a wonderfully short space of
time. Other events took place, which interested the readers of the
newspapers more, and few recalled the strange Gwynne Street crime. Many
people, when they did think, said that the assassins would never be
discovered, but in this they were wrong. If money could hunt down the
person or persons who had so cruelly murdered Aaron Norman, his daughter
and heiress was determined that money could not be better spent. And
Billy Hurd, knowing all about the case and taking a profound interest in
it by reason of the mystery which environed it, was selected to follow
up what clues there were.

But while London was still seething with the tragedy and strangeness of
the crime, Mr. Jabez Pash came to the heterogeneously-furnished
sitting-room in Gwynne Street to read the will. For there was a will
after all. Deborah, and Bart, who had witnessed it at the request of
their master, told Mr. Pash of its existence, and he found it in one of
the three safes in the cellar. It proved to be a short, curt document,
such as no man in his senses would think of making when disposing of
five thousand a year. Aaron was a clever business man, and Pash was
professionally disgusted that he had left behind him such a loose
testament.

"Why didn't he come to me and have it properly drawn up?" he asked as he
stood in the cellar before the open safe with the scrap of paper in his
hand.

Deborah, standing near, with her hands on her haunches, laughed
heartily. "I think master believed he's spent enough money with you,
sir. Lor' bless you, Mr. Pash, so long as the will's tight and fair what
do it matter? Don't tell me as there's anything wrong and that my pretty
won't come into her forting?"

"Oh, the will's right enough," said Pash, screwing up his cheeks; "let
us go up to the sitting-room. Is Miss Sylvia there?"

"That she are, sir, and a-getting back her pretty color with Mr. Paul."

Pash looked suspiciously at the handmaiden. "Who is he?"

"Nobody to be spoke of in that lump of dirt way," retorted Deborah.
"He's a gentleman who's going to marry my pretty."

"Oh, the one who had the accident! I met him, but forgot his name."

Miss Junk nodded vigorously. "And a mercy it was that he wasn't smashed
to splinters, with spiled looks and half his limbses orf," she said.
"Why, bless you, Mr. Pash, could I let my sunbeam marry a man as wasn't
all there, 'eart of gold though he may have? But the blessing of
Providence kept