ldren had had with them, and in an outhouse he discovered
the inevitable stove, Holmes' one indispensable piece of furniture. It
was stained with blood on the top. A neighbour had seen Holmes in the
same October drive up to the house in the furniture wagon accompanied
by a boy, and later in the day Holmes had asked him to come over to the
cottage and help him to put up a stove. The neighbour asked him why he
did not use gas; Holmes replied that he did not think gas was healthy
for children. While the two men were putting up the stove, the
little boy stood by and watched them. After further search there were
discovered in the cellar chimney some bones, teeth, a pelvis and the
baked remains of a stomach, liver and spleen.

Medical examination showed them to be the remains of a child between
seven and ten years of age. A spinning top, a scarf-pin, a pair of shoes
and some articles of clothing that had belonged to the little Pitezels,
had been found in the house at different times, and were handed over to
Geyer.

His search was ended. On September 1 he returned to Philadelphia.

Holmes was put on his trial on October 28, 1895, before the Court of
Oyer and Terminer in Philadelphia, charged with the murder of Benjamin
Pitezel. In the course of the trial the district attorney offered to put
in evidence showing that Holmes had also murdered the three children of
Pitezel, contending that such evidence was admissible on the ground
that the murders of the children and their father were parts of the same
transaction. The judge refused to admit the evidence, though expressing
a doubt as to its inadmissibility. The defence did not dispute the
identity of the body found in Callowhill Street, but contended that
Pitezel had committed suicide. The medical evidence negatived such a
theory. The position of the body, its condition when discovered,
were entirely inconsistent with self-destruction, and the absence of
irritation in the stomach showed that the chloroform found there must
have been poured into it after death. In all probability, Holmes had
chloroformed Pitezel when he was drunk or asleep. He had taken the
chloroform to Callowhill Street as a proposed ingredient in a solution
for cleaning clothes, which he and Pitezel were to patent. It was no
doubt with the help of the same drug that he had done to death the
little children, and failing the nitro-glycerine, with that drug he had
intended to put Mrs. Pitezel and her two remaini