Lord Verner started early the next morning to town, that he might personally consult his London solicitors, and take some potent action against the police, or the magistrates, or anybody and everybody by whom his brother was detained in custody. The poor Earl was almost beside himself with indignation and passion. And all this time that shrinking, hiding, halting, slouching figure, which the reader has seen before, had found shelter in Brazencrook. Moving in the darkness, with the rain splashing on the highway and hissing in the hedge-rows, the figure stalked back again towards Brazencrook, instead of getting away from that town, as the cunning mind had planned. But having no knowledge of the district, and being nervous and excited, and lacking gin, the wretched criminal had succeeded the next day in reaching the town he would have avoided; and when Mr. Bales was thinking of going to town as a sort of forlorn hope, or an excursion by the way, to see Gibbs, this same Gibbs was imbibing his favourite liquor at a sixth-rate tavern at Brazencrook, and reading a full account of the murder in the “Brazencrook Daily Banner.” “Hang that bruise on the hand,” thought the half-tipsy reader--“clear case of suicide but for that--clear case of _felo-de-se_--they might have buried the beast in the cross-roads. A rum go if they hang that swell Hammerton--a very rum go. I must burn this pocket-book, and the cheques too for the matter of that--it’s no good trying to cash them; I can get rid of the notes easily enough. What an infernal scoundrel he was, to be sure--threatening his sister the Countess! By Jove, I was close to him then; she ought to thank a fellow for stopping his mouth. How he clutched me--a good thing the pistol was pretty heavy, but confound that bruise and the torn pocket! That policeman is a clever fellow; nobody else would have thought of the pocket-book: wish I’d had time to get his purse--these notes are a nuisance. I’m safe enough, that’s one thing--good idea following the thief by train, deuced good!” Thus the gin-drinker’s thoughts flitted through his mind, as he sat before the tavern fire drinking raw spirits and drying his clothes, a poor thin, wretched-looking object, with one foot in the grave, as the slipshod servant had said to her boozy master, when he asked who it was that had such “a big swallow.” CHAPTER XV. CONTAINS A CURIOUS ILLUSTRATION OF DETECTIVE PHILOSOPHY, AND IS AN IMPORTANT LINK IN THIS HISTORY. “Well, I shall be off to town,” said Mr. Bales to the superintendent of the Brazencrook police, on the third morning after his arrival. “This case is a floorer to me.” The constable smiled, and thought he had certainly done the detective.