But if Witt should lose--then what a complication, and what further enigmas to be solved! If Witt should lose, the national funeral of Priam Farll had been a fraudulent farce.

A common valet lay under the hallowed stones of the Abbey, and Europe had mourned in vain! If Witt should lose, a gigantic and unprecedented swindle had been practised upon the nation.

Then the question would arise, Why?
Hence it was not surprising that popular interest, nourished by an indefatigable and excessively enterprising press, should have mounted till no one would have believed that it could mount any more.

But the evasion from Werter Road on that June morning intensified the interest enormously.

Of course, owing to the drawn blinds, it soon became known, and the bloodhounds of the Sunday papers were sniffing along the platforms of all the termini in London.