Clifford Ashdown, "How I Helped to Lay a Ghost" (1905)
“ By this time the fresh air had revived the porter's wife, so propping her against the step Major dashed after the retreating figure, who was stumbling towards a dark and narrow stairway. Dragging him back by the collar of his dilapidated coat, Major confronted him with Meadowcroft. "It's all right, Wells; don't be frightened," said the latter soothingly. "Why, are—aren't you dead, sir?" stammered the poor wretch. ”
Clifford Ashdown, "How I Helped to Lay a Ghost" (1905)
“ I would have trusted Wells to any extent. He was an old army man of exemplary character, and the last man on earth I should have suspected of robbing the bank, still less of adding murder to his crime. Yet still everything seems to point to his shooting at poor Meadowcroft, and leaving him for dead while he escaped with the money in the cart; and then he must have abandoned it at what he thought a convenient spot, and made off with the cash, for nothing was found in the trap but the books and the hat. ”
Clifford Ashdown, "How I Helped to Lay a Ghost" (1905)
“ You're sure it's all right? I ain't a murderer, am I?" and he began to whimper, as much, I could see, from the effects of weakness as from the mental strain he must have gone through. "Oh, Mr. Meadowcroft, the pistol went off as I handed it to you, and the horse reared—I always said he was too flighty for our work—and you fell out of the cart, and I thought you were shot, and everyone would say I'd done it, and I should perish on the scaffold, and—and I didn't know what to do!" "But what became of the horse and trap?" said Meadowcroft. ”
