ced over the face of his
sleeping master, should effect his death.

_Did_ Jones murder Rice? If so, was it, as he claims, at the instigation
of Albert T. Patrick?

These two questions, now settled in the affirmative forever, so far as
criminal and civil litigation are concerned, have been the subject of
private study and public argument for more than seven years.

Mr. Rice was a childless widower, living the life of a recluse, attended
only by Jones, who was at once his secretary, valet and general servant.
No other person lived in the apartment, and few visitors ever called
there. Patrick was a New York lawyer with little practice who had never
met Mr. Rice, was employed as counsel in litigation hostile to him, yet
in whose favor a will purporting to be signed by Rice, June 30, 1900,
turned up after the latter's death, by the terms of which Patrick came
into the property, amounting to over seven million dollars, in place of
a charitable institution named in an earlier will of 1896. It is now
universally admitted that the alleged will of 1900 was a forgery, as
well as four checks drawn to Patrick's order (two for $25,000 each, one
for $65,000, and one for $135,000, which represented practically all of
Rice's bank accounts), an order giving him control of the contents of
Rice's safe deposit vaults (in which were more than $2,500,000 in
securities), and also a general assignment by which he became the owner
of Rice's entire estate. Thus upon Rice's death Patrick had every
possible variety of document necessary to possess himself of the
property. Jones took nothing under any of these fraudulent instruments.
Hence Patrick's motive in desiring the death of Rice is the foundation
stone of the case against him. But that Patrick desired and would profit
by Rice's death in no way tends to establish that Rice did not die a
natural death. Patrick would profit equally whether Rice died by foul
means or natural, and the question as to whether murder was done must be
determined from other evidence. This is only to be found in the
confession of the valet Jones and in the testimony of the medical
experts who performed the autopsy. Jones, a self-confessed murderer,
swears that upon the advice and under the direction of Patrick (though
in the latter's absence) he killed his master by administering
chloroform. There is no direct corroborative evidence save that of the
experts. Upon Jones's testimony depended the question of Patrick's
c