“Well may it be said that the ways of Providence are inscrutable; for vengeance so sudden as to pass belief, has fallen on those who last night endeavoured to effect your destruction. Come to the Green Man immediately.’ There you will see those who employed, and those who undertook to murder you. Notice nothing which may occur; and appear to take no more interest in passing events, than any stranger in the room. Follow me when I leave the house, and let your friend accompany you. Fail not!” “We shall punctually attend the lady’s invitation,” said Mr. Hartley, as he perused the scroll for the second time, “and we will also take that henchman of yours and his companion with us.” Accordingly, these useful allies were dispatched, with proper directions to find the place appointed; and in half an hour, Mr. Hartley and I started in the same direction. On arriving at our destination, we found the street was crowded, and intense anxiety was visible in the countenances of a very numerous collection of idle people, to whom every act of atrocity gives interest. Indeed, it had been found necessary to close the tavern doors against all, excepting those who might professionally or profitably claim a right of entrance. The appearance of my uncle and myself, however, secured admission, and we were conducted into a spacious club-room, which had been selected wherein to hold the necessary inquest on a murdered man. A crown, judiciously applied, obtained convenient seats immediately beside the defunct lawyer and the persons suspected of his murder; and the fosterer and his companion had standing room assigned them, behind the chairs with which we had been graciously accommodated. That spacious room had witnessed many an hour of revelry. With the dance, the song, the laugh, and every outbreak of “tipsy jollity,” its walls for years had been familiarized. The present was a different scene. It was an inquisition for “blood spilt” by man; and the victim and his slaughterers were placed in the immediate presence of each other. The deceased remained in the same state as when he had been discovered in the morning, and even the position in which the body had been found was scrupulously preserved. No doubt existed as to the cause of death, for the skull was extensively fractured, and _post mortem_ appearances evinced that unnecessary violence had been employed; for any of half-a-dozen injuries inflicted on their victim by the murderers would have proved mortal. The features were painfully distorted; and the passing agonies of the departed man had been severe. Not an article of value was found upon the corpse; the pockets were turned out, and showed that robbery had succeeded murder.