Page:Under three flags; a story of mystery (IA underthreeflagss00tayliala).pdf/33

 Ames of complicity, if not actual participation, in the murder of Roger Hathaway.

"It is possible that the murder was not premeditated, as was intimated in these dispatches yesterday. Ames may have called upon the cashier at the bank, to plead again his suit for the hand of Helen Hathaway. A blunt refusal, hasty words, a bitter quarrel, Ames' temper, quick and ungovernable, a brief struggle, the fatal shot and the older man lay dead upon the floor. What more natural than that the young murderer, fully appreciating his terrible situation, and cognizant of the large amount of ready money in the safe, should wrench the familiar bunch of keys from the pocket of the dead cashier and possess himself of the treasure? It requires something of a stretch of the imagination to fancy the assassin, his hand yet reeking with the blood of her father, inducing the young girl to accompany him in his flight for life and liberty, yet it is not impossible—and in the belief of many it is just what Derrick Ames did do.

"There is but the faintest possible clew as yet to connect any one else with the crime. Besides a few hotel arrivals—commercial men comparatively well known—one stranger, and one only, is believed to have been in Raymond on the day of the murder. No one saw him come, no one saw him leave the town. Inquiry was made at the depot, the telegraph operator states, shortly after 8 o'clock, as to the time of departure of the next train south. The operator did not notice the questioner particularly, although he is positive he was a stranger in Raymond.

"The theory of a prearranged plot to rob the bank on the night the cashier was shot has been assiduously worked by the local authorities. It was known that there would be a large amount of money in the bank on the night preceding the paying off of the matured county bonds. Was it not worth while for an organized gang of bank robbers to plan a descent on the Raymond institution? Was it not possible that they did so plan; that they had already secured access to the banking-room while the populace was watching the parade in the after