16 DR. FURNIV ALL'S SOLUTION OF THE COLTER CABIN MYSTERY By DR. GEORGE F. BUTLER and HERBERT ILSLEY Insane Hospital Houses Lad JI r hile Unjustly Accused sire Released fail on findings Vl'ltV short, stout, sailor A appearing man. clean shaven and wearing a flt less slop-shop suit of blue, with a rusty stovepipe hat /' Ai"' on his head and a canvas ,-V"rSbj ' laK ' n ''' s hand, came rolling up the street, and after looking hesitatingly around at the numerous fC. lodging-house signs in the windows of the neighbor hood, statted briskly up the steps of No. 112 and pressed the button. "Mum," he said to the elderly wom an who opened the door, "I see by •hese here notices that you hev rooms to let. and as that's what I'm artcr I kinder cal'lated I'd gin ye a call. How much be they?" He abstracted a huge roll of bills from his trousers pocket and thrust hem bunglingly into her hand. "Do what ye can for me on thet," lie continued. "Count it out and see what's in it. 'Twas 300 when I skinned her over, and I cal'lated 'twould do. Stow the ditty-box under the berth and 'long 'bout eight bells I'll drift back and kinder tidy things up a bit for night. Good-day, mum!" He gave his hat an awkward pull and waddled off hurriedly, leaving the lodging-mistress red in tlie face and short of breath with-the surprise of her life. "Save us, there's wan man for youse!" she gasped, following him with amazed eyes as he stumped down the street on his short legs, the huge trousers flopping in the wind, the rusty hat pulled down to his cars and the coatsleeves dangling to within an inch of the tips of his stubby fingers. At noon the queer lodger returned, received his key and was shown to his quarters. Pausing on the threshold he turned to Mrs. Tu!l, the flesh of his face packed like hard putty, a3 im mobile as a board, his unwinking eyes staring into her own. "Mum." he said in voice like a fog horn, "my name is Colter, Cap'n Joshua S. Colter. This here is my cabin. D'ye see? 'Tis mine for one twelvemonth. Ontil thet time is up I cal'la'e I'm the size myself to load it clean to the skylight, and I don't nevc-r 'low to hev no petticoats fussin" up any vessel o' mine. I'll swab the docks and trim sails myself, and now .you c'n go below and stay there, fehow your figgerhead 011 my compan ions ay agin without orders and I'll shove ye plumb overboard through the porthole." At 11 o'clock the next morning, when she heard him bulkily descend ing the stairs, she stood in the back parlor doorway to observe him, but had the doughty captain chanced to look that way he could have seen nothing but the tip of an inquisitive nose and the toe of a large boot. It was the same on the second and third mornings, but on the fourth the cap tain did not appear at 11 o'clock as usual. She felt some uneasiness over this fact, which grew greater when the next day also he remained invis ible. For more than 48 hours not a sound had issued from his room. She waited until the next noon, and then, all remaining as quiet as the houses of the dead, she ventured up to the head of the stairs and stood a mo ment gazing steadfastly at the closed door of the mysterious "cabin." Always at this stage of reflection, with persons of Ann Tull's grade of mind and experience, the police be gin to figure. And within ten minutes afterward she was standing on the stairs pointing out to an inspector and a plain-clothes man the door behind which lurked some dark secret, she was sure. "Looks to me as if he had run," said the inspector. "How much was he into you, Mrs. Tull?" "Not wan cint. 1 know me business. 'Tis in advance I always do be getting It from strange wans." "Well. I don't see as there's any thing for us here," remarked the in spector taking a last look around. "ijack up the room and keep the key till his time is out, or till he comes back. But if anything more turns up let us know at the station." Then he went away with his man. At eight o'clock a young lithograph er, who with his brother, a house painter, occupied the room directly over the captain's, came jumping down the stairs, and tearing the kitchen door open rushed upon Mrs. Tull. and put ting his hands on her shoulders to sob, crying brokenly: "Oh, I am sorry, I am sorry! It was Jim and me that done it. I told him wi-'d IM- found out, and now It's eonie What .lull we do? ('an't you hide us. MM TIIII, and say nothing? Then It will be all right, for nobody will over know the difference. He liail