Jasper County Democrat, Volume 2, Number 15, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 July 1899 — AUNT HANNAH'S SECRET. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

AUNT HANNAH'S SECRET.

By B. E. Scott.

F CHAPTER XVIII. At 8 o’clock on the night of the 27th Battie Deßosette was seated in the hfcrsrjr of her home, the very room in which her father had so recently been murdered. Notwithstanding the fact that the banker had there been stricken to death, this i pom had been his favorite, and his daughter found fond memories clustered about ■ It. It was apparent that the young heiress had been weeping, and little wonder. For three days she had been seated in the court house listening to the evidence that ahe Mt to moat minds condemned the man she loved as the murderer of her father. She had listened to the evidence of Herman Craven and reluctantly had spoken words that substantiated his statements. She had noted with feelings better imagined than described that the stern, fixed features of the jurors seemed to admit of little doubt as to what would be their verdict. The statement of the prisoner, unsubstantiated as it was, seemed to bear little weight. The State's Attorney dispelled that little in his long argument for conviction. He drew a terrible picture of the crime enacted in the room in which she was seated, and stated that the evidence was ■uCn as not to admit of a single doubt as to who committed the horrible murder. “No other living soul!” he exclaimed, ns he pointed his shaking finger at the prisoner, ‘"had a motive! This man had. Where was it? Ask him! Where is the bag of coin he that night obtained at the express office? How did he obtain that canceled note? The dead banker cannot answer you. and the statements of his assassin should weigh not against the overwhelming evidence against him. His assertions are cunningly contrived; but would a wretch—guilty of such a crime—hesitate io save his worthless neck from the halter by false statements? You have, gentlemen, the evidence of the murdered banker’s nephew, his trusted friend, in whom he had such confidence that, unknown to him, he bad already named him the administrator of his will and the guardian of his daughter. Y'es, aud left, him besides a fortune in his own right. He has told you, though reluctantly and after being pressed by the counsel for the defense, that the dead banker had expressed to him a desire to live to see the nephew and bis loved daughter man and wife. In all this, gentlemen of the jury, the daughter’s evidence corroborates that of the principal witness, with the exception that she had no knowledge of the fact that her father hoped one day to see her wedded to the young man who is now president of ’The Cape Fear Bank.* Her father had never expressed that wish to her. Why, gentlemen of the jury? Because of her tender years! May there not. gentlemen, have been also a motive here ou the part of the prisoner for the removal of the murdered man? Did he not fear the banker, living, would thwart him in his design to make the daughter his wife? Remember, gentlemen, that if Herman Craven aud Miss Deßosette had been one moment later in entering the library they would have found before them naught but the lifeless body of the murdered banker! The fiend that murdered him would have made his exit from the house. And who shall ’say. not without a hope, nay, a belief, that the nephew would stand before the bar of justice, charged with his murder? Murder, so palpable and plain that even Lang Sellars, the great Southern detective, whom he had urged to take his case, abandoned him.” There was amazement throughout the court room at the calm appearance of the prisoner during the tirade of the prosecuting attorney. Not an exclamation left his lips. He sat pale and silent, with clenched hands and tightly compressed lips, until Lawyer Robbins had taken his seat. Arthur Dobbs plead long and well for the life of bis client; but no denunciations of Herman Craven left his lips. The ground he dwelt on was that no living soul had seen the blade of the sheath knife driven home to the banker’s heart, and that the evidence against the prisoner was entirely circumstantial. In his closing plea the district attorney, an old and experienced lawyer, ridiculed the idea fit the proof being of a circumstantial nature, and in closing his address used these words: ’’There he nits, gentlemen! There in the prisoner’s box —caught red-handed in his murderous act! Do yopr duty, aud free the Old North State of a fiend unparalleled! Take the case.” The judge’s charge had occupied an hour, aud it was apparent that he entertained no doubt of the prisoner's guilt. Not half an hour previous to the time we find Miss Hattie seated in the library, and after the jury had retired from the court room, had she left the court house, and then only after the judge had announced that the verdict would be delivered in open court at 10 o'clock the following day. “That is," said his honor, “if the jury agree, and they undoubtedly will. I trust,” he added. “that you will not be uncomfortable in the jury room; but owing to illness in my family, I am unable to remain and take your verdict to-night.” “I would have said more, much more,” thought Miss Hattie, as she pondered over the matter, “but for the caution of Mr. Sellars. I would have denounced HermaaOnven. I would have accused him of haying visited the attic. I would—” <-• Her.thoughts were Interrupted by the .euMtate of her cousin. , '“My dear Hattie! I find you alone!” cried Herman, as-he seated himself on the sofa besidk her. “Yon have been weeping. Ido not wonder] The three past days have been terrible to you; but the

