“President Vosbeck met his death while on a tour of inspection in the new power house of his company in the western part of the city.  With him were his private secretary and a stranger from New York whom he was taking on a tour of inspection.  The secretary was sent to find the superintendent of the power house.  He returned to find both President Vosbeck and the stranger in the throes of death on the floor near the great dynamo.  In the stranger’s hand a cane was clutched.  This cane was one of those that are commonly made at penitentiaries.  It was of leather rings strung on a steel rod.”

The above dispatch is spread on the bulletin board, followed by these details: 

“As soon as the hospital surgeons and the electrical experts arrived they decided that the cane must have come in contact with the deadly current; and that at that instant Steel and the stranger were standing upon the metal flooring which made a perfect conductor.”  The death of Captain Blood was even more astounding than that of President Vosbeck.

“In company with the newly appointed Superintendent of the grain elevators, of which the Captain had a monopoly, he descended into the hold of the steamboat that was taking on a cargo of wheat at the Big Three Elevator.  The two men were hardly below deck when, by some inexplicable error the engineer received the signal to open the shoot.  An avalanche of golden grain rushed upon the two captives.  There was a cry of dismay from the hold, and then only the sound of the rushing stream of grain.

“The engine was reversed and the bucket chain began to take up the grain; but it was too late.  When the bodies of the men were reached they were contorted in the agony of death.  Suffocation had come as a tardy relief to them.”

This bulletin adds to the excitement of the crowd.  While the people are reading the extras that tell of the series of strange deaths of men of such national importance as Vosbeck and Captain Blood, the news comes from Boston that a double murder has been committed in Brookline, a suburb of that city.

Ex-Chief Justice Turner of the United States Supreme Court and a friend who was visiting him at his country house, were set upon by highwaymen as they were strolling through a strip of woodland, and had been hanged to trees.  It was not known how much money the road agents got.  The Justice had never been in the habit of carrying any large sums.  As to what money Mr. Burton, his friend, might have had on his person, there was no way of ascertaining.

“The Supreme Court, the Senate, and three of the leading-men in the country, this is pretty big game,” remarks one of the crowd.

“It will be well if it ends there,” says another.

“This will cause ‘Industrials’ to take a slump,” observes a stout, sleek, well dressed man.

“Yes,” replies a voice at his elbow, “and it may be that a slump of the market is at the bottom of most of this.  I wouldn’t trust these brokers.  They’d kill a regiment to get a flurry on the market if they were short.”