The Millbank Case _A MAINE MYSTERY OF TO-DAY_ BY GEORGE DYRE ELDRIDGE _With a Frontispiece in Colour_ BY ELIOT KEEN [Illustration] NEW YORK HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 1905 COPYRIGHT, 1905 BY HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY _Published May, 1905_ THE MERSHON COMPANY PRESS RAHWAY, N. J. CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. A STATEMENT OF THE CASE 1 II. MRS. PARLIN TESTIFIES 14 III. ALIVE AT MIDNIGHT 33 IV. TRAFFORD GETS AN ASSURANCE 51 V. THE WEAPON IS PRODUCED 67 VI. MRS. MATTHEWSON AND TRAFFORD 85 VII. HUNTING BROKEN BONES 101 VIII. A MAN DISAPPEARS 119 IX. “YOU ARE MY MOTHER” 133 X. A SECOND MURDER? 153 XI. ALREADY ONE ATTEMPT 167 XII. AT THE DRIVERS’ CAMP 185 XIII. THE PRIEST’S STORY 199 XIV. A DUEL 212 XV. IN MATTHEWSON’S CHAMBERS 227 XVI. THE RANGE 16 SCANDAL 243 XVII. THE STORY OF THE PAPERS 259 XVIII. THE MAN IS FOUND 275 XIX. THE LAST OF THE PAPERS 290 THE MILLBANK CASE CHAPTER I A Statement of the Case Theodore Wing had no known enemy in the world. He was a man of forty; “well-to-do,” as they say in New England; a lawyer by profession, and already “mentioned” for a county judgeship. He was unmarried, but there were those who had hopes, and there was scarce a spinster in Millbank who hadn’t a kindly word and smile for him--at times. He was not a church member, but it was whispered that his clergyman was disposed to look leniently on this shortcoming, for Wing was a regular attendant at service and liberal with money for church purposes, which, shrewd guessers said, some of the church members were not. Wing lived in the River Road, just at the top of Parlin’s Hill. He was from “over East, somewheres,” and had come to Millbank as a law student, when old Judge Parlin was at the head of the Maine bar. He became in turn chief clerk, junior partner, and finally full partner to the judge, and when the latter died--of disappointment, it was said, due to failure to secure the chief justiceship--Wing became the head of the firm, and finally the firm itself; for he had a dislike for partnerships, and at forty his office associates were employés associated in particular cases, not partners in the general business.