The Press., 1890-01-16
Indeed, no warrant had been issued

straint. Indeed. no warrant had been issued for hirn.
 N Early the next morning, satisfied in my own mind that Fergus was the murderer, drove out to his aunts. found thnt he ar rived there at ' o'clock Saturday night. Half an hour later he complained of headache and went to bed. saying he would be down again by o'clock. As he did not keep his promise the hired girl knocked on his door at that hour, but, receiving no reply, was told not to disturb him. He was not seen by the inmates of the house until o'clock Sunday morning. The girl was up at 5, and as she crossed the yard she saw that his window was up. and some of his clothing was hanging in the sun. At the barn found the cooper's buggy, washed clean. Fergus had done this Sunday forenoon. He had not made good job on the horse, however, and found plenty of mud on his fetlocks. As it was dusty Satur- day night when he was driven over, this mud must have been picked up after the storm. found the harness stiff and damp from being wet, and the cloth cushion of the buggy was still damp Hunting further, l found tho fresh tracks of horse and buggy turning into the barnyard after the rain. The window of the room occupied by Fergus opened on the roof of the she'd At the lower edge of the roof stood leach On the edges of this leach and on the roof found mud. On the carpet in Fergus room found moro of it. He had scraped and cleaned his boots and flung the dirt into stove, whence l got half pound. s All this got without the aunt suspecting that was after proofs I then returned to the scene of the murder, and after an hours search discovered the place where horse had been hitched for some time. It was in the rear of the house, on an open space and under tree, and the horse had paved up the ground and gnawed the bark of the tree. The footprints of man could be faintly traced across the garden, and I had no doubt thas Fergus came and went this way. On the fourth day after the funeral I learned from the insurance man what he had seen during the storm, and then warrant was issued and Fergus was taken into custody. By this time the townspeople had begun to think it queer case. Fergus had gone over the house and declared that nothing had been taken. No suspicious characters had been noticed in the neighborhood Jewelry and money had been left lying on the bureau. showing that the object could not have been ! plunder-. Did the woman have an enenlya No, not one, as far as we could learn. Who could profit by her death? No one but Fer gus, and yet this was one of the strong points he brought forward. It was known to O score of people that she had made her will in his favor. Would not everything be his at her death!
 '; To clinch our case and make circumstantial evidence good we must show motive. This seemed hopeless, but went at the task, hoping evidence might aid me if Fergus was guilty. examined his personal effects over and over again in search of 0 hint, but for two weeks after he had been sent to jail : discovered nothing. Then got the clew where ought to havc secured it before. In drawer in his desk I found several aGvar- tisements plainly in the interest of swindlers. One of them read:
 "A steady young man with S10,0o0 cash capital can double. 1t in one year in legitimate enter prise. For particulars address box e9i," etc 1
 Another read:
 If. you have nerve and $500 in cash we will mako you millionaire in ona year We permit the fullest investigation before investment Write for spartieulars
 < Asthird just hit his case:
 Are yon young and ambitious man, feeling that you could get ahead if properly backed and enconragedR Have you any money Can you get from one thousand to three thousand? If so we will positively guarantee you $100 in return,
 for every dollar, and inside of g year.
 < felt sure he had written some of these
 parties, but as could not find any letters from them set out to hunt them up in DOT aon.5 They were bold faced swindlcrs, and they bothered me some, but in the end got Ave letters written by Fergus. In one of them he stated that he would soon have money to invest, and expressed his satisfac-
 tion at the particulars of the speculation as far as given him. Tka greed of gain, then,
 was his incentive.E The woman, who had been mother and sister to him, came of long
 lived race, and was in good health, and a month before her death was told by doctor in the hearing of Fergus that she was likely
 to live to be 90 or 100 years old. Until her
 death the young man could hope for little or
 nothing, as she was obliged to make the in.
 terest of her capital support her.
 Murderer or not, the boy was the legal heir, land he employed tho best legal talent in 1-the west to defend him. The lawyers
 might take every dollar if they could but clear him. It was veritable fight for life with all the money and most of the talent on one side,s but that web of circumstantial cvi dence kept drawing closer and closer, and il could neither be broken nor explained away. Had Fergus been innocent frank reply to each question would have explained it. Being guilty, his eyasions only made matters worse. The jury were out fourteen hours before finding verdict of guilty, but within an hour he had made full confession. He told me that he had been planning for two months and that he believed he had ar
 ranged details until his case could withstand
 the most minute investigation of the hignes, detective talent.-New York Sun