The Red-Headed Man by Fergus Hume — Read

So the last man in the world whom Torry suspected turned out to be the criminal. Blake was arrested, brought up before a magistrate, and on the evidence given by Vass, committed, for trial. He pleaded not guilty, and reserved his defence; but while in prison, bail being refused, his nerve gave way. Seeing that he could not escape in the face of the secretary's recognition, and his own admission in the hearing of Torry, Vass, Darrel, and the two constables, he resolved to make a clean breast of it. Having been supplied with writing materials at his own request, he wrote out and signed a confession acknowledging himself guilty, and describing how he had committed the crimes, This he handed to the gaol chaplain, and that night, not being closely watched, hanged himself in his cell by means of his braces. The murderer died as a suicide -- and that was the end of Roderick Blake.

"I hereby declare," so ran the confession, "that I alone killed Jesse Grent and Julia Brawn. I knew from Lydia Hargone, to whom I was engaged, that Grent wished to fly to Italy with her and ten thousand pounds, the property of the Patriotic Peruvians. I wanted to get the money for myself, but I was afraid to rob Grent openly, lest the society should trace and kill me. I therefore suggested to Lydia that she should make an appointment with Grent in a quiet place, ask him to shew her the money, and then rob him. Thus Grent, as having been paid the money by Manuel, would be suspected, and Lydia and myself would escape the vengeance of the society. Lydia made an appointment in Mortality-Lane, and promised -- to gull Grent -- that she would elope with him to Italy the next morning. At the last moment she turned weak, and refused to go. She proposed that Julia Brawn should disguise herself as Lydia Hargone in a fawn-coloured mantle, and meet Grent.