lodged, in company with other men of various nations, at a public-house.
In a large dormitory there were arranged five or six beds; these were
occupied by artisans, generally of respectable character. One or two
Englishmen there were, one or two Scotchmen, three or four Germans, and
Williams, whose birth-place was not certainly known. On the fatal Saturday
night, about half-past one o'clock, when Williams returned from his
dreadful labors, he found the English and Scotch party asleep, but the
Germans awake: one of them was sitting up with a lighted candle in his
hands, and reading aloud to the other two. Upon this, Williams said, in an
angry and very peremptory tone, 'Oh, put that candle out; put it out
directly; we shall all be burned in our beds.' Had the British party in
the room been awake, Mr. Williams would have roused a mutinous protest
against this arrogant mandate. But Germans are generally mild and facile
in their tempers; so the light was complaisantly extinguished. Yet, as
there were no curtains, it struck the Germans that the danger was really
none at all; for bed-clothes, massed upon each other, will no more burn
than the leaves of a closed book. Privately, therefore, the Germans drew
an inference, that Mr. Williams must have had some urgent motive for
withdrawing his own person and dress from observation. What this motive
might be, the next day's news diffused all over London, and of course at
this house, not two furlongs from Marr's shop, made awfully evident; and,
as may well be supposed, the suspicion was communicated to the other
members of the dormitory. All of them, however, were aware of the legal
danger attaching, under English law, to insinuations against a man, even
if true, which might not admit of proof. In reality, had Williams used the
most obvious precautions, had he simply walked down to the Thames (not a
stone's-throw distant), and flung two of his implements into the river, no
conclusive proof could have been adduced against him. And he might have
realized the scheme of Courvoisier (the murderer of Lord William Russell)
--viz., have sought each separate month's support in a separate well-