The case was made interesting to the public, by Mr
Mortimer Lightwood’s evidence touching the circumstances
under which the deceased, Mr John Harmon, had returned
to England; exclusive private proprietorship in which
circumstances was set up at dinner-tables for several
days, by Veneering, Twemlow, Podsnap, and all the
Buffers: who all related them irreconcilably
with one another, and contradicted themselves.
It was also made interesting by the testimony of Job
Potterson, the ship’s steward, and one Mr Jacob
Kibble, a fellow-passenger, that the deceased Mr John
Harmon did bring over, in a hand-valise with which
he did disembark, the sum realized by the forced sale
of his little landed property, and that the sum exceeded,
in ready money, seven hundred pounds. It was
further made interesting, by the remarkable experiences
of Jesse Hexam in having rescued from the Thames so
many dead bodies, and for whose behoof a rapturous
admirer subscribing himself ’A friend to Burial’
(perhaps an undertaker), sent eighteen postage stamps,
and five ’Now Sir’s to the editor of the
Times.
Upon the evidence adduced before them, the Jury found,
That the body of Mr John Harmon had been discovered
floating in the Thames, in an advanced state of decay,
and much injured; and that the said Mr John Harmon
had come by his death under highly suspicious circumstances,
though by whose act or in what precise manner there
was no evidence before this Jury to show. And
they appended to their verdict, a recommendation to
the Home Office (which Mr Inspector appeared to think
highly sensible), to offer a reward for the solution
of the mystery. Within eight-and-forty hours,
a reward of One Hundred Pounds was proclaimed, together
with a free pardon to any person or persons not the
actual perpetrator or perpetrators, and so forth in
due form.
This Proclamation rendered Mr Inspector additionally
studious, and caused him to stand meditating on river-stairs
and causeways, and to go lurking about in boats, putting
this and that together. But, according to the
success with which you put this and that together,
you get a woman and a fish apart, or a Mermaid in
combination. And Mr Inspector could turn out
nothing better than a Mermaid, which no Judge and Jury
would believe in.
Thus, like the tides on which it had been borne to
the knowledge of men, the Harmon Murder—as
it came to be popularly called—went up and
down, and ebbed and flowed, now in the town, now in
the country, now among palaces, now among hovels,
now among lords and ladies and gentlefolks, now among
labourers and hammerers and ballast-heavers, until
at last, after a long interval of slack water it got
out to sea and drifted away.
Chapter 4
THE R. WILFER FAMILY
Reginald Wilfer is a name with rather a grand sound,
suggesting on first acquaintance brasses in country
churches, scrolls in stained-glass windows, and generally
the De Wilfers who came over with the Conqueror.
For, it is a remarkable fact in genealogy that no De
Any ones ever came over with Anybody else.
