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Updated: June 23, 2025
When I arrived at the appointed time I found the door of the house closed. I was obliged to ring several times before an old servant opened the door. She seemed surprised that it had been locked. She said that the door was always unlatched, and that Mr. Siders himself must have closed it, contrary to all custom, for she had not done it, and there was no one else in the house but the two of them.
Tuxedo, white tie, and neat trimmed siders in front of his ears. One of these quiet spoken, sleuthy movin' gents he is, a reg'lar stage valet. But he manages to give me the once-over real thorough as he's towin' me in. "This way, sir," says he, brushin' back the draperies and shuntin' me in among the leather chairs and Oriental rugs.
Graumann continued: "A little over a year ago, John Siders, who signed himself as coming from Chicago, bought a piece of property in our town and came to live there. I made his acquaintance in the cafe and he seemed to take a fancy to me. I also had spent several years in Chicago, and we naturally came to speak of the place.
If my face is too wide, a beard lengthens it; if my face is too narrow, it expands as if by magic with the addition of what have sometimes been affectionately called 'mutton chops, or 'siders'; if my nose projects, almost like a nose trying to escape from a face to which it has been sentenced for life, a pair of large, handsome moustaches will provide a proper entourage a nest, so to speak, on which the nose rests contentedly, almost like a setting hen; if my nose retreats backward into my face, the æsthetic solution is obviously galways.
As it had been his wish I said nothing to the ladies at home, or to any one else about the occurrence. And as I have told you, I destroyed his letter asking me to come to him. "The following day about noon, the Commissioner of Police from G called at my office in the factory, and informed me bluntly that John Siders had been found shot dead in his lodgings that morning.
His full name was Theodor John Bellmann, and his mother was an Englishwoman whose maiden name was Siders. His father was a county official who died at an early age, leaving his widow and the boy in deepest poverty. Mrs. Bellmann moved to G to give music lessons. Theodor went to school there, then finally to college, and was an excellent pupil everywhere.
She pointed to a sheet of newspaper on the desk. The commissioner handed it to Muller. It was an evening paper, dated G , September 24th, and it gave an elaborate account, in provincial journalese, of the discovery that morning of the body of John Siders, evidently murdered, in his lodgings.
Siders was waiting for me at the top of the stairs, calling down a noisy welcome. "When I asked him finally what it was so important that he wanted to say to me, he evaded me and continued to chatter on about commonplace things.
Men were wounded of both parties, three of them seriously. The draw was cut away, the middle pier and the western abutment partially blown down, and the field piece spiked by the west siders.
Is it at all likely that a murderer would go away leaving such evidence behind him? If Graumaun had killed Siders in a hasty quarrel, he might possibly, in his excitement, have left his revolver. But I have already disposed of this possibility.
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