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."