eems clear that the
deceased did not commit suicide. It seems equally clear that the
deceased was not murdered. There is nothing for it, therefore,
gentlemen, but to return a verdict tantamount to an acknowledgment of
our incompetence to come to any adequately grounded conviction whatever
as to the means or the manner by which the deceased met his death. It is
the most inexplicable mystery in all my experience." (Sensation.)

The Foreman (after a colloquy with Mr. Sandy Sanderson): "We are not
agreed, sir. One of the jurors insists on a verdict of "Death from
visitation by the act of God.""

CHAPTER IV.

But Sandy Sanderson's burning solicitude to fix the crime flickered out
in the face of opposition, and in the end he bowed his head to the
inevitable "open verdict." Then the floodgates of inkland were opened,
and the deluge pattered for nine days on the deaf coffin where the poor
idealist moldered. The tongues of the Press were loosened, and the
leader writers reveled in recapitulating the circumstances of "The Big
Bow Mystery," though they could contribute nothing but adjectives to the
solution. The papers teemed with letters--it was a kind of Indian summer
of the silly season. But the editors could not keep them out, nor cared
to. The mystery was the one topic of conversation everywhere--it was on
the carpet and the bare boards alike, in the kitchen and the
drawing-room. It was discussed with science or stupidity, with aspirates
or without. It came up for breakfast with the rolls, and was swept off
the supper table with the last crumbs.

No. 11 Glover Street, Bow, remained for days a shrine of pilgrimage. The
once sleepy little street buzzed from morning till night. From all parts
of the town people came to stare up at the bedroom window and wonder
with a foolish look of horror. The pavement was often blocked for hours
together, and itinerant vendors of refreshment made it a new market
center, while vocalists hastened thither to sing the delectable ditty of
the deed without having any voice in the matter. It was a pity the
Government did not erect a toll-gate at either end of the street. But
Chancellors of the Exchequer rarely avail themselves of the more obvious
expedients for paying off the National debt.

Finally, familiarity bred contempt, and the wits grew facetious at the
expense of the Mystery. Jokes on the subject appeared even in the comic
papers.

To the proverb, "You must not say Boo to a go