Litchfield enquirer., 1872-05-16

carriage was in waiting to re-conyey us to l town. We had journeyed several miles on our l return before q word was spoken by either of us. Ny companien was apparently even more painfsllly pre-ssecfspied th;sll myself. He was, however, the first to break silence ssFhe emaciated corpse we have just left little resembles the gay, beautiful girl, for whose smiles you and -were once disposed to shoot each other!" The doctors voice trembled with emotion, and his face. I perceived, was pale as marble ~ .- s
 ''Mary Rawdon." I remarked, Hives again in her daughter.
 "Yes; her very image. Do you know, continued lie, speaking with rapid energy, '.I suspect Mary Rawdon-Mrs Armitage, l should say, has been fsuily. .treacherous- ly dealt withl'
 started with amazement; and yet the announcement but embodied and gave form and color to my own illdefned and shadowy suspicious
 Good heavensi How? By whom?"
 Unless I am greatly mistaken, she has been poisoned by an adept in the use of such destructive agents
 "Mrs. Bourdon?'' "No; by her son. At least my suspic- ions point that way. She IS probably cognizant of the crime But in order that you should understand the grounds upon which my conlectures are principally founded, I must enter nto short ex- planation. Mrs. Bourbon, woman of Spanish extraction, and who formerly oc- cupfed much higher position than she does now, has lived with Mrs. Armitage from the period of her husbands death, now about sixteen years ago. Mrs. Bour- has 8 son, 8 tall. good-looking fellow enough, whom you may have seem
 .He was with his mother in the library as I entered it after leaving you. =.
 "Ah! we'll, hem.T This boy, in his mothers opinion-but that perhaps is somewhat excusable-exhibited early in- dications of having been born genius. Mrs. Armitage, who had been first struck by the beauty of the child, gradually acquired the same notion; and the result was, that he was little by little invested with at least her tacit approval-with the privileges supposed to be the lawful inheritance of such gifted spirits; namely, the right to be as idle as he pleased geniuses, you know, can, according to the popular notion, attain every conceivable amount of knowledge per sait,sn,, at bound and to exalt himself in the stilts of his own conceit above the useful and honor able pursuits suited to the station in life in which providence had east his lot The fruit of such training soon showed itself Young Bourbon grew up 8 conceited and essentially-ignorant puppy, capable of nothing but bad verses, and thoroughly impressed with but one important fact, which was, that he, Alfred Bourbon, was Al n 4 all Gods creatures. To genius, in any truth no pretensiOn. He is endowed, however with kind of reflective talent. which is often mistaken by fools for crea- tive power The morbid fancies and melancholy scorn of a Byron, for in- stance, such gentry reflect back from their foggy imaginations in exaggerated and distorted feebleness of whining versicles, and so on with other lights celestial or in fernal. This, however, by the way. The Unl rotinnal pursuit he ever followed, and that only by fits and starts, and to gratify his faculty of wonder fancy, was chemistry. A small laboratory was fitted up for him in the little summer house you may have observed at the fur ther corner of the lawn. This study of his, if study such desu1tory snatches at science may be called, led him, in his ex- animation of vegetable bodies, to smat- tering acquaintance with botany, science of which Ellen Armitage is an enthusias- tic student. They were foolishly permit ted to botaai=e together, and the result was, that Alfred Bourbon, acting upon the principle that genius whether sham or real-levels all merely mundane dis functions, had the impudence to aspire to the hand of Miss Armitage. His passion, sincere or simulated, has never been, I have reason to know, in the slightest de- gree reciprocated by its object; but so blind is vanity, that when, about six weeks ago, an SclGircissenaent took place, and the fellows dream was somewhat rudely dissipated, the untoward rejection of his preposterous suit was, there is every req son to believe, attributed by both mother and son to the repugnance of Mrs. Armi- tage alone; and to this idiotic hallucina- ton she has, fear, fallen a sacrifice Judging from the emaciated appearance municated to me by her ordinary medical attendant-a blundering ignoramus, who ought to have called in assistance long before-she had been poisoned with iodine, which, administered in certain quantities, would produce precisely the same symptoms Happily there is no mode of destroying human life which so surely leads to the detection of the mur- derer as the use of such agents; and of this truth the post m0rte8s examination of the body, which takes place tomorrow raorning, will, if am not grossly mis- taken, supply another vivid Illustration Legal assistance will no doubt be necessa- ", and am sure do not err in expect ing that Nyou will aid me in bringing to justice the murderer of Mary Rawdon?"
 A pressure of his hand was my only an- swer. 'T shall call for you at ten o'clock, g said he, as he put me down at my own door. bowed, and the carriage drove off 1 aA @.s
 ssWell ?' said I, as Dr. Curteis and Mir.
 - the eminent surgeon entered the
 library at Mount Place the following morn- ing after a long absence.
 GAS I anticipated, " replied the doctor with . choking voice: .sshe has been poi sonsd r
 started to my feet ..And the mur- derer ?'' 8 'a
 ssOur suspicious still point to young Bourbon; but the persons of both mother and son have been secured"
 'tApaxtp
 'Yes; and have despatched servant to request the presence of neighber-a county magistrates I expect him mo- mently. s - After Q brief consultation, we all three directed our steps to the summer-house which contained young Bourdon's labora- tory. In the room itself nothing of im- portance was discovered; but in an en- closed recess, which we broke open, we l found 6 curiously fashioned glass bottle half full of iodine ssThat is it P said Mr sand in powdered state too inst ready for mix ing with brandy or any other available dissolvent. The powder had somewhat the appearance of q fine black lead. Noth- ing further of any consequence being ob- served, we returned to the house, where the magistrate had already arrived. l Alfred Bourbon was frst brought in; l and having been duly cautioned fhat he