no friends to come asking for him." "I.ttd's sake alive, what's all this?" "The—the—cap'n!" he stammered. "We was playin' cards —in his room— me and Jim. He said Jim nigged on purpose, and Jim hit him." "Was he looking, jist, whin Jim struck?" she asked, cynically. "We didn't think at first he was hurt much." he replied whiningly. "But he didn't get up, and when we went to lift him we saw he was gone and—" "Stop!" She put out one of her great raw | | klhdow /mSom' /r likd/MkoMwrDottfli:' boned powerful hands and forced him into a chair. Then she noiselessly closed the kitchen door and returning stood ponderous and threatening be fore him. "What at all d'yees mane by 'gone?' " she asked in a voice that frightened him with its strength of repressed ferocity. "I m-niean he —he was—dead!" he stammered, his face as white as chalk. "What did yees do wid—it?" Her body was trembling now. her voice broke huskily, and the black eyes blazed. "We took him down stairs—and— and —over to the—the river—" With grim-set lips and without a word she threw a shawl over her head and marched-the self-confessed criminal to the police station. There he told his story again, In greater de tail, but essentially us he had given It to her. As he was finishing Jim was brought in by the two office men who had been hastily disputched tor CAMERON COUNTY PRESS, THURSDAY, DECEMBER 10, 1908. him. Physically he was a good dupli cate of his brother, of slight build, falr-complexioned, with a face of aver age Intelligence now distorted with fear. He looked at the speaker shrinkingly, and as the last words of the confession left his lips and he became silent, said to his brother: "For God's sake, Britt, what have you been saying?" "I couldn't help it, Jim," answered Britt, miserably. "I was goin' crazy, and had to let it out. Something forced me to, I don't know what. I had to speak. But I thought she'd hide us. I didn't suppose she'd go back on us this way and get us into trouble." The brother turned frantically to the desk-man. "We didn't do it!" he shouted at the top of his voice. "It is all a lie. I never saw the man in my life. 1 don't believe Britt ever did either. We never was in his room. We didn't know he was missing until to-night when we came home. They told us on the street, and he was as much sur prised as I was." Britt shook his head sorrowfully with a faint smile. His brother gazed at. him in terror, Ills face as white as a sheet. His lips began to twitch, his hands opened and shut spasmodically, his body trembled violently, his knees bent suddenly, and he fell to the floor in a dead faint. said the desk-man. "That settles it. He's an epllectlc, with homicidal tendencies, very likely, just the kind to do a Job like this one ' The next duy it small, dark, uervouti man of GO, with shrewd black and snappy eyes, evidently a farmer in his Sunday clothes, called on Dr. Furni vall. "Wal," he said, his eyes searching tho floor as if for words, "my name is Alfred Greely, and 1 live In Winchester. I've got two boys in this here city, and one on 'em says they—they killed a man, and t'other says they didn't. It don't look noways reasonable to me that either on 'em could do sech a thing, they hed sech a good bringin' up by their mother, but they've ben away from home a purty considerable time now. and p'aps they got inter bad comp'nv. I dunno. They was allers goods boys to home. Anyways, mother has sent me here to kinder look out for 'em, and find out the truth of what they done, and stan' by 'em whatever it was." He paused, lifting his head with a shade of stern ly repressed sshame in his eyes. "The world is wicked," he went on, with an effort, "and I dunno. None of us ain't perfect. P'aps they was led wrong by somebody. P'aps they was wrong thelrselves. But I got to do what 1 can. I reckon it'll cost a master sight of money—but there's tho farm, wuth sunthin' like four thousan', and there's a little in the bank—" "It is the case of Capt. Colter, isn't it," affirmed rather than asked Dr. Furnivall, eying the visitor interest edly through his colored spectacles. "Yes, sir." "Was there ever a case of epilepsy In the family, that you know of—back to, say, your graudparcuts or great gvaudpai enU?' "Not as ever I heard on," lie an swered. The bars of the cell-door loomed In exorably between them, but the old man advanced, strengthened perhaps by a thought of the gray old mother and wife at home, and stoutly thrust ing his arm