The Spruce Street Tragedy; or, Old Spicer Handles a Double Mystery

"In one there was nothing but soda-water. The other contained claret."

"How long was it after you got here before the police arrived?" asked Old Spicer.

"I had had hardly time enough to take a good look at the murdered woman when Policeman Cannon, who resides in the brick block next south of this, came in. He had only just returned from his night patrol and lain down. His wife heard the outcry in the street and aroused him."

"I suppose he assumed authority at once?"

"Why, he found the place pretty well filled by an excited throng, and men, women and boys making excursions through the several apartments; but before he could clear out the people, Detective Reilly arrived."

"Ah! somebody telephoned to headquarters, I suppose?"

"I suppose so, for very soon the coroner came rushing in, then Detective Brewer made his appearance in hot haste; and finally Chief Bollmann, Policeman Hyde and other officers."

"By that time there was a scattering, I fancy," said Stricket, with a smile.

"Yes," assented George, "everybody was hunted from the basement except those you see here now."

At this moment Coroner Mix joined them.

"Going to look into this case a little, Old Spicer?" he asked.

"I have some thoughts of doing so," was the reply.

"I hope you will," said the coroner. "If there is any information I can give you, I will impart it gladly."

"Are there any clews to work on as yet?" asked Old Spicer.

"Very few, so far as I have been able to learn."

"What do you know about the woman, anyway?"

"Very little indeed. The fact is, Spicer, there seems to be a blissful ignorance on every hand, even regarding the history of the victim and her family affairs."

"Ah-ha! she kept her family affairs to herself, did she?"

"It seems so. A mystery looms up at the very outset of the case. But of that hereafter."

"All right, the mystery can wait, if you say so. But with regard to her relatives, surely something is known about them. What have you been able to find out?"

"In the first place, I have ascertained that Mrs. Ernst had been in this country between thirty and forty years, coming from Germany; and that her financial manager, for a long time past, was Maier Zunder."

"She was a widow, I believe?"

"Yes, a good deal of a widow. She had been married three times, and her three husbands are dead."

"Indeed?"

"Yes; the first died in Germany."

"What was his name?"

"George Pfaff. After his death she came to the United States and met her second husband, Franz Natolph, in New York."

"He came to New Haven with her, didn't he?" asked Stricket.

"Yes," was the reply, "and they started in the saloon-business in this very place."

"There was a pretty serious row, wasn't there, in which Natolph got hurt?"

"Yes, one night, in this very room, Natolph was struck in the head with a bottle, nearly cracking his skull. Typhoid fever set in, and that and the injuries from the bottle soon after caused his death."

"How long is it since Ernst, her third husband, died?" asked Old Spicer.

"Less than ten years," was the reply.

"She left no children, I believe?"

"No – never had any, so far as I have been able to learn."

"She has kept up the business, married or single?"

"Yes: to the very hour of her death."

Old Spicer glanced at the dead body on the sofa.

"She was a very stout woman," he remarked, "but, I believe, was not in good health."

"No," answered the coroner, "she has been troubled of late years with a severe asthmatic attack. She was rarely seen outside of this basement, for a flight of stairs was a terror to her."

"She suffered from rheumatism, I have been told."

"Yes, fearfully; it settled in her limbs, and caused a lameness, which was relieved somewhat by the assistance of the black walking-stick you see by her side."

"But she did go out sometimes?"

"Only at rare intervals, and then always in a carriage."

"She was quite well off – rich, in fact?"

"Of late years she has been increasing her wealth pretty fast. She owns this house, and the large brick block directly back of it, which fronts on York Street."

"She was mighty close-fisted," observed Stricket.

"Yes," assented the coroner, "she was of a parsimonious disposition, and by some in this neighborhood was called very grasping and miserly."

"It seems to me the chief ought to know something about her affairs," remarked Stricket, in a musing tone; "for, if I remember rightly, he was employed by her years ago, when he was practicing law."

"You are right, Mr. Stricket," assented the coroner, "years ago he was her counsel, but only, as he informs me, on two or three occasions."