By-and-by Szczepanik arrived in Chicago. Clayton (now captain) was
serving in that military department at the time. The two men resumed the
Viennese quarrel of 1898. On three different occasions they quarrelled,
and were separated by witnesses. Then came an interval of two months,
during which time Szczepanik was not seen by any of his friends, and it
was at first supposed that he had gone off on a sight seeing tour and
would soon be heard from. But no; no word came from him. Then it was
supposed that he had returned to Europe. Still, time drifted on, and he
was not heard from. Nobody was troubled, for he was like most inventors
and other kinds of poets, and went and came in a capricious way, and
often without notice.
Now comes the tragedy. On December 29, in a dark and unused compartment
of the cellar under Captain Clayton's house, a corpse was discovered by
one of Clayton's maid-servants. Friends of deceased identified it as
Szczepanik's. The man had died by violence. Clayton was arrested,
indicted, and brought to trial, charged with this murder.
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