At four o'clock Mark put up his horse at the Greyhound, and chatted for
a quarter of an hour with the ostler, who had been making inquiries,
and had heard of one or two other houses in the neighborhood which were
untenanted. Mark then strolled up the town, exchanging a passing
glance with Chester, who, in a velveteen coat, low hat and gaiters, was
chatting with a wagoner going with a load of hay for the next morning's
market in London. He turned into an inn, called for a pint of the best
port, and sat down in the parlor at a table close to the window, so that
he could see all who went up or down. He entered into conversation with
two or three people who came in, and so passed the time till seven, when
he felt too restless to sit still longer, and went out into the street.
When he was halfway to the Greyhound he heard the sound of a horse's
hoofs behind him, and saw a quietly dressed man coming along at an easy
trot. Had it not been that he recognized the horse, he could not have
felt sure that its rider was the man whose coming he had been waiting
for, there being nothing in his appearance that would excite the
slightest suspicion that he was other than a gentleman of moderate means
and quiet taste, either returning from a ride or passing through on his
way to town. He had a well built and active figure, carried himself with
the ease of a thorough horseman, and nodded to one or two persons of his
acquaintance, and checking his horse at the principal butcher's, ordered
some meat to be sent in that evening.
Mark could trace no resemblance in the face to that of the young fellow
he remembered. It was a quiet and resolute one. If this were Bastow,
he had lost the sneering and insolent expression that was so strongly
impressed on his memory. It might be the man, but if so, he was greatly
changed. Mark's first impression was that it could not be Bastow; but
when he thought over the years of toil and confinement in the convict
prison, the life he had led in the bush, and the two years he had passed
since he returned home, he imagined that the insolence of youth might
well have disappeared, and been succeeded by the resolute daring and
dogged determination that seemed to be impressed on this fellow's face.
Mark paused fifty yards before he reached the inn. In a few minutes he
saw Chester coming along. There was no one else in sight.
“Is it Bastow?” he asked, as the officer came up.
“It's Bastow sure enough, sir. But he is so changed that if I had not
had him in my mind I should not have recognized him. I calculate that a
man who has gone through what he has would have lost the expression he
had as a boy. He must have learnt a lot in the convict prison, and
the fact that he headed the mutiny and escaped from the searchers and
managed to get home showed that he must have become a resolute and
desperate man. All those burglaries, and the way in which he has several
times stopped coaches single handed, show his nerve and coolness. I had
all that in my mind as he came along, and his face was pretty much as I
expected to see it. He is a cool hand, and I can understand how he has
given us the slip so long. There is none of the shifty look about his
eyes that one generally sees in criminals, no glancing from side to
side; he rode with the air of a man who had a right to be where he was,
and feared no one. He will be an awkward customer to tackle if we do not
take him by surprise.”
“Yes, I agree with you there. However, he won't have much chance of
using either his pistols or his strength. Here is Malcolm coming, so I
will walk away for a few minutes, and let you go in first. You can tell
the ostler now that you will have your horse put in at nine o'clock. I
have been thinking, by the way, that we had better take the trap round
behind the house instead of leaving it in the drive. The man may come
back this way, and if so, he might hear the horse stamp or make some
movement, and that would at once put him on his guard.”
As the officers entered the inn Mark went into the yard and told the
ostler that he had met some friends, and should let his horse remain
there for the night.
“It is possible that they may drive me into the town in the morning,” he
said; “and I shall very likely send a man down for the horse.”
At a quarter to nine he went out again, and walked to the house he had
before visited; in ten minutes he heard the sound of wheels, threw open
the gate, and the men, jumping down, led the horse in.
“You may as well take him out of the trap,” he said. “We cannot very
well get that round the house, but there is no difficulty about taking
the horse.”
The officers had brought a halter and a nosebag full of corn. The horse
was fastened to a tree with soft ground round it, the nosebag put on,
and a horse cloth thrown over its back; then Mark and his two companions
went out into the lane, and in a couple of minutes entered the next
gate, treading lightly, and going round to the back of the house.
A light burned in the kitchen, and an old woman could be seen knitting.
They lifted the latch and walked in. Dropping her knitting, she rose
with an exclamation of terror.
Mark advanced alone.
“Do not be frightened,” he said; “we are not going to do you any harm.”
He took out his little ebony staff. “We are constables,” he went on,
“and have orders to search this house. We must secure you, but you will
be released in the morning. Now, which is your room?”
