The Story of a Dark Plot | Page 7

man was soon despatched in search. It proved that the man to whom she had directed Mr. Smith was not the one in question, but in searching for him the real perpetrator of the crime was found, as he chanced to be also a resident of Marlboro, Mass. Having located his man, the gentleman in search returned home, leaving in Marlboro a Canadian detective who should keep watch of the man until Mr. Carpenter went there. However, when Mr. Carpenter, who was accompanied by Mr. Smith, reached the place, the man whom they sought had already been lost track of by the detective, but after a few days Mr. Smith saw him in company with several others, and at once identified him as being the man whom he had seen in the vicinity of Sutton Junction previous to the assault, and also as having the form and gait which he had noticed his assailant to have when he had watched him fleeing from the scene of his cowardly attack. Soon this man was captured at Hudson, Mass., a place about five miles distant from Marlboro. He was arrested by Chief of Police Skully of Hudson and Policeman Hater of Worcester, and taken to Fitchburg. The name of this young man who had apparently come very near being a murderer was Walter W. Kelly, and he had been a bartender in Marlboro, which probably made him feel more sympathy for his Canadian brethren when their liberty to sell intoxicants was interfered with.
While at Fitchburg, Kelly was advised to yield himself up and go freely to Canada with Mr. Carpenter and Mr. Smith, because, he was told, they were determined to have him at any cost, and, if he made them the trouble and expense of extraditing him, he would only be obliged to lie in jail a much longer time before his trial could take place, whereas the sentence of punishment would doubtless be just as severe in the one case as in the other.
Acting in the spirit of this advice he gave himself up into the hands of Detective Carpenter and went with him to Montreal, where he acknowledged his guilt, and also told that he had been hired to do the deed by John Howarth, a young man who lived with the hotel keeper at Abercorn, and that James Wilson, one of the hotel keepers at Sutton, had driven the team which carried him to and from the Junction on the night of the assault.
Mr. Smith, who had also accompanied Mr. Carpenter to Montreal, at once returned home, and, having notified a number of his friends and procured a constable from Knowlton, Que., went in company with several others from Sutton to Abercorn, on Saturday night, August 25th, for the purpose of arresting Howarth. On a Saturday night also, just seven weeks previous, a smaller company of men had gone from Sutton in the opposite direction, not to arrest a guilty man, but to assault an innocent man, not in the cause of right and justice, but of wrong and injustice. But now it seemed that the tide had turned!
The little company of "friends of temperance" surrounded the Abercorn hotel, and the constable, going to the door, called loudly to Mr. Jenne, the proprietor, who was doubtless in the land of dreams. Mr. Jenne, who appeared to be somewhat suspicious, was loath to open his house at that unseemly hour, and demanded his visitor's name; but the constable, giving a fictitious name, enquired for John Howarth, and when that individual made his appearance, he was at once arrested in the name of the Queen. Seeing the people outside, neither he nor Mr. Jenne dared resist, and, being assured by the latter that he would soon have him free again, Howarth accompanied the constable to the jail at Sweetsburg, feeling, doubtless, much less pleased with his future prospects than he had felt when planning by violence and bloodshed to frighten the temperance people into submission or silence, and leave himself and his congenial associates free to drink and sell as much liquor as they chose. Thus Satan may sometimes appear to his servants as a very good master when they serve him faithfully, and accomplish his designs, but when they fail to carry out some of his cherished plans and find themselves in danger and trouble, as a result of their zeal in his service, then he proves a very poor sort of comforter. Better far to serve a Master who will not forsake His followers in time of need!
A few days later an attempt was made to arrest James Wilson, who had left the hotel at Sutton, and was thought to be staying at Glen Sutton, his former home. This expedition is so fully described by an article in