me to see you in her company. 1 did not see either the mother or sister in the court room to-day.” “They may have abandoned him to his fate,” said Hattie, “and he may not have desired them there to hear a son and brother condemned.” “Is it possible, my loved cousin and ward, that at one time you loved this wretch ?*’ “Pray do not speak of it. I —l fancied I did.” “Pure fancy and nothing more! Oh, may I not hope, dear Hattie, that your loved father’s desire may be fulfilled, and that at no distant day you will become my wife? I love you, my cousin, and would make my ward my bride!” “This is no time, sir, to speak of love to me! Why, not two months have passed siuce my dear father was alive and well. There is time enough for you to ask my hand, when his brutal murderer shall have paid the penalty of his, death on the gallows.” “But then, dear Hattie? Then may I speak, and will you listen to me?” “If you address me after my father's murderer shall have been executed I will listen to you; but I give you no reason to believe that I will become your wife. 1 never loved you, and certainly do not now.” “But you will, sweet Hattie! You will! You will learn how devoted I am to you!” “You say it was my father’s wish that I become your wife? I would certainly fulfill his every wish, but is it not strange that be never expressed such a desire to me?” ' ’ •»." “I think not, my dear‘Hattie. He did not desire you to think he was in haste to have you married, but he often spoke his mind to me.” “Strange; but as he evidently was not in haste to have me married, neither shall I be In haste to surrender my hand, now that he is no longer alive.” “Your father living, dear Hattie, you had a trusty guardian.” “Have I not one now?” asked the heiress, looking him fixedly in the eyes. His face colored as he answered: “Why, yes, certainly you have, and one who loves you with his whole heart! I would die to serve you!” “Well, speak of love to me no more until I give my leave. Good night!” and Hattie arose from her seat and left the room. “She is mine, in spite of the devil!” thought Herman as the door closed behind her. “Ere a year goes by she will have changed the name of Deßosette for that of Craven. Now to move cautiously and retain the confidence of the directors and the public until she has become my bride. Then my plan is to convert everything into cash. Cash? I wonder what—never mind, I shall hear from him soon enough. I will venture he is keeping track of events. Afraid to write too soon, possibly. Well, he is prudent; but all is smooth sailing, smooth sailing, aud 1 hold the reins! To-morrow the verdict comes. I think I hear the foreman’s words now: ‘Guilty! Guilty!’ Guilty, beyond a doubt. Then a short season in a condemned man’s cell under the death watch, and then—ah! a strangling noose! A fatal drop! A dead man dangling between the earth and sky, and Alvin Deßosette’s murder has been—gracious, it makes me nervous!—avenged, aud I have nothing more to fear. “What a difference it makes whether a man be poor or rich. Poor, I was Herman Craveu, the cashier of ’The Cape Fear Bank,’ the nephew of a wealthy man, but entitled .to little consideration. Wealthy, I am Mr. Craven, president of ’The Cape Fear Bank’ and entitled to all consideration. To the devil with conscience and idle scruples in this world, say I! Nothing but servility and beggery travels in their wake. Now for bed, and to-morrow for another scene in the drama. After the next one the curtain will drop. Strange, I feel so squeamish! I feel as though my every movement was being watched. Never mind, I will take a bracer when I reach my room, then sleep.” A moment more and Herman entered his room, closing and locking the door behind him.

