Willmar tribune. [volume] (Willmar, Minn.) 1895-1931, 1904-04-06

the affair had, as the London and To-
cal papers informed us, created SEN
sation. From them we learnt that
Number Two was right in supposing
that the information had been laid
hurriedly, and only short time be-
fore the meeting took place. Late on
the evening in question letter had
been received at the Marlborough pc.
lice station, stating that the writer
was member of gang of five crimi-
nails who were to meet that night in
6isused shed in the brick-feld close tc
the cemetery. The letter then went
on to say that the writer wished to
turn infOrmer, and that if the police
would surround the shed and make
prisoners of those there assembled,
the writer would then make himself
known to the authorities, and would
place at their disposal whatever evil
dence was necessary to procure the
conviction of his aceomplices.
Under ordinary circumstances the
a joke, and either taken no action, or
sent, perhaps, single constable to
inspect the shed. But since the dis
covery of dynamite at Fassett Square,
and the subsequent murder of the care
taker, the authorities at New Scotland
yard had instructed the provincial po-
lice that there was reason to believe
some treasonous plot was Matching.
and that sharp eye was everywhere
to be kept upon suspicious strangers.
Hence the Marlborough police super
intendent had decided to act upon the
assumption that the letter was GENT
inc, and had mustered the entire
strength of the local constabulary to
effect an arrest.
to say that the police had arrived at
the shed, only to discover that the
birds had flown; for, with the excep-
ton of the informer, who was impa-
tiently awaiting them, they had found
the place empty.
This, may remark in parenthesis,
was touch of that adroit Official"
garbling of reports or of evidence with
which the country-and, l fear, some
times the town-policeman, who is
more anxious to make out a case for
himself and to convict somebody than
to see justice done, contrives to keep
his own blunder or oversight from
coming to light. AS a matter of fact,
as the reader knows, the police did not
find the shed empty" for the very
good reason that they had not looked
to see if any one were there, but had
let themselves be hustled off in pur-
suit of the supposed runaways.
So far as one could judge from the
newspaper report, no suspicion that
the police had been sent off on a wild:
goose chase had occurred to them.
They accounted for the fact that they
had been unable to find any trace of
the four men or of the trap by the
theory that the conspirators, suspect
ing that they had been betrayed, had
driven short distance away, and had
then returned to the shed to be re-
venged upon the betrayer. This the
ory was supported by the circumstance
that the dead bodies of person whom
the police apparently took to be the
informer, as we'll as of the constable
in whose charge he had been left, were
found lying together within the shed
No mention was made in any newspa.
per report of the fact that, though
dressed as a man, the dead informer
was in reality a woman; so it is to be
presumed that the police had some rea-
son for wishing the secret of the in
formers sex to be suppressed.
Mr.. Hall, though scoundrel, was,
I am bound to confess, a hospitable
scoundrel, and made the three of US
Number Four, Number Six and myself
(the so-called Number Severn, who
with himself now constituted the coun-
cil-very comfortable during our en-
forced stay at Heath Cottage, as his
home was named. 1t was two-storied
house, but Hall had transformed the
space Immediately under the roof into
an eccentric, but by no means uncosy,
apartment, which reminded me of q
cross between barn loft and a bill
liard-room.
ITO Be Continued: