 " Arrested — for what ? " 
 
 " I don't know ; that's the wonder. My husband 
 says he may be — that is — er — your papa may be 
 logically suspected of — er " 
 
 " But my papa has done nothing at all." 
 
 "That's just it, my dear. He was joint pro- 
 moter with Victor Corelli, and he did nothing at 
 all. That is — er — why he's suspected." 
 
 "Of what?" 
 
 " Of — er — a crime. Of course, it's all non- 
 sense, you know — a mere garbled concoction. 
 That's a phrase of my husband's." 
 
 " Suspected of a crime because he was a 
 promoter ? " 
 
 " Well, you see, my dear, a promoter is 
 supposed to be awfully unscrupulous, and when a 
 man is that, you know, there's really no limit to 
 the lawlessness of suspicion." 
 
 " But papa cannot have been a promoter if 
 there was any disgrace in being one. He would 
 be the very last to become such a thing." 
 
 Lady Quandary shrugged her shoulders, and 
 drummed her gloved knuckles on the table. 
 
 " My dear, there's a fashionable vindictivenss 
 against promoters, and sometimes it reaches a 
 furor. That, however, is only when the ' bubbles ' 
 are too transparent." 
 
 " I don't quite understand." 
 
 " Neither do I, my dear. It's a phrase of my 
 husband's. He was done — yes, done — by pro- 
 
 K
 
 130 MURDER BY WARRANT 
 
 moters. He was director of a company bringing 
 . out non-explosive oil, equalling petroleum without 
 its danger. But there was an explosion — not from 
 the oil, that was innocuous, invisible, indeed, was 
 never found — a perfect hubbub ; directors held 
 responsible ; my husband losing heaps of money, 
 and — oh — er — he will tell you the tale some 
 day. Then," continued her ladyship, rattling on, 
 " there was ' Tic-douloureux Limited,' with a 
 Right Honourable on the directorate, a keen man, 
 a master of finance, but he had no science. He 
 was a fancy director, an attraction, a catch to the 
 unwary, as the Judge said. Yes, 'Tic-douloureux 
 Limited ' came before the Judge," gabbled Lady 
 Quandary, looking everywhere but at Josephine, 
 whose face, poor child, was a picture. " Yes, 
 ' Tic-douloureux ' had a painful termination. It 
 was strangled by its capital — a phrase of my 
 husband's, my dear — and expired in a tragedy. 
 The directors were prosecuted. They behaved 
 very well ; had done really nothing — positively 
 nothing. They had perfectly clean hands — had 
 had nothing to do, except form quorums, pass 
 resolutions, and that sort of thing. But they 
 were tried — yes, tried, and the Judge, having no 
 sentence to pass, was nasty, extremely nasty, 
 talking about big names and spurious pro- 
 spectuses, gulling the public, and calling them 
 dupes — the shareholders, I mean — and reproaching 
 my husband — yes, Sir Giles Quandary, though 
 innocent as a babe, a victim himself, with clean 
 hands, and — er — oh — this is a funny world —
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT 131 
 
 a very funny world ! " concluded her ladyship, 
 petulantly tapping the floor with her foot. 
 
 " But you have not told me yet " 
 
 "Oh, of course — to be sure! How stupid of 
 me. Heard it, you know, that is, my husband 
 did, you know, privately. The police have — er — 
 that tantalising thing, a clue. I mean — er — a 
 revolver, found on Murkwoop Moor, belonging to 
 your papa." 
 
 " Belonging to my papa ? Never ! He would 
 not have a revolver. We wished him to take one, 
 
 but " 
 
 " Exactly, my dear. That's where it is, and 
 why he's suspected. Victor Corelli took him a 
 present of one, richly inlaid, a lovely thing, a 
 present to your papa. It, the present, has been 
 
 found Are you ill, my dear? " 
 
 ** No, no ! I don't quite undestand." 
 " Well, it is frightfully annoying. The police 
 have found this very revolver, one chamber 
 discharged — the bullet in Corelli's head — on 
 Murkwoop Moor. There is nothing in it — really 
 nothing. Don't be alarmed. A mere logical 
 suspicion, but monstrously provoking ! " 
 
 Mr. Lempriere was comfortably breakfasting 
 the morning following the above interview, when 
 he received this letter, written with trembling 
 haste : 
 
 My dear Papa, 
 
 A terrible visit was paid to me yesterday. Lady 
 Quandary says Victor Corelli meant to make you a present 
 of a revolver, and that just lately this revolver has been
 
 132 MURDER BY WARRANT 
 
 found by the police on Murkwoop Moor, with one chamber 
 discharged, and that the bullet found in poor Signor 
 Corelli's brain must have been fired from the chamber which 
 is empty. I cannot write any more. I am starting in haste 
 
 for the village of B . Pray meet me at "The Bell" 
 
 to-morrow. Mr. Lambert senior is coming with me. 
 
 With ever fondest love. 
 
 Your affectionate 
 
 Josephine.
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 Love is fleeting and its pace precarious, because its 
 character is denoted by the intoxicating frivolities 
 sold by that festive young traveller, Mr. God 
 Cupid. There are many sorts of lovers, particu- 
 larly of those with heroic resolves, infatuated 
 fancies, and sublime trustfulness. And frequently 
 there are wooers who mutually distrust, hastily 
 separate, and appeal unsparingly to special juries. 
 Lambert junior looked glum, and Josephine 
 Lempriere crestfallen. Had the lovers enjoyed 
 the luxury of a quarrel in order to revel in the 
 rapture of a reconciliation ? No, indeed. Some- 
 thing more tragic than a wrangle — usually 
 repented with renewed embraces — was harrowing 
 the surface of their thoughts. The visit of 
 Josephine to Pump Court, and the dazing inter- 
 view with Lady Quandary, had produced a form 
 of grief fatal to true love. Josephine's affection 
 was unselfishly noble. Had she regarded it as a 
 commodity, as a matter of contract or exchange, 
 as something for sale without heed to price or 
 payment, its claim to continuity could not have 
 been contested. But Josephine's sensibility was 
 too finely fibred to admit such callous calculation 
 into the sanctuary of her soul, and hence " union 
 
 133
 
 134 MURDER BY WARRANT 
 
 of hearts" was sundered and coercion of no avail. 
 
 Josephine was convinced she ought not to 
 marry Lambert junior while her father was 
 under a cloud. The appalling gloom of that 
 congregated vapour was rapidly thickening. The 
 financial jugglery connected with the great Con- 
 cession was occasioning interested murmurs, and 
 her dear papa — he was and ever would be her 
 dear papa — was enmeshed in a quagmire of com- 
 mercial scandal. It was true he had only 
 shuffled some financial cards — a shuffle, however, 
 that had guided crack trumps into the hands of 
 divers dealers. Such dodges, Josephine was 
 assured, were done daily in the City of London, 
 and what was merely customary in so respectable 
 a place could not possibly imply any harm. 
 
 But another rumour was rife — was deepening 
 and intensifying as it leaped from lip to lip. It was 
 — born of and nurtured by malicious motive — that 
 Lempriere was hard up, and was only on that 
 account enduring the self-denying retirement to 
 Murkwoop. Oh, the horror of the thing ! Hard 
 up, indeed ! Worse than being murderer or 
 accessory to murder ! 
 
 Was it necessary to be poor to explain sub- 
 mission to the misery of Murkwoop ? Josephine 
 could not answer. She was too indignant. What 
 a degrading aspersion. Would many believe it ? 
 Was it already abroad ? Had society scented it ? 
 Was it budding in popular places ? Were 
 whisperers at work ? Was it entertaining the 
 Commons' Lobby ? Had it enriched a news-
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT 135 
 
 paper ? Nobody could tell — of nobody would she 
 ask. 
 
 To suspect a Lempriere of murder — so loath- 
 some a thing of her genial papa — made poor 
 Josephine shudder. To imagine him capable of 
 killing a fellow creature — otherwise than by 
 financial ruin — was the " unkindest cut of all." 
 Until the dreadful doubt was dispelled, and the 
 murderer trapped, tried, and hanged, she would 
 not dream of wedding George Lambert junior. 
 
 The affecting difference of opinion — really it 
 was nothing more — dividing Josephine and George 
 implanted a stern resolve in the lawyer's unflinch- 
 ing -heart. Some lawyers, rivalling the pluck of 
 the veteran who never believes he is vanquished, 
 struggle from court to court until they yield to 
 fate or facts by coming a cropper in the House of 
 Lords. But the valour of Lambert junior was 
 enlisted in behalf of a love suit, and the courage 
 hallowing his breast smacked of the fervour of 
 romance. He had resolved — brave and noble 
 young man ! — to hunt down, seize, and incarcerate 
 the fleeing murderer of the unhappy Corelli. This 
 daring task he would consummate without aid or 
 hindrance from Scotland Yard. It was, indeed, 
 an exalted ambition — hanging a miscreant to win 
 a wife !
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 Lempriere had lapsed into the sohtariness that 
 stamped the first stage of his confinement, and 
 St. John had retired into quondam exclusiveness. 
 The student was reported to be toihng at hterary 
 work, and poHtely discarded Lempriere's piteous 
 invitations despatched through Jenkins. Lem- 
 priere had never invaded the stoic's apartments — 
 circumspection, rather than cowardice, having 
 governed his hesitation. It was on the cards 
 whether such an incautious act might not jeopar- 
 dise the legacy, and this uncomfortable considera- 
 tion had deterred him from violating the sanctity 
 of St. John's privacy. 
 
 After futile efforts to dissolve the student's icy 
 reserve, Lempriere concluded St. John desired 
 discontinuance of their intimacy. They met 
 occasionally on the moor, but only to quaff the 
 smallest doses of conversational pleasure. The 
 ex-banker prattled and smiled in his usual 
 amicable fashion, the student, a fictitious listener, 
 with knitted brows and folded arms, moving 
 meanwhile slowly and thoughtfully forward. 
 When he condescended to speak he was satirical, 
 his logic ironical, his metaphors sardonic. Why 
 this change ? Why torment his companion and 
 torture himself? Was he harassed by a new- 
 
 136
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT 137 
 
 created sorrow, or did he repent and recoil from 
 his recent sociable courtesy ? St. John muttered 
 excuses touching absence of mind, and pleaded 
 his studious habits, his attachment to philosophy, 
 his brooding disposition. These obvious evasions, 
 sufficient for the inventor, at last satisfied Lem- 
 priere, and as much as one was willing to avoid 
 the other was willing to be avoided. 
 
 " It is all due to that confounded legacy ! " 
 exclaimed Lempriere, his voice betraying irrita- 
 tion. He was seated in the parlour of " The 
 Bell," and opposite was the dejected form of 
 George Lambert junior. " Depend upon it," 
 continued the prophetic ex-banker, " if old Frog- 
 more had kept that confounded legacy in his con- 
 founded estate, you and I would not be breeding 
 dismals by the dozen, and feeling too disgusted to 
 order luncheon." But the pangs of hunger pre- 
 vailing over moralising, Mr. Lempriere rose and 
 rang up Mrs. Butcher. 
 
 " Yes," answered Lempriere, " I have been 
 visited by a police officer — a pleasant fellow. 
 Corelli never presented me with the revolver. 
 He forgot it, I suppose ; and the wretch who 
 stunned him must have used it against him." 
 
 " Have the police put you under conditions ? " 
 
 " Under surveillance, I believe," said Lem- 
 priere, resignedly puffing a cigar. 
 
 " Nothing hinted at — er — arresting you ? " 
 
 "Not that I know of." 
 
 " It would be a very awkward position to be 
 placed in."
 
 138 MURDER BY WARRANT 
 
 " Might be interesting." 
 
 " Well, the whole thing is engrossing a good 
 deal of attention in town." 
 
 " The murder or the " 
 
 *' Oh, the whole business — especially the affair 
 of the sale of — er " 
 
 " You hesitate, George. I suppose you are 
 alluding to the Concession. I don't care a pin 
 for suspicion. If I were the rogue I have been 
 painted, I should move the Law Courts to re- 
 habilitate my character ; but as I am not, I do 
 not need assistance, and shall treat slander with 
 contempt." 
 
 Lempriere, dropping into abstraction, dwelt 
 fondly on the fantastic operations of the modern 
 syndicate, and its remoteness from the mental 
 capacity of the public. " How lucky," thought 
 he, " these combinations are so fashionable. 
 That inimitable circumstance has saved my con- 
 science all through the piece. When a syndicate 
 swindles, no individual is guilty — the members 
 being comparable to a firing party of soldiers 
 called upon to execute a comrade. Each man 
 thinks he has picked a blank cartridge, and 
 exempts himself from the odium of having 
 sacrificed a fellow creature. The collective con- 
 duct of the syndicate is identical — it may defraud 
 and ruin the widow and the orphan, but the 
 individual member escapes from the throes of 
 remorse. Ah, it is as nice to have companions 
 in rascality as it is to have their society in 
 misfortune."
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT 139 
 
 " But, my dear George," said Lempriere, detach- 
 ing himself from reverie, " I have never told you 
 that I embraced Murkwoop and assisted Corelli 
 mainly because I have a secret ambition." 
 
 Lambert junior waited, a trifle embarrassed. 
 
 " I was vain enough to aspire to have my name 
 associated with a monumental act of public 
 beneficence. I aimed to have myself described 
 as a benefactor of my species — as one who had 
 employed a portion of his wealth to mitigate 
 the sufferings of fellow creatures." 
 
 " A splendid vanity — a noble " 
 
 " And so," hastily interrupted Lempriere, 
 colouring slightly, " I accepted the conditions 
 of that confounded legac}^, and ^formed Corelli's 
 syndicate. The temptation to celebrate myself 
 by a public benefaction had peculiar charms after 
 I had observed how Mr. Tumbledownditty played 
 his part to distinguish himself." 
 
 " The man who obtained a peerage for giving 
 so many people the needle ? " 
 
 " Precisely. His charity was enormous. Well, 
 I was debating whether it was worth my while to 
 undergo durance at Murkwoop, when the happy 
 idea of cheaply connecting myself with a splendid 
 act of public charity riveted my fancy and 
 silenced my scruples. I said to myself I would 
 be principally concerned in founding and endow- 
 ing a wing to a hospital, and perpetuate my name 
 along a lengthening chain of admiring posterity." 
 
 " And as a reward for " 
 
 " No, George, not as a reward ; but, as a
 
 140 MURDER BY WARRANT 
 
 recognition of a public service by a public man, I 
 ought — er — er ' ' 
 
 "To be treated with the same consider- 
 ation " 
 
 " Exactly, George. A wing to a hospital, with 
 twenty beds, and well endowed, should — er " 
 
 " Should certainly secure you a peerage." 
 
 " I think so. A grateful country need hardly 
 be stingy of a patent that only provides a red- 
 cushioned seat in a somewhat dreary House." 
 
 "And you would be forsaking the Commons 
 where expectations are plentiful." 
 
 " Well, you see, the Member of Parliament 
 is not what he used to be. Once he was a man 
 you turned round to look after as he walked up 
 the street. But now," and the M. P. sighed 
 deeply, "he is the mere "puppet of an arrogant 
 caucus." 
 
 The Member for Breeze spoke from experience. 
 He had believed in the freedom and buoyancy 
 of Parliamentary life. Alas ! the freedom was 
 fettered by democratic dictation — the buoyancy 
 was checked by debates and division bells. 
 
 " But, my boy," parentally continued Lem- 
 priere, " I must discontinue to talk of my 
 personal wishes — I must think of yours. You 
 are bent on trying to track this criminal ; and 
 I have asked you here to receive an important 
 piece of intelligence. When Corelli and I were 
 walking the moor, we came across a man watch- 
 ing the mansion through a telescope. A rougher 
 looking brute I had never met. His face
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT 141 
 
 was striking — reminding of a monkey more than 
 man. His eyes were horrible — squinting murder, 
 indeed. Do you know, George, I actually forgot 
 to mention this circumstance either at the inquest 
 or to the police. My memory," said the ex- 
 banker, tapping his cranium upraidingly, " is not 
 so good as it was. However, there is the infor- 
 mation, and it may aid your efforts. It is a 
 mystery why the fellow, having disabled Corelli, 
 should have gone the length of shooting him." 
 The gentlemen now settled down to luncheon. 
 It was no use to go hungry because they were un- 
 happy. As the meal dawdled they returned to 
 their several schemes — the gentlemanly plot for 
 obtaining a peerage — the snare for entangling a 
 fugitive murderer.
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 
 The young lawyer in quest of Corelli's destroyer 
 had scarcely formed any definite plan of pursuit. 
 He hastily believed he should trap the criminal, 
 and should render credit to the role of amateur 
 detective. Many doubted whether he would 
 succeed ; and Gerald Seldon brushed the sleeve 
 of his rusty coat in perplexity as he appreciated 
 the task Lambert had undertaken. " However," 
 said the barrister, adjusting his wig and gown, 
 " I hope he will catch the blackguard, for then 
 he will marry an heiress." 
 
 Lambert found himself that evening at the 
 
 village of X . It was a crooked little place, 
 
 with one respectable inn styled the "King's 
 Head." This house of modest entertainment 
 rejoiced in the hospitality of sheltering and 
 feeding the young solicitor. The dinner was not 
 planned to tickle his palate. The viands were 
 plain ; the beer small ; the wine unchristened and 
 risky. The breakfast next morning was the best 
 production. Prime bacon and new-laid eggs form 
 a dehcious fare ; and the guest sighed to think of 
 the scarcity of the latter in London. A similar 
 reflection was troubling another person, sitting 
 opposite, who was consuming the same dish with 
 
 142
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT 143 
 
 a relish which bespoke unbounded approval. The 
 stranger was middle-sized and of strong build. 
 His bearing was confident, and now and then he 
 developed an uncouthness hardly modified by the 
 details of his appearance. His complexion was 
 swarthy. He had a short, scrubby beard, twink- 
 ling eyes, and habiliments embracing a singular 
 mixture of town and country cuts. His coat 
 reminded you of a city clerk, while his 
 breeches and boots represented rusticity. His 
 harsh features, harsh voice, and harsh manners 
 failed to enliven his personality ; and Lambert 
 was setting him down as a person unfit for con- 
 versation, when the stranger himself started to put 
 this opinion to the test. 
 
 " From London, sir, I suppose ? " 
 
 The solicitor drily admitted he hailed from that 
 stupendous congregation of residential incon- 
 gruities. 
 
 " Thought so," grunted the stranger. 
 
 Lambert remained silent, trusting the break- 
 faster would preserve a similar disposition. Not 
 so, however. 
 
 " I'll bet anything you're not a bagman." 
 
 " A bagman ! " mildly echoed Lambert, looking 
 fondly at the leather receptacle he carried diurn- 
 ally to Lincoln's Inn. 
 
 " You're not a knight of the road," said the 
 man, thrusting home a fork-full of food. 
 
 " Really now," thought Lambert, invoking his 
 legal philosophy, " do I look like a highway- 
 man ? "
 
 144 MURDER BY WARRANT 
 
 "No — not a bit — you're not a commercial." 
 
 '"Your remarks are ambiguous, sir." 
 
 *' Oh are they? Well you're a lawyer — not 
 a detective." 
 
 Lambert experienced the intuitive sensation 
 that admits the existence of superior wisdom. 
 You may be very apt in this and that ; but this 
 and that do not specialise or confer dexterity in 
 singularities. 
 
 " No — of course not," said the gruff one, 
 ramming down another mouthful. "You're a 
 professional from Lincoln's Inn." 
 
 Lambert, in spite of his inferiority, managed to 
 keep his temper. 
 
 " I know what you're after," cried the stranger, 
 triumphantly mixing tea and cream. 
 
 Lambert, usually an all-round lawyer, was now 
 fairly cornered. 
 
 " You and I are on the same tack, and it strikes 
 me we'd better be partners in the gamble." 
 
 Lambert could only say, " Indeed ! " 
 
 " You don't like my style, I know." 
 
 The lawyer faintly dissented. 
 
 " No — I know you don't. You'll like it presently, 
 though." 
 
 The lawyer awaited a further manifestation. 
 
 " Look here," said the stranger, ravishing 
 another cup of tea, " you and I must work together 
 to catch an infernal villain — a name we might 
 give to piety people who swindle and murder 
 according to Cocker." 
 
 " Really, sir, your remarks are perfect enigmas."
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT 145 
 
 " I'll tell you what's not an enigma." 
 
