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Updated: June 10, 2025
Slocum did not believe, and no human evidence could have convinced him, that Richard had deliberately killed Lemuel Shackford; but as Mr. Slocum reached the final pages of the diary, a horrible probability insinuated itself in his mind. Could Richard have done it accidentally?
I only know that I never received a note or a letter from him in the whole course of my life." "Then how do you account for the letter which has been found in your rooms in Lime Street, a letter addressed to you by Lemuel Shackford, and requesting you to call at his house on that fatal Tuesday night?" "I I know nothing about it," stammered Richard. "There is no such paper!"
I only want a little time to take breath, don't you see, and a crust and a bed for a few days, such as you might give any wayfarer. Meanwhile, I will look after things around the place. I fancy I was never an idler here since the day I learnt to split kindling." "There's your old bed in the north chamber," said Mr. Shackford, wrinkling his forehead helplessly.
IT must have been some other person who had sat by a window in the sunrise thinking of Margaret Slocum's love, some Richard Shackford with unstained hands! This one was accused of murdering his kinsman; the weapon with which he had done it, the very match he had used to light him in the deed, were known! The victim himself had written out the accusation in black and white.
Suddenly a slim dark fellow, who had retained his paper cap and leather apron, halted and thrust forth a horny hand. The others went on. "Hullo, Dick Shackford!" "What, is that you, Will? You here?" "Been here two years now. One of Slocum's apprentices," added Durgin, with an air of easy grandeur. "Two years? How time flies when it doesn't crawl! Do you like it?"
Slocum, in the solitude of his chamber, was vainly attempting to solve the question whether he had not disregarded all the dictates of duty and common sense in allowing Margaret to spend the evening alone with Richard Shackford. Mr. Slocum saw one thing with painful distinctness that he could not help himself. The next morning Mr. Slocum did not make his appearance in the marble yard.
One June Morning, precisely a year from that morning when the reader first saw the daylight breaking upon Stillwater, several workmen with ladders and hammers were putting up a freshly painted sign over the gate of the marble yard. Mr. Slocum and Richard stood on the opposite curbstone, to which they had retired in order to take in the general effect. The new sign read, Slocum & Shackford.
Lemuel Shackford had not been kind or cousinly; he had blighted Richard's childhood with harshness and neglect, and had lately heaped cruel insult upon him; but as he stood there alone, and gazed for a moment at the firmly shut lips, upon which the mysterious white dust of death had already settled, the lips that were never to utter any more bitter things, the tears gathered in Richard's eyes and ran slowly down his cheeks.
It would have been a wasted tenderness to pity him. He was very happy in his own way, that Lemuel Shackford. Towards the close of his second year with Mr. Slocum, Richard was assigned a work-room by himself, and relieved of his accountant's duties. His undivided energies were demanded by the carving department, which had proved a lucrative success. The rear of the lot on which Mr.
With her eyes riveted upon some object in the next room, the girl retreated backward slowly and heavily dragging one foot after the other, until she reached the gallery door; then she turned swiftly, and plunged into the street. Twenty minutes later, every man, woman, and child in Stillwater knew that old Mr. Shackford had been murdered.
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