est solicitation of friends of Dr. Cronin,
the Chicago River was dredged for a distance of six hundred feet at
Fullerton avenue bridge, over which the wagon with the trunk was
supposed to have crossed. This task, conducted by Captain Schaack and
eight officers, occupied two days. Like the search in every other
direction, however, it was utterly without result. The physician had
disappeared as completely as though the earth had opened and swallowed
him up, and the mystery of the trunk and its gory contents remained a
mystery still.

CHAPTER III.

AN ACCIDENTAL CLUE--FRANK WOODRUFF'S ARREST--HOW HE WAS HIRED TO GET A
WAGON TO CARRY THE MYSTERIOUS TRUNK TO LAKE VIEW--A CORPSE IS DUMPED
OUT--HE THINKS IT WAS THAT OF A WOMAN--HIS SENSATIONAL CONFESSION--THE
POLICE ON A WILD GOOSE CHASE.

Despite the small army of professional and amateur detectives at work on
the case and the untiring labors of the missing man's friends, it was an
accident rather than a clue that brought about the first important
development of this sensational tragedy. On Thursday morning, May 9th,
five days after the physician had disappeared as completely as though
the ground had opened and swallowed him up, a stable owner named Foley,
having barns on Fifteenth Street near Centre Avenue, entered the Twelfth
Street Police Court while the hearing of a case was in progress, and
informed Lieutenant Beck that a young man had been trying to sell him a
horse and wagon and that he had agreed to purchase the rig for $10, in
order that he might detain the supposed horse-thief until the police
could be notified. Two officers, O'Malley and Halle, were at once sent
to the barn. The man, upon being placed under arrest, at once fainted.
Upon regaining consciousness, he was started for the station. His
peculiar agitation was noticed by the officers, and one of them, in
joking about a horse-thief having such a nervous temperament, made a
slight remark in which he mentioned the name of Dr. Cronin. The prisoner
evinced a strong tendency to faint again, and gasped:

"I'll tell you all when I get to the station."

The officers laughed. Their dull comprehensions failed to connect the
remark with the trunk mystery. When the station was reached, however,
and the attention of Lieutenant Beck had been called to what the man had
said, he at once jumped to the conclusion that the horse was the one
attached to the wagon that had hauled the mysterious trunk. He orde