BENJAMIN McNEIL MURDOCK
that secret of the attic overhead, he had killed Murdock out of revenge.
What did not come out at the trial—though the whole valley knew it—was this:
The deputy sheriff, searching the hired man's bedroom after his arrest, climbed through the trap in the ceiling of the room and found in a corner of the loft a collection of farm tools, axes, dishes, crowbars, pots, and household articles that had been hidden there under a pile of old sacks. At first he thought that he had simply discovered evidence against the man who had stolen the gun. But when the neighbors were called in to claim their property it appeared that some of the things had been stolen years before. Murdock's words, "The body's hidden in the attic over your bedroom," established Murdock's guilt. He had been a kleptomaniac. He had stolen all the things which his hired men had been accused of stealing. He had been doing it for years, and no one had suspected him.
Except, possibly, his son Ben. Old Heins recalled that once, years before, when Ben was a small boy, a new sickle had disappeared from the Heins tool-house. He was looking for it in his fields when he saw Murdock and his son over the fence, and asked them if they had noticed the sickle lying about. Murdock said, "No," but young Ben said nothing. He, too, was "kind o' dumb" in those days. He went back to his father's barn and reappeared with the sickle. His father demanded
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