That young villain, I could prove, bled Alderman Sherlock to death to please the alderman's young wife.
Who'd have thought the needy profligate would have hesitated to plunge his trepan into the brain of a dying man--a corpse, you may say, already--for five hundred guineas?
I was growing feverish under the protracted suspense.

I was haunted by the apprehension of Sturk's recovering his consciousness and speech, in which case I should have been reduced to my present rueful situation; and I was resolved to end that cursed uncertainty.
'When I thought Dillon had forgot his appointment in his swinish vices, I turned my mind another way.

I resolved to leave Sturk to _nature_, and clench the case against Nutter, by evidence I would have compelled Irons to swear.

As it turned out, _that_ would have been the better way.

Had Sturk died without speaking, and Nutter hanged for his death, the question could have opened no more, and Irons would have been nailed to my interest.
'I viewed the problem every way.