The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1894-02-17

have made exactly such . wound;
dare say you may have one. TIT
wound was remarkably small, clear
and deep; and the blow was given with
q force tina. he could not have appliet
himself. No weapon of the sort
speak of was found about the house
In short, it is certain that Talbo,
could not have killed himself; he wa.
murdered
Take care what you are saying!
said Bacarac.
"'Wait till you hear me through,
said l. There was something peculiar
about Mrs. Talbot's corpse, too
"'AhI said Bacarac
| Yes, there was an incision on the
left side, just below the breast 1t was
made by surgeon. and with just such
an instrument as that which killed
Talbot If I had been going to dissect
the body with view to finding out the
condition of the heart, I should have
made the cut right there. and in pre-
cisely that way. But whoever the sur
! geon in this case was. his dissection
never got beyond that first incision.
For some reason, he stopped right
there Maybe he was suddenly inter-
rupted. Now it's an interesting ques-
ton who interrupted him? Whoever it
was he never spoke of it afterward II
it was some confidant of his own, of
course the dissection would have pro-
ceeded If it was a stranger, he would
have told of it-provided he was alive
to tell But if he were murdered in
order to prevent his telling. where is
the murdered body? No one is missing
in this town; and there has been only
one body found that could have been
murdered, and that happens to be the
body of Talbot himself. The inference
is, that it was he who broke in upon
this surgeon in the midst of his work.
He may have suspected something, you
see, and followed him up And that
would also account for the otherwise
inexplicable fact that both the bodies
were found in Talbot's house For,
after numbering Talbot, it would occur
to the surgeon that the best way out of
the scrape for him would be to take
both corpses out OF his own house and
leave them at Talbot's, where they
would ultimately be found, and the in
ference drawn that was actually
adopted at the inquest 1t all seems
reasonable enough so far, doesn't it?
Now the next thing TO determine is,
who could have been the surgeon who
dug up the body, began the dissection,
was interrupted by Talbot and killed
him to save exposure. There are three
medical men in town, believe, besides
you and me. 1t must be one of them,
no doubt All we have to do is to find
out what each one of them was doing,
or whore he was, on the night of the
murder; then take the one whose
whereabouts are net satisfactorily &C
counted for, and investigate all his cir
cumstances and conduct on. or about
that time, until we get the evidence to K
convict him- Do You agree with mel?
''You are very Ingenious said the
doctor, in husky sort of voice. r
am really not competent to aid you
lyon see, you took everything for
And then you went off to
see that patient next morning and
were gone two or three days. BY the
way, you must have travelled by a
roundabout route to get to the place
you said you were going to; the ticket
you bought at the station would have
carried You almost in the opposite di-
rection. 1t must have been an impor-
tant case, too, If one could Judge by
the size of the valise you had with you;
It was big enough to hold lady's |
iress- Speaking of that, doctor, do |
Vou recoilect some weeks ago sending
ne q parcel of books that asked to |
borrow of you? It's an odd coinci-
ience, but they were wrapped up in q
Dit OF the same sort of black cambria |
hat was used to cover the body of Mrs
Talbot. And not only that, but
"Weli," continued my poetical-look-
ng friend, poor Bacarac broke down
It that point He couldn't hold out
my longer. It was rather sorry spec.
aclc, and was really sorry for him.
had all the evidence to finish him. had
le held out; but believe, in the midst
4 his agony and collapse, he was more
elieved than otherwise to confess,
Ind he explained, in his confession,
me or two points that had remained q
'uzzle to me, and they relieved him of
much of the odium of the deed, too.
He had been deeply interested in
he case, and in the woman herself, as
vell; and, though he had never done
ovcrtly wrong. he had shown
nough of his feeling to make Talbot
it suspicious of him. When she died,
q was still in doubt as to the real ma
ure of her disease. which was in some
aspects an almost unique complica-
ion; and the idea occurred to him to
ct the body and investigate it He
'as prompted to do it, however, only
artly by his scientific curiosity; he had
morbid craving to have in his pos
ession all that was left of the woman
e had loved. too lie went out alone,
ug her up with his own hands, filed
J the grave and brought her home in
is wagon without discoveries he
1ought But. in fact, Talbot was