A black, ungainly form had in the distance followed Herman Craven from the court house to the Deßosette residence on the night of the twenty-seventh. In fact, on each night that had preceded it since the detective’s departure with .Adam, the coachman, for Baltimore, and this form now lay beneath an elm directly in front of the residence of the late banker, and hut a few feet from the path leading from the gate to the house. A pair of large black eyes were intently fixed on the door of the mansion, and only removed from the same when from time to time the negro raised them and glanced for a moment at the light that shone forth from two windows on the second floor. Herman Craven’s feelings that he was being watched belied not the facts in the case. The eyes of Calban had never for one moment left his form, save when'he was beneath the court house roof, that of the bank, or beneath that under which he now sought repose. “Dis yere bard wuck,” muttered the negro, “an’ I knows what Ise gwine t* do when Mars Lang wine up dis case. Ise gwine sleep a week, dat I is. But I isen’ gwine close dese yere eyes till Mars Lang say, Calhan, you Sieved now!’ Golly, I spec’ dat Adam tink he own de yearth, now he splorin’ ’bout wid Mars Lang. I yere dem say dat de jury got de case. You better hurry up, Mars Lang! What I done wid my ’bacca? I hope 1 isen’ loss dat! Nd, yere it is!" and the negro bit off a goodly piece with his white ivories and composed himself for his night’s watch. In the offlce of Attorney Dobbs a father and son werw at this time in close conversation. “There to no question what the verdict will be, Arthur,” are the words that fall from the lipa of the elder man. “But for Sellars you could have made your defense much stronger.” “I know, father, but he protested

against such a course. You know he has his own theories.” “He is a strange man with his methods. He keeps his secrets to himself. Now as to this 0. A. Stephens that he la searching for. What possible connection can he have with the case? Why, the man may Sin Europe by this time. I think Sellars wrong with his theories. I believe Robert Campbell to be entirely innocent of the foul crime charged against him, and I believe every word of the statement he made to’ the jury, but I do not believe Herman Craven guilty of that murder. Neither do I believe him to have been an accessory to it, or to have had a knowledge of the fact that it was contemplated. I am fully satisfied that he believes Robert Campbell to be the guilty wretch who murdered his uncle.” “Possibly, father; but I have all faith in Sellars’ judgment.” “Little wonder, son; but Sellars in thia case has made an egregious blunder. My theory now is that there were two parties to this crime—tramps, probably. That one was secreted in the house, perhaps in the bath room adjoining the banker’s chamber, perhaps in the closet under the stairs, and that the other was on the outside of the house.” “Well?” “That the Abject was to rob the banker; that unexpectedly Robert Campbell appeared before that had been accomplished and was admitted to the house. The tranip on the outside waited perhaps half an hour after he had entered the house. Perhaps through the open window on the east side of the house he had a view of the two men seated in the library. Finally he ascended to the piazza and rang the bell vigorously, with a design of separating the two men. Possibly he thought the younger one would come to the door.” *Very naturally so.” “Well, after ringing the bell he dashed away in the darkness. Robert went to the door, as he stated. There was no one there. He walked out on the piazza and examined that. Next he descended the steps and peered round in all directions in the gloom and darkness. Presently he heard a groan from within the house. He retraced his steps quickly. The murder had been committed. The tramp had secured the bag of coin and in some manner made his exit from the house.” "Your theory is ” “Wait! Robert was appalled at the sight that confronted him. He cried, ’Help! Murder!’ and drew forth the reeking blade from my old friend's breast; but only to find himself a moment later charged by the nephew with having committed the crime." “You draw a fearful picture, father!” "The picture was a reality, iny son. You could have made your case stronger, much stronger! Y’ou.could have shown all these possibilities. You could have shaken the founded belief of that jury, as you did not do.” "I know it, father, and but for Sellars 1 would have done so. He protested against such a course, as you know, and Robert Campbell has such implicit confidence in him that he directed me to be guided by him in relation to all matters pertaining to his defense.” “Robert Campbell will soon be under sentence of death, and for a crime that he did not commit. As for Sellars, he has not been frank enough with us. If he has a hope of material evidence—anything aside from suspicions—he should have made it apparent.” "Remember, father, Lang Sellars is a man of action, not of words. At the proper time he will speak in thunder tones! Have patience, and wait!” "In the meantime Robert Campbell approaches the gallows.” (To be continued.)