The murderer fell forward and
died even before his victim.
When this notice is displayed it causes a shudder to run through the crowd. This is the first of the deaths to be inflicted in New York.
With the apprehension of men who feel that danger is imminent, the crowd in front of the bulletin shifts uneasily. There is the thought in all minds that some awful calamity may come upon them as they stand there. Then, too, there is the thought that they may not be safe elsewhere. In such a state of mind men become susceptible to emotion. A word can then sway a multitude.
From five o'clock, when the first bulletin appeared, until the announcement of the killing of Mr. Drew, a period of two hours and a half, the list has grown to frightful proportions.
From Chicago comes the report that Tingwell Fang, the Beef King, has been killed in his private office by the explosion of a dynamite bomb or some other infernal machine brought there by a man who for weeks had been transacting important business with Mr. Fang. The explosion entirely demolished the office, and when the police succeeded in getting at the bodies it was found that the bomb-thrower had paid for his deed with his life.
In a bundle of papers which the man left in the outer office a note is found which gives his address as the Palmer House. At his room in the hotel a card is found addressed to the public: It read as follows:
I have fulfilled my oath; my self-destruction is proof that I am sincere in the belief that I have acted for the good of mankind.
BENTON S. MARVIN.
Almost as soon as the papers are on the street announcing the tragedy, another message comes from Chicago telling of the strange death of Senator Gold. His body and that of a man who had been with him at the Auditorium are found in the Senator's room. Death has been caused by an unknown agency. There are no signs of violence on either. The money and jewelry of both are undisturbed. Neither man appears to have been the victim of the other's hand, for the apparel of each is unruffled. One is found lying on the floor near the window; the other is found stretched across the table in the room.
Following these early bulletins come others from Philadelphia, St. Louis
and Boston, successively announcing the mysterious deaths of President
Vosbeck of the National Transportation Trust, Captain Blood of the St.
Louis Steamship Association, and of ex-U.S. Supreme Court Justice Elias
M. Turner of Massachusetts.