News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1888-09-20

less way, while the tears coursed down
his furrowed cheeks. The room into
which he followed his young master was
that on the second floor from whose key
hole Paul had noticed the ray of light
streaming when he went to bed, not hall
a dozen hours before. The room was
devoted to Mr.. Warren's experiments
and was Uttered with q Heterogeneous
mass ofmaterial which Paul used uncer,
enormously to refer to as ''junk." Ma,
chimes in every stage of con-
struction, rusty cog wheels and
scraps of iron, retorts, spirit
lamps, galyanic batteries and so
forth, were piled up in every nook and
corner, while on blackened pine work
table in the centre, directly under the
hanging chandelier, every jet of which
was lighted, stood an odd-looking
machine, the glass jars standing near
showing it to be some sort of an electrical
apparatus, on which the occupant of the
room had evidently been lately at work.
In front of it, on the floor, lying in q
huddled heap as though he had been
kneeling and had suddenly fallen for
ward, was what had once been Austin
Warren, his head, with its snow white
hair, stiffened and clotted with darken-
ing blood, lying on one doubled-up arm,
while the other, the fist clenched, was
stretched outward to its full extent. As
he looked down and saw this, the gasp
ing sensation which had attacked Paul
| when he was awakened returned, for he
| took full measure of the horror of the
situation in an instant. There was no
need for him to ask question or touch
the body at his feet, for he knew, as
though by intuition, that the man that
had been more than father to him and
whom he loved as few fathers are loved,
had been done to death. Yet, so curious
thing in its workings is that mass of
gray and white matter we call brain,
he found himself recalling o figure in a
! group he had once seen in some "cham-
Der of horrors" exhibition, which, with
! its blood -bedabble white hair resem-
| bled the one before him, and curiously
/ thought how excellently the modeler of
| the simulated corpse had performed his
| gruesome work. Motionless and speech
less he stood there, still with that odd
difficulty in drawing his breath until he
was reused by voice, which was not
1saac's, saying gruffiy, ''A bad job,
sorr !" and looking up, he saw in the
room the same gray-coated Park police
man whose measured tread had struck
his ear as he stood on the stoop the
night before, which now seemed CEN
tury rather than few hours ago.
"What does it mean?" he asked the
policeman, who somehow seemed to him
an embodiment of authority and know
ledge.
''It's this way, sorr," said the man
in his odd New York accent: "About
twilve o'clock last noight / see a young
man (Which, asking yer pardon, 1 don't
doubt it wor yersilf) who KEN up to de
dure here and let hissilf III wild q latch
key. Half an hour later 1 wor passin'
the house agin, when heard loud voices.
which seemed to come from this very
room troo de open windy. I shtopped,
fur thought it seemed shtrange, Well,
sorr, heard de old gentleman say I
knew his voice, fur it's many's the pala-
verin' we've had together), l heard him
ssy, 'Afther I've clothed and fid We fur
twinty years, ye ungrateful scoundrel, or
somethin' loike that, fur | disremember !
de exact words. Den heard fall an
a cry, and med up me moind there
was somethin' wrong. So just waited
aroun' till dayloight KEN, an L see de
ould man here" (pointing to poor old
Isaac, who stood the picture of misery,
shaking his head from side to side)
"come down an open de shutters. Then
l axed him if there was anything wrong,
an he tux me up here, an we opened
the dure, an shure We see this, and he
pointed to the body, and kneeling down,
began to straighten out the poor, twist
ed limbs, As he opened the clenched
hand he started slightly, and Paul, in a
mechanical sort of way, asked, "Has he
been murdered do You think p" "Shure
l know he has, an the man that this fits
done the deed" and, still kneeling he
held up Paul S ring for inspection. Paul
took a step forward, but needed no close
scrutiny to assure himself as to the iden-
tity of the object. His overtaxed nerves
could no further stand the strain. Once
more the blood seemed to surge away
from his heart and he could no longer
draw his breath, but gasped as lie en-
deayored to speak, and then without
cry or sound, he fell forward over the |
table in a dead faint.
The period between Paul Harley's !
committal by the Coroner and his ap-
pearance before the jury was one of al |
most unmitigated horror to him, the |
only relief in fact being the almost con-
slant presence of Harold Proudfoot and |
Helen, the latter of whom had thrown /
all reserve aside and had boldly avowed |
her love for Paul and her perfect conf
dence in him and belief in his innocence.
Her brother secured leave of absence |
from his editorial duties and gave him
self up to the task Of proving his friends
innocence, finding much more difficulty
than he had at first supposed. Harold
worked hard and manfully, but the case
seemed hopeless, until one day about a
week before the trial. He spent the af-
ternoon sitting in the room in which the
crime was committed trying to reconcile
his own theory of an interrupted bur-
glary ending IN murder and the sudden
flight of the robber, with the known
facts and the position of the room. He
sat there, occasionally walking about
and idly fiddling with the odds and ends
of machinery, which still lay just as they
were when old Warren's body was dis
covered, until the deepening dusk pre-
vented his seeing clearly and he fell in
to chair by the pine workable in fit
of abstracted musing. Half an hour
later he left the house, which was in old
Isaac's care pending the result of the
trial, with light in his eyes and smile
on his lips such as had not been seen
there for months.
"Keep up your spirits old fellow" he
said to Paul when he visited him in his
cheerless cell in the Tombs next day, 81
think L have struck tie right lead now,
but I'm going to keep it to myself until
[ am certain, and Paul, who had mo.
reused from the apathetic
state in which he had remained ever
,ince his arrest, could not get another
word. good, bad or Indifferent from his
riend, except one day Harold introduced
o him as possible witness in his be-
lalf DIR. Ellendorf, the celebrated Ger
nan aurist.
Paul felt that he could find no fault
With any of the witnesses against him
ntil old Isaac stepped feebly up and
old his story. He identified the seal
ing as Paul's property and as been al
avs worn by him; he was questioned as
D the events of the fateful night and
tated that after he had retired to his
ed. which was on the ground floor, he
ad heard Paul, whose step he could not
Ill to recognize, enter and go upstairs
} bed; with evident reluctance he went
n to say that an hour or so afterward he
card him descend, and enter his uncle,s
1om, that he heard the murmer of voices, :
.sting half hour or so, followed by l
eavy fall, and, after brief interval, {
ne exit from the room of Paul and his !
assage up the stairs again toward his !