Democratic Sentinel, Volume 10, Number 2, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 February 1886 — THE COLONEL'S SECRET. [ARTICLE]

THE COLONEL'S SECRET.

A little more than two years ago, when the Jesse James gang and other organized bands of train robbers and desperadoes w ere being wiped out pretty rapidly throughout Missouri, I was still, notwithstanding years of conscientious study and ambitious dreams, nothing more than a locally popular stock-actor m St. Louis, with little prospect of a sudden, high-vaulting advancement in the profession. However, both Mabel and I were in fine spirits. At last she could fulfill her vow of resi ling cnee mure under the long-deso-lated roof-tiee of her family homestead before marrying, and I was soon to be the fortunate possessor of her hand, as I had long been of her heart. Mabel was not an actress, though her father, Colonel Dearborn, had made his fortune as a theatrical manager, and her earliest associations had been allied with the realities and traditions of the stage. Our marriage engagement had been a peculiar one. Five years previously, Colonel Dearborn’s elegant country-seat, occupying a commanding but isolated position on the Iron Mountain Railroad, had, during the family’s temporary absence, been attacked, sacked and disfigured by mounted robbers, presumably of the James band. The desperadoes for the time being had full swing, and the communities thereabout were wholly terrorized.

Exasperated at the failure of the authorities to suppress the outlaws and protect law-abiding citizens, the old Colonel had but once revisited Glenwood, ns the place was called, and then taken up his residence in St. Louis, there to remain until more settled times. He was accompanied by Mabel, his motherless child, then a lovely girl of sixteen, and by his sister, a maiden lady of uncertain age, who had also been an actress of prominence in the old days of Ben Debar’s New Orleans and St. Louis management. Mabel’s mother had died in bringing her into the world, and this lady, Miss Winslow, had nobly and conscientiously filled the maternal place. Colonel Dearborn had known me from my childhood, both my father and mother having filled professional positions under his management. He now welcomed me as a visitor to his city home. I was soon on terms of intimacy with the transplanted household. The latter was further increased about this time by the arrival of the Colonel’s nephew, Clifford Wharton, a young, strolling actor of about my own age, but of cloudy and presumably disreputable antecedents, from somewhere along the Arkansas border.

But the old manager’s cherished hope of at last ending his days in the peace and seclusion of his beloved Glenwood was cut short by an interference as seldom provided for as it is vaguely feared. Sudden death by an apoplectic stroke carried him off just as the moral atmosphere of the robber-infested interior was clearing up, and he was beginning to think of returning to his estate. As a near friend, I was hastily summoned to his death-bed, but reached ii, accompanied by his physician, barely in time to receive his last sigh. We found only his daughter present, Miss Winslow being absent on a brief visit. Mabel was terribly agitated, and had evidently received some important communication from her father before the fatal stroke had deprived him of speech. The dying man managed to shake ins head hopelessly, as the physician apEroached, though upon perceiving me his ice lighted up. By a great effort, he seized his daughter’s hand and mine, and joined them together across his body. “All I leave is hers, and she is yours!” he gasped. “You are executor—you will see to everything!” Then, turning his glazing eyes on Mabel, he said to her, faintly but impressively, “Remember!” after which he breathed his last.

My own sense of bereavement was great, for I had come to regard Colonel Dearborn as my best friend. But this sense was relieved by what had just taken place, for, though I had not concealed my growing passion for his daughter, .1 had not yet ventured to ask him for her hand. But this closing act of his life had at once dissipated mv doubts, and, as I was already sure of Mabel’s hexyt, led me to believe that she would become my wife after the uusal period of mourning should have elapsed. As I led her, weeping, from the chamber of death, I saw her cousin, Clifford Wharton, cross the passage from the vicinity of another door leading out of the same room. This gave me an impression that he might have been an unperceived witness of the interview between the old manager and his daughter before my arrival with Dr. L . However, I thought lit.l ■ of this at the time, for, though I did not like Wharton, and knew that his uncle had nevtr fully trusted him, I had no reason to doubt his sincerity. Nevertheless, as he went by us in the passage and down the staircase, without Mabel having noticed him, he started from his attitude, which had signified both grief and terror, and threw me a glance of such malevolence and triumph that I was both puzzled and placed on my guard, for it was not unknown to me that he had strenuously essayed to make love to his cousin before her preference for me had been so plainly indicated as to leave him without a shadow of hope in that direction. I left Mabel at the door of her chamber in charge of Miss Win dow, who had just got back home to learn the sad intelligence. After i e sling away the frightened servants. who had assembled on the staircase, landing, and saying something to soothe their fears, I was returning to the deathchamber, when I met Dr. L coming

