“Of what?” asked the reporter.
“Of the murder of Mina Schmidt. I married her that day, although I have a wife here. She told me she loved me. I did not tell her I was married. After we were married we went to Schuetzen Park. There we sat at a table drinking, when two men came by. They greeted Mina as old friends, and we all drank together. One of the men took her away, and the other then told me that Mina had said that she did not love me. They all left me, and I, after hunting for them, came back to this city and tried to find her.”
Chief of Police Donovan of Hoboken, who had been standing by all this time and listening to what the reporter quickly translated, touched the reporter on the shoulder and said: “Ask him if he was not in Jersey City last night.”
The reporter asked the question. Kenkouwsky staggered back and repeated, “Jersey City! Jersey City! Where is that?” The reporter repeated the question.
Kenkouwsky replied: “I was with my wife last night.”
“In Jersey City?” asked the reporter.
“No; I was with a woman there.”
Chief Donovan’s eyes brightened, and he then said: “Last Monday a young girl, whose name I cannot now mention, was taken into a house by this man. He made her drink wine, and as she was partly stupefied, he locked the doors and assaulted her. It was for this offence that I and my detectives were hunting him up to-day. We did not then suspect that he was the murderer of Mrs. Schmidt. Last night he was to meet another girl, but she became frightened and did not stay where he told her to until he came. He eluded us by ten minutes.”
In the prisoner’s pocket was found a clipping from a German paper of the account of the hanging of Mrs. Meierhoffer and her paramour last winter. To the reporter he said he had not read any account of the Guttenberg murder until the day previous to his arrest.
At midnight Chief Donovan had the trunks of Mrs. Mina Schmidt taken over to Hoboken.