There Richard was introduced to the Superintendent.
"I have this night," said the young man, "escaped from the most fearful perils. I was proceeding along a dark, narrow, and dirty street somewhere in the neighbourhood of Shoreditch Church, when I was knocked down, and carried into a house where murder—yes, murder," added Markham, in a tone of fearful excitement, "seems to be committed At this moment there is a corpse—the corpse of some unfortunate man who has been assassinated in a most inhuman manner—lying stretched out in that house! I could tell you how the miscreants who frequent that den dispose of their victims,—how they pounce upon those who pass their door, and drag them into that human slaughter-house,—and how they make away with them;—I could tell you horrors which would make your hair stand on end;—but we should lose time; for you may yet capture the three wretches whose crimes have been this night so providentially revealed to me!"
"And where can we capture these men?" inquired the Superintendent, surveying Markham from head to foot in a strange manner.
"They are at this moment at Shoreditch Church," returned the young man; "they are engaged in exhuming a corpse for a surgeon whom they were to meet at half-past one at the back of the burial-ground."
"And it is now three o'clock," said the Superintendent. "I dare say they have got over their business by this time. You had much better sit down here by the fire and rest yourself; and when it is daylight some one shall see you home to your friends."
"Sit here tranquilly, when justice claims its due!" ejaculated Markham; "impossible! If you will not second my endeavours to expose a most appalling system of wholesale murder——"
"My dear sir," interrupted the Superintendent, "do compose yourself, and get such horrid thoughts out of your head. Come—be reasonable. This is London, you know—and it is impossible that the things you have described could be committed in so populous a city."
"I tell you that every word I have uttered is the strict truth," cried Markham emphatically.
"And how came you to escape from such a place?" demanded the Superintendent.
"The villain who attacked me thought me dead—he fancied that I was killed by the blow; but it had only stunned me for a few moments——"