Mysterious Finding of Losf Papers. to them making inquiry concerning the deeds. A daughter of the dead man wrote me that she remembered well that on the day of the trial she saw her father with a bundle of papers, and saw him put them inside the desk where were kept the letters and papers of the club, and that they had not been carried away by the family when they left. I informed the president that I could not trace the deeds and offered to have copies taken with proper certificates, which I was able to do by means of the in dex to them which I had preserved. I often saw the empty space in my safe in which the deeds were placed, and daily I was reminded of the loss. I prepared a mem orandum of the copies I wanted, and was about to send it to the clerk of the court and the register of deeds for the copies. The cost to me would have been consider able, besides the mortifying reflection that the president would justly accuse me of neglect. Before sending the letter for copies and after it was ready for mailing, something induced me to look again in my safe, al though I had done so fifty times only to be confronted with the empty space in which the deeds had rested. On this oc casion, only the day lock was used to fasten the safe, a circumstance of unusual occur rence, because I had in it other valuable papers, and I was careful to always lock it with the combination when I left the office at night. I observed this circumstance when I opened the safe on this morning. On opening it and looking into it, I saw with surprise that the receptacle for the deeds was full of papers done up carefully and placed in it. When my partner came in, a few minutes after I saw this, I asked him if he had placed any papers in the safe on yesterday or this morning. He replied that he had not been in the safe on yesterday or to-day. I then produced the papers, and they proved to be the bundle of deeds en tire, not one being lost. The papers were
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damp, as we both observed. I charged him with replacing them and intimated that he had not given them to the superintendent. He was annoyed and again declared that he had delivered them as instructed. We had not seen or written to the super intendent who succeeded the one that died, my partner not remembering that he was present at the trial, in fact, at that time not knowing him. He wrote to him after the reappearance of the deeds. He replied that he was present at the trial, and that he saw my partner take a bundle of papers, wrapped up and tied, and give them to the former superintendent, with the instruction to put them in a desk in the clubhouse and keep them safely. He did not see them after wards, or know what they were. After re ceiving the president's letter, he searched the house for them, but could not find them. Afterwards I saw him personally and he made to me the same statement contained in his letter. I never doubted, really, my partner's ac count; but I was much relieved to have the testimony of the daughter of the dead superintendent and this man to its truth, both on my partner's behalf and on mine. It was not positively direct testimony, but it was so nearly up to the mark that it convinced me, and I think would convince any jury that my partner delivered the deeds I gave him to the superintendent. I know that I carefully did them up, handed the bundle to my partner, and saw him place it in his satchel, fasten it, and leave the office immediately for the railroad depot. He proves by two witnesses, that he gave a bundle of papers answering the descrip tion to the superintendent. So far as ap pears they were disinterested witnesses. The deeds were of no value to them, either > to keep, or to dispose of; nothing but pure malice could prompt their destruction, or the withholding them, and in the relations existing between them and the club there
