The Stillwater Tragedy | Page 3

in front of the tavern, smoking short clay pipes. Not an
urchin put in an appearance at the small red brick building on the
turnpike. Mr. Pinkham, the school-master, waited an hour for the
recusants, then turned the key in the lock and went home.
Dragged-looking women, with dishcloth or dustpan in hand, stood in
door-ways or leaned from windows, talking in subdued voices with
neighbors on the curb-stone. In a hundred far-away cities the news of
the suburban tragedy had already been read and forgotten; but here the
horror stayed.

There was a constantly changing crowd gathered in front of the house
in Welch's Court. An inquest was being held in the room adjoining the
kitchen. The court, which ended at the gate of the cottage, was fringed
for several yards on each side by rows of squalid, wondering children,
who understood it that Coroner Whidden was literally to sit on the dead
body,--Mr. Whidden, a limp, inoffensive little man, who would not
have dared to sit down on a fly. He had passed, pallid and perspiring, to
the scene of his perfunctory duties.
The result of the investigation was awaited with feverish impatience by
the people outside. Mr. Shackford had not been a popular man; he had
been a hard, avaricious, passionate man, holding his own way
remorselessly. He had been the reverse of popular, but he had long
been a prominent character in Stillwater, because of his wealth, his
endless lawsuits, and his eccentricity, an illustration of which was his
persistence in living entirely alone in the isolated and dreary old house,
that was henceforth to be inhabited by his shadow. Not his shadow
alone, however, for it was now remembered that the premises were
already held in fee by another phantasmal tenant. At a period long
anterior to this, one Lydia Sloper, a widow, had died an unexplained
death under that same roof. The coincidence struck deeply into the
imaginative portion of Stillwater. "The Widow Sloper and old
Shackford have made a match of it," remarked a local humorist, in a
grimmer vain than customary. Two ghosts had now set up
housekeeping, as it were, in the stricken mansion, and what might not
be looked for in the way of spectral progeny!
It appeared to the crowd in the lane that the jury were unconscionably
long in arriving at a decision, and when the decision was at length
reached it gave but moderate satisfaction. After a spendthrift waste of
judicial mind the jury had decided that "the death of Lemuel Shackford
was caused by a blow on the left temple, inflicted with some instrument
not discoverable, in the hands of some person or persons unknown."
"We knew that before," grumbled a voice in the crowd, when, to relieve
public suspense, Lawyer Perkins--a long, lank man, with stringy black
hair--announced the verdict from the doorstep.
The theory of suicide had obtained momentary credence early in the
morning, and one or two still clung to it with the tenacity that
characterizes persons who entertain few ideas. To accept this theory it

was necessary to believe that Mr. Shackford had ingeniously hidden the
weapon after striking himself dead with a single blow. No, it was not
suicide. So far from intending to take his own life, Mr. Shackford, it
appeared, had made rather careful preparations to live that day. The
breakfast-table had been laid over night, the coals left ready for
kindling in the Franklin stove, and a kettle, filled with water to be
heated for his tea or coffee, stood on the hearth.
Two facts had sharply demonstrated themselves: first, that Mr.
Shackford had been murdered; and, second, that the spur to the crime
had been the possession of a sum of money, which the deceased was
supposed to keep in a strong-box in his bedroom. The padlock had been
wrenched open, and the less valuable contents of the chest, chiefly
papers, scattered over the carpet. A memorandum among the papers
seemed to specify the respective sums in notes and gold that had been
deposited in the box. A document of some kind had been torn into
minute pieces and thrown into the waste-basket. On close scrutiny a
word or two here and there revealed the fact that the document was of a
legal character. The fragments were put into an envelope and given in
charge of Mr. Shackford's lawyer, who placed seals on that and on the
drawers of an escritoire which stood in the corner and contained other
manuscript.
The instrument with which the fatal blow had been dealt--for the
autopsy showed that there had been but one blow--was not only not
discoverable, but the fashion of it defied conjecture. The shape of the
wound did not indicate the use of any implement known to the jurors,
several