At the coroner’s inquest, held the next day, one of the servants testified that three days before, while the old man and Brooks were at the store and while the ladies were out, a man with black whiskers, and who wore a black coat, had called at the house and said that he had been sent to search for sewer-gas.  He had an order presumably signed by Mr. Colton, and was accordingly shown through the house.  He had insisted upon going into the vault-room, declaring that he had located the gas there, but was told that the room was always kept locked.  He then went away.  The servant had not thought to tell Mr. Colton.

A general delivery clerk at the post-office testified that the letter addressed to Dave Kittymunks had passed through his hands.  The oddness of the name had fastened it on his memory.  He did not think that he could identify the man who had received the letter, but he recalled the black whiskers.  The letter was apparently written by a woman, and was signed “Lil.”  It was an urgent appeal for money.

CHAPTER XIX.

ARRESTED EVERYWHERE.

“Who is Dave Kittymunks?” was a question asked by the newspapers throughout the country.  Not the slightest trace of him could be found, nor could “Lil” be discovered with any degree of certainty.  But one morning the public was fed to an increase of appetite by an article that appeared in a Chicago newspaper.  “Kittymunks came to Chicago about five months ago,” said the writer, “and for a time went under the name of John Pruett.  Fierce in his manner, threatening in his talk, wearing a scowl, frowning at prattling children and muttering at honest men, he repelled every one.  Dissatisfied with his lot in life, he refused, even for commensurate compensation, to perform that honest labor which is the province of every true man, and like a hyena, he prowled about growling at himself and despising fate.  The writer met him on several occasions and held out inducements that might lead to conversation, but was persistently repulsed by him.  He frowned upon society, and set the grinding heel of his disapproval on every attempt to draw him out.  Was there some dark mystery connected with his life?  This question the writer asked himself.  He execrated humanity; and, moody and alone, the writer has seen him sitting on a bench on the lake front, turning with a sullen look and viewing with suppressed rage the architectural grandeur towering at his back.”

The article was written by Mr. Flummers.  As the only reporter who could write from contact with the murderer, his sentences were bloated into strong significance.  Fame reached down and snatched him up, and the blue light of his flambeau played about him.