The Halifax Comet. — 1903-04-04 (Halifax, West Yorkshire, England)

GERALD BISS. .. .  >:(4<*>l(- %;-***-1c >l< .  --Ic  "The head, back, and arms of the corpse are much bruised, and death clearly was due to strangulation. The throat is torn and lacerated, and round it are the clear marks of a pair of powerful hands. The doctor who was called in gives it as his opinion that the victim of this terrible tragedy must have been strangled from behind after a terrible struggle for life, taken unawares, and murdered by an immensely powerful man. " It is impossible to describe the horror and sensation caused by this shocking discovery, and it is at the moment the centre of interest. "The police hope shortly to apprehend the young man in the four-wheeler who deposited the black box, as the porter and the cloak room assistant are so clear in their descriptions, which tally. One sensational point is their common asseveration of a likeness between him and the murdered man. "Inspector Kendal, of Scotland Yard, is in charge of the case. Appended are descriptions of the murdered man and the man who left the black box at Victoria Station." And with growing repulsion, Roger read a minute and accurate description of himself. He sat fascinated as he followed the appalling details, sensationally set forth ; and then the paper dropped from his hands. The whole horror of his situation burst in upon him, and he felt like a man stunned by some awful blow delivered in the dark, or one coming to the consciousness of some horrid, vivid nightmare. The police were on his track that very instant ; and he was branded a murderer ! Only the moment before, he had been reviewing the miseries and humiliations of the last few weeks, hoping that he would find a way out of them, and looking into the future with a touch of optimism; and now the culmination of all. Now everything was shattered like a house of cards, and the awfulness of his position had increased beyond imagination. God help him, he felt; he was, indeed, in a dire dilemma. Slowly the events of the past month began to rise before him in panorama, and he followed the case step by step, building up the circumstantial evidence against himself— such an array of facts as had never been produced against a criminal in court, and would hang a hundred men. First and foremost, there was his imposture, his deliberate personation of the murdered man. Who would believe in its innocent inception ? There, in the cold light of common sense, was the reason, seemingly obvious, staring everybody in the face—the chance of an earldom and a great position, instead of namelessness and nothingness. Even if he could couple Scobell, whose motive was more obscure, with him as an accomplice, it would not materially improve his condition ; and it would appear to everyone, apart from the cutting logic of a clever counsel, that he, in his outcast state, and dire extremity, had preyed upon his good nature and had seen his chance of supplanting him in his heritage. He could not call a single witness to speak for him during those terrible days immediately preceding his discovery by Scobell, and damning facts would naturally be read into this gap of chronology.