Waterbury Democrat., 1901-04-29

gan. brlcK was the HrSt medical Of- fcer to reach the scene of the mur- der. Benton was then stone dead, and brief examination showed the hole of a bullet of large caliber- probably pistol, Alright over the heart. The coarse blue uniform shirt and the fine undergarment of lisle thread showed by burn and powder-stain that the pistol had been held close to or even against the breast of the deceased. The bullet was leGged, he believed, under the shoulder-blade, but no post-mortem had yet been permitted, circum- stance the doctor referred to regret fully, and it was merely his opinion, based on purely superficial examina- ton, that death was instantaneous, the result of the gunshot wound re- ferred to. Dr. Brick further gave it as his professional opinion that post mortem should be no longer delayed.
 And then at last came Stuyyesant's turn to speak for himself, and in dead silence all men present faced him and listened with bated breath to his brief. sorrowful words.
 He was the officer halted by the sentry on Number 6 and called upon to come back. The sentry did not catch his name and had to have it spelled. He frankly admitted his impatience, but denied all anger at the enforced detention. The infor- nation about the fire at Col. Brent's> had caused him anxiety and alarm, and as soon as released by the sem try he had run, had passed the patrol on the run, but there had been no altercation, no misunderstanding even. The sentry had carried out his orders in soldierly way that com pelled the admiration of the witness, and before leaving him Stuyvesant had told him that he had done ex- actly right. The news that the sen try was found dead five minutes thereafter was shock. Lieut.. Stuy- yesant declared he carried no fire arms whatever that night and was utterly innocent of the sentry's death. He recognized, he said, the revolver exhibited by Maj. MacNeil. He did not hesitate to admit that he had seen and examined it late the previous afternoon at the quarters of Col. Brent, that he had actually put it in his trousers pocket not two minutes before he left the house to go in search of Lieut.. Ray, but he solennly declared that as he left the yeranda he placed the pistol on a little table just to the right of the broad entrance to the salon, within that apartment, and never saw it again until it was produced here.
 Frank, candid, ''open and above board" as was the manner of the witness, it did not fail to banish in great measure the feeling of an tagonism that had first existed against him in the crowded throng But in the cold logic of the law and the chain of circumstantial evidence they plainly saw that every state ment, even that of Stuyvesant him. self, bore heavily against him. A lawyer, had he been represented by counsel, would have permitted no such admissions as he had made. A gentleman, unschooled in the law, preferred the frank admission to the distress of seeing Mrs. Brent-and perhaps others-calledf into that presence to testify to his having had the pistol with him when he left the gallery.
 Brent in his bewilderment had blurted out his wife's words in the hearing of the provost-marshaPs people late the night before, and he and his household were yet to be called, and when called would have to say that though they passed and possibly repassed through the salon between the moment of Stuyyesant's departure and that of their going out to dinner. not one of their number noticed even so bright and g1eaming an object as Maidie's revolver True, the lights were not brilliant in the salon. True, the little table stood back against the wall five or six feet from the doorway Still, that h:stol was prominent object, and man must have been in extrao aordinary haste indeed to leave loaded weep on lying round loose" in the hall.
 That was the way Thinking Bay onets' argued it, and soldiers by the score crowding the sidewalk and en- trance and unable to force their way in, or even to make room for a most importune female struggling on the outskirts, hung on the words of an orderly who. dispatched in further search of Lieut.. Ray, was forcing 1 way cat. rS
 "How is it going?" said he. .why, that young feller's just as good as