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Show go out the niht before lust' No; lut-y (juried on the stains poing to their reapi'C-ive reapi'C-ive rooms ut iironiy mmuUn before 10 o'clock their usual hour for retiring, lie could have gone out afterward without her knowing H? Yea. but of course he didnl. When I K't bark to the inquest the connit-r'.H jury iiad just returned a ut , diet that I Ik deceased hud come to hM death by violence at the hand or haiidso( ttoiue iersoii unknown. 1 had made up my mind to a i rest John Wardrou on sub ieion, tail was in no hurry alioul it. Aa 1 had not been on the titan 1 1 I did not have to tell unythiii of my nuspicionn and the xitaio could not Kivp anything away, for I had it wifely in my pocket, wrapped in tissue paper. Tlio repoi'tern went away to write the case up aa a pro- founder mystery than before. John Wardrop went to borrow some money, from bis employers to give his poor wife a decent burial. And 1, having taken ! time lo gel a warrant for his arrest, fol-1 lowed him. "He paled slightly and Bliowed some ! embarrassment when 1 entered the dye room, where he was doing Borne work that had to Ik done by him and could not wait until the morrow. Still he controlled, con-trolled, himself, and sought to cover his nervousness by talking. L said little, and let him talk on. which was the worst thing he could have done, for thinking up so many words led him away, now and then, from the straight story he had made up. At last, when I deemed the time rijx? for it. 1 slipped the potato out of my pocket and, .suddenly holding it up before him. said: " ' You should have washed your hands ! before you grabbed this potato out of j the d is! i pan on the table.' "He threw up his hands with a shriek and sank down on a bench, all limp and broken up. Before he could recover himself him-self lie confessed. He and Harriet had quarreled for years and finally separated. Then after a time Bhe had made up her mind to get possession of him again, found where he was and sent him word that he must visit her late ut night, when ehe would bo alone, to discuss the situation. situa-tion. He went, but the sight of her and thoughts of Jane Blair, with wliom hei had fallen in love in the meantime, since parting with his wife, made him desperate. des-perate. "I asked him how he had managed to trangle her bo quietly and without any struggle, when she seemed to have ! double his strength. He explained that he possessed sufficient mesmeric force i to render her passive, and had employed it on that occasion. "Having rendered her completely unconscious un-conscious by mesmerizing her, the rest was easy. I could not help feeling some j sympathy for him when he said she was 1 a 'tartar,' still business was business, and j when I had heard him through I told : him: " 'Now, John, get your coat on una I Till- FATAL POTATO. One of the tinretcasM lew find said the old detective, "occurred aom thing over twenty years jf(. TTtMl 1 still hud much to learn in my buiunua, and. firtu nately for me. knew tlmt J had It was memorable as un .trillion .tril-lion of the importance of small things, and 1 have pigeon holed il in my memory as the "affair of the fatal potato.' 'A red headed servant girl, so scared that her eyes stood out like lobster's, rushed into the station house early one morning, howling that all the police were wanted aiound at Mr. Morton's The sergeant at the desk, supposing there was probably just Rome row among the servants, grinned ut the sight of her and asked what was the matter. 'She gave a whoop of 'murder!' that raised his hair and startled every one in the station Tho idea of murder in the aristocratic mansion of Mr. Samuel Morton, Mor-ton, on Fifth avenue, within live blocks of the station, naturally rather excited us. Two detailed men and myself J ! was then ward detective ran around there as quickly as we could. Sure enough, there had been a murder. mur-der. The cook, a sturdy built, middle aged Englishwoman named Harriet Wardrop. lay on the kitchen floor, iu the back basement, with a dirty cotton handkerchief twisted and knotted about her neck, stone dead and quite cold When she had not sent up her employ-; employ-; er's coffee, which he was accustomed to biking in bed. or answered the bell, the ret! headed girl came down to see what was the matter, and that was the plight I she found her in. "The last seen of Harriet alive was at near 10 o'clock the night before, when the two upstairs girls left to go to their room in the attic. Her room was in the basement, und she said that she was going to bed in a few minutes. She had had no visitor, never, indeed, had any, was come along.' " 'In a moment, sir. Let me wash off some of this dye first,' "1 assented. He washed, pouring some stuff over his hands from a bottle, to take the color out, us 1 supposed. Suddenly he turned the bottle up to his hps and took a big swallow of its contents con-tents