retreat had been left open to him. Even this retreat he owed only to the
fog and to the hurry of the moment, and to the difficulty of approaching
the premises by the rear. The little girl was naturally agitated by the
influx of strangers at that hour; but otherwise, through the humane
precautions of the neighbors, she was preserved from all knowledge of the
dreadful events that had occurred whilst she herself was sleeping. Her
poor old grandfather was still missing, until the crowd descended into the
cellar; he was then found lying prostrate on the cellar floor: apparently
he had been thrown down from the top of the cellar stairs, and with so
much violence, that one leg was broken. After he had been thus disabled,
Williams had gone down to him, and cut his throat. There was much
discussion at the time, in some of the public journals, upon the
possibility of reconciling these incidents with other circumstantialities
of the case, supposing that only one man had been concerned in the affair.
That there _was_ only one man concerned, seems to be certain. One
only was seen or heard at Marr's: one only, and beyond all doubt the same
man, was seen by the young journeyman in Mrs. Williamson's parlor; and one
only was traced by his footmarks on the clay embankment. Apparently the
course which he had pursued was this: he had introduced himself to
Williamson by ordering some beer. This order would oblige the old man to
go down into the cellar; Williams would wait until he had reached it, and
would then 'slam' and lock the street-door in the violent way described.
Williamson would come up in agitation upon hearing this violence. The
murderer, aware that he would do so, met him, no doubt, at the head of the
cellar stairs, and threw him down; after which he would go down to
consummate the murder in his ordinary way. All this would occupy a minute,
or a minute and a half; and in that way the interval would be accounted
for that elapsed between the alarming sound of the street-door as heard by
the journeyman, and the lamentable outcry of the female servant. It is
evident also, that the reason why no cry whatsoever had been heard from