is so close that there is a danger of its being trodden on
or kicked away. And it is shy, and waits to be picked up. Priscilla,
we know, went very far afield in search of hers, and having
undertaken to tell of what befell her I must not now, only because I
would rather, suppress any portion of the story. Besides, it is a
portion vital to the catastrophe.

In Minehead, then, there lived at this time a murderer. He had not
been found out yet and he was not a murderer by profession, for he was
a bricklayer; but in his heart he was, and that is just as bad. He had
had a varied career into the details of which I do not propose to go,
had come three or four years before to live in the West of England
because it was so far from all the other places he had lived in, had
got work in Minehead, settled there respectably, married, and was a
friend of that carrier who brought the bread and other parcels every
day to the Symford store. At this time he was in money difficulties
and his wife, of whom he was fond, was in an expensive state of
health. The accounts of Priscilla's generosity and wealth had reached
Minehead as I said some time ago, and had got even into the local
papers. The carrier was the chief transmitter of news, for he saw Mrs.
Vickerton every day and she was a woman who loved to talk; but those
of the Shuttleworth servants who were often in Minehead on divers
errands ratified and added to all he said, and embellished the tale
besides with what was to them the most interesting part, the
unmistakable signs their Augustus showed of intending to marry the
young woman. This did not interest the murderer. Sir Augustus and the
lady he meant to marry were outside his sphere altogether; too well
protected, too powerful. What he liked to hear about was the money
Priscilla had scattered among the cottagers, how much each woman had
got, whether it had been spent or not, whether she had a husband, or
grown-up children; and best of all he liked to hear about the money
Mrs. Jones had got. All the village, and therefore Mrs. Vickerton and
the carrier, knew of it, knew even the exact spot beneath the bolster
where it was kept, knew it was kept there for safety from the
depredations of the vicar's wife, knew the vicar's wife had taken away
Priscilla's first present. The carrier knew too of Mrs. Jones's age,
her weakness, her nearness to death. He remarked that such a sum
wasn't of much use to an old woman certain to die in a few days,