A CORNER OF MESSRS. W. H. SMITH AND SON'S HEADQUARTERS IN LONDON AT 3.30 A.M.
The weird circumstances attending the Lord Balcarres' death and funeral were almost fittingly followed by events of unparalleled mystery. Twelve months almost to a day had transpired when a heavy odour of spices attracted the attention of the servants moving about the mansion. On examination it was found that the huge slab of stone which covered the doorway leading into the vault had been disturbed. The stone—seemingly heavy enough to require the strength of a dozen men to move it—had been lifted, the vault had been entered, the coffin "pinched" forward till it rested on the floor, the lid had been torn off, the two inner cases had been rent, the body removed, and the floor of the vault was strewn with the red sawdust by which the embalming fluid had been absorbed. Here was a mystery indeed.
The first hint of what had happened appeared in the papers on Saturday. The young Earl was telegraphed for, and outposts of police were established round the house, with instructions that no one was to be admitted, and no information was to be vouchsafed. One enterprising young journalist—Mr. W. D. Ross—who at that time was editing the principal evening paper in Aberdeen, resolved to break the silence by which his contemporaries were baffled. He secured the co-operation of one of the servants on the estate to whom he was known, and, deeming boldness best, found his way to the house, and demanded an audience of the Earl. The housekeeper, after some demur, consented. Plain-spoken tact was necessary in dealing with so delicate a matter; so when the Earl appeared, the young man explained that he was there as the representative of the Times (of which he was then the correspondent) to consult the young peer's wishes as to what should be said about this mysterious matter, with a view to obviate malicious and mistaken versions.
Lord Balcarres wisely accepted this considerate method, and, despite the orders that had been issued, gave special facilities to the pressman to examine the vault and obtain the facts so far as they could be obtained at the time. The first result was that Mr. Ross secured the monopoly of information, and also the monopoly of the telegraph wires at Aberdeen, and on Monday morning all the papers throughout the country published columns on the Dunecht mystery. It was this publicity that eventuall resulted in the partial elucidation of the mystery.
REPORTERS GLEANING "FULLEST DETAILS OF THE CRIME."
For days and weeks the telegraph officials at Aberdeen were kept busy transmitting the reams of "copy" which, in his capacity of half detective and half reporter, this young man had prepared. Mr. Ross probed the matter minutely, and, apart from his important police work, so thoroughly was his newspaper task accomplished, that over thirty leading daily papers passed their correspondence into his hands. Through the various phases of the mystery, ample orders and handsome revenue poured into him, since sub-editors put no stint on the quantities of matter of vital interest furnished for the public under the heading of "The Dunecht Outrage." The sensation was kept up by speculation, searches by bloodhounds, police investigations, arrests, body-snatching theories, suggestions of black-mail, of malice, and every kind of motive, for twelve months.
During this time, the newspaper man, whose detective work was considered of the greatest value by the police, became an important medium between the parties supposed to be concerned and the detective staff of the city, a position of very considerable personal danger.
Then the interest died away, till in July of 1882, eighteen months after the rifling of the tomb, the body was found buried in the leaf mould that lay in the dry bed of a little rivulet that at one time had run through the grounds at Dunecht.