Pressed for details as to the identity of the probable murderers, he named two well-known business men of a nearby town who, presumably, tempted by the large sums of money habitually carried by the pedlar, had committed the crime.
The accused were naturally placed under arrest, but their denials of the crime were not vehement as might have been expected, but were calmly contemptuous. They arranged their affairs as best they could and settled down to endure confinement in the county jail as patiently as possible until the next session of court. There does not seem to have been any evidence to corroborate the testimony of the principal witness, and when he later appeared before the county prosecutor and told him the alleged confession was merely a romance suggested to his mind through a badly distorted sense of humor, there was nothing further to be done with the alleged murderers except to release them.
While in these latter days such a hoax on the authorities would likely prove unpleasant to the joker, he apparently escaped any legal penalty. But he found it expedient to shortly leave the neighborhood, as the theory was promptly advanced that the original confession was really justified, but that the witness had in some manner been induced by the accused parties to retract, probably by a liberal bribe. His later prosperity in a large New England city was generally attributed to this source by censorious former neighbors, although others, probably better informed, were aware that he was a highly paid and valued employee in a large mercantile establishment.
This would seem to be the logical end of this narrative, but although the subsequent history of the case can be rather briefly told, what has been heretofore stated is but the beginning of the story.
Those who had been accused of the crime did not follow the example of the unreliable witness, but remained to spend the balance of their days attending to their usual occupations in the town where they had lived so long. One of these men was considerably older than the other, and although there had been no special intimacy apparent between the two from year to year, when the older man eventually developed what promised to be a fatal illness, the other promptly gave over his business to a subordinate and took up his abode at the home of the sick man. Day after day, and in fact night after night, he was always at the invalid’s call and it was generally and plausibly reported that no one was left alone with the sick man from that time until his death. Naturally those who enjoyed the sensational, immediately assumed that the attendant was afraid to permit his former alleged associate in crime any opportunity for private conversation with others lest he unburden his mind by a confession.
Enter the ghost!
During the last years of the man so carefully watched by his partner, he lived in a large old-fashioned house on a back street, surrounded by ample grounds. The household consisted solely of himself and an elderly woman acting as a domestic. The man was to a considerable extent a recluse, but whenever he had occasion to leave his home after nightfall, which was seldom, his housekeeper would immediately make haste to visit a friend. She declared that nothing would induce her to stay in alone at night, because of numerous uncanny noises and especially certain dismal groans proceeding from some never fully revealed part of the house. Coincidentally with the death of the owner these spookish manifestations ceased. Many long years have passed since that time and the house is still standing in good preservation. It has been occupied by different families during this time and only the oldest inhabitants remember that at one time it was regarded as harboring a ghost.
All the actors in this tragedy or comedy have long since passed away, but the legend persists as one of the most unique old-time mysteries of New England.
The skeptical reader might easily dismiss the foregoing history as being in all probability the result of too much imagination and rural credulity, but those who vouch for another story of “hants” are still living and their testimony is absolutely beyond question.