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252 Libby were pressing him. He had gone to them for more money, assuring them that Mr. Spofford was already dead, but they had sent a young man to Spofford's office to investigate, and accused Sargent of playing them false.

Mr. Spofford was now thoroughly alarmed. Sargent suggested that he accompany him to his (Sargent's) brother's house at Cambridgeport and conceal himself there while he (Sargent) tried to collect the money promised him by Miller and Libby. Mr. Spofford consulted with Detective Pinkham and then disappeared. Sargent, so he later declared in court, informed Miller and Libby, whom he identified as Edward J. Arens and Asa Gilbert Eddy, that he had disposed of Mr. Spofford, whereupon he received a part of the money promised him. Mr. Spofford left Boston Tuesday, October 15th, and remained about two weeks at the house of Sargent's sister-in-law. Sargent had promised to come out and give him news of the case, but as he failed to do so, Mr. Spofford then returned to Boston, going first to his brother's store in Lawrence. In the meantime his friends had been greatly alarmed at his disappearance, had advertised him as missing, and had published a description of him in the Boston papers.

On October 29th Edward J. Arens and Asa G. Eddy were arrested and held in three thousand dollars bail for examination in the Municipal Court on November 7th.

As Mrs. Eddy afterward indignantly wrote, "the principal witnesses for the prosecution were convicts and inmates of houses of ill fame in Boston." A motley array of witnesses, certainly, confronted the judge when the Municipal Court