The Stranger at the Clarendon Hotel

From the Intelligencer: A tragic suicide occurred in this city. Among the passengers per steamer who enrolled themselves as guests of the Clarendon Hotel was a young man registering himself as F. H. Hardwick of Boston. He was assigned to room No. 11, and after depositing his valise and taking a meal, he came down to dinner and did not leave the coffee room until 4 P.M., when he requested to go upstairs and enter his room. The door was locked throughout all of Thursday and on Thursday afternoon, noting the door still locked and the key on the inside, the chambermaid suspected something was wrong. She notified the proprietor, who directed a search through the window of the room. The first glance within discovered that the man was dead. Mr. Hall was summoned and in company with Mr. [Name obscured] visited the room where they found the suicide covered up in bed, reclining lightly towards the left, supported upon the left hand. A small stain was found on the drapery where it had apparently fallen from the bed. Upon examination, it appeared that the ball had passed entirely through the body upon the left side, under the nipple, and passing obliquely through the heart, lodged in the bed. The young man was a passenger from San Francisco. On account of his retiring manner and disinclination to converse with anyone, he was looked upon as of the stiffest sort. Upon the table in his room was found a letter addressed to [Name] in San Francisco, in which was a draft upon Ezra Towne, Cambridgeport, Mass., for $125, and a receipt for a valuable package deposited in the Palace Hotel vaults, the latter being signed T. C. Towne. The pistol used by the suicide had the initials engraved upon it, and the young man wore a ring with the following inscription upon the inner side: 'F. D. F. to F. C. T.', leaving no doubt upon the mind of the jury that this was the real name of the suicide. In his valise was found a portrait of himself taken in Cambridgeport in last June, and the conclusion is that that is his true name. He was a young man of very respectable appearance and surroundings and to all appearances was not over 27 years of age. Without doubt, he came hither intent upon suicide, hoping that in this obscure State his identity might never be known and that his friends would never learn the melancholy truth.