Why
thrown away? If he had been murdered, and so artfully disfigured,
or concealed, or both, as that the murderer hoped identification to
be impossible, except from something that he wore, assuredly the
murderer would seek to remove from the body the most lasting, the
best known, and the most easily recognisable, things upon it.
Those things would be the watch and shirt-pin. As to his
opportunities of casting them into the river; if he were the object
of these suspicions, they were easy. For, he had been seen by many
persons, wandering about on that side of the city - indeed on all
sides of it - in a miserable and seemingly half-distracted manner.
As to the choice of the spot, obviously such criminating evidence
had better take its chance of being found anywhere, rather than
upon himself, or in his possession. Concerning the reconciliatory
nature of the appointed meeting between the two young men, very
little could be made of that in young Landless's favour; for it
distinctly appeared that the meeting originated, not with him, but
with Mr. Crisparkle, and that it had been urged on by Mr.
Crisparkle; and who could say how unwillingly, or in what ill-
conditioned mood, his enforced pupil had gone to it? The more his
case was looked into, the weaker it became in every point. Even
the broad suggestion that the lost young man had absconded, was
rendered additionally improbable on the showing of the young lady
from whom he had so lately parted; for; what did she say, with
great earnestness and sorrow, when interrogated? That he had,
expressly and enthusiastically, planned with her, that he would
await the arrival of her guardian, Mr.
Pages:
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248