Five
hundred pounds for the discovery of the murderer, or murderers, of
Valentine Jernam, captain and owner of the 'Pizarro', whose body was
found in the river, below Wapping, on the third of April, 1836. That's
a very queer business, that is, and I've never had leisure to get very
deep into the rights and wrongs of it yet."
Mr. Larkspur looked up presently, and saw that his visitor's face had
grown white to the very lips.
"You knew Captain Jernam?" he said.
"No--yes, I knew him slightly; and the idea of his murder is very
shocking to me," answered Honoria, struggling with her agitation. "Do
you expect to discover the secret of that dreadful crime?"
"Well, I don't know about that," said Andrew Larkspur, with the
careless and business-like tone of a man to whom a murder is an
incident of trade. "You see, when these things have gone by for a long
time, without anything being found out about them, the secret generally
comes out by accident, if it ever comes out at all. There are cases in
which the secret never does come out; but there are not many such
cases. There's a deal in accident; and a man of my profession must be
always on the look-out for accident, or he'll lose a great many
chances. You see those red marks stuck here and there, among all that
writing in blue ink. Those red marks are set against the facts that
seem pretty clear and straightforward; the blue marks are set against
facts that seem dark.
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