rdict of 'Not guilty.' There was no evidence
against him."

"But the money? Surely the scoundrel does not have the enjoyment of it
still?"

"No; he enjoyed it for a time, but he died, about three months ago, and
forgot to take the precaution of making a will, so his brother Percival
has got the business after all. If you ever go to Dublin, I should order
some of Brooks' bacon if I were you. It is very good."

CHAPTER XXIV

AN UNPARALLELED OUTRAGE

"Do you care for the seaside?" asked the man in the corner when he had
finished his lunch. "I don't mean the seaside at Ostend or Trouville,
but honest English seaside with nigger minstrels, three-shilling
excursionists, and dirty, expensive furnished apartments, where they
charge you a shilling for lighting the hall gas on Sundays and sixpence
on other evenings. Do you care for that?"

"I prefer the country."

"Ah! perhaps it is preferable. Personally I only liked one of our
English seaside resorts once, and that was for a week, when Edward
Skinner was up before the magistrate, charged with what was known as the
'Brighton Outrage.' I don't know if you remember the memorable day in
Brighton, memorable for that elegant town, which deals more in
amusements than mysteries, when Mr. Francis Morton, one of its most
noted residents, disappeared. Yes! disappeared as completely as any
vanishing lady in a music-hall. He was wealthy, had a fine house,
servants, a wife and children, and he disappeared. There was no getting
away from that.

"Mr. Francis Morton lived with his wife in one of the large houses in
Sussex Square at the Kemp Town end of Brighton. Mrs. Morton was well
known for her Americanisms, her swagger dinner parties, and beautiful
Paris gowns. She was the daughter of one of the many American
millionaires (I think her father was a Chicago pork-butcher), who
conveniently provide wealthy wives for English gentlemen; and she had
married Mr. Francis Morton a few years ago and brought him her quarter
of a million, for no other reason but that she fell in love with him. He
was neither good-looking nor distinguished, in fact, he was one of those
men who seem to have CITY stamped all over their person.

"He was a gentleman of very regular habits, going up to London every
morning on business and returning every afternoon by the 'husband's
train.' So regular was he in these habits that all the servants at the
Sussex Square house were betrayed into actual gossip ove