Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, Vol. 24, No. 4. Whole No. 131, October 1954

The Dipping of the Candlemaker by Hayden Howard

When we published Hayden Howard’s “Pass the Bottle” last year, we promised you more facts about the author himself. Here they are: Mr. Howard is now in his late twenties, which is very young indeed; his physique is, to quote, “elongated.” After wrestling a couple of years with engineering at U.C.L.A., Mr. Howard worked briefly as a milkman and a house painter, then switched to U. of C. for a degree in social science. His ambition to be a professor of sociology was interrupted by necessary money-making ventures as a stationer s salesman and census taker, but finally he returned to U. of C. for graduate work. During this trying period, Mr. Howard turned to writing fiction for, as he phrased it, “mental relaxation.” And then he was lost. For he is now writing full lilt, although he admits that in many ways and on many scores he is “still fumbling in the dark.” (Who isn’t, brother?)

Hayden Howard s latest prize-winning story is one of the most difficult types of fiction to write — an historical detective story. The action takes place in the America of 1722 — but we will let the author tell you more about the significance of the scene and the times in the tale itself, and in a short postscript. The point is, historical detective stories are not everybody s meat — although they shouldn’t be anyone’s poison. Personally, we have a deep fondness for historical detection — especially when it has a stature approaching either fact or folklore, and even more especially when it parallels today’s problems and throws light and insight on the conflicts and insecurities now facing us.

Mr. Howard’s story is a wonderful conception, with fascinating meanings and implications, and it has (although perhaps we should not warn you even this much) a terrific kick at the end. Whatever your penchant for or prejudice against historical detective stories, we think you will enjoy this one hugely.

Mr. Howards two stories — a Black Mask tough ’tec and a serious historical detective story — illustrate not only the author’s versatility but also what a Black Mask type of writer can do for a change of pace, and vice versa. So again we take an opportunity to invite all writers to do originals for our Black Mask department. We encourage you to explore, in the highest tradition of the hardboiled school, the seamy side of life — to illuminate, with all the integrity and artistry at your command, the back alleys and dark streets of crime and its moral concomitant, punishment.

On a frosty morn, when a rigid gentleman, wigg’d, powder’d, and exhaling vapours like a dragon, stamp’d into our printing-house with his red cloak flung back in anger, I smiled secretly at the stick of type I was composing. For here was Colonel Clinton of the Assembly.

Now, thought I, it is my brother James’s turn to bend the knee!

While breaking our fast, we had fallen into another of our disputations, and he, unwilling to admit himself trapp’d in contradiction by my devious Socratic inquiries, beat me passionately, which I took extreamly amiss; and, thinking my apprenticeship to him very tedious, I was wishing for some means of shortening it.

Most merrily I listen’d to Colonel Clinton berate him for some political piece lately appearing in our weekly newspaper. Yet I admired my brother for refusing to give up the name of its author who had made so free with our Massachusetts Assembly.

As the Colonel’s threats crimson’d my brother, I began to fear the loosing of his too-ready fist. In this uneasy year of King George, 1722, to strike a member of the Assembly would mean something worse than the pillory.

But my brother was, for the moment, saved; such an outcry arising from Queen Street that both men rush’d to the doorway. I glanced at my work, an advertisement for the sale of several Palatine maids, time of most of them five years. Tho’ my brother might beat me again, I set aside my composing stick and ran after them on to the cobblestones. For the shouting had grown from “Seize him” to “Murder, murder most foule!” — which made me most curious.

All Boston seem’d running: hardy ropewalkmen, unkempt ’prentices, grimy pewterers jostled by His Majesty’s grenadiers flush’d as red as their coats from grog, and good-wives scurrying with their gowns above their ankles and their tongues a-wagging. I was surprised to see the mob revolving beneath the wooden boot that advertised the shoemaker’s stall; they were clamouring around the old cobbler and the huge Irish ’prentice lad he held as easily as a partner in a dance.

The lad, Dennis O’Leary, apprentice to the candlemaker, stood meekly downcast, while round them, leaping like a bewigg’d frog in his excitement, shouted the candlemaker’s tenant, little Warwick Lowther, a silversmith whose voice was the largest part of him: “Murder, he has murder’d his master!”

“Here, man, be silent!” Colonel Clinton snapp’d, and order’d that the lad be march’d back to the candlemaker’s to view his abominable crime and confess to save his soul.

Thinking to remain out of my brother’s notice, I follow’d at the coattails of the crowd. Dennis was shaking his red locks in confusion, in obvious denial as they propell’d him into the cavernous shop and into its dim after-part, where their numbers obstructed my curiosity.

Above their heads the rafters rose steeply to the high wall which divided the house in halves. I knew the ground floor of the other half to be the sleeping quarters of the candlemaker, named Mr. Gill, and his intemperate uncle, and also of Dennis. Above it was a garret, reach’d by the narrow staircase fix’d to this side of the wall and tenanted by little Warwick Lowther, silversmith, and his wife and brood of six or seven.

