r to it. There was
one blood-stained instrument, and no more, found on the premises, and
that knife answers to the description given by the dying man, and,
indeed, may be taken to be the very knife missing from his room; and
this knife was found under the garden wall, and there the blood
commenced and was traced to the stable.

"Here," said my lord, "to my mind, lies the defence. Look at the case
on all sides, gentlemen: an undoubted murder done by hands; no
suspicion resting on any known person but the prisoner--a man who had
already robbed in the inn; a confident recognition by one whose
deposition is legal evidence, but evidence we cannot cross-examine; and
a recognition by moonlight only and in the heat of a struggle.

"If on this evidence, weakened not a little by the position of the
knife and the traces of blood, and met by the prisoner's declaration,
which accords with that single branch of the evidence, you have a
doubt, it is your duty to give the prisoner the full benefit of that
doubt, as I have endeavored to do; and if you have no doubt, why then
you have only to support the law and protect the lives of peaceful
citizens. Whoever has committed this crime, it certainly is an
alarming circumstance that, in a public inn, surrounded by honest
people, guarded by locked doors, and armed with pistols, a peaceful
citizen can be robbed like this of his money and his life."

The jury saw a murder at an inn; an accused, who had already robbed in
that inn, and was denounced as his murderer by the victim. The verdict
seemed to them to be Cox, of impunity. They all slept at inns; a
double they had never seen; undetected accomplices they had all heard
of. They waited twenty minutes, and brought in their verdict--Guilty.

The judge put on his black cap, and condemned Daniel Cox to be hanged
by the neck till he was dead.

CHAPTER III

After the trial was over, and the condemned man led back to prison to
await his execution, Bradbury went straight to 13 Farringdon Street and
inquired for Captain Cowen.

"No such name here," said the good woman of the house.

"But you keep lodgers?"

"Nay, we keep but one; and he is no captain--he is a City clerk."

"Well, madam, it is not idle curiosity, I assure you, but was not the
lodger before him Captain Cowen?"

"Laws, no! It was a parson. Your rakehelly captains wouldn't suit the
like of us. Twas a reverend clerk, a grave old gentleman. He wasn't
very well-to-