to the elbow between the cold Iron rods wrung his boy's hand. "You needn't open the door, O'Leary," said Dr. Furnivall to the turnkey." "At any rate not yet. Re main here and remember what passes, firitt, if that is your name, come for ward where we can see you. There! Now tell us when you first saw Capt. Colter?" "I saw him Tuesday night, the first time —and then again Friday night. That was when we done it." "How did your brother come to strike him?" From the moment when his eyes first became settled in those of Dr. Furnivall the expression of his face began to change—from self-conscious ness to nervousness, to perplexity, to surprise, to earnestness, and finally, as he interrupted himself to ask the question, to deep and absorbed though. And almost instantly he continued, in the inflectionless tones of a long deaf man: "I never saw Cap'n Colter in mv life!" The father uttered an exclamation of eagerness mingled with amaze ment, but Dr. Furnivall motioned for silence. "Tell me," he : : 1 to the prisoner, "why you said you and' your brother had done this thing?" "I don't know." "Did you ever do violence to any body, you or your brother either?" "No sir—we never hurt anybody." "You like to read about people being hurt, in the accident coitmins, and in stories, don't you? < . , such things distasteful to you?" "I read all I can gei about thein." "Do you ever feel quaer in the head —depressed or confused, or as if you wanted to get away from yourself?" "I'm wliirly-headed often, and I can't think sometimes. My head aches a gocd deal . go out in the night and run it ofL ' "That's all. Come. Mr. Greeiy, we'll have them out of here sooner or later. There's a large ball of red tape to unwind and we'll begin at once." "But," faltered the u> wildered old man, his mind torn be. w ?n relief and puzzlement, "if they never done nothin' of the kind how in natur'—how — what did he say so for?" Dr. Furnivall did not wish just yet to inform this loyal old father that liis son was afflicted with Insane errabund tendencies, of a class to which self inculpative confessions, wholly false, are so common that Quintilain held a suspicion of insanity to be inherent in all confessions. He wished to see the boy again and decide what would best be done with him. He had suspected from the first that this brother and not the other was the afflicted one, if either of them were, the fit of Jim in the police station being merely a natural faint induced by the horror of his position. Two nights later Ann Tull was startled out of her sleep in the back parlor by a sound in the room over head, the cabin of mystery. Her feet struck the floor with the suddenness of thought, and goaded by the multitudin ous superstitions honestly inherited from generations of wild-headed an cestry, she plunged into her clothes and flew around the corner to the police station. Two officers heard her news and hastily accompanied her back. They crept softly up the stairs, the door of the "cabin" was wide open and the captain stood shaving before the mirror. The captain looked at the policemen. He showed no surprise. On the con trary he began to address them at once as if he had been expecting this visit, explaining in short, vigorous and forceful phrases that his daughter wished him to live on the farm with her and her husband, while he wished to continue going to sea a little longer. A compromise had been effected by his taking this room near the water where he could get a sight of it when he liked, and inhale its odors, and nevertheless might be whirled in a half hour by train to his daughter in the country. That was where he had just been. The next morning Dr. Funlvall called On the captain and accompanied him to the district attorney's office. The result was that before night the Oreely boys were released. Uritt, however, only exchanged the jail for an insane hospital, where he remains to-day. (CopvrlKlit, 11HJ8, l>y W. (!. < 'li.'ipmanj (.Copyright tu Ureal ilritutu.J II idin the Christmas Gifts By J. M. IVA LCtt *■ fyju. III! looks something I' r • • i *tiow. *' that," BVA SHM "'*• man HWIIMIHK |f 1 liturn ai Ihe burl'-r going to the door j l/'t• , I nn *' !