of these mysterious teachings, to bring about the ends of
justice. For these things I have never been able to account.

As for that matter of the cigar-case, it proved on inquiry, that
the carriage in which I travelled down that afternoon to Clayborough
had not been in use for several weeks, and was in point of fact
the same in which poor John Dwerrihouse had performed his last
journey. The case had, doubtless, been dropped by him, and had lain
unnoticed till I found it.

Upon the details of the murder I have no need to dwell. Those who
desire more ample particulars may find them, and the written confession
of Augustus Raikes, in the files of the Times for 1856. Enough
that the under-secretary, knowing the history of the new line,
and following the negotiation step by step through all its stages,
determined to waylay Mr. Dwerrihouse, rob him of the seventy-five
thousand pounds, and escape to America with his booty.

In order to effect these ends he obtained leave of absence a few
days before the time appointed for the payment of the money; secured
his passage across the Atlantic in a steamer advertised to start
on the twenty-third; provided himself with a heavily loaded
"life-preserver," and went down to Blackwater to await the arrival
of his victim. How he met him on the platform with a pretended
message from the board; how he offered to conduct him by a short
cut across the fields to Mallingford; how, having brought him to
a lonely place, he struck him down with the life-preserver, and
so killed him; and how, finding what he had done, he dragged the
body to the verge of an out-of-the-way chalk-pit, and there flung
it in, and piled it over with branches and brambles,--are facts
still fresh in the memories of those who, like the connoisseurs in
De Quincey's famous essay, regard murder as a fine art. Strangely
enough, the murderer, having done his work, was afraid to leave the
country. He declared that he had not intended to take the director's
life, but only to stun and rob him; and that, finding the blow
had killed, he dared not fly for fear of drawing down suspicion
upon his own head. As a mere robber he would have been safe in the
States, but as a murderer he would inevitably have been pursued,
and given up to justice. So he forfeited his passage, returned to
the office as usual at the end of his leave, and locked up his
ill-gotten thousands till a more convenient opportunity. In the
mean while he had the satisfa