boats, had come up there, and had gone in, and stayed some time. He was grey, very like an Englishman, but might have been a foreigner: he had ear-rings.

Here Mr Brownjohn, who was listening, let his eyes gleam. a little bit. He saw the kind of man, and had his clue. "That's the rascal!" thought he.

"Does any one else recollect this man?" asked Mr Horton. Here the tall boy was hustled forward. He did. He was a very nice old fellow-quite a foreigner. Perhaps a Dutchman. He had read that Dutchmen were short and stout. Had heard him speak. Asked for the house of "Meestress Marton;" and when he, the tall boy, had shown it him, had given him threepence. The boy had thanked him, and given the money to his mother.

Old Day

Mr Horton noticed this in his neat abbreviations. light rubbed his chin, dissatisfied, and then scratched his eyebrow. The Inspector asked what kind of eyes the man had. "Fair blue eyes-very good-natured," said the tall boy. The Inspector turned over all the rogues that he knew with fair blue eyes.

"It's a case," he said, "for the Thames constables."

Mr Brownjohn came forward and fixed an awful gaze upon the tall boy.

"Now, you know," said he, with a deferential bow to the magistrate-"you know, my young friend, that we shall get it all out of you."

The boy turned very red.

The policeman went on.

"We shall get it all out of you. We know that something more must have passed. Freshen your memory a bit, Jacob, and speak up to the magistrate."

The boy paused, felt awful, and then looked at Mr Horton. "Tell all, my boy," said the gentleman, kindly. "We must know. Did he use any threatening words? Was that all he said and did?"

It was not all. The boy confessed the sea-faring man had given him sixpence in halfpence or coppers, not threepence. He had spent half of it in sweetstuff and marbles; and then, cowering like a guilty thing, the tall boy was silent.

All the men, as well as Mr Horton, saw that the clue broke there.

"It's that sailor chap, for a quid," said Brownjohn to himself.

"Marbles and sweetstuff!" muttered Tom Forster. human natur'!"

"Poor

Then he rose, and walked into the kitchen. He had learned all he could. Now he would begin to work for himself.

""Tisn't that sailor man!" he muttered, as he looked at the body. "Sailors use knives or ropes! Well, well-these things must happen. How to find who did it, and why they-or he -did it? Was it a he?"

All he could be certain of, at present, was that it was one of two.

CHAPTER III.

CABINET-WORK; OR, PIECING TOGETHER.

MR SAMUEL BROWNJOHN, who had so hurt the tall boy's feelings by eliciting the fact that he had secreted threepence, and expended the same in sweetstuff, still cast an eye of desire after the evidence of that boy.

"He's an innocent young chuff," said he to I warrant he's seen more of that Dutch sailor. don't let a seafarin' man alone for nothin'."

himself; "but Boys like him

So saying, while Mr Horton was covering his handsome face and forehead with his hands, and thinking how crime could have entered that peaceful little village, Brownjohn stole out, and followed the boy. All that he got from him, after a long time, and the promise of another sixpence, was that the Dutchman had got upon one of the barges; but he did not know whether it—the barge-went northward or southward.

"To London, may be," said Brownjohn; "that way "—and he pointed in that direction.

The tall boy couldn't say. He knew the stem from the stern, but didn't know which way the barge went. No, he wasn't a fool, and he knew how to read. There were two

barges one lay with her head to London, t'other with her head up the canal. There was a slight bulge in the canal thereabouts, and they lay on the opposite side to the towingpath. The Dutchman seemed very friendly with the bargeman, and was laughing when his head disappeared in the little cabin. Thereon the clue, which Brownjohn held so tightly, again broke. He was more and more certain about that Dutchman; but he did not want to go to Birmingham if his prey were hiding in London. Such a fellow as he was would of course go southward, and Brownjohn would have gone southward too, if his wit had "jumped." But no, he never did that; he held fast by the clue, and he never found it to fail. Away, therefore, he trotted to the Stanley Arms, and, disguising his purpose, had a long talk with the landlord. He learnt from that gentleman a good deal about Mrs Martin, who, the landlord thought, had killed herself, and had "tumbled about the things" on purpose, to put it upon the Green. The Green would now be in all the London papers. It would be as bad as Mr Weare's murder by Thurtell, out at Edgware there, near Mill Hill Farm. Mrs Martin was a good customer to him, but he did not care for that. She was a designing

woman.