out of it, with something troubled and stem in his face. “I don’t understand Colonel Dearborn’s death,” said he, taking me into a racess. “It seems that Mabel found him lying speechless on his bed, grasping a cup that had held a composing draught, which he had kept in readiness to take upon feeling the dangerous symptoms against which he had been frequently warned. He had jnst drank off the contents, and was yet past help when you aud I were summoned. This is what I do not understand.” “Pray explain,” said I, anxiously. “The stroke he received was not necessarily fatal in itself,” said Dr. L . “The composing draught must have relieved it unless” —he looked at me significantly—“unless it may have been tampered with. However, I am not wholly certain of this; but I think that you will agree with me that a post-mortem should be had.” “Undoubtedly!" I exclaimed, astonished and bonified.

“Good! Try to get Miss Dearborn’s consent to the examination, but without exciting her suspicions of foul play. You know how reluctant women are in such matters. In the meantime, I shall neither say nor do anything.” I promised, not doubting my ability to bring Mabel to a proper consideration of the subject, and the physician went away. But in this I was mistaken. Nothing that I could say, or hint, or urge could induce either Mabel or Miss Winslow to consent to a post mortem examination. Young Wharton, to my surprise, supported me strongly in my efforts to persuade them —though w ith hypocritical over-eagerness, I afterward thought—but all to no purpose. Their feminine association of such an examination with the idea of desecration of the dead was invincible. They even caused Dr. L to forego his insistance toward the last; a certificate of death from natural causes was given, and the remains of the old theatrical manager were borne to their last resting-place without it being generally known that anything mysterious had attended his death.

Now came another surprise for me. Col. Dearborn had left uo written will. In this case Mabel was of course his sole heiress, as, indeed, she would have been without the injunction embodied in her father’s dying words, and which had likewise constituted jpo his executor. But to my own surprise, and that of nearly every one else, it proved that he had left hardly anything available. He bad lived expensively, drawing from tinie to time upon a large sum of money which he had deposited in two of the St. Louis National Banks. Of this sum only twelve hundred dollars now remained, and as his farming lands about Glenwood bad long lain in neglect, it seemed that this modest sum was, for some time at least, to constitute Mabel’s sole fortune. However, she continued to draw upon it with great complacency, after reducing her household cousiderably, as though in anticipation of a w indfall of whose nature she would only hint to me in a mysterious way; having been pledged to secrecy, as she said, by her father before my arrival with Dr. L at his death-bed. I was so deeply in love that I would have cared nothing for this if she would only have married me without delay. But she had also promised her father that she w ould put off her marriage until she should once more be established with safety as the mistress of Glenwood.

Well, I had submitted with the best grace I could, and now here at last, having finished my engagement with the Theater Stock Company, I was apparently on the threshold of my reward. It was six months after Colonel Dearborn’s death. The organized bands of train-robbers, bank-breakers and horsethieves were said to have been wholly broken up or scattered, all the southern counties were reported sufficiently safe and quiet to warrant Mabel in resuming the occupancy of Glenwood. Our weddingday was fixed upon, and I. was to set out forthwith for the locality that bade fair to see the fruition of my fondest hopes, as an escort of my bethrothed and her aunt. I should have mentioned that Clifford Wharton, who had been accustomed to absent himself frequently and misteriously from Mabel’s house, in which he still had his quarters, had latterly disappeared so completely that nothing had heen heard of him for several weeks. Ordinarily, nothing would have been thought of this. The fellow was a fair actor, especially in serio-comic, foppish parts, if he had cared to exert himself and hold his opportunities, and I had twice secured him good engagements at the Theater. He had sacrificed them successively, through his indolence and dissipated habits, and I had grown to regard him as a worthless, ungrateful young man, undeserving of further countenance; but now there came rumors of his having committed a downright forgery, in connection with the signature of Mr. Whitcombe, the Treasurer of the Theater. It was only to a small amount, indeed, but still sufficient to explain his continued absence, and to cause both Mabel and her aunt mortification and distress, should they come to hear of it. This, however, I took care to avoid, as the wedding-day was near at hand, and I was solicitous that no shadow of a cloud should interfere with our happiness; but it was fated to be otherwise.

