The inhabitants of Rosebank were familiar with the occasional
appearances of John Holt, the eccentric recluse, and they merely
snickered about him when on the Saturday evening following the Friday
that has been chronicled he was seen to come out of his gate and trudge
down to a news and stationery shop on Main Street.
He purchased an evening paper and said to the clerk: “You can have the
_Morning Herald_ delivered at my house every morning—27 Humbert Avenue.”
“Yuh, I know where it is. Thought you had kind of a grouch on newspapers
and all those lowbrow things,” said the clerk pertly.
“Ah, did you indeed? The _Herald_, every morning, please. I will pay a
month in advance,” was all John Holt said, but he looked directly at the
clerk, and the man cringed.
John attended the meeting of the Soul Hope Fraternity the next
evening—Sunday—but he was not seen on the streets again for two and a
half days.
There was no news of the disappearance of Jasper Holt till the following
Wednesday, when the whole thing came out in a violent, small-city,
front-page story, headed: