proved--or happen you won't see it, for if you go on as you are
doing, putting your nose in where you've no right, you'll be made
so that you'll never see nor hear again. Things is not going to be
upset here for want of putting upsetters out of the way; there's
been better men than you quietly sided for less. So take a quiet
warning, leave things alone. It would become you a deal better if
you'd be a bit more hospitable to the Council and give them a glass
of decent wine instead of the teetotal stuff you disgraced the
table with when you gave your Mayoral banquet--first time any
Mayor of this good old borough ever did such a thing. There's them
that's had quite enough of such goings-on, and doesn't mind how
soon you're shifted. So mend your ways before somebody makes them
as they'll never need mending any more.'

"Now, gentlemen," continued the Coroner, as he laid down the letter,
"there are one or two things about that communication to which I wish to
draw your attention. First of all, it is the composition of a vulgar and
illiterate, or, at any rate, semi-illiterate person. I don't think its
phrasing and illiteracy are affected; I think it has been written in its
present colloquial form without art or design, by whoever wrote it; it
is written, phrased, expressed, precisely as a vulgar, coarse sort of
person would speak. That is the first point. The second is--it is
typewritten. Now, in these days, there are a great many typewriting
machines in use in the town; small as the town is, we know there are a
great many, in offices, shops, institutions, banks, even private houses.
It is not at all likely that the sender of this letter would employ a
professional typist to write it, not even a clerk, nor any
employe--therefore he typed it himself. I will invite your attention to
the letter, which I now hand to you, and then I will place it in the
custody of the police, who will, of course, use their best endeavours to
trace it."

He passed the letter over to the foreman of the jury, and turned to the
witness-box.

"I conclude, Mr. Epplewhite, that the late Mayor left that letter in
your possession?" he asked.

"He did, sir," replied Epplewhite. "He said, half jokingly, 'You can
keep that, Epplewhite! If they sacrifice me on the altar of vested
interests, it'll be a bit of evidence.' So I locked up the letter in my
safe there and then, and it has remained there un