Early on the morning of the day w r e were to set out for Glenwood, I was breakfasting with Mabel and Miss Winslow, in high spirits. Suddenly Mabel, who had been the first to appropriate the morning newspaper, gave an alarmed exclamation. “What is it?” I cried. She recovered herself, laughed nervously, and, handing me the journal, pointed to a telegram. It was to the effect that a reorganized band of mounted desperadoes, doubtless composed of the scattered remains of the Jesse James and other gangs, had just made a final raid in the. vicinity of Glenwood, where they had robbed and despoiled tight and left, even digging up house-grounds and orchards, in the hope of unearthing hidden treasure, before being once more dispersed and driven back to the Arkansas mountain line, with a loss of many killed, wounded and captured, by the combined sheriff's’ posses of three counties. “Why, this amounts to nothing,” said I, lightly. Glenwood mansion could offer little more to the rascals’ cupidity, after their ransacking of long ago, and as for any treasure having been buried there, the idea is absurd.” Mabel changed the topic, and, by the time breakfast was finished, had quite recovered her spirits, Put just then the servant brought her a telographic dispatch, which she had no sooner read than she seemed ready to faint.

“Oh, oh! read it!” was all she coold say, as she threw me the dispatch. It was from Wharton, was dated Boone Comers (a village near Glenwood,) and ran as follows: “Robbers have ripped np everything at Glenwood. Could your father have buried any money there? Entire house-grounds spaded np. Not even your birthday laurel escaped. All safe now. Shall investigate more fully to-morrow. ” “Oh, it is gone—gone!” sobbed Mabel, as I looked inquiringly at her. “All the money —the fortune with which I was to surprise you cn our wedding-day.” I besought her to calmness, when she at last astounded me by an explanation. “This was my father’s death-bed revelation to me,” she said. “He had a morbid distrust of banks as depositories of great sums. Just before the first sacking of Glenwood he had disposed of all his other property for cash. The sum realized was one hundred and seventy thousand dollars. Twenty thousand dollars of thjtehe secured here in St. Louis, as a fund to* live on until we could dwell once more with safety in our dear old household. The remainder—one hundred and, fifty thousand dollars, m gold and legal tenders—he "Secretly mined at Glenwood during his last hurried visit there. The spot was under my birthday laurel—a bush that papa had planted just east of the mansion, in commemoration of my birth, and afterward attended himself with care and pride. He had succeeded in imparting tnis secret to me just before you and Dr. L entered the room where he was dying. He had at the same time • enjoined me to retain the secret inviolate until the day of my marriage under the old rooftree, when I was to have it unearthed in the presence of my husband, and present it to him as my unexpected dowry. He feared that I might otherwise be wooed and won solely for my fortune. This unlooked-for wealth was to reward the true mau who should have loved and married me for myself alone. But now it is gone, gone! Oh, who could have guessed or betrayed the buried treasure’s secret? I alone was with my father when he revealed it. I never talk in my sleep, nor have I for a single instant forgotten his injunction to secrecy. It is incomprehensible!” During Mabel’s recital, my mind was alert and busy, as you may well believe, find I had gradually recurred to the suspicious circumstances attending Colonel Dearborn’s death which had almost escaped my memory.

“WeM, theje’s no use repining,” said I at last, with a cheerfulness that surprised both Mabel and her aunt. “Remember, my darling, that the dowry you were to have brought me is not hopelessly lost until we shall altogether have failed to find its purloiner. Come, hasten with your preparations, and we will be off by the forenoon train, instead of later, as we had intended. While you and Miss Winslow are getting ready, I will take a look through the house.” My decision of manner proved infectious. While they were preparing for the journey I pretended to visit a guest-room I had occasionally occupied, but in reality devoted myself to thoroughly searching the one adjoining, which had been Clifford Wharton’s when at home, and was still filled with his belongings.

I found that for which I searched, and, excusing myself to the ladies, hurried off to Dr. L —-’s office, which was not far distant. It was with a feeling of yet greater satisfaction that I returned to Mabel’s house a little later, and we set out upon our journey without further delay. We arrived at Boone Corners early in the afternoon. Here, while waiting for a conveyance to Glenwood, three miles distant, I sought an interview with Sheriff B-—, whom I chanced to know personally, and obtained permission from him to converse with the prisoners captured on the preceding day. But a brief interview with them served to convince me that the robbers had had nothing to do with digging up the grounds at Glenwood.

