The Press., 1915-08-11
A Mystery Being a Story of How a Murder Case Was
 Not Solved.
By DONALD cHAMBERLIN

t+4+++444.s+4a 4+4+++
 My telephone bell rang and. going to the instrument. took up the receiver.
 "Is that you. Thompson?"
 "Yes."
 "I'm Parker. 1 wish you to come down and stay in the house with me tonight. I'm alone and nervous"
 Certainly. old man. Whats the mat ter with your
 "l can't ask you to dinner, for haven't u servant in the house."
 "Well. I'll be over about 9 o'clock. Will that do?"
 Yes: much obliged"
 Parker was the junior partner in large jewelry firm and man who never shrank from any duty involving danger. Therefore l was surprised at his shrinking from sleeping in a house alone. He was widower without chil. dren. and though he lived in the house he had occupied with his wife. he took his meals at his club. hiring no servant except for day work. 1 fancied he must be i'll. or he would not have asked any one to sleep in the house with him.
 At 8 o'clock l rang his doorbell, and
 he admitted me himself. He appear ed neither III nor troubled. He led me into an apartment he used for Il smok. ing room. where he produced cigars. and we sat down for a smoke. l waited some time for him to tell me why he wished for some one to sleep in his
 house with him. but he did not. chat ting on ordinary topics until l rose to go to bed. Then asked him what had made him nervous.
 "There is story connected with 1t, and don't feel like telling it tonight he said We are all connected with some disagreeable episode and are apt to make too much of 1t. Doubtless in n few days or q few weeks 1 shall think nothing of the one in which 1 am con cerned. Why take up lot of time going over it with you, especially since 1t would be unpleasant for me to do so?"
 excused him and went to my room, having told him that must be up ear ly in the morning and of. for my time for going to business was 2 o'clock, while he did not need to do so till 0 o'clock. bade him good night, telling him that if he should be wakeful to come into my room for a chat. He said he expected to sleep soundly. and with that we parted.
 In the morning 1 went out, treading softly that 1 might not awaken my friend. and emerged from the front door before most persons were stirring. A milkman drove up at the time and carried a bottle of milk to rear door
 He looked at me. and 1 spoke to him.
 expressing surprise that he should leave milk at house where no meals
 were served, whereupon he told me that Mir Parker drank quart of milk every day at home.
 I called up Parker the same evening by telephone to ask him if he required my services again, but there was no response to the call thought nothing of this, for there was no one besides himself to answer, and presumed he was not at home Several days passed. and heard nothing from him. Then on taking up my morning paper 1 saw under large headlines a statement that he had been found murdered in his bed The man who left the milk at his back door. seeing that the bottles remained unemptied where he had left them. no tified neighbor, who broke into the house and found Parker stabbed to the heart. A loaded revolver was under his pillow that had not been used
 I .,tor f<d trnr ,a1f fnf fnl fr u,, to the house where the murder had been committed. On the way 1 met the
 mikman in company with police man. On seeing me the former said something to the policeman. which did not hear. and the two stopped be fore me.
 You're wanted at Inspector O'Con nors otfice." said the policeman.
 I'm going to the house of friend of mine who has been murdered. I'll call later at the inspectors office"
 You'll have to go with me now" was the reply.
 Then for the first time it dawned upon me that l was under arrest for Parker's murder; that he had been killed the night had slept at his house; that the milkman had seen me coming out the morning after the mur der had been committed. The situation flashed upon me and the danger in which It placed me. am sure turned pale. and felt my legs tremble be- neath me
 Not d human being knew of my hay Ing been called upon by Parker to stay at his house the night he was nur der,d had been seen leaving 1t early in the morning of the murder. There had not been another person in the house during the night than myself except the murderer. What a pity had not insisted on Parker's telling | me the story connected with his ob- jecting to sleep in the house alone! The circumstance attending my being there. together with the revolver found under his pillow. made it plain as the sun in heaven that he had feared some | enemy But all this was blank to the | rest of the world. An explanation made | in courtroom unsupported by sin | gle clew pointing in the same direc- ton would be set down as a fabrica. tion However since l had been a friend of Parker. since my reputation | was good. since could not see how | any motive on my part for the crime | .ould be adduced. hoped that common sense on the part of those by whom l would be judged would save me. Rut he case went to trial nevertheless.
 1t is astonishing how in such cases 70 much may be made of 50 little. Parker's wife before she married Par | Ter had been u flame of mine, but he | lad known all about 1t. and we had | ,ften spoken of it during his wife's lifetime. The prosecuting attorney got | lOld of this intimacy and built up on | t theory of motive for the murder. | it so plausibly that 1t had marked effect not only on the jury, but | ,n the spectators and those who fol. owed the trial in the newspapers.
 He pictured the volcano of jealousy