«"»•*in»r out "H< • jr » '■ fl,' dleken» what a short time there Is be- Ky"'/*'" 7-*.'' tween Fourth of July BSBIII ar "' fbrlatrtiaH, ih<-..t> 'ivntir /ta J parß - ' ran remetn fflßv ~\ AV l9c ' r *' u; " nie w ' ,wn there I'y > V o j was a stretch of about id Vi I '* >' ,,a, 'B bi4wwn th» ! MM Fourth of July and Christmas, can't you, A -1 fellers? Why, Christ I mas'll bo clomping along before we know it. Right now the time la drawing pretty close I when a fellow will have to bo mighty | careful about opening bureau drawers when his wife is In the room If ho doesn't want to be scared into a con niption when she notices what he's doing. Y'see, this is just about the beginning of the season when wives start to hiding the Christmas presents they've bought for their husbands. Funny gag, that, too. "Then there's another thing about this Christmas present hiding busi ness. Most men stick It out that wom en are the curious, inquisitive sex, don't they? Well, I don't believe it. In my opinion men are a whole heap more curious and inquisitive than women. Fact Is, I know it. 3 "For instance, a husband, 'longr about this season that's approaching,; is groping around for a fresh shirt upon getting up in the morning. He yanks out the wrong drawer of the bureau. Well, on this morning he pulls out the bottom bureau drawer, say, and his wife, who is fixing her hair at the chiffonier in an other part of the room, catches him in the act just, in time, lets out her little squawk, and races over to the bureau and pushes the drawer shut. "'So it's there, hey?' he says tO' her. ' 'Scuse me for living,' and then the mullethead goes on grinning like a chimpanzee while he brushes his hair. Then he turns to her. "'Watchoo got in there, anyway?' he asks her. "She tells him, with a grimace, and very properly, that it's none of his business. And she adds- something about folks that 'rubber.' " 'But, say, g'wan and tell me what choo got in there, won't you?' he tries again, wheedlingly. "Whereupon his wife makes mention of that feline that met an untimely end through curiosity. " 'That's all right about the cat,' says the husband then, 'but I'll bet you a new rubber plant that It's cigars that you've got in there.' And then | he begins to look a bit alarmed. 'Say, j I hope not, though. I'm thinking about swearing oft smoking soon now, any how.' "But this hint of his about the ci gars doesn't get the loast bit of a rise out of her. Not much. Nothing' whatever doing in the conversational ! line on her part. " 'Oh, I'm a pinhead, sure enough,' j her husband says then, after a pause, and still consumed and just eaten alive by curiosity. 'I might have known all the time that it's a shaving outfit. That's exactly what it is, for a sure thing.' "However, his wife most carefully adjusts her side combs and quite re frains from talking. Then he sticks his hands into his trousers pockets and looks her over quizzically. '"Aw, come on, now, like a good girl, and tell me if you've gone and got me that bath robe that we were looking at in the shop window the other afternoon,' he says to her In his most persuasive tone. " 'Say, Minnie, you might let a fel ler see what you've got tucked In there, at that.' "Ju3t compare the attitude of the average husband in this Christmas gift business with the position of his wife on that same subject. She doesn't really want to know what he is going to give her for Christmas. She wants to be 's'prised.' " 'Look, here, hun,' he says to her some morning along toward Christmas —usually he puts it off till about the last day, when everything is all picked over in the stores —'Look a-here, my dear, whatchoo want for Christmas, hey? It's up to you, you know?' " 'Why, the very idea!' she exclaims. 'Up to me! Preposterous! Why, it wouldn't be any Christmas gift at all if I told you-what I wanted you to get for me.' " 'Oh, that's one way of looking at it,' he says. 'But, d'ye know, I was thinking about getting you—'' "'Sh-sh-sh' Stop!' she cries. 'Don't you dare tell me, Jack Gosling. Don't you dare!' "AH the same, she's foxy, at that. After a while an idea strikes her. " 'You know, of course. Jack,' she says, musingly, 'that If you are wor ried about the sizes of things, why, your sister Agnes and 1 wear exactly the same sizes In everything, and she —' " 'But, nix,' he breaks In. It Isn't anything that conies in sizee. It's one of those —' "And again her lingers go into her ears. The 's'prise' is the whole thing to her, *iiid she is resolved not to hear In advance what he is thinking or get ting for her. "Now. if all this doesn't come pretty near proving that women are really less curious than men, then 1 dutiuo, I dunuo. hey?"
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