A BIG REWARD OFFERED.
Public interest in the mystery was renewed by these developments. The theory of foul play was again revived, and this time it found numerous supporters, where incredulity had previously existed. Again the friends of the physician were equal to the situation. Another conference was held and it was decided to persevere in the search until the mystery had been solved. Funds to any extent were pledged on the spot. "We will find our friend, if alive; we will avenge him, if dead" was the key note. That night the following address was flashed over the electric wires to every quarter of the continent.
To The Public: On the night of May 4, 1889, Dr. P. H. Cronin, a prominent and respectable physician of this city, was decoyed from his home to attend an alleged case of injury to an employe of an ice dealer in the town of Lake View. Since that time no trace of him has been found, and it is believed that he was made the victim of foul play, and that he is murdered.
On behalf of his friends and fellow-citizens, who think that his disappearance is due to a conspiracy, I hereby offer a reward of $5,000 for any information that may lead to the arrest and conviction of any of the principals in, accessories to, or instigators of this crime.
A studied attempt seems to have been made, by false dispatches, and other agencies in the public press, to create the impression that he is still alive, and that his disappearance is voluntary.
I am also authorized to offer a further reward of $2,000 for any satisfactory evidence that will prove that he is not dead, and that would lead to the discovery of his whereabouts.
The public is asked to discredit any and all charges, reports, or insinuations reflecting in any manner upon his professional or personal character. He was a man of temperate habits and lived a pure and unblemished life.
The above rewards are offered by his friends and fellow-citizens with the full conviction that a terrible crime has been committed, and with the view that law and order may be vindicated.
James F. Boland,
Chairman of Com. from Societies and Friends.
CHAPTER VI.
HOPING AGAINST HOPE—THE STENCH IN THE SEWER—"MURDER WILL OUT"—A GHASTLY DISCOVERY—WHERE THE BODY WAS FOUND—THE RECOGNITION BY CAPTAIN WING—ITS HORRIBLE APPEARANCE—EVIDENCES OF A FOUL CRIME—THE CORPSE AT THE MORGUE—PITIABLE SCENES OF GRIEF—THE OFFICIAL AUTOPSY—THE BRUTAL WAY IN WHICH THE PHYSICIAN HAD BEEN DONE TO DEATH.
It is always the unexpected that happens.
Even the closest friends of the missing man, earnest as they apparently were in the declaration of their belief that he had been the victim of foul play, still hoped against hope that their fears would not be realized. As a drowning man clings to a straw, so they clung to the hope that they would again see him alive and in the flesh.
But it was not to be.
Dr. Cronin did not leave Chicago on the night of his disappearance.
He was not seen on a street car apparently en route to the depot.
He was not recognized on Canadian soil; nor did he unbosom himself to reporter Long.
He was not en route to London to betray the cause to which he had devoted so large a portion of his active life; or to re-enforce the spy Le Caron in his work of infamy.
Dr. Cronin was murdered.
THE CATCH-BASIN—SOUTH VIEW.
While these reports and rumors were confounding his friends and making his enemies exultant; his body, hacked and marred and battered, was rapidly decomposing in one of the sewer catch-basins in the town of Lake View.