in catching at the gossamer clue which will guide to certainty.
This feeling, I am sure, gives much impetus to the police. Their
senses are ever and always on the qui-vive, and they enjoy the
collecting and collating evidence, and the life of adventure they
experience: a continual unwinding of Jack Sheppard romances,
always interesting to the vulgar and uneducated mind, to which the
outward signs and tokens of crime are ever exciting.

There was no lack of clue or evidence at the coroner's inquest that
morning. The shot, the finding of the body, the subsequent
discovery of the gun, were rapidly deposed to; and then the
policeman who had interrupted the quarrel between Jem Wilson and the
murdered young man was brought forward, and gave his evidence,
clear, simple, and straightforward. The coroner had no hesitation,
the jury had none, but the verdict was cautiously worded. "Wilful
murder against some person unknown."

This very cautiousness, when he deemed the thing so sure as to
require no caution, irritated Mr. Carson. It did not soothe him
that the superintendent called the verdict a mere form,--exhibited a
warrant empowering him to seize the body of Jem Wilson committed on
suspicion,--declared his intention of employing a well-known officer
in the Detective Service to ascertain the ownership of the gun, and
to collect other evidence, especially as regarded the young woman,
about whom the policeman deposed that the quarrel had taken place;
Mr. Carson was still excited and irritable; restless in body and
mind. He made every preparation for the accusation of Jem the
following morning before the magistrates: he engaged attorneys
skilled in criminal practice to watch the case and prepare briefs;
he wrote to celebrated barristers coming the Northern Circuit, to