CHAPTER XCVI.
SIR CHRISTOPHER BLUNT A HERO.
It was about mid-day when an extraordinary rumour began to spread like wildfire throughout the metropolis.
The report was, that between ten and eleven o'clock that morning, Sir Christopher Blunt and Dr. Lascelles had presented themselves to the sitting magistrate at Bow Street, and had not only communicated to that functionary a surprising account of certain adventures which had happened to themselves, but had likewise placed in his hands a document which proclaimed the innocence of Mr. Torrens, who was lying in Newgate under an accusation of murder.
The adventures alluded to were of such an amazing character, that, had they been related by persons of a less honourable reputation than Sir Christopher Blunt and Dr. Lascelles, they would have been treated as a pure invention on the part either of maniacs or unprincipled friends of the accused.
But the known integrity of those two gentlemen gave no scope for even the slightest breath of suspicion; and their tale, though wonderful, was so consistent in all its parts, that it was received as one of those truths which are "stranger than fiction."
The entire metropolis was in amazement!
Two respectable gentlemen—an eminent physician and a wealthy Justice of the Peace—had been conducted, blindfolded, to a house where they had received the depositions of two men who confessed themselves to be the murderers of the late Sir Henry Courtenay. There was no appearance of fraud in that confession. The men had been cross-examined apart, and had agreed in the minutest details. Every one therefore believed that Mr. Torrens was indeed innocent; and the sitting magistrate at Bow Street expressed the same opinion.
But who was the individual that had caused Sir Christopher Blunt and Dr. Lascelles to be thus made the recipients of the confession of the murderers? Where was the house to which those gentlemen had been taken? What motive was there for screening the assassins? Why was so much mystery observed in the entire transaction? And wherefore had Sir Christopher and the physician been enjoined to withhold the publication of the matter for twenty-four hours after its occurrence?
These questions were in every body's mouth; but no one could suggest any thing resembling even the shadow of a satisfactory solution.
The weapon with which the crime had been perpetrated, and a portion of the proceeds of the robbery effected at Torrens Cottage at the same time, accompanied the depositions placed by Sir Christopher Blunt in the hands of the magistrate; and a surgeon, on examining the corpse which had been removed to the deceased's house previous to receiving the rites of Christian burial, declared that the throat must have been cut by such an instrument as the one thus produced.