|
22$ TRIAL OF JOHN W. WEBSTER.
to see what was burning within it. Though he had noticed how Dr.
Webster had diverted the attention of the police on Tuesday from the
privy, and regarded it therefore especially as a place of suspicion, he
made no manner of attempt to open the door, or to see what might be
concealed there. Such wasting of opportunities but little accords with
the affected magnitude of his apprehensions.
The next day, Thursday, his conduct changes. His suspicions, which
before had been accompanied only by inertness, are now rapidly unfold-
ing in action. He had before communicated them to the man in his
employment; he now applies to Mrs. Harlow for an axe to commence his
operations. He determines upon the work he will do; he will descend
beneath the basement, and break through the partition-wall at a point
opposite the privy in the laboratory of Dr. Webster. But why should
he go there? It was the privy from which Dr. Webster had excluded
him and the police; and how should he suppose that all his painstaking
in breaking through the wall below would be the necessary end of all
examination? The body might, after all, have been securely secreted in
the apartment above. Why not, instead of this laborious breach of the
wall, seek the means of entrance to the privy through the door above?
If. the body was not found there, the light of a lantern dropped down
through the hole would disclose all the revelations that could be made
from the vault beneath. But no; that process was too simple, or the
workman knew too well the point that was to be reached. He there-
fore proceeds to the breach in the wall upon which he had determined;
but the hatchet-instead of the axe which he had obtained from Mrs.
Harlow-does not enable him to work effectually.
It may seem to you a matter of some surprise,-worth at least a word
of passing observation,-why Littlefield should have commenced his
operations at that particular period of time. It happened at any rate
to be coincident with the time when, according to his own statements,
he first had knowledge of the last reward offered by the friends of Dr.
Parkman for the recovery of his body. Whether there was in reality an
inducement in that offer to commence the work which was then com-
menced you must determine for yourselves. Littlefield denies it. He
denies that he has even asked for the reward, and he disclaims uncon-
ditionally all future purpose of demanding it. Why he should so disclaim
it, if he has been honest in his search, and if his testimony is true, I can
conceive no earthly reason. The parties are most amply able to pay;
his services have been substantial and meritorious, and his exertions have
subjected him to some obloquy, if not to some suspicion and danger.
But, passing from a consideration of the motive, observe now the
progress and the interruption of the work. Commenced in the strongest
conviction that it would end in the discovery of the evidence of crime,
it was soon forsaken; left unfinished and incomplete. Persuaded that
he was upon the very track of the murderer, and that he should find in
the vault of that privy the body of Dr. Parkman,-which might at any
moment be removed to some other place of concealment,=he delays the
completion of this most important service merely .for the want of tools!
He withdrew from the scene of these extraordinary labors to join in the
amusements of the festival of the season; and, after actually dancing
eighteen out of the twenty cotillions that occupied the night, returned to
sleep quietly in his bed, in an apartment beneath which, he professes to
have believed, were lying the bones of a murdered human being, placed
there, if his suspicions were well founded, by the hands of as wicked a
criminal as has lived since the time of Cain!
On Friday, he neither rose nor commenced his work at an early hour.
While he was at breakfast at nine o'clock, Dr. Webster came into his
room and spoke to him in the same easy and unaffected manner in which
he had spoken to him and to others relative to the disappearance of Dr.
Parkman. He inquired if there were any news of him, and then men-
tioned the singular story he had just heard, at Dr. Henchman's, of the
|
