from this sort of evidence.  He cleansed his hand on the straw, and cleaned most of the smut from his face.  Then he burned the male and female attire to ashes, scattered the ashes, and put on a disguise proper for a tramp.  He blew out his light, went below, and was soon loafing down the river road with the intent to borrow and use one of Roxy’s devices.  He found a canoe and paddled down downstream, setting the canoe adrift as dawn approached, and making his way by land to the next village, where he kept out of sight till a transient steamer came along, and then took deck passage for St. Louis.  He was ill at ease Dawson’s Landing was behind him; then he said to himself, “All the detectives on earth couldn’t trace me now; there’s not a vestige of a clue left in the world; that homicide will take its place with the permanent mysteries, and people won’t get done trying to guess out the secret of it for fifty years.”

In St. Louis, next morning, he read this brief telegram in the papers—­dated at Dawson’s Landing: 

Judge Driscoll, an old and respected citizen, was assassinated here about midnight by a profligate Italian nobleman or a barber on account of a quarrel growing out of the recent election.  The assassin will probably be lynched.

“One of the twins!” soliloquized Tom.  “How lucky!  It is the knife that has done him this grace.  We never know when fortune is trying to favor us.  I actually cursed Pudd’nhead Wilson in my heart for putting it out of my power to sell that knife.  I take it back now.”

Tom was now rich and independent.  He arranged with the planter, and mailed to Wilson the new bill of sale which sold Roxana to herself; then he telegraphed his Aunt Pratt: 

      Have seen the awful news in the papers and am almost
      prostrated with grief.  Shall start by packet today.  Try to
      bear up till I come.

When Wilson reached the house of mourning and had gathered such details as Mrs. Pratt and the rest of the crowd could tell him, he took command as mayor, and gave orders that nothing should be touched, but everything left as it was until Justice Robinson should arrive and take the proper measures as coroner.  He cleared everybody out of the room but the twins and himself.  The sheriff soon arrived and took the twins away to jail.  Wilson told them to keep heart, and promised to do it best in their defense when the case should come to trial.  Justice Robinson came presently, and with him Constable Blake.  They examined the room thoroughly.  They found the knife and the sheath.  Wilson noticed that there were fingerprints on the knife’s handle.  That pleased him, for the twins had required the earliest comers to make a scrutiny of their hands and clothes, and neither these people nor Wilson himself had found any bloodstains upon them.  Could there be a possibility that the twins had spoken the truth when they had said they found the man dead when they ran into the house in answer to the cry for help?  He thought of that mysterious girl at once.  But this was not the sort of work for a girl to be engaged in.  No matter; Tom Driscoll’s room must be examined.