 *' Well, sir ? " 
 
 " That you're the son of your father." 
 
 The young solicitor was actually blushing. 
 
 " Yes, the son of your father — of respectable 
 and respected old George Lambert, solicitor, of 
 Lincoln's Inn." 
 
 Lambert junior relented. " This fellow," 
 mused he, "was rough, but really — er — well " 
 
 " Of course ; and why not ? However, mysteries 
 don't pay. I'll come to the point. You're after 
 the murderer of Victor Corelli. Don't deny it ; I 
 know. If you don't want to spoil sport, we'll go 
 into partnership. You're a little surprised ? " 
 
 " I am," admitted the lawyer, startled into 
 astonishment. 
 
 " I'm after him, too," said the man, tilting his 
 chair backwards and thrusting his hands in his 
 pockets. " You're in business with your father, 
 and your firm have offered a reward. The Govern- 
 ment have offered a second, and Mr. Basil Lem- 
 priere has offered a third. I mean to bag the lot. 
 You spoil my game, I'll spoil yours." 
 
 This language, uncompromising though it was, 
 greatly comforted Lambert ; and he studied the 
 strong face and form before him with a keen 
 sense of relief. He had passed through three 
 villages, and only received grins and comic allu- 
 sions in exchange for serious enquiries ; and, dis- 
 appointed and disheartened, he had begun to 
 discredit his powers in the role of amateur de- 
 tective. 
 
 L
 
 146, MURDER BY WARRANT 
 
 There was a pause, the stranger employing his 
 toothpick and calmly eyeing the ceiling. 
 
 " You are, I assume," began Lambert, some 
 hesitation afflicting him, "you, I believe, are — 
 er " 
 
 " Of course I am. You've hit it. Yes, I'm a 
 private detective — middle-aged, sharp, knowing, 
 damned conceited ! What do you think ? " 
 
 In the instant allowed him Lambert had no 
 time to think. 
 
 " What put me on the scent? You wonder? 
 Of course you do. I'm not surprised. Tell you 
 presently." 
 
 And then, in agreeable terms, Lambert junior 
 and Jonathan Hatwood agreed to become partners 
 in following the trail of the Murkwoop murderer. 
 
 " Got a stake in the business, eh ? " 
 
 Lambert coloured as he remembered its deli- 
 cacy. 
 
 "We shall agree. Knew we should. Don't 
 take offence, but — you did look jolly green." 
 
 Lambert junior was looking jolly red. 
 
 " Yes, you did look jolly green." 
 
 The young solicitor vainly essayed a sickly 
 smile. 
 
 " Yes, you did look jolly green," chuckled Hat- 
 wood. " I followed you up, heard your enquiries, 
 but no, I didn't laugh. No, 'pon honour, I didn't 
 laugh." And Hatwood tossed off his last cup of 
 tea. 
 
 " Yes, I'm a detective on my own account," 
 explained Hatwood, crossing his legs. " I know
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT 147 
 
 all about the legacy, about Basil Lempriere, his 
 detention at Murkwoop, and so forth. The Trea- 
 sury are watching — were watching — him. A 
 detective was down here, in this very village, his 
 eyes all round him, watching the legatee." 
 
 " It was very shabby of the Government to 
 doubt Mr. Lempriere's honour." 
 
 " It was stupid to doubt his sanity," corrected 
 Hatwood. 
 
 Mr. Lempriere is — er — most honourable, and 
 
 a 
 
 " Exactly ; but what does it matter ? Govern- 
 ment would be fools not to watch. They're 
 trustees of the public. The public wants money 
 as much as Government. Of course it does." 
 And Lambert was left in a field of controversy he 
 didn't like. 
 
 " The detective down here was my cousin. His 
 name was Bolton. On the night Corelli was 
 murdered Bolton died." 
 
 " Indeed ! I'm sorry." 
 
 " In the room above this," said Hatwood, 
 pointing with his toothpick. 
 
 Lambert ventured a few consolatory platitudes. 
 
 " Bolton was a wary fellow — every inch a 
 detective. His game was to watch whether 
 
 Lempriere took train from B . How was he 
 
 to do it ? He couldn't lodge in B . The fat 
 
 would have been in the fire in no time. He 
 couldn't be daily dodging Lempriere's shadow. 
 "Well, he took quarters here. But how was he 
 to be sure of his game ? That was a nobbier.
 
 148 MURDER BY WARRANT 
 
 Bolton solved it. Every inch a detective, he got 
 
 hold of a railway porter at B . He treated 
 
 him ; made a pal of him ; fixed him up to spot 
 Lempriere. The porter was willing, but coy. 
 He had had presents from Lempriere, but 
 Bolton's tips were bigger. Still, the porter 
 wouldn't peech in slang, but would blow on him 
 by signs. He didn't mind spying, but didn't 
 want to split. Bolton — every inch a detective — 
 was equal to the difficulty. He arranged signals 
 — neither red lights nor blue. Tell you about 
 them presently." 
 
 " Very ingenious," cried the lawyer, forgetting 
 professional reserve. 
 
 " Of course the porter was to bag a pull if the 
 game feathered. Bolton gave gilt-edged promises. 
 Every rascal has his price. Gold is the best 
 gammon. Nothing troubles conscience like an 
 empty pocket." 
 
 Lambert was decently shocked and discreetly 
 silent. This was not Lincoln's Inn, nor the 
 spirit of Lincoln's Inn ! 
 
 On the night Corelli was murdered, Bolton felt 
 unwell — suffered from his heart. He didn't meet the 
 porter — somebody else did. He was brought back 
 by a rough fellow, who propped him up against 
 the door-post and then scuttled off like mad." 
 
 The detective paused and, seeing the lawyer 
 was impressed, used his toothpick. 
 
 " But who murdered Corelli ? " 
 
 " The vagabond who brought back Bolton." 
 
 " You really think, Mr. Hatwood "
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT 149 
 
 " He is a burglar Scotland Yard has been 
 watching for years." 
 
 " The man may be a burglar, but he might 
 pause before " 
 
 " Mr. Lambert,'' said Hatwood significantly, 
 " that ruffian would take a life as indifferently as 
 he would pinch the light out of a penny dip."
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 " Now, Mr. Mannikin, tell your story in your 
 own way," said detective Hatwood to a little old 
 man, very grey, very wrinkled, and very dirty. 
 He looked for all the world what he was — a 
 veritable shoemaker. 
 
 Resembling many of his craft, Mr. Mannikin was 
 a born orator. His speeches were at par with the 
 rappings he bestowed on his customers' boots, and 
 his monotonous eloquence would sometimes 
 somnolently affect his auditors. But, as his voice 
 was grating and his knuckles incessantly tapped 
 the table, his hearers were made sufficiently 
 uneasy to maintain, in most instances, unqualified 
 wakefulness. Being an orator, Mr. Mannikin 
 favoured particular attitudes, and he was trying 
 to squeeze himself into one of these when invited 
 by Hatwood to tell his story in his own way. 
 
 *' Gentlemen," said the shoemaker, who thought 
 his own way far superior to any other, " I made 
 great strides into friendship with the late Mr. 
 Bolton. Him and I " — Mr. Mannikin loved 
 language but despised grammar — " had many 
 colloquial cJimpaigns, as the saying is, as he leaned 
 over the lower half of the obstacle to ingress to 
 my shop " — meaning the half door, with slab on 
 top, that enabled him to interview customers on 
 
 160
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT 
 
 151 
 
 his doorstep. " Yes ; and in those conversational 
 encounters I acquired," said Mannikin, giving his 
 spectacles a learned flourish, " much erudite 
 insight into the inquisitorial habits of those 
 extraordinary men who pass the summer and 
 winter of their lives, as the saying is, in hunting 
 down, incarcerating, and executing differe^at 
 sections of their fellow creatures." ^ 
 
 This style of delivery was fatal to speedy 
 elucidation ; and Lambert junior was about to 
 hint as much, but a warning pressure on his knee 
 by the detective forbade him. 
 
 " Well, gentlemen," said the little cobbler, con- 
 sequentially rubbing his spectacles, " in the 
 afternoon which forewent the night so full of 
 horror and anguish to the relatives of poor Mr. 
 Bolton, a customer of mine with corns — shooting 
 corns, gentlemen, as the saying is — besought my 
 assistance to elaborate some accommodating 
 protruberances on the uppers of his boots — for I 
 have a fine stock of leather, and I am a widower, 
 gentlemen. Well, I started on this errand of 
 mercy, gentlemen, and was wending my way to 
 my customer with corns — hard and shooting corns 
 — when I encountered a — er — a baboon." 
 
 " A baboon ! " half shouted the lawyer. 
 
 " Sir," gravely explained the shoemaker, " the 
 Lord had not made the moving object I met in 
 the image of man. It is veraciously to be averred 
 he wore corduroys, and had important parts of 
 his functional frame buttoned up in a pea-jacket. 
 But, gentlemen, his anatomical delineation.
 
 152 MURDER BY WARRANT 
 
 styled the physiognomy, was a conformable 
 reproduction or counterpart of the head and face 
 appertaining to that savage, hideous, and for- 
 midable beast of the forest, the baboon ! " 
 
 The little cobbler peered through each glass ot 
 his spectacles, and sagely beamed on his audience. 
 
 " Now, Mr. Mannikin," mildly urged Hatwood, 
 whose roughness had remarkably abated, having, 
 indeed, been merely simulated, " do you mind 
 telling us 'tjcactly what passed from the moment 
 of that meeting between you and the — er — 
 baboon ? Tell it in your own way ; but, if you 
 will be so kind, give it me in language I can take 
 down for evidence. You, of course, understand," 
 said the artful detective " the sort of words wanted 
 in a court of law." 
 
 " I think so, gentlemen," answered the flattered 
 little cobbler. " I have given evidence in my 
 time against poachers, and my wisdom in the 
 matter of testimony was greatly enlarged when I 
 gave principal evidence against two predatory 
 boys who had wickedly pilfered and appropriated 
 one dozen and a half of winter cabbages." 
 
 " You have had your turn in the witness box, 
 I can see," cheerfully answered Hatwood. 
 
 "Well, gentlemen, natural like, I turned and 
 looked after that animalised man, and then I saw 
 he had stopped and was looking after me. I was 
 afraid, that I was, and I don't mind saying so, 
 for I am a widower, gentlemen, as the saying is, 
 and I was right down afraid. As I looked back 
 he scowled horribly, and made me shiver with
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT 153 
 
 fear. I did not run, but I turned away and 
 hurried on, and did not again look behind." 
 
 " One moment, please," interrupted Hatwood, 
 who was rapidly taking notes. " Thank you," he 
 added, glancing up hopefully. 
 
 "Yes, gentlemen," said Mannikin, "I hurried 
 on ; but as I went I could not help thinking ot 
 that man's face. I kept on thinking and thinking, 
 and, as I thought and thought, it gradually 
 worked into my mind that he was a robber, and 
 was after breaking into my shop to steal my stock 
 of leather " — at bare thought of which tremendous 
 outrage the little cobbler, who under the stress of 
 excitement had dropped his long words, wiped 
 his brow and groaned aloud. 
 
 " Yes, gentlemen, it struck me he would break 
 into my shop and steal my stock of leather — a fine 
 stock, gentlemen ; and I am a widower, as the 
 saying is ; and that belief grew and grew, and I 
 couldn't go on. ' Hang the corns ! ' thought I — 
 ' hang them, hard or soft ! My leather is my 
 living ; I must not lose that.' It was mean of 
 me to leave my customer in pain, for I am a 
 curer of corns, as the saying is, but, being a 
 widower, gentlemen, I had no one to mind the 
 shop. So I was cowardly, and I couldn't help it. 
 I turned back, and gave up my customer, and 
 hastened to reach home before the robber could 
 be there. The road narrows a bit just before the 
 village is reached, and off on the left side is a lane 
 which runs to a footpath leading to the parish 
 church. As I came near to the lane I heard
 
 154 MURDER BY WARRANT 
 
 voices. I went tip-toe to the corner, and craned 
 my neck round the hedge. Guess my surprise, 
 gentlemen, when I saw Bolton, the detective, and 
 the baboon man talking earnestly together. I 
 could not hear what passed, but they were in 
 warm conversation, and Bolton seemed to be 
 laying down the law in fine style. The baboon 
 brute was quite crestfallen, and was seeming as 
 sheepish as before he was scowling. I waited a 
 few seconds, and then crept away. That night 
 the same baboon fellow brought Bolton back to 
 the inn. The detective was pale and walking 
 heavily. I was in the passage, a few paces from 
 the entrance, and I saw the baboon place Bolton 
 against the door-post, and then run away like 
 mad." 
 
 "In what direction did he run?" inquired 
 Hatwood, holding up a finger to emphasize the 
 reply. 
 
 " In the direction of Murkwoop Moor. I came 
 to the door, and distinctly saw his retreating 
 form." 
 
 " In the direction of Murkwoop Moor ! " supple- 
 mented Hatwood, giving strong vocal significance 
 to the sentence.
 
 CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 " What is your next step, Mr. Hatwood ? " 
 asked Lambert, with proper humility. 
 
 " I mean to shove the httle shoemaker against 
 the peeching porter." 
 
 " And what do you expect from that ? " 
 
 " You will soon see when we get the curiosities 
 together." 
 
 The puzzled man of law took time to consider. 
 
 " Ah ! Mr. Mannikin, here you are, and you 
 know your book, I bet," exclaimed Hatwood, as 
 the little cobbler strutted into the " King's 
 Head," decked in his Sunday best, his face and 
 hands testifying the power of soap and water 
 when joined in a purifying compact. 
 
 " You know your book, Mr. Mannikin, I'll bet 
 my life," reiterated the detective, in high glee. 
 
 Mr. Mannikin did not repudiate the charge. 
 Nay, his twinkling eye and enjoyment oi a pinch 
 of snuff predicted immense confidence in his said 
 book. 
 
 "And pray, Mr. Hatwood," asked Lambert, 
 aside, the simplicity of ten years of legal training 
 brimming into the question, "what may we hope 
 to learn from this mysterious book ? " 
 
 "Ah, Mr. Lambert," laughed the detective, 
 
 156
 
 156 MURDER BY WARRANT 
 
 rubbing his hands, " this job is not clean enough 
 for your class. I have been instructing our 
 cobbling friend in the art of telling a whopper." 
 
 " A whopper ? " repeated George, reflectively. 
 
 *' You have, of course, forgotten your youth ; 
 but, when I was a lad, a whopper meant a lie. It 
 has the same meaning to-day." And leaving the 
 young lawyer to ruminate, Hatwood took the 
 little shoemaker to task and engaged him in a 
 lengthy conference. 
 
 Presently, a decent, old-fashioned barouche 
 rolled up to the inn. A pair of horses, more 
 remarkable for strength than beauty, and a 
 coachman, uneasy in his tunic, and particularly 
 dissatisfied with a hat too large for his head, 
 completed the equipage which was to trundle 
 the detective and his party to the village of B . 
 
 "And how is Mrs. Butcher to-day?" heartily 
 inquired Hatwood of the buxom landlady of "The 
 Bell." 
 
 Beaming with smiles, the genial Mrs. Butcher 
 ushered her guests into the room used by Mr. 
 Lempriere, bestowing sundry inquisitive glances 
 at the quaint figure of the little cobbler. 
 
 *' Now, Mrs. Butcher, meat and drink, and as 
 briskly as possible," cried Hatwood, flinging 
 himself into a chair. 
 
 The landlady simpered, Lambert was mum, and 
 the little shoemaker sniffed expectantly. 
 
 Mrs. Butcher received the order with gratitude. 
 She was retiring, when her eye rested once more 
 on Mannikin. Pausing compassionately, she
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT 157 
 
 observed, with exquisite discretion, " Would the 
 
 gentleman over there like a little drop of ? " 
 
 " I should ! " blurted the cobbler.
 
 CHAPTER XXV 
 
 The railway porter who had hired himself as a 
 spy upon Lempriere was a pudding-faced man, 
 whose primary mundane consideration was the 
 comfortable condition of his stomach. This 
 covetous corner of his anatomy had prompted him 
 into a compact to betray his benefactor. The 
 porter's family had tasted abundantly of the 
 ex-banker's charity. Lempriere possessed the 
 customary spark of benevolence in his breast, and 
 now and again it dilated into quite a respectable 
 glow. Since his confinement at Murkwoop, he 
 had found liberality an interesting pastime. He 
 did not practice it sedulously, but conformed 
 to its demands with commendable assiduity ; and 
 to keep himself au coiirant with its needs, he 
 commissioned Mrs. Butcher — the kindest of souls 
 — to warn him of domestic misfortunes befalling 
 
 in the village of B . Intelligence of calamities 
 
 of this class was thenceforth duly forwarded to 
 Murkwoop, and the afflicted homes were quickly 
 provided with every delicacy sympathy and cash 
 could invoke ; the sympathy — an article meant 
 to cheer, and assuage sorrow — being specially 
 compounded by excellent Mrs. Butcher. It 
 chanced that the youngest boy of the pudding- 
 faced porter fell sick of the measles, and 
 
 lea
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT 159 
 
 Lempriere's generosity was invited. At once he 
 was in evidence, paying for medical skill and 
 sustaining the little creature through each stage of 
 convalescence. Still, the jellies, the soups, and 
 the dainties, which upheld the little fellow's 
 constitution, had not entered the greedy mouth of 
 the stomach-loving porter. He knew they had 
 speeded his boy's recovery ; but, notwithstanding 
 this touching incident, their effect had neither 
 humanised his heart nor his memory. His sense 
 of gratitude sank to zero when opposed to the 
 practical arguments of appetite. 
 
 Mrs. Butcher's curiosity was painfully aroused 
 as she showed Ben Double, the pudding-faced 
 porter, into the room occupied by her guests. 
 Double was not at ease. He laboured under 
 apprehensive surprise at the permission extended 
 to him by the station-master to call at " The 
 Bell " and introduce himself to gentlemen who 
 desired his society. He had previously observed 
 Hatwood in conversation with the station-master, 
 and, noting that they looked towards him once or 
 twice, inferred he was connected with their 
 dialogue. Consequently, he entered the room 
 reluctantly, regarding everybody present with 
 lethargic distrust. 
 
 " Very pleased to see you, Mr. Double," said 
 Hatwood. " Dare say you'd like to earn a little 
 money ? Portering must be poor pay." 
 
 " Don't suppose as I should object, sir," 
 answered the porter, twisting his cap and slowly 
 seating himself.
 
 i6o MURDER BY WARRANT 
 
 "Well, Double," said Hatwood, bringing his 
 topic plump upon the carpet, " we want you 
 to describe the man who met you on the high 
 road the night Victor Corelli was murdered." 
 
 The porter gazed sluggishly at the detective, 
 and then shook his head without a word. 
 
 " Hum," thought Hatwood. " You're either 
 devilish artful, or — hum." Finishing this sen- 
 tentious reflection, he said in the same tone, 
 " You know the man I mean. Double — the rough- 
 looking fellow who accosted you on the high road 
 about a mile from this village." 
 
 " Never saw a man on the high road that 
 night," surlily answered the porter. 
 
 The little cobbler, who had been quietly 
 balancing his spectacles upside down, looking 
 through first one glass and then the other, now 
 addressed the porter in his pompous way, saying, 
 " Friend, you are wandering from the straight 
 path of veracity. On the night of that distressing 
 occurrence you kept an appointment with a man 
 who, I have no manner of doubt, became the 
 murderer of the unhappy foreigner." 
 
 Ben Double shuffled in his seat, and his eyes 
 travelled from face to face ; but, if he had in- 
 formation, his obstinate reticence was not to be 
 easily overcome. " I tell yer," he said, the twang 
 of a snarl in his tone, " I never spoke to no 
 bloke on that there night, and I was not on the 
 high road neither." 
 
 "You were not on the high road?" instantly 
 rapped outj^the detective. " Why not, seeing
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT i6i 
 
 Bolton had payed you handsomely in advance to 
 keep your appointments ? " 
 
 But Hatwood, whose sharp precision greatly 
 disturbed the porter, gave him no time to reply 
 or recover. 
 
