at the 'Swan.'

"My lord, there is always two in a job of this sort--the professional
man and the confederate. Cowen was the confederate, hocussed the wine,
loaded the pistols, and lent his pass-key to the cracksman. The
cracksman opened the door with his tools, unless Cowen made him
duplicate keys. Neither of them intended violence, or they would have
used their own weapons. The wine was drugged expressly to make that
needless. The cracksman, instead of a black mask, put on a calf-skin
waistcoat and a bottle-nose, and that passed muster for Cox by
moonlight; it puzzled Cox by moonlight, and deceived Gardiner by
moonlight.

"For the love of God get me a respite for the innocent man, and I will
undertake to bring the crime home to the cracksman and to his
confederate Cowen."

Bradbury signed this with His name and quality.

The judge was not sorry to see the doubt his own wariness had raised so
powerfully confirmed. He sent this missive on to the minister, with
the remark that he had received a letter which ought not to have been
sent to him, but to those in whose hands the prisoner's fate rested.
He thought it his duty, however, to transcribe from his notes the
question he had put to Captain Cowen, and his reply that he had slept
at 13 Parringdon Street on the night of the murder, and also the
substance of the prisoner's defence, with the remark that, as stated by
that uneducated person, it had appeared ridiculous; but that after
studying this Bow Street officer's statements, and assuming them to be
in the main correct, it did not appear ridiculous, but only remarkable,
and it reconciled all the undisputed facts, whereas that Cox was the
murderer was and ever must remain irreconcilable with the position of
the knife and the track of the blood.

Bradbury's letter and the above comment found their way to the King,
and he granted what was asked--a respite.

Bradbury and his fellows went to work to find the old clergyman, alias
cracksman. But he had melted away without a trace, and they got no
other clew. But during Cowen's absence they got a traveller, i.e., a
disguised agent, into the inn, who found relics of wax in the key-holes
of Cowen's outer door and of the door of communication.

Bradbury sent this information in two letters, one to the Judge, and
one to the minister.

But this did not advance him much. He had long been sure that Cowen
was in it. It was the professional hand, the actual robber