"My son always excelled in writing. It was one of the branches that he took prizes in at school. I will examine the desk; but I fear I shall only confirm my strong suspicions that he is a murderer. O God! O God! Why did he not die with his sainted mother! Far better would that have been. It is a hard thing, gentlemen--it is a very hard thing; but if this boy of mine does not surrender himself to the hands of justice to-morrow, I shall--I shall--myself denounce him to the--"
The afflicted man, overcome with the terrible conflict between a sense of public duty, and a lingering, inextinguishable parental affection, fainted and fell into the arms of Marcus, who sprang to catch him.
While he was still insensible, the lieutenant of police, and the boy Bog, slipped out of the room, and started off on a search for Myndert Van Quintem, jr.
CHAPTER VI.
WHAT PAPER, TYPES, AND INK CAN DO.
When Marcus and his counsel, accompanied by the faithful lieutenant of police, arrived in a close carriage at the scene of the inquest, at the hour of adjournment next morning, they saw a convincing illustration of the power of paper, types, and ink.
The morning journals, with whole leaded pages of evidence, and new diagrams of the house and fatal room; and the enterprising illustrated weekly, with portraits of the deceased, the prisoner, his counsel, Tiffles, Patching (great hat and all), Patty Minford, the coroner, the foreman of the jury, a full-page design of the murder, as it was supposed to have taken place, representing the infuriate Wilkeson, club in hand, standing over the prostrate body of the inventor, from whose forehead the gore was pouring in torrents--all these delightful, provocatives of sensation had done their full and perfect work.
At that moment, Marcus Wilkeson was known to the world of readers in New York and the whole country round about, as the murderer of Eliphalet Minford.
On the second morning of the inquest an immense crowd of people were assembled in front of the house. They had been collecting since five A.M., when a party of six Jerseymen, having sold off their stock of nocturnal cabbages at Washington Market, had taken position of vantage before the house, from which they and their wagons were afterward dislodged with great effort by a squad of police. Some butcher boys, also returning from their night's work at market, were next on the ground, and selected adjacent awning posts and trees, as good points of observation. Mechanics and shop girls, going to their labor, recklessly postponed the duties of the day, and stopped to stare, awestricken, at the house.