The Story of a Dark Plot | Page 7

any of the Canadian steeds, but she remembered an
American having once stopped for a time at the hotel where she was
then working, and from the description given it seemed that he might
be the same man. The one whom she described she said came from
Marlboro, Mass., and thither a 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