Waterbury Democrat., 1900-12-10
SASA.SASASA@:Aea3A3AG , THE STURGIS WAGER { ; A DEFECTIVE STORY. < < y ? By EDGAR MORETTE z E Copyright. 1899. by Frederick A. Stokes Co. J EXPERIMENTATION
CHAPTER XIX

THE LEAD-LINED VAT.
 Sprague seated himself upon the long pine box; and Sturgis, dropping into the only chair, began his narrative. As he talked, he carelessly whittled the cover of the wooden box with the knife which he still held in his Land. He began with an account of his in vestigation at the Knickerbocker bank, and explained the result of his observa- tions and inferences down to the time of his visit t Murdoc s house, omit ting, however, to mention any of tic names of the actors in the reconstruct, ed drama.
 ''So you see,' he concluded. i've have established the identity of the body in the cab, and of the young man who disappeared after the cab was upset. But one of the most salient features of the case, from the start, was the fact that neither of these two men had derived much, if any, pecuniarv profit from his crime. The bookkeep- CT, as we have seen, was a mere cat S. paw in the control of the accountant, and his posthumouS confession has given us the explanation of the power eXerted over him by his accomplice. It was not so easy to establish the motive which controlled the actions of the accountant. who was himself only a tool in the hands of a higher inteli- yence The deus ex machina of this crime is a man otgenius who has hardly appeared upon the scene at all, but whose traces I have found at every turn He was the brains of the whole scheme; the other men in his hands were mere puppets. Through the ac- countant. this master spirit managed the bookkeeper; and the accountant himself was controlled by him more directly, but no less surely. If he held the former through his fear of expo sure and consequent ruin, he influenced the latter through even more potent motives. He is the father of a beautl- ful girl, whom he did not scruple to use as decoy. The price agreed upon for the accountants assistance was the hand of this daughter, for whom the young man had doubtless conceived a passionate love. Whether or not the leader would have had the power to garry out his part of the contract mat ters little; for it is highly probable that he never had the slightest intention of SO doing. He evidently realized very early in the game that the bookkeeper could not long escape the clutches of the law. But as he had taken every precaution to prevent him from know ing anything of his very existence, the fate of the unfortunate bookkeeper would have mattered kttle to this heartless villain, had not the probab bil- ity remained that, when brought to bay, the bookkeeper would denounce the accountants connection with the crime. This would have been extreme ly awkward, since the accountant was very likely in possession of some dan gerous secrets. The safest way out of the difficulty was to quietly suppress the now useless bookkeeper. This plan was decided upon, and would doubtless have been carried into execution, had not fate otherwise decreed. After the bookkeeper's death, under the clrcuH- stances which have related, it became quite probable that the accountant s connection with the case would be dis covered; for luck had been against him from the start, and he became i more and more entangled in the chain i of circumstantial evidence of whose existence his leader was soon fully aware. In the first place, the account ent was wounded; and thus not only partially disabled. but also--what is far worse-conspicuou marked. A ; man who carrieA his arm in a sling can i hardly fail to attract attention, espe- | cially when this distinguishing mark l is accompanied by another equally glaring one in the form of a head ol brilliant red hair"
 Hold on, Sturgis!' interrupted Sprague, who had been listening with growing interest; don't you know the accountants name?"
 "Yes," replied the reporter; 'his name is Thomas Chatham"
 Thomas Chatham!" exclaimed Sprague, as the image of the miserable young man came to his mind.
 "Yes," replied Sturgis, answering his thought, ''the man you met only a few hours ago.
 There was a brief silence, broken al last by Sprague, who asked:
 Has he escaped?" Sturgis hesitated.
 That depends upon how we look al it," he said, gravely, at length; "he has paid the penalty of his crimes"
 "What do you mean?'
 He is dead" answered the reporter
 "Dead? But I tell you saw him.
 "I know; but he has died since"
 "Suicide?''
 "No;" the reporters voice sank to whisper; murder
 "Murder?" repeated the artist, star tied. But how do you know that ?"
 ''This lump of lead tells the story, said Sturgis, holding up the shapeles piece of metal which he had taken.ou of the vat.
 "What is it? A bullet?"
 ''Yes: the bullet which Chatham car ried in his arm from the time that h. was wounded by Arbogast, the bulle which has enabled me to trace him stel by step, from his flight from the over turned cab to Dr. Thurston's and fnall. to his death in this very room; tn bullet whose peculiar shape is record ed in this shadow picture taken b. Thurston by means of the Roentge1 rays"
 So saying, he handed Sprague tn photograph. But the artist had cease,