The Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1837-1867, 1865-02-10

t one but that of a detective bent upon ge,
ting every clue he possibly could to ferre
opt murderer. The reader has seen no,
, near even l came of throwing away thi
2 perhaps important document.
1 l made strict inquirers whether any
thing had been purloined by this woman
and was answered in the negative; a
least they supposed not, for nothing as We
had been missed.
The kitchen door leading out into tn
l yard, at the gate, had been left unfastene,
by the woman. followed the paths sh,
had probably taken when leaving the man
sion, and came upon clump of bushe
, where were strewed some scraps of news
papers these l examined, and saw the,
were pieces of London paper.
While mechanically placing the piece.
Of newspaper in my pocket 1 cast my
eyes around the spot. and presently they
allghted on square cut glass bottle, o.
about four ounces capacity. l pick.
ed it up; the cork was in it and the bot
tie contained a limpid liquid, perhaps two
ounces. A Label on it designated chloro.
form. Iopened l it, and was soon conyinc.
ed that such was the case.
| The label had on it the business place
of an apothecary well known to me.
concluded to keep the bottle for the pur-
pose Of ascertaining who had purchased
it and its contents.
had no doubt now that the subtle
drug had been used as a means TO stupify
the inmates of the mansion while the mur-
der was committed. The woman had
probably put the servants to sleep, and
her husband, from the outside. committed
the dastardly deed The reason he did
not enter the house and do the deed while
the servants were rendered insensible. was
probably owing to the fact that Mr.. ST.
monds invariably barred the library door
when he retired at night. The fact must
have been known to the assassin. hence
the mode adopted to accomplish his OBJ
ject
l got no other clue; in fact, thought
had sufficient for my purpose. came to
the following conclusions, and contemplate
ed acting upon them.
Some Intelligent person, who desired
revenge on Mr.. Simonds, had hired an
other person and his wife to do the deed
he probably shrunk from. 1 had every
reason to suspect Morris Obdyke as the
principal in this affair, and it was nv OBJ
.lect, first, to find out where he resided in
London, and then to take measures to fer
ret out this lett-handed murderer.
The reason / wished to see Morris OBJ
dyke was to discover whether he was left
handed, or whether he was minus finger
ON the other hand. l forbore questioning
the servants on this subject; probably they
might have informed me correctly, but
then servants will talk, and nv secret
would have been thrown to the winds. which
might have waited my suspicious into the
ears of the cul prit. To avoid these con-
tretemps, l held my tongue and started
for London
called upon the apothecary and hand
| ing him the bottle asked him if he recol-
lected to whom he had sold the chloroform.
he at once replied in the affirmative and
gave the name of Obdyke.
was quite surprised at the informa-
tlon, and could not speak for moment.
so unexpected was it. had only hoped
to get a partial description of the purchas-
er, and intended to compare it with that
of Obdyke, a description of whom | had
obtained of the legal adviser of the late
Charles Simonds.
'Are you acquainted with Mr.. OBJ
dyke 2" asked
"No, SIR
"How, then, do you know it was he
who purchased the drug!"
''Because, just as he paid for it, anoth-
er gentleman entered the shop, and called
him by name
here made the apothecary describe the
personal appearance of Obdyke, and it
tailed with that given me by Mr.. Yates,
the attorney at Ipswich.
had an advertisement inserted in the
principal papers, by which means ascer-
tanned the residence of Morris Obdyke.
He lived in fine style, and was presumed
to be gamester by vocation. He was
unmarried. but entertained his acquain-
tances in superb manner He had some
half dozen servants to minister to his
wishes.
managed to become acquainted with
a person who had the entree of his house
and had the satisfaction of accompanying
him one day to one of Obdyke's regal en-
tertainments.
To all casual observers, l entered
upon the enjoyments of the hour with
great zest, but nevertheless kept a keen
eye upon all that transpired around me.
l soon conviced myself that Obdyke
was not left-handed, nor had he lost one
of his fingers. 1t was then certain that
he was not the actual perpetrator of the
deed.
1 examined the hands of every guest,
but could not discover my man. One, il
is true, l took to be Ieft-handed, from the
fact that he always took up his glass with
that hand; but then that was nothing, fo,
knew right-hand folks to do the same
thing
l, however, looked at his right hand
the fingers were all there, or, at least, ap.
peared to be, for the man wore kid gloves
Suddenly bright idea entered my
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