“We only ripped up two or three gardens nearer town,” said one of the fellows, “and gained nothing by even that. It stands to reason we wouldn’t have bothered with Glenwood. It was out of our plan, and we knew it to have already been cleaned out years before.” When we set out for Glenwood, an hour later, we were accompanied by Sheriff B and several of his men. The house and grounds were found less devastated than I had expected, though bo'h Mabel and her aunt, shed tears at the havoc that had disfigured the stately old place. Wharton met us in the garden. He had two or three friends with him, young men of the neighborhood, and I noticed that he was haggard and ill-at-ease; though he strove to dissipate this impression, and at first seemed unaffectedly miserable over the way in which the grounds had been dug up. “Just look, Mabel!” said he at last, after conducting us to where the laurel lay uprooted. “What an outrage! The villains have not even spared your birthday laurel!” Having already made certain observations, I signed Mabel to let me reply to him. “It does seem odd, Wharton,” said I, “that the villain or villains should have uprooted this shrub over all others.” “It is odd,” he admitted. “Yes,” I went on; “for I noticed elsewhere that the grounds have only been comparatively scarred, without so much as a tree or a plant having been seriously disturbed. One would suppose the villain or villains had expected to unearth something particularly valuable from under this particular laurel.”

“What do yon mean?” he cried, for my tone was significant. “Villain —murderer!” I shouted in a voice of thunder—no stage-thunder at that; “I mean that you are the villian —that you are the thief of the golden treasure that was concealed under that laurel bush!” Changing from white to red in a flash, he drew his revolver with a hoarse cry, but was quickly disarmed by tbe sheriff's men. “Oh, you have wrought cunningly, but in vain, Clifford Wharton!” I went on; “for the evidence that has come to light, pointing you out as your uncle’s murderer, will be equally unerring in tracking you down as the purloiner of his daughter’s buried dowry from under the root 3 of that laurel bush! Deny the charge, if you can, forger —murderer—poisoner!” • Mabel and her axint suddenly clung to each other, with exclamations of horror, while Wharton’s companions and others were scarcely less affected by these startling accusations. “Murderer! poisoner!” echoed Wharton, in a faltering voice. “It is false! You can not prove it! What mean you?” “Look! One of the proofs, at least, is

here!” I cried, displaying a phial of almost colorless liquid which I had found among other bottles and phials in a small closet in his room, and whose contents I had subsequently submitted to Dr. L ’s critical analysis. “Behold the poison—the hydrocyanic acid —with which you adulterated Colonel Dearborn’s composing draught, when you secretly saw him reel into his room under the partial apoplectic stroke which, but for your tampering with the draught, might not have proved fatal.” All this was mere induction and bold conjecture on my part, but, from the frightful change that had taken place in the accused, I saw I had hit the mark, and hastened to push my advantage. “Dare you deny the truth of my charge?” I went on. “Dare you deny, either, that, after witnessing the effect of the deadly draught, you hid behind the headboard of your victim’s bed, where you overheard the secret of the buried treasure imparted by Colonel Dearborn to his daughter with his dying words? What will you then say when I have convinced you that a recent examination of your victim’s remains has revealed the presence of a poison identical with the Contents of ttiis phial, and that only this morning tne druggist was found who sold you this poison, and is willing to identify you as the purchaser? Speak, wretch! dare you deny aught that I have charged upon you?” His knees were now knocking together, and his conscience-stricken agony wag pitiable to witness. “Mercy! mercy!” he gasped. “It is the retribution of Heaven!” “It is not I, or even this poor girl, whom you have so ruthlessly orphaned and robbed, who can accord you mercy!” said I. sternly. “But you may make some slight amends for your first crime by confessing vour last. Speak, for you are the thief! What have you done with the money you unearthed?” “Under the barn —under the bam, directsions.

He was taken in charge by two of the sheriff’s men, while his companions shrunk from him in loathing and horror. The rest of us then lost no time in going to the barn, where, after digging at the spot indicated, the money was recovered intact. My story is about ended. The exact object of Clifford in murdering his uncle was never ceriamTyknown, for he committed suicide by hanging on the night of that very day, in the county jail; but it has since been thought that be had imagined the old manager to have made a will partly in his favor, and was in hopes of prosecuting his suit for Mabel’s hand more successfully with her father out of the way, though the crime had resulted so differently from what he had anticipated. This, however, is mere conjecture, and we must leave it there.

Suffice it to say, in conclusion, that Mabel and I were duly married, that I bade a final farewell to the stage forthwith, and that our union has been one of exceptional happiness. We are still living at Glenwood, which has long since been restored to its original beauty and stateliness; and Mabel is still occasionally fond of referring back to the recovery of her buried dowry, while her happy husband as often felicitates himself over the strange events that led up to ly against the northeast support!” he almost yelled, after which he fell down in convulthe Stock-Actor’s Windfall.— Chicago Ledger.