Meantime the crowd had thoroughly searched the premises of Williamson. The
first inquiry was for the young grand-daughter. Williams, it was evident,
had gone into her room: but in this room apparently it was that the sudden
uproar in the streets had surprised him; after which his undivided
attention had been directed to the windows, since through these only any
retreat had been left open to him. Even this retreat he owed only to the
fog and to the hurry of the moment, and to the difficulty of approaching
the premises by the rear. The little girl was naturally agitated by the
influx of strangers at that hour; but otherwise, through the humane
precautions of the neighbors, she was preserved from all knowledge of the
dreadful events that had occurred whilst she herself was sleeping. Her
poor old grandfather was still missing, until the crowd descended into the
cellar; he was then found lying prostrate on the cellar floor: apparently
he had been thrown down from the top of the cellar stairs, and with so
much violence, that one leg was broken. After he had been thus disabled,
Williams had gone down to him, and cut his throat. There was much
discussion at the time, in some of the public journals, upon the
possibility of reconciling these incidents with other circumstantialities
of the case, supposing that only one man had been concerned in the affair.
That there _was_ only one man concerned, seems to be certain.
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