Fort Worth weekly gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1889-09-12

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murderer, and his motive jealousy? Thai
could scarcely be- Had she committed
| such a cold looded crime at his instiga-
ton? What then had that night IS visitor
to do with it?''
81 cannot believe it, he said. at
is too horrible. -
And SEE, look at it in what way he
woulds he was forced inevitably to the
hideohs Conclusion that only that fact
|: yes certain. rphe 9ply fact that he
dreaded to confront, sae fact that, apart
from its intrinsie,ghs4tliness meant such
misery to HIMSELF was that Gertrude
Ennis was beyond All redemption impli-
Gated in the WestcliffemrFder.
CHAPTER II. & :
MIR. PADGER TAKES 3 sETM. { -
All the following day Mr.. PAlgercare-
fully avoided the observation-disclosures Mon
plaisir He could not bring himself to
meet Mary with that dreadful burdeE on
his mind. Vainly he tried to shakee off
the conviction; it was too firmly I'M
planted, and too amply supported :.
There was no single detail which he had
observed that did not fall into its place
to increase the certainty of his correct
ness. Each fitted in with the precision
of Chinese puzzle.
Mr. Ennis slight hesitation at the in
quest, his subsequent iif-concealed desire
to suppress too vigorous inquiry, that
upaccounted for mass of burned papers =.
and his evident embarrassment and anXF
iefs at Nj. Padger's awakened inteEsgt
in them. md lastly as far as he Vas
,eoncernedS his extrsordinaEy Assertions
that he was going TO London sfhat Ast3had
been to London, when BIZ. had evBr Jeft
Westcliffe. S4.- < 81
Unpleasant as the natural conclusions
from these premises were, Mr.. Padger
would not have been so Mortified at their
undeniable tendency to iucriminate the
husband had it not been clear to him
that nothing in the case would relieve
the daughter of the same or worse sus-
PIGEONS.
Her Implication, if not absolute asser-
ton, at the first inquest that she had
gone straight home after leaving the
bathing machine on the day of the MUIR
der and her awkwardness, and the nerv-
Gus side chances at her father when she
made answer, heI absolute refusal to ac-
count for her proceedings during the hour
and q quarter which elapsed between
those two events, when it became mpOs-
sible to any longer deny that such q delay
had actually taken place, her agitation
and distress when she did return at time
when it was scarcely possible for the news
of the murder to have spread from the
scene of its occurrence, the probability
that she had met her father in the public
garden, all taken together, formed q
damning chain of facts which seemed to
releutlessly bind the girl and her father
to that bleeding body.
In spite of his often repeated asserva-
ton that he could not believe it Mr.
Padger did believe it. That Gertrude
Ennis and her father had plotted togther
III cold blood to remove the woman who
rendered the existence of each of them
unbearable, that the girl had with her
own hands struck the blow, and that the
crime had been carried out with a posi-
lively reckless disregard of ordinary pre-
cautions appeared to him to be indisput-
able.
There was only one knot in the thread
of the circumstance which he could not
unite, and that would probably prove
merely an Incident, a smaller detail of
the greater villeiny. Who was the man
with whom Miss Ennis had talked in the
garden of Monplaisir, and what was that
secret which her father was not to know?
current of, evil beneath the main food of
bloodshed Was Miss Ennis, having
conspired with her father against her
life, Snow plotting against
him. with thsi5quknown?s.,T That question
time alone could answer.
In the meantime how was he to pro
coed? This was question which he de-
bated strenuOusly with himself all
through that long day Partly to avoid
even a chance encounter with Mary
partly to be free from any possibility of
interruption, be started for q long walk
inland; and as he passed between the
dusty hedges, and along the Yerdant
meadow beneath the whispering trees,
he argued the matter pro and con, with
all the intellect he could bring TO bear
upon it.
The amount OF circumstantial eviaenea
that he could produce would, he felt GER
tain, be considered by any magistrate as
sufficient Justification for issuing q war
rant to arrest Gertrude Ennis and her
father on suspicion, and yet he was re-
luctant to resort TO such extreme imeas-:
ures.
On the otherhandS, to do nothingtkse
put the wholg thing hkhind him, to re-
turn to his ordinary pursuits with that
overwhelming mass of discriminating in
formation in his possession, and TO act as
if he had never commenced an investiga-
ton into the Westcliffe murder, was, he
knew well, course of action which it
would be almost crime to adopt, which
might indeed render him legally guilty
of compromising a felony.
To go on, he believed fully, would be
to convert into certainty, and to earn
for him Mary's undying hatred and con-
tempt; to stop would with equal certainly
bring down upon him has own.
''To be, or not to beS' was a question
which seriously aSitated MIR. Padger that
day, and he finally compromised it by
deciding to at ali events hold his hand
for awhile and visit for further develop
ments.
"Nothing is to be gained by undue