I seated myself, and we discussed the affair to such good purpose that, when I left the Boardroom, it was on the understanding that I was to take up the case at once, and that my expenses and a very large sum of money should be paid me, provided I could manage to bring the affair to a successful termination.  I spent the remainder of that day at the Bank, carefully studying the various memoranda.  A great deal of what I had read and heard had been mere hearsay, and this it was necessary to discard in order that the real facts of the case might be taken up, and the proper conclusions drawn therefrom.  For three days I weighed the case carefully in my mind, and at the end of that time was in a position to give the Board a definite answer to their inquiries.  Thereupon I left England, with the result that exactly twelve weeks later the two men, so much wanted, were at Bow Street, and I had the proud knowledge of knowing that I had succeeded where the men who had tried before me had so distinctly failed.

As will be remembered, it was a case that interested every class of society, and Press and Public were alike united in the interest they showed in it.  It is not, however, to the trial itself as much as another curious circumstance connected with it, that has induced me to refer to it here.  The case had passed from the Magistrate’s Court to the Old Bailey, and was hourly increasing in interest.  Day after day the Court was crowded to overflowing, and, when the time came for me to take my place in the witness-box and describe the manner in which I had led up to and effected the capture of the offenders, the excitement rose to fever-heat.  I can see the whole scene now as plainly as if it had occurred but yesterday; the learned Judge upon the Bench, the jury in their box, the rows of Counsels, and the benches full of interested spectators.  I gave my evidence and was examined by the Counsels for the prosecution and for the defence.  I described how I had traced the men from England to their hiding-place abroad, and the various attempts that had been made to prevent their extradition, and had just referred to a certain statement one of the prisoners had made to me soon after his arrest, when an interruption caused me to look behind at the rows of spectators.  At the further end of the bench, nearest me, were two men; one was evidently tall, the other very short.  The taller was the possessor of silvery white hair and a long and venerable beard.  He was a handsome looking man of about forty, and my first glance at him told me that he was blind.  As I have said, his companion was a much smaller man, with a smooth, almost boyish face, a pair of twinkling eyes, but a mouth rather hard set.  Both were evidently following the case closely, and when on the next day I saw that they were in the same place, I took an even greater interest in them than before.  It was not however until the trial had finished and the pair of miserable men had been sent to penal servitude for a lengthy term of years, that I made the acquaintance of the men I have just described.  I remember the circumstance quite distinctly.  I had left the Court and was proceeding down the Old Bailey in the direction of Ludgate Hill, when I heard my name pronounced.