Napier, and now waiter in the Lonsdale Arms of the obscure Kirby--a
place like Peebles, where, if you wanted to deposit a secret, you could
do so by crying it out at the market-cross; and, moreover, he was verily
in possession of the key to the Napier mystery.

Accordingly, Mr. White of Mill's Court in two days afterwards received a
letter, informing him that John Cowie was the writer of the same, and
that, if a reasonable consideration were held out to him, he would
proceed to the northern metropolis, and there settle for ever a case
which apparently had kept the newsmongers of Edinburgh in aliment for a
length of time much exceeding the normal nine days. Opportune and
happily come in the very nick of time as the latter was--for the delay
allowed by the court had all but expired--Mr. White saw the danger of
promising anything which could be construed into a reward; but he could
use other means of decoying the shy bird into his meshes; and these he
used in his answer with such effect, that the man who could solve the
mystery was in Edinburgh at the end of a week. Nor was Mr. White
unprepared to receive him, for he had previously got a commission to
examine him and take his deposition: but then an agent likes to know
what a witness will say before he cites him; and the canny Scotchman, of
all men in the world, is the most uncanny if brought to swear without
some hope of being benefited by his oath. There was, therefore, need of
tact as well as delicacy; and Mr. White contrived in the first place to
get his man to take up his quarters in the house in Mill's Court. A good
supper and chambers formed the first demulcent--we do not say bribe,
because, by a legal fiction, all eating and drinking is set down to the
score of hospitality. A Scotch breakfast followed in the morning, at
which were present Mrs. White and Mrs. Hislop, and our favourite
Henney--the last of whom, spite of all the efforts of her putative
mother to keep from her the secret of her birth and prospects, had