The Huttig news., 1913-01-18

roar. But when this especial room was reached, It was found locked and on the door paper pinned up, on which these words were written: Gone to New York Will be back at 6.30i Words that recalled circumstance to the janitor He had seen the gentle man go out an hour before. This ter minated all inquiry in this direction though some few of the excited throne were for battering down this door just as they had the other one. But they were overruled by the janitor. who saw no use in such wholesale destruc. ton, and presently the arrival of the police restored order and limited the inquiry to the rear building, where it undoubtedly belonged.
 MT. Gryee,' (here Sweetwater laid by his notes that he might address the old gentleman more directly), T was with the boys when they made their first official investigation. This is why you can rely upon the facts as here given. l followed the inyestiga. ton closely and missed nothing which could in any way throw light on the case. It was mysterious one from the first, and lost nothing by further inquiry into the details.
 The first fact to startle us as we made our way up through the crowd which blocked halls and staircases was this: doctor had been found and, though he had been forbidden to make more than a cursory examina- tion of the body till the coroner came. he had not hesitated to declare after his first look, that the wound had not been made by bullet but by some sharp and slender weapon thrust home by powerful hand (You mark that, Mr. Gryce.) As this seemed jm- possible In face of the fact that the door had been found buttoned on the inside, We did not give much credit to his opinion and began our work under the obvious theory of an accidental discharge of some gun from one of the windows across the court But the doctor was nearer right than We SUD- posed. When the coroner came to look into the matter, he discovered that the wound was not only too snall to have been made by the ordinary bullet, but that there was no bullet to be found In the woman's body or any where else Her heart had been reached by thrust and not by shot from a gun. Mr Gryce, havn you not heard a startling repetition of this report In case nearer at hand?
 up three flights from the court, with no communication with the ad- joining rooms save through a door guarded on both sides by heavy pieces of furniture no one person could ham, dle, the hall door buttoned on the in- side, and the fire escape some fifteen feet to the left, this room of death ap- peared to be as removed from the ap- proach of a murderous outsider as the spot in the writingreom of the Gler- mont where Miss Challoner fell.
 Otherwise, the place presented the greatest contrast possible to thct
 scene of splendor and comfort. I ha l
 not entered the Clermont at that time. and no such comparison could haN 9 struck my mind. But l have thought of it since. and you, with your eXperi- enee, will not find it difficult to pie ture the room where this poor wom- an lived and worked. Bare walls. with just newspaper illustration pinned up here and there, bed-tragieallY occupied at this moment-a kitchen stove on which boiler, half-Gllcd with steaming clothes still bubbled and foamed--an old burean--a large pine wardrobe against an inner door which we later found to have been some chairs-and most pronounced of all. because of it's position directly be- fore the window, pine bench support ing a wash-tub of the old sort.
 "As it was here the woman fell, this tub naturally received the closest ex- animation. A board projected from its further side. whither it had evi- dently been pushed by the weight of her falling body; and from it's top hung wet cloth, marking with it's lugubrious drip on the boards be- meath the first heavy moments of si- lence which is the natural accompani- ment of so serious a survey. On the floor to the right lay half-used cake of soap just as it had slipped from her hand.~Fhe window was closed, for the temperature was at the freezing point. but it had been found up. and it was put up now 10 show the height at which it had then stood. As we all took our look at the house wall oppo- site, sound of shouting came up from below A dozen children were sliding on barrel slaves down slope of heaped-up snow. They had been engaged in this sport all the afternoon and were our witnesses later that no one had made a hazardous escape by means of the ladder Of the fire escape, running, as l have said at an almost ole distance towards the left.
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