as shall lead to the discovery of the murderer or
murderers of John Spigat, in the Swaffham Road,
Henborough, on the night of December the thirty-
first, eighteen hundred and thirty-five.

"Why, you, Charlton, were one of the jurymen,
if I remember right, who were upon the
inquest in that matter? " I said.

"I was, doctor; and are you sure there's
nobody under the bed, or in the cupboard, or
behind the chimney-board? — and his
murderer also ? "

"Good heavens?" I exclaimed. "Why what
a hypocritical ruffian you must have been ? "

"Doctor, good doctor, have mercy upon
me: don't tell, don't tell! and don't think so
hardly of me until you have heard me out;
I am not so bad as I seem:

"It was on a New Year's Eve; near twenty
years ago, and very late at night — close upon
twelve, — when I had put up my last shutter,
and was going to lock the door of my shop,
that a stranger called. He had come from
the Swaffham end of the road, and I had
never seen him before in all my life; he could
hardly speak at all, he was so awfully drunk.
Red in face, thick in speech, and trembling
all over like a leaf; he said he must have
more rum. I told him that we only had
ginger-beer and such like drinks; and,
besides, that it was too late at that time of
night to sell people anything. He swore
horribly at this, said that my wife (who was
still behind the counter in the shop), and I,
were both liars, that we had sold rum often
enough to other folks, he knew very well. He
managed to stagger up the two stone steps
and push in at the door. He should get into
the back parlour, and sleep there all night,
he said. I took him by the collar, intending
to set him outside the door, but he was a tall
and stout-made man, and I could not— he
struggled with me in a dull heavy manner.
I had hard matter to thrust him from the
parlour. I did do so, and pushed him violently,
and he fell on the floor at full length, like a
log; he never groaned after he had touched
the floor, but lay silent and motionless.

"My wife cried, 'What have you done,
George? You've killed the man.'

"'Nonsense,' I said; but when we tried
to raise him, and saw the glassy look of his
eyes, I knew it was true. A hundred
horrible thoughts would have crowded into my
mind at once, but that, swifter than they,
devices for getting the corpse away, and
removing suspicion from ourselves had
already filled it; the simple honest plan of
telling the truth, and calling in the police,
at once, never so much as suggested itself.
What if a neighbour should step in, as this
poor murdered man had done, and find him
lying there ? If one of the children even
should be awakened by the noise, and come
down into the shop! If the watchman
himself, seeing our door yet open at that time of
night, should call! There was not a moment
to lose; I took the dead man by the head,
and my wife, all in a tremble, managed to
raise his legs, and shutting the door
carefully after us. we bore our dreadful burden
about fifty yards along the Swaffham Road;
we tried to set it against the railings which
ran along both sides of what is now Macartney
Street, but the inanimate thing slipped
down again each time in a mere heap. It
was surprising how anxious we were to prop
it up, and, although every instant was
precious to us, we spent some five minutes in
doing so,—it seemed inhuman, somehow, to
leave it on the pavement. In a sort of
desperate terror at last, I twined the arms
about the bars, and we fled back in silence.
Nothing was stirring. We heard the tread
of the watchman outside our closed door, and
his " Past twelve o'clock! " die away in the
distance, but we had put out the lights, and
felt certain he had observed nothing unusual,
—nothing of ours — oh horror! — dropped in
the road, while we had gone about our
terrible task. One of the children, Clara, began
to cry out, ' Where have you been, mother? '
She had heard us, then, leave the house.

"' I only helped your father to put up the
shutters, child,' she answered, and the girl
was quieted by the ready lie.

We went to bed immediately, but not to
sleep; our ears were on the stretch for the
moment when the cry should arise, and we
should know the body was found. One
o'clock, two, three, four: the time crept on
with painful slowness, and the hours and
quarters seemed to prolong their iron voice
horribly. And now the dawn was breaking,
and there was light enough for a chance
traveller to see the corpse. We saw it all
night long, as we were to see it for years
and as I see it now. Five, six: it was time
for us to get up and open the shop, lest
suspicion should arise that way, and we did so.
There was a turn in the Swaffham Road
beyond our house, and it was farther than
that; and yet I dared not look in that direction
as I undid the shutters.

"' Watch, watch! Help, help!' Then they
have found him at last; and the street fills
with a hurrying crowd; and I run with
them, among the first. But my wife, she is
faint with terror, and dares not move, telling
the children who have heard the cries, that it
is nothing.

"It leans against the railing where we set
it; but its right hand — yes, by heaven, it points
to me! Nobody saw my face, they were all
so horror-struck with the dreadful thing, or
I should have been carried off to prison at
once, without any further proof, I know.
As they were about to take it down, Doctor
Scott (your predecessor at the union, sir),
who was in the crowd, cried ' Stop! ' and
called attention to the position of the arms:
' I do not think — bear witness all of you—
that any fit, or strong convulsion whatsoever,
could have thus twisted them.' And I bore
witness loudly with the rest. I was, as you