The sun., 1907-11-24
WOMAN ENDS DOUBLE LIFE
Continued from First Page.

1
when the Neptune engine and truck com.
pantes OF the village fire department arrives
on the scene.
=. A ladder was quickly run up to the front
| window and the firemen climbed up AND
helped Mary Cassell, the cook, TO get dOwr
to the ground. The woman told them
that Sarah Prendergast, a second girl
| was In her room on the third floor at the
back OF the house. cut on from escape by
smoke. The hremen went around 90 the
back and took the second girl down from
| the window.
Hurry back and get MFR. and Mrs. Smith,
| cried one of the servants. They are still
ia there. and | heard a shot. Something
dreadful may have happened
The hremen climbed up to the second
story on their ladder and muftiing their
| faces in their jackets climbed into the
| front room on the right side OF the porch.
! Fireman Bogue was the first in the room.
He went grOping through the smoke
and stumbled against the bed. In falling
his hands pumped on warm, bare flesh.
He grOped and his fingers dipped into blood.
Bogue called frantically to his companions.
They came and carried the body OF Mrs.
and to the home Of Cesar YOung's widow
across the street.
They had found Mrs. Smith lying on an
unused bed in what was the guest chamber
| OF the house. She was clad only in her
nightgown, which was opened at the breast
and oil soaked from the lower hem UP half
| way to the throat ruffie. When they ex-
amined the woman's body by the light
OF lamp they saw a very small hole in
the left breast just over the heart. Sub
sequently, after the fire had been extin-
guished, doctors searched the bed and dis
covered that a 80 oalibre steel iacketed
bullet which had been fired from a Colts
automatic revolver, found lying on the
floor beside the bed, had penetrated Mrs.
Smiths body, cutting through the heart,
and had gone on through the bedding and
mattress upon which she lay to lodge against
the second mattress beneath.
After the firemen had brought out the
woman's body they went back to the second
bedroom across the hall from that in which
they had stumbled upon the woman. There
were two brass bedsteads in this room
standing close together opposite a bureau.
Both beds had been occupied. On the floor
between the outside bed and the bureau
they found the body Of the man lying
curled up on the floor with the head rest
ing against a sharp corner Of the bureau.
When they had removed the body Of
Nicholas Smith TO a neighbor's the firemen
and the doctors who had been called in at
tendance found a wound from a bullet,
similar to that which ended S.!sc life Of the
woman, passing under the left ear and
out through the face below the right eye.
The bullet that made the wound was sub
sequently picked up near the bureau.
Smith must have been shot while he
slept and in his death thrOes his body had
rolled from the bed the face striking
against the bureau edge and receiving a
sharp wound.
The mans body was almost cold Doc
tors who examined il said that death must
have come fully an hour before the tremen
broke into the house. Since Mrs. Smith
was seen by the watchman and the police
man Just minute before the second shot
was fired il was evident that after killing
her husband with the first shot. the sound
Of which had startled the watChman, Mrs.
Smith had waited until she saw the firemen
were going to break in before killing her
self
What the woman had done in the interim
the firemen discovered. When they reached
the house there was hot fire burning In the
basement just under the front paTlor win
dows. This blaze ate its way between the
outside clapboards and the inner lathing
OF the house from the basement straight
up to the two bedrooms, where the bodies
were found. Flames were creeping out
Of the walls above the bodies in each room
when the fremen climbed through the
windows.
After the fire had been extingushed an
investigation was made Of the cellar There
IL was found that two barrels one of auto
mobile cylinder oil and one of gasOlene
stood with taps opened near the front part
of the cellar. chain Of firewood and
twisted paper extended from the open
vents of these barrels out TO kndlinE
room near the forward part Of the bnse-
nlenJ ana ulfeCIiy Deneatn the front WIN
dows Of the parlOr. Mingled oil and gasO-
lene smeared the whole basement floor.
BY some freak the flames. which evil
IDENTIFY had been set in the middle of the
train Of tinder. had not run to the open
sPigots Of the oil and gasolene barrels,
else an explosion that would have wrecked
the house would have ensued.
Two things the investigators found up
stairs that pointed to the madness Of the
woman who had thus planned TO hide the
results OF her own lust for death. Across
the foot of1the bed i'm the guest room, which,
being clean and sweet. the twisted vanity
OF the woman had selected as a fitting
place TO die. rested a quaint old crocheted
sampler in frame. just where IL had been
taken down and placed by the hand OF
the woman before she lay down 20 die.
Love One Another" read the pink !
worsted letters Of the sampler
On the top OF a book on the table in the |
other bedroom the police found a note. |
and uneven in chirOgraphy, as if scribbled |
on the rough cover of the book. The note |
read:
DEAR MINNIE owe several sums 10 |
B. F. Company. Please pay them and cremate
me. They cut my hair on but my headaches
did not cease. | will be released in few
minutes. Yours lovingly, GRACE
Then at the bottom of the scrap Of paper.
written as il in after thought. this:
n. b. The fire will cover the deed
GRACE.
The cTazed woman. not reckoning in her
madness that the fire she designed TO wipe
)ut all traces of her nights work would
consume her message also. had doubtless
added this postscript after having gone
iOwn cellar in her night clothes, turned
IN the oil, set the train of fire and returned
% wait the moment when the flames should
appear before shooting herself.
Coroner Amos o. Squire was summoned
rom Ossining. He held an inquest with
,ut a jury in the afternoon. and after ex-
Imining the two servants and the police
nen who had detected the fire he gave it
Va his verdict that the woman had com
nitted the murder and suicide Sarah
the waiting maid. told the
JOrOner that she last saw Smith and his
wife at $50 on Friday evening They were
IN a couch in the sitting room. Smiths /
rms were about his wife and be was laugh
ng and whispering in her ear Neither OF
he servants had ever heard the man and
liz wife quarrel.
gardener who works among the resi-
ences in the district where the Smiths
wed told the Coroner that Mrs. Smith
ad him move the barrels OF oil and xasolene
ntO the cellar from an clubhouse on Friday |
fternoon. She had given as her reason |
er belief that they might freeze, ne said.
3. X. Smith. brother of.the dead man. |
Tho 10 In ~ pa lfinoona 81 -