The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1881-11-26
SEARCHING OUT A MYSTERY.

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SEARCHING OUT A MYSTERY.
The hair of all middleton stood on
end with excitement. A box contain
ing the dismembered skeleton of man
had been dug up in the cellar of an old
house back Of the hotel; and until the
mystery thereof was solved, no inhabit-
ant of Middleton could enjoy an
hours mental repOse.
Business was neglected in Twiddle-
ton. Men congregated at corners to
discourse upon the all absorbing topic;
and women left the .dinner pots to boil
over, while they discussed the mystery
above their Yard-fences. The parson
had made the murder of Abel, the sub
ject of his last sermon, and at the vii
lage Lyceum. the question us there a
Eugene dram amongst us?' had been
treated in q manner to curdle the blood
of the hearers, and inspire each with a
dark distrust Of his next door neighbor.
Still. no one had taken any actual steps
to the discovery of the murderer, un-
Gil Mr.. Soloman Slocum publicly an
nounced his intention of taking the
matter in hand, and in his own words,
" sitting it to the bottom"
II any one short of q No. 1 detective
were competent for this task, it was
Soloman Slocus. There had never
been mystery in Middleton that he
had not ferreted out; never secret act
of lawlessness, from the burning Of
Squire Rennie's barn to the tying of a
cat to Mrs. SINNERS brass door
knocker, but that he had succeeded in
identifying the culprit. He also in
terested himself in matters of a more
private and innocent nature. He knew
the history of every family in the
county, with most Of their domestic
affairs; had ascertained the age of every
single lady, and would tell without
hesit alton who wore false hair and teeth.
and when silk dress had been dyed
and made over.
Slocum went to work In very me-
tndical manner. First, he ascertained
from corporation deeds that the house
containing the mysterious cellar now
occupied by an estimable single lady,
who had tainted on the discovery that
she had been ''living over a dead man.
had been built nearly q hundred years
ago by an ancestor of the Harker
family. Thereupon shadow fell upon
the Harkers, and several persons were
led to the discovery that they had al
ways seemed siy and undetermined
set. Job Harker, however, proved
that the house had been sold some
twenty years after its completion to
Captain Womble. whereupon the
Wombles came in for q share of the
shadow; and young Timms, the village
poet. whose Fourth of July Ode Tom
Wombles had ridiculed, asserted that
he had always had mysterious repul-
sion to the latter individual, and had
clearly seen " murder" upon his brow.
Tom and his father then came for.
ward, the former with horsewhip and
the latter with q paper. which proved
that in the days of the Wombles' oc-
cupancy of the house no cellar had ex-
listed beneath it.
Following this clue, Solomon Slocum,
after much investigation, succeeded in
satisfying himself that the cellar in fact
was comparatively modern addition,
having been excavated in the year 1845,
Just after the property had passed into
the hands Of the Bowans.
This discovery, of course. at once
placed that family under q ban of the
darkest suspicion. Solomon, whose
only son, Joe, had been paying partic-
ular attention to pretty Jessie Bowan,
found himself notproof against the gen.
eral prejudice.
mo. Slocum," he remarked, with
virtuous resolution, s'shall marry into q
family in whose veins runs the black
blood Of . murderer.
And though it was not evident to the
hearers of this speech that the blood Of
q murder must necessarily be black,
they nevertheless approved of the SEN
timent-al save Joe, who sturdilv de-
clared his intention of marrying the
girl he loved. though her veins should
run ink and ivory black"
The case having been narrowed
down to this pint" observed Solomon,
looking gravely around upon an inter.
ested audience in the tap-room of the
hotel, of which, by-the-by, his father,
Christopher Slocum. had been fol
many years previous to his death
the popular proprietor-s.the case
having. ~ said, been narrowed down
to the year 'forty-fve, it remains fol
us to discover what men folks hev onac.
countably and mysteriously disappeared
since that date; and then to ascertain,
It possible. what relations the missing
men had with any of the Bowans."
'sThar was the Yankee notion ped.
der" suggested Slocum's particular
chum. who kept the store and postofIice
opposite HE was missln' more'n
three weeka'
.sHis body was found and decently
buried" Slocum replied.
Then that swell chap who was 50
flush o. greenbacks, (" said another.
Bogus. No wonder he mysterious.
y disappeared-with the police artel
him."