Weekly commercial herald. (Vicksburg, Miss.) 1884-18??, 1885-12-11

teLter upon 1t?"
thatr'-"Ah, but look at the knifel What a
curious knife! What drol cheracters!'-
"Hcavensl Lock at the stain on it'll It is the
bloodl'
Ipassed on slowly with the crowd; I came
in front of the white board that hung on the
iron grating; Itook one look at it-no, I can
not write down what my feelings were at that
horrible moment. The thing had a hideous
fascination for me; / could not avert my eyes
from it. A cold sweat broke out over me;
my brain reeled as if in o vertigo; I believe
[ should have fallen, but the pressure of the
throng held me up. The sight made me sick
and faint, and yet l could not tear my eyes
away.
This was what saw, exhibited on that board
at the Morgue: A white ivory button, about
the size of o two-franc piece, with an initial
G. upon it; under this was written: "Wrist-
stud found beside the body, supposed to be-
long to the perpetrator Of the crime" Below,
a long, kean-edged dagger, its hilt Of lac
quered wood, its blade Of dark-blue steel,
with some eastern characters craven on it,
and, stretching from the point about half
way up the blade, q dull stain upon the
cleaning metal. Under the weapon was
written; "Poniard Of Japanese manufacture,
found beside the corpse of Joseph Meissner,
with which the fatal blow is supposed to have
been struck" At the foot OF tho board were
these words: "Any person having informa-
ton to give with respect to the murder Of
Joseph Meissner is requested to communicate
with NJ R. ROguet, judge of instruction, at
the prefecture Of police"
All this has taken time to describe; I
seemed, however, to grasp all the details in q
single glance; it was as if these fatal pieces
Of evidence burned themselves in on my
brain You see, 1 recognized, Or thought I
recognized, the WTist-stud and the dagger,
and the possibility they suggested to my mind
overwhelmed me for the moment. I gasped
for breath; stroye to raise my hand, that I
might press it over my eyes and shut out that
terrible testimony that stared me in the face,
and would not let my vision go. But the
pressure Of the crowd held my arms as if
plnioned, and swept me slowly along past the
bars of tho outer gate; then relaxed, and left
me free to move. l had become separated
fl ON ThouYenot in the crowd; for this, even
then, ! felt a momentary thankfulness. MY
cole desire now was to escape from that
chastity Mogue, to leave it far behind. [
had come to it as a scarcely curious specta-
lor; l left it with the frenzied haste almost of
mailman. am persuaded that, had either
Of the skilled detectives afterward concerned
in this case seen my manner Of leaving tho
Morgue, they would have arrested me on sus.
picion there and then.
Whittier ] went after recrossing the bridge
| cannot now remember. l walked on, or
rotl1nVs half RON CJ1ifO ciYt11oec1vy, "a I,11 vol
mist seemed to hang before my eyes, and
prevent my seeing anything distinctly. l
was unconscious Of being looked at or pointed
at, unconscious of time or Of fatigue. My
one clear idea was that I must fly as fast and
as far as possible from that hateful Morgue
and its choking atmosphere Of crime.
When | c2moto myself-for in truth I had
been for the time d~istraught-I found myself
on n Of the qlays en- the left bank, in tho
extreme west Of the city. The thought came
to me that must do something; that I must
think calmly Of what that something ought
to be. Darkness had com on; the lights Of
Paris stretched in o long line before me down
tho right bank of tho river; snow had again
begun to fall. I sat down On the quay-wall,
looking into the black water Of the Seine.
and forced myself to reflect. I cannot think
that any criminal was ever more wretched
than / at that hour.
do not know how long I sat there, alb
sorbed in most miserable thoughts. But at
last something like q plan came into my
mind. Retracing my steps toward the Rue
Dauphine, l stopped at a kiosk on tho Boule-
ward, and bought an evening paper-The
Temps. I opened it under the light of a
%streetlamp, and read this paragraph amid
The falling snow:
"THE CRIMEoF CHRIsTMAs-DAY.-To-day,
there was a considerable crowd ct the
Morgue, to inspect the articles on which the
police must chiefly rely in their attempt to
unravel the mysterious affairof the Passage
de Mazarin. No arrest has yet been made,
nor, so far as is known, is there any one even