The Great Seymour Square Mystery
Being Three Chapters from a Detective's Case Book
by James Franklin Fitts
I. The Drawing of the Net
On the night of October 13th, 1864, Mr. John William Morley left his banking-office on Bay street at eleven o’clock; and after locking the door proceeded homeward. It was afterward remarked that this was a somewhat strange thing for this gentleman to do. He was a private banker and broker, and kept the usual business hours of such men; and his almost invariable custom was to absent himself from his office at five o’clock, two hours after closing the door. It was, therefore, unusual, to say the least, that he should upon this occasion have remained at his place of business until eleven o’clock; and it appeared stranger still when it was afterwards discovered that promptly at five he had dismissed all the help about the office, for the day—the two clerks, the book-keeper, the porter, the errand boy—dispensing with all assistance in the squaring of the day’s business, and preferring to close the store himself rather than have anyone about him. It was decidedly singular.
Mr. John William Morley was a tall, stout, strong man, with a florid face, a keen eye, a nervous step, and one of the best heads of the street. He was in the vicinity of sixty years of age at this time, and a widower, with one son,… Read More