be offered, but that young man, backed by Lucy, declined to throw
away good money after bad. Braddock took this refusal so ill,
that Hope felt perfectly convinced he would try and wriggle out
of his promise to permit the marriage and persuade Lucy to engage
herself to Sir Frank Random, should the baronet be willing to
offer a reward. And Hope was also certain that Braddock, a
singularly obstinate man, would never rest until he once more had
the mummy in his possession. That the murderer of Sidney Bolton
should be hanged was quite a minor consideration with the
Professor.

Meanwhile Widow Anne had insisted on the dead body being taken to
her cottage, and Braddock, with the consent of Inspector Date,
willingly agreed, as he did not wish a newly dead corpse to
remain under his roof. Therefore, the remains of the unfortunate
young man were taken to his humble home, and here the body was
inspected by the jury when the inquest took place in the
coffee-room of the Warrior Inn, immediately opposite Mrs.
Bolton's abode. There was a large crowd round the inn, as people
had come from far and wide to hear the verdict of the jury, and
Gartley, for the first and only time in its existence, presented
the aspect of an August Bank Holiday.

The Coroner--an elderly doctor with a short temper; caused by
the unrealized ambition of a country practitioner--opened the
proceedings by a snappy speech, in which he set forth the details
of the crime in the same bold fashion in which they had been
published by the newspapers. A plan of the Sailor's Rest was
then placed before the jury, and the Coroner drew the attention
of the twelve good and lawful men to the fact that the bedroom