"Pray, have you heard any thing of Sir Sidney Delaware having left Mrs. Darlington's new house?" demanded Dr. Wilton, when the waiter appeared.
"Oh, dear, yes, sir!" replied the man. "Mr. Tims--Lawyer Tims, sir--who was there this morning, could find none of them, and has been inquiring all over the place to make out where they are gone to. But nobody can tell, sir, and every one says they have run away."
"Nonsense!" said Mr. Egerton; "that will do!" and the waiter retired.
"This is very extraordinary!" said Dr. Wilton. "Every one seems to be disappearing one after the other. Nevertheless, I will go up and inquire of Mrs. Darlington, and will come and join you at Ryebury afterward."
The meeting was accordingly arranged, and shortly after, Cousins returned, bringing a vast store of fresh information. Mr. Anthony Smithson, alias Thomson, alias Perkins, alias Johnson, alias Winter, fully described and particularized, so as to leave no doubt whatever of his identity with crushfingered Billy Winter, a notorious London flashman, had been remarked, by all the wondermongers of Emberton, for his intimacy with Mr. Harding, Mr. Burrel's servant. He had been also observed to have a peculiar predilection for the lanes and fields about the house at Ryebury. This information had led the officers to fresh inquiries concerning the philosophical Harding himself, who had been accurately described by the investigating and observing people of Emberton; and, on his return, Cousins expressed his fullest conviction, that he was the identical Harding who had, as he before described, got off in a serious criminal case, solely by the connivance of an attorney. Who that attorney was, need hardly be explained; and indeed, to do so, would only lead us into the details of a previous affair, totally unconnected with this history. Suffice it, that no sooner did Cousins hear that Harding had been with his master, at the house of Mrs. Darlington, on the day of the fire, than he at once declared himself to be perfectly certain that his hands, and no others, had kindled the flame. He added also, that he did not doubt that Smithson and Harding--whether they had exactly fixed upon any precise object or not--had come down to Emberton, with the intention of acting in concert; and he added, that it would not at all surprise him to find that they were the two who committed the murder itself, especially as the people had particularly described to him the valet's long foot.
While he was speaking, Dr. Wilton rapidly turned over his notes of the examination of Captain Delaware, and the servants at Emberton Park, and at length lighted upon the declaration of the man-servant, who stated, that in returning from some errand in that direction, he had seen the valet Harding at the back of the park, the lanes surrounding which led directly toward Ryebury.
"If I could think of any reason for his putting the money in the captain's room," said Cousins, as the clergyman read this passage, "I should think that Harding had done it himself, on purpose to hang him."
"May he not have been instigated to do it by others?" said Mr. Egerton.
"If one could find out any reason for it," replied the officer.
"Why, Captain Delaware suspected something of the kind himself," replied the magistrate, and he read a part of the young fugitive's letter, watching from time to time, as he did so, the effect it produced upon the countenance of a man who, like Cousins, was accustomed to trace and encounter crime in every form. The officer closed one eye, put his tongue slightly into his cheek, and ended by a half whistle.