of gold between them, the whispered talk, the fact that César treated the half-slumbering padrone, who was consoling himself in the kitchen by drinking and playing dominoes with the cook, while he bewailed his want of custom, and his heavy rent; and the hurried manner in which the waiter packed his bundle-about which he was naturally careful-awakened a dozen suspicions in Patsy's bosom.

"Here, you Irish cochon-you pig, you," said the triumphant César; "I am going to leave your sty to yourself. Here is a drink-money for you."

And he threw at Patsy a newly-coined fourpenny-piece, as the smallest bit of silver he could give, which had the bad luck to miss Patsy's hand and to roll down a crack in the kitchen floor.

"Yah! butter-fingers," said the polyglot valet, in the purest slang. "Can't hold anything. Well, good-bye, cochon. I will leave you all the wash!"

Insult was added to injury. Patsy could have flown at the throat of the Maltese. He contented himself with a watchful look and a silent curse; and rose from his seat to follow and to watch Negretti.

He saw Brownjohn drink his liquor with a wry face and a cough, and knew well enough what he was. Patsy was on the qui vive at once, and determined to follow his enemy; and, with the step of a cat or a wild Indian, flew to the door of the Hôtel des Etrangères, and watched the retreating figure of Mr Samuel Brownjohn and his new ally.

When they, going northward, turned towards the east, and were about to cross the mazy and by no means salubrious purlieus of the Holy Land-poor Patsy's birthplace—that young gentleman, pulling his cap out of his pocket, and hastily seizing a French roll from one of the tables as provender, gave a short, low, wild cry, as does a cat when it springs on a wall; and with little definite idea of what he was about to do, disappeared after them on his self-instituted watch.

So, following Negretti, step by step-outside cellars and drinking-shops, down by the docks or Ratcliff Highway, where crimps and Jews kept watch for Jack-slunk Mr Patsy Quelch,

Crowds of citizens ventured down in those purlieus-where, in the streets near the docks, a perpetual fair went on day and night-to buy bargains from abroad. Sailors with strange birds, sailors with Japanese boxes and Chinese wares, were to be met and dealt with; sailors who were real, with China silks and India muslins; also sailors who were unreal, but who looked much more natural than the true ones, who had painted birds, Manchester silks, and Birmingham imitations of foreign goods.

In the crowd and the atmosphere of cheatery, César was in his element. He crossed himself, said his prayers, talked the wildest blasphemy a moment afterwards, quarrelled with the passengers, and offered to put a knife into half a dozen all at once; grinned, showed his teeth, made his hair and his ears move, and surprised the stolid Brownjohn by his cleverness. His costume, curious in the City or Soho, fitted well into the landscape at the seaport of London. His volubility and goodnature gained them friends. To every man he told a different

lie; but his cross-examination was masterly.

Soon he had discovered traces of the Dutch sailor.

"My Brownjohn," he said, after triumphantly drinking as much rum as would have staggered the strong head of the Bow Street runner, 66 we are on the point of victory. Our man is as good as caught. We must, however, be towards the country. Our friend is en province.”

"Which way?" asked Brownjohn.

They tell me by Stroud or Rochester. I am, you understand, very fond of him. He is my long-lost uncle."

"Is he?" grunted Samuel. "I wish I had him up at Bow Street. I am glad Old Daylight has not got the start of me."

"Great events," said César, sententiously, "require proper time, my Brownjohn. And now, since we have been so far successful, let us eat."

Brownjohn being himself hungry, some smoking hot boiled beef soon was set before them, and with an excellent appetite, César fell to. He was full of his fun. He made the most atrocious propositions to Brownjohn as to some new method of making money by accepting bribes from prisoners; laughed when the honest runner looked aghast at him; sang snatches

of song while waiting for his plate to be renewed; and showed how thoroughly he enjoyed his new occupation.

"Look, my Brownjohn," said he, suddenly, as a slinking figure passed the cook-shop, and gazed hungrily at the inside; "how those gutter Irish resemble each other. There is a figure like that cochon Patsy. Ah! I forgot, you do not know the little wretch at the cabaret. Allons, let us drink, if we can find a public-house where the rhum is not new."

The guests left the eating-house, and went forward on the Dover Road; nor had they left it many moments before a footsore figure limped into the shop, and hastily buying fourpenny worth of beef, stuffed it deftly into the bowels of a penny roll that he had with him, and then limped onwards after those whom he tracked.

CHAPTER XIX.

THE SLOW BUT CERTAIN LAW MARKS DOWN ITS PREY.