I climb’d upon the silversmith’s table in the fore-part of the shop, being careful not to upset his neatly hammer’d porringers, sauce boats, wall sconces, and candlesticks, and wondering that some knave might not take this opportunity to steal them. For, lately, many Boston houses had been enter’d for their silver. A coldness slosh’d upon my shoe. I perceived I had jostled a pail of fresh beer, but thought no more of this as I stared over the heads of the crowd at a most unnatural sight.

Beneath the horizontal spokes of Mr. Gill’s candle-dipping machine, the mammoth kettle of wax seem’d stuff’d with the blue broadcloth from which coats are sewn. Two bulbous lumps of the cloth droop’d over the edge of the kettle, and from them hung gray woolens, narrowing to white stockings, which terminated in large leather shoes.

“Draw him out,” the Colonel order’d.

With a greasily osculating sound, the candlemaker’s shoulders and head were withdrawn from his kettle. The breathless room sweeten’d with the fragrance of bayberry wax. A horrid sight Mr. Gill’s corpse made, with the greenish wax flowing downward on his features as if he were a waxwork during the Great Fire.

Around his hips, which had been at the surface of the kettle, the harden’d wax gave him strange proportions. And a wag blurted: “Silversmiths oft hammer their thumbs, but never before has a candlemaker dipp’d himself.”

Some titter’d, some reproved, all talk’d. My brother thrust his hand into the kettle, but instantly withdrew it, the pan of coals beneath not being wholly expired. Recoursing to the poker, he hook’d out Mr. Gill’s sodden wig. Never one to remain a modest spectator, he thrust it at Dennis O’Leary’s nose, shouting: “Confess, I say! Here is the evidence. Blood upon your master’s wig.”

Altho’ this show’d Mr. Gill had been struck down, I wonder’d that my brother was so easily convinced of Dennis’s guilt. For a head bleeds whether struck by an apprentice or another. And I lean’d forward to hear the Irish lad’s denial.

“God witness, sir,” Dennis cried, “I found him thus — when I return’d from the Sailor’s Pleasure. He’d sent me for a pail of beer. I would o’ pull’d him out. But Mr. Lowther rush’d at me. He shouted ‘Murder’ and — chased me into the street.”

“He fled from his conscience,” the little silversmith retorted, his own fair and freckled complexion as flush’d as the boy’s.

“See the terror of guilt upon the lad’s face,” my brother added.

Colonel Clinton silenced them with a dagger’d glance. I, too, was angered by my brother, believing his opinion to be poison’d against all apprentices. And, further, I consider’d Dennis my friend, lately we having done much walking together at dusk along the ship-wharves, exchanging our grievances.

I knew full well the mindless drudgery of candlemaking, my own father being a tallow chandler, and I his unwilling helper, boiling tallow, straining tallow, pouring tallow into moulds, until I was twelve and he, detecting I would run away to sea, apprenticed me to my brother to learn the printing trade. My brother had since treated me, I consider’d, no better than a bound-boy. I did not acknowledge that my overweening tongue was the chief cause of this. And Dennis now seem’d a symbol of myself persecuted.

I resolved to speak up for him, tho’: those who in quarrels interpose, must often wipe a bloody nose. Prudently, I climbed down from the table so that my brother might not see who had spoken.

“Witness how the wax has harden’d about the waist,” I cried. “From this I deduce that Mr. Gill has been a long time in his kettle, cooling. Yet we know the lad has but recently return’d. Here, on the table, his pail of beer still has a head on it.”

This last turn’d the heads of the crowd, and my brother, with knitting brows, recognized me.

“ ’Tis true!” the old cobbler exclaim’d. “The boy had pass’d my bench with his pail of beer and before twenty pegs were driven I heard shouts of ‘Seize him’ and he return’d like a cut-purse pursued.”

Even little Warwick Lowther clapp’d his hand to his wig. “’Tis true! My apologies. When I left my wife and children and came on to the stair, I observed the boy bending strangely over his master down there, and I rush’d to interfere. ’Twas only his flight that convinced me of his guilt.”

The little silversmith made his way to his landlord’s apprentice and, reaching up, placed his hand upon the lad’s shoulder. “Tho’ Dennis has been employ’d here but a short time, I have observed him to be mild of temper. Yet there is another with whom my landlord often exchanged blows.”

“Blossom!” the apprentice gasp’d.

“Aye, Mr. Gill’s uncle it well may be,” Warwick Lowther replied.

All look’d about. Blossom Gill was so called for the grog blossoms studding his corpulent visage. An old man and living on his nephew’s charity, nevertheless he would not take orders in good spirit from the candlemaker, and their quarrelling could be heard even to our printing-shop, particularly when they had both been taking spirits of another order.

“Look for Blossom under the horses’ legs,” my brother laughed.

“He should have return’d by now,” Warwick Lowther suggested, “if he were innocent. After the lad set out for the Sailor’s Pleasure, a very considerable walk, Mr. Gill ask’d his uncle to fetch the cart, for they would go bay berrying on the morrow. Blossom retorted for him to fetch it himself. And tho’ it is less than a hundred paces from this rear doorway to the wheelwright’s, they were still squabbling when I ascended the stairway to take my tea in a less blasphemous atmosphere.”

The little silversmith raised his forefinger with the questioning gesture of a minister of the gospel. “If Blossom set out for the cart, why did he not return before the boy? The expectation of beer would have quickened his pace. You can see the cart is not at the rear doorway. Therefore, I fear Blossom persisted in his refusal to fetch it, and blows were exchanged. Then rage overcame all mercy. Murder! Affrighted by his deed, the old man has fled.”

“After him! Before he escapes to the ships!” my brother cried.

“Silence!” Colonel Clinton’s voice cracked over the mob like a carter’s whip, and he directed some men to run to the Long Wharf, others in the direction of the Fort, still others toward the Common and the Charles River, and a final group, including my brother James and myself, to inquire at the wheelwright’s, then search the nearby taverns and stables.

But he call’d me back. I must remain to watch that nothing be stolen from the shop. To this I was not averse, my curiosity to examine the mark of the blow, to infer the weapon employ’d, to search the shop for it, being far greater than any boyish urge to fox-hound through the streets after a drunken old man.

At the front of the shop, on Warwick Lowther’s work bench, none of the hammers and mallets show’d blood. In the main door, however, I noticed the long iron key to have been left carelessly in the lock. Since any knave might remove it, in order to return stealthily by night and attack the silversmith’s strong-box, I took the key out, and shook my head. For its crude bit had but a single notch. The lock was single-warded. A child could have pick’d it.

I carried the key to Dennis, who sat upon the staircase with his face buried between his hands so that his red hair appear’d to be a pile of flame above them. When he look’d up, I ask’d him kindly: “Did your master, forgetting, leave his key in the door?”

“It is my key,” he blurted. “Mr. Gill gave it to me, God rest his soul. Unlock’d the door, I did, and saw Mr. Gill’s legs hanging from the kettle. I set down the pail and rush’d to pull him out, forgetting the key.”

“Was there a reason the shop was not open for trade?” I ask’d.

“I know it not,” he sighed. “I was surprised the door would not open, and quickly unlock’d it. For Mr. Gill and his uncle seem’d always impatient for their beer. Believe me, I found my master thus!” Fear raised the pitch of his voice. “You shan’t tell of the threats I made against him whilst you and I walk’d on the ship-wharves?”

“Empty threats are common among apprentices,” I said slowly, eyeing the trapezoid of sunlight that lay from the rear doorway across the wax’d floor, the huge kettle, and the base of the candle-dipping machine. “Was the rear door also closed?”

“My head was pounding too fast for me to notice such little things,” Dennis replied.

“Was there sunlight upon the kettle or upon your master’s blue coattails?” I persisted.

“Aye!” the Irish lad exclaim’d, wonderingly. “Into the dimness of the shop I came, and the first sight that struck my eyes was a spot of bright blue.”

“So the rear door was left open,” I mused. “Is this usual?”

Dennis nodded. “It helps draw off the wax vapours.”

“But is it usual, the rear door open when the front door is lock’d?” I continued, to which he shook his tousled head.

I would have ask’d him whether Blossom Gill and Warwick Lowther own’d keys to the door, but this seem’d certain. And, a mouth being better closed when there is no longer wisdom behind it, I held my peace and review’d the circumstances: the candlemaker dead in his kettle, Warwick Lowther above stairs drinking his tea, the front door lock’d, the rear door open. The weapon — here I realized I had been foolishly searching for it before examining the wound, which would show whether the weapon be sharp or blunt, light or heavy, smooth or irregular.

Before I could reach the corpse, Colonel Clinton shouted angrily: “Here, you, lad, where has Lowther gone? The villain, he has fled! Have you been asleep, you dolt?”

Tho’ I had been instructed to watch the silver, not the silversmith, I flush’d and ran up the stairs to Warwick Lowther’s garret. His wife, a slight, dark-hair’d woman much sagg’d from child-bearing, retorted he was not there and follow’d me down.

“All is safe, sir,” I assured the Colonel, “for his wife and children are still here.”

Colonel Clinton’s eyes narrow’d at Mrs. Lowther, and he mutter’d: “Nevertheless, men have deserted their families to preserve their own necks.”

“Mr. Lowther has gone with the others,” she rebuff’d him bravely, “to search for that evil old man. Fight, fight, it is all those two kinsmen did. I should have known it would end this way. Their drunken voices rose nightly to our quarters as if they were shouting up a hollow tree.”

Embarrass’d, hoping the little silversmith had not deserted, leaving her to fend for six or seven young ones, I knelt beside the corpse. Mr. Gill’s waxen face had now harden’d so that he seem’d a man frozen in green ice, and I peel’d away the greenish wax adhering to his closely tonsured yellow hair. The indentation on the back of his skull, I would have wager’d a sovereign, was made by the curved and bluntly pointed end of the poker.

Since my brother had employ’d the poker to retrieve the deceased’s wig, blood could no longer be seen upon it. And I wonder’d if there might be certain chemicals which, applied to even the smallest trace of blood, would give off an accusing smoke or other indication that here was the victim’s life-blood.

Even more useful, I ponder’d, would be a white powder which, sprinkled on the suspect’s hand, would be distinctively color’d by the oil of his skin. The same white powder being sprinkled on the handle of the poker would turn a like colour if the villain had gripped it. But, replied the less fanciful side of my intellect, a murder weapon is immediately pass’d around by the curious, so that a useless rainbow-colour’d powder would invariably be the result.

What would completely simplify this life-and-death problem, I mused, and rule out all danger of faulty human deductions, as well as the need for the foregoing inventions, would be a clockwork mounted beside a horn which concentrates the suspect’s voice upon a brass cymbal. Perhaps experiment would show that when a man utters a lie, his voice produces such unnatural vibrations that the cymbal, tuned to them alone, would vibrate. This motion could be transmitted by means of a lever to the clockwork, which would then strike a chime, infallibly declaring the falsehood.

I stood up and examin’d the bleach’d wig hairs clinging to the once or twice dipp’d wicks on the dipping frame above the kettle. Since invention of the foregoing mechanisms, if possible at all, would require more time and knowledge than was presently at my disposal, I determined that my truth-machine must be constructed of Pure Reason, systematically applied. For, having interceded once in this inquiry, my youthful pride would not permit me to withdraw from it.

Yet, I warn’d myself, I must not hazard an opinion as to the identity of the murderer. Rather, I should arrange the evidence as if it were columns of figures, and let the sum totals finally determine the guilt. Otherwise, I will tend to notice and consider mainly the evidence pointing toward the most likely suspect, and thereby risk building a false case. This is because, being a reasonable creature, I am able to find reasons for anything I have decided to believe. And today a man’s life is at stake.

Turning, I observed on the next frame of wicks a few strangely short hairs of fiery red. And glancing covertly at my Irish friend, I felt my resolve of mathematical detachment sorely tax’d.

At least the red hairs are on a different frame from the white wig hairs, I puzzled, and turn’d again to the candle-dipping machine.

It consisted of a large cart-wheel mounted horizontally atop a stout post higher than my head. The rim had been saw’d out, leaving the six spokes, and loop’d from the end of each spoke by a leather strap was a dipping frame of cross’d dowels, with long wicks hanging from them nearly to the kettle.

In operation, each frame, in its turn, was taken down by hand from its spoke and lower’d, its wicks descending into the liquid wax, then hung up again for the wax to harden, the machine being turn’d so that the next frame might be then taken down.

Thus, I would have expected the murderer’s hair, as he bent the candlemaker into the kettle, to have brush’d against the same frame of wicks as did Mr. Gill’s white wig.

Yet I wonder’d if Dennis might have dallied outside with his empty pail until the old man finally went for the cart and the silversmith mounted to his garret. Then the strong lad might swiftly have return’d, struck down and drown’d his master in wax, lock’d the front door so that no customer might enter and discover the body too soon, then hurried to the Sailor’s Pleasure.

The other two would testify he left before them, and because of the hardness of the wax and the head on the beer when he return’d to discover the body, it would seem the murder had been done some time before, in his absence.

I could see the streaks of wax gleaming on Dennis’s red hair.

Yet this is not conclusive, I argued, for he works often at the dipping machine. Further, he would have expected the old man to return before him. Still further, he would not have fled in such a guilty manner when Warwick Lowther rush’d down the stairs at him; yet one never knows how one will react with his life in the balance.

I must cease these suppositions, I thought sternly, and gather more substance. A house is not constructed by first hammering together the roof in empty air.

Examining the double-boilers on the hearth, I reflected that making bay berry candles would be less onerous than pouring tallow ones as I had done. The excursions to gather berries would be pleasant, and boiling the wax from them would produce a woodsy fragrance rather than the slaughterhouse stench of boiling tallow. Because the bayberry wax shrinks on cooling, it cannot be pour’d in molds, and is therefore dipp’d — a pleasant, rhythmic labour like press-work. I began to think the candlemaker’s apprentice complain’d too much.

And I toy’d with one of the greenish candles. It did not feel greasy, like a tallow candle. Tho’ of more irregular shape than cast candles, a greater price was ask’d, for bayberry candles will not droop against the wall in hot weather, and the snuff is pleasant rather than foul. The smoke is consider’d an aid for parted lovers; each lighting a bayberry candle at the appointed hour, tho’ the Atlantic Ocean separate them, the two smokes are believed to mingle.

I wonder’d that, with two to help him, Mr. Gill had not produced larger quantities of candles and thus offer’d really worrisome competition to my father. Above the mantel was painted the old rhyme:

I doubted it had brought much gold to Mr. Gill’s pocket. For laziness travels so slowly that poverty soon overtakes him. Yet the candlemaker was still known as a buyer of expensive trifles, and I wonder’d that Warwick Lowther’s rent was enough to support Mr. Gill’s continuing extravagance.

Thus I began to smell a dead mouse.

Indeed I now doubted that the little silversmith was capable of paying any rent at all. He was said to have fled Providence to avoid debtor’s prison, and I thought it unlikely he would better his lot here, since many Massachusetts folk would as soon commission their silverware from a Papist, or Lucifer himself, as from a Rhode Island free-thinker. And Boston already housed an excellent silversmith.

With seven or eight mouths to feed, Warwick Lowther must scent the foul odour of a debtor’s prison no matter which way the wind blows. Were he a larger, stronger man he might exchange his tools and silver for an axe, a plow, and oxen, and escape to the wilderness, westward into the valley of the Connecticut River, where Indians would take more than his wig. But that he had escaped from Providence with silver enough to make the articles display’d upon his table was puzzle enough for me.

