He was well liked by the few neighbours who ealled
upon him, and he has the reputation down there of being a very
learned man. His household used to consist of an elderly house-
keeper, Mrs. Marker, and of a maid, Susan Tarlton. These have
both been with him since his arrival, and they seem to be women
of excellent character. The professor is writing a learned book,
and he found it necessary, about a year ago, to engage a secre-
tary. The first two that he tried were not successes, but the third,
Mr. Willoughby Smith, a very young man straight from the
university, seems to have been just what his employer wanted.
His work consisted in writing all the morning to the professor's
dictation, and he usually spent the evening in hunting up refer-
ences and passages which bore upon the next day's work. This
Willoughby Smith has nothing against him, either as a boy at
Uppingham or as a young man at Cambridge. I have seen his
testimonials, and from the first he was a decent, quiet, hard-
working fellow, with no weak spot in him at all. And yet this is
the lad who has met his death this morning in the professor's
study under circumstances which can point only to murder.
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