No hesitation now on Mr. Carruthers's part; he and the Home Office are colleagues in this affair. Lord Wolstenholme has shown his sagacity in picking out the active and intelligent magistrate of the district, and he shall see that his confidence is not misplaced. Will Mr. Dalrymple breakfast? Mr. Dalrymple has breakfasted; then a message is sent to Mrs. Carruthers to say that Mr. Carruthers presumes he _may_ say that Mr. Dalrymple, a gentleman from London, will join them at dinner? Mr. Dalrymple will be delighted, so long as he catches the up mail-train at Amherst at--what is it?--nine fifteen. Mr. Carruthers pledges his word that Mr. Dalrymple shall be in time, and orders the barouche round at once. Will Mr. Dalrymple excuse Mr. Carruthers for five minutes? Mr. Dalrymple will; and Mr. Carruthers goes to his dressing-room, while Mr. Dalrymple re-ensconces himself in the big arm-chair, and devotes his period of solitude to paring his nails and whistling softly the while. The big, heavy, swinging barouche, only used on solemn occasions, such as state visits, Sunday church-goings, and magisterial sittings, drawn by the two big grays, and driven by Gibson, coachman, in his silver wig, his stiff collar, and his bright top-boots, and escorted by Thomas, footman, in all the bloom of blue-and-silver livery and drab gaiters, comes round to the front door, and the gentlemen take their places in it and are driven off. The three gardeners mowing the lawn perform Hindooish obeisances as the carriage passes them; obeisances acknowledged by Mr. Carruthers with a fore-finger lifted to the brim of his hat, as modelled on a portrait of the late Duke of Wellington. Bulger at the lodge gates pulls his forelock, and receives the same gracious return, Mr. Carruthers all the time bristling with the sense of his own importance, and inwardly wishing that he could tell gardeners, lodge-keeper, and every one they met that his companion had come from the Home Office, and that they were about together to investigate a most important case of murder. Mr. Dalrymple, on the contrary, seems to have forgotten all about the actual business under treatment, and might be a friend come on a few days' visit. He admires the scenery, asks about the shooting, gives his opinion on the rising crops, talks of the politics rife in the neighbourhood, showing, by the way, a keen knowledge of their details, and never for an instant refers to the object of their inquiry until they are nearing the town, when he suggests that they had better alight short of their destination, and proceed on foot there. There is no particular reason for this, as probably Mr. Dalrymple knows; but he has never yet pursued an official and mysterious investigation in a barouche, and it seems to him an abnormal proceeding. So Mr. Carruthers, deferring in a courtly manner to his visitor's wishes, but, at the same time, walking beside him as though he had him in charge, they alight from the