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Rh patience often exhibited by persons who love revenge—could wait. The objurgations of the Maltese, whispered or shouted, fell like peas upon sheet iron, and left no mark nor hurt.

Mr. Horton, by a courteous gesture, invited Mr. Tom Forster to the table in this preliminary investigation, and the bundle of the Maltese was silently examined.

Mr. César Negretti was one of those individuals—not uncommonly met with—who are not by any means deterred nor confounded by the wickedness of a deed, but who are appalled by detection.

Standing first on one leg and then on the other, his miserable body screwed up into as small a space as it could well occupy, he had lost all his gracefulness, and looked as contemptible an object as one well could conceive. The perpetration of crime, or the indulgence in low passions, is not conducive to good and noble looks; and a gallery of criminals may well be called a "Chamber of Horrors." The bright olive complexion of the Maltese assumed a green-yellowish hue; his eyes had lost their brightness and their sparkling vivacity. His fisherman's scarlet cap he had pulled off, and it hung dangling from his hand; while limp ringlets of his black hair straggled over his face, which was covered with perspiration. Once or twice he tried to assume an indifferent air, and even a sickly smile; but in those moments—to the eyes of Patsy, which were fixed on him—he looked some what more contemptible than before.

As for Mr. Tom Forster, he was taken by surprise. The spoons were of silver, and bore a half worn-out crest, which he at once recognized as the same as those bore which he had found at Acacia Villa. They did not carry the English, but the French, Hall-mark, and were of foreign manufacture. Mr. Forster, who had had some experience in these matters—as related in an early chapter of this history—pointed this out to Mr. Horton.

But besides these evidences, there were some light kid gloves—soiled, indeed, and crumpled and worn, but not so dirty as those which such a person as Negretti would have worn, nor were they of the kind which he would have purchased. They must, therefore, have been stolen or given to him.

Some other knick-nacks, a letter or so in French, one or two in an Italian patois used in Malta, and some letters in English, made up the other contents of the bundle; with the exception of a shirt of fine texture, and a black kerseymere waistcoat.

The magistrate examined these, and then spoke—

"These are not all your clothes?"

"Yes—yes, signor; most honourable sir, yes," replied the Maltese, partly in Italian, with painful eagerness. Then he added, with a sigh of some satisfaction—"With the exception of those I have now got on."

"Yer lie!" muttered Patsy to himself; but he did not speak aloud this time.

"But what have you done with the others, my poor lad?" asked the magistrate, in a tone of kindly pity—grieved, as he always was, at the guilt of others, especially of the young.

"I—I changed them for these where I went with Mr. Brownjohn."

He looked pleadingly towards that stolid officer.

"He did so," said the police sergeant, accenting the last word. "He had a notion, I think, your worship, of getting beyond seas; but I kept my eye upon him, and he dressed himself up in this nautical way at a slop shop."

Here Mr. Tom Forster, bending respect fully down, whispered something in the magistrate's ear.

Mr. Horton nodded, and said—

"But a young fellow like you must have some other property. Where did you leave your trunk or chest?"

"I have none. I have sold it."

Mr. Horton looked puzzled and displeased; and Patsy fidgeted, and held up his hand as a schoolboy at a Sunday school does, when he feels, rightly or wrongly, that he can answer a question.

"Umph!" ejaculated the Inspector, noticing it; "the boy wants to speak, your worship."

"Let him speak up," said Mr. Horton, glancing in a kind and encouraging way upon the small boy.

Hereon Patsy spoke.

"Please, he has been and left a box at the café in Rupert-street. I know it, and I see'd it. The padrone, as we call the master, will show it."

"Very good," returned the magistrate. "Do you know where that place is, Sergeant Brownjohn?"

"Yes, sir."