In spite of Mark's assurance, the old woman was almost paralyzed with
terror. However, the two constables assisted her up to her room, and
there secured her with a rope, taking care that it was not so tightly
bound as to hurt her. Then they placed a gag in her mouth, and left her.
“Now let us search his room in the first place,” Mark said, when they
came downstairs again. “I hardly expect we shall find anything. You may
be sure that he will have taken great pains to hide away any booty that
he may have here, and that it will need daylight and a closer search
than we can give the place now, before we find anything.”
The search of the house was indeed fruitless. They cut open the bed,
prized up every loose board in the bedroom and the parlor, lifted the
hearth stone, tapped the walls, and searched every drawer; then, taking
a lantern, went out into the stable. The officers were both accustomed
to look for hiding places, and ran their hands along on the top of the
walls, examining the stone flooring and manger.
“That is a very large corn bin,” Mark said, as he looked round, when
they desisted from the search.
“You are right, sir. We will empty it.”
There were two or three empty sacks on the ground near it, and they
emptied the corn into these, so that there should be no litter about.
Chester gave an exclamation of disappointment as they reached the
bottom. Mark put his hand on the bin and gave it a pull.
“It is just as I thought,” he said. “It is fastened down. I saw an ax in
the woodshed, Malcolm; just fetch it here.”
While the man was away Mark took the lantern and examined the bottom
closely. “We shan't want the ax,” he said, as he pointed out to Chester
a piece of string that was apparently jammed in the form of a loop
between the bottom and side. “Just get in and clear those few handfuls
of corn out. I think you will see that it will pull up then.”
There was, however, no movement in the bottom when Mark pulled at the
loop.
“Look closely round outside,” he said, handing Malcolm, who had
now returned, the lantern. “I have no doubt that there is a catch
somewhere.”
In a minute or two the constable found a small ring between two of the
cobblestones close to the foot of the wall. He pulled at it, and as
he did so Mark felt the resistance to his pull cease suddenly, and the
bottom of the bin came up like a trapdoor.
“That is a clever hiding place,” he said. “If I had not happened to
notice that the bin was fixed we might have had a long search before we
found it here.”
Below was a square hole, the size of the bin; a ladder led down into it.
Mark, with a lantern, descended. Four or five sacks piled on each other
lay at the bottom, leaving just room enough for a man to stand beside
them.
“The top one is silver by the feel,” he said, “not yet broken up; these
smaller sacks are solid. I suppose it is silver that has been melted
down. This--” and he lifted a bag some eighteen inches deep, opened it,
and looked in “--contains watches and jewels. Now I think we will leave
things here for the present, and put everything straight. He may be back
before long.”
Mark ascended, the bottom of the trap was shut down again, the corn
poured in, and the bags thrown down on the spot from which they had been
taken. They returned to the house, shut the door, and extinguished the
light.
“That has been a grand find,” he said; “even if this is not Bastow, it
will be a valuable capture.”
“That it will, Mr. Thorndyke. I have no doubt that this fellow is
the man we have been in search of for the last eighteen months; that
accounts for our difficulty in laying hold of him. He has been too
crafty to try to sell any of his plunder, so that none of the fences
have known anything about him. No doubt he has taken sufficient cash to
enable him to live here quietly. He intended some time or other to melt
down all the rest of the plate and to sell the silver, which he could do
easily enough. As for the watches and jewels, he could get rid of them
abroad.”
“No doubt that is what he intended,” Mark agreed. “It is not often these
fellows are as prudent as he has been; if they were, your work would be
a good deal more difficult than it is.”
“You are right, sir; I don't know that I ever heard of such a case
before. The fellow almost deserves to get away.”
“That would be rewarding him too highly for his caution,” Mark laughed.
“He is a desperate villain, and all the more dangerous for being a
prudent one. Now, I think one of us had better keep watch at the gate by
turns. We shall hear him coming in plenty of time to get back here and
be in readiness for him. We must each understand our part thoroughly.
I will stand facing the door. It is possible that he may light that
lantern we saw hanging in the stable, but I don't think it likely he
will do so; he will take off the saddle, and either take the horse in
there--there is plenty of food in the manger--or else turn it out into
the paddock. As he comes in I will throw my arms round him and you will
at once close in, one on each side, each catch an arm tightly, handcuff
him, and take the pistols from his belt. Don't leave go of his arms
until I have lit the candle; he may have another pistol inside his coat,
and might draw it.”
It was now one o'clock, and half an hour later Malcolm, who was at the
gate, came in quietly and said he could hear a horse coming along the
lane.
