Again Mr. Hale laughed. His mind was full of a prospective deal with a
Chicago syndicate for the sale of all his street railways in that city,
and so he went on dictating to the stenographer, never giving it a
second thought. But somehow, I know not why, a heavy depression
fell upon me. What if it were not a joke, I asked myself, and turned
involuntarily to the morning paper. There it was, as befitted an obscure
person of the lower classes, a paltry half-dozen lines tucked away in a
corner, next a patent medicine advertisement:
Shortly after five o’clock this morning, on East Thirty-ninth Street,
a laborer named Pete Lascalle, while on his way to work, was stabbed to
the heart by an unknown assailant, who escaped by running. The police
have been unable to discover any motive for the murder.
“Impossible!” was Mr. Hale’s rejoinder, when I had read the item aloud;
but the incident evidently weighed upon his mind, for late in the
afternoon, with many epithets denunciatory of his foolishness, he asked
me to acquaint the police with the affair. I had the pleasure of being
laughed at in the Inspector’s private office, although I went away with
the assurance that they would look into it and that the vicinity of Polk
and Clermont would be doubly patrolled on the night mentioned. There it
dropped, till the two weeks had sped by, when the following note came to
us through the mail:
OFFICE OF THE M. OF M. October 15, 1899.
MR. EBEN HALE, Money Baron:
Dear Sir,—Your second victim has fallen on schedule time. We are in no
hurry; but to increase the pressure we shall henceforth kill weekly. To
protect ourselves against police interference we shall hereafter inform
you of the event but a little prior to or simultaneously with the deed.
Trusting this finds you in good health,
We are,