Soon after this Mrs. Bristow found a husband in the person of an obese widower, with two daughters.
This is a brief account of the factory hands who rode to rank and fortune upon a bundle of bank notes found in the looking-glass of a deceased miser.
The history is a romantic one, but not more so than we find in the affairs of every day life. Life is full of romance to those who have the wit to see it, and the one we have been describing is based on fact. This the writer could prove beyond all cavil.
But our scene shifts to other characters in this veritable history.
Mr. Shearman, who had so industriously and cleverly ferreted out the murderer of the American planter’s daughter, was, as a matter of course, much chagrined when he heard of Doctor Bourne’s suicide.
Justice had been baffled and baulked. It is true the end would have been much the same—with this difference, however, instead of coming by his death from the effects of prussic acid, the doctor would have had to meet his fate on the public scaffold.
Mr. Shearman, in common with the majority of his countrymen, had a certain amount of respect, or, it might be said, admiration for the mother country; he therefore embraced the opportunity afforded him of seeing something of London life before he returned to the United States. He was, as we have already seen, on the best of terms with our old friend Wrench, and at the latter’s instigation he had put up at Sanderson’s Hotel, where, it will be remembered, Peace sojourned for a short period after his leaving Broxbridge. The buxom widow, Mrs. Sanderson, made the American and the persons he had under his charge—these being the witnesses in the Bourne case—as comfortable as possible, and Mr. Wrench generally dropped in on those evenings upon which he was disengaged to have a friendly chat with Shearman.
To all appearance the American detective liked the old country so well that he was loth to leave it. Anyway he remained as long as circumstances would warrant.
The day, however, was drawing nigh upon which Mr. Shearman was destined to take his departure.
“The best of friends must part,” said he, as Mr. Wrench dropped in on the evening before the appointed time. “I’ve enjoyed myself and seen more of the old country than I ever expected to do this journey, and I have to return you many thanks, Wrench, for all the trouble you have been at on my behalf. If you should ever have to come to the States the first person you will inquire for, I hope and trust, will be me.”