Stockton Herald, South Durham and Cleveland Advertiser. — 1883-06-09 (Stockton-on-Tees, Cleveland, England)

CHAPTER V. • 11141101 ID la/14.1. Mr Rtishbottle never know exactly how long be stood, helpless and dismayed, before the terrible thing be had unearthed; but when his limbs regained some power, and his thoughts assumed a coherent form, it seemed to him that  the lamp had burnt down low and that all was  very quiet outside. His first and most natural impulse was to hurry to the Police Office and give information that a  dreadful crime had been oommitted; for what ; he saw in that case was the head and trunk of a darkamired Wolll9dl. She looked very beautiful , as she lay there—more like a waxen figure than • a thing that had once lived. Decomposition had not yet set in, and the overpowering smell that bad assailed him did not, it was obvious, proceed from that case. Her lower extremities were probably in the underneath box, but Peter did not satisfy himself on this point, if he had even considered it, which is doubtful. He was a cautious rasx, and never acted without reflection. It is well to look before you leap, but in the ease of Mr Rushbottle his first impulses were usually the right ones; instead, however, of following their dictates, heratected, and then greed and self-interest showed their ugly strength, and he blundered, with much inward satisfaction, down the wrong coarse altogether. Now, if he informed the police, what would happen? The town would be thrown into a state of considerable excitement, and ho would be scornfully pointed at as the man who had helped to bury a murdered woman. Might at the police try to implicate him in the matter? Might not the man who had left the horrible thing there, in his rage at being betrayed, turn upon Peter and declare that Peter  . _ knew what the boxes contained, and that he had been bribed to assist in their disposal? Under the most favourable circumstances he would be a marked man in the town. Mistress Mac Allister would with a woman's narrowness decline to marry a. man who had been engaged in such an unsavoury business; those pleasant cottages of hers, for which his heart and soul traved, would be lost to him for ever, and his own premises, in which he then stood, would bel, ruined beyond redemption; for who would in- I habit that place if the discovery he had made became public? Weighty considerations these with greedy Peter 1 Rushbottle I So weighty, indeed, that he only I made a show of hesitation for the purpose of deceiving himself, in which he was very successful He siwit-ys found it easier to satisfy himself upon tkai perfect rectitude of his -ways , than to convince maze people. If he again covered that ghastly thing with earth, locked up the place, and held his tongue, what would happen? Nothing. The even tenor of his daily life would not be distarbed; he wonfa suffer neither in reputation nor in pocket. Mrs fvf.PAllister's houses would in sil probability become his property. Should the police themselves discover these remains be would.apPear as surprised as other people, and no one would suspect that he had known anything about that buried horror. But it WM bis ditty to expose the crime that had been committed; it was his bounden duty to aid Justice in discovering an atrocious Biter silenced his inconvenient thought by arguing with himself that the very hest way to accomplish this end would be to wait until his tenant returned, as he had promised. Then, v this man, who had called himself i his Mr  • very 014 Basiabott%