The Crowned Skull by Fergus Hume — Read

The violent death of John Bowring caused, as was natural, an immense sensation in the district. Not only because crime was comparatively rare in those sparsely-inhabited parts, but also on account of the position and great wealth of the victim. The news ran like wildfire through the countryside, and the local reporters gathered like vultures round the famous corpse. But the evidence they picked up was scanty, as the police, ignorant themselves of many things, were reticent. No one knew why Bowring had been murdered, but there was a grim determination about the crime which revealed very clearly that the assassin had made up his mind that the millionaire should not escape. Failing with the granite rock, he had made certain with the revolver, and therefore must have had some extremely strong motive to induce him to place, so to speak, his neck twice in the hangman's noose.

Then came out the fact of the sealed letter. Anne Stretton might have chattered, or some of the quarrymen to whom she read the single prophetic line might have told the story, or Miss Sophia Warry, proud of her powers, might have boasted of her achievement. No one knew exactly how the rumour got about, but certainly within four-and-twenty hours there were few people who had not heard of the strangely-fulfilled prophecy, and this introduction of a psychic element gave the case a weird interest, which removed it from the category of commonplace crime.