THE END OF THE STORY OF MR. EMILIUS AND LADY EUSTACE.

Too Long; Didn't Read

The interest in the murder by no means came to an end when Phineas Finn was acquitted. The new facts which served so thoroughly to prove him innocent tended with almost equal weight to prove another man guilty. And the other man was already in custody on a charge which had subjected him to the peculiar ill-will of the British public. He, a foreigner and a Jew, by name Yosef Mealyus,—as every one was now very careful to call him,—had come to England, had got himself to be ordained as a clergyman, had called himself Emilius, and had married a rich wife with a title, although he had a former wife still living in his own country. Had he called himself Jones it would have been better for him, but there was something in the name of Emilius which added a peculiar sting to his iniquities. It was now known that the bigamy could be certainly proved, and that his last victim,—our old friend, poor little Lizzie Eustace,—would be rescued from his clutches. She would once more be a free woman, and as she had been strong enough to defend her future income from his grasp, she was perhaps as fortunate as she deserved to be. She was still young and pretty, and there might come another lover more desirable than Yosef Mealyus. That the man would have to undergo the punishment of bigamy in its severest form, there was no doubt;—but would law, and justice, and the prevailing desire for revenge, be able to get at him in such a way that he might be hung? There certainly did exist a strong desire to prove Mr. Emilius to have been a murderer, so that there might come a fitting termination to his career in Great Britain. The police seemed to think that they could make but little either of the coat or of the key, unless other evidence, that would be almost sufficient in itself, should be found. Lord Fawn was informed that his testimony would probably be required at another trial,—which intimation affected him so grievously that his friends for a week or two thought that he would altogether sink under his miseries. But he would say nothing which would seem to criminate Mealyus. A man hurrying along with a grey coat was all that he could swear to now,—professing himself to be altogether ignorant whether the man, as seen by him, had been tall or short. And then the manufacture of the key,—though it was that which made every one feel sure that Mealyus was the murderer,—did not, in truth, afford the slightest evidence against him. Even had it been proved that he had certainly used the false key and left Mrs. Meager's house on the night in question, that would not have sufficed at all to prove that therefore he had committed a murder in Berkeley Street. No doubt Mr. Bonteen had been his enemy,—and Mr. Bonteen had been murdered by an enemy. But so great had been the man's luck that no real evidence seemed to touch him. Nobody doubted;—but then but few had doubted before as to the guilt of Phineas Finn.