The Transgressors. Story of a Great Sin. A Political Novel of the Twentieth CenturyAdams, Francis A. (Francis Alexandre)
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The Transgressors. Story of a Great Sin. A Political Novel of the Twentieth Century
Adams, Francis A. (Francis Alexandre)
Political fiction
From Chicago comes the report that Tingwell Fang, the Beef King, has
been killed in his private office by the explosion of a dynamite bomb or
some other infernal machine brought there by a man who for weeks had
been transacting important business with Mr. Fang. The explosion
entirely demolished the office, and when the police succeeded in getting
at the bodies it was found that the bomb-thrower had paid for his deed
with his life.
In a bundle of papers which the man left in the outer office a note is
found which gives his address as the Palmer House. At his room in the
hotel a card is found addressed to the public: It read as follows:
I have fulfilled my oath; my self-destruction
is proof that I am sincere in the
belief that I have acted for the good of mankind.
BENTON S. MARVIN.
Almost as soon as the papers are on the street announcing the tragedy,
another message comes from Chicago telling of the strange death of
Senator Gold. His body and that of a man who had been with him at the
Auditorium are found in the Senator's room. Death has been caused by an
unknown agency. There are no signs of violence on either. The money and
jewelry of both are undisturbed. Neither man appears to have been the
victim of the other's hand, for the apparel of each is unruffled. One is
found lying on the floor near the window; the other is found stretched
across the table in the room.
Following these early bulletins come others from Philadelphia, St. Louis
and Boston, successively announcing the mysterious deaths of President
Vosbeck of the National Transportation Trust, Captain Blood of the St.
Louis Steamship Association, and of ex-U.S. Supreme Court Justice Elias
M. Turner of Massachusetts.
"President Vosbeck met his death while on a tour of inspection in the
new power house of his company in the western part of the city. With him
were his private secretary and a stranger from New York whom he was
taking on a tour of inspection. The secretary was sent to find the
superintendent of the power house. He returned to find both President
Vosbeck and the stranger in the throes of death on the floor near the
great dynamo. In the stranger's hand a cane was clutched. This cane was
one of those that are commonly made at penitentiaries. It was of leather
rings strung on a steel rod."
The above dispatch is spread on the bulletin board, followed by these
details:
"As soon as the hospital surgeons and the electrical experts arrived
they decided that the cane must have come in contact with the deadly
current; and that at that instant Steel and the stranger were standing
upon the metal flooring which made a perfect conductor." The death of
Captain Blood was even more astounding than that of President Vosbeck.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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