Little Falls herald. [volume] (Little Falls, Morrison County, Minn.) 1889-1950, 1900-01-19
CHAPTER II.
DARRENT FINDS A CLEw.


1t was cold in that small bedroom in
the village hotel, and the discordant
changing Of the cracked bell of the
church clcci- from quarter to quarter
and from hear to hour irritated him in
his restlessness His mind was far too
active to allow his eyes to be wooed by
slumber and through the long watches
OF the hitter winters night the few
threads Of information that he had
gathered tangled themselves into twists
and knots in his brain, and the very
fact that prima facie the solution of
the mystery seemed to be so simple only
served t" worry and irritate him more.
Detectives, after all, are only human
beings hot mechanical contrivances,
and tli,.l; :itH}ects, trained though they
be to k"en<r and clearer intuition than
those 1t. ,.-S2:7 10y ordinary men, do not
Ter3cl t..::;,@-: f:'e t:;>n the worries in
sep2--t,h~ =, u ccn'! Heated problems Of
which tl., xxi TO-! is obscure
Carr'?l7 :;..N ;.N;,:1': for hours wonder
ing ;:'!'' =: :::s. T;1t,St c;eWs which
scented !, ,:::t 1T r2c.. to the culpric
often, IT., '>:,.lI tl:.nd utterly upon
closer ;::yv, ~.l.:. .'.n, i:>:i5e of sudden
and $ii"r.v. T.: !. ',liv;, the thread snap
l,t,':, "'!t' y: 1T absolutely without
the puS~ii'i::; Ct f.: iirW;1.:s til. trail for
another ILL.,, :: ,.n'i i;:ll to bark back to
the very c".t11N'::.' !,.'llt again. only
perhaps to have th: same experience
and tn" >,i:!l- r:'S;:it. One never hears
ct Z dctvct':"s E;;ill:;-:..:t.<. It is only his
victories IT, are uOisel abroad One
does not lv:;,n Of all the byways and
crossroads, Il! the narrow lanes and
blind ALLEYS, that his search leads him
into It is only when success, has
crowned his patient task that one hears
of him at I'LL
Once when lie had dIzed off for Il lit
tie while the dzeary, lnonotonoas recital
Of the untimeiy death of the wretchel
20 COWS disturbed his brain. and he
awoke with shiver to realize that
whatever the winter Of 1881 in Nor
combe was like to have killed the score
OF COWS in one night. the winter of 1896
Was quite ;to svvcIe d uAu us lac .v.i
, desired to experience. Thinking of the
COWS recalled the brief conversation he
had with the driver Of the doccart
Evidently that individual did not think
very much cf Josiah Marsden and,
moreover, had admitted to having u
grudSe against the murdered man be-
cause his X 1t had been raised Was it
possible that That man who told 50 Glib
~ the story OF ghost was implicated
IN the inur'};.r? Perhaps One never
knew. But against that supposition
there was the paper that had been writ
ten by the dying man, the half finished
accusation that he had been murdered
by Astray What colossal idiot Dob
son WAS to have shown that paper to
Astray! And directly Astray had seen
1t he fed. That certainly looked like
guilt and yet might only be sudden
spasm OF fear-fear that a train of cir
cumstantial evidence might be gathered
together that would inevitably put the
rope around Ills neck, be he innocent
or be he guilty.
There were indeed many black factors
in the case that pointed to Astray Let
him recapitulate them
~ Astray was not Mardsen's own
son, but had heen adopted by him. and
who could tell what Astray's anteced-
ents were or why Marsden had kept
himY
(2) Astray and old Marsden had
quarreled and separated some two years
back. Why?
(3) Astray had returned, after an ab-
sence of two years, on the very night of
the murder: Why2
~ The unfinished note written by
the dying man seemed to accuse Astrav
Of the murder
(5) Astray had fed
Yes; all these facts certainly did point
to Astray Marsden as the murderer. All
through the long winters night the dis
1o1nted fragments of the puzzle ju1n-
bled themselves about in the perplexed
mind Of Herbert Darrent until the dawn
broke gray and cherries.
He gazed out of the window across
the waste of snow to where in the dis
lance the trees that fronted The Grange
met his eye Should he. he wondered,
fathom the mystery of the midnight
murder within that dwelling, whose
smokeless chimneys stood ont black
against the wintry sky?
Breakfast, with it's steaming coffee.
Its crisp toast, savory bacon and new
laid eggs, over, and Darrent felt anoth-
er man, ready to commence his investi-
cations. to piece together every tiny
scrap, every. minute fragment, until
the whole puzzle was complete the
mystery solved, Josiah Marsden avenged
. and justice satisfied.
Mine host, who waited upon the
stranger from Chicago himself, was of
communicative turn of mind. Oh,
yes, he knew the Marsdens, father and
son-at least they called him son-well
enough. Josiah Marsden was strange
sort of fellow; seemed to have no
friends and no enemies. Visitors to The
Grange were very rare indeed. Marsden
kept himself to himself and never asso-
ciated with the inhabitants of Nor
combe: went over to Barnstaple once