ng for an answer. Tom said to himself, "Those old maids waited to
dress--they did the same thing the night Stevens's house burned down next
door." In a few minutes he was in the haunted house. He lighted a candle
and took off his girl-clothes. There was blood on him all down his left
side, and his right hand was red with the stains of the blood-soaked
notes which he has crushed in it; but otherwise he was free from this
sort of evidence. He cleansed his hand on the straw, and cleaned most of
the smut from his face. Then he burned the male and female attire to
ashes, scattered the ashes, and put on a disguise proper for a tramp. He
blew out his light, went below, and was soon loafing down the river road
with the intent to borrow and use one of Roxy's devices. He found a
canoe and paddled down downstream, setting the canoe adrift as dawn
approached, and making his way by land to the next village, where he kept
out of sight till a transient steamer came along, and then took deck
passage for St. Louis. He was ill at ease until Dawson's Landing was behind
him; then he said to himself, "All the detectives on earth couldn't trace
me now; there's not a vestige of a clue left in the world; that homicide
will take its place with the permanent mysteries, and people won't get
done trying to guess out the secret of it for fifty years."
In St. Louis, next morning, he read this brief telegram in the
papers--dated at Dawson's Landing:
Judge Driscoll, an old and respected citizen, was assassinated
here about midnight by a profligate Italian nobleman or a
barber on account of a quarrel growing out of the recent
election. The assassin will probably be lynched.
"One of the twins!" soliloquized Tom. "How lucky! It is the knife that
has done him this grace. We never know when fortune is trying to favor
us. I actually cursed Pudd'nhead Wilson in my heart for putting it out
of my power to sell that knife. I take it back now."
Tom was now rich and independent. He arranged with the planter, and
mailed to Wilson the new bill of sale which sold Roxana to herself; then
he telegraphed his Aunt Pratt:
Have seen the awful news in the papers and am almost
prostrated with grief. Shall start by packet today. Try to
bear up till I come.
When Wilson reached the house of mourning and had gathered such details
as Mrs. Pratt and the rest of the crowd could tell him, he took command
as mayor, and gave orders that nothing should be touched, but every