The only additional witnesses were the gunsmith’s assistant and a railway clerk; the former to make that absurd statement about the prisoner purchasing pistols and ammunition, which were not sent home until after the murder; the latter to prove that it was Lionel’s intention to leave Montem Castle that day. But there was another fact which the officer thought a great deal of. In the prisoner’s pocket-book there were some memoranda relative to an account between the deceased and himself, with regard to some share speculations prior to the panic, and in the margin was written in pencil,--“_This was a downright swindle of Tallant’s._” In addition there was a scrap cut from a newspaper, alluding to a _fracas_ which had taken place at the Ashford Club, and in which the Hon. Lionel Hammerton’s name was mentioned, and also Mr. Tallant’s. Our readers will remember that Lionel had alluded to this gossiping paragraph when he left England. They also know that Hammerton had been led into speculations by Tallant, which had ended in grievous losses that seriously involved Lionel, and had cost the Earl no small sum. The policeman naturally argued from these papers and memoranda, that there had been a quarrel between his prisoner and the deceased; and he laid them before the coroner’s jury with an air of triumph. But the coroner strongly advised the jury to adjourn for a week, and they did so, leaving the onus of committing the prisoner for trial on the magistrates. Meanwhile Mr. Bales, the detective, did not agree with the opinion of the Brazencrook police. The case bothered him considerably, he acknowledged; but he could not bring himself to think that the prisoner had killed Richard Tallant. If the crime had been committed in London, he would certainly have looked up Mr. Shuffleton Gibbs; for, in the course of the inquiries he had made in those past days for Mr. Christopher Tallant, and since then, he had come across suspicious transactions in which Mr. Gibbs had been mixed up when the ex-swell was in the hey-day of his questionable glory. Hunting out this same gentleman for Mr. Williamson, and finally bringing him to Bow Street to be unsuccessful in his charge against him, the detective knew that Gibbs had appealed to Mr. Tallant in vain for assistance. But Gibbs was a broken-down, drunken wretch: what could he do down here? However, it might be worth while to run up to town, and see if the fellow had been away. In the evening Mr. Arthur Phillips and his wife arrived at Montem Castle. The Earl welcomed them heartily, and poor Amy, who had come down-stairs wrapped up with shawls, fell upon her dear friend’s shoulder, and sobbed until Phœbe’s heart ached with sympathetic sorrow. What a weary, weary time it was!