THE MATLOCK MYSTERY.

Evening Star, Issue 8530, 1 June 1891, Page 3

THE MATLOCK MYSTERY.

[From Ocb Spkial Cobmspondkst.) London, April 10. A murder mystery of a curious and altogether unprecedented description is at present perplexing the Midlands and Scotland Yard. The scene of the supposed orime was Matlock, the viotim an old lady of over seventy years of age, and the motive unknown. The outrage took place some four weeks ago in Mrs Morrall's own house, the only other occupant at the time being her eighty-year-old husband. '' His evidence, whioh should be all important, throws absolutely no light on the case. According to his own account, he went up stairß to bed at about nine, and left his wife sitting by the kitchen fire and reading the paper. Soon after he got into bed he heard a loud explosion, followed by one or two others that were less violent. When he came down stairs he found his wife with a hideous wound in her face and quite dead. The wound proved to have been inflicted by the disoharge of some firearms loaded with heavy small shot, and fired through a hole in the kitchen window. Mr Morrall may be supposed to have paid small heed to these particulars at first, for, when he came back with the neighbors, he seemed to be distinctly under the impression that the explosion had taken place in the fireplace, or in the kitchen boiler, and he examined both with some care. It is strange chat he should not have seen enough of the fireplace before he summoned the neighbors to show him that there was nothing to discover there. There was scarcely any evidence of the intention to commit a robbery. Nothing was missing from the house. The box of dominoes, and the kitchen poker used in forcing it open, both of whioh lay on the table in a neighboring room, were evidently put there as a mere blind by the murderer. Mr Morrall says he heard a shuffling of feet, but there is nothing to show that the murderer made any serious examination of the premises for purposes of plunder. If he had come with that design, he would never have drawn attention to his presence by shooting this aged woman. He would merely have.gagged and bound her, and, i ifled the place at his ease. Besides, no one heard her cry out. Her assailant must, therefore, have shot her in the very wan tonneas of murderous malice, with the certainty of defeating his own purpose, and, moreover, of enormously increasing his risks of detection. It is a most mysterious case, and every known circumstance of it adds to the mystery. Nothing is explained. The Bhots were fired through the window, for some of them were found embedded in a door on the opposite side of the room. Yet the window had been broken from the inside. A charwoman who left the house at about eight on the night of the murder said that no window was broken when she left. Some of the injuries seemed to show that an attempt had been made to take the woman's life by other means, or perhaps to destroy the body after death. Her stockings were burnt, and her knees showed marks of burning. 1j teem* clear that the murder was not committed in the course of an attempted robbery, and that the murderer was able to break the kitchen window from the inside before he went outside to fire the fatal shot. No weapon has been found, and noDe was kept in ihe house. At present justice stands completely baffled iu presence of all the evidences of a foul crime."