HEARD HIS DEATH CRY.
But it remained for a poor washerwoman, who was searching for her drunken husband, to furnish the final link in the chain and discover the crowning evidence against some of the men who were on trial. She testified on November 12th, and her story was one of the most dramatic and sensational of the trial. Paulina Hoertel was her name, and she was a little German woman, poorly but neatly dressed, with a thin, pinched face, but with considerably more intelligence than is usually found among people in her station of life. She wept bitterly at times while telling her story. For several years, owing to the drunken habits of her husband, her life had been full of trouble. At one time he visited a saloon near the Carlson cottage with nearly five hundred dollars in his pockets, fell into a drunken stupor, and remained in the place four days and nights. When his wife, after considerable searching, finally discovered his whereabouts, the saloon-keeper first attempted to shoot her, and then secured her arrest on a charge of disorderly conduct.
From a long recital of her domestic misery, Mrs. Hoertel went on to tell, how on the night of the murder she had started out to find her husband, who, as usual, was away from home. After going some distance her heart failed her, and she started to return. As she entered North Ashland avenue from Cornelia street, she saw a white horse attached to a top-buggy, coming toward her at a lively pace from the direction of the city. There were two men in the vehicle, and the horse was brought to a full stop immediately in front of the Carlson cottage. A tall man, with a black satchel or box in his left hand, jumped from the vehicle, and, after reaching out his arm toward the buggy as if to take something, crossed over the sidewalk toward the steps. Mrs. Hoertel was at this time on the same side of the street and walking in the direction of the cottage. As soon as the man had gotten out of the vehicle, his companion lashed the white horse into a gallop, and started back toward the town. The tall man walked briskly up the long flight of stairs, and, upon reaching the threshold of the cottage, the door was opened by somebody within. A bright light was burning in the front room of the building, and when the door was opened its reflection was seen on the steps. Mrs. Hoertel reached the front of the cottage just as the door closed. An instant later she heard some one cry in a loud voice, "Oh, God!" Then there was a noise that sounded like a blow, followed by a heavy fall, and again the now frightened woman heard the exclamation, "Jesus!"
The woman stood still for an instant. The light was still shining through the slats of the tightly-drawn blinds, but all was as still as the grave, and, thinking that the sounds which she had heard were only those of an ordinary quarrel, she resumed the journey toward her home. A block distant, between the Carlson cottage and the little building in the rear where the Carlsons lived, she saw in the starlight the outlines of a man who was evidently on watch. Upon reaching her home she could not open the doors, her husband having changed the locks in her absence, and she was compelled to sit all night on her door-step. It was not until three days later that she was able to obtain access to her home.
Told through an interpreter, for the woman's efforts to make her broken English understood failed almost from the start, this story created a painful impression in the court-room. Every one within hearing recognized its vital interest. The white horse that had carried the physician away from his house had been traced to the door of the Carlson cottage, and the exclamation, "Oh, God!" must have been wrung from the Doctor the instant he entered the door and saw that a trap had been set for him. But it was too late to retreat, and, with a last cry of "Jesus," he had fallen beneath the blow of one of his assassins, with the name of his Saviour upon his lips.
"I heard the far-away cry of Jesus," was the way in which the interpreter made a literal translation of the statement, and every eye was turned on the prisoners. Burke's mouth opened, his face turned scarlet and his eyes rolled wildly around the court-room. Coughlin's jaws were set tightly, and he glared savagely at the witness. Beggs, O'Sullivan and Kunze, however, sat like stoics, and did not move a muscle or change a shade in color. Judge Wing, who was chosen to cross-examine the witness, occupied over an hour in an effort to confuse her as to dates and assail her as to character, but the replies were prompt and unanswerable, and when she left the stand not a word of her story had been shaken.