The North-Eastern Weekly Gazette. — 1883-06-09 (Stockton-on-Tees, Cleveland, England)

CHAPTER V. A DIAMOND RING. Mr Rashbottle never knew exactly how long he stood, helpless and dismayed, before the terrible thing he 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 committed; for what he saw in that case was the head and trunk of a dark-haired woman. 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 had 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 ho had even considered it, which is doubtful. He was a cautious man, and never acted without reflection. It is well to look before you leap, but in the case of Mr Rushbottle his first impulses were usually the right ones; instead, however, of following their dictates, he reflected,  and then greed and self-interest showed their ugly strength, and he blundered, with much inward satisfaction, down the wrong course alto. gether. Now, if he informed the police, what would happen? The town would bo thrown into a state of considerable excitement, and he would be scornfully pointed at as the man who had helped to bury a murdered woman. Might not 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 :raved, would be lost to him for ever, and his own premises, in which he then stood, would be uined beyond redemption; for who would inhabit that place if the discovery he had made became public? Weighty considerations these with greedy Peter Rushbottle I So weighty, indeed, that he only made a show of hesitation for the purpose of deceiving himself, in which he was very successful. He XiWklit found it easier to satisfy himself upon tte perfect rectitude of his ways than to convince ov,...zir 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 disturbed; he would suffer neither in reputation nor in pocket. Mrs Mac Allister's houses would in all probability become his property. Should the police themselves discover these remains he would appear as surprised as other people, and no one would suspect that he had known anything about that buried horror. But it was his duty to expose the crime that had been committed; it was his bounden duty to aid Justice in discovering an atrocious criminal. Peter silenced his inconvenient thought by arguing with himself that the very best way to accomplish this end would be to wait until his tenant returned, as he had promised. Then, when this man, who had called himself George Smith, removed his " very old wine" from those premises, Mr Rushbottle would find seine way of directing the attention of the authorities to him without appearing in the matter himself. Peter VMS too great a humbug to acknowledge