'
These dropping shots from the blunderbusses of blunderheadedness
might not have hit him in a vital place. But he had to stand
against a trained and well-directed fire of arms of precision too.
He had notoriously threatened the lost young man, and had,
according to the showing of his own faithful friend and tutor who
strove so hard for him, a cause of bitter animosity (created by
himself, and stated by himself), against that ill-starred fellow.
He had armed himself with an offensive weapon for the fatal night,
and he had gone off early in the morning, after making preparations
for departure. He had been found with traces of blood on him;
truly, they might have been wholly caused as he represented, but
they might not, also. On a search-warrant being issued for the
examination of his room, clothes, and so forth, it was discovered
that he had destroyed all his papers, and rearranged all his
possessions, on the very afternoon of the disappearance. The watch
found at the Weir was challenged by the jeweller as one he had
wound and set for Edwin Drood, at twenty minutes past two on that
same afternoon; and it had run down, before being cast into the
water; and it was the jeweller's positive opinion that it had never
been re-wound. This would justify the hypothesis that the watch
was taken from him not long after he left Mr. Jasper's house at
midnight, in company with the last person seen with him, and that
it had been thrown away after being retained some hours.
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