The Spruce Street Tragedy; or, Old Spicer Handles a Double Mystery

by Unknown

The main apartment was, of course, the barroom, where for years Mrs. Ernst, and two of her three husbands before her, had sold beer and liquor.

The chief informed Spicer that up to the present year the widow had carried on the saloon business there under the usual authority. She had not, however, he said, renewed her license for the present year, although she expected to do so before the summer season set in. She was a dispenser, since her license expired, of temperance drinks ostensibly.

Old Spicer and those with him, in looking over the premises, soon discovered conclusive proof that she did not strictly interpret the license law. Ale barrels, beer kegs, and demijohns for whisky and other fiery liquors were scattered through the basement.

In the rear of the barroom was the bedroom. There were many more rooms in the basement. Fourteen inside doors led into the little rooms, each of which was furnished with one or two chairs, a lounge, table, and a stove. Most of these rooms could be reached from two or three different sides.

In the rear were two doors leading to the back yard, and a covered passage leading to a little alley through which York Street could be reached. Four doors opened out of the room where the body of Mrs. Ernst was discovered by the milkman.

No one who was unfamiliar with the premises had any idea that there were more than two rooms in the basement. The officials, Chief Bollmann, Coroner Mix, and all the detectives, including Spicer, Stricket and Morgan, who had a pretty good knowledge of the various haunts of vice in the city, were surprised to find such a thoroughly mixed-up piece of underground architecture.

Old Spicer, while inspecting the apartments and the several dark passages by which the rooms were reached, compared the surroundings, because of the abrupt and unexpected halls and turns, the scanty furnishings, and the like, to some of the celebrated structures that carried notoriety to the old Five Points in New York years ago.

In the southeast corner of the basement, where the uninitiated might expect to find a coal bin or a hole in the ground to store away wood, they discovered a room with three or four chairs and a lounge. Even the tenants on the floor above had no idea that there was such a room in existence.

One of the passages from the bedroom opened into what must have been a sort of social apartment for the patrons of the widow. It might also answer the purpose of a card or smoking-room. A cheap stove, a couple of tables, and three or four chairs comprised the furniture of this room.

Then there was discovered another apartment which was probably used as a storehouse for ale and beer barrels. Besides these there were found a woodshed and tool-room, and a suspicious looking trap-door that covered what Old Spicer was privately informed was a secret underground tunnel that extended far in the rear of the building.