There was one extraordinary fact in connection with the case: the soles of the dress-boots on the feet of the corpse were unsoiled, though the night had been stormy and the neighbourhood of the watercourse damp at all times of the year. It was evident he must have alighted from a vehicle very near the spot, which was some distance down the bank, at the back of Jack Straw’s Castle. I have not the report of the inquest to refer to, but the details of the event made a deep impression on me, and the more so for the mystery surrounding it. I think no cabman came forward or could be found to give an account of a midnight fare to Hampstead Heath, and it was midnight or after when his butler heard him leave the house. The dress and general appearance were identical with those of Mr. Sadleir, director of the Tipperary Bank (which he had founded) and chairman of several railways and banking and mining companies; and if any doubt had existed, there was found on the corpse a slip of paper, on which, in a hand as bold as his proceedings had been, and infinitely clearer, was written, ‘John Sadleir, Gloucester Square, Hyde Park.’ Many knew the handwriting, and though some of the witnesses observed the great alteration death had made in the countenance, Mr. Wakeley, the coroner, lifted the eyelids of the dead man, and, having known him personally, pronounced them the eyes of John Sadleir. At first it was surmised that insanity from a brain overworked had led to the fatal act, but it soon became apparent that, to avoid the public scandal and degradation consequent on his own bad acts, he had voluntarily rushed out of life. ‘By his scheming and forgeries, the issue of false balance-sheets, the overissue of railway shares, the pledging of false securities and obligations, he had deprived widows, single women, army and navy officers on half-pay, and others equally helpless and unwary, of all they possessed. The victims of his iniquitous and gigantic frauds were to be counted by thousands, from shareholders to the poorest depositors, till at last, hemmed round by an inextricable network of multitudinous crime, and seeing no means of escape from the near crisis of discovery, he had stolen by a perilous short-cut out of sight and hearing of the cries and curses of those who had trusted him, to find oblivion in a suicide’s grave.’[36] There were many who firmly believed his apparent death a forgery also, and long afterwards reports were current that he had been met with in America, whither his brother, the manager of the Tipperary Bank, had absconded. It is certain that a large sum of money which John Sadleir had received only on the day previous to the discovery of the dead body on Hampstead Heath was not forthcoming, nor was its disappearance in any way accounted for.