Reading Time: 3 minutes [364 words]

LEO M. FRANK. 821

But whether or not he made out that financial sheet, I’
tell you something that he did do Saturday afternoon, when
he was waiting up there for old Jim to come back to burn that
body, I'll tell you something that he did do—and don’t forget
the envelope end don’t forget the way that that paper was
folded, either, don’t forget it. Listen to this: ‘I trust this
finds you and dear tont (that’s the German for aunt) well
after arriving safe in New York. I hope you found all the
dear ones well, in Brooklyn.”*

Dida’t have any wealthy people in Brooklyn, eh? This
unele of his was mighty near Brooklyn, the very time old Jim
eays he looked up and said, ‘‘I have wealthy people in Brook-
lyn.”? And I would really like to know, I would like to see
how much that brother-in-law that runs that cigar business
hag invested in that store, and how much he has got. The very
letter that you wrote on Saturday, the 26th, shows that you
anticipated that thia old gentleman, whom everybody says haa
got money, was then, you supposed,.in Brooklyn, because here
you eay that ‘‘T hope you have found all the dear onea well” —
but I’m coming back to what Frank said to old Jim—‘and I
await a letter from you telling me how you found things there
in Brooklyn. Lucile and I are well.

Now, here is a sentence that is pregnent with significance,
which beara the ear-marks of the guilty conscience; tremulous
as he wrote it? No, he eould shut his eyes and write and make
up a financial sheet—he’s capable and smart, wonderfully
endowed intellectually, but here’s a sentence that, if I know
human nature and know the conduct of the guilty conscience,
and whatever you may say about whether or not he prepared
the financial sheet on Saturday morning, here’s a document
I'll concede was written when he knew that the body of little
Mary Phagan, who died for virtue’s sake, lay in the dark
recesses of thet basement. ‘‘It is toc short a time,” he says,
“since you left for anything etartling to have developed down.
here.’’ Too short! Too short! Startling! But ‘Too short a
time,’’ and that itself shows that the dastardly deed was done
in an ineredibily short time. And do you tell me, honest men,

Related Posts