Читать книгу The Crime of the Century; Or, The Assassination of Dr. Patrick Henry Cronin - Henry M. Hunt - Страница 41

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With amazing rapidity the news had spread throughout the suburb, and by this time the station was besieged by an excited crowd, while hundreds of voices clamored loudly but vainly for admission. Down in the city, too, where the information had been telephoned as soon as the remains had reached the morgue, the excitement was equally intense. It was just at the hour when the mercantile establishments, business houses, and manufactories, were emptying their army of toilers at the conclusion of the work of the day, and the bulletins that were displayed at the newspaper offices and a score of other places in the most frequented thoroughfares, were surrounded by thousands of people, who read and commented upon the startling information that was thus conveyed. Many gave vent to shouts of horror, others loudly breathed imprecations upon the murderers. Extra editions of the evening papers, giving the facts so far as known up to the hour of publication, were successively issued, and added to the popular excitement. Before midnight the fact that the body of the missing physician had been discovered under such revolting circumstances was known under almost every roof in the great western metropolis, and was being discussed by Irishmen in scores of towns throughout the country, to which it had been flashed over the electric wires.

Among the earlier arrivals at the morgue were several citizens of Lake View, who had known the physician when in the flesh, and with one or two exceptions, their identification of the remains was instantaneous and complete. They were soon joined by John F. Scanlan, Mortimer Scanlan, Pat McGarry, James Boland, and John E. Scanlan, all intimate friends of Dr. Cronin and members of the committee which had the case in charge. They made a careful examination of the remains and pointed out the resemblances. The Doctor had large hands, as had the corpse; he was a hairy man, and there was lots of loose body hair on the corpse. The water had rotted this off, but it lay in masses and tufts on the body. The height of the man and his build agreed with that of the physician. Next to this they relied upon the "Agnus Dei." Cronin had worn one of these reliquaries, and had never taken it off even while bathing. Then some one remembered that the Doctor had an extravasion of blood under the finger nail of the right thumb; and this, too, was found upon the corpse. A mark upon the side was also declared to be identical with one upon the body. Cronin had a superfluity of hair about the wrists, and this point of resemblance was found on the corpse. There was also a peculiarity of the second finger of the right hand, which might be described as a base-ball finger, with which Dr. Cronin had been afflicted. This malformation was apparent on the same hand of the dead man. But the most convincing and conclusive identification of all was that of Dr. T. W. Lewis, a dental surgeon, who had done considerable work for the Doctor. Upon his arrival at the morgue, John F. Scanlan pried open the mouth of the corpse with a pencil, and Dr. Lewis immediately recognized his handiwork in the gold filling of some of the upper teeth. It was a remarkable fact, moreover, that in a lower jaw plate that he had made for the physician he had placed several teeth peculiar to themselves, and known to the profession as "crown sunk." He had done this something in the line of an experiment. This identical plate was taken from the mouth of the dead man, while, to make the proof still more positive, the cast of Dr. Cronin's mouth, taken for the purpose of making the plate, was found to fit the mouth of the corpse to a fraction.