LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume II, Issue 114, 12 October 1874, Page 3

LITERATURE.

AN OLD LAWYER’S STORY,

A great many years ago, while I was comparatively a young man, ami still unmarried,, I resided in a certain city of Pennsylvania, and enjoyed the reputation of being the cleverest lawyer ever known there. It is not for me to say the praise was merited, but I certainly found myself able to discover loop-holes of escape for those whom 1 defended, which surprised even my fellowlawyers. I possessed by nature those qualities which would have made an excellent detective, and was a thorough student of the law. There was no mystery about it, but among the more ignorant classes 1 gained a reputation for more than human knowledge. Perhaps it was not polite' for them to say that the devil helped, but they did. However, I began to tell you about Mdme Matteau.

She was an old lady, who owned a little house in the suburbs of the city. She her self was of American birth, but her husband had been a Frenchman, and so the title Madame had been bestowed upon her. She was now a widow, and her daughter Gabrielle and son Henry were her only living relatives. Her income was but slender, and she eked it out by taking a feAV boarders, generally steady old people who had known her for many years.. These respected and liked her, but the city generally had a prejudice against her. There had been two sudden deaths in the house. Each time the victim was a stranger who came at night, and was found dead in his bed in the morning. Each time the jury was divided —some believing that strangulation was the cause of death, some that the men had died in a fit.

It was a terrible thing that two such deaths should have occurred beneath her roof. Madame’s friends pitied her. The rest of the little world hinted that these were strangers, and their trunks, with no one knew what amount of property, remained in Madame’s possession. No one said she was a murderess, but .every one said it was “ very strange,” in an odd tone, and no one since that second death had visited Madame Matteau.

1 myself—perhaps because I admired her a great deal, and her daughter much more—had always insisted that it was merely a coincidence, and that in a world in which apoplexy and heart disease were so common, it was no such marvel that two men should have met sudden deaths in the same house. But my faith in this theory was shaken when one morning it was published over the city that another transient boarder had been found dead in Madame Matteau’s house, and that she was arrested on suspicion of having murdered him, his watch and chain having been found in her possession. Before I had recovered from the shock of this terrible piece of news a message came to me from Madame Matteau. She desired to see me. Of course I went to her at once. She had been taken to prison, and I found her iii a little room with a barred window, and an insufficient fire upon the hearth. The logs had burnt in two upon the Bandirons, and the white ashes were scattered over’ the hearth. Almost in them sat Madame Matteau, in her widow’s dress of sombre black. She was chilly with grief and excitement, and had drawn her chair close to the the. She shook violently from head to foot, and her face was deadly pale as she turned it toward me and held out her hand. ‘ Oh, thank heaven, you have come ! she said: ‘ I know you can save me. Is it nut horrible? How could I kill a man ? Why should I? Why do people come to my house to die ? To die horribly, with black faces and starting eyes, as if some one had

choked them ? Ugh ! and he was a pretty young man the night before. Oh, good Heaven, how horrible !’

I sat down beside her. I took her hand,

‘ Madame Matteau,’ I said, ‘ be calm ; collect yourself. As your lawyer I must know all. Tell me, from first to last, what happened—what was said, what was done. If you—’

I paused ; her black eyes had flashed upon me. I could not ask her whether she had any confession to make. I saw that she had not, unless she was the best actress who ever lived. Madame Matteau was innocent of any crime.

‘lf you have any suspicions,’ I added, ‘ tell them all to me. ’

