CHAPTER XXVII.
"THE LITTLE BUSY BEE" ENLIGHTENS THE PUBLIC.
"Special and exclusive information has just reached us of
_A Remarkable and Ghastly Murder_
in the North of London, and we hasten to lay the particulars beforethe public. It will be fresh in the recollection of our readers thatin our Tuesday's editions we drew attention to a blind thoroughfare inthat neighbourhood, known as Catchpole Square, to which the onlyaccess is through a hooded passage, bearing the ominous andsignificant designation of Deadman's Court. On that morning a poorwoman, accompanied by her little daughter, whose pallid face andemaciated appearance evoked general sympathy, made an application tothe magistrate at the Bishop Street Police Court respecting themysterious disappearance of her husband, Mr. Abel Death. It appearsthat this man was a clerk in the employ of Mr. Samuel Boyd, ofCatchpole Square, and that on Friday evening last he was summarilydischarged by his employer. He was in needy circumstances and he camehome to his lodgings in a very desponding frame of mind, for the lossof his situation spelt ruin to his family. In this desperate strait heleft his wife at between nine and ten o'clock on the same night, withthe intention, as she stated, of making an appeal to Mr. Boyd to takehim back into his service. From that hour to this nothing has beenheard of him. Neither has anything been heard of Mr. Samuel Boyd, who,it may be premised, is supposed to be a man of great wealth, and isdescribed by some of his neighbours as a money-lender, by others as amiser. Credence is given to the latter description by the fact that helived quite alone, and kept no servants in his house, such domesticservices as he required being performed by a charwoman who attendedonly when she was sent for.
"Mrs. Death's application at the police court having been made publicthrough the medium of our columns it was a reasonable presumption thatit would have come to the notice of Mr. Samuel Boyd, and that he wouldhave sent a communication either to the distracted wife or to thenewspapers, stating if Abel Death visited him on Friday night, and ifso, at what hour he left. But Mr. Boyd made no sign. The woman saidthat she had been several times to the house in Catchpole Square, andhad received no response to her knocking at the street door. Nothingwas seen of either of the men, and it is probable that nothing wouldhave been known for a considerable time had it not been for the boldaction taken by a valued member of our staff, to whose love ofadventure we have been frequently indebted.
"We may state at once that this gentleman acted entirely upon his owninitiative, and that we accept the full responsibility of hisproceedings, and are prepared to defend them. It may be objected insome quarters that he took upon himself duties which did not fallwithin his province. We will not at present argue the point. There wasa dark mystery; there were rumours of foul play; hidden from publicgaze stood a house which contained the evidence of
_A Terrible Tragedy;_
futile endeavours had been made to obtain entrance into this house;the police did not act, probably because they had no authority to act.What followed? That the press stepped in, and by a bold stroke
_Laid a Foul Crime Bare_.
"History records how officers high in command on land and sea, but notinvested with complete authority, have disobeyed orders and won greatvictories. Success justified them. Success justifies us.
"We come now to details.
"In his endeavour to ascertain whether a search of Mr. Samuel Boyd'shouse would afford a clue to the silence of its proprietor and to thedisappearance of Abel Death, our reporter ran the risk of beingarrested for burglary. Except that he did not get in by the front doorwe do not propose just now to disclose how he obtained an entranceinto the open space at the back; sufficient that he did obtain it, andthat at ten o'clock this morning he found himself in an enclosed yardat the rear of the house. The merest examination of this part of thepremises satisfied him that some person, probably a more experiencedburglar, had been before him. The back door was locked and bolted, buta window sill and the panes of glass above had been smashed in, andthere were signs that the person who had done this had entered thehouse through the window. To reach the sill the first burglar hadstood upon a rickety bench which had apparently given way beneath him.Our reporter managed to put this together in a sufficiently firmmanner to afford him a temporary foothold. Then, with an upwardspring, he got his hands upon the sill, and scrambled through thewindow into a small unfurnished room. He did not effect this violententrance without noise, but there were no indications that hismovements had disturbed any person in the house, which was silent asthe grave. His next task was to examine the rooms, all the doors ofwhich were unlocked. He proceeded with great caution, and at lengthreached an apartment which, from the fact of its containing a writingtable, desk, and safe, he concluded was the office in which Mr. Boydconducted his business affairs, although, from the singular collectionof articles scattered about, it might have been the shop of a dealerin miscellaneous goods, comprising as they did several dozens of wine,old tapestry and armour, pictures, valuable china, a grand piano, and,strangest of all, the wax figure of a Chinaman which might have comestraight from Madame Tussaud's exhibition. Our reporter confesses to afeeling of alarm when he first saw this figure, the back of which wastowards him, and, while it did not lessen his surprise, it was withrelief he ascertained its real nature. Up to this point, however,strange as were the objects which met his eyes, he had seen nothing towarrant his breaking into the house. The safe was locked, and therewas no appearance of its having been tampered with; with the exceptionof the broken window at the back of the house, there were no signs ofdisorder in any part of it, and he began to doubt the wisdom of hisproceedings. He was not to remain long in doubt; he was on thethreshold of
_An Appalling Discovery_.
