he had obtained in the way of booty. A week or so would see the end of
that. The conviction, therefore, of all people was, that in a month or
two, when the fever of excitement might a little have cooled down, or have
been superseded by other topics of fresher interest, so that the newborn
vigilance of household life would have had time to relax, some new murder,
equally appalling, might be counted upon.

Such was the public expectation. Let the reader then figure to himself the
pure frenzy of horror when in this hush of expectation, looking, indeed,
and waiting for the unknown arm to strike once more, but not believing
that any audacity could be equal to such an attempt as yet, whilst all
eyes were watching, suddenly, on the twelfth night from the Marr murder, a
second case of the same mysterious nature, a murder on the same
exterminating plan was perpetrated in the very same neighborhood. It was
on the Thursday next but one succeeding to the Marr murder that this
second atrocity took place; and many people thought at the time, that in
its dramatic features of thrilling interest, this second case even went
beyond the first. The family which suffered in this instance was that of a
Mr. Williamson; and the house was situated, if not absolutely _in_
Ratcliffe Highway, at any rate immediately round the corner of some
secondary street, running at right angles to this public thoroughfare, Mr.
Williamson was a well-known and respectable man, long settled in that
district; he was supposed to be rich; and more with a view to the
employment furnished by such a calling, than with much anxiety for further
accumulations, he kept a sort of tavern; which, in this respect, might be
considered on an old patriarchal footing--that, although people of
considerable property resorted to the house in the evenings, no kind of
anxious separation was maintained between them and the other visitors from
the class of artisans or common laborers. Anybody who conducted himself
with propriety was free to take a seat, and call for any liquor that he