made this examination I know not. The
plan I fixed upon was not long revolved in my
mind. It seemed to start up matured, like
Minerva, from the head of Jupiter. I was
resolved. The dead should be alive, and the live
man, dead. In less time than it takes to tell,
I had stripped the body, dressed it in my own
clothes, assumed the dead man's garments, and
secured the pocket-book, the watch, and the
money about my person. Then I overturned
the lighted candle on to the bed, slouched my
hat over my eyes, and stole down stairs. No
man met me on the stairs, and I emerged
into the court. No man pursued me, and I
gained the open street. It was only an hour
after perhaps, as I crossed Holborn towards
St. Andrew's Church that I saw fire-engines
come rattling along; and, asking unconcernedly
where the tire was, heard that it was
"somewhere off Gray's Inn Lane."

I slept nowhere that night. I scarcely
remember what I did; but I have an
indistinct remembrance of flinging sovereigns
about in blazing gas-lit taverns. It is a
marvel to me now that I did not become
senseless with liquor, unaccustomed as I
was to dissipation. The next morning I read
the following paragraph in a newspaper:—

"Awful Suicide and Fire near Gray's Inn
Lane.—Last night the inhabitants of Crag's Court,
Hustle Street, Gray's Inn Lane, were alarmed
by volumes of smoke issuing from the windows of
number five in that court, occupied as a lodging
house. On Mr. Plose, the landlord, entering a
garret on the third floor, it was found that its tenant
Mr——, had committed suicide by blowing his brains out
with a pistol, which was found tightly clenched in the
wretched man's hand. Either from the ignition of the
wadding, or from some other cause the fire had
communicated to the bed-clothes; all of which, with
the bed and a portion of the furniture were consumed.
The engines of the North of England Fire Brigade
were promptly on the spot; and the fire was with
great difficulty at last successfully extinguished;
little beyond the room occupied by the deceased
being injured. The body and face of the miserable
suicide were frightfully mutilated; but sufficient evidence
was afforded from his clothes and papers to establish
his identity. No cause is assigned for the rash act; and it is
even stated that if he had prolonged his existence
a few hours later he would have come into
possession of a fortune of thirty thousand pounds, his
uncle Gripple Collerer, Esq., of Kaglan Street,
Clerkenwell, having died only two days before,
and having constituted him his sole heir and
legatee. That active and intelligent parish officer,
Mr. Pybus, immediately forwarded the necessary
intimation to the Coroner, and the inquest will be
held this evening at the Kiddy's Arms, Hustle
Street."

I had lost all—name, existence, thirty
thousand pounds, everything—for about four
hundred pounds in gold and notes.

"So I suppose," I said, as he who was
hanged paused," that you gave yourself up
with a view of re-establishing your identity;
and, failing to do that, you were hanged for
murder or arson?"

I waited for a reply. He had lit another
cigar, and sat smoking it. Seeing that he was
calm, I judged it best not to excite or aggravate
him by further questioning, but stayed
his pleasure. I had not to wait long.

"Not so," he resumed; "what I became
that night I have remained ever since, and
am now: that is, if I am anything at
all. The very day on which that paragraph
appeared, I set off by the coach.
My only wish was to get as far from London
and from England as I possibly could; and, in
due time, we came to Hull. Hearing that
Hamburg was the nearest foreign port, to Hamburg
I went. I lived there for six months in an
hotel, frugally and in solitude, and endeavouring
to learn German; for, on narrower
examination of the papers in the pocket-
book, I guessed some portions of them to be
written in that language. I was a dull scholar;
but, at the end of six months, I had
scraped together enough German to know
that the dead man's name was Müller; that
he had been in Russia, in France, and in
America. I managed to translate portions of
a diary he had kept while in this latter
country; but they only related to his impressions
of the town he had visited. He often
alluded too, casually, to his 'secret' and his
'charge'; but what that secret and that
charge were, I could not discover. There
were also hints about a 'shepherdess,' an
'antelope,' and a 'blue tiger'—fictitious
names I presumed for some persons with
whom he was connected. The great mass
of the documents was in a cipher utterly
inexplicable to my most strenuous ingenuity
and research. I went by the name of
Müller; but I found that there were
hundreds more Müllers in Hamburg, and no man
sought me out.

I was in the habit of going every evening
to a large beerhouse outside the town to smoke
my pipe. There generally sat at the same table
with me a little fat man in a grey great-coat
who smoked and drank beer incessantly. I
was suspicious and shy of strangers; but,
between this little man and me there gradually
grew up a quiet kind of tavern acquaintance.

One evening, when we had had a rather
liberal potation of pipes and beer, he asked
me if I had ever tasted the famous Baërische
or Bavarian beer, adding, that it threw all
other German beers into the shade, and
liberally offering to pay for a flask of it. I was
in rather merry humour, and assented. We
had one bottle of Bavarian beer; then
another, and another, till, what with the beer and
the pipes and the wrangling of the domino
players my head swam.

"I tell you what," said my companion,
"we will just have one chopine of brandy.
I always take it after Baerischer beer. We
will not have it here, but at the Grüne Gans
hard by; which is an honest house, kept by
Max Rombach, who is a widow's son."

I was in that state when a man having