generated into an uncontrollable determination, is still unsettled
in the minds of many people eminently well versed in the law; as well as
in those of a goodly proportion of the masses. So far, however, as the
tragic fate of Dr Cronin is concerned, no such doubt may be said to
exist. That he fell a victim to a plot, remarkable in its conception and
execution; conceived in shrewdness and forethought, and executed by the
aid of far-reaching and elaborate machinery; and with remorseless
precision, is beyond peradventure. But it serves no purpose to
anticipate. The following chapters tell their own story of the manner
and methods by which the murder of a law-abiding American citizen,
prominent in his profession and of national reputation, was decreed and
carried out. It was the first crime of its character in the history of
the United States. It will probably be the last.

THE DISAPPEARANCE.

The locality was Chicago. The date Saturday, May 4th, in the year of our
Lord one thousand eight hundred and eighty-nine. The time eight o'clock
of the evening. Philip Patrick Henry Cronin--for this was the full name
of the physician--was closeted with a patient in the most spacious of
the front suite of rooms attached to a handsomely furnished flat
directly over the Windsor Theatre on North Clark Street. The tenants of
the flat, T. T. Conklin, a well-known saloon keeper, and his wife, were
among his most intimate and confidential friends, and with them the
physician, who was a confirmed bachelor, had resided so long that he was
regarded, to all intents and purposes, as one of the family. They nursed
him in sickness, studied his every requirement when in health, and in a
great measure, shared with him his personal and political knowledge. It
was a happy, congenial family in every sense of the term. Dr. Cronin was
on the point of dismissing the patient, for an important meeting of the
Celto-American Society, which published a paper of which he was the
political editor, necessitated his hurrying away to the other side of
the city, when the door-bell rang violently. Mrs. Conklin responded. A
man pale and breathless, stood on the landing.

[Illustration: DR. CRONIN'S APARTMENTS IN WINDSOR THEATRE BUILDING.]

"Is Dr. Cronin in?" he demanded, in a hurried, nervous manner.

"Yes," was the reply, "but he is busy with a patient."

"Well," responded the stranger with increasing nervousness. "I want to
see him. It is a matter of life