SUICIDE.
From the cottage I proceeded to Kingsley's. He was in readiness, and
waiting me. We drove directly to Edgerton's lodging-house, the appointed
hour of four being at hand. Kingsley only alighted from the carriage,
and entered the dwelling. He was absent several minutes. When he
returned, he returned alone.
“Edgerton is either asleep or has gone out. His room-door is locked. The
landlord called and knocked, but received no answer. He lacks manliness,
and I suspect has fled. The steamboat went at two.”
“Impossible!” I exclaimed, leaping from the carriage. “I know Edgerton
better. I can not think he would fly, after the solemn pledge he gave
me.”
“You have only thought too well of him always,” said the other, as we
entered the house.
“Let us go to the room together,” I said to the landlord. “I fear
something wrong.”
“Well, so do I,” responded the publican. “The poor gentleman has been
looking very badly, and sometimes gets into a strange wild taking, and
then he goes along seeing nobody. Only last Saturday I said to my old
woman, as how I thought everything warn't altogether right HERE,”--and
the licensed sinner touched his head with his fore-finger, himself
looking the very picture of well-satisfied sagacity. We said nothing,
but leaving the eloquence to him, followed him up to Edgerton's chamber.
I struck the door thrice with the butt end of my whip, then called his
name, but without receiving any answer. Endeavoring to look through the
key-hole, I discovered the key on the inside, and within the lock. I
then immediately conjectured the truth. William Edgerton had committed
suicide.
And so it was. We burst the door, and found him suspended by a silk
handkerchief to a beam that traversed the apartment. He had raised
himself upon a chair, which he had kicked over after the knot had been
adjusted. Such a proceeding evinced the most determined resolution.
We took him down with all despatch, but life had already been long
extinct. He must have been hanging two hours. His face was perfectly
livid--his eyeballs dilated--his mouth distorted--but the neck
remained unbroken. He had died by suffocation. I pass over the ordinary
proceedings--the consternation, the clamor, the attendance of the
grave-looking gentlemen with lancet and lotion. They did a great deal,
of course, in doing nothing. Nothing could be done. Then followed the
“crowner's” inquest. A paper, addressed to the landlord, was submitted
to them, and formed the burden of their report.
“I die by my own hands,” said this document, “that I may lose the sense
of pain, bodily and mental. I die at peace with the world. It has never
wronged me. I am the source of my own sorrows, as I am the cause of my
own death. I will not say that I die sane. I am doubtful on that head. I
am sure that I have been the victim of a sort of madness for a very long
time. This has led me to do wrong, and to meditate wrong--has made me
guilty of many things, which, in my better moments of mind and body,
I should have shrunk from in horror. I write this that nobody may be
suspected of sharing in a deed the blame of which must rest on my head
only.”
Then followed certain apologies to the landlord for having made his
house the scene of an event so shocking. The same paper also conveyed
certain presents of personal stuff to the same person, with thanks for
his courtesy and attention. An adequate sum of money, paying his bill,
and the expenses of his funeral, was left in his purse, upon the paper.
Kingsley assumed the final direction of these affairs; and having seen
everything in a fair way for the funeral, which was appointed to take
place the next morning, he hurried me away to his lodging-house.