“Which way, Malcolm?”
“Tooting way.”
“That is all right. I have been a little nervous lest if he came
the other way our horse might make some slight noise and attract his
attention; that was our only weak point.”
They had already ascertained that the front door was locked and bolted,
and that he must therefore enter through the kitchen. They heard the
horse stop in front, a moment later the gate was opened, and through
the window they could just make out the figure of a man leading a horse;
then the stable door opened, and they heard a movement, and knew that
the horse was being unsaddled; they heard it walk into the stable, the
door was shut behind it, and a step approached the back door. It was
opened, and a voice said with an oath, “The old fool has forgotten to
leave a candle burning;” then he stepped into the kitchen.
In an instant there was a sound of a violent struggle, deep oaths and
curses, two sharp clicks, then all was quiet except heavy breathing and
the striking of flint on a tinderbox; there was the blue glare of the
sulphur match, and a candle was lighted. Mark then turned to the man who
was standing still grasped in the hands of his two captors.
“Arthur Bastow,” he said, producing his staff, “I arrest you in the
King's name, as an escaped convict, as a notorious highwayman and house
breaker.”
As his name was spoken the man started, then he said quietly:
“You have made a mistake this time, my men; my name is William Johnson;
I am well known here, and have been a quiet resident in this house for
upwards of a year.”
“A resident, but not a quiet resident, Bastow. I don't think we are
mistaken; but even if you can prove that you are not Bastow, but William
Johnson, a man of means and family, we have evidence enough upon the
other charges. We have been in search of you for a long time, and have
got you at last. You don't remember me, though it is but eighteen months
since we met; but I fancy that I then left a mark upon you that still
remains on your shoulder. I am Mark Thorndyke, and you will understand
now why I have hunted you down.”
“The game is not finished yet,” the man said recklessly. “The hunting
down will be the other way next time, Mark Thorndyke.”
“I don't think so. Now, Chester, you may as well tie his feet together,
and then search him. When that is done I will look after him while you
fetch the trap round.”
In his pockets were found two gold watches, forty-eight pounds in gold,
and a hundred pounds in bank notes.
“We shall hear where this comes from tomorrow,” Malcolm said, as he laid
them on the table; “it will save us the trouble of getting evidence from
Australia.”
The prisoner was placed in a chair, and then the two officers went out
to fetch the trap round.
“So you have turned thief catcher, have you?” he said in a sneering
tone, that recalled him to Mark's memory far more than his face had
done, “and you carry a Bow Street staff about with you, and pretend to
belong to the force: that is a punishable offense, you know.”
“Yes, it would be if I had no right to use it,” Mark said quietly; “but
it happens that I have a right, having been for a year and a half in the
force. I joined it solely to hunt you down, and now that I have done so
my resignation will be sent in tomorrow.”
“And how is the worthy squire?”
Mark started to his feet, and seized one of the pistols lying before
him.
“You villain!” he exclaimed, “I wonder you dare mention his name--you,
his murderer.”
“It was but tit for tat,” the man said coolly; “he murdered me, body and
soul, when he sent me to the hulks. I told him I would be even with him.
I did not think I had hit him at the time, for I thought that if I had
you would have stopped with him, and would not have chased me across the
fields.”
“You scoundrel!” Mark said. “You know well enough that you came back,
stole into his room, and stabbed him.”
Bastow looked at him with a puzzled expression.
“I don't know what you are talking about,” he said. “I fired at him
through the window--I don't mind saying so to you, because there are no
witnesses--and saw him jump up, but I fancied I had missed him. I
saw you bolt out of the room, and thought it better to be off at once
instead of taking another shot. You gave me a hard chase. It was lucky
for you that you did not come up with me, for if you had done so I
should have shot you; I owed you one for having killed as good a comrade
as man ever had, and for that bullet you put in my shoulder before. If
I had not been so out of breath that I could not feel sure of my aim I
should have stopped for you, but I rode straight to town.”
“A likely story,” Mark said shortly. “What, you will pretend that there
were two murderers hanging round the house that night?--a likely tale
indeed.”
“I tell you that if your father was killed by a knife or dagger, I had
nothing to do with it,” the man said. “I am obliged to the man, whoever
he was. I had intended to go down again to Reigate to finish the job
myself; I should scarcely have missed a second time. So it is for that
you hunted me down? Well, I don't blame you; I never forgive an injury,
and I see your sentiments are mine. Whether I killed your father or not
makes no difference; he was killed, that is the principal point; if I
was going to be put on my trial for that I could prove that at eight
o'clock I was in a coffee house in Covent Garden. I purposely kicked
up a row there, and was turned out, so that if I were charged with that
shooting affair I could prove that I was in London that evening.”
“I can't quite believe that,” Mark said; “a fast horse would have
brought you up to town in an hour and a half, and another fast horse
would have taken you back again as quickly; so you might have been in
London at eight and back again at Crowswood by half past twelve or one,
even if you stopped a couple of hours at a coffee house. However, you
won't be tried for that. Those things on the table and the contents of
that corn bin are enough to hang you a dozen times.”
“Curse you! have you found that out?” Bastow exclaimed furiously.
“We have,” Mark replied. “It would have been wiser if you had got rid
of your things sooner. It was a clever hiding place, but it is always
dangerous to keep such things by you, Bastow.”
The man said no more, but sat quietly in his chair until they heard
the vehicle stop outside the gate. Then the two constables came in,
and lifting Bastow, carried him out and placed him in the bottom of the
cart.
“You can loose the old woman now, Malcolm,” Mark said as he took his
seat and gathered the reins in his hand. “By eleven o'clock, no doubt,
one of the others will be down with the gig again, and you can empty
out the contents of that hole, and bring them up with you. I don't think
that it will be of any use searching further. You might have a good look
all round before you come away. There may be some notes stowed away,
though it is likely enough that they have been sent away by post to some
receiver abroad.”
For some time after starting they could hear the prisoner moving about
uneasily in the straw.
“I suppose there is no fear of his slipping out of those handcuffs,
Chester?”
“Not a bit; they are full tight for him. I expect that that is what is
making him uncomfortable.”
Presently the movement ceased.
“He is still enough now, Mr. Thorndyke. I should not be at all surprised
if he has dropped off to sleep. He is hardened enough to sleep while the
gibbet was waiting for him.”
It was four o'clock in the morning when they drove up at Bow Street. Two
constables on duty came out to the cart.
“We have got a prisoner, Inspector,” Chester said. “He is the man we
have been looking for so long. I fancy we have got all the swag that has
been stolen for the last eighteen months--bags of jewels and watches,
and sacks of silver. He is handcuffed, and his legs are tied, so we must
carry him in.”
The officer fetched out a lantern. The other constable helped him to let
down the backboard of the cart.
“Now, Bastow, wake up,” Chester said. “Here we are.”
But there was no movement!
“He is mighty sound asleep,” the constable said.
“Well, haul him out;” and, taking the man by the shoulders, they pulled
him out from the cart.
“There is something rum about him,” the constable said; and as they
lowered his feet to the pavement his head fell forward, and he would
have sunk down if they had not supported him.
The Inspector raised the lantern to his face.
“Why, the man is dead,” he said.
“Dead!” Chester repeated incredulously.
“Aye, that he is. Look here;” and he pointed to a slim steel handle some
three inches long, projecting over the region of the heart. “You must
have searched him very carelessly, Chester. Well, bring him in now.”
They carried him into the room, where two candles were burning. Mark
followed them. The inspector pulled out the dagger. It was but four
inches long, with a very thin blade. The handle was little thicker than
the blade itself. Mark took it and examined it.
“I have not a shadow of doubt that this is the dagger with which he
murdered my father. The wound was very narrow, about this width, and the
doctor said that the weapon that had been used was certainly a foreign
dagger.”
“I don't think this is a foreign dagger,” the Inspector said on
examining it, “although it may be the one that was used, as you say,
Mr. Thorndyke. It has evidently been made to carry about without being
observed.”
He threw back the dead man's coat.
“Ah, here is where it was kept. You see, the lining has been sewn to the
cloth, so as to make a sheath down by the seam under the arm. I expect
that, knowing what would happen if he were caught, he had made up his
mind to do it all along. Well, I don't know that you are to be so much
blamed, Chester, for, passing your hand over his clothes, you might very
well miss this, which is no thicker than a piece of whalebone. Well,
well, he has saved us a good deal of trouble. You say you have got most
of the booty he has collected?”
“I don't know that we have got all of it, sir, but we have made a very
big haul, anyhow; it was a cunningly contrived place. There was a big
corn bin in the stable, and when we had emptied out the corn it seemed
empty. However, Mr. Thorndyke discovered that the bin was fixed. Then we
found that the bottom was really a trap door, and under it was a sort of
well in which were sacks and bags. One of the sacks was full of unbroken
silver, two others contained silver ingots, things that he had melted
down, and there was a large bag full of watches and jewels. In his
pocket we found a hundred pounds in bank notes, about fifty guineas, and
a couple of gold watches.”