 " Look here, Ben Double, it is no use beating 
 about the bush. I, as well as my friend here," 
 said Hatwood, jerking his thumb at the cobbler, 
 " know perfectly that Bolton instructed a rough 
 man to meet you on the high road, on that day, 
 to receive your signals. Also that he did meet 
 you. Is it not so, Mr. Mannikin ? " 
 
 "Assuredly," said the shoemaker, peering 
 cautiously through his spectacles. " I myself 
 heard Bolton deliver himself to the rough man 
 in these terms : — ' Go and meet Ben Double on 
 the high road, and tell him I am ill, and that 
 he is to give the signals to you. He will either 
 nod his head and hand you an old railway ticket, 
 or he will shake his head and snap finger and 
 thumb.' That's what I heard," calmly concluded 
 the cobbler. 
 
 If Double was in torture before he was in terror 
 now. He was jammed into a corner — an ex- 
 cruciating situation when no amount of squeezing 
 can give comfort to the victim. Now, for the 
 first time, his conscience bore a weight he wished 
 to heave overboard. But how could it be lifted ? 
 The truth might act as a lever ; but if the load 
 slipped wouldn't there be a bump ! However, a 
 clean breast must be risked. That sharp-eyed 
 detective had something up his sleeve — Double 
 M
 
 i62 MURDER BY WARRANT 
 
 was sure of that ; so, as lies were of no account, 
 he would try the wisdom of truth. 
 
 " I ain't a going to deny what was what any 
 longer," he began in a husky voice. " But I do 
 ask, gentlemen, as that you will not take on so as 
 to blow upon me to the station-master or Mr. 
 Lempriere. What is done is done, and I'm sorry 
 for it." 
 
 "Never fear," replied Hatwood. " Ease yourself 
 of your story, and we three alone will take care 
 of it." 
 
 The porter twisted his cap and took a pull at 
 the whisky and water the detective had pushed 
 towards him. 
 
 *' I think as I can see, gentlemen, that yer know 
 all about what Mr. Bolton got me to do ? " 
 
 Hatwood nodded. 
 
 " Well, sir, on the night of the murder I did 
 not see Mr. Bolton where we used to meet. A 
 rough looking bloke, with an ugly mug, came up, 
 and says he, ' Mate, I'm from Bolton. What's 
 the blooming signal ? ' I said nothing, but shook 
 my head and snapped. ' All right, mate,' says 
 he, and he turned away and walked off." 
 
 '* That was all that happened ? " 
 
 " That was all, sir," replied Double, extremely 
 miserable. 
 
 " Now, Double, you and Mr. Mannikin compare 
 notes of this fellow's personal appearance," said 
 the detective, leaning back in his chair and direct- 
 ing a watchful eye. 
 
 It was diverting to witness the consequential little
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT 163 
 
 cobbler drawing a wordy picture of the monster 
 who might have meant to pillage his stock of 
 leather. Poor Double imperfectly understood the 
 flowery periods of the shoemaker's description. It 
 was, however, clear to the cute detective that 
 both porter and cobbler had met the same man. 
 Satisfied on this score, worthy Hatwood, gratified 
 with his stratagem, put a sovereign into the 
 porter's hand and dismissed him with the assur- 
 ance that he might rest easy and slumber peace- 
 fully, as neither Lempriere nor station-master 
 should hear one word of his harmless treachery.
 
 CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 "That whopper was worth a fiver," remarked 
 
 Hatwood, as he paced the station of B in 
 
 company with Lambert junior. " I could not, 3'ou 
 know, have told it myself. I don't refer to scruples. 
 Not a bit. Lies in our business are necessaries — 
 nay, essentials. Nothing could be gained without 
 them. This case demanded an essential lie. That 
 clown was cunning. He has to-day had a lesson 
 in his own line," grimly added the detective. 
 
 " You coached the cobbler ? " said Lambert, 
 amused at his companion's audacity. 
 
 " Why, certainly. I couldn't have scored other- 
 wise. Double, seeing two against him, caved in." 
 
 " You could not, then, have relied upon yourself 
 alone ? " 
 
 " Not a bit. I was forced to be artful, and 
 gammoned the cobbler to keep me company. 
 Mannikin had not overheard the gab between 
 Bolton and the — er — baboon. That was awkward. 
 I was cock-sure of Bolton's game, so I made up 
 my mind to tackle the cobbler. I told him I was 
 certain he had heard Bolton say so-and-so. I 
 flattered him. I pressed him. I persuaded him 
 in — er — the usual way," continued Hatwood, 
 jingling some loose coin in his pocket as he spoke. 
 " I told the little man to think — to think twice — 
 to think thrice — to be quite sure Bolton had not 
 
 164
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT 165 
 
 said so-and-so. I urged him to be positive, to be 
 — er — and — er — well, bless my soul, if the little 
 chap didn't end by brightening up and remember- 
 ing the very thing I w^anted." 
 
 " This is a wrinkle," thought Lambert junior, 
 " but — not for Lincoln's Inn." 
 
 " Bolton had told me his plant, but Bolton was 
 dead. The porter was cunning. I knew it — had 
 to reckon with it. I was no good alone. His 
 cunning would have helped him — so would his 
 thick head. The first, to see it was my word 
 against his; the second, to doggedly hold out. 
 I was in a fix. I had to invent. I had to put a 
 tale on the cobbler's lips. I happened to put the 
 one that capped. The cobbler had met the 
 baboon. I was sure Double had seen the, same 
 animal. The shoemaker was the shot to bring 
 down the porter. Directly Double saw Mannikin 
 had twigged the signals, he was sewn up. Didn't 
 you see how flabbergasted he was ? " 
 
 " It was a capital subterfuge ; but such an 
 artifice can only be justified," began the lawyer in 
 his best metaphysical style. 
 
 " I know it can. Subterfuge — humph ! 'Tis a 
 common malady, and if a man could die of the 
 complaint not an insurance office in Christendom 
 would take a detective. Subterfuge ! Cunning 
 must be met by craft. It puts two and two 
 together in a brace of shakes. That Ben Double 
 is a callous dog. To fill his belly he'd drown a 
 household. He is a beastly prig — might be a 
 thief or murderer, but cunning controls his vice.
 
 i66 MURDER BY WARRANT 
 
 See how he refused to commit himself, except by 
 signals ! Oh, believe me, Mr. Lambert, that 
 fellow is a sort of Plaster of Paris I ago ! " 
 
 The heavy train steamed into the station. The 
 enormous engine — so truly significant of power, 
 speed, and peril — emitted uproarious snorts as it 
 passed the lawyer and detective. The driver, 
 bearded, broad-shouldered, bronzed, eyed the 
 intending passengers with the air of majestic 
 superiority which naturally belongs to unlimited 
 responsibility. These pigmies — even so, for the 
 nonce — would be committed to his care, to be 
 preserved in life or crushed to death as fate 
 or he might decree. Insanity in his brain or 
 malice in his heart, and, fiendishly inspired, he 
 could dash his living load down the endless 
 chasm of eternity. But if the driver was giving 
 play to this reckless sort of philosophy, the stoker 
 was freshening under very different views. As he 
 sat on the side of the engine, proclaiming his 
 familiarity with smuts, coal, and grease, a glance 
 of recognition passed between him and Hatwood. 
 
 "Ah, my friend," cried the detective, leaving 
 Lambert and keeping pace with the slowly 
 moving train, " is Fiddles at the terminus ? " 
 
 " That he is, sir," said the stoker with alacrity. 
 
 " I think I've a job for him." 
 
 " He'll be glad to hear that," grinned the stoker. 
 
 " It will not be the first he has had, eh ? " 
 
 " No, sir." 
 
 And then the ready detective saluted the driver 
 and handed up his cigar case.
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT 167 
 
 " We're off now, sir," cried the stoker, turning 
 to his duties. 
 
 Hurrying to rejoin Lambert, the lawyer and 
 the detective were soon travelHng at the rate of 
 forty miles an hour towards the varying vapours 
 of our indescribable metropolis. 
 
 • • • • • 
 
 " Now, Mr. Lambert," said Hatwood, stepping 
 from the train at the terminus, " I'll show you a 
 man with a smart memory." 
 
 " Indeed." 
 
 " He fixes a fellow's likeness as fast as pho- 
 tography. They call him Fiddles. There's 
 another chap, a lamp man, who's also devilish 
 quick. But Fiddles beats him hollow. To fix 
 faces in the memory is a cerebral knack. You 
 want it well sharpened in our trade." 
 
 " But these men must see thousands of faces 
 every day." 
 
 " Exactly. The recollection of a striking one 
 is thereby assured. The face which frightened the 
 cobbler, and sent him dancing home to guard his 
 leather, is one Fiddles should have spotted." 
 
 " You think this ruffian has been here ? " 
 
 " Believe so," answered the detective. " Hallo ! " 
 he shouted to a passing porter. " Is Tom any- 
 where about ? " 
 
 " At dinner, sir," answered the man, touching 
 his cap. 
 
 " Tom is the lamp man," explained Hatwood. 
 
 By this time they had reached the office of the 
 station-master. Entering and shaking hands with
 
 i68 MURDER BY WARRANT 
 
 this official, Hatwood promptly introduced the 
 solicitor, and in the next breath communicated 
 his business. 
 
 " Ah, it is not the first time you have wanted 
 Fiddles." 
 
 "A useful chap — smart and ready. He ought 
 to have been a detective." 
 
 "We are called to our occupations by planetary 
 influence," said the station-master, who had a turn 
 for astrology. 
 
 "Well, the planet that set Fiddles to collect 
 tickets took small account of his abilities," 
 remarked Hatwood, with a shrug. 
 
 At this point Fiddles appeared, and respect- 
 fully saluted the detective. The collector was a 
 middle-aged man, with an intelligent cast of face, 
 set off with twinkling eyes. The musical soubriquet 
 of Fiddles had been bestowed for simplicity, his 
 name being Bufferbunt. In a few pictorial sen- 
 tences Hatwood delivered to Fiddles a likeness 
 of the man whom Mannikin had described. A 
 twinkle in the collector's eyes, and a twitch of 
 his nose, informed the detective his phrase 
 portrait had told, and reflected a face Fiddles 
 remembered. 
 
 " He's been through this station twice, sir," 
 said Fiddles, eschewing all hesitation. 
 
 " When was the last occasion ? " interrogated 
 Hatwood. 
 
 " Only ten days ago," answered the collector, 
 his confidence increasing. 
 
 " You are quite sure ? "
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT 169 
 
 " I am, sir," said Fiddles, his nose twitching 
 nervously. 
 
 " When was he first through here ? " 
 
 " About a fortnight afore the second time, sir. 
 He came through with a ticket he'd smeared over, 
 and all the print was out of it. I stopp'd him, 
 and there was a jolly shine, he swearing and 
 going on, and not telling where he came from, 
 and we getting the inspector, and he wanting to 
 fight us, and cussing and swearing at everybody, 
 and — and " 
 
 *' I see," said Hatwood. " The row reminds 
 you of the first occasion. Now, what circum- 
 stance fixes the second ? " 
 
 "A very tough one, sir. He was just kind 
 enough to take upon himself to punch my 
 blooming head," answered Fiddles, illustrating 
 his statement by giving his pate a gentle tap 
 with his half-clenched hand. 
 
 Hatwood's face brightened, and happy expecta- 
 tions permeated his breast. He perceived in 
 Fiddles a valuable instrument for broadening the 
 trail of the Murkwoop murderer. 
 
 " Describe the scene, sir ? That I will, sir," 
 said the collector, gathering himself up for 
 a speech. " Well, sir, the second time 
 he came through — that is last month, sir — when 
 he came up I recognised him, and the row and 
 everything, and when he handed me his ticket I 
 saw it was smeared as before, and I stopped him, 
 and he tried to push through, and I prevented 
 him, and took hold of his arm and gave him a
 
 170 MURDER BY WARRANT 
 
 shove, and he swore, and I stuck to him, and he 
 landed me a punch on the head, and there was a 
 jolly row, and others came and helped, and up 
 came the inspector, and we hauled him into the 
 office, and he kicked up a shindy, and wouldn't 
 say where he came from, and offered to pay 
 double fare, and swore, and pulled out a lot of 
 sovereigns, and out came a medicine bottle, and 
 it was full of rum, and it fell and broke, and made 
 an awful stink, and he offered money for the 
 punch on the head, and the inspector told me to 
 
 take it, and — and Why, Tom, you remember 
 
 that fellow who landed me a punch on the head 
 last month, don't you ? " 
 
 " Aye, that I do," said Tom, the lamp man, 
 who, unperceived, had entered the office of the 
 station-master.
 
 CHAPTER XXVII 
 
 Mr. Lempriere was indulging in a delicious 
 literary dream. While resting his head on his 
 left hand, his right itched to imprint the next 
 sentence on a filling sheet of woven note. Literary 
 efforts are frequently bereft of anticipated delight 
 by reason of an obstinate sluggishness which 
 enervates the faculties when most they wish to 
 flourish under ethereal dews of lofty imagina- 
 tion. But not so with Lempriere. His ideas 
 were unblighted by the numbness which mars the 
 power to produce impressions at first hand. He 
 was coining phrases of love — tender passages ex- 
 haled from the rich resources of parental fondness. 
 Nothing is so simple as to multiply vows of 
 attachment, especially if a fruitful foundation 
 really inhabits the breast. In Lempriere's bosom 
 a father's love had long obtained a firm occu- 
 pation, and he was explaining the genial vagaries 
 of this amiable tenant in a playful epistle to his 
 darling daughter. 
 
 Mr. Lempriere's letter unfolded plaintive mur- 
 murings against a separation which estranged 
 parent and child from the blissful fetters pendant 
 to domestic ties. The father was living in a 
 solitude surrounded by air and sterility. The 
 
 171
 
 172 MURDER BY WARRANT 
 
 daughter was residing in a house standing amidst 
 thousands of others, whose tenants minded their 
 own affairs and ignored the presence of neighbours. 
 But if Lempriere was disposed to complain of the 
 vileness of a deserted state, he swiftly turned 
 aside from despondency. Was he not writing in 
 expectation of Josephine's coming to Murkwoop ? 
 Was he not painting a glowing picture portraying 
 the happy time they would pass in conversation, 
 reading, and music ? Ah, yes ; and sighs and 
 smiles were the accessories. Presently his eye 
 lost the blank abstraction induced by visionary 
 reverie, and thenceforward he bent his head and 
 plied his pen until art and invention were alike 
 exhausted, and nothing remained but to subscribe 
 his signature. 
 
 Not many davs afterwards the London train 
 
 steamed into the station of the village of B , 
 
 and Miss Lempriere alighted at the platform. 
 She had come to tarry at Murkwoop — not at all 
 enviable in March — and was bravely determined 
 to face the monotonous surroundings of the moor 
 and the disheartening stillness of the sepulchral 
 mansion. 
 
 " Do you know, my dear," remarked Lempriere 
 to his daughter as they sat over breakfast, " I fear 
 I shall not be able to introduce you to my friend, 
 Caspar St. John. Ever since the inquest on poor 
 Corelli, and that disgraceful tirade in the Breeze 
 Mercury, he has studiously avoided me, and 
 returned to his habits of hard work." 
 
 " How very unsociable of him."
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT 173 
 
 " Very indeed. I thought I had reclaimed him 
 from his nightly rambles on that horrid moor," said 
 Lempriere, giving an uncomfortable shiver while 
 glancing disapprovingly through the window. 
 " But he justifies his exclusiveness by the plea 
 that he is writing the concluding chapters of a 
 learned book." 
 
 " You hardly ever see him, then ? " 
 
 " Scarcely ever. He takes his constitutional 
 after sundown, and then I am mostly in my arm- 
 chair," 
 
 " One would think he would be tired, and be 
 glad of your society." 
 
 " Ah, you would ; but these students are so 
 unreasonable that really they are hardly ever 
 tired. St. John often works day and night, and 
 — would you believe it ? — all for love of literary 
 work, which will never bring him a penny of 
 profit." 
 
 " Very eccentric of him, to be sure," said the 
 young lady, forgetting that numberless votaries 
 to music and art gain naught but a title to 
 vanity. 
 
 "Job Jenkins is not to be bought, or I would 
 bribe him to take a note of invitation to St. John 
 to dine with us this evening. But Jenkins has 
 been cautioned." 
 
 " Has Mr. St. John read that abusive article in 
 the Breeze Mercury ? " 
 
 "Yes, my dear; I showed it to him. He is a 
 cynical man," said Lempriere, sighing. " He 
 remarked that public men must put up with the
 
 174 MURDER BY WARRANT 
 
 inconveniences of hostile criticism. I don't mind 
 adverse criticism. It is damnable, but it can be 
 endured. Pardon the adjective, my love. I am 
 your father, you know ; and when I am irritated 
 my feelings foster a little license in profanity." 
 
 " How unsympathetic of Mr. St. John ! He 
 ought at least to have been kind." 
 
 " Kindness was not in it, my child. Not merely 
 did he comment in that caustic style of his, but 
 he unhandsomely reasoned out the circumstances 
 of Corelli's death in such a form as to show, 
 by logical inference, that I could reasonably be 
 suspected of the murder. Upon my soul, my 
 dear Josephine, he put everything together so 
 skilfully, that I was thunderstruck to find how 
 easy it would be to place me under suspicion." 
 
 "But he surely is not so horrid as to suspect 
 you ? " 
 
 "As a gentleman, I believe, he does not suspect 
 me. But a gentleman and a logician are very 
 different beings. St. John always tries to be 
 both ; but the opinions of the two characters seldom 
 tally. The logician is always running away with 
 the gentleman. When he dealt with the murder, 
 he put the case, and drew conclusions, as a 
 logician ; and so, as a logician, he may, I 
 suppose, suspect me of the crime. His argu- 
 ments were polite, but pitiless; and they were 
 put, as he more than once assured me, purely 
 from a logician's stand-point. Confound the 
 logicians ! " cried the ex-banker, busily buttering 
 a piece of toast.
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT 175 
 
 " It is terribly cruel that a set of insulting 
 scientific rules should be able to make anybody 
 appear an inhuman monster." 
 
 " Exactly, my dear," said Lempriere, helping 
 himself to tongue. " But it is not only Caspar 
 St. John who reasons out abstract theories. I 
 received, the other day, a letter from a member 
 of the Scarum Club, telling me to cheer up and 
 let the Breeze Mercury go to " 
 
 Mr. Lempriere coughed, pulled himself to- 
 gether, and shyly took another piece of toast. 
 
 "Ah, Josephine, that crime has cost me a 
 weight of anxiety ; for I, in my turn, might give 
 credence to a logical suspicion." 
 
 *' Of whom, papa ? " 
 
 " Of St. John himself." 
 
 "Of Mr. St. John?" 
 
 " Er — yes. I ought not to mention my 
 thoughts, perhaps ; but, logically, St. John could 
 be suspected of the murder. He was Corelli's 
 enemy, my dear — his bitter enemy ! " 
 
 " His bitter enemy ! " and Josephine's eyes 
 widened. 
 
 "Yes, indeed. Corelli was an Italian; and 
 St. John hates Italians." 
 
 In saying this Mr. Lempriere was scarcely 
 serious. He confessed later that logic was not 
 exactly in his line, and was a little too slippery 
 for his taste. 
 
 " Ceorge has written very confidently," said 
 Josephine. " He believes Mr. Hatwood is certain 
 to lay his hands on the culprit."
 
 176 MURDER BY WARRANT 
 
 " Nothing would please me better," replied 
 Lempriere, vigorously mutilating the breast of a 
 pigeon. 
 
 The re-united father and daughter now drifted 
 into a review of Josephine's engagement to George 
 Lambert junior. From this they strayed into a 
 dialogue touching the character and courageous 
 sentiments of the straight and emphatic Martella. 
 Next, they discussed and weighed the social and 
 legal merits of Mr. Gerald Seldon ; and the men- 
 tion of the barrister's name naturally beguiled 
 Josephine into a graphic description of the stirring 
 meeting held in his chambers in Pump Court, 
 Temple. 
 
 "Ah, Josephine, few men understand how to 
 float companies without plunder," sighed Lem- 
 priere, spreading pate de foie gras on his toast. 
 *' Plunder, my dear, means commission." 
 
 " And what is the real significance of com- 
 mission ? " 
 
 " Correctly speaking, a reward for special 
 knowledge. Everything nowadays is specialised, 
 and commissions have been brought within the 
 dignity." 
 
 " But Mr. Seldon said there is such a prejudice 
 against commissions." 
 
 " So there is, my dear, particularly on the part 
 of those people who never have the ability to earn 
 them. Such people are really as opportunist as 
 the commission is itself." 
 
