and irrational answer. Mrs. Connoway looks
round for the old beggar-woman, and asks Mrs.
Burke, alias M'Dougall, who is in bed, what is
become of her? Mrs. Burke says: "I kicked her
out of the house because she got drunk."
Burke goes out, and requests Broggan, the
carter, his wife's nephew, to sit on a chair near
the straw and wait there till he returns. He
goes to Rymer's, buys a large tea-chest, and
carries it home. All this time Mrs. Burke, in bed
in a heavy drunken sleep, hears and notices
nothing. Broggan, not seeing the use of watching
and warding a heap of dirty straw, soon gets
tired of his charge, and goes out. Mrs. Gray
follows, looking for Burke; goes out twice, and
the second time finds him drinking at the West
Port. On her return, Mrs. Burke starts up,
still half mazed with drink, asks for her
husband, and leaves the house.

The moment she has gone, the Grays look at
each other; the woman first goes straight to the
straw at the head of the bed, and rummages it
to see what it is that Burke has hid there
that he was so anxious about. To her horror,
she touches the naked arm of a dead body. It
is the body of the old beggar-woman they had
seen drinking and dancing the night before.

Gray takes her up by her grey hair, and says:
"She has been murdered" He then packs up
his things, and is taking them to a room near,
when, as he goes up the stairs, he meets Mrs.
Burke, and says to her grimly:

"What is the meaning of that thing I saw in
your room?"

"What thing?"

"I suppose you know—the body!"

Mrs. Burke replies: "Oh yes, she died in our
drunken frolic last night—I could not help it."
But as he presses her closer, and calls it murder,
she falls on her knees—thin bony Scotch-
woman, with large sunken dark eyes—prays for
mercy, offers him five or six shillings down, and
hints at ten pounds a week that it would be worth
to him. Mrs. Gray says she would not "wish
to be worth money got for dead people." Gray
says his conscience will not let him be silent.
As they go to the police, and as Mrs. Burke is
following them in an agony of stealthy
supplication, they meet Mrs. Hare, who, asking what
they are quarrelling about, invites them into a
public-house, just to take a dram and settle the
matter. The two guilty women, finding silence
hopeless, leave hurriedly. On the return of the
Grays they call in the neighbours to see the
murdered woman, but the body has been removed.
Gray instantly alarms the police; a party is sent
to the house, but they find neither the body
nor the murderers. A servant-girl, however,
has seen Burke and his wife, and Hare and
his wife, following a porter, named M'Culloch,
up the stairs. The porter had on his back a
tea-chest stuffed with straw. As she passed,
she laid her hand on it, and felt that its
contents were soft.

Just before this, Hare had been noticed by
the neighbours lurking about the stairs for
William Burke. Being universally disliked, he
was ordered away, Mrs. Connoway telling him
"he would frighten the lasses coming to
Mrs. Law's mangle." They then called him
an ill-bred fellow, and slammed their door in
his face. This was what the rascal wanted.
The passage cleared, the body was at once
removed.

Soon after the police leave the West Port
house, still crowded by people, Burke and
his wife are heard coming down the stairs and
along the passage. They know well that the
Grays have raised the alarm; but they are
neither flurried nor hurried, and Mrs. Burke
goes in, as usual, to Connoway's, and gets a light.
Burke leans against the door-post and chats.
Connoway says to him: "We have been speaking
about you, William." " I hope you have
not been speaking ill of me?" says Burke.
Connoway replies: " You are suspected of
murdering the little old woman with whom we were
all so happy last night, and the police are after
you." Burke rejoins, angrily: "I defy all
Scotland to prove anything against me. I have
not been long about these doors, and this is
the second time such a story has been raised
upon me." Mrs. Connoway remarks: "I have
heard of your being a resurrection-man; but
never heard of any murder being laid to your
charge."

Another minute, and griping hands are
on Burke's wrists. He and his wife are
prisoners. It is Gray who points them out on
the stairs. Sergeant-Major Fisher asks where
Burke's lodgers are? Burke points to Gray,
and says: "There is one. I turned him
away for bad conduct." The officer asks
what became of the little woman who was
there on Friday. Burke says: "She left at
seven in the morning, and William Hare saw
her go." "Any one else?" says the officer.
Burke answers, insolently: "Many saw her
go." All this time Mrs. Burke dances about,
and, laughing dryly, says: "It was only a
drunken spree. The neighbours want to do us
an ill turn." The prisoners were then removed.
On returning to the house, the police find a
striped bedgown on the bed, and a great deal
of bloody straw at the bed foot.

There being as yet no tidings of the body, it
is at last resolved to search the dissecting-rooms.
Lieutenant Peterson and Sergeant-Major Fisher
then go to Dr. Knox's, at Surgeon's Hall, to
see a body, which Gray and his wife at once
recognise as that of the woman Docherty. The
clue is found. Early next morning the police
seize Hare and his wife in bed, lodging them in
separate cells.

Soon after this, the discovery of the murder
rapidly developed. The porter named M'Culloch
proved that Burke and Hare helped him double
up a body, which was taken from under the
bed, and cram it into a tea-chest. He pushed
in some hair that hung out, saying, "It was
bad to let it hang out," roped the box, and
carried it to Surgeon's-square, followed by
Burke and his wife, and Hare and his wife.
They put the box in a cellar; then, at about