The times., 1901-05-28

| confident that the guilty parties will be
! convicted and that If there was a second
| woman in the case we will secure her and
| convict her"
The first defihite Information regarding
| the sale of the pistol with which Ayers
was killed was secured yesterday by a
| Times reporter, and it is believed that it
will lead to the discovery of the owner
Of the weapon. On February 10, 1900, VIII
! liam p. Bowie, clerk in the store of
D. n. Walford, 800 Pennsylvania Avenue
northwest. sold to q man who gave the
name of 1. G. Sweebill, and his address
as 533 II Street northwest, a Harrington
& Richardson double-action pistol, No. sol.
The weapon was finished in blued steel,
| and on the end Of the butt was scratched
with small file the cost price, in the
private cypher of the firm. The record
places 1t as a .3S caIibre.
The weapon found in Ayers room was
Harrington & Richardson, No. sol, - cali
bre, and was nickeled Mr.. Bowie stated
yesterday that he might have readily mis-
taken the calibre of the weapon as the
frame was .3S frame and that unless
he had looked carefully at the pistol he
might not have noticed that it was only
bored for a 80 cartridge He stated fur
ther that there were evidences that the
pistol had been renickeled. and that such
a process would have obIiterated the pri-
vate marking of the store. In all of his
experience in the handling of weapons of
all kinds he had never known a maker
OF weapons to place duplicate numbers
on the market
Unless there vas a duplicate number
in the present instance or unless the num-
bers had been tampered with, of which
r1voe
positive that the pistol found in Ayers
room was the one that he sold to a man
who gave a fictitious name and address
nearly four months before Ayers came
TO Washington.
One of the points that has been worry
ing the police in the locating of the own
er Of the pistol is the different numbers
which appear upon the different parts of
the pistol. On the cylinder, the most
exposed part of the weapon and the part
from which all retail sales are recorded,
the number sol appeared. On the frame
was the number 250l, while on that part
of the barrel extending over the cylinder
the number 0925M appeared At first the
police We're inclined to believe that the
weapon in question might have been made
up Of number of odd parts.
This supposition was proved erroneous,
however, by Mr.. Bowie, who stated that
that was the practice of numberings fol-
lowed by the factory. Taking duplicate
Of the weapon from the show case. he
showed that the number on the cylinder
was 965, on the frame, 1868, while on the
extension Of the barrel the number was
aSS963. thus demonstrating that the prac-
tice of the Harrington & Richardson Arms
Company was to place only the last three
figures of the number of the weapon upon
the cylinder to facilitate the hapid ham
ding
Captain Boardman has received infor-
nation from Port Austin, Ayres' former
home. that no such pistol as the one with
which Ayres was shot was ever sold in
that town. An effort is being made to as
certain what other cities and towns Ayers
has visited, with q purpose to see wheth-
er he had ever bought pistol at any
point While there are several witnesses
who assert that Ayres had pistol such
as the one with which the deed was COM
mitted, it is a significant fact that his
most Intimate friends had never known of
him having such a weapon, or any
weapon other than the shotgun, which
was found upon the trunk beside the re-
volver
Every other article belonging to Ayers
clothes, and why he should have left out
a pistol with nine extra cartridges is in
explicable. If 1t is not Ayers pistol the
locating of the owner of 1t viii be looked
for with extreme interest.
Another significant fact is that Mrs. Bo-
nine gave her old bulldog pistol to Walter
Gum in February. 1890. about the time
that Harrington & Richardson No. 501
was bought at Walfords. Gum had
asked for the pistol some time before, but
was told that he could have it later. Mrs.
Bonine had been having a pistol in her
possession for years. 1t is not regarded
as likely that she would relieve herself of
such protection as one might afford her
after she had been accustomed to keeping
a revolver. The bulldog pistol was an
old type and hard on the trigger, while
the Harrington & Richardson was a dou
BILE action and quite light on the trigger,
far more suited to a woman's use.