“‘I confess,’ said Brooks, ’that I killed the old man, but I did not murder him.  I was trying to keep him from killing me.  I had gone into a losing speculation and was in pressing need of money.  I knew that it would be useless to ask him to help me; in fact, I didn’t want him to know that I had been speculating, and I decided to help myself.  I knew that he kept money in the safe at home; I didn’t know how much, but I thought that it was enough to help me out, and I began deliberately to plan the robbery.  I knew that it would have to be done in the moat skillful manner, for the old man’s love of money made him as sharp as a briar when money was at stake; and I was resolved to have no confederates to share the reward and afterward to keep me in fear of exposure, I wrote a letter, and using the first name that came into my head, addressed it to “Dave Kittymunks, General Delivery, Chicago.”  I don’t know where I picked up the name, and it makes no difference.  I ran up to Milwaukee, dropped the letter in a mail box and was back here before any one knew that I was out of town.  I disguised myself with black whiskers, went to the post-office and called for the letter, and took care that the delivery clerk should notice me.  Colton supposed that none but members of his family knew of the safe at home, and why a robber should know must be made clear; so, wearing the same disguise, I called at the house one day and told the servant in charge that I had been sent to search for sewer-gas.  I showed an order.  A shrewd colored man had been discharged on account of some irregularities into which I had entrapped him, and an ignorant fellow that had agreed to work for less had just been put in his place.  One evening when our family visited the Witherspoons I perfected my arrangements.  I sawed the iron bars at the window and placed the black coat, with the Kittymunks letter in the pocket, as if the sash had failed and caught it.  It was necessary that the coat should be found, and it was hardly natural that it should be found lying in the yard, it must appear that in his haste to get away the robber was compelled to leave his coat, and this could not be done unless he was forced to get out of it, leaving the police to suspect that he had done so with a struggle.  I had torn one sleeve nearly off.  But the mere falling of the sash on the tail of the coat would not do, it would pull out too easily.  Then I thought of the pipe.  I arranged the safe so that with a chisel I could open it easily—­it was an old and insecure thing, anyway—­and then placed a ladder on the ground under the window.  Here there is a paved walk, so there was no necessity to make tracks.  Now, there was but one thing more, and that was a noise to sound like the falling of the sash, and which was to wake the old man so that he might jump up almost in time to catch the robber.  I had almost forgotten this, and now it puzzled me.  The vault-room, a narrow apartment, is between the old man’s room and mine, and I could have left