People's voice. [volume] (Wellington, Sumner County, Kansas) 1890-1917, 1894-03-09
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traced the distance he had come
from certain point, and with very
little difficulty found what he wanted.
The box was Of pure silver, OF for
eign make, which he subsequently
discovered to be Austrian, and IL
was three parts full OF arsenic. He
locked the box away, said nothing
to anybody, but watched the daily
papers carefully.
he had not very long to wait; on
the fourth morning he read how in a
cellar, formerly used by smugglers
beneath cottage at Trevenick, in
Cornwall. had been found the dead
body OF a man whose appearance
gave rise to suspicious of foul play,
and who, on examination was found
to have in his viscera sufficient
arsenic to kill three or four men.
The man was we'll clothed, we'll
nourished, and concealed in a belt
upon him was found one hundred
gold pieces of money. He was at
once identified as the long missing
husband of woman who had within
the past few days left the village
for Australia with her second hus-
band.
Jake George. a fisherman, swore
to seeing man enter the house at 7
o'clock the evening before the pair
left, but he saw no one come out.
though his work kept him near BY
till 8, when Stephen Croft himself
came home. He was not near enough
to hear voices, though he could
easily have heard a cry had there
been one. He peeped. as would be
shown in the evidence, but he could
see nothing. With what superhu.
man swiftness and strength must
this woman have overcome her vic
tim, so that not even a moan or CRY
reached the spy without What self
control must have been hers that
she could meet her husband with a
smile, ard sit at board with him
that night, however absolutely she
might break down on the morrow
In one short hour she had done as
much, and more. as q man could do,
and she had done it thoroughly.
Secure by her hearth, the murdered
man hidden at her feet. she sat with
undaunted front, 70 smallest trace
around of the man who had visited
her. Without that hollow cave be.
low, she might have murdered, but
could not have concealed him; but
as it was, this hiding place favored
the swlftness and subtleness of the
crime to an extraordinary degree.
For who could believe that he, the
former master of that house and the
woman in it, walked of his own
free will to the disused trap-door,
and deliberately elected to be lev.
cred by rope to a cold and noiSome
dungeon peopled only by rats? No.
1t was for Stephen Croft to quail, to
shrink away out Of sight as de-
frauded man, or, ii Tceloar showed
himself moved by his wife's en-.
treaties, and actually consented to
leave her to her happiness, would he
not have left, as he came, by the
house door?
We see no such thing when. in
imagination, we project our gaze
upon that bare, dismantle1 room; we
see q man who, whatever he may
have been to her in the past, had
since possibly repented, and pros
pering in his new life Gas his clothes
sufficiently proved), had remembered
the woman who once loved him, and
returned to share his prosperity with
her. He found her more beautiful
than ever, and probably the very
thought OF taking her away from an
other man enhanced her value in his
not over-fastidious mind; he meant
to take his rights and told her so,
while the miserable woman only hall
heard him in straining her ears fol
her lovers step without She must
have acquiesced to all appearance il
his demands, or he could not have
taken from her hand the cup of milk
with which she had stealthily mixed
the poison; strangely enough, sh,
must have also been possessed at tn,
time of a strong narcotic, sine,
traces of one were found in tn,
stomach, so that the cool, firm hanC
dOubly doctored the draft she handed
to the specting man.
ITO RE CONTINTED I