Suddenly a portion of the mob flow’d back into the shop, their teeth showing with satisfaction, for they dragg’d Blossom Gill in their midst. Prominent among them, little Warwick Lowther bent a knee to the Colonel. “Sir, we discover’d him in a ditch behind the wheelwright’s.”

“Dead drunk,” my brother James added, and the Colonel afforded my kin such an ill-temper’d glance he would have been wiser to have removed himself at once to our printing-house.

Hulking old Blossom away’d between the pushing hands of his captors. He blink’d like an owl in the daylight, and when Colonel Clinton snapp’d at him: “Confess!”, he fell heavily to his knees and the mob guffaw’d. The old man’s limbs would not support him. The Colonel whirl’d about, unable to silence the mob, and pointed his ring’d hand at the body of Mr. Gill.

“You, sot, can you see what that is?” the Colonel cried.

There was no answer, for Blossom Gill had sunk his elbows and forehead to the floor, drunk as an Iroquois. Colonel Clinton, sliding forward like a dancing-master, kick’d him smartly. “Get up, I say!”

Disliking to see even a confirm’d drammer kick’d, even by a gentleman, I put my arm under the old man’s, my brother took the other, and we lifted Blossom upright. The Colonel then kick’d his leg with such force he near brought down the three of us. This seem’d, however, to waken the old man, and he mutter’d: “It ish my brother’s son.”

“Why did you not return at once with the cart?” the Colonel demanded.

“Wush waiting for it.”

“In a ditch?” Colonel Clinton demanded. “Why did you not return? You knew the boy had been sent for beer!”

“Bottle of rum,” Blossom gurgled. “Made my nephew give it to me, or I will go to the mashi-magistrate and we shwing together.”

The Colonel’s eyes narrow’d. “Smugglers, eh, like half of these people. So, you murder’d your nephew for a bottle of rum. Speak up, I say!”

“Not shmugglers,” the old man mutter’d, but the mob had grown so noisy, I believe the Colonel thought Blossom had mouth’d some imprecation against him; for he deliver’d another savage kick.

“In the Name of the King, confess!” Colonel Clinton raged, and, receiving no answer, set to kicking him with such force the old man jerk’d in our arms like Kidd upon the gallows.

“Hold, sir,” my brother protested, and express’d himself in somewhat contradiction to his own previously officious conduct. “Boston is no longer a hamlet without proper magistrates; therefore these men should be speedily brought before them. Private enquiry is usurpation.”

This insulted the Colonel extreamly, and he turn’d to the mob. “Upon my orders, throw this fork-tongued printer’s devil into the street!” And there being a few in every crowd who tug their forelocks and jump to obey the meanest order so long as it springs from someone they consider of exalted rank, my brother was dragg’d, loudly protesting, from the shop.

I was allow’d to remain, I think, because the Colonel had forgotten whose apprentice I was and, perchance, imagined me a useful lackey, though a half-wit. On my part, I resolved to disappoint him as to the latter.

“Pardon, sir,” call’d the burly wheelwright who had jostled to the front rank. “The old man did come for the cart, but in fixen one spoke, I broken another. Wait he does, and drink. The wheel, when iss finished, the old man iss not there.”

The Colonel shrugg’d and again address’d Blossom Gill. “Confess, you toss-pot!”

The old man lolled against me as if requiring sleep, and I was reminded of a beast peculiar to this continent and call’d The Oppussum, which, when surrounded by huntsmen, feigns death, tho’ whether through fright or cunning I do not know.

“Sir,” Warwick Lowther politely interposed. “Note the bruise upon the old man’s forehead. So often did the two of them come to blows, I fear’d it would end thus in tragedy. And note the stripes of wax upon his wig. No doubt these were acquired when he bent forward against the frame of wicks, while thrusting his nephew’s head into the kettle.”

“Quite correct,” the Colonel replied, pleased. “I was about to announce the same conclusion. What do you say to that, sot?”

My own thought was this evidence was far from conclusive, since Blossom work’d often dipping candles, and wax upon his wig would have been more suspicious by its absence.

“I shay you’ll shwing along ’o us, Warwick Lowther,” the old man gurgled angrily, his grog blossoms lighting up like coals in a high wind. “You begging sho meek, please we let you go free to the wilderness and you’ll never tell nor do us harm!”

Blossom Gill’s mind seem’d fix’d on something that had been troubling him prior to the murder, for he raved on: “Ash this shilversmith where he got his silver, shir! I tell you, and a roof over hish head. My nephew takes him in to melt and rework and sell the silver we have acquired, yesh, acquired, hah! But we do not trust this little man, and my nephew ashts him to accompany him through the window of the Reverend Dr. Mather, to acquire silver, and to fit his little neck in the noose so that Warwick Lowther dare not inform!”

As Blossom sagg’d against me, I wonder’d that his tongue had grown so quickly nimble for one so deeply sotted, and he gasp’d thinly: “I–I wanted no part of thish. From the firsht, I had no part in it, and I would have gone to the authorities, but my nephew would have kill’d me. He shouted at thish little silversmith, ‘I already own you, body and soul.’ And Lowther finally said he would go with him. Tho’ I warn’d against it, to night is the night the window was to be forsh’d. But to-day my nephew ish murder’d!”

“If these men were the silver thieves,” Warwick Lowther shouted clearly above the tumult, “I knew nothing of it.”

“So your silver appearsh like shwallows from the mud, hah?” Blossom Gill challenged. “You dare not unlock the shtrong-box and show them Mr. Samuel Sewall’s silver plate, much of it not yet melted into lumpsh, hah?”

With his face red with anger beneath his white wig, the little silversmith drew a brass key from his waistcoat and march’d to the strong-box, which was of old oak, bound with much iron. He pointed a white finger at Blossom, saying: “Now give up your key, old fox!”

I saw the strong box wore three locks, and by the time Blossom had dug his key from his small-clothes, Warwick Lowther had unlock’d his. Blossom’s key was a clumsy, single-notched one and took much twisting before it would open its lock. The candlemaker’s key could not be discover’d in his pockets, and I consider’d offering to pick his lock, but one’s a fool who cannot conceal such wisdom. I held my peace and join’d them in searching the corpse. About its neck was a loop of string, which, being torn from its sheen of wax and drawn out, reveal’d the third key.

When the lid of the strong-box was raised, we found only a bag of foreign coins of small worth, a new silver spoon that had split from too much hammering, and some ancient account books. The old man look’d about wildly.

“Now you see he lies,” Warwick Lowther said. “Ask the boy if Blossom is not lying so that my neck be stretch’d for murder instead of his own.”

Dennis O’Leary, turning pale, mumbled he did not know_; “I have not work’d here long.”

“A blind boy!” Blossom Gill spat. “Not shuprising. Likely he help’d such a little man drown my nephew.”

“Hang them all,” a wag shouted. “That way they’ll be equally assured of justice.”

“Hold,” cried a hand-rubbing tavern keeper of long and dripping nose, who had been probing about the dead man. “Colonel, Your Grace, all is resolved. See how the blow bloodied the back of the head rather than the top, as if the murderer could strike no higher. Therefore he was a little man. And only one of these three is short.”

“Do not look so concern’d for your widow, silversmith,” a wag shouted. “She can sell a child each year.”

At this, I look’d up, and was not pleased to see on the staircase a whole row of little Lowthers, their faces aghast and flush’d red as their flaming red hair.

The Colonel, too, look’d displeased by this deduction of the tavern keeper, perchance having already determined Blossom Gill to be the murderer. And I was irritated by the tavern keeper’s reasoning, which was weak, if not false, and resolved to confute it.

“I am puzzled, sir,” I interceded loudly. “Would not a man bent over the kettle, dipping candle wicks, present the back his head to attack from behind, no matter the assailant be a dwarf or a giant?”

“Exactly what I had decided,” the Colonel declared. “There can be no doubt the murderer was this old house-pad. For a large, strong man was required to lift the candlemaker into his kettle.”

This I doubted, the mouth of the kettle being no higher than a man’s waist, so that the victim need only be push’d, rather than lifted. But I held my peace, for I was considering the more important matter of the young Lowthers’ red hair. Their mother’s hair was dark brown. Since I had never seen the silversmith without his wig, and since he was closely shaven and nearly hairless upon the wrists, I had never thought of him possessing hair, much less of it having colour. Yet, unless Mrs. Lowther had deceived him seven times at yearly intervals, I now suspected his hair was as red as Dennis O’Leary’s.

So many contradictory deductions having confused the mob, and having shortened the tempers of some, they began to shout in unison: “Throw them in the millpond. All three. Let the pond decide their guilt.”

Truly, a mob is a monster, with many heads and no brains.

“Silence!” the Colonel shouted, a sudden perspiration gleaming on his brow. “We are not examining witches. This admitted thief and murderer shall be speedily arraigned before the magistrates.” And he seized the old man’s elbow.

But Blossom Gill stood fast, tho’ swaying, and cried at the mob: “I am innocent as a babe! ’Tis thish Rhode Island receiver of stolen property has murder’d my nephew.”

The Colonel dragg’d Blossom forward a step, but the mob would not open to let them pass. They preferr’d a Massachusetts thief to any foreigner from Rhode Island. But chiefly they desired a raree show, and a cluster of bawling ropewalkmen began to shout: “String up all three for silver thievery. We must go back to work. Let the murderer be discover’d and judged in the next world.”

Colonel Clinton stood gaping like a fish, uncertain whether to bluster or retreat. The mob, which in a sense had been his creature at the beginning, was his no longer. Having sown wind, he was reaping whirlwind,

Dennis too was dragg’d into the midst of them, pale and protesting. And I guess’d they would not listen, tho’ they must know full well that an apprentice is helpless to prevent an ill-doing to his master, and dare not blab. His master’s word would be taken over his, and revenge against his master might seal an apprentice’s lips forever.

Apologies would not interest the mob any longer. I knew I must give them words they would listen to, and thus I shouted: “Colonel, I have irrefutable proof of the murderer!”

“Hear, hear,” the mob clamour’d, many of them laughing, which irritated me extreamly.

The Colonel, to my surprise, glared; but, uncertain of the temper of the mob, he did not interfere when I carried forward two frames of wicks.

“On this frame,” I cried, “are long white hairs from what would seem to be the wig of the deceased. On the other are a few strangely short red ones.”

Before I could explain the next step in my deductions, they laid hold of Dennis most painfully, ripping his clothing and even pulling out his long red hair. They show’d that a little understanding may be more harmful than none, shouting with joy as tho’ they, the mob, had brilliantly solved the matter. Some even shouted for a rope.

I could not recapture their attention, and fear’d Dennis would be strung up before my eyes, the Colonel making no attempt to prevent it. Since all depended on this moment, I rush’d back to the kettle and scooped the iron shovel into the pan of blackened coals beneath. I raised the shovel full to shoulder height and, whirling, broadcast the warm coals upon the beads of the mob. Needless to say, this regain’d their attention.

At their angry bedlam I shouted: “Another of the three suspects has also red hair, but conceals it. Take off your wig, Warwick Lowther!”

And in doing so, he show’d that his seven children were his own, for his head was as red as theirs. Without the craven expression I had expected, he confronted the mob with his red stubble. Its colour seem’d the same as Dennis’s unkempt red mop. The voices of the mob diminish’d.

“This fiddle-faddle about red hair, white hair, no hair, is of no consequence,” Warwick Lowther stated firmly. “No doubt Dennis left his red hairs on the wicks while working at the dipping-machine. No more candles were dipp’d after he was sent for the beer. Thus, his red hairs are still there, and innocently enough.”

“But these red hairs are all peculiarly short,” I replied. “Most hairs coming loose from a head are long and old, dried at the roots, perchance, like last year’s tall weeds; whilst short hairs are, for the most part, cuttings, not uprootings. If you will very closely examine the short hairs on this wick, you will see that all of them lack the small root that is so often present when hair falls out naturally. By drawing hairs from your comb or brush between your fingers, you will frequently feel this tiny root. Since these hairs lack it, I believe them to be the short hairs that are scatter’d about after a visit to the barber. And since your stubbled hair is cut often, Warwick Lowther, in order that your wig be comfortable, I believe these short hairs to be from your head. And more of them will be found clinging inside your wig.”

“Of no consequence,” the little silversmith cried, shifting his feet rapidly, his voice rising to the excited pitch with which he had accused Dennis while leaping about him on Queen Street. “Plotter! The red hairs are on a different frame than the white ones! Any fool knows that the murderer, bending his victim into the kettle, would touch his head above his victim’s, thus leaving his hairs on the wicks of the same frame.”

Before I could dispute this, he shouted: “The hairs could not be mine — unless this old man treacherously glued them there. For my hair is always cover’d; I protect my head with a wig!”

As I stepp’d toward him, he cried: “Looking for stripes of wax on my hair, eh? You won’t find them! For I have not been near the dipping machine, as the lad will testify. It is Blossom Gill who has wax upon his wig!”

And, whirling about, his own wig still clutch’d in his fist, Warwick Lowther show’d his back to me, and pointed an accusing finger at the old man. The mob seem’d even more confused, not many of them shouting, for most had tried to hear my explanation. But very few seem’d to have heard all of it, or understood it rightly.

Some ruffians came running back into the shop with a rope for Dennis. Others, whose wigs had been scorch’d by the coals, seem’d working up their anger to hang me alongside of the Irish lad. I had near despair’d of reasoning with the mob, when I remember’d that before me was a proof of Warwick Lowther’s guilt which might convince even the dullest of them.

Since only a raree show would hold their attention, I leapt upon a bench and, waving my arms at the heavens, cried loudly and clearly: “Warwick Lowther, there is a witness to your crime!”

This recaptured their ears from their own voices. Of a sudden, their eyes seem’d like a myriad of shiny arrows drawn taut at me, and I began falteringly: “Good citizens of Boston—”

Then I realized if I reveal’d my final piece of evidence first, the explanation proving its importance might not be heard above the ensuing tumult. The silversmith might speak his way clear. With so unruly a mob, I must present my deductions in proper order for the grand total of them to be understood; and further I must present my thoughts entertainingly for them to be listen’d to.

“Warwick Lowther,” I cried in a voice confident and strong for a humble apprentice, and continuous; for I fear’d interruption. “It is said that he who lies down with dogs shall rise up with fleas. Your bargain to handle suspicious silver, perchance in exchange for your use of the garret and shop, inevitably led you toward greater crimes. Mr. Gill decided you should be his accomplice in a robbery, that your increased guilt put you more fully in his power. To escape this, you waited till the old man and lad had gone out, then took off your wig, that it not be wax’d during the assault, and took up the poker; creeping behind Mr. Gill, you struck him down as he bent over his kettle.”

“I say Holy Lightning shall strike you down!” Lowther cried.

“As you said yourself,” I continued quickly, “the murderer bent his victim forward into the wax. You were careful that your head not touch the wicks above the kettle. And you hasten’d to lock the front door, that no customer enter and discover the body before the old man’s return, for which you left the rear door open.”

