The Big Bow Mystery

to soften "Suicide" into "Mystery." The people arrested were a nondescript collection of tramps. Most of them had committed other offenses for which the police had not arreste

for each new opening in

ad been released almost immediately, being merely subpoenaed to appear at the inquest. In an interview which he accorded to the representative of a Liverpool paper the same afternoon, he stated that he put his arrest down entirely to the enmity and rancor entertained toward him by the police throughout the country. He had come to Liverpool to trace the movements of a friend about whom he was very uneasy, and he was making anxious inquiries at the docks to discover at what times steamers left for America, when the detectives stationed there in accordance with instructions from headquarters had arrested him as a suspicious-looking character. "Though," said Tom, "they must very well have known my phiz, as I have been sketched and caricatured all over the shop. When I told them who I was they had the decency

r reported himself as facetiously observing,

o excuse me. I am so upset about my friend. I'm afraid he has left England, and I have to make inquiries; and now there's poor Constant g

re billed to preside at a great meeting of clerks at St. James' Hal

re, and then the news of poor Constant's end drove it out of my head. What a nuisanc

hose face was very pale below the black mane brushed back from his fine forehead-gave his evidence in low, sympathetic tones. He had known the deceased for over a year, coming constantly across him in their common political and social work, and had found the furnished rooms for him in Glover Street at his own request, they just being to let when Constant resolved to leave his rooms at Oxford House in Bethnal Green and to share the actual life of the people. The locality suited the deceased, as being near the People's Palace. He respected and admired the deceased, whose genuine goodne

Did the news

new my friend, and was keenly sym

show the jury the l

where it has got to. If you, sir, think it releva

the toothache

not, though he told me it had dis

t time did y

About twen

d what did

nquiries. Then I returned, and told my landlady I sho

was the last you s

ith emotion

was he when

ly concerned a

e you saw nothing

ke: No

id you leave the hou

t five and twenty

sure that you shu

, I even slipped the bolt of the big lock, which was usually tied b

in tragic-comic indifference to the radical cure that had been effected. Her account of the last hours of the deceased tallied with Mortlake's, only that she feared Mortlake was quarreling with him over something in the letter that came by the nine o'clock po

somebody else? (Sensation, of which

his sweetish voice: "Be hextra sure to wake me at a quarter to

an col

nd did you

king down): Oh, my

ompose yourself. I mean

lud, and have always gave satisfaction; and Mr. Mortlake, he wouldn't ha' rec

, of course. You

y making a rapid inventory of the contents of the room, and taking notes of the precise position and condition of the body before anything was disturbed by the arrival of gapers or bunglers; how she had pointed out to him that both the windows were firmly bolted to keep out the cold night air; how, having noted this down with a puzzled, pitying shake of the head, he had opened the window to summon the police, and espied in the fog one Denzil Cantercot, whom he called and told to run to the nearest police-station and ask them to send on an inspector and a surgeon. How they both remained in the room till the police arrived, Grodman pondering deeply the while and making notes every now and again, as fresh points occurred to h

was at the top of the door. When she first let lodgings, her reasons for which she seemed anxious to publish, there had only been a bolt, but a suspicious lodger, she would not call him a gentleman, had complained th

Was deceased

as a very nice ge

id he seem afraid

. (Laughter.) I told him to be careful. I told him

sumed her seat,

shall have an opportunity o

tion merely on the strength of it. Mr. Grodman stated that the body was still warm when he found it. He thought that death was quite recent. The door he had had to burst was bolted as well as locked. He confirmed Mrs. Drabdump's statement about the windows; the chimney was very narrow. The cut looked as if done by a razor. There was no instrument lying a

uffering from writer's cramp, when Mr. Grodman called to him from the window of No. 11 and asked him to run for the police. No, he did not run; he was a philosopher. (Laughter.) He

oor. A purse full of gold was on the dressing-table beside a big book. A hip-bath with cold water stood beside the bed, over which was a hanging bookcase. There was a large wardrobe against the wall next to the door. The chimney was very narrow. There were two windows, one bolted. It was about 18 feet to the pavement. There was no way of climbing up. No one could possibly have got out of the room, and t

atement, saving only that he had gone w

wound, which was a deep one, was 5-1/2 inches from right to left across the throat to a point under the left ear. The upper portion of the windpipe was severed, and likewise the jugular vein. The muscular coating of the carotid artery was divided. There was a slight cut, as if in continuation of the wound, on the thumb of the left hand. The hands were clasped underneath the head. There was no blood on the right hand. The wound could not

n offer no suggestion as to how the inflicter of the wound got in or out. Extremely improba

within his beat. He saw or heard nothing suspicious. The fog was never very dense, though nasty to the throat. He h

dy to 11 Glover Street to view the house and the bedroom of the dece