“That he must have got tonight from the Portsmouth coach; we heard half
an hour ago that it had been stopped near Kingston, the coachman shot,
and the passengers robbed. It will be good news to some of them that
we have got hold of their valuables. Well, Mr. Thorndyke, I have to
congratulate you most heartily on the skill with which you have ferreted
out a man who had baffled us for so long, and had become a perfect
terror to the south of London. No doubt we shall be able to trace
a great portion of the property in that sack. The capture has been
splendidly effected.”
“You will understand,” Mark said, “that I do not wish my name to appear
in the matter at all. I have, as you know, been actuated by private
reasons only in my search, and I see no occasion why my name should
be mentioned; the evidence of Chester and Malcolm will be ample. From
information received, they went down to this place, searched it in
his absence, discovered the stolen goods, and captured them. Having
handcuffed and bound him, one drove him up to town, the other remaining
to guard the treasure. On his way he got at this hidden dagger and
stabbed himself. My evidence would not strengthen the case at all.”
“No, I don't see that it will be necessary to call you, Mr. Thorndyke.
The discovery of this hidden booty and the proceeds of the coach robbery
would be quite sufficient. Beyond the coroner's inquest there will be no
inquiry. Had it been otherwise it might probably have been necessary to
call you at the trial. However, as it is, it will save a lot of trouble;
now we shall only need to find the owners of these bank notes. I will
send off a cart for the things as early as I can get one, and will send
a couple of constables round to the houses where burglaries have
been committed to request the owners to come over and see if they can
identify any of their property; and those who do so can attend the
inquest tomorrow, though I don't suppose they will be called. The chief
will be mightily pleased when he hears what has taken place, for he has
been sadly worried by these constant complaints, and I fancy that
the authorities have been rather down upon him on the subject. The
announcement that the career of this famous robber has been brought to
an end will cause quite a sensation, and people round the commons on the
south side will sleep more quietly than they have done lately. I expect
that if he had not put an end to himself we should have had to send him
across to Newington today, for of course it is a Surrey business, though
we have had the luck to take him. I suppose we shall not see much of you
in the future, Mr. Thorndyke?”
“No indeed,” Mark said. “My business is done, and I shall send in my
resignation this morning. I don't regret the time that I have spent over
it; I have learned a great deal, and have seen a lot of the shady side
of life, and have picked up experience in a good many ways.”
Mark, after requesting the Inspector to find a man to go over to
Streatham and bring back his horse, and writing an order to the ostler
to deliver it, walked across to his lodgings. Upon the whole, he was
not sorry that Bastow had taken the matter into his own hands; he had,
certainly, while engaged in the search, looked forward to seeing him in
the dock and witnessing his execution, but he now felt that enough had
been done for vengeance, and that it was as well that the matter had
ended as it had. He was wearied out with the excitement of the last
forty-eight hours. It was one o'clock when he awoke, and after dressing
and going into Covent Garden to lunch at one of the coffee houses, he
made his way up to Islington.
“Taking a day's holiday?” Millicent asked as he came in.
“Well, not exactly, Millicent; I have left school altogether.”
“Left school, Mark? Do you mean that you have decided that it is of no
use going on any longer?”
“I have given it up because I have finished it. Arthur Bastow was
captured last night, and committed suicide as he was being taken to the
station.”
An exclamation of surprise broke from Mrs. Cunningham and Millicent.
“It seems horrid to be glad that anyone has taken his own life,” the
latter said; “but I cannot help feeling so, for as long as he lived I
should never have considered that you were safe, and besides, I suppose
there is no doubt that if he had not killed himself he would have been
hung.”
“There is not a shadow of doubt about that,” Mark replied. “We found
the proceeds of a vast number of robberies at his place, and also in
his pockets the money he had taken from the passengers of the Portsmouth
coach an hour before we captured him. So that putting aside that
Australian business altogether, his doom was sealed.”
“Now, please, tell us all about it,” Mrs. Cunningham said. “But first
let us congratulate you most warmly not only on the success of your
search, but that the work is at an end.”
“Yes, I am glad it is over. At first I was very much interested; in
fact, I was intensely interested all along, and should have been for
however long it had continued. But, at the same time, I could do nothing
else, and one does not want to spend one's whole life as a detective.