Warwick Lowther shouted a denial. And I shouted back: “You are a skill’d workman, sir, and speedily open’d the other two locks of the strong-box, and removed the incriminating silver to a hiding place unknown to the old man. I’ll wager, on taking these locks apart, we shall find unnatural scratches caused by your pick-lock.”

At this, he swept up a fistful of tools, shouting he would break open the locks and prove me a liar. And I guess’d my prideful confidence had swell’d beyond my intellect; hastily, I overshouted him that, being a metal worker, he might as easily have filed his own keys, which surely proved the murder was not the result of a sudden rage.

“You plann’d that the old man discover the body,” I shouted. “As he pull’d it out of the kettle, you would rush down the staircase crying ‘Murder,’ and your word would be taken over his. For Blossom’s conflicts with his nephew were well known, and it is consider’d that a besotted man is not a truthful one, and, further, much wax might have been smear’d upon his clothing. Perchance, you hoped to incite the mob to close Blossom’s throat with a rope before he could make plain the nature of your dealings with Mr. Gill. For three can keep a secret only when two of them are dead.”

“But it was the lad he first accused,” Colonel Clinton interposed somewhat sourly.

“Yes,” I cried, “the little silversmith waited and waited, and Blossom did not return. All the while, he knew Dennis was striding closer with the pail of beer. In his fright, no doubt, he forgot the wax was cooling and that he should go down to stir the coals. And finally he heard Dennis unlock the front door, and his last hope of the old man returning in time was gone. There seem’d naught to do but rush down the staircase and accuse Dennis in his stead.”

“False, false, ’tis a plot!” Warwick Lowther was exclaiming, and the mob began to clamour so that I must exert my lungs to the utmost.

“When the hardness of the wax freed Dennis from suspicion, you swiftly and cunningly diverted it to the old man, who was not there to defend himself,” I shouted, and then took a thrust at the Colonel for evicting my brother. “You easily duped Colonel Clinton with your talk of a fresh battle between uncle and nephew, and of the stripes of wax upon Blossom’s wig. You were confident there was no wax upon your own wig, and when I suggested your hair be red, you were not afraid to show it, believing no wax to be on your red stubble. Perchance you even look’d in a glass to be safe.

“Bring two looking-glasses,” I cried.

When I bade him look at himself in one of them, he quickly did so, and shrugg’d, no doubt relieved. But I moved the second glass to the back of his head, as tho’ I were his barber, and said: “Silversmith, when you sprang back from the kettle, your freshly cut hair brush’d the frame of wicks behind you. Yet you have assured this company you did not go near the dipping machine.”

He stared into his mirror like a pig poison’d, for he could see, reflected in mine, the stripes of bayberry wax on the back of his red head.

Then his freckled face became hard and calm, and he turn’d to me. He stood very tall for such a short man. He stared upward through me as tho’ I were a mist. And, without apology or complaint, he sternly said: “I did my best to feed my family.”

Following his uplifted gaze, I, too, stared at the row of young Lowthers upon the staircase, and I need not describe their uncomprehending and distraught expressions.

Like Icarus of mythology, I felt my triumph lose its wings.

The mob was sufficiently amazed by my deductions, and so sober’d that Warwick Lowther was allow’d to be hang’d by the proper authorities, which doleful event I did not attend. It cost me much unrest and some of my books, which I sold to give help to the widow; and I ponder’d that a fund ought to be set up, offering loans to those displaced artisans who, tho’ showing capability and industriousness, need a respite from starvation in which to establish themselves. In later years I was able to arrange such a fund for Philadelphia.

As for my return from the crowded candle shop, it was greeted by my brother James’s unreasonable fist. He set me to useless labours till midnight... My now well known aversion to arbitrary power, which a lifetime of public service has express’d, stems from my brother’s tyrannical treatment of me.

Bitterly upon my knees, I scrubb’d the press while, beyond the flickering candles, glowering and smiling, James composed much satire against the authorities. As a result, he was taken up and imprison’d for a month. His discharge was accompanied by an order of the House that he “should no longer print the paper call’d the New England Courant.”

My brother’s means of evading this order produced my own means of escape; for he return’d my apprenticeship indenture to me so that his paper might be printed for the future, as indeed for a time it was, under my own name, Benjamin Franklin.

Author’s Postscript: The fictional adventure you have just read has its source in the early part of Benjamin Franklin’s AUTOBIOGRAPHY (the Bigelow version). Remember that these events were supposed to have occurred in the America of 1722, which was a very different fettle of fish from, let us say, 1776, just before the Revolutionary War. The chief problems in 1722 were not with the British; they were with the French and Indians, they were the rivalries among the colonies themselves, and they arose from the ideological struggle between weakening Puritan theocracy (Cotton Mather did not die until 1728) and such “insidious European doctrines” as rationalism and scientific method. Complete independence from England was utterly inconceivable in 1722. The bonds tying the colonies and England were so close at that time that travel to England, for example, was as common as to the other colonies — and hardly more inconvenient!

Editors’ Postscript: There is no doubt of it: had Benjamin Franklin turned his mind to it, he could have been the forerunner of what we now call a detective — and if he had turned his pen to it, he might have anticipated Edgar Allan Poe’s invention of the modem detective story. Benjamin Franklin was no mean inventor, you know!