no confused matters considerably by her statement that
Mr. Singleton was going to meet some man at the Jefferson ranch
because the man had called him up before breakfast to arrange it.
Later it was learned that no call was made from any station over the
wire that morning to Granados. There was in fact several records of
failure to get Granados. No one but Dona Luz had heard the call and
heard Singleton reply, yet it was not possible that this communication
could be a fact over a broken wire, and the wire was found broken
between the Jefferson ranch and Granados.
Whereupon word promptly went abroad among the Mexicans that Senor
Singleton had been lured to his death by a spirit voice calling over a
broken wire as a friend to a friend. For the rest of her life Dona
Luz will have that tale to tell as the evidence of her own ears that
warnings of death do come from the fearsome spirits of the shadowed
unknown land,--and this in denial of all the padres' godly discourse
to the contrary!
A Mr. Frederick James of Nogales, connected with a group of charitable
gentlemen working for the alleviating of distress among the many
border exiles from Mexico, was the only person who came forward
voluntarily to offer help to the coroner regarding the object of the
dead man's journey to Nogales. Mr. James had been called on the
telephone by Mr. Singleton, who was apparently in great distress of
mind concerning mysterious illness and deaths of horses shipped from
Granados to France. A telegram had come from New York warning him that
the Department of Justice was investigating the matter, and the
excitement and nervousness of Mr. Singleton was such that Mr. James
readily consented to a meeting in Nogales, with the hope that he might
be of service in any investigation they would decide upon after
consultation. When Mr. Singleton did not keep the engagement, Mr.
James attempted to make inquiries by telephone. He tried again the
following morning, but it was only after hearing of the suicide--he
begged pardon--the death of Mr. Singleton, that he recalled the fact
that all of Singleton's discourse over the telephone had been unusual,
excitable to a degree, while all acquaintances of the dead man knew
him as a quiet, reserved man, really unusually reserved, almost to the
point of the secretive. Mr. James was struck by the unusual note of
panic in his tones, but as a carload of horses was of considerable
financial value, he ascribed the excitem
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