ve cared if this expression of his good will had
got round to my lord.

The result was, however, that their prisoner was to be first tried in
Ireland for the murder of Doctor Barnabas Sturk.

A few pieces of evidence, slight, but sinister, also turned up. Captain
Cluffe was quite clear he had seen an instrument in the prisoner's hand
on the night of the murder, as he looked into the little bed-chamber of
the Brass Castle, so unexpectedly. When he put down the towel, he raised
it from the toilet, where it lay. It resembled the butt of a whip--was
an inch or so longer than a drumstick, and six or seven inches of the
thick end stood out in a series of circular bands or rings. He washed
the thick end of it in the basin; it seemed to have a spring in it, and
Cluffe thought it was a sort of loaded baton. In those days robbery and
assault were as common as they are like to become again, and there was
nothing remarkable in the possession of such defensive weapons.
Dangerfield had only run it once or twice hastily through the water,
rolled it in a red handkerchief, and threw it into his drawer, which he
locked. When Cluffe was shown the whip, which bore a rude resemblance to
this instrument, and which Lowe had assumed to be all that Cluffe had
really seen, the gallant captain peremptorily pooh-poohed it. 'Twas no
such thing. The whip-handle was light in comparison, and it was too long
to fit in the drawer.

Now, the awful fractures which had almost severed Sturk's skull
corresponded exactly with the wounds which such an instrument would
inflict, and a tubular piece of broken iron, about two inches long,
exactly corresponding with the shape of the loading described by Cluffe,
was actually discovered in the sewer of the Brass Castle. It had been in
the fire, and the wood or whalebone was burnt completely away. It was
conjectured that Dangerfield had believed it to be lead, and having
burnt the handle, had broken the metal which he could not melt, and made
away with it in the best way he could. So preparations were pushed
forward, and Sturk's dying declaration, sworn to, late in the evening
before his dissolution, in a full consciousness of his approaching
death, was, of course, relied on, and a very symmetrical and logical
bill lay, neatly penned, in the Crown Office, awaiting the next
commission for the county.

CHAPTER XCVII.

IN WHICH OBEDIAH ARRIVES.

In the meantime our worthy little Lieutenant Puddock--by this