Page:Edward Prime-Stevenson - The Intersexes.djvu/518

 garrison-scandal that the affair was suppressed as quickly as possible. The murderer (out of question a soldier) was not traced. It is said that a royal command cut short the search.

A noteworthy murderous attack, in combination with a suicide—the whole affair homosexual—occurred in the vicinity of New York City, early in November, 1907. It was the subject of not only discreet legal scrutiny (not to much purpose) but also of wide local comment, on account of the high social station of the family of the younger of the two actors. The nationalities involved were rather more French in blood on the one side and Scandinavian on the other than strictly American; but the family is one identified as of America for at least three or four generations. It was a presumptively case of pederastic intrigue, ending in a bloody drama. In the luxurious summer home of the Z— family, at X—, a fashionable suburb of the metropolis, had subsisted for many months an intimacy between the young son of the house, who was a lad of about seventeen, and a valued butler named B—. To this B—, in fact, the youth (a very handsome boy) was much entrusted. during the absence of the family; and in hunting-excursions, travelling etc., B— was always with him. B—was apparently in the' habit of stealing down to the boy's bedroom—quite detached, in a large villa—seeking clandestine relationships at night. The youth transferred his interest, it would seem, to a new and younger man-servant. B—, who was also alcoholic, thereupon became furiously jealous; and finally grew insanely so. One morning he got out of bed—long before daylight (probably as so often before)—threw on his bath-gown, and slipped down to the lad's room. What took place there has never been fully told. Shots were heard, awakening the sleeping household. Another servant burst open the locked door of the bedroom. On the bed—from which he had sprung up, nude—crouched the boy, with a