Rensselaer Journal, Volume 10, Number 50, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 May 1901 — THE IVORY QUEEN [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

THE IVORY QUEEN

A Detective Story Of a Chicago Suburb. The Murder at The Grange and How Its Mystery Wjc Solved by Darrent the American Lecoq.

BY NORMAN HURST.

Coppi’ght, 1899, by the American Press Association.

CHAPTER VI THE FATE OF ASTRAY MARSDEN. The last day of the trial of Astray Marsden tor the murder of his uncle one of the Chicago evening papers contained the following: Norcombe. Feb. 26, 9:30 a. m.—The court is crowded—more crowded, if possible, than it has been for the past two days, for the last act of the drama will be reached today, and the verdict rs the jury will be given, the verdict that shall condemn Astray Marsden to an awful death or shall set him free among his fellow men. Never before in the history of this country have the people experienced such a condition of suppressed excitement as that which permeates the courthouse this morning Even the cold blooded, phlegmatic court attendants cannot, try as they will, escape the contagion that pervades the swaying audience awaiting the final act in the great sensational trial. Like all others in the building, carried away by the suppressed excitement of the moment, they hold their breath and wait The minute hand of the clock slowly travels to the hour of 10. One by one the lawyers enter and take their seats, chatting as idly as though the matter to bo-tried is not of the gravest import in the whole wide world —life or death. Think of it! Within a few hours the decision will have to be given—guilty or not guilty, life or death I 10 o’Clock.—Dismally the ten strokes of the court clock sound, echoed a few seconds later by ten deep notes from the belfry of an adjacent church, and the judge enters the, court, takes his seat and opens his book. The monotonous voice of the court crier demands silence, and the indescribable murmur inseparable from a body of people overwrought with intense excitement subsides, dies away like the sound of a retreating wave as the water flows down the beach. Astray Marsden, the prisoner, enters the court, looking paler and more haggard this morning than ever before, and, almost overcome with nervous anxiety, grips the rail in front of him as he faces the crowded court. Then his eyes wander to a woman, closely veiled, sitting near his attorney’s table, where she has sat throughout the

whole of the trial, a woman whom it is whispered Astray Marsden has promised to marry, but she has been called as a witness by neither side. For a single instant, for the first time during the trial, the girl raises her veil, and the prisoner batches a glimpse of a pale but beautiful face. A tremulous smile of encouragement hovers for a moment around her quivering lips, and then the veil is lowered again, and the man braces himself for the final ordeal. The Summing Up. 10:05.—The judge commences his summing up. “Gentlemen of the jury, ” he says, “you have today entered upon the last stage of your labors in a case which to me has proved at once the most painful and the most obvious in all my experience of criminal trials. It only remains for me. as impartially as lies in my power, to review the whole of the evidence that has been placed before you both in favor of and against the prisoner. Astray Marsden, and to leave it to you to decide upon that evidence whether he is guilty or not guilty of the crime with which he stands charged—the willful murder of Josiah Marsden. “The evidence that ’ has been placed before you, gentlemen, is, with one exception, but that is a fearful exception, of a purely circumstantial character, and it will be for you to say whether the series of circumstantial facts that have been detailed to you and which the defense has ingeniously endeavored to explain away are sufficient to justify you in returning a verdict of guilty and by that verdict ridding society of as cold blooded a scoundrel as ever breathed or whether there is sufficient and reasonable doubt in your minds to justify you in giving to the prisoner the benefit of the doubt “Gentlemen, let us look at the evidence. On the morning of the 12th of January Josiah Marsden was discovered in the library of his country home, called The Grange. Norcombe. stabbed to death with a Norwegian clasp knife, which weapon you have had produced.

There is no dispute that tne murder was committed with that knife, and equally the defense does not attempt to deny that up to the very night of the murder that knife was in the possession of Astray Marsden. The Stained Paper. “In the hand of Josiah Marsden was found this paper. ’ ’ The judge pauses impressively and takes up the blood stained paper that has caused such a sensation throughout the trial “This paper, ” he solemnly continues, “was found in the dead man’s stiffened fingers. Death had overtaken him before he could frame his thoughts in words, and so his last message is only a broken one. ‘I am dying,’ he wrote, ‘murdered by Astra’—a—s—t—r—a—and his life departed. “The prosecution has told you that he intended to write ‘Astray Marsden. ’ The defense has been unable to deny it. The prosecution has said he wrote so that justice might be meted out to his murderer. The defense has hinted, only hinted, gentlemen—even they have not dared to do more than whisper—that Josiah Marsden hated his ward or son and did what he did in revenge, faced eternity with the foulest sin that man could commit upon his soul, died with a lie in his heart, that a young man might be hanged. The defense has hinted that this is why the paper was written. I will not venture to express my own opinion of such a method of defense. Let us look at the matter dispassionately. If we are to believe that Josiah Marsden committed this loathsome deed as his last act on earth and that Astray Marsden did not murder him, then that murder was committed by some unknown enemy of the old man. “Has the defense been able to hint at any such person ? No. Has the defense been able to assume or deduce that any other person was in the house on that night? Na It has simply contented itself with a categorical denial of everything and a plea as surprising as it is abominable. “The value of that plea, gentlemen, I leave for you to decide. Let us pass again to the circumstantial evidence and deal first of all with The Norwegian Knife. “This knife has the letter ‘A’ branded upon its handle. The knife was in the prisoner’s possession, it is agreed, until a few moments or a few hours before the murder. It is admitted that Astray Marsden was with Josiah Marsden on the night of the murder. It is also admitted that he used the knife to open a cigar box in the presence of his guardian and then left it behind him ready for the murderer, who. we are told, entered the house after the prisoner had left it. The value of that plea, gentlemen, is again for you to decide. “The murder was first discovered by the woman Margaret Gadsden, who was in the habit of going daily to attend to the domestic requirements of the deceased. On the morning of Jan. 12 she went, as usual, and gained admittance at the side entrance by the key she always had in her possession. “You will rec dlect that between the night of the 11 th and the morning of the 12th there was a phenomenally heavy fall of snow, and the woman noticed that ther3 were footprints leading to the front door of the house, but none leading from it. “Becoming alarmed at the unusual stillness which reigned through the house and unable to get any answer when she knocked at Josiah Marsden’s door, Margaret Gadsden hastened to the police station and returned with Chief of Police Dobson. “That man, gentlemen, you have had before you. He has told you hipaself of his attempt to blind the aims cff justice by withholding the most important piece of evidence in this intricate case, the paper that Josiah Marsden left behind him. Dobson has expressed his contrition and regret for the disgraceful course which he took, but whether that contrition will absolve him from the penalties of his action I very much doubt I cannot refrain from referring to the supreme and utter idiocy manifested throughout by Chief Dobson in relation to this case and cannot too warmly applaud the indefatigable energy, the zeal and acumen, of Mr. Herbert Darrent, the official who took charge of the case and was fortunately able to retrieve all the errors—l will content myself by calling them errors at present—which Dobson committed prior to his appearance on the scene. Returning to the events of Jan. 12, you will remember that Dobson and the woman returned together and upon entering the library found Josiah Marsden lying dead upon the floor, stabbed to the heart. By his side was the paper which has had such an bearing upon the case, the paper which Dobson retained, showing it only to the prisoner. Astray Marsden. You have heard Dobson’s account of that interview—that the prisoner turned pa£g&nd trembled and then promised to see tim later in the day ffeO VK CONTINUED.)

The prisoner enters the court, looking paler and more haggard than ever.