Canadian fiction -- 20th century; Detective and mystery stories
"To a certain extent, yes. When we learned of the barrel some of us
went back to the Thirty-Ninth street neighborhood to investigate. We
have a grocer who will testify that he sold such an empty barrel to the
man in question, who was particular to see that he got a perfectly
fitting head to the barrel. He told the grocer he wanted to ship some
china up to his country place. He carried the barrel away in his car."
"Did the grocer know the man who bought the barrel?"
"No, sir. But he can identify the man. And describe the car."
"Well, assuming that the barrel contained a body when it arrived at the
country place, what became of it after that?"
"We have one of the rich man's laborers to testify to that. On the
following day, Monday, this man was ordered to assist his master in one
of the orchards. The day is fixed in the man's mind because it was
Decoration Day and he was disappointed of getting a holiday. I should
tell you that the rich man personally supervised his orchards and often
worked in them himself, so that his actions on this day excited no
particular remark among his servants. He ordered the laborer to gather
up all the piles of twigs and branches which had been pruned in that
particular orchard during the winter, and make one great pile to be
burned. He pointed out a spot of waste ground at a little distance
from the trees where the fire was to be made. He then went away.
"He returned to the orchard when the work was done. He then had a
small can of coal oil. His laborer ventured to remonstrate with him on
the danger of making so great a fire, but his master curtly replied
that he knew what he was about. He sent the laborer on an errand to a
distant part of the estate, saying that he would remain to watch the
fire. The laborer after his rebuke, with a natural hope perhaps that
the fire would get beyond his master, concealed himself behind some
shrubbery at a little distance and watched.
"He saw his master go to the spraying house, bring out the barrel (he
will testify that there was no other barrel of that sort in the house)
and roll it down the orchard to the great heap of branches. He saw him
place it in the center of the pile, pour coal oil all around, and set
it afire. When the flames sprang up, the master began to look about
him suspiciously, and the laborer fearing discovery, hastened away and
saw no more. He told what he had seen to his mates, but it does not
appear that any of them suspected that a crime had occurred. All their
master's actions appeared to them so arbitrary and eccentric they never
tried to explain them. As one of them said, 'You never knew what the
boss was going to do next!'"
"Have you anything more?" asked the judge.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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