Los Angeles herald., 1905-06-11
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ber roorns Premonition Of evil had
taken possession Of him ana ne wan
dered about restless under its prompt
ings. Finally he sought out Dodge
told him what he had observed and
that he feared she might nave oeeh
taken Ill alone. Imbued with ION
concern, Dodge consented to snare tne
responsibility of going through her
apartment. They went to the landlord
explained their fears, and not having
duplicate key he permitted them 10
break open the door.
What a sight met their eyes! she
Law almost at their feet in pool OF
blood. 1t was as IL she had followed
some one to the door and he had
turned on the threshold and shot her.
The ball had passed directly through
her heart. and she lay before them, her
dead face cleaning through her black
hair and the soft folds of her white
robe covering her.
Tom told me in that terrible moment
an uncanny thought occurred to him
and he could never erase 1t from his
mind. The picture Searles had painted
of her, vivid with youth and the glory
of red poppies everywhere about her,
flashed before him. Then it faded, and
he saw the white rugs beneath her and
her white drapery spattered with her
blood and the wound over her heart
like crushed red flower Had she
fallen among the poppies? In that In
stant he saw the beginning and the
end.
Toms grief was great. He used all
his influence to have her death
avenged. She had no relatives to in
terest themselves, but her friends, no.
tably Tom, Searles and Dodge, offered
a reward for the detection of the muir
derer. The state conducted the search
with diligence for a time, but at length
when it became evident to the police
that there was not a single clew for
them to work upon, the affair was
shelved with the thousand and one un-
solved mysteries of the great city.
No one had seen her return, no one
knew where she had been, no one had
been seen to enter or leave the place,
not a disturbing sound had been heard,
the murderer had left not a single clew
to his identity, and every one aban-
doned conjecture as useless However,
the three stanch friends of the dead
woman, Tom, Searles and Dodge, never
gave it up. Tom assured me again
and again that they believed the as
sassin woud eventually confess or be
brought to justice. Their devotion to
the woman had separated them when
she lived, but now mutual sense
of loss seemed 70 unite them. Tom and
Searles especially were constantly to-
gether. They came often to my studio
and at first the tragedy was the one
theme of conversation, then as time
passed on that subject receded to be-
come a thing thought of, but to which
they seldom referred.
During the month preceding the
murder and following the affair of the
portrait Tom had been often to visit
me. and we had discussed eXhaustively
the singular PERCEPTION that had en-
abled me to see and put in black and
white the face of his first love. Neither
of us was interested in psychological
phenomena and had never witnessed or
experienced anything that pertained to
the occult. Now the subject began to
interest us deeply. / begged him for
the present to say nothing of our ex-
perience and, he agreeing to secrecy, 1
consented to several experiments that
were most successful. I argued that
his mind and my own might be in un-
usual accord, and if 1 should attempt
to portray the thoughts of some one