re case was
transferred to that branch of the Criminal Court presided over by Judge
McConnell, while August 26th was fixed as the date for the opening for
the trial. On that date the six prisoners were arraigned and
applications were made in behalf of Burke, Woodruff, O'Sullivan and
Coughlin for separate trials. Elaborate arguments were made on these
motions, the prosecution making a vigorous resistance. Judge McConnell
took the question under advisement for a couple of days, and then denied
the motions as to all the defendants, with the exception of Woodruff,
who, on account of the peculiar circumstances that had entered into his
side of the case, and his numerous confessions, was held to be entitled
to a separate trial.

[Illustration: THE SIX PRISONERS IN COURT.]

CHAPTER XV.

THEORIES REGARDING THE DISAPPEARANCE OF THE MURDERED MAN'S CLOTHING--THE
HAND OF PROVIDENCE MANIFESTS ITSELF--FORTUNATE DISCOVERY OF THE LAST
BLOODY EVIDENCES OF THE CRIME--DR. CRONIN'S APPAREL IS FOUND--IT HAD
BEEN SECRETED, WITH HIS CASE OF SURGICAL INSTRUMENTS, IN A CATCH-BASIN,
ADJACENT TO THE ONE IN WHICH THE BODY WAS DISCOVERED--SHOES, JEWELRY AND
PURSE MISSING--COMPLETE IDENTIFICATION BY HIS FRIENDS--THE SEARCH
CONTINUED--A PIECE OF CARPET FOUND--THE CONSPIRATORS' PLANS THWARTED.

"God moves in a mysterious way;
His wonders to perform."

No stronger exemplification of the truth of the old familiar hymn, which
commences with the above lines, and which for generations hasn sung,
Sabbath after Sabbath, in churches of nearly every denomination
throughout the Christian world, had ever before been grafted in the
record of a criminal case.

With the arrest and extradition of Martin Burke and his incarceration
with the other suspects in the county jail, attention was attracted anew
to the question regarding the disposition made of the clothing of the
murdered physician, and of the case of surgical instruments which he had
taken with him when decoyed from his home. What was supposed, or claimed
to be, a thorough search of the sewers and inlets in the neighborhood of
the man-hole in which the body was discovered, had been made immediately
after the latter event, without, however, bringing anything to the
surface which was calculated to shed additional light on the great
crime. It was, therefore, nothing but natural that, having in mind the
international character of the conspiracy as evidenced by the dispatches
from