MURDER PROBLEM.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVI, Issue 42, 18 February 1905, Page 13

MURDER PROBLEM.

DYING MAN SCRIBBLES ON A WALL. A crime, the elucidation of- which weold' have appealed strongly to the mind ■of Sherlock Holmes, is awaiting solution ia County Cavan. The murdered man left a message behind him by scrawling two letters on a wall. These constitute the only ; cine the police possess. The tragedy took place o» Christmas Day. Francis J. Tully visa schoolmaster at BaHyhalse, and lie was on his way home when he was brutally kicked to deffth. His : body was found -with the head almost bat- • tered to a jelly within four feet of the Wall I of the house of >Ir Arthur J.P. Thet ocenpahts of the house heard no sounds of strife, and the roadway bore no sfgns of a struggle. Tully was a powerful man, - so it is presumed tHat he was taken un- • awares by his assailant. I On the wall of Mr Longh's nonse wer* j traced with a copying pencil two letters. The blunted pencil lay at the foot of the ! wall. It Is significant that on mote than : one occasion Tnlly had suggested to hi» : elder scholars that in case of sudden attack • a person should endeavour to write the . name of his assailant in order to prorlrfe a j clue for the police. l There is little doubt, therefore,, that t these letters were scrawled by the fingers of the dying man, and of such importance I do the police regard them that they have I had the stones removed from the wall tfn- • fortunately, the letters are only partially j legible. One is "H, -, the other may be j "O" or "S." ■ 3 A enrioas fact is that thre« weeks before t Tally's death an attendant on a s'teamj roller was found dead with a. wound on the head in the same neighbourhood. It c wars thought at the timer- that he had falj len on the ice, injuring himself fatally, but , tie two tragedies are now being associated in the mfnds of the local folk. Considerable fear exists in the neighbourhood, and people after dark move about In parties of 1 three or four, keeping close watch for sus- & pictous characters. 1 ___—^-™- Me __