The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1890-11-14

| IOr me 10 De placed In, murmured PAUL
II must have time to reflect what is to bt
done. In the meanwhile l will not forget
you, James. / will do all l can to prove
| your innocence, for / now firmly believe
| you to be innocent"
Indeed, indeed, i am, Mr.. PAUL. The
few trinkets that have been found were
either given to my sister or myself by your
father at different times during his life
time. God knows they were never stolen
Being in want of money-my sister and
"a short time ago, we pawned a gold
watch chain which your father gave Eliza
on her twenty-frst birthday, and that has
been the cause of all this trouble"
81 fully believe all you have told me, "
| said Paul. Everything shall be put right
at the trial if only we can secure the real
culprits or get some clew of them" and he
shook the prisoner warmly by the hand,
| promising to see him again in a day OF
two.
While this interview was proceeding in
the Jail another of a different character
was taking place at Ormsby grange. A
man had called, asking to see Mr.. Richard
Hammond on particular business, and was
shown in. When Richard entered the
room he was startled to find that his visi-
tor was none other than disreputable
little money-lending Jew from the neigh
boring town, called Myers, with whom he
had had dealings in the past.
You wish to see mer' said Richard in
terrogatively.
Il do, badly" mumbled the old man,
with diabolical smile. Il need not intro
duce myself Think
''No; you are Myers, the Jew, the money
lender, the rascal, the thief! Yes, l re-
member you well enough"
Take carel take carep' he yelled. 'Do
you see thisi" And he drew from his
pocket a document written on large white
paper and folded. sit is your fathers last
Will and testament. Never mind how l
got it. / have got it; and unless you pay
me all that you owe me on the bond /
shall hand this will over to your brother
The Greenhill estate is left to him. Your
name is not mentioned. So, my fine fellow,
choosel Pay me or take the consequence"
Dick Hammond, although considerably
taken aback, was fully equal to the &C.
casion.
''If that is my fathers will, villain, you
have stolen it! You, then, were the thief
who robbed his house the very night he
diedr'
~ was. do not deny ito you felt
sure the old man had disinherited you.
was told he was dying, and l knew if
could make away with the will in time
you would come into your estate and
should get my money. Do you still refuse
to pay me?"
81 do. You have been paid already"
"And you will give ne nothing further!"
Nothing"
Then take the will to your brother"
and he prepared to leave the room. But
Dick was too quick for him. Selling Myers
with one hand, he rang the bell with the
other, and when assistance came he had
the wretched jew tied and secured, while
he himself rode Off on horseback to the
nearest magistrate for a warrant to arrest
the real burglar, who had thus been safely
caught at last
There is not much more to tell Need
less to say that the will in the jews pos
session was the old one, full of alterations
and corrections, with the signature torn
off and valueless. Myers had known this
well enough, but had not scrupled TO use
the document for the purpose of a threat,
which, unhappily for him, had had a far
different result from what he had expected.
The innocence Of James fierce was speedi-
ly established, most of the stolen valuables
were recovered, while Myers, together with
an accomplice, who turned cut to be a pro-
fessional burglar, was found guilty and SEN
fenced 10 penal servitude.
Some weeks later Paul Hammond, after
no little delay and difficulty, succeeded in
obtaining d faculty for the reopening OF
his fathers vault in Ormsby church yard
and an examination fthe coffin. and there,
as James Tierce had foretold, in the inside
breast pocket of the faded silk dressing
gown, which still chung around the decay
ing corpse, was found the dead mans will
that last will which he himself had writ
ten out in his own handwriting, and which
had been signed and witnessed six weeks
before his death; that same will-now dis
colored, but still legible enough-which
James Tierce had fetched for him, and in
which Richard Hammond's name did not
once appear. But, strange to say, when
the lawyer came to examine it, both sig
nature and date were found to be missing.
They had been torn away from the docu-
ment just in the same manner as from the
older will, and the missing fragments were
not forthcoming.
Il regret to tell you. Mr.. Paul" said the
lawyer, that this will, so strangely found
at last, is legally imperative. Whether
the testator tore off the missing fragments
and burnt them just before his fatal seiz-
ure, and then put the document in his
pocket, amino revocandi, or whether this
mutilation has occurred through decom-
position or otherwise since his death and
burial ! cannot positively affirm, but the
former certainly appears to me TO be by far
the more likely explanation. In any case,
your fathers will as it now stands is clear
ly invalid, and the court would refuse to
admit it to probate"
Paul bore his defeat with a good grace
The disposition of Mr. Hammond's prop
erty under the intestacy consequently re-
manned unaffected by the discovery of the
will, and when it was found that Richards
letter asking for forgiveness must have
reached his father on the very morning of
the day be died, the family could not but
feel instinctively that this silent, unseen
act of revocation of the will had been a
token of the dying mans unspoken pardon
to the repentant dlgal-LOndon Truth. /
It has been noticed that liability to can
GER diminishes from about - 10 50 onward, |
and after 20 there is little fear from this |
disease. Only one centenarian is known |
to have died from it.