Fathers of his Church! He was intent on solving
some problem of theological casuistry. In
France, an antiquarian esteemed not more for
his learning, than for amiable and gentle qualities,
murdered his most intimate friend for the
possession of a medal, without which his own
collection was incomplete. These, and similar
anecdotes, tending to prove how fatally any
vehement desire, morbidly cherished, may
suspend the normal operations of reason and
conscience, were whispered about by Dr. Lloyd's
vindictive partisan, and the inference drawn
from them and applied to the assumptions
against myself, was the more credulously
received, because of that over-refining speculation
on motive and act which the shallow accept, in
their eagerness to show how readily they
understand the profound.

I was known to be fond of scientific,
especially of chemical experiments; to be eager in
testing the truth of any novel invention.
Strahan, catching hold of the magistrate's
fantastic hypothesis, went about repeating
anecdotes of the absorbing passion for analysis and
discovery which had characterised me in youth
as a medical student, and to which, indeed,
I owed the precocious reputation I had
acquired.

Sir Philip Derval, according not only to report,
but according to the direct testimony of his
servant, had acquired in his travels many secrets
in natural science, especially as connected with
the healing art—his servant had deposed to the
remarkable cures he had effected by the
medicinals stored in the stolen casket—doubtless Sir
Philip, in boasting of these medicinals in the
course of our conversation, had excited my
curiosity, influenced my imagination, and thus, when
I afterwards suddenly met him in a lone spot, a
passionate impulse had acted on a brain heated
into madness by curiosity and covetous
desire.

All these suppositions, reduced into system,
were corroborated by Strahan's charge that I had
made away with the manuscript supposed to
contain the explanations of the medical agencies
employed by Sir Philip, and had sought to shelter
my theft by a tale so improbable, that a man of
my reputed talent could not have hazarded it if
in his sound senses. I saw the web that had
thus been spread around me by hostile
prepossessions and ignorant gossip: how could the
arts of Margrave scatter that web to the winds?
I knew not, but I felt confidence in his promise
and his power. Still, so great had been my alarm
for Lilian, that the hope of clearing my own
innocence was almost lost in my joy that
Margrave, at least, was no longer in her presence, and
that I had received his pledge to quit the town
in which she lived.

Thus, hours rolled on hours, till, I think, on
the third day from that night in which I had
last beheld the mysterious Shadow, my door
was hastily thrown open, a confused crowd
presented itself at the threshold—the governor
of the prison, the police superintendent, Mr.
Stanton, and other familiar faces shut out
from me since my imprisonment. I knew at the
first glance that I was no longer an outlaw
beyond the pale of human friendship. And
proudly, sternly, as I had supported myself
hitherto in solitude and anxiety, when I felt
warm hands clasping mine, heard joyous voices
proffering congratulations, saw in the eyes of all
that my innocence had been cleared, the revulsion
of emotion was too strong for me—the
room reeled on my sight—I fainted. I pass, as
quickly as I can, over the explanations that
crowded on me when I recovered, and that were
publicly given in evidence in Court next morning.
I had owed all to Margrave. It seems
that he had construed to my favour the very
supposition which had been bruited abroad to my
prejudice. "For," said he, "it is conjectured
that Fenwick committed the crime of which he
is accused on the impulse of a disordered reason.
That conjecture is based upon the probability
that a madman alone could have committed a
crime without adequate motive. But it seems
quite clear that the accused is not mad; and
I see cause to suspect that the accuser is."
Grounding this assumption on the current
reports of the witness's manner and bearing since
he had been placed under official surveillance,
Margrave had commissioned the policeman,
Waby, to make inquiries in the village to which
the accuser asserted he had gone in quest of
his relations, and Waby had, there, found
persons who remembered to have heard that the
two brothers named Walls lived less by the
gains of the petty shop which they kept than by
the proceeds of some property consigned to
them as the nearest of kin to a lunatic who
had once been tried for his life. Margrave had
then examined the advertisements in the daily
newspapers. One of them, warning the public
against a dangerous maniac who had effected
his escape from an asylum in the west of
England, caught his attention. To that asylum he
had repaired.

There he learned that the patient advertised
was one whose propensity was homicide,
consigned for life to the asylum on account of a
murder, for which he had been tried. The
description of this person exactly tallied with that
of the pretended American. The medical
superintendent of the asylum, hearing all particulars
from Margrave, expressed a strong persuasion
that the witness was his missing patient, and
had himself committed the crime of which he had
accused another. If so, the superintendent undertook
to coax from him the full confession of all
the circumstances. Like many other madmen,
and not least those whose propensity is to crime,
the fugitive maniac was exceedingly cunning,
treacherous, secret, and habituated to trick and
stratagem. More subtle than even the astute
in possession of all their faculties, whether to
achieve his purpose or to conceal it, and fabricate
appearances against another. But, while, in
ordinary conversation, he seemed rational enough
to those who were not accustomed to study
him, he had one hallucination which, when
humoured, led him always, not only to betray