Berkshire Mystery

The Public School Murder was the name of a book which youthful Headmaster Elliott Speer loaned in 1934 to Dean Thomas Edwin Elder of the Mount Hermon School for Boys at Northfield, Mass. In the story, the victim was killed by a prowler who fired a gun through a window.

On the cool night of Sept. 14 that year Headmaster Speer was alone in his study reading, when someone crept up to the window, fired a murderous volley of buck shot into him, disappeared. Self-possessed Dean Elder became one of the most interesting to press and public of the 63 witnesses who testified at the Speer in quest. Mysterious it was too that Mr. Speer's two big dogs had not barked, as they presumably would have if an un known intruder had made his way through the school's heavily wooded grounds. Because the villain of The Public School Murder had dropped his gun into a pond, the pond on the Mount Hermon grounds was drained, in vain. After ten days the inquest adjourned leaving Dr. Speer's death the greatest school murder mystery of the generation. Five months later Dean Elder resigned from Mount Hermon, went to raise poultry on his farm at Alton, N. H.

One night last week 66-year-old S. Allen Norton, who was Mount Hermon's cashier at the time of Headmaster Speer's death and who retired to nearby Greenfield last August, went to see the police. In a state of high agitation Oldster Norton related that he was putting his car in the garage when he saw a man standing in the door, pointing a shotgun at him. "Hey, Norton, I want to talk to you," Mr. Norton said the man said. He dodged behind his car, saw his assailant run off across the lawn. A maid employed in a neighboring home confirmed Mr. Norton's story that an armed prowler had fled in an automobile. ''There is no question in, my mind," cried old Mr. Norton. "I know Tom Elder as well as I know a member of my own family!"

Through the Berkshires again went the shudder of the Speer murder mystery. Out went a police alarm for Thomas Edwin Elder, who was arrested next day at his Alton farm. He waived extradition, was taken to Greenfield. His alibi was simple: he said he had spent all the night in question with his wife in a hotel in Keene, N. H., 30 miles from Greenfield. Nevertheless, he was charged with assault with intent to murder, and held in custody. Released when Vermont relatives raised his $10,000 bail, old Mr. Elder snorted that old Mr. Norton's story was absurd. Said he darkly: "I think I get the idea of this thing, but the less said about it the better."

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