At last it came about almost by chance, and the only thing I have to
congratulate myself upon is that my idea of the sort of place he would
have taken was exactly borne out by fact.”
And Mark then gave them a full account of the manner in which the
discovery had been made and the capture effected.
“You see, Millicent, I followed your injunction, and was very careful.
Taking him by surprise as I did, I might have managed it single handed,
but with the aid of two good men it made a certainty of it, and the
whole thing was comfortably arranged.”
“I think you have done splendidly, Mark,” Mrs. Cunningham said. “It was
certainly wonderful that you should have found him doing exactly what
you had guessed, even down to the deaf servant. Well, now that is done
and over, what do you think of doing next?”
“I have hardly thought about that,” he replied; “but, at any rate, I
shall take a few weeks' holiday, and I suppose after that I shall settle
down to the search for my uncle's treasure. I am afraid that will be
a much longer and a vastly more difficult business than this has been.
Here there were all sorts of clews to work upon. Bastow ought to have
been captured months ago, but in this other affair, so far, there is
next to nothing to follow up. We don't even know whether the things are
in India or in England. I believe they will be found, but that it will
be by an accident. Besides, I fancy that we shall hear about them when
you come of age, Millicent. There was to have been no change till that
time, and I cannot help thinking that Uncle George must have made some
provisions by which we should get to know about them in the event of
his death without his having an opportunity of telling anyone where they
are.
“He might have been killed in battle; he might have been drowned on his
way home. He had thought the whole matter over so thoroughly, I do think
the possibilities of this could not have escaped him. As I told you,
Mr. Prendergast made inquiries of all the principal bankers and Indian
agents here, and altogether without success. After he had done that, I
got a list of all the leading firms in Calcutta and Madras, and wrote to
them, and all the replies were in the negative. It is true that does
not prove anything absolutely. Eighteen years is a long time, and the
chances are that during those years almost every head of a firm would
have retired and come home. Such a matter would only be likely to be
known to the heads; and if, as we thought likely, the box or chest was
merely forwarded by a firm there to England, the transaction would
not have attracted any special attention. If, upon the other hand, it
remained out there it might have been put down in a cellar or store, and
have been lying there ever since, altogether forgotten.”
“I don't see myself why you should bother any more about it; perhaps,
as you say, it will turn up of itself when I come of age. At any rate, I
should say it is certainly as well to wait till then and see if it does,
especially as you acknowledge that you have no clew whatever to work
on. It is only three more years, for I am eighteen next week, and it
certainly seems to me that it will be very foolish to spend the next
three years in searching about for a thing that may come to you without
any searching at all.”
“Well, I will think it over.”
“You see, you really don't want the money, Mark,” she went on.
“No, I don't want it particularly, Millicent; but when one knows that
there is something like 50,000 pounds waiting for one somewhere, one
would like to get it. Your father worked for twenty years of his life
accumulating it for us, and it seems to me a sort of sacred duty to see
that his labor has not all been thrown away.”
Millicent was silent.
“It is very tiresome,” she said presently. “Of course my father
intended, as you say, that his savings should come to us, but I am sure
he never meant that they should be a bother and a trouble to us.”
“I don't see why they should ever be that, Millicent. As it is we have
both sufficient for anything any man or woman could reasonably want, and
neither of us need fret over it if the treasure is never found. Still,
he wished us to have it, and it is properly ours, and I don't want it to
go to enrich someone who has not a shadow of a right to it.”
On the following morning Mark went to attend the inquest on Bastow. He
did not go into the court, however, but remained close at hand in the
event of the coroner insisting upon his being called. However, the two
men only spoke casually in their evidence of their comrade Roberts, who
had been also engaged in the capture. One of the jurymen suggested that
he should also be called, but the coroner said:
“I really cannot see any occasion for it; we are here to consider how
the deceased came by his death, and I think it must be perfectly clear
that he came by it by his own act. You have heard how he was captured,
that the spoils of the coach that he had just rifled were found upon
him, and that the booty he had been acquiring from his deeds for months
past also was seized; therefore, as the man was desperate, and knew
well enough that his life was forfeited, there was ample motive for
his putting an end to his wretched existence. I really do not think,
gentlemen, that it is worth while to waste your time and mine by going
into further evidence.”
Finally, a verdict of felo de se was returned, with a strong expression
of the jury's admiration of the conduct of constables Malcolm, Chester,
and Roberts, who had so cleverly effected the capture of the man who had
so long set the law at defiance.