‘There is no one to suspect,’ sobbed the poor woman. *ln the house were Gabrielle, my daughter, whom you have seen; old Hannah, the cook; Mr and Mrs Beauchamp, friends of my poor, dear husband in his boyhood—the best, kindest people; Mr Gray, a very old man, too feeble to leave the house ; poor, deformed Miss Norman, and the librarian, Mr Bassford. None of these would murder a mouse. See how kind they are ; they remain in my house ; they send me word that they have no doubt of me. Oh, how can anybody ?’ ‘And this man who ’ I began. ‘Yes,’ said Madame Matteau, ‘ I will tell you ; he was fair, young, handsomely dressed; he asked Mr Bassford at the depot if ho knew anyone who could accommodate him. Mr Bassford brought him home. My only empty room was the one in which those other two strangers died. I could not bear to put him there, but Mr Bassford laughed at me. We bad supper afterward. He talked a long time to Gabrielle. It was late when he retired—late for a quiet household. Hannah had made his fire. She came and told us that she had done so. He said good night. ‘ After he had gone we found he had left his watch on the table. He wore it only with a bunch of seals, and he had been setting it by the clock, and showing it to us as something very handsome. I knocked at his door to restore it to him. He had not left us but fifteen minutes before ; but he must have been asleep already, for he made no answer. So I kept it for the night, and wore it down to breakfast next morning. As I came down I met a gentleman in the hall. He inquired for Mr Glen. That was the new comer’s name. I sent Hannah to wake him. She could not do so, and grew alarmed. She had a key that would open the door, and used it. The next thing I knew we were all in the room and the windows were wide open, and the doctor had been sent for; and the young man who had called was screaming that his brother had been choked to death ; and then there was an inquest, and they arrested me. The brother said the first thing he noticed was that I wore Mr Glen’s watch and seals. I had forgotten it in my terror. ’ ‘So Hannah had a key to the room ?’ I said.

‘Yes; at least it was a key that would open the it. It was the key to Mr Bassford’s door. She knocked the other one out with a stick and put that in,’ ‘ The people who were there on the night were your boarders when the other men were found dead ?’ I asked. ‘ Oh, yes. ’ ‘ And Hannah was there also ?’ ‘ All my married life Hannah has lived with me. ’ ‘ Your daughter overseers your household in your absence ?’ ‘Yes, poor child, with Hannah’s help.’ I thought a little, ‘ Madame, ’ I said, ‘ there is some strange mystery in this affair. I do not despair of proving to all the world your entire innocence. Meanwhile, be as calm as possible, and endeavour to remember everything connected with the sudden deaths that have occurred in your house. The incident that seems the least important may really be of the most immense value.’

So I left and went home. Strange enough on the way I met the doctor who had been called in. He was a dull, heavy sort of a person, considerably given to beer-drinking; and my opinion of his ability was not very great. However, I questioned him on the subject, and he replied : ‘ Well, you see. I don’t say the old woman murdered him. If she did, I should say it was by sitting on him, or smothering him with the bolsters. I suppose the cause of his death was asphyxia. Well, then, what is asphyxia ? Why, too little breath to keep one living. He died because he was short of breath. I wash my hands of that matter. Only there’s the watch ; that looks dark. ’

I had learned nothing from the doctor. The coroner lived near me. His jury had been twelve of the most ignorant men in the town. This is all he told me :

‘He was smothered, that man was ; so were the other two. Men don’t smother themselves. We made it inscrutable Providence t’other time. We make it murder this time. That there watch, you know.’ Thus, without any new light, I went home and formed my plans. There was but one way in which to penetrate the mystery. I must enter the house; I must see the people there; I must penetrate to the room in which these men had died so suddenly, and I must not be known in my real character. That Madame Matteau was innocent I fully believed, but that some one beneath her roof was guilty I made no doubt. It might be the librarian, Mr Bassford, whose key fitted the dead man’s door. It was possible; but no, I would not harbor a mad superstition. There could be no supernatural power beneath which human beings drooped and died. Death as it came to us was mystery enough. What had been said to me by a woman, who would have been a spiritualist had she lived to-day, was a mere absurdity. ‘ I believe that there is some horrible unseen thing in the room,’ she had said, ‘ some awful shapeless spirit, and when it is locked in with its victim murders him. Let others believe what they will, I believe that. ’ The words haunted me, but I laughed at them, of course. Whatever it was, I would try to know. I had a plan. At dusk that day I went into my bedroom myself. I came out a strange man. I wore a white wig, a pair of green goggles, and an overcoat, the tails of which reached to my boots. I had a mulller about my throat, and a little hunch on one of my shoulders. I carried a thick cai e, and stooped a good deal as I walked. In my hand I carried a carpet bag, and in my bosom a pair of pistols well loaded. As 1 passed out into the street, the early moon was just rising; she lit me on my way to the door of -Madame Matteau s house. (To he continued.)