While he was speaking, Dr. Wilton rapidly turned over his notes of the examination of Captain Delaware, and the servants at Emberton Park, and at length lighted upon the declaration of the man-servant, who stated, that in returning from some errand in that direction, he had seen the valet Harding at the back of the park, the lanes surrounding which led directly toward Ryebury. "If I could think of any reason for his putting the money in the captain's room," said Cousins, as the clergyman read this passage, "I should think that Harding had done it himself, on purpose to hang him." "May he not have been instigated to do it by others?" said Mr. Egerton. "If one could find out any reason for it," replied the officer. "Why, Captain Delaware suspected something of the kind himself," replied the magistrate, and he read a part of the young fugitive's letter, watching from time to time, as he did so, the effect it produced upon the countenance of a man who, like Cousins, was accustomed to trace and encounter crime in every form. The officer closed one eye, put his tongue slightly into his cheek, and ended by a half whistle. "You had better look to it, gentleman." he said; "you had better look to it--such things have been done before now--so you had better look to it!" "We will!" answered Dr. Wilton; "we will! let us see you to-morrow about nine, Cousins." The officer took the hint, and withdrew. CHAPTER XXVI. Oh, that I had the lucid arrangement of the late Lord Tenderden, or the happy illustration of Francis Jeffrey, or the _curiosa felicitas_ of George Gordon Byron, or the nervous vein of Gifford, or the elegant condensation of Lockhart, or any of the peculiar powers of any of the great men of past or future ages, to help me to make this chapter both interesting and brief; for there are several facts to state, and small space to state them in; and--what is worse than all--they are so dry and pulverized, that they are enough to give any one who meddles with them, what the Spaniard gracefully terms a "_retortijon de tripas_." As, however, they are absolutely necessary to the clear understanding of what is to follow, I will at once place them all in order together, leaving the reader to swallow them in any vehicle he may think fit.