CHESTERTON HOUSE is situated close to the most fashionable square in London, and it stands in a ring-fence of stone and brick wall; so that no one could well leave it unobserved, while every one who approached could be well marked and watched.

Old Daylight, accompanied by Inspector Stevenson, kept close watch for his own good reason-for some time, in the immediate vicinity.

When Mr Roskell creaked forth, wearing the Scotch cap which the valets and stewards of the aristocracy much affect, he was conned and noted by a curious old gentleman who, in Hessian boots and a spencer, seemed to be vastly interested in the upper windows of a house in the dull and aristocratic neighbourhood opposite. Mr Roskell took no notice of him; but Mr Tom Forster, whose time had come, was not sorry to see the steward stroll off for his morning's walk in the park. It was the day after the dinner, and conversation following it, which Philip had had with his father.

The young man had slept but little, and was pacing the room in which hung the protraits of his ancestors, the genealogical tree of the Stanfields, and the arms which Edgar Wade had so much admired. Philip was awaiting his father's appearance; but the old lord, who had slept as little during the night, had, towards morning, fallen into a profound but uneasy sleep, in which the events of thirty years before-events seldom out of his mind-came back to him in dreams.

Suddenly, as Philip was abstractedly gazing at the polished swords hanging in their rack, the door opened, and the valet, with a face of wonder-or, rather, of blank and unpleasant surprise-ushered in two gentlemen, who trod so closely on his heels that they seemed rather unwilling to let him get out of their sight.

"Lord Wimpole is at home," said the servant.

"That will do," said the shorter of the two strangers, with an extraordinary and precise rudeness, as the valet thought. "Now you can go. We shall not want anything. We have a coach outside."

"A coach, gentlemen!" said his lordship, with an uneasy surprise, as if he dreaded some new misfortune. "What is the matter? Are any of my friends ill?"

"Pray, don't alarm yourself, my lord," exclaimed the taller of the two, Mr Inspector Stevenson; while Old Forster, carefully putting the servant outside, shut the door. "I presume you

"Philip Desvoeux Stanfield, commonly called Lord Wimpole?" ejaculated Old Daylight.

"I am he, sir," returned Philip, proudly; forgetting, in the suddenness of the attack, the recent terrible disclosures. "Then you are our prisoner."

"Upon what charge, gentlemen ?"

"Only murder, my lord; that's all," said Inspector Stevenson, with imperturbable coolness. "Don't be alarmed. Do not say anything to criminate yourself. We are police officers, and shall report every word. Take things coolly and come along with us; and we shall use no violence. We are always polite to gentlemen, when they behave as such."

And the cool Inspector held out the warrant signed by George

Horton, one of his Majesty's magistrates for the county of Middlesex, for Philip's inspection.

Philip read the warrant, and his heart sank within him.

"How can I clear myself," he muttered, "from this evil thing?" Then lifting his head, he asked, "Will you let me call my father?”

"Well, you had better not. Take what things you want with you, and come along with us. Lord bless you, it's nothing, if you can prove an alibi; and a nobleman like you can always do that. I should quietly resign myself to our hands, say nothing, come and hear the charge, and send for my solicitor. That's the cleverest way out of a nasty job, that I know of," said the Inspector, in a kindly way.

Philip thought so, too; and walked into his own room, closely followed by the Inspector.

"Can I not be here in private?" he asked, as the strong hand of the policeman prevented the door from being shut in his face.

"Well, not exactly," returned Stevenson. "I don't want to intrude, my lord, nor to be rude-not I. It's not our way of doing things. You see, when once I have my eye on you-you are my charge, you see; and I never let my eye off my charge, sleeping nor waking, until I have put the charge in somebody else's charge. That's the law, and very sensible law, too."

As Lord Wimpole said not a word, but merely dressed himself-he was deadly pale-Mr Stevenson still continued his pleasing conversation, out of a good-natured wish to prevent his lordship being under any restraint. For the same reason he looked out of the window, and admired the portrait of the Countess of Chesterton, which he afterwards pronounced, with the air of a connoisseur, to be a "first-rate bit of painting."

Mr Stevenson's harmless prattle fell into dull ears. Philip was as much beside himself as if he had been an innocent girl of sixteen. The Inspector-who, to do him justice, would have behaved as coolly and as considerately if he had been arresting a clerk for a vulgar forgery-every now and then threw in a remark, looking delicately out of the windows as Philip attired himself.

"Yes, we are very sensible in criminal cases, except in the