 "Jealousy, then, is the foundation of their 
 disapproval ? "
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT 177 
 
 " Yes, indeed," answered the ex-banker, biting 
 a mouthful of toast and casting up his eyes as he 
 swallowed it. " Jealousy is truly at the bottom of 
 the popular dislike of commissions. But let the 
 complainants try to float schemes without them. 
 Only let them try to " 
 
 Mr. Lempriere's utterance was again impeded 
 by the pleasures of the pate de foie gras. 
 
 N
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII 
 
 Our story has flown to the East End, and, 
 having winged its way down the Whitechapel 
 road, has imprudently entered a pubHc-house 
 and called for a drop of something to drink. It 
 is never possible to grace the bar of a gin palace 
 without partaking of some liquid composition hot 
 or cold. In the bar of the palace, wherein our 
 tale has taken temporary refuge, were four 
 gossiping women imbibing quarterns of gin, 
 that were despatched with a celerity which 
 illustrated the cultivated powers of this social 
 quartette. The plan of drinking devised by these 
 bibulous ladies reflected the highest credit on 
 their ingenuity. The lady whose turn had arrived 
 to stand treat — who was styled for the nonce 
 " My dear" — poured the contents of the quartern 
 into three small glasses, and, deftly delivering 
 these to her companions, delicately averted her 
 head and talked volubly until one was empty. 
 Receiving this, she re-filled from the measure, 
 which, being thus uncargoed, became an object of 
 special consideration. Participating in this ex- 
 pectant interest, the custodian, placing it on the 
 counter with significant force, darted a crushing 
 look of command on the lady whose privilege it 
 was to replenish. The entertainer designate, 
 
 178
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT 179 
 
 gracefully poising the vessel between finger and 
 thumb, invited the barman's attention to its 
 unsatisfactory condition. This gentleman, wink- 
 ing politely, brimmed it with the vivifying cordial, 
 and the previous formalities were ceremoniously 
 renewed. In this way each lady duly regaled her 
 companions, and each in order of succession was 
 compelled to call or compound for a quartern 
 more. It is needless to affirm that such an 
 admirable method of keeping the convivial ball 
 foiling was conducive to keen and uncurbed 
 pleasure in this select and limited party. 
 
 One member of the group was a small, ill- 
 looking woman, with cadaverous face sallowed 
 by vice and gin. Her bleary eyes and croaking 
 voice distinguished her from the rest, who were 
 fat, robust, and big. While they talked shrilly 
 and laughed boisterously, the sallow woman was 
 silent, taciturn, and depressed. If she smiled or 
 exhibited the least appreciation of the passing 
 jest, she slowly drew apart her bluish lips and 
 exposed a set of irregular fangs ; but more often 
 she moaned and swayed herself and otherwise 
 betrayed a troubled state of mind. Her un- 
 companionable conduct at last attracted general 
 attention, and the lady whose hospitality was next 
 in request, before ordering, bent down and 
 admonished the unhappy woman in no uncertain 
 language. 
 
 "I'll tell yer what it is, Sal, if Fd got that 
 feller for a husband, I'd do it — yes, drat me, I'd 
 do it 1 "
 
 i8o MURDER BY WARRANT 
 
 " Ah, yer don't know him. He'd kill me if I 
 did," groaned the sallow woman. 
 
 " Bear up, my gal," returned the other, " and 
 have a will of yer own. Show him yer mean to 
 be treated as a wife." 
 
 " Ah, yer don't know what a brute he is — how 
 he hits and bruises me for nothing at all," moaned 
 Sal. 
 
 " Then why don't yer do something to earn yer 
 whacking, yer fool ! " exclaimed another woman, 
 exalting her nose in scorn. 
 
 " That's what I say," rejoined the first speaker. 
 " The more the reason for to do it, Sal," continued 
 the dame, pouring out the beguiling fluid and 
 handing a glass to the object of her solicitude. 
 " Do it, Sal, my dear," said her friend, nudging 
 her coaxingly once or twice. 
 
 " I'm afraid he'd murder me," pleaded the 
 miserable creature. 
 
 " Look here, gals," exclaimed the lady who 
 had broached the topic. " Here's Sally Bloader 
 going short of the shiners while her beast of a 
 husband is going his larks and getting the demon 
 tremens." 
 
 The demon tremens were something which 
 mightily shocked the rugged virtue of this stout 
 and indignant dame, who, to intensify her 
 condemnation of the conduct of Sally's spouse, 
 went on to declare that she, the speaker, was an 
 honest woman with eight children ; and that 
 though she did not mean to repudiate her weak- 
 ness for gin, her aversion to every other moral
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT i8i 
 
 failing was uncompromising and impregnable. 
 
 ** Yes," resumed this specimen of sturdy 
 uprightness, " if I were Sal, I'd do it, yes — that 
 I would ! Yes ; and I'd think, too, it was the 
 right thing for to do it." 
 
 The indefinite phrase " to do " belongs to the 
 infinitive mood of a highly respectable verb. We 
 are hence favoured with a part of the sense of 
 the counsel urged by this shrill and implacable 
 lady. But the " it " was altogether another 
 question, notwithstanding a practical definition 
 was vaguely suggested by the elbow nudges she 
 imparted. When, however, this much abused 
 impersonal pronoun had been emphasised several 
 times, Sal began to sombrely reflect. She 
 accepted the glass of gin proffered by her adviser, 
 and tossed it off with the ravenousness of the 
 inveterate dram drinker. More quarterns followed, 
 everybody paying except Sal. She, wretched 
 creature, kept the pace going by borrowing from 
 the author of the phrase, " I'd do it." Presently 
 the liquor begat boldness ; and, whereas before 
 she was feeble and unstable, she now became 
 talkative and defiant. Taking aside the woman 
 whose laconic precepts had encouraged her, the 
 two engaged in confidential whispers ; and then 
 Sal, swallowing one more fascinating draught, 
 leeringly informed the company she was about to 
 absent herself, but would not be away long. 
 Shufiling through the swing doors, she directed 
 her steps to a stifling court at right angles to a 
 narrow street leading from Whitechapel road.
 
 i82 MURDER BY WARRANT 
 
 Crawling up several flights of rickety stairs in 
 a tumble-down house, Sal ascended to the third 
 storey, and taking a key from her pocket 
 tremblingly unlocked a door. Gaining entrance to 
 a small back room, she paused and peered 
 suspiciously around. Putting a finger to her lips, 
 and grinning hideously, she carefully closed the 
 door and locked it. These fantastic precautions, 
 save the last, originated possibly from the cir- 
 culating effect of the drink ; for the room was 
 vacant, although a mingled smell of spirits and 
 tobacco betokened recent occupation. A con- 
 fused bed stood in one corner, and a table with 
 a few chairs were ranged here and there in 
 comfortless disorder. Some rags of carpet and a 
 tattered rug straggled about the floor, and a 
 dismantled curtain partly concealed the window. 
 On the mantel-piece was a bottle half-full of gin ; 
 and suspended above was a print in flaming 
 colours representing our Saviour bearing the 
 burden of the cross. 
 
 Sal moved on tip-toe to the fire-place, and 
 stooping down reached her arm up the 
 chimney. Searching eagerly, her hand essayed 
 to clutch an object which seemed to be eluding 
 her grasp. Fumbling and muttering, emotions 
 of disappointed perplexity played on her sallow 
 visage. At length a gleam of exultation struggled 
 into her leaden eyes, and the next instant she 
 withdrew her hand holding a handkerchief 
 smothered with soot and wrapped over something 
 round. It was carefully folded and tied with
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT 183 
 
 several knots. Cautiously undoing these, she 
 gloated over the silent face of a beautiful gold 
 watch. In the first transport of her joy she could 
 not repress the inclination to dance a shaky jig. 
 This she accompanied to the harsh notes of a 
 guttural chant. Stowing the watch within her 
 stays, she stole from the room and down the 
 rickety stairs. Issuing into the stifling court, she 
 hastened thence to the narrow street. From 
 there she trotted along the Whitechapel road until 
 she stopped at a pawnbroker's shop. Stealthily 
 casting her eyes about to see whether she was 
 noticed, she slipped slyly into one of those private 
 consulting boxes specially arranged to isolate the 
 individual borrower. 
 
 " Where did you get this from ? " asked the 
 pawnbroker's assistant, looking suspiciously at 
 his client as he opened the watch and examined 
 the works. 
 
 " It ain't mine, nor my husband's neither," 
 answered the woman evasively. " It's one he's 
 got to mend, and we've run short of chink." 
 
 "Is your husband a " The assistant was 
 
 too engrossed in a minute examination of the 
 watch to think of finishing his question. 
 
 " He's a watchmaker, my husband is, and 
 times are bad," nervously mumbled the woman. 
 
 " How much do you want on this ? " asked the 
 assistant, looking up flushed, and catching his 
 breath as he spoke. 
 
 " Just a quid to keep us going," replied Sal. 
 
 "All right," said the man, hastily preparing
 
 i84 MURDER BY WARRANT 
 
 the ticket. " There you are," he said, clapping a 
 sovereign on the counter. The woman greedily 
 grabbed the coin, shuffled off, and hied back to 
 the public-house. Rejoining her companions, 
 they hailed her with Growings of bibulous merri- 
 ment ; and for the rest of the afternoon she was a 
 heroine who had vindicated her disputed right to 
 a due proportion of her husband's shiners. 
 
 Within an hour of the pawning transaction the ^ 
 assistant had hailed a cab and was speeding at 
 high pressure to Scotland Yard. Entering the 
 portals of that old established firm, he bounced 
 with some precipitation against a gentleman 
 standing in the doorway. 
 
 " I'm not insured against accidents," said the 
 stranger good-humouredly, at the same time 
 narrowly scanning the new-comer's excited count- 
 enance. 
 
 " I want to give important information about 
 
 that Murkwoop " 
 
 " Here, stop a moment ! " cried the gentleman, 
 forcibly dragging the assistant aside. " Step this 
 way. That information " — hurriedly whispering 
 words of deep meaning to the flushed provider of 
 loans at liberal interest — " belongs to me." 
 
 " Look here, then," gasped the assistant, snap- 
 ping open the case of the watch pawned by the 
 unhappy Sal. 
 
 Mr. Jonathan Hatwood gazed long and intently 
 at the glistening interior. Thoughtfully decipher- 
 ing some characters artistically engraved, he read 
 — •' Victor Corelli, 1872."
 
 CHAPTER XXIX 
 
 " 'Ere, I say, wot d'yer mean ? " yelled Mr. 
 Bill Bloader, who was reclining on a confused 
 bed in a dirty room up rickety stairs in a stifling 
 court of a narrow street leading from the White- 
 chapel road. 
 
 Mr. Bill Bloader was apparently unconscious 
 of his absolutely solitary condition. Beside him- 
 self the only quickened object in the room was 
 a stunted candle flickering a half defunct flame. 
 Nevertheless he continued to bellow, " 'Ere, I 
 say, wot d'yer mean ? " Possibly Mr. Bloader 
 was dreaming, or was being transported by his 
 fancy into an aimless mood of enquiry. After 
 two or three further petitions in the same strain, 
 he threw an arm beneath his bullet-head and 
 lapsed into snorting slumber. 
 
 A nearer examination of Bloader's features was 
 enough to scare and freeze the beholder. As he 
 lay on the confused bed, his eyelids but half 
 closed, it was observable a hideous squint dis- 
 torted beady eyes set deep behind beetling brows. 
 His short hair grew so extremely low that he 
 seemed devoid of forehead ; and his black 
 bristling beard shrouded lips surmounted by a 
 broken nose. It was a shocking face, clothed in 
 coarsest of skins, and wearing the vile vestments 
 
 186
 
 i86 MURDER BY WARRANT 
 
 of every vicious impulse. In fatally indelible 
 lines, lodged lust, ignorance, and brutality. 
 Repulsive in hue, shape, and character, it indexed 
 the revolting proclivities which render men 
 dangerous and loathsome. 
 
 Bloader continued to doze fitfully, and, when 
 half awake, to vociferate violent execrations. His 
 bloated features and fetid breath combined to 
 betray the strength of his recent potations. All 
 at once his limbs writhed, his face discoloured, 
 and in a moment a fierce spasm thrilled through 
 and quivered his frame. Awaking with a horrid 
 howl, he straightened his legs with a racking jerk, 
 and, raising himself on his quaking elbow, gazed 
 fearfully round the room. Catching sight of a 
 bottle of gin on the mantel-piece, he looked at it 
 long and hard. It appeared to fascinate and 
 exult him. He leered at it ; laughed at it ; roared 
 and shook his fist at it. " Ha, ha, ha, my pretty ! 
 Ha, ha, ha ,my beauty ! " Bawling thus, and 
 trembling all over, he dragged himself from the 
 bed to the mantel-piece and drank a stiff draught 
 of the liquor ; then, smacking his swollen lips, he 
 turned and rolled back ; but so stricken and 
 riotous were his nerves that, in clutching the 
 bed-clothes, his fingers knotted themselves con- 
 vulsively for several agonizing seconds. 
 
 " Now, Bill, yer fool, you'll be getting a fit of 
 the horrors, yer will, if yer go on to the drink in 
 this marndering way," said a little ill-looking 
 woman, entering the room and coming to the 
 side of the bed.
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT 187 
 
 " Look 'ere, Sal," yelled Bloader, springing 
 frantically into a sitting posture and shaking his 
 fist in- half stupefied fury, " I mean jest to drink 
 as much as I damn well like ! So there ! " And 
 Bloader, sinking back exhausted, succeeded in 
 drawing the bedclothes to his chin, growling and 
 cursing as he viciously watched the woman with 
 his squinting eyes. 
 
 " Yes, yer fool, and then yer'll go blabbing and 
 getting yerself into quod, and praps strung up — 
 yer fool ! " 
 
 " Wot ! " roared the ruffian, his jaws moving 
 stiffly. *' I get swung up for that there job ? 
 No fear ! Nab me for robbing a bloomin' body ? 
 Ha, ha, ha ! The dead don't peech, my gal. 
 Bolton, the artful teck, won't string up any more 
 on us. 'E's a dead'un now, and the dead don't 
 peech, my gal. No — not they." And here, 
 Bloader, sanguine of the silence of the dead, 
 prepared himself for that sensuous sleep which is 
 the unrestorative attendant of alcoholic satura- 
 tion. 
 
 "Ye're a fool, Bill," urged the ill-looking 
 woman, unconvinced by her husband's reasoning. 
 " Yer hasn't read the newspaper this Sunda:y 
 past. Don't yer know what the perlice have 
 been saying about the dokementg that yer took ? 
 Suppose the nabbers got hold on yer, what d'yer 
 think yer'd say about them there ? " 
 
 " Say ! " growled Bloader, imprecating a horrid 
 oath. "I'll tell yer wot I'd say. I'd say, look 
 'ere, thet them there dokements were shifted from
 
 i88 MURDER BY WARRANT 
 
 the pocket of a bloke as was as dead as a doorpost 
 long afore I set eyes on 'im. Now, Sal, thet's 
 wot I'd say — d'yer see ? " 
 
 " And who'd believe yer ? " queried the woman 
 in a dubious voice. 
 
 " Believe me ! " bawled the brute, astonished at 
 the risk of incredulity suggested by his helpmate. 
 
 " Yes, Bill, who'd believe yer ? D'yer think 
 the beak would ? D'yer think that feller in the 
 wig and scarlet at the Bailey would ? No — not 
 they ! " And Sal, assured of the improbability 
 thus portrayed, lifted the bottle from the mantel- 
 piece and disposed of some gin in the usual way. 
 
 " I tell yer there ain't none but Bolton as knows 
 I was nigh Murkwoop on thet there night ; and 
 Bolton 'as toed the bucket, and won't string up 
 me nor any other bloke. D'yer think I'd a kep 
 them there bloomin' dokements if Bolton wus 
 kickin' ? No — not me ! Bill Bloader knows too 
 jolly well, 'e does, 'ow to take care of 'is bloomin' 
 neck. Ha, ha, ha ! " 
 
 At this moment there was a smothered noise 
 outside, then a rustling movement, then a hushed 
 murmur. While Bill and Sal were rallying their 
 gin-steeped senses to solve the meaning of these 
 sounds, the door was burst violently open, and 
 the next instant Bloader, who had sprung from 
 the bed, was raving and struggling in the powerful 
 grasp of several police officers. He was arrested, 
 hand-cuffed, and dragged to jail for the wilful 
 murder of Signer Victor Corelli !
 
 CHAPTER XXX 
 
 London was aflame with the tidings — the capture 
 of the Murkwoop murderer ! Fleet Street rang 
 with uproar. News-boys screeched and raced 
 and contested for customers. Merchants, lawyers, 
 clerks devoured and discussed the report. A 
 cautious gentleman, pressing a penny between 
 finger and thumb, secured his paper while passing 
 his coin. A spectacled barrister, tall and gaunt, 
 received his " Star " over many heads, and went 
 his way reading as he walked. An absent student, 
 fumbling for copper, produced silver, was lost on 
 his *' Globe " and forgot his change. The intelli- 
 gence spread ; news-boys thrived ; Hatwood was 
 praised ; the Lamberts advertised. The hum of 
 conversation on all sides proclaimed the capture 
 of the Murkwoop murderer ! 
 
 Bill Bloader, apprehended in London, was 
 transferred to the county wherein lay the scene of 
 his crime. Arriving there, he was charged before 
 a full bench of magistrates. Formal evidence was 
 given, and the hearing adjourned. Subsequently, 
 the examination of Lempriere and others being 
 concluded, the case for the Crown was completed. 
 The drink-soddened brute was committed for trial, 
 and withdrew defiantly from the dock. 
 
 189
 
 igo MURDER BY WARRANT 
 
 Sally Bloader was indicted on some charge 
 connected with the pawning of the watch. The 
 sunken creature seemed prostrated by grief as she 
 realised that her duplicity had placed her Bill in 
 imminent peril of the gallows. In spite of vice, 
 drink, crime — the chief ingredients of her worth- 
 less existence — she fostered a sort of affection for 
 the man who abused and beat her, but who for 
 all that was her husband. Yes, Bloader was 
 married — he was that ; but his connubial relations 
 were scarcely felicitous. He and the woman had 
 been disciples of sin from youth. They had 
 married for partnership in plunder. Thus they 
 had prosecuted burglaries in mutual confidence. 
 A mistress is a doubtful commodity ; and Bloader, 
 having this presentiment, married his paramour. 
 
 " Ah, my dear Lambert," sighed Lempriere, as 
 he left the Court in company with the senior 
 lawyer, " what a sight have we been witnessing. 
 Crime, drink, and pawnbrokers hand in glove with 
 hangman and gallows ! " 
 
 " Nay," answered the old lawyer, in a tone of 
 gentle reproof. " You are too severe upon a 
 highly reputable and useful class of men. Many 
 of us in our time have sought the aid of a pawn- 
 broker, although, as age advances, we are apt to 
 avoid allusion to it. If, however, we have to refer 
 to it, we treat the transaction as a mild escapade, 
 and set it down in the season of our wild oats 
 sowing. For my part, I regard the pawnbroker 
 as a beneficent speck in the horizon of life. He 
 is always respectable — he is made so by Act of
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT 191 
 
 Parliament. He keeps respectable hours — also 
 regulated by Statute. His rate of interest is 
 commendably high — as permitted by the law of 
 the land. Then, after all, what is there in the 
 fact that he examines the works of your watch 
 and offers less than you ask ? Do not mortgagees 
 employ a surveyor to go over your real estate? 
 Do they not offer their (not your) two-thirds of 
 their (not your) value of your property ? Tell me, 
 again, the difference between paying for a pawn- 
 ticket and discharging the costs of an indenture ? 
 No, my dear Lempriere, pawning is as creditable 
 as any kind of borrowing. The only distinc- 
 tion is that when you borrow of a pawn- 
 broker you must always be careful never to 
 mention it." 
 
 Miss Josephine Lempriere met George Lambert 
 junior on Murkwoop moor that evening. The 
 estimable young lady had naturally acquiesced in 
 the specious truisms pronounced by her fond 
 father to excuse his coquetry in some out-of-the- 
 way corners of the great Concession. The Member 
 for Breeze was clear at last of the lowering cloud 
 which threatened to tarnish the brightness of his 
 banking renown, and nothing now remained but to 
 free him from the logical stigma fastened upon him 
 by fate or Caspar St. John. Providence had in- 
 deed smiled. It had acted auspiciously in nabbing 
 Bill Bloader and clapping him into a cramped 
 cell. His trial and execution would be the next 
 turn on the spit of events, and these formidable 
 displays would cheer and lighten two lovable
 
 192 MURDER BY WARRANT 
 
 hearts. It oddly fell out that human woe meted 
 human happiness. Bill Bloader would be sen- 
 tenced and hanged. Josephine and George could 
 rejoice and be married.
 