"There are three doors in the apartment in which he stood. One leadingto the passage, one on the left, and one on the right. This last dooropened into a bedroom, which he entered. Seeing the form of a humanbeing in the bed he retreated, uncertain how to act. Then he calledsoftly, and receiving no answer spoke in a louder tone, and stillreceived no answer. Mustering up courage he approached the bed,stepping very gently, and laid his hand on the man's shoulder. Thesilence continuing he turned down the bedclothes. The man was dead!
"In view of the proceedings he had determined to take our reporterlast night obtained from a policeman a personal description of Mr.Samuel Boyd, and he had no difficulty in identifying the features ofthe dead man. They were those of Abel Death's employer, and fromcertain marks on his throat he came to the conclusion that Mr. Boydhad been murdered by strangulation. The position of the furniture didnot denote that a struggle had taken place on the floor of thebedroom, and the reasonable conclusion is that Mr. Boyd had beenstrangled in his sleep. After the deed was done the murderer must havecomposed the limbs of his victim, and arranged the bedclothes over thebody, in order, probably, to make it appear that Mr. Boyd had died anatural death. The shortsightedness of this proceeding is a singularfeature in this ruthless crime, for it is scarcely possible that themarks on his throat could escape detection, or that the strangulationcould have been effected without some violent efforts on the part ofthe victim to save himself, whereby the bedclothes must have beentossed about.
"The silence of Mr. Samuel Boyd on the subject of the disappearance ofAbel Death is now accounted for; the disappearance of Abel Death hasyet to be explained. We make no comment. From this hour the matter isin the hands of the police, who will doubtless set all the machineryof Scotland Yard in motion to discover the murderer and bring him tojustice.
"A circumstance remains to be mentioned which may furnish a clue.Before he left the house to give information to the police ourreporter's attention was attracted by certain dark stains on the floorof the bedroom and the office. They bear the appearance of having beenmade by a man's feet. Our reporter traced these dark stains from theoffice into the passage, and from the passage down a stai
rcase leadingto the small room which our reporter first entered through the brokenwindow. There they end. The mystery is deepened by the fact that thereare no marks of blood on the clothes of the bed in which the murderedman lies. Our reporter scraped off a portion of the stains, which wehave placed in the hands of an experienced analyst, in order toascertain whether they are stains of human blood.
"An important question, yet to be decided, is, when the murder wascommitted. Our reporter is of the opinion that it was perpetratedseveral days ago. The evidence of doctors will be of value here. Weunderstand that no person in the neighbourhood of Catchpole Square hasseen Mr. Boyd since last Friday evening. From Mrs. Death's evidence atthe Bishop Street Police Court we gather that her husband has not beenseen since that day. The presumption is that the murder was committedon Friday night. Much depends upon the discovery of Abel Death andupon the explanation he will be able to give of his movements. It isunderstood that Mr. Boyd leaves one son, his only child, who is now inLondon.
"We shall continue to issue editions of 'The Little Busy Bee' untilmidnight, in which further particulars will be given of this strangeand most mysterious murder."