Page:The Millbank Case - 1905 - Eldridge.djvu/13



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, some