But this was not all. The moment the rumour of what had occurred at Bow Street reached the prison of Newgate, the governor hastened to the police-office, and submitted to the magistrate the confession made that morning by Mrs. Torrens.
This confession not only admitted her guilt in respect to the forgery—but gave such a version of the murder, as completely tallied with the depositions made by Timothy Splint and Joshua Pedler.
Looking at the entire case, as it thus stood, there was no doubt of the innocence of Mr. Torrens; and all that gentleman's friends—who, by the bye, had hitherto kept aloof from him—crowded to Newgate to congratulate him on the facts which had transpired.
The sensation created by the affair, throughout the capital, was tremendous; and when the evening papers were published, the copies were greedily caught up in all directions. It was a fine harvest for those journals; and their sale that day was prodigious.
An individual often spoken of, but never yet seen—namely, "the oldest inhabitant in the metropolis"—was duly mentioned on the occasion.
"Never," said each of the evening papers—as if the reporters had all been suddenly struck by the same idea,—"never, within the memory of the oldest inhabitant of the metropolis, has so extraordinary a case transpired."
And certainly no event for many years had produced such a powerful excitement, animating even the most callous and indifferent dispositions with a desire to know more, and setting a-thinking many who had quite enough in their own affairs to occupy all their thoughts.
The taverns, public-houses, and coffee-shops became the scenes of loud and interesting discussions, but even the knowing-ones found no opportunity of displaying their sagacity, for the mystery of the whole affair positively defied conjecture.
"But who can the man be that is at the bottom of all this? and where can his residence be situated?" were the questions which every tongue uttered, and to which no one could reply.
That such an extraordinary incident could occur in the metropolis, without leaving the faintest trace or the smallest clue to the elucidation of the enigma, appeared almost incredible.