before I could jump to him -and , grab him. As I Beized him the bottle dropped to the floor and smashed, while, he dropped into my arms as dead as u maul. Cyanide, of potassium, as I sub- sequently learned, was hia final nip, but it was the fatal potato that killed him. j Cincinnati Post. j perfectly sober, and seemed lobealwayB a woman of perfectly correct habits. Really, however, not much was known about her. further than that she had come there from Philadelphia seven or eight months before with good references, had behaved herself well and made no confidantes. con-fidantes. But she must have admitted to the house the man who ciiuked her. "Thorn were no signs of any struggle, i and tliero had been no robbery. Her I gold watch was on the kitchen table, two I months' wages in her pocket and no at-! at-! tempt seemed to have been made at I plunder in the still richer lield up stairs. ; Why had she been killed? It was mysterious. mys-terious. Oue oT the 'cops' with me wns so puzzled that ho declared it must be a case of suicide. "I saw that she had been strangled, and I wondered what a strong fellow the murderer must have been to have twisted, twist-ed, with fatal effect, so soft a band as a handkerchief about so big and solid a I neck and to do il so deftly and power-1 power-1 fully as to prevent an outcry or even a ! struggle. It takes a good deal of pres-1 pres-1 sure to squeeze in a whole neck so tightly I as to cause death. 'Hut when 1 came to examine more ' closely 1 found that a novel und iuge-I iuge-I nioUH device had been employed to make i the job easier. Folded into tho handker-! handker-! chief find placed so thut it would press directly upon the windpipe, was a potato about the size of a hen's egg. While turning the tuber over in my hand, I noticed that there were two deep curving curv-ing cuts in its smooth, creamy skin, such as would be mndo by finger nails scratching scratch-ing it, and each showed a thin line of blue color. At first 1 thought nothing of that, for 1 knew that some potatoes, ! such as the Neshannocks. havea delicate Bkin of violet tint under the white out- ! . side. But when 1 looked more carefully I J saw that this potato was not a Neshan-I Neshan-I nock, but an Early liose, which as 1 soon proved by scratching it had no bucIi colored second skin, and 1 observed that the blue color seemed to go deeper than merely the surface. 'Who, 1 asked myself, would bo like-; like-; ly to habitually carry under his finger j nails such an abundance of color as I would leave deposits like these? Well, a dyer, for one. Yes, of course, a dyer; but there were more dyers in the city, for aught I know, than one could shake a stick at. and it would bo ridiculous to seek a blue handed dyer, since hands thut were blue ono day might be red or green Ihe next, "The newspapers, the next duy. In I their sensationul treatment of tho incp dent, characterized it ua a profound ' mystery, and said that Ihe police had ! 'absolutely no clew to ihe murderer.' "As I hud hoped, thai encouraged some person who had known Harriet ! Wardrop lo coiuo forward. A small, ! neaily dressed, respectable looking, mid-! mid-! die aged man. with keen, furtive eyes and an habitually deprecatory manner, i presented himself (tl ll.e inquest. lie ! came lose if the woman, whoso death j he had read of in the morning paper, was bis wife, from whom he had separated sepa-rated in Pliikidelphiii a year before, and had uol seen or heard Iron) since. His tiamu? John W:irdrop. His occupation? Dver, Where did he work? With Henri Detail le & Co., Parisian dyeiB, on BleeclMT tttrpeu Yes. ihe dead woman wjis hit wife, lie recognised her perfectly, per-fectly, and Ihe sight mndo him weep Poor woman, she wuh hard to get along with, but she had a good heart, j "1 made an excuse of his signing n j formal recognition lo get him to take otT his gloves His hand was til' 11 brilliant orange lint While tho coroner kepi him in ntteiidam-e at the inquest 1 hur 1 rh-d l Driaille & Co. 's dye house to ask ; no mo question.' I "Yes John Wtinirop worked there ' He wus a quiet, steady man tuid ai) ex-j ex-j eel It'n t workman They had employe;) j him attorn I' ti months. Did they know i unything more aUuil him? No, except 1 hat l hey fatu ied there was likely to be a ni;itcli between him und Jane Blair, it I good Imikiny. plump woman tiUnit i yearn old. who had been their eashiei for several years. Had they done an dark blue dyeing lately? Yes, only the day before yesterday. Who did the work? John Wardrop. "I saw Jtino Blair. With a good deal of hesitancy she admitted that she and John Wardrop were engaged to bo married mar-ried as Boon as ho got a divorce from a bad wifo who had left him, aud expected expect-ed that lie would soon bo free. Was she well informed as to his habits? Perfectly, Perfect-ly, Thev boarded in tho same house, on West Washington place, and ho very .seldom went out in tho evening. Did ho |