“It was several moments before Mr. Felton could pull himself together to take cognizance of the circumstances. He then noted the unmistakable evidences of a desperate struggle. As stated, the cashier’s own chair lay overturned near the body; one of the side drawers in the desk was partially drawn out, and the orderly row of directors’ chairs were now disarranged as if a heavy body had been flung violently against them. The door of the dark closet was wide open and a lot of old ledgers that had been piled upon its floor were toppled over into the room. The doors of the safe were open, and a glance within revealed the principal money drawer half-withdrawn, and empty save of two canvas bags of specie and nickels; a goodly bunch of keys with chain attached hanging in the lock. The story was told. Cashier Hathaway had been murdered and the bank robbed.
“Mr. Felton immediately notified Sheriff Wilson, and the legal machinery of the town was at once set in motion to encompass the capture of the murderer and robber. It was thought that with the short start obtained the feat would be a comparatively easy matter.
“Nearly $50,000 in available cash, and half as much more in securities, part negotiable and part worthless to the robber, were secured by the murderer. The presence of this unusually large amount of ready money was due to the fact that $50,000 of Mansfield County bonds matured to-day and were payable at the Raymond National Bank.
“The presence of Cashier Hathaway in the bank at that particular time was by the merest chance, and the conclusion is therefore irresistible that the murder was not premeditated. The savings and national banks, though both among the most prosperous and stable fiduciary institutions in the state, are comparatively small, the capital of the national bank being $50,000 and employing but a small clerical force. The latter comprise, besides the cashier, the teller of the bank, Frederick Sibley; the bookkeeper of the savings bank, Ralph Felton, son of the president, and one clerk, a youth named Edward Maxwell. For the last two weeks the teller, Mr. Sibley, has been confined to his residence by illness, and considerable extra labor has necessarily devolved upon the cashier. Memorial Day, a legal holiday in Vermont, the bank had been closed, and on returning from the services at the cemetery, in which he had taken part—for Mr. Hathaway had been a gallant soldier in the famous Vermont brigade—the cashier had dropped into the bank, apparently to complete some work upon the books. It is possible that the robber—the opinion is general that there was but one engaged in the enterprise—had previously entered the bank, and upon the entrance of the cashier concealed himself in the only place available, the dark closet. He may have remained an unobserved spectator of the cashier through the partly opened door and as the latter finished his work and prepared to close the safe, the robber may have concluded, by a coup de main, to save himself the trouble of attempting to solve the combination, and, noiselessly stepping from the closet, have sought to surprise the cashier. On this hypothesis the presumption is that Mr. Hathaway became aware of his danger, and turning sought to ward off the blow, when the struggle ensued that was ended with his death. Or the cashier may have discovered the presence of some intruder in the closet, and seizing his revolver, which he kept in a drawer of his desk, he may have approached the closet, when the robber sprung upon him and, wresting the weapon from the feeble hands of the old banker, turned it against the latter’s breast.
“The fatal shot was fired at so close range that the clothing of the victim was scorched by the explosion. No weapon was found in the room; the revolver which, as noted above, the cashier was known to have kept in his desk, is also missing. The wound was made, the physicians state, by a 32-caliber bullet, which penetrated the breast directly above the vital organ, and death must have been instantaneous. The shot was fired at about 8 o’clock. Prof. Black, who occupies rooms directly over the cashier’s office, heard a shot at that time, as did several friends who were in the room with him, but they attributed it to boys shooting water rats from the bridge beneath the professor’s window.
“Thus far the tragedy possesses few extraordinary features. But what has become of the murderer? Raymond is not so populous that the presence of a stranger would be unnoted. Yet no one has volunteered information of any suspicious characters in town. Within fifty minutes of the commission of a daring crime the perpetrator disappeared, leaving not a trace for the local sleuths. The last seen of Mr. Hathaway alive, so far as known, was about 7:45 o’clock, when he stepped to the door of the bank, and, calling a boy who was standing on the bridge, throwing stones into the stream, asked him to take a letter to President Felton at his house. Half an hour later he was found shot through the heart in his office.
“President Felton was seen by the Hemisphere representative to-day, and told the story of the finding of the dead cashier substantially as outlined above. He was terribly affected by the tragedy and could hardly be induced to converse regarding it.
“Roger Hathaway was one of the best known and highly esteemed residents of Raymond. He was 63 years of age and had been identified with the national and savings banks ever since their organization, the last twenty years as cashier and treasurer respectively. He was prominent in Grand Army and church circles; a deacon in the Congregational Church. Of a severely stern but eminently just disposition, it was not known that Deacon Hathaway possessed an enemy in the world. He lived in a plain but substantial mansion, the family homestead of several generations of Hathaways, with his two daughters, his wife having died some ten years before. He was one of the founders of both the savings and national banks, which under his management had prospered to an unusual degree and stood high among the banking institutions of the state. He had held several important positions in the gift of his townspeople, and as town treasurer his rugged honesty, economic conservatism and strict observance of the letter of the law in the handling of the town’s funds, had earned for him the sobriquet of ‘watchdog of the treasury,’ a title which he sealed even with his life blood.
“Up to a late hour this evening no clew to the murderer has been discovered. The theory is held by the local police that the deed was clearly that of an expert bank robber, and they are inclined to think that he may be a member of the same gang that has broken into numerous postoffices in New Hampshire and Vermont within the last few months. The officials cite the fact that the local papers had advertised that $50,000 in Mansfield County bonds were to be redeemed at the Raymond National Bank upon this particular date, and the natural presumption that the bank would have on hand a large amount of currency, with the knowledge that yesterday was a holiday, when the bank would be closed and afford an unusual opportunity to work upon the safe, would form a strong inducement to a daring burglar.”