The coroner, however, shook his head. "As to Harding and Smithson," he said, "the matter is sufficiently made out to justify us in issuing warrants for their apprehension; and Harding may perhaps--from some motive we know nothing of--have placed the money as you suspect, especially as he seems to have been well acquainted with Emberton Park; but I do not believe that Mr. Tims had any thing to do with it. To suppose so, would at once lead us to the conclusion that he was an accomplice in the murder of his uncle; and his whole conduct gave the lie to that. No--no--had he even known that his uncle was dead before he came here, his whole actual behaviour afterwards would have been very different. He did not affect any great sorrow for his uncle, as he would have done had he been at all culpable; but, at the same time, he was evidently vindictive in the highest degree against the murderers. No--no-you are mistaken there, gentlemen! But let us issue warrants against the other two, and intrust their execution to Cousins. We shall easily be able to get at the truth in regard to Captain Delaware from one of those gentry, if we can but catch them." While the warrants were in preparation, it was announced to the magistrates that Mr. Peter Tims himself was below, with the undertakers; and also, that the constable of a neighbouring parish had brought up a boy who had found a hat upon the sea-shore, which, it was supposed, might throw some light upon the matter before the magistrates. Mr. Tims was accordingly directed to wait, while the boy was brought up, and the hat examined. The peculiarity of its form--a form unknown in Emberton--and of its colour--a shade of that light russet-brown, in which Shakspeare clothes the dawn for her morning's walk--at once led Dr. Wilton to believe that it had belonged to his unfortunate friend Henry Beauchamp. As Beauchamp, however, was not one of those men who write their names in their hats, the matter still remained in the most unpleasant state in the world--a state of doubt; and such a state being not less disagreeable to Dr. Wilton than to any one else--after catechising the boy, and discovering that nothing was to be discovered, except that the hat had been washed on shore at about five miles' distance from Ryebury, of which washing it bore ample marks--the worthy clergyman left his companions in magistracy to expedite the warrants, and returned in person to Emberton, in order to examine Mrs. Wilson, Beauchamp's late landlady, in regard to the hat, which he carried thither along with him.