 CHAPTER XXXI 
 
 The pomp and paraphernalia that accompany our 
 criminal jurisdiction in assize towns are calculated 
 to widen the eyes of the cosmopolitan foreigner. 
 He might misapprehend the province of the 
 quaintly-habited javelin men, and the fanfare of 
 the trumpets might dislocate his composure ; but 
 the gorgeous costume of the Sheriff and the stately 
 raiment of the Judge could not fail to elicit 
 spontaneous admiration of this finely-flavoured 
 item in our constitutional bill of fare. 
 
 The assize which was opening in the county 
 
 town of C was commenced with the customary 
 
 Church service — Religion giving Justice a pre- 
 liminary dig to keep him grave and straight. 
 Much popular interest was concentred on this 
 assize. A sensational murder trial was brewing, 
 and people of different degrees were preparing to 
 be entertained. Bill Bloader was to be solemnly 
 arraigned, and curiosity was rampant, owing to 
 the socially unique quality of his victim. 
 
 From the date of his committal Bloader had 
 spent his time in spinning a novel defence. 
 Although these clever rarefies mostly miss the 
 mark, they claim the virtue of usefulness, since 
 they almost always hang the culprit and advertise 
 o ^33
 
 194 MURDER BY WARRANT 
 
 the lawyer. But Bloader's attitude differed from 
 the conduct affected by the majority of fashion- 
 able criminals. He declined to dodge round the 
 tale of his innocence just as a moth dodges about 
 a flame, merely to enter one side in order to 
 emerge scorched on the other. No ; that was not 
 his plan. He made one point, tricked up in one 
 style, fixed in one particular spot, and tacked on 
 to one parcel of time. Mr. Skillman, his counsel, 
 felt extremely confident. He beheld victory and 
 his own glory in the ascendant. It was very 
 creditable on the part of the learned gentleman 
 that he meant to exculpate Bloader — never mind 
 the means, the method, or the truth. 
 
 The Court was densely crowded. Ladies in 
 gay and sumptuous toilets were seated in 
 variegated clusters. Groups of gentlemen, more 
 soberly clad, were discussing the situation in 
 subdued tones. In a small circle of earnest 
 talkers stood Mr. Lempriere. In a little throng 
 of robed barristers Lambert junior led the topic. 
 Amidst a bevy of young ladies sat the anxious 
 Josephine. Presently, silence being claimed, 
 sounds were hushed and the audience rose as the 
 Judge entered and presided on the bench. A 
 moment later eager faces were watching the dock 
 with breathless expectation. A pause of suspense, 
 and one heard doors opening and the marching of 
 many feet ; and then Bloader stood forward con- 
 fronting his Lordship and scanning the faces of 
 the jury. 
 
 The prisoner was, if anything, but little
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT 195 
 
 altered. Enforced sobriety had mitigated a few 
 of the traces of his unbridled libations ; but his 
 coarse, wild-animal aspect remained. He looked 
 scarcely sentient, except that cunning glittered 
 in his squinting eyes — the only glint of reason. 
 He pleaded Not Guilty, and the trial commenced. 
 
 The case for the Crown was simplicity itself. 
 Still, it was purely circumstantial. The meeting 
 between Bolton and Bloader was graphically 
 related by the little cobbler ; also that the 
 prisoner was Bolton's escort as far as the door of 
 the inn. Next came Double, the pudding-faced 
 porter, who identified Bloader as the messenger 
 sent by Bolton for the signals. Abundant proof 
 was propounded with a view to demonstrating 
 that the accused, from the time of his having left 
 Bolton propped up against the door-post of the 
 " King's Head," had more than ample oppor- 
 tunity to reach Murkwoop moor and overtake and 
 waylay the unfortunate Italian. Fiddles, the 
 collector, characteristically explained Bloader's 
 conduct at the Terminus, and the repeated 
 defacement of the railway ticket. The pawn- 
 broker's assistant swore to the pawning of the 
 watch ; and the police produced bank-notes and 
 valuables, the property of Corelli, which had been 
 found concealed in the prisoner's room. Finally, 
 Lempriere deposed that three important docu- 
 mxents, which the prisoner had sewn up in the 
 mattress of his bed, bore the signatures of himself, 
 of the Lamberts, and of the murdered man. 
 
 Mr. Skillman rose to address the jury. He
 
 196 MURDER BY WARRANT 
 
 was an expert advocate, and he began his speech 
 by frankly admitting the truth of the trenchant 
 facts adduced by the prosecution. He conceded, 
 without hesitation, that Bill Bloader, when 
 arrested, was in actual possession of the articles 
 the jury had inspected ; and he boldly pledged 
 himself to establish the proposition that the 
 possession of this property simpliciter was abso- 
 lutely insufficient to justify the charge of murder. 
 
 " It is necessary to confess," said Mr. 
 Skillman, heaving an audible sigh, " that the 
 prisoner has for years pursued the nefarious but 
 profitable profession of housebreaking. He has 
 been committed to jail, and has suffered different 
 sentences for burglaries ; but, in the course of a 
 long career of successful depredation, he has 
 never been convicted of violence or brutality. 
 Of late years his robberies — invariably conducted 
 on an elaborate scale — had effectively baffled the 
 vigilance of the police. Nevertheless, he was a 
 marked man ; and lived under the ban of in- 
 cessant surveillance ; and amongst the numerous 
 detectives to whom he was known was Detective 
 Bolton, who died on the night the Italian was 
 murdered. 
 
 " I should not dream, gentlemen, of concealing 
 the circumstance that Bloader was lurking in the 
 vicinity of Murkwoop for the purpose of pre- 
 paring for a robbery at the mansion. The fame 
 of the Frogmore Legacy, and the reported wealth 
 of Mr. Lempriere, led the prisoner to cherish 
 sanguine hopes of a superb booty. Stimulated
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT 197 
 
 by the vision of a splendid and easy spoil, he 
 travelled to MurWoop and reconnoitred the 
 mansion. He v^^as thus engaged when he was 
 astonished at being confronted by Detective 
 Bolton, who immediately charged him with the 
 scheme of robbery he really meditated. Bloader 
 had never suspected a detective was lodged in the 
 rustic garments with which Bolton was disguised; 
 and he was dumbfounded and staggered on finding 
 himself rightly accused. He did not conceal, 
 nay, confessed, his design ; and he promised at 
 once to renounce it, and to return forthwith to 
 Whitechapel. 
 
 " Now, gentlemen, what transpired to detain 
 Bloader near Murkwoop ? The intended robbery 
 had become hopeless, and suspicion was dancing 
 at his heels and dogging his footsteps. Why, 
 then, did he stay ? " The learned counsel in- 
 geniously indicated how Bloader had become 
 Bolton's emissary to obtain the porter's signals. 
 *' Having met Ben Double and received his signs, 
 he returned to the detective, who was waiting on 
 the highway a short distance from X — . Bolton, 
 w^ho was ill, declared himself to be much worse, 
 and the prisoner assisted him back to the ' King's 
 Head.' He left him reclining against the door- 
 post of the inn, and then started for London along 
 the road leading to B — . Compelled to pass the 
 northern extremity of the now notorious Murkwoop 
 moor, he effected a detour, avoiding the high road, 
 and taking to the open ground, overgrown with 
 long grass, directed his steps to a point some two
 
 igS MURDER BY WARRANT 
 
 miles beyond the north-east boundary. Suddenly, 
 the length of the grass being considerable, he 
 plunged against, and was nearly prostrated over, a 
 formidable obstacle in his path. Recovering his 
 balance, and stooping to discover the cause, he 
 was amazed to behold the corpse of Corelli, 
 weltering in the blood which had flowed with his 
 life ! Gentlemen," continued Mr. Skillman, 
 impressively, " he saw the ill-fated Italian had 
 been murdered, but not robbed ; and the tempta- 
 tion to rifle the corpse of the valuables upon it 
 was too potent to be resisted. Yes, gentlemen, 
 the accused stands self-condemned of the odious 
 offence of robbing the dead ; but of the horrible 
 crime of murder he is incontestably guiltless. 
 
 "This may be a difficult problem, especially as 
 my unhappy client is, by the wisdom of the laws 
 of this enlightened land, precluded from appearing 
 before you in the character of a witness. By the lips 
 of his counsel alone can he unfold the theory of 
 his innocence. In order to successfully affirm 
 that the prisoner became possessed of the property 
 by despoiling the dead, I must advance and 
 sustain three theories. As to the first, gentle- 
 men, I will invite you to ask yourselves whether 
 this lamented Italian was really Victor Corelli, or 
 whether he was really one who, by birth, was 
 Victor Gaspiani ? 
 
 " Many years ago, in the city of Naples, two 
 lovers linked their vows, and yielded to the 
 rapture of mutual adoration. But their passion 
 was unhallowed by truth or purity. The youth — a
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT 199 
 
 coward, a traitor — concealed a clandestine marriage 
 — a living wife. The maiden — defying conscience 
 and religion — submitted to a desolating desire. It 
 was the old, old tale. Deception ! Disgrace ! 
 Ruin ! The youth, terrified, fled. The girl, sunk 
 in despair, died by her own hand ! Her name 
 was Dorothy St. John. Her defiler — Victor 
 Gaspiani! The girl had a brother. His name 
 was Caspar St. John. He vowed vengeance, and 
 pursued the seducer for years. Tired and haunted, 
 Victor Gaspiani spread a rumour of his death, 
 and, changing his name to Victor Corelli, sought 
 permanent refuge in a South American Republic. 
 " Now, gentlemen, had this unfortunate Italian 
 a living enemy eager to scent his trail and slay 
 him in cold blood ? The answer must be an 
 affirmative. Gaspar St. John, by his conduct, 
 had avowed the length of his hate — his capacity 
 for the direst, nay, the deadliest, form of revenge. 
 Was Gaspar St. John living? The answer must 
 again be an affirmative. Was he in England at 
 the time this tragedy was enacted ? For the third 
 time the answer must be an affirmative. He was 
 undoubtedly in this country ; but his place of 
 retreat was, and is, a profound and impenetrable 
 mystery. 
 
 " Lastly, gentlemen, I ask whether a suspicious 
 stranger was present on Murkwoop moor on the 
 night the Italian was murdered ? I declare to 
 you, gentlemen, I am convinced of the truth of 
 the prisoner's asseveration — that, a short time 
 before he came into contact with the corpse, he
 
 200 MURDER BY WARRANT 
 
 met a solitary horseman riding at a desperate pace, 
 who disappeared in the distance upon Murkwoop 
 moor. The rider passed quite close ; the night 
 was cloudless ; and the dress he wore was distinctly 
 visible. As he dashed by — blindly and recklessly 
 — his form was hid and his face concealed in the 
 folds and cover of a cloak and hood ! " 
 
 The Judge summed up. He was severely 
 dispassionate. The Jury retired. Their verdict 
 was — Guilty. 
 
 The prisoner stood up to receive sentence, and, 
 according to usage, was asked whether he had 
 anything to urge against the penalty of death. 
 As he merely hung his head and mumbled 
 some indistinguishable words, the Judge was 
 commencing his solemn exordium, when, with a 
 horrid howl, Bloader sprang like a bloodhound 
 on the warders, and fought with a strength 
 and fury which threatened to annihilate his 
 opponents. The scene was exciting and extra- 
 ordinary. Ladies shrieked and fainted. Men 
 stood pale and anxious. The Judge sat — stern 
 and immovable. In and around the dock was 
 a surging mass of constables and warders, and 
 amidst them all was the raging figure of Bloader, 
 battling, raving, and striking with demoniacal 
 force and tenacity. Overcome and cowed at last, 
 his hair torn, teeth knocked out, and blood 
 streaming from mouth and forehead, he stood, 
 held in the vice of many grasps, glaring, panting,
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT 201 
 
 and listening to the weighty words which con- 
 demned his body to a dreaded death, and 
 commended his soul to the mercy of his Maker.
 
 CHAPTER XXXII 
 
 Lempriere was back in London. He had 
 travelled from Mayfair to be present at the trial 
 of Bloader ; and that villain was awaiting his 
 impending doom while the flowers were budding 
 into beauty, and Nature was rejoicing in a rich re- 
 newal of vernal splendour. The condemned man 
 bore himself bravely enough, and protested his 
 innocence with the usual lustiness. He had not 
 attempted further violence. On the contrary, he 
 seemed to be settling down to his fate with a 
 boorish resignation which smacked of the 
 pathetic. The prison chaplain came and prayed, 
 and implored him to confess and sue for spiritual 
 peace. But Bloader's heart was not constructed 
 of impressionable material ; and to him religion 
 was a sort of fad or business. Parsons and their 
 equivalents had never troubled his conceptions ; 
 and as for any belief in a beatific future, his 
 denseness and obduracy were as impervious as 
 they were incurable. 
 
 Mr. Lempriere was possessed of that sensitive 
 faculty of endless vibrations designated Conscience 
 — an uncomfortable estate sometimes, since 
 entailing many of the jarring prerogatives 
 
 202
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT 203 
 
 attendant on the seisin of a scolding wife. With 
 Mr. Lempriere Conscience was wrath and 
 masterful, and was goading the representative of 
 Breeze democracy into a deal of curdling dis- 
 quietude. It was growing rebellious, kicking 
 over established authority, and was having a 
 rough-and-tumble with that gentlemanly senti- 
 ment, Honour. Mr. Lempriere had laboured to 
 believe the trial of Bloader had ended satisfactorily, 
 and would put a proper termination to the 
 monstrous career of an abominable ruffian. But 
 this pacifying opinion did not square his 
 interfering, cavilling, and pestering Conscience. 
 Honour had argued that he, Mr. Lempriere, must 
 not cast suspicion on his friend, Mr. St. John. 
 Honour had reminded him that St. John's 
 revelation was a sacred confidence not to be 
 infracted on any pretence. Hence, Conscience, 
 adopting a contrary tone, was challenged by 
 Honour to ethical combat. Round after round 
 ensued, unsparing pugnacity marking the 
 scrimmage. For a spell, philosophic scuffles 
 rendered victory doubtful, until sturdy Conscience, 
 giving mincing Honour a punch in the somewhere, 
 brought the strife to a crisis ; and then Mr. 
 Lempriere paid a visit to Pump Court, Temple, to 
 take advice about settling the dispute. 
 
 " Very happy to see you," said Gerald Seldon, 
 smiling courteously as the ex-banker shook hands 
 and dropped into a chair. 
 
 Mr. Lempriere was unhappy in not being able, 
 unassisted, to extricate himself from his difficulty.
 
 204 MURDER BY WARRANT 
 
 " I sought you at once, instead of going first to 
 my solicitor." 
 
 *' Don't apologise, pray. Recollect I am happy 
 to meet you as a relative." 
 
 " I was thinking of professional etiquette," 
 quavered Lempriere. 
 
 " We bend sometimes, and bow etiquette into 
 the passage," smiled Seldon, calmly elbowing his 
 arm-chair. 
 
 The ex-banker opened the ball with decent 
 indecision. He was, he admitted, inferentially 
 accusing his friend, St. John, the student and 
 man of letters, of a dastardly crime. It was hard 
 lines, and he whispered many secret curses to 
 soothe the anguish of his heart. 
 
 " Your business with me is, of course, very 
 unpleasant," remarked Seldon, languidly dangling 
 his pince-nez. 
 
 "Extremely unpleasant. It means really that I re- 
 luctantly entertain a most extraordinary suspicion." 
 
 " I understand." 
 
 " But, of course — er — only a logical suspicion." 
 
 " Precisely." 
 
 " And — er — all the same, I — er — cannot bring 
 myself to — er — really suppose that a man of the 
 stamp of St. John could yield to such a gross 
 inclination as — er — to commit murder. It is so 
 
 intensely vulgar, that — er " Mr. Lempriere 
 
 paused for help. 
 
 " But you argue, I believe, that St. John can 
 be legitimately suspected ? " said Seldon, coolly 
 knotting the guard of his pince-nez.
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT 205 
 
 " Yes — er — logically," gasped Lempriere. 
 
 " Why, then, entertain scruples ? You have 
 information which, you conceive, should be 
 brought to the knowledge of the police ? " 
 
 " Yes ; that St. John was living at Murkwoop 
 when Corelli was murdered." 
 
 " Exactly. Is that the only information ? " 
 
 " No — er — no. I am afraid there is something 
 else. But, naturally, I wish it to seem that he is 
 only open to be suspected — er — logically, always 
 — er — logically." 
 
 " You would not be able to keep it in that form. 
 It is a question of fact. Is there any matter that 
 throws a light " 
 
 " There is," groaned the agonised client. 
 
 " Well, pray confide it to me." 
 
 The wretched Lempriere allowed himself to be 
 cross-examined into a detailed disclosure of how 
 St. John was stationed on the verandah while 
 Corelli was singing at the piano. 
 
 " I see," rejoined Seldon, reflectively. " He 
 beheld his foe, and his face " 
 
 "His face was ashen, livid with rage, hate — er 
 —and Corelli turned and — er " 
 
 "The Italian saw St. John?" asked the 
 barrister, quickly. 
 
 " Their eyes met, and Corelli blanched." 
 
 " Recognition took place ? " 
 
 " I couldn't say. I never dreamed Corelli was 
 Gaspiani. I only thought of St. John's detesta- 
 tion of Italians." 
 
 " Recognition must have taken place. They
 
 2o6 MURDER BY WARRANT 
 
 probably met afterwards, quarrelled, and Corelli, 
 refusing a duel, was shot like a dog," 
 
 The barrister rose with his last remark and 
 eyed Lempriere keenly. 
 
 " You think it necessary to divulge these 
 matters?" interrogated the ex-banker, pathet- 
 ically. 
 
 " If you tell anything, you should tell all." 
 
 " But it is only an inference — only — a — logical 
 — er " 
 
 " It is a most suspicious circumstance." 
 
 " But the murdered man was stunned first." 
 
 " Not necessarily. He refused an honourable 
 duel, and his exasperated enemy shot him as he 
 was turning away. He fell from his horse, and 
 hence the bruise on his forehead." 
 
 *' But," expostulated Lempriere, somewhat 
 relieved, " you forget Corelli was killed by a shot 
 from his own revolver — the weapon he had 
 brought with him to present to me." 
 
 Again the lawyer was one too many for the 
 ex-banker. Taking a turn or two up and down 
 the room, Seldon paused and said : 
 
 ** It is useless questioning how the shot was 
 fired. The men — enraged and beyond control — 
 became formidable to each other ; and St. John, 
 wrenching Corelli's revolver from his grasp, slew 
 the Italian with his own weapon." 
 
 " He had drawn it out in " 
 
 " He had drawn it in self-defence," interrupted 
 Seldon ; " and it was fired and flung away by the 
 revengeful St. John."
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT 207 
 
 " I feel I am most dishonourable in exposing 
 St. John." 
 
 " Oh, dear no. Honour knows no law that 
 prohibits the step you are taking. An innocent 
 man has been convicted." 
 
 " Well, can you screen me from saying 
 much ? " 
 
 " I can. But let me think," and Seldon seated 
 himself and leaned his head on his hand. " You 
 have said," he resumed, saddling his nose with his 
 pince-nez, " that after the inquest St. John kept 
 studiously out of your way ? " 
 
 " That is so." 
 
 " And you say that if, after his recognition of 
 Corelli, he had a meeting of revenge in view, he 
 had only to descend from the verandah, mount 
 his horse, and " 
 
 " Pray don't ask me to surmise. To divest 
 myself of facts is terrible enough." 
 
 " Quite so. Well, I understand that when 
 next you met him he appeared pale and thoughtful, 
 and his manner had undergone a strange 
 alteration ? " 
 
 Lempriere made a desperate attempt to limit 
 his admissions to the circumscribed area of a 
 problem in logic. Seldon politely ignored the 
 endeavour, and pursued his damning questions 
 with merciless courtesy. 
 
