A SISTER'S GRIEF.
The first stage of the journey to the tomb was now commenced. Under escort of a number of friends the casket was taken to the Armory of the First Cavalry, on Michigan avenue. Here it was placed upon a catafalque, which had been erected in the center of the vast hall. It had no more than been placed in position, however, when a gray-bearded man, dressed in a gray overcoat and low-crowned hat, stepped to the front and demanded the opening of the casket.
"Why?" asked the attendant.
"I am his brother-in-law, and his sister here desires to see him." He pointed, as he said this, to a lady of above middle age, gray haired, and wearing a black bonnet and sober, gray shawl, who stood at his side. She was weeping freely, and pressed a handkerchief to her face.
The casket was partially opened when a number of the committee of arrangements appeared and ordered the attendants to screw it up again.
"Why should the casket be opened?" he asked.
"This lady is a sister of the deceased and desires to view the remains," replied the stranger.
"Well, I don't know you and don't know whether you are his brother-in-law or not. Where is Mr. Conklin?"
At this protest the attendants again commenced to screw up the casket.
"I am John Carroll," said the stranger, with dignity. "I came here to-day with my wife from St. Catherines, Ont. I don't know Mr. Conklin or anything about him. If I wanted to insist, I could take charge of the remains and conduct the funeral myself, but all I ask is to let his sister see the body."
The committeeman relented at this, and by a gesture indicated that the attendants might open the coffin. When they had exposed the face, covered as it was by the glass, the sister stepped forward, and gazing long and intently at the features beneath, burst into a passion of tears. Bending her gray head to the glass of the casket, she lifted her veil and pressed her lips convulsively against the glass again and again as she said: "Good-by, good-by, asthore!" She turned away in a burst of passionate weeping. Her husband could not control his feelings as he silently gazed at the remains of the brother they had loved, and he, too, burst into tears. Mrs. Carroll was an elder sister of the deceased, residing at St. Catherines, Ont., and neither she nor her husband had seen him for fourteen years, but her heart warmed to him as it had in childhood when they played together in the years gone by.
Between this occurrence and midnight, a period of nearly eight hours, many thousands of people were admitted to the building. Four Knights of St. Patrick, in plumed bonnets, long gloves and drawn swords, guarded the casket, one being stationed at each corner of the catafalque. The latter was imposing enough for the obsequies of a monarch. At the four corners there were standards supporting cross pieces above at a height of fifteen feet, and which, together with the supports, were draped in black over-wound with white. Above, depending horizontally from the beams of the great roof, were draped three immense flags, their centres reaching down to the roof of black below. At the head of the casket was a massive floral cross, nearly six feet in height, and composed of marguerites, carnations, cape jasmines, roses, and lilies-of-the-valley, all in white. At the foot, upon a black-robed pedestal, stood a four-foot candelabra of brass, bearing seven lighted wax candles. Upon the top of the coffin was a large bunch of white roses attached to a pair of palms by satin ribbons, while the side and base of the bier were covered with smilax and palms overstrewn with a profusion of loose roses. To complete the effect the four corners of the catafalque were banked with pink hydrangeas, and over all looked down, from a frame of crape, a lifelike portrait of the murdered man. Only the casket and catafalque were to be seen, the coffin lid being closed until the formal lying in state on the following morning, but all who came were admitted, and hour after hour a steady stream of people filed before the sentries, and when, at midnight, the big doors were closed, it was estimated that fully twelve thousand people had, by their presence, by bowed heads and by tear-dimmed eyes, paid a simple token of respect to the memory of the murdered man.
CHAPTER VII.
THE CRIME CREATES AN INTERNATIONAL SENSATION—DISCOVERY OF THE LONELY COTTAGE WHERE THE IRISH NATIONALIST MET HIS DEATH—EVIDENCES OF A TERRIBLE STRUGGLE—THE TELLTALE BLOOD STAINS AND BROKEN FURNITURE—THE MYSTERIOUS TENANTS AND THEIR MOVEMENTS—THE FURNITURE BOUGHT AND CARTED TO THE ASSASSINS' DEN—WHAT MILKMAN MERTES SAW—THE PLOT AS OUTLINED BY THE SURROUNDINGS—ICEMAN O'SULLIVAN UNDER SURVEILLANCE.
The discovery of the body of the missing physician under such appalling circumstances, and with the surrounding evidences that a crime of the foulest character had been committed, created a most profound sensation, not only among all classes and nationalities in cosmopolitan Chicago, but also in Irish-American circles throughout the United States, and among the countrymen of the murdered man across the Atlantic. Telegrams and letters, breathing indignation and horror, and urging that no stone be left unturned to the end that the assassins might be run to earth and brought to justice, poured in on the dead man's friends from the four quarters of the continent, as well as from abroad. The scoffers—those who all along had scouted the theory of foul play, and had voiced the stories so artfully concocted by the plotters that the physician had left Chicago of his own free will, and with objects and motives that would, sooner or later, be revealed—were, in a figurative sense, deprived of the power of speech. In the presence of the hacked and decomposing body of the man they had maligned they had not a word to say.