of the corpse
to a fraction.

[Illustration: SCANLAN AND CONKLIN IDENTIFYING THE BODY.]

After Dr. Lewis came Cronin's tailor, Joseph J. O'Keefe, and who, upon
making tests, found that the measurements of those portions of the body
that had not perceptibly increased in size were identical with the
figures in the order book kept by his cutter. John Buck, the barber who
had counted Dr. Cronin among his customers for over a year, recognized
the shape of the head and the texture of the hair; and immediately
after, Dr. John R. Brandt, President of the staff of the Cook County
Hospital, and who had been comparing the dead man's hair with the lock
of hair found in the trunk three weeks before, declared that they had
come from the same head. In this he was corroborated by Dr. Ruthford.
T. T. Conklin arrived at the station at 8 o'clock. He was taken
down-stairs and looked long and earnestly at the bloated corpse. "It is
the body of Dr. Cronin," said Conklin, his eyes filling with tears. "I
have known him for twenty years and cannot be mistaken. I have been in
swimming with him and know him better than any man living. There is no
chance for a mistake. I don't like to say 'I told you so,' but this
substantiates what I have said from the start. Dr. Cronin was murdered,
and if the police had done their duty, instead of believing the lies
invented by Dr. Cronin's enemies, the murderers would have been captured
before this time."

And so for hours the friends of the murdered man came in singly, and in
twos and threes, and added their testimony to what had already been
given. Many of them were profoundly affected, and there were many
pitiable scenes of grief as one man after another turned away from the
bloated corpse that was all that remained of the man with whom they had
been so closely associated for years. Captain Wing, when interrogated,
said that the place where the body was found was a particularly lonely
one, the nearest house being over a block away. A hundred yards to the
east was the depot of the Chicago & Evanston railroad. The spot was a
little over three-quarters of a mile beyond the point where the trunk
was found on the morning after the physician's disappearance, and four
miles north of Fullerton avenue. It was surrounded with swampy land, the
few trees growing to the north serving to shut off the view from the
residences that were located in the neighborhood.

All this time the excitement outside was at feve