The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1905-09-13

other things and ADMIRED tue guns.
Nevertheless, I noticed three loaded
reviewers on the pieces of furniture az
| if this man lived in constant dread OF o..
attack.
II went to see Sir John Rowell
many times after that; then for some
time 1 did not go. We had become sac-
customed to his presence; he had De-
come Indifferent to us.
Killed in the Night.
"A whole year slipped away. Then,
one morning, toward the end OF NO,
vember, my servant awoke me with
the announcement that Sir John RoweH
| had been assassinated in the night.
"a half hour later I entered the
Englishman's house, with the central
commissary and the captain of police.
The servant, lost in despair, was weep
| ing at the door. / suspected him at
| first, but afterward found that he was
| innocent.
''The guilty one was never found. -
"Upon entering Sir Johns drawing
room, perceived his herculean body
stretched out upon its back-dead-h
the middle of the room. His waist
coat was torn, a sleeve was hanging,
and it was evident that terrible
struggle had taken place. =
.sThe Englishman had been stran:5:
gled! His frightfully black and
swollen face seemed to express an aW-
| full fear; he held something between
his set teeth; and his neck, pierced
with five holes, apparently with a
pointed iron, was covered with blood.
"a doctor Joined us. He examined
closely the prints of fingers in the
flesh, and pronounced these strange
words:
"'One would think he had been
strangled by skeleton
"a SILVER ran down my spine and l
cast my eyes to the place on the wall
where 1 had seen the horrible torn-off
hand. 1t was gone! The chain was
broken and dangling.
"Then / bent over the dead man and
found in his mouth a piece Of one of
the fingers Of the missing hand, cut
off, or rather sawed off by the English
mans teeth, exactly at the second joint.
''Then they tried to collect evidence.
They could find nothing. No door had
! been forced, no window opened, or
piece of furniture moved. The two
watch-dogs on the premises had not
been aroused.
"Here, ia few words. is the depo-
sition of the servant:
"For month his master had seemed
faaiittattteed. lie hs.S5 received many letters
which he had burned Immediately.
Often, taking a whip, he had strucI
in fury, this dried hand, fastened to
the wall.
| ale had retired late and shut him
self in with care. He always carried
arms. OFTEN in the night he talked
out loudly, as though fighting with
some one. On that night, however,
there had been no noise, and it was
only on coming to open the windows
that the servant had found Sir John
assassinated.
zone night three months after the
crime, had a frightful nightmare. Ii
seemed to me that I saw that hand,
that horrible hand, running like a
scorpion along my curtains and my
walls. Three times 1 awoke in af-
| fright; three times / fell asleep and
again saw that hideous relic galloping
about my room, moving its fingers like
paws.
''The next day they brought it to
me, found in the cemetery upon the
tomb where Sir John Rowell was in
| terred-for they had not been able to
find his family. The index finger was
missing.
This, ladies, is my story. I know
no more about it.
The ladies were terrified, pale and
shivering. One of them cried:
But that is not the end, for there
was no explanation! We can not sleep
if you do not tell us what was your
idea or the reason of it all"
! The magistrate smiled with severity.
and answered:
"Oh! certainly ladies'; but it will
spoil all your terrible dreams. l sim
ply think that the legitimate pro-
prietor of the hand was not dead ana
that he came for it with the one that
remained to him. But I was never
able to find out how he did it. 1t was
one kind of revenge"