 " Now, I wish you," said the barrister, inter- 
 lacing his hands and crossing his knees, " to let 
 me put a plain question. Do you really think St. 
 John was on the moor for the purpose of "
 
 2o8 MURDER BY WARRANT 
 
 " Pray, pray, don't ! " burst in Lempriere, 
 rising from his chair and pacing the room in 
 agitation. " I don't know what — nay, I dare not 
 think ! I want you to advise me. You know 
 everything. Tell me what I ought to do ; but — 
 pray don't ask me what I think." And Lem- 
 priere mopped his forehead and looked 
 uncommonly distressed. 
 
 It does not appear what was the exact tenor of 
 the advice administered by Seldon to his rich 
 relative. Lempriere absorbed it with difficulty ; 
 his face lengthened, his body writhed, and he 
 manifested many symptoms peculiar to a 
 disturbance of the nervous system. It was, 
 however, arranged he should forthwith undertake 
 a journey to Murkwoop and demand an immediate 
 interview with Caspar St. John. 
 
 " You see, Seldon," said Lempriere, after he 
 had regained the use of his tongue, the lawyer's 
 opinion having crippled its activity, " I have, by 
 seeing you at the onset, only once broken faith 
 with St. John. Had I gone to Lambert senior, 
 and afterwards we had come on here together, I 
 must have broken faith twice. In playing the 
 part of traitor, it is always gratifying to feel you 
 have done so with delicacy, and with the minimum 
 of injustice to the object of your betrayal." 
 
 " Quite so," assented the worldly Seldon. 
 "The conduct that is palliative is the most 
 creditable and convenient. Shall my clerk 
 telegraph to Job Jenkins to meet you at the 
 station of B ? "
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT 209 
 
 "Thank you, if you would be so kind," said 
 Lempriere, cordially shaking Seldon's hand. 
 Hurrying away, he brought himself downstairs 
 into the court, and there he paused for reflection 
 immediately in front of the inanimate pump. 
 
 " Ah," soliloquised the ex-banker, looking hard 
 at the passive monster, "your mouth is always 
 open, but there flow no slanders from its interior. 
 You may in your time, Mr. Pump, have put 
 many people in pain, but you had the good sense 
 never to show the least sign of compunction. I, a 
 benighted mortal, come to this court, against my 
 will, to cast suspicion upon — perhaps to condemn 
 — a fellow creature, who may be as innocent as 
 an unborn babe. Not a bad emblem," he 
 remarked, breaking away from his original 
 cogitations. " Not at all a bad emblem for a 
 court full of lawyers. They pump us of our lies. 
 They pump us of the truth. They pump us of 
 their fees. They pump us of " 
 
 Basil Lempriere was whirled away to the village 
 
 of B . Alighting from the train, he found the 
 
 trusty Job Jenkins in waiting with 'the dogcart. 
 Not omitting a brief visit to " The Bell," and a 
 short attack on some of its comforts, he mounted 
 the seat and drove at a smart pace to Murkwoop. 
 
 " And how is Mr. St. John ? " inquired 
 Lempriere, as they neared the sombre moor. 
 
 " I don't know, sir." 
 
 " Oh ! Then you don't see much of him ? " 
 
 " I don't see anything of him," returned the 
 laconic Job. 
 P
 
 2IO MURDER BY WARRANT 
 
 " Indeed ! Why, is he never out of his rooms?" 
 
 " He is never in them, sir." 
 
 " Never in them ! What do you mean ? " 
 
 " He has left Murkwoop." 
 
 "Left Murkwoop!" shouted Lempriere, 
 astonished. 
 
 " Yes, sir," answered Job, his eyes fixed steadily 
 on the back of the horse. 
 
 " How long has he been away ? " 
 
 " About two months, sir." 
 
 " Turn the horse round ! " 
 
 "Sir!" cried Jenkins, surprised out of his 
 composure. 
 
 " Turn the horse round, and back to B . 
 
 Quick ! — quick ! " 
 
 Jenkins did as he was bidden, the dogcart 
 rollmg at a spanking speed to catch the train to 
 London. Forgetting farewells — or to take his 
 ticket, or notice salutes — Lempriere rushed 
 through the station — into the train — into space 
 — into London — into a cab — into Pump Court, 
 Temple I
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII 
 
 " I WAS struck," said St. John, " by the story of 
 the Naples girl told by the young solicitor, 
 Lambert, and repeated to me by Lempriere. It 
 rang strangely in my ears. Corelli nearly fainted 
 while listening to it, and had to fly to 
 restoratives." 
 
 "His guilty conscience — aye, his guilty 
 conscience." 
 
 " He said he would never re-visit Italy — told 
 Lempriere so — the caitiff! He feared to meet 
 me, thinking I had retired to Naples. He knew 
 if we met it would be a duel unto death. The 
 craven loved life. He is living still — the spirit 
 never perishes — but where ? " 
 
 " We must not judge, it is presumptuous, and 
 mercy must temper hate," returned the second 
 speaker ; and thereafter St. John and his com- 
 panion silently watched the scene of witching 
 peacefulness spreading everywhere beyond at 
 their feet. 
 
 Our story has travelled at a nimble bound to 
 the glowing scenery of melodious Italy. A 
 gorgeous panorama is witnessed from the crest of 
 Capodimonte. At its base thrives populous 
 Naples, commanding its famous bay, whose 
 
 2U
 
 212 MURDER BY WARRANT 
 
 pellucid waters are studded with charming islets 
 — countless promontories dividing its azure 
 depths. These form a vision of beauty and 
 colour alike captivating and absorbing to the 
 idealistic worshiper. 
 
 The sun had hardly risen above the horizon ere 
 a solitary figure stood motionless on the brow of 
 Capodimonte. His head was bent, his arms 
 folded, and his manner denoted earnest thought. 
 Naples still slumbered, and the lovely view was 
 bathed in blissful stillness. Nothing stirred, save 
 gentle zephyrs, and the stately form of the lonely 
 man remained entranced in contemplation. 
 Presently, raising a hand, the hood was pushed 
 from the noble brow of Caspar St. John. 
 
 There was a second form now on the summit. 
 Unnoticed by St. John, a man in ecclesiastic 
 garb had slowly climbed the hill. Crossing to 
 where the student stood, the priest thoughtfully 
 scanned the ascetic. Arousing from his reverie, 
 St. John beheld the saintly face beside him. An 
 exclamation of recognition — an affectionate 
 greeting — a prolonged silence. It was a meeting 
 after years of separation ! 
 
 " It is pleasant," said the priest, " to renew 
 friendship amidst scenes sacred to our last 
 conversation and farewell. Ah, Caspar, our 
 ambitions have greatly altered. Once we aimed 
 at scaling the loftiest heights of astronomical 
 science — exploring starry fields and planetary 
 paths remotely conceived by human prescience. 
 We are changed. You, author of a new philo-
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT 213 
 
 sophy, quicken intellectual curiosity. I, a simple 
 priest, am the humble servant of our loving 
 Saviour." 
 
 Then the two men had fallen into conversation 
 on Victor Gaspiani — as in part recorded above — 
 and St. John, in impassioned tones, told how 
 Corelli (his old foe) had written to Lempriere, 
 announcing his visit to Murkwoop. 
 
 " Of course," continued St. John, " I had no 
 idea the letter — glanced at casually — was from 
 Victor Gaspiani. Nothing in the character of 
 the writing appealed to my memory. So many 
 years had flown. I believed him dead. Nothing 
 was further from my thought than that he lived. 
 It is true the name of Victor, and knowing 
 Corelli was an Italian — Lempriere had said so — 
 aroused a tempest of tormenting ire. It was 
 natural. Victor ! — so strange that it was Victor ! 
 Well, I told Lempriere everything. I was com- 
 pelled. He returned noiselessly, and stood look- 
 ing so scared. I had to tell him — I told him 
 all ! " 
 
 A silence ensued, broken at length by the 
 priest, his calm voice in strong contrast to the 
 fierce intonation of his companion. 
 
 " Inform me, Gaspar, how vengeance overtook 
 that impenitent man ; for, unhappily, he died 
 impenitent, unless " 
 
 " He had short shrift. He killed my sister — 
 according to rational sense, he directly caused 
 her death." 
 
 " The decrees of heaven are worked by un-
 
 214 MURDER BY WARRANT 
 
 erring wisdom. The choice of method — the arm 
 commanded to wield the sword of justice — is 
 determined there," said the priest, pointing 
 reverentially to the sky. " But," continued the 
 saintly man, "tell me the modes and windings 
 whereby the toils of retribution closed round the 
 fated Gaspiani." 
 
 " The name, the very name, even now, sends a 
 shudder of wrath through my frame. Listen, 
 Alonzo," and in rapid language St. John re- 
 counted the circumstances which had conspired 
 to entice Corelli to Murkwoop. 
 
 "When I poured forth my wrong to Lem- 
 priere," exclaimed the student, his brow dark- 
 ening, " I little recked the vision which would 
 haunt my dreams — the grim tragedy that would 
 memorise the morrow. Leaving Lempriere, I 
 spent the day in study, striving to banish recol- 
 lection. I ill succeeded ; and, after dusk, I 
 sought the silent moor, and passed hours in 
 meditation. Returning to my room, I threw 
 open the window and sank into melancholy 
 musing. Again and again my excited fancy 
 vividly beheld the winsome features of my sister 
 — the dark, handsome face of her destroyer. 
 I fell into fickle slumber and dreamed a mystery. 
 The heavens gaped, and through a widening vista 
 floated a beauteous form, waving a flaming dagger 
 and bearing a golden scroll. Descending and 
 standing near, the angelic form unrolled the sacred 
 writing and raised the flashing dagger. I scanned 
 the scroll eagerly, but the characters, weird and un-
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT 215 
 
 intelligible, baffled my discernment. As I faltered 
 I awoke ; but again, ere long, I sank in mystic 
 sleep. Once more appeared the beatific form 
 — anew I tried to read — afresh was foiled 
 and failed. A third time I dreamed — a third 
 time the angel came, uplifting the flaming 
 dagger, displaying the wondrous scroll. Dread- 
 ing — desiring — I saw the words enlarging — pro- 
 truding from the fabric — writing thickly traced in 
 clotted human gore ! Soon I knew what there 
 was meant. Victor Gaspiani lived ! — lived be- 
 neath the withering curse of heaven's avenging 
 decree ! Next night I heard a foreign voice 
 singing a mournful song. I crept below — along 
 the lonely verandah. Peering through the case- 
 ment, I saw It was true ! It was he ! 
 
 Victor Gaspiani lived ! I drew back thinking 
 the hour — my hour ! — yes, my hour ! " 
 
 Gaspar St. John was alone. V^ith head bent 
 and folded arms he intently gazed on Naples.
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV 
 
 ** Yes, mates, 'aving no edication 'ave done it. 
 They'll 'ang me, thet's sartin, an' think as they've 
 done the right thing ; but arter a time, mates, 
 they'll say as they strung'd up the wrong bloke. 
 'Owsoever, as I've tell'd yer afore, 'aving no 
 edication 'ave done it, and landed me in this 'ere 
 show." 
 
 The sober moralising above set forth emanated 
 from the lips of Mr. Bill Bloader, as he sat on a 
 bench in the condemned cell and awaited the 
 approach of the day of execution with unflinching 
 fortitude. 
 
 *' I aren't goin' fur to say as I never spilled a 
 cove's claret. Not me. I've done a sight o' blimy 
 things, and dusted down a few folk. But it was 
 all fair and square, an' clout fur clout ; an' I niver 
 spilled more claret than a cove cud spare, and 
 wot did 'im good to git rid on. So it's sartin, 
 mates, I didn't ought to be fixed up 'ere. But 
 'aving no edication or larning, mates, 'ave done 
 the trick 'an landed me in this 'ere luck — wot 
 d'you think?" 
 
 The two powerful warders guarding the culprit 
 
 216
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT 217 
 
 looked at each other and were at loss for an 
 answer. They were rough fellows, habituated 
 to the hardened criminal in his varying moods 
 of sullen defiance, mock penitence, and morose 
 indifference; but the conduct of Bloader per- 
 plexed and disconcerted them. Since the day 
 of sentence he had subsided into a sturdy 
 equanimity quite at contrast with the coarse 
 confidence he had exhibited previously to his 
 trial. He avowed the verdict was wilfully unjust, 
 since he had not been permitted to offer his 
 testimony; and he prophesied the time would 
 arrive when the Authorities would have to 
 acknowledge they had committed a cruel and 
 irreparable blunder. All the same he had made 
 little real complaint of his impending fate; and 
 seemed to regard it as a risk a man had to run 
 who entered the house-breaking profession un- 
 assisted by scholastic attainments. 
 
 Nevertheless, Bloader caustically amused the 
 faculty he substituted for imagination with a 
 grim picture of the exasperating misery that 
 would afflict Her Majesty's Ministry when they 
 discovered they had betrayed their Sovereign into 
 fiating the warrant for the execution of an inno- 
 cent man. This original sensation was, however, 
 associated with a feeling of excruciating revolt 
 against the dire injustice he had experienced 
 in being excluded from the witness box. He 
 regarded himself seriously in the light of an 
 unexhausted reservoir of fundamental fact; and 
 considered that, apart from his personal evidence.
 
 2i8 MURDER BY WARRANT 
 
 the elucidation of his plea of Not Guilty was 
 doomed to be inconclusive. Then, seeing the 
 Judge must have treated his testimony with dis- 
 passionate severity and judicial language, he 
 argued within himself that had the summing 
 up surveyed explanations he could have tendered 
 it might have evolved a verdict of acquittal. 
 These edifying cogitations entertained Mr. 
 Bloader between the intervals of eating and 
 sleeping — both which details of daily duty he 
 conducted heartily and soundly ; and occasionally 
 he rallied the warders on their task of pre- 
 serving him as a sort of big game to be 
 duly picked off by that arch sportsman, the 
 hangman ! 
 
 " Tell yer wot it is, mates," remarked Bloader, 
 philosophically stroking his chin, " I'm fly to 
 turn up my toes w'en my time's come — and it's 
 comin' darn'd quick, or I'm not reckonin' accordin' 
 to Cocker, as the scollards say — but I wud a liked 
 to be licked out ov style by a bloomin' gun, or 
 at the mouth ov a cannon, so as I might 'ave felt 
 I'd done credit to my country, or been a sort ov 
 'ero, so to speak, and not be chucked on a boord 
 jest to slip underneath at the end on a rope — er — 
 er — its thro' a 'ole I'm to slide, isn't it, mates? " 
 queried the culprit, coolly breaking off and look- 
 ing cheerily at his keepers. 
 
 The cell door opened, and Captain Hussel, the 
 Governor of the jail, entered, followed by two 
 warders. He was a man of severe military 
 aspect ; but, as he neared the table on which
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT 219 
 
 Bloader was leaning his elbows, a gleam of pity 
 flitted across his features. Pausing as he reached 
 the side of the culprit, he hesitated before speak- 
 ing, placing one hand on the table and the other 
 on his hip. This pause of hesitation was due to 
 uncertainty as to how exactly to proceed with 
 a task of some delicacy. His embarrassment 
 continuing, Bloader, whose chin rested on his 
 hands, raised his squinting eyes inquiringly, but 
 said nothing. At last, after inward debate and 
 suggestions of scruples. Captain Hussel mastered 
 himself and addressed the culprit in a firm 
 voice. 
 
 " Bloader, I am about to bring in a visitor to 
 speak with you. Pray keep calm and give way 
 to no loud talking. You understand what I 
 mean. It is unusual in this jail to allow a visitor 
 to see a prisoner in his cell ; but I have a motive, 
 and for your good, in breaking the rule in this 
 instance." 
 
 The Governor turned and moved to the door- 
 way, followed by Bloader's squinting eyes. He 
 looked out, politely beckoned and bowed low. 
 The next instant, with an impressive mien, 
 holding her riding-habit and carrying a riding- 
 whip, Martella Seldon swept into the cell and 
 fixed a penetrating glance on the culprit. Com- 
 ing close to the table, she stopped — Bloader, 
 sitting and motionless, his stunted brain dazed, 
 being overpowered as by a blinding stream of 
 glorious radiancy. Never had he beheld any- 
 thing surpassing the commanding figure of this
 
 220 MURDER BY WARRANT 
 
 determined woman. Her striking features, the 
 chaste elegance of her costume, the fragrancy 
 exhaled therefrom, her haughty air of cultured 
 confidence, filled this rough-hewn, semi-civilised 
 man with a host of wondrous sensations. Cower- 
 ing before her he slowly rose, never once removing 
 his fascinated ga^e from her face. Then, as by 
 Hagic, occurred an indefinable mutual feeling. 
 Miss Seldon, dropping her habit and lower- 
 ing her whip, yielded to an impression of 
 compassion, which, thrilling through Bloader, 
 raised him proudly erect before his would-be 
 deliverer. 
 
 "Bill Bloader," began Martella, in a calm, 
 clear voice, " I mean to save you from the 
 gallows, if I can; but you must answer each 
 question I put truthfully, or my power to help 
 you will be useless." 
 
 Bloader continued, with deep respect in his 
 bearing, to earnestly regard the fearless lady. 
 
 " I have seen Mr. Skillman, and have been at 
 great pains to make myself master of your case ; 
 and, with Mr. Skillman's assistance " 
 
 "Wull, lady," interrupted Bloader, a little 
 sullenly, " wid yur kind leave, lady, I'd rather not 
 ask Muster Skillman to do anythin' furder fur 
 me." 
 
 " Everything now to be done shall be done by 
 me," convincingly answered Miss Seldon. 
 
 "Thank yer kindly, lady," humbly repHed 
 Bloader. " On'y I'd jest like fur to say thet 
 Muster Skillman sell'd me, ee did. Yus, ee done
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT 221 
 
 iz best, but ee sell'd me, ee did. Ee didn't bring 
 out the rum, lady." 
 
 Miss Seldon looked a trifle nonplussed. 
 
 " No, lady, ee didn't bring out the rum, and 
 the genlem of the jury didn't take on wid the rum ; 
 else their say, lady, wud a bin on my side." 
 
 " Explain your meaning to me more fully," said 
 Martella, who saw clearly there was something 
 behind this complaint. 
 
 " Wull, lady, yer wur in the coort, an yer saw 
 'ow the jury took on wid my 'aving run'd away 
 from the door ov the inn arter I 'ad left Bolton 
 stuck up agin it. Wull, lady, I on'y run'd to git 
 some rum at t'other inn, co2 Bolton, not 
 thinkin' as 'e wus booked, tuld me not to cum 
 inside, an' it wus late, lady, an' I run'd to be in 
 time to fill my bottle wid rum at the next pub, 
 w'ich I did." 
 
 " I think I understand you," said Martella, 
 whose quick perception flashed through and 
 grappled the point. " You mean that the jury, 
 having been told you met Mr. Corelli with Mr. 
 Lempriere on the moor in the afternoon, believed 
 you knew he was a visitor who would leave the 
 mansion that night, and that you hastened away 
 in order to be in time to overtake him." 
 
 " Thet's jest wot I do mean, lady; but 'aving 
 no edication or larning, I cudn't git Muster 
 Skillman to fix up thet there pint wid the jury. 
 Coz, lady, it wur the rum that made me rob the 
 carcus. I wus arf slued, lady, thet I wus, or I 
 don't think I'd a done it."
 
 222 MURDER BY WARRANT 
 
 " When you got the rum did you loiter and 
 drink much ? " 
 
 " It wus jest this, lady. I gits nigh the moor, 
 an' I thort as I saw figgers an' eerd voices. So I 
 sits down an' lights my pipe an' tackles my rum, 
 an' I dozed a bit ; an' w'en I cum'd too, an' wus 
 gittin' up to go on, the cove in the cloak an' 'ood 
 wus cumin' along full pelt." 
 
 " Galloping direct from the spot where the body 
 was found ? " 
 
 "Thet's it, lady, excep' he wusn't gallopin'." 
 
 " Not galloping ? " 
 
 " He wusgoin' as if ole Nick wid 'is fork wus 
 arter 'im." 
 
 " How long did it take you to reach the 
 corpse ? " 
 
 " Arter seein' the cove wid the 'ood ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "A good arf-'our. I wus done up, an' in no 
 'urry ; but as I went furwurd I cum'd across it, 
 an' it wus dead cold." 
 
 " You think before you sat down you heard 
 voices ? " 
 
 " I do think as I did, lady." 
 
 " Voices in altercation ? " 
 
 " In wot, lady ? " 
 
 " Did the voices sound as if two. men were 
 quarrelling ? " 
 
 " I cudn't say, lady. I didn't wunt to meet 
 nobody, an' wuswillin' to rest, an' I puts up my 
 pipe, an' tackled the rum, an' dozed a bit." 
 
 *' Why did you deviate from the high road —
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT 223 
 
 I mean, why did you not keep to the road that runs 
 between Murkwoop Moor and the moorland that 
 adjoins ? " 
 
 " W'y didn't the Itahan chap keep to the road, 
 too ? I'll tell yer w'y. Ee wus makin' a short 
 
 cut to B , jest as I wus. Thet's 'ow it wus 
 
 the carcus wus found a mile-an'-a-arf an' more 
 frum the 'igh road." 
 
 " But Mr. Corelli did not know his way except 
 by the road." 
 
 " So Muster Skillman say, an' thet's w'y I say 
 the cove in the 'ood did the wurk arter a row ; fur 
 it's dead sartin Muster Corelli wunt away from 
 the road eider wid iz own free will, or else ee wus 
 drag'd to thet there place — w'ich, I say, lady, 
 wusn't done, coz the grass wus long, an' wud a 
 shown the draggin', w'ich the grass didn't. An' 
 so, lady, he went of \z own free will, an' the 
 killin' of 'im wus done then, an' a good time afore 
 I cum'd across the carcus." 
 
 Martella Seldon put many pertinent questions to 
 Bloader, enforcing the importance of each by 
 flipping her riding-whip on the table. 
 
 "W'y, lady," concluded Bloader, "I cud 'ave 
 put thet there Italian chap out ov pain by tuckin' 
 my finger an' thumb round iz neck. I wudn't a 
 used a bullet — not me ; an' if Bolton, the teck, 
 wus 'ere, ee'd say, ' Bloader niver did thet there 
 job. 'Tain't wurk as wud be done by the likes ov 
 'im.' Thet's wot ee'd say, so 'elp me. An' d'yer 
 think, lady, I wud a done it w'en I 'ad an arm on 
 me sich as this 'ere ? "
 
 224 MURDER BY WARRANT 
 
 As Bloader uttered this convincing query he 
 bared and raised his herculean right arm. There 
 was a smothered movement of preparedness on the 
 part of the warders, but M art ella, without exhibit- 
 ing the sHghtest demur, brought her gloved hand 
 down upon and grasped the iron muscles of the 
 limb exposed to her inspection. With a shrug, 
 and a gesture of acquiescence, she intimated her 
 abundant belief in Bloader's thesis. 
 
 A few minutes later Miss Seldon had quitted 
 the condemned cell, and was standing on the 
 steps of the Governor's house, situated within the 
 precincts of the jail. 
 
 "This man's lips, Captain Hussel," exclaimed 
 Martella, " were sealed at his trial. The witness- 
 box was closed to the very being whose life 
 depended on his own description of events. Is it 
 not barbarous, sir ? " cried the indignant lady, 
 raising her riding-whip, which Captain Hussel 
 watched with cautious care. "Is it not bar- 
 barous ? Everything against this man circum- 
 stantial — everything in his favour suppressed ! 
 This is called justice ! And what is the remedy ? 
 A petition to a politician whose days are passed 
 in a passion of partisan strife ; whose power 
 totters hourly on the verge of the precipice of 
 time ; whose duties are multiform — thronging the 
 too-contracted day ; whose temper is harassed 
 by debate, and whose — oh, it is monstrous, Captain 
 Hussel ! and deserves " 
 
 Martella, carried away by her fiery diatribe, 
 threateningly raised her whip.
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT 225 
 
 Captain Hussel drew back. 
 
 Miss Seldon, lowering her weapon, blushed. 
 The Captain, recovering his position, smiled. 
 Miss Seldon apologised. 
 Captain Hussel bowed. 
 
 The whip was a harmless symbol of the lady's 
 righteous abhorrence. 
 
 Q
 
 CHAPTER XXXV 
 
 " Now, cousin Basil, you must cast aside all 
 scruples and act at once. This is a very serious 
 business." 
 
 ** A very serious business, indeed, Martella," 
 complied Mr. Lempriere, whose face was not so 
 ruddy, and whose manner was a mixture of 
 penitence and mild despair. 
 
 " You know, Basil, your large reward was the 
 impetus which set Hatwood in motion. The 
 rewards offered by a niggardly Treasury are 
 seldom sufficient to put private detectives on 
 the scent." 
 
 " Yes, Martella, I am conscious my reward 
 was the allurement that led to the capture of 
 Bloader. That confounded legacy ! It killed 
 Corelli — it will hang Bloader ! " And Lempriere 
 looked inclined to shed some of the tears he 
 reserved for special purposes. 
 
 " It is no use lamenting the legacy. If Bloader 
 is innocent he must and shall be saved. Unless, 
 Basil," said Martella, her voice ringing, " you 
 want to be accessory to another murder, you 
 must move heaven and earth to avert this 
 execution." 
 
 226
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT 227 
 
 Poor Lempriere had a turbulent spirit rapping 
 loudly against the inner side of his watch pocket. 
 In his trouble of mind he folded his right arm 
 across his breast — meaning to smother that 
 rebellious spirit — and with his disengaged left 
 he patted the bald part of his puzzled head. 
 This attitude, and the soothing slaps self- 
 bestowed as aforesaid, seemed to afford desired 
 relief. He roused himself from his drooping 
 posture and told his hasty and downright cousin 
 to curb the clamour of her imperious tongue. 
 He did not say this in so many words. No — 
 not that he was afraid — he was too much the 
 gentleman. He merely, in choice terms, informed 
 her heaven was too far for a reprieving petition, 
 and that on earth it would have to be delivered at 
 the Home Office. 
 
 "But, my dear Martella," said he, his eyes 
 averted and his lips trembling, "what an awful 
 thing it would be to accuse Caspar St. John of 
 the crime, and then to find " 
 
 " My dear Basil, take the words of a plain 
 woman " — we trust the lady was not alluding 
 to her personal qualities — " and ask yourself 
 what answer common sense would give to anyone 
 putting that question. It would say — Caspar 
 St. John is the guilty man ! " 
 
 " But suppose it should turn out otherwise ? " 
 urged the doubting ex-banker. 
 
 " It will turn out as I have said," answered 
 Miss Seldon, rising from her chair and pacing 
 slowly before the undecided Lempriere. " Now,
 
 228 MURDER BY WARRANT 
 
 listen to me, cousin Basil, and tell me if I 
 put the case fairly or unfairly for St. John. The 
 revengeful monster," said Martella, beginning 
 with all the fairness one could expect, " stole 
 along the verandah and gazed through the 
 window at Corelli ; but he was cunning enough 
 to say nothing of his having recognised the 
 recreant Gaspiani. He was clever enough to 
 anticipate the Italian's true name would leak 
 out, as it did, at the trial. He was quick enough 
 to beat a timely retreat from Murkwoop — from 
 the place, he told you, he had adopted for life. 
 He was wise enough to vanish before he could be 
 compelled to appear as a witness, and perjure 
 himself before his God. No, Basil, his dis- 
 appearance means but one thing — guilt ! He 
 has gone, never to return ; and he will 
 possibly recover his love for Italy, and, to be 
 strictly in proportion, end his days execrating 
 England for having provided his opportunity 
 for revenge. I understand these callous students. 
 They regret nothing ; and, as for contrition, 
 such a cold-blooded logician could reason 
 himself into anything. He probably by this time 
 has discovered a logical excuse for forgetfulness ; 
 and, when Bloader has been hanged, he will 
 frame a syllogism to determine that his death 
 was the due and debited punishment for his 
 many undetected and unchastised offences." 
 
 At this moment the door opened and Gerald 
 Seldon entered. He was the very person for whom 
 the cousins were waiting. A petition to the
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT 229 
 
 Home Secretary for the reprieve and liberation 
 of Bill Bloader was to be drawn ; and the skilful 
 pen of the barrister was to put persuasiveness 
 into the paragraphs. 
 
 " I did not know until a short while ago that 
 we were to meet at Martella's house," said the 
 barrister, aside. 
 
 " I thought it better to hold the meeting here," 
 answered Lempriere. " The fact is, I wish to do 
 this business apart from those who would have 
 me adopt a laissez /aire policy." 
 
 "Among those," said Seldon, emphasising the 
 latter word," you, of course, do not include " 
 
 " My daughter ? — certainly not," said Lem- 
 priere, hastily. " Nor the Lamberts. But there 
 are those who — er — well " 
 
 " Basil is extremely reluctant," said Martella, 
 approaching her barrister relative, " to express 
 anything in the petition that might saddle 
 suspicion upon his friend, Caspar St. John." 
 
 " You see," explained the M.P., giving way 
 to an unparhamentary blush, "it would be 
 awful to accuse a man of St. John's character, 
 and afterwards to find the whole thing ground- 
 less. There's many a slip," mildly argued the 
 demurring ex-banker, " between the cup and 
 
 the " 
 
 " Fiddle-de-dee ! " broke in the impatient 
 Martella, who was always emphatic in her in- 
 dicative mood. "That man, Gerald, is guilty. 
 He has deserted Murkwoop, his chosen asylum, 
 at a time when, if he is innocent, he ought to
 
 230 MURDER BY WARRANT 
 
 be there. For the sake of fair fame — to clear 
 himself — to seek to save the life of a fellow 
 creature — he ought to be there ! " 
 
 Seldon's eyes could not disguise his admiration 
 of his clever and self-willed cousin. He thought 
 what an effect she would produce if only allowed 
 to don the forensic robe — he would not recom- 
 mend the forensic wig. 
 
 " We need not make any direct imputation 
 upon St. John," said the barrister, his fingers 
 wandering spider-like over his ample forehead. 
 
 " But an indirect imputation," said Lempriere, 
 shifting uneasily from foot to foot, " is — is — 
 almost as bad." 
 
 " No — not necessarily," returned Seldon, in 
 studied tones. " We will insert a clause stating 
 that Bloader's description of the cloak and hood 
 accords with your knowledge of the garment 
 St. John was in the habit of wearing. What 
 do you say to that ? " 
 
 Lempriere had nothing to sa}/. He wished 
 to slip out of that uncomfortable clause ; but 
 there stood Martella, looking daggers and ready 
 to use them, so — what was he to do ? 
 
 " The next thing," resumed Seldon, the cal- 
 culating coolness of the lawyer running through 
 every utterance, "is to show that, in quitting 
 Murkwoop, St. John has unaccountably deviated 
 from a solemn decision to make that mansion 
 his life-long retreat. I think that will do ? " 
 
 Lempiere thought it would do too much. He 
 silently bemoaned the circumstances which had
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT 231 
 
 induced St. John to take him into his confidence. 
 " Why the devil ? " he muttered — but, catching 
 the eye of the observant Martella, he relapsed 
 into shifting from foot to foot in an aimless 
 and pendulous fashion. 
 
 " Then," continued the barrister, throwing his 
 head on one side, "we can aver that the counsel 
 who defended Bloader made a great point of the 
 cloak and hood ; also that St. John ought to 
 have appeared in the witness-box ; also that his 
 disappearance is so mysterious — vanishing im- 
 mediately after Bloader had been committed for 
 trial — that, in the interests of justice, a reprieve, 
 or, at any rate, a respite, should be granted until 
 such time as St. John — ah — er — can be got back 
 to England to explain his — er — ah — remarkable 
 conduct." 
 
 " Capital ! " exclaimed the beaming Martella. 
 " You shall deliver this petition to the Home 
 Secretary by your own hand, cousin Basil. You 
 know him very well, do you not ? " 
 
 " Yes — er — yes, Martella." And for the first 
 time Mr. Lempriere devoutly wished he had 
 never courted such close acquaintance with the 
 hardest worked and best abused member of Her 
 Majesty's Administration.
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI 
 
 Her Majesty's Home Secretary was ruffled. 
 He rubbed up his back hair with a rueful face. 
 He wished murderers were out of date ; and 
 wondered why Bloader had not disposed of his 
 victim during some other Administration. That 
 restless and railing creature, Public Opinion, 
 was stirring up doubts and queries ; and Her 
 Majesty's Home Secretary, the Right Honourable 
 So-and-so, was entangled in a difficulty. The 
 jury, it was true, had convicted ; and the 
 Judge, it was true, had sentenced ; but, for all 
 that, he, the Right Honourable So-and-so, must 
 be sure not to hang the wrong man. Of this 
 definite and desirable duty he was reminded 
 every hour. Petitions, letters, and applications 
 for interviews were pouring in thick and fast. 
 Grotesque theories anent the mysterious wearer 
 of the cloak and hood were propounded with 
 drollest gravity ; and Bloader's violence in the 
 dock, and his amiable efforts to strangle a warder 
 or two, were served up as picturesque criteria of a 
 conscience labouring under spirited resentment at 
 a demonstrably iniquitous verdict. Some argued 
 that the Judge's charge to the jury was jejune, 
 because it happened to be impartial ; and others 
 
 232
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT 233 
 
 asserted it to be unsatisfactory, because it was a 
 model of brevity. With such a display of fervour 
 in the present, it would be galling to awake in 
 the future to find a confessing telegram from the 
 real culprit, when, indeed, the supposed male- 
 factor had been plunged into eternity by that 
 ugly piece of hemp and that infallible drop. 
 
 " The public are making a great fuss over this 
 fellow," exclaimed the Right Honourable So-and- 
 so, looking as if he considered himself pretty 
 tolerably ill-used. 
 
 " They are," answered Lempriere, who, granted 
 an audience, was throbbing to invent a polished 
 excuse wherewith to present his own little 
 petition of twenty-five paragraphs and its special 
 prayer tacked on at the end. 
 
 " What is the meaning of it all ? " went on the 
 Right Honourable So-and-so, making a wry 
 mouth. 
 
 Lempriere, being a member of the public, was, 
 of course, crassly ignorant of the cause. He 
 knew a certain eccentric sentimentality was a 
 common public malady ; but whence the disorder, 
 or what its origin, he professed utter inadequacy 
 of knowledge. 
 
 " It is really too bad," complained the Home 
 Secretary, a bored air pervading his utterance. 
 "After thirteen men, namely, Judge and Jury, 
 have cautiously examined the evidence from end 
 to end, it is outrageously unfair that I should be 
 
 pestered " Before the Home Secretary could 
 
 get farther into the diagnosis of his dissatisfaction,
 
 234 MURDER BY WARRANT 
 
 he received a private communication which 
 diverted his attention from his rising warmth. 
 
 The Right Honourable So-and-so being absorbed 
 in pubhc thought, Lempriere started fumbhng in 
 his coat-tail pocket for the charitable petition 
 inspired by the irresistible Martella. It had to 
 be presented, however it might worry the bored 
 breast of the Chief of the Home Office. But 
 either Lempriere was in no hurry to exhibit his 
 prize, or his pocket was reluctant to relinquish 
 its treasure. He was still fumbling, his body 
 inclined and his head half-turned, when, to his 
 unspeakable astonishment, who should enter the 
 room but the handsome and distinguished Caspar 
 St. John ! 
 
 Lempriere was so abashed and thunderstruck 
 that he remained firmly rooted to the floor in 
 the position just delineated. His hand, which 
 had been tugging viciously, lost hold of the little 
 petition, and the polished excuse, he had been 
 been in the act of articulating, died a sudden 
 death on the tip of his tongue. Then, too, the 
 conviction that St. John was a despicable 
 monster — a conviction of forced and unreal 
 growth — slunk into the convenient shade of 
 rational scepticism. Indeed, the plastic brain 
 of the ex-banker was suggesting the expediency 
 of an unobserved retreat, when he was recalled 
 to himself by the student extending his hand 
 after the fashion of frank good-fellowship. 
 
 It was Lempriere's left hand which had sought 
 to extricate the petition. How lucky the left is
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT 235 
 
 never so nimble as the right ! Had he actually 
 produced the document, must he not have refused 
 St. John's suspected palm ? But now he was at 
 perfect liberty to act as he pleased. The little 
 petition was merely an embryo intimation of 
 suspicion — a sort of nebulous impeachment. 
 Why, then, permit it to interfere with a natural 
 disposition to good-breeding ? This downy reason- 
 ing so exactly suited the tenor of Lempriere's 
 mind, that he withdrew his left and extended his 
 right as became one unassailed by oppressive 
 misgiving. 
 
 " I am glad to meet Lempriere here," said 
 St. John to the Right Honourable So-and-so. 
 " I have a presentiment we are both here on 
 the same errand." 
 
 " I imagine you are right," sorrowfully replied 
 the Home Secretary. '" Your letter mentioned 
 your acquaintance with Lempriere ; and he was 
 about to break the ice of his visit when I directed 
 you to be shown in." 
 
 The ex-banker, escaped from the horrors of a 
 distressing immersion, hugged himself in an 
 ecstasy of self-congratulation. 
 
 " Now, gentlemen," said the Right Honourable 
 So-and-so, seating himself more comfortably, and 
 patting the padded arms of his writing-chair, 
 "what can we do to elucidate this unfortunate 
 business ? " 
 
 " I am convinced," began St. John, walking to 
 and fro as he spoke, " that a grave doubt over- 
 shadows the conviction of this man, Bloader."
 
 236 MURDER BY WARRANT 
 
 "Controversially, grave doubts could be cast 
 into every case depending on circumstantial 
 evidence," said the Right Honourable So-and-so, 
 speaking querulously. 
 
 " I agree," answered St. John, " but I am not 
 here to play the sophist. I am impressed in this 
 man's favour by the suasion of serious facts, 
 which, as a high public official, and as a man, you 
 are bound to consider with unsparing solicitude." 
 
 As a high public official, the Right Honourable 
 So-and-so felt considerably ill-used. As, however, 
 he was receiving a fine official salary for tolerating 
 every sort of personal annoyance, he retorted 
 nothing, but rubbed up his back hair with 
 becoming industry. 
 
 " In the trial of Bloader," continued St. John, 
 folding his arms and bending his eyes on the 
 Home Secretary, " an important witness was not 
 called for the defence, namely, myself. I deeply 
 regret I was absent. I seldom see a newspaper. 
 Had I stood in the witness-box, I should have 
 sternly protested against the methods resorted to 
 by the prosecution." 
 
 " Really, Mr. St. John," said the Right 
 Honourable So-and-so, a gleam of whimsical 
 surprise dispelling his official boredom, "you 
 seem to take this man's fate very much to heart. 
 The fellow has been convicted in the usual way. 
 What on earth more can be done ? Short of any 
 visible ground — and at present I perceive none — 
 for granting a reprieve, the law must be allowed 
 to take its course."
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT 237 
 
 " I am demanding a pause — a pause to review 
 dispassionately every particle of evidence wielded 
 against Bloader." 
 
 "Why?" cried the Home Secretary. "All 
 the facts came out at the trial, and Bloader was 
 most ably defended. I am here to exercise the 
 prerogative of mercy, not to review or set aside 
 the evidence and summing up — not to quash or 
 vary the verdict." 
 
 " Then your powers are strangely and inexcus- 
 ably limited. Assume that I had robbed the 
 corpse," persisted St. John, composedly disre- 
 garding the vigorous way in which the Right 
 Honourable So-and-so rubbed up his back hair, 
 " assume that I, moved by unconstruable 
 impulse " 
 
 " Mr. St. John," interrupted the Home 
 Secretary, patting the pads of his chair petulantly, 
 " you are supposing a case we should trace to 
 lunacy." 
 
 "Then a doubt concerning sanity," answered 
 St. John, "invokes the prerogative of mercy; but a 
 doubt of the actuality of the crime has no such 
 invocative virtue. I sympathise with the attempt 
 to steep a criminal's mind in the savmg gloom of 
 insanity ; but if such a plea is sufficient for the 
 exercise of mercy, I say that a doubt touching the 
 actuality of the deed " 
 
 " Really, really," said the Right Honourable 
 So-and-so, rising and leaning languidly against 
 the mantelpiece, "where is this doubt about the 
 deed ? "
 
 238 MURDER BY WARRANT 
 
 II 
 
 Was not I — Gaspiani's deadliest enemy — on 
 Murkwoop Moor that night ? Who shall say 
 which of us, Bloader or I, committed the ghastly 
 crime ?" 
 
 The Home Secretary shrugged his shoulders, 
 and dressed his features in a mocking smile. 
 Ministerially dignified though he was, he couldn't 
 repress his humour. 
 