"Poor creetur!" said Mr Brownjohn.

no design in her own death."

"She couldn't have

Landlord didn't know about that. Women were so artfuldevilish artful; deep, very deep.

Brownjohn said they were. There was no "understanding of 'em."

Like foxes run to earth in a loamy country, with lots of old banks, there was no digging them out. Hadn't he neat wines, he should like to know? What did Mrs Martin want to set an example to the neighbourhood by having cases of wine by the carrier? A bad example was what he couldn't abide; leastways, when it was set by a furriner.

"I'd ha' thought," said Mr Brownjohn, "that she would. have used the canal now."

He was on to his clue again. Brownjohn was a rare fellow to stick to it, he was. He was not unsuccessful this time, for by little and little he wormed out of the landlord what he

wanted; and with his head up, away went the New Police officer towards Acacia Villa.

In the meantime, Old Daylight had been to work in his own way. Down on his knees in the little kitchen, searching in the grate, raking over the ashes, out in the garden measuring the footsteps found in the little bed under the window, up in the dead woman's bed-room, tasting the brandy, scrutinising the claret, and taking notes of everything—the busy little man worked away like some of the new invented steamengines people were then wondering at.

Mr Horton, during all this time, had several fits of impatience. The day was wearing away; the yellow-bodied cab would claim a vast amount of money for waiting; and, absorbed as he was in the case, he (Mr Horton) wanted to put himself in communication with the Home Secretary about this mysterious crime.

However, just as Mr Brownjohn came in, and was telling the magistrate that he held the clue tighter than ever, Old Daylight entered, looking twenty years younger, and bearing in his hands a little thin drawer, carefully covered with a white pocket handkerchief.

"I'm after him," said Brownjohn. "I'm off now to the Thames Police Court. I think they have some of the old water dogs about there yet. You shall hear from me in two or three days, sir; it may be from Dover, or from Rochester, or thereaway down the river."

"You're pretty sure, then, Brownjohn?" said the magistrate.

"Sure!—no," answered the detective. "I never holler till I'm out of the wood; other people may. But I'll do my best; and man, woman, or child can't do more. Good-bye. Going to take the cab back, sir?"

"Yes," said Mr Horton.

“All right, then; I'll foot it across the fields. No time to be lost, I can tell you. Hallo, there!"

Here he ran to the door, and shouted to a carrier's cart, and was seen in a minute to climb up, and seat himself by the driver.

"He's off," said Inspector Stevenson; and here he deter

B

mined to be generous to an absent friend.

"A better man

than Sam Brownjohn, in certain points, don't serve his Majesty."

Mr Tom Forster next, dusting his dirty hands, and rubbing his bald head with a bandana of fine colours-red, yellow, and green-artfully mixed by the Easterns for the English. market.

"Now, Mr Forster," said the magistrate, "get on with this. We must not waste time."

Not a moment has been lost," said Mr Forster, with a certain pride in his voice. "The more haste the less speed. A very pretty case-a very pretty case, indeed! Poor human natur'! I often wonder at her, sir. She's wonderful—wonderful, indeed! But we grow up to her dodges. Poor human natur'!"

As he said the last words, he twitched the handkerchief off the drawer in a very careful manner, as if there were bank notes underneath, and he did not want to flirt them away. There were things that to him, at the moment, were more precious than bank notes-ay, if there were fifty of them, each of fifty pounds value. The little old man loved his profession, and his heart and soul were in it.

"Crime," said he, sententiously, "crime is puzzling; yet we find the ends of the puzzle. It is not motiveless. However silly the motive may appear, still, at the bottom of that folly, some faint reason may be found. Poor human natur'! I sometimes doubt whether any single action in life is without a motive!"

The magistrate looked up at the queer little old man, who spoke so wisely, so sadly, and so selfishly, and with a very different intonation from that ordinarily employed by him. Old Daylight, as he said this, had an educated voice. Voices are educated," if you please, my masters. It was not the Bow Street runner, it was the philosopher who was speaking. "And what was the motive of this crime?" asked the magistrate.

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"Not money," said Tom Forster, "to a dead certainty; though that's at the bottom of most crimes. Here are a few details:-This murder was committed at about half-past nine

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