nd
cardsharper, whom he had himself employed on occasion. The third man
stood apart and appeared from his gesticulations to be speaking rapidly.
He wore his own sandy hair, and every line of his mean freckled face
told of excitement and fear. Him also Lovel recognised--Carstairs, a
Scotch informer who had once made a handsome living through spying on
conventicles, but had now fallen into poverty owing to conducting an
affair of Buckingham's with a brutality which that fastidious nobleman
had not bargained for.... Lovel rubbed his eyes and looked again. He
knew likewise the man on the floor. It was Sir Edmund Godfrey, and Sir
Edmund Godfrey was dead.

The men were talking. "No blood-letting," said Bedloe "This must be a
dry job. Though, by God, I wish I could stick my knife into him--once
for Trelawney, once for Frewen, and a dozen times for myself. Through
this swine I have festered a twelvemonth in Little Ease."

Lovel's first thought, as he stared, was an immense relief. His business
had been done for him, and he had escaped the guilt of it. His second,
that here lay a chance of fair profit. Godfrey was a great man, and
Bedloe and Carstairs were the seediest of rogues. He might make favor
for himself with the Government if he had them caught red-handed. It
would help his status in Aldersgate Street.... But he must act at once
or the murderers would be gone. He tiptoed back along the passage,
tumbled down the crazy steps, and ran up the steep entry to where he saw
a glimmer of light from the Strand.

At the gate he all but fell into the arms of a man--a powerful fellow,
for it was like running against a brick wall. Two strong arms gripped
Lovel by the shoulder, and a face looked into his. There was little
light in the street, but the glow from the window of a Court perruquier
was sufficient to reveal the features. Lovel saw a gigantic face, with
a chin so long that the mouth seemed to be only half-way down it. Small
eyes, red and fiery, were set deep under a beetling forehead. The skin
was a dark purple, and the wig framing it was so white and fleecy that
the man had the appearance of a malevolent black-faced sheep.

Lovel gasped, as he recognised the celebrated Salamanca Doctor. He was
the man above all others whom he most wished to see.

"Dr. Oates!" he cried. "There's bloody work in the Savoy. I was passing
through a minute agone and I saw that noble Justice, Sir Edmund Berry
Godfrey, lie dead, and his murderer