 " Yes," pursued St. John, somewhat sternly, 
 *' where is the man who would solemnly stake his 
 reputation that I am not the murderer of 
 Corelli ? " 
 
 Still the Home Secretary leaned languidly 
 against the mantelpiece. 
 
 "I, the avowed foe of Gaspiani, was on the 
 moor. Opportunity, hence, favoured my lust of 
 hate. Bloader, a recognised robber, was on the 
 moor. Chance, hence, smiled on his appetite for 
 plunder. But, consider our distinctive positions. 
 Corelli — we will continue to call him so — was a 
 bold rider and well mounted. I, a bold rider, was 
 also well mounted. Who had the better prospect 
 of assailing him ? Had Bloader or I the better 
 incentive for attacking a mounted man armed 
 with a revolver he knew how to use ? Address 
 these questions to a jury, and would they presume, 
 nay, dare, to assign the guilt to one more than to 
 the other?" 
 
 " You are putting a logical problem, and " 
 
 " Does logic play no part in these inquiries ? " 
 
 " Facts are the surest guides. These come first, 
 and then logic steps in to "
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT 239 
 
 " I am glad to hear this admission. I will now 
 inform you of a startling fact. This murder was 
 committed by one who acted a part of diabolical 
 duplicity. Feigning friendship, he turned out to 
 be a fiend ! " 
 
 The Right Honourable So-and-so shuffled his 
 feet, and rubbed up his back hair anxiously. 
 
 " Listen. I had resolved that night on a duel 
 a outrance. I saddled my horse — a task I 
 commonly undertook — and, quitting the mansion, 
 
 galloped in a straight line to B . I believed 
 
 Corelli, unacquainted with the country, would 
 follow the winding road, and that I should 
 encounter him at the loneliest point of his journey. 
 But, my impatience exhausting my power to wait, 
 I returned, keeping near the road, until I saw a 
 horseman in the distance. My surprise was great 
 when I perceived he had abandoned the road, and 
 was moving at a walking pace in the direction of 
 
 B . I made a rapid circuit to the rear, and 
 
 approached afresh. Dismounting, and instructing 
 my tutored steed to stand still, I bowed my body 
 and sped forward. It seemed Corelli had stopped, 
 and, nearing him, I saw he was bending towards 
 and conversing with a man standing beside. 
 Deeming the stranger a temporary guide, I 
 returned to my horse, remounted, and galloped 
 
 again towards B . I lingered long, but no 
 
 sign of Corelli appeared. Renouncing reluctantly 
 my quest of vengeance, I, foiled and enraged, 
 bitterly retraced my steps, passing, as I did so, the 
 dead body of Corelli. I did not dream it was a
 
 240 MURDER BY WARRANT 
 
 corpse. Sleeping foot-pads, I knew, were 
 common, and my curiosity was not kindled. After- 
 wards, examining the impression in the grass 
 made by the weight of the body, I knew I had 
 noticed the mortal remains of Victor Gaspiani. 
 The villain who acted as , his guide became his 
 murderer ! " 
 
 "And the villain who acted as his guide was 
 Bill Bloader," said the Home Secretary, heaving 
 a sigh of relief. 
 
 " Nay," quickly rejoined St. John, " I deny it. 
 As I rode on, I encountered the herculean form of 
 Bloader standing in my path. I altered my 
 course, and made for the mansion. If Bloader 
 had murdered Corelli, would he have waited for 
 me?" 
 
 " He would, indeed, in the circumstances you 
 have named — circumstances which strongly con- 
 firm the guilt of the criminal. I see it all now," 
 placidly remarked the Home Secretary. " Logic 
 may be made to serve the cause of any murderer, 
 but in this instance it serves rather against than 
 for him. We now have your evidence that three 
 men were on the moorland beyond the road, 
 which is the boundary of Murkwoop Moor. 
 These men were Victor Corelli, Bill Bloader, and 
 Caspar St. John. Two were mounted, one was 
 on foot. Caspar St. John disappeared, leaving 
 Bill Bloader conversing with Victor Corelli. 
 Then the ruffian, having killed the Italian, is 
 disturbed by the footfalls of the re-appearing 
 Caspar St. John. lie darts away from his deed ;
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT 241 
 
 but, finding the horseman has disregarded the 
 corpse, boldly stands his ground, and invents, at 
 his trial, the theory of the rider in the cloak and 
 hood." 
 
 " Who could positively affirm a fourth man 
 was not on the moor ? Recollect we are dealing 
 with a case of life and death ! " 
 
 " Mr. St. John," explained the Home Secretary, 
 calmly crumpling his back hair, " men do not 
 start out of the ground." 
 
 " They may start out of long grass. Do you, 
 or do the police, know the peculiarities of the 
 moorland of Murkwoop ? " 
 
 The Right Honourable So-and-so silently 
 studied the ceiling. 
 
 " I feel absolutely convinced Bloader is guilt- 
 less ! " sternly asserted St. John. " You admit 
 circumstantial evidence has erred, often erred — 
 that it has fearfully erred is common knowledge 
 Wherever it has deceived, it has been urged up 
 to the point of terribly imperilling human life. 
 If the line dividing guilt and innocence is so 
 finely drawn " 
 
 " Really, really, I am most sorry, but I cannot 
 see anything in these arguments to induce me to 
 alter my decision that Bloader must meet his 
 doom." 
 
 " Very well," answered St. John, resolutely. 
 " I shall appeal, then, to a higher tribunal than 
 the Home Office." 
 
 " Pray do, Mr. St. John. Appeal to heaven for 
 mercy on behalf of " 
 
 R
 
 242 MURDER BY WARRANT 
 
 " Such a prayer would be mockery on my lips. 
 This man is innocent." 
 
 *' I regret I cannot concur," ruefully responded 
 the Home Secretary. 
 
 " Well, my course is clear. I shall go to this 
 tribunal, surrender myself, and " 
 
 " Do what ? Go where ? " 
 
 " I go to Scotland Yard, and " 
 
 "And?" 
 
 " Give myself up as the murderer of Victor 
 Corelli ! " 
 
 The Home Secretary ceased to rub up his back 
 hair. He had been wretchedly bored ; but now, 
 and instantly, he was blankly amazed. 
 
 "These trials," cried St. John, a haughty glow 
 intensifying his features, " these trials on circum- 
 stantial evidence are mere conjuring feats ! In 
 the absence of a reviewing tribunal, they are, 
 I say, mere conjuring feats ! It is easy to remind 
 me of confessions. They only tell one way — we 
 are in total darkness about the other ! Your 
 system — if indeed a system — pronounces — heaven 
 knows how irrationally ! — that a jury may err in a 
 civil case, but never in a criminal case ! A 
 system so distorted awakens no faith within me. 
 Don't be annoyed or surprised. I crave to give 
 room for conscience — I insist upon further 
 inquiry ! " 
 
 " Do pray reflect," earnestly besought the 
 Right Honourable So-and-so, beginning to appre- 
 ciate St. John's mood. 
 
 " Reflect ! " scornfully returned the student.
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT 243 
 
 "Reflect! No — I need no time to reflect; and 
 the time for action is critically short." 
 
 Bowing gracefully, not offering his hand, St. 
 John swept past Lempriere and out of the Home 
 Office, a lofty resolve in his soul, despatch and 
 determination in his movements. 
 
 " Well — er — you know," began Lempriere, 
 addressing the Right Honourable So-and-so," 
 " my friend, St. John, is — er — logically — yes — er 
 — logically " 
 
 The Home Secretary had vanished. His form 
 — a hand still briskly at work on his back hair — 
 had disappeared like a dissolving dream through 
 one of the exits of his official sanctum.
 
 CHAPTER XXXVII 
 
 Mary Maguire was no longer the girl she had 
 been. The past few months had wrought many- 
 changes. Her manner had discarded its quondam 
 sprightliness — was dwindling into quite a touch- 
 ing staidness ; and as for her appearance, it had 
 lost its flippant roguishness and was re-casting 
 itself in a mould of unpretentious modesty. What 
 was the matter with Mary Maguire ? She had 
 forgiven the gibes of her ancient rivals, and was 
 renting a pew in the parish church. What in the 
 name of goodness could it mean ? Had the 
 death of Corelli disturbed her mental balance? 
 Why, she was even good to the poor and kind to 
 her enemies, and was qualifying for the painful 
 and pious post of a Sunday School teacher. 
 
 " Mother," said Mary, raising her head from 
 studying Lloyd's Weekly, " this is the last time I 
 shall read a newspaper on the Sabbath." 
 
 " Why, deary," asked the old woman. 
 
 " Because," answered the girl, her wan face 
 flushing, " I shall have so many things to do now 
 I am going to join Mr. Spellman's Bible Class." 
 
 " Yes, yes, deary, I see," muttered her mother, 
 who was very feeble, and whose senses were too 
 dimmed to see anything for or against her 
 daughter's determination. 
 
 244
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT 245 
 
 " But that murder trial, mother," said the girl, 
 her eyes falling on the open newspaper, " I could 
 not help reading it. Oh, mother, how he 
 struggled when What was that ? " 
 
 " What, deary ? " questioned the old woman, 
 looking vacantly at Mary. 
 
 The girl's head was turned listeningly towards 
 the door of the cottage. At that instant the 
 clock in the room began to strike the night hour 
 of ten, and mother and daughter heard the strokes 
 out before uttering a word or changing their 
 positions. 
 
 " I thought I heard something rustling against 
 the door," said Mary. " There it is again, 
 mother. Hush ! " 
 
 A sound as of a hand passing over the door 
 could be plainly heard. It moved up and down, 
 backward and forward, making a stealthy noise 
 which ever and again ceased and was creepingly 
 renewed. It was as if an aimless or a helpless 
 hand was searching for the latch, and fell away 
 from time to time fatigued with its fruitless efforts. 
 The movement grew slower, the sound got less, 
 and at last it ceased. Silence reigned for a 
 time, and then came the just audible noise of 
 heavy breathing, followed at intervals by faint 
 moans. The women listened intently, a painful 
 fear stealing into their hearts. 
 
 " Mother — I must," half whispered Mary, 
 rising and going to the door. Pressing against it 
 she lifted the latch and looked out. Uttering a 
 piercing shriek she staggered back, dragging open
 
 246 MURDER BY WARRANT 
 
 the door. Across the threshold lay the prostrate 
 form of Tom Butcher, the booser. 
 
 He was not dead, nor drunk. Insensibility had 
 seized him, and his heart was beating feebly. 
 Presently he partly recovered, and was, with 
 difficulty, raised by Mary, assisted by her aged 
 mother. Reeling into the cottage, he sank help- 
 lessly on the old-fashioned sofa. He had not 
 spoken — he seemed, indeed, in a half stupor. He 
 lay some time breathing shortly, overtaken 
 repeatedly by fits of coughing which brought dis- 
 charges of blood from his mouth. His emaciated 
 appearance told of sickness ; and his hacking 
 cough and constant blood-spitting boded a lacer- 
 ated lung. Where he had been, what doing, 
 how living, had at times exercised the reasoning 
 powers of old Butcher; especially as the last 
 remittance sent by the innkeeper had returned 
 through the Dead Letter Office. Mary and her 
 mother watched and waited by Tom's side in 
 painful suspense. The frightened girl would have 
 gone for old Butcher and his wife, but the booser 
 held her hand and intimated by appealing signs 
 that he wished her to remain. 
 
 "Mary?" said the poor wretch in a choking 
 whisper, 
 
 " Yes, Tom," answered the girl, dropping her 
 head to catch his words, and kneeling beside the 
 sofa. 
 
 " Raise my head — a little," whispered the 
 booser. "I want to talk to you — Mary."' He 
 again closed his eyes, and the girl, placing her
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT 247 
 
 arms gently round his shoulders, raised him until 
 his head rested on her bosom. In this way a 
 silence of some minutes lasted, broken only by 
 his gurghng breathing, and the loud ticking of the 
 old Dutch clock. 
 
 " I want to — talk to you — Mary. No — no — 
 not to you "; and Tom waved Mary's mother 
 away. "To — to you — Mary." 
 
 " Go away, mother," pleaded the girl to the old 
 woman, who, nothing loth — she was fatiguing 
 fast — went to the far end of the room, and seating 
 herself was soon sound asleep. 
 
 Tom, his eyes half closed, watched the retire- 
 ment of the old woman ; and then, as if satisfied 
 she was out of hearing, he told Mary, in accents 
 broken by gasping, owing to the blood collecting 
 in his throat, that he had been lying long in a 
 hospital, pronounced incurable, and had resolved 
 to return to his native village to die. " Mary," 
 moaned the drunkard, " I've brought it all on 
 myself." 
 
 "How do you mean, Tom?" asked the girl, 
 weeping bitterly. 
 
 " I — I slept out in a field — all night — and " 
 
 Here the cough and blood-spitting prevented 
 his speaking for several moments. 
 
 " And — I got wet — to the skin ; and I did it — 
 again — and again — and — once too often." 
 
 "Oh, why did you go away?" exclaimed the 
 girl, passionately. " You might have remained, 
 and we might " 
 
 Once more the coughing nearly stifled him.
 
 248 MURDER BY WARRANT 
 
 The girl lowered his head, which made his breath- 
 ing easier. 
 
 "I — 1 was afraid — afraid to write — or come 
 back, I got ill — and — wet through — and cold 
 — and — oh, Mary," said Tom, his voice sinking 
 to a whisper, " I loved you — or — or — I shouldn't 
 have done it." And the booser leaned his head 
 wearily on the frightened girl's shoulder. 
 
 " Tom — Tom ! — what do you mean ? " cried 
 Mary, her face paling and her heart beating 
 wildly. 
 
 "I— I did it. I— I killed him. Don't go 
 away." And Tom raised a supplicating face to the 
 shuddering girl. " Yes — I — I did it. I — listen, 
 Mary — don't look so ! I did love you. I got 
 jealous ; and he — Corelli — was always after you. 
 I hated him ; and 3^ou said — you would go to 
 London with him." Tom had obtained energy 
 under his feelings, but he now sank into his 
 former gasping utterance. 
 
 " I went — that night — and met him. I said — 
 father had sent me to meet him — and — and — 
 guide him home. Ah, me. He laughed and 
 chatted — and— and I sprang — struck his head — 
 fired as he lay senseless — jumped on his horse — 
 and — rode away — I escaped — and — it is all written 
 — feel — Mary — in — in — my pocket — when I — I'm 
 dead. Pray for me — Mary — pray and — and ask 
 God — for — for mercy — for — me " 
 
 A violent fit of coughing choked his voice — 
 blood gushed from his mouth — the drunkard died.
 
 CHAPTER XXXVIII 
 
 Mr. Bill Bloader had a very near shave. 
 Nobody was more surprised at the turn events 
 had taken than Mr. Jonathan Hatwood and the 
 Right Honourable So-and-so. Each was a 
 staunch behever in himself; and each considered 
 his personal opinion a thing worthy of personal 
 worship. Mr. Hatwood occupied a long time 
 in balancing Tom Butcher's confession with his 
 own version of the business. He was overheard 
 to say that Bloader's exemption from the atten- 
 tions of the hangman would give an incurable 
 shock to future faith in circumstantial evidence ; 
 but, as he was never required to return the 
 rewards he had received, he has somewhat 
 modified this exaggerated opinion. The Right 
 Honourable So-and-so first respited Bloader, 
 then released him, and then shook hands with 
 him. The poor wretch — who must have, suffered 
 severely — was had up at the Home Office and 
 given a sort of solatium from the public purse. 
 
 But other things happened to Mr. Bill Bloader. 
 Both he and his Sal were taken in hand by 
 Mr. Lempriere, who had them drilled in the 
 respectable ways exacted by civilisation. They did 
 
 249
 
 250 MURDER BY WARRANT 
 
 not drop gin altogether, but took it in decent and 
 even quantities ; and Bill, now seldom heard to 
 swear, has actually left off beating his wife. Some- 
 body said he was learning to read and write, and 
 was intending, on a vacancy occurring, to apply for 
 the post of parish beadle. As a matter of fact 
 there is a superior post in store for him. When 
 the Right Honourable So-and-so opens, as he 
 contemplates, the Court of Criminal Appeal 
 (hereinafter particularly mentioned), he intends 
 to institute Bloader as Usher-in-Chief of that 
 sacred edifice. 
 
 After all it was hardly surprising Tom Butcher 
 was impelled to settle the Italian. To be 
 harassed by jealousy is a serious affliction ; but to 
 be concurrently assailed by disorders begotten of 
 hard drinking is disastrous to that essential 
 regulator of conduct — self-control. A pretty 
 woman grimacing at and despising the atten- 
 tions she once prized, and pointing exultingly to 
 a handsome fellow who has supplanted you in her 
 esteem, must ever be highly exasperating to pride 
 and wounded feeling. But when it happens you 
 love the pretty woman, what must be the tumult 
 of your temper ? Thus it was with boosy Tom. 
 It was a toss-up whether he would shoot Mary 
 and do for himself, or waylay and despatch the 
 interloping foreigner. He chose the latter course, 
 and it was simple enough. The unsuspecting 
 Corelli, naturally believing the young fellow had 
 been sent by his father to meet and guide him, 
 fell yieldingly into the power of his perfidious
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT 251 
 
 enemy. The tragedy quickly performed, it was 
 the matter of a moment for Tom to leap into 
 the vacant saddle and gallop some distance into 
 the open country. There he dismounted, and, 
 sending the horse adrift, returned to the village 
 on foot. But how was Tom enabled to use the 
 revolver Corelli had brought to Murkwoop to give 
 to Lempriere ? The expedient had actually been 
 placed by the foreigner himself at the disposal of 
 his slayer. Corelli, having noted the suspicious 
 bearing of Bloader when detected watching the 
 mansion through a telescope, secretly deter- 
 mined to retain the revolver until he had safely 
 reached " The Bell," Meeting Tom, armed, 
 as for ordinary protection, with a terrific bludgeon 
 freshly cut from a hedge, the Italian gaily 
 described the conduct of Bloader, and, producing 
 his weapon, handed it to Butcher with a 
 request, accompanied by a handsome gratuity, 
 that he would carry it to Murkwoop and present 
 it to Lempriere, and explain why it had not been 
 bestowed, with customary compliments, at their 
 farewell meeting. The rest need not be told — it 
 is so easily understood. 
 
 Martella Seldon has signalised herself by 
 stirring up sensational agitation. Not content 
 with her exertions to rescue Bloader from the 
 toils of judicial error, she persists in thinking 
 the Judge was solely responsible for the improper 
 conviction of that illustrious man. Further, she 
 has made the startling discovery that criminals 
 have suffered for murder who ought to have atoned
 
 252 MURDER BY WARRANT 
 
 for manslaughter! This atrocious "find" is exercis- 
 ing all the strength of her cultivated faculties; and 
 Members of Parliament, representing electoral 
 divisions in the county containing her estates, are 
 perturbed daily by postcards and epistles con- 
 veying threats of penalties from heaven and — 
 humph! — and — infinitely worse! — the loss of 
 public confidence and sacrifice of their seats. 
 
 Mr. Basil Lempriere, who is a little older, a 
 little balder, a little lonely, and who has not yet 
 refused a peerage, has performed his penance and 
 won the Frogmore legacy. Whether he met with 
 other adventures on Murkwoop Moor is not at 
 present related. The money, with that derived 
 from the great Concession, is to be dedicated to 
 the building of a Hospital, the foundation of 
 which is already laid. The evils the intended 
 Hospital is designed to heal are dangerous though 
 curable ; and, as the reader observes, it is a 
 Hospital, not a wing, Lempriere's liberality 
 has resolved to construct. In due time the public 
 will be asked to plump down subscriptions for its 
 maintenance, and, as invariably happens, a 
 splendid supply will meet the demand. W^e must 
 not, however, omit to mention that this Hospital, 
 this novel creation of the ex-banker's brain, is 
 adjudged to be styled — 
 
 Lempriere's 
 Court of Criminal Appeal.
 
 MURDER BY WARRANT 253 
 
 Patient reader — farewell. If ever you wish to 
 cultivate abiding solitude, musing thought, and a 
 knowledge of yourself, take the train to the village 
 of B and live for a month at Murkwoop. 
 
 The End. 
 
 R. W. SIMPSON & CO., LTD., PRINTERS, RICHMOND AND LONDON
 
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