Cunningham, an ill-looking lout of a fellow, muttered, that he chose “to sleep at a tavern.”

“Not if I know it, my fine fellow,” rejoined Mr. Flint.  “You mean well, I dare say; but I cannot lose sight of you for all that.  You either sleep here or at a station-house.”

The man stared with surprise and alarm; but knowing refusal or resistance to be hopeless, sullenly assented to the arrangement, and withdrew to the room appointed for him, vigilantly guarded.  For Mr. Mullins we engaged a bed at a neighboring tavern.

Mr. Flint’s mission had been skillfully and successfully accomplished.  He was convinced, by the sullen confusion of manner manifested by Cunningham, that some villainous agency had been at work, and he again waited on Mullins, the stone-cutter.  “Who gave you the order for the grave-stone?” he asked.  Mr. Mullins referred to his book, and answered that he received it by letter.  “Had he got that letter?” “Very likely,” he replied, “as he seldom destroyed business papers of any kind.”  “A search was instituted, and finally this letter,” said Mr. Flint, “worth an earl’s coronet, torn and dirty as it is, turned up.”  This invaluable document, which bore the London postdate of June 23, 1832, ran as follows:—­

“Anglesea Hotel, Haymarket, London, June 23, 1832.

“Sir—­Please to erect a plain tomb-stone at the head of Charles Gosford, Esquire’s grave, who died a few month’s since at Swords, aged thirty-two years.  This is all that need be inscribed upon it.  You are referred to Mr. Guinness of Sackville Street, Dublin, for payment.  Your obedient servant,

“Edward Chilton.”

“You see,” continued Flint, “the fellow had inadvertently left out the date of Gosford’s death, merely stating it occurred a few months previously; and Mullins concluded that, in entering the order in his day-book, he must have somehow or other confounded the date of the letter with that of Gosford’s decease.  Armed with this precious discovery, I again sought Cunningham, and by dint of promises and threats, at last got the truth out of the rascal.  It was this:—­Chilton, who returned to this country from the Cape, where he had resided for three years previously, about two months ago, having some business to settle in Dublin, went over there, and one day visited Swords, read the inscription on Charles Gosford’s grave-stone, and immediately sought out the grave-digger, and asked him if he had any record of that gentleman’s burial.  Cunningham said he had, and produced his book, by which it appeared that it took place December 24, 1831.  “That cannot be,” remarked Chilton, and he referred to the head-stone.  Cunningham said he had noticed the mistake a few days after it was erected; but thinking it of no consequence, and never having, that he knew of, seen Mr. Mullins since, he had said, and indeed thought, nothing about it.  To conclude the story—­Chilton ultimately, by payment of ten pounds down, and liberal promises for the future, prevailed upon the grave-digger to lend himself to the infamous device the sight of the grave-stone had suggested to his fertile, unscrupulous brain.”