at Elm Bluff." On the afternoon of the
prisoner's visit there, he was resetting violet roots on a border under
the western veranda, upon which opened the glass door leading out from
the General's bed-room. He had heard an angry altercation carried on
between General Darrington and some one, and supposed he was scolding
one of the servants. He went to a shed in the barn yard to get a spade
he needed, and when he came back he saw the prisoner walk down the
steps, and thought it singular a stranger should leave the house that
way. Wondered whom she could be, and wondered also that the General had
quarrelled with such a splendid looking lady. Next morning when he went
back to his work, he noticed the glass door was shut, but the red
curtain inside was looped back. He thought it was half-past eight
o'clock, when he heard a loud cry in the bed-room, and very soon after,
somebody screamed. He ran up the steps, but the glass door was locked
on the inside, and when he went around and got into the room, the first
thing he saw was General Darrington's body lying on the floor, with his
feet toward the hearth, and his head almost on a line with the iron
vault built in the wall. The servants were screaming and wringing their
hands, and he called them to help him lift the General, thinking that
he had dropped in a fit; but he found him stone cold and stiff. There
was no sign of blood anywhere, but a heavy, old-fashioned brass andiron
was lying close to the General's head, and he saw a black spot like a
bruise on his right temple. General Darrington wore his night clothes,
and the bed showed he had been asleep there. Some broken vases were on
the floor and hearth, and the vault was wide open. The tin box was
upside down on the carpet, and some papers in envelopes were scattered
about.

Witness had picked up a leather bag carefully tied at the top with red
tape, drawn into hard knots; but in one side he found a hole which had
been cut with a knife, and at the bottom of the bag was a twenty-dollar
gold piece. Two more coins of the same value were discovered on the
floor, when General Darrington's body was lifted; and on the bolster of
the bed lay a bottle containing chloroform. Witness immediately sent
off for some of General Darrington's friends, and also notified the
coroner; and he did not leave the room again until the inquest was
held. The window on the front piazza was open, and witness had searched
the piazza and the grounds for