A Candid Detective.

Te Aroha News, Volume IV, Issue 192, 19 February 1887, Page 5

A Candid Detective.

As an old detective who has landed his share of criminals on the gallows and behind the bare, I have had some rousing adventures and queer experiences. One of 'the latter haß been called to mind within a day or two by reading of the death of a man in a neighbouring city. For convenience sake I will call him Charles Lennox. ]waa attached to the force of a Western »t y,and we had been running along for many weeks without any break on the part of evil-doers, when a murdeY occurred. The snitor of a bank was found dead in the business office of the bank with the outside doors open. The man had been struck on the side of the head with some heavy weight and his skull crushed. Nothing 1 had been taken from the bank, and so we reasoned in this way : The robbars had called the janitor to the door on some pretext or other, and as soon as he opened it they ruehed in and dealt him the blow. It was the night before the election, and the approach of people tfho were carousing or electioneering had rattled the robbers and they had fled. In these days a bank robber would have coolly shut the door and gone to work on the cafe, but they were a different class of men then. If they had not been, we should have probably argued differently. An inquest was held, a verdict rendered v that John Shields came to his death at the hands of parties unknown, and he was buried The robbers had not left the slightest clue behind them, but as I was Ambitious to make a name I was allowed to begin work in tbe case. In a town twelve miles away I found, after a long hunt, a livery stable man who had let a horse and buggy on that night to iwo strangers, whom he accurately described, and whom he believed to be two brothers. They had told him they were going to Amesbury, but I traced them straight to Blankville, which was the place where the murder occurred The town where they hired the horse was Rossburg, and they had come there by train in the afternoon They could have come down to Blankville by the came train, and that they did not I argutd was a sharp trick on their part. They bad driven away at 7 30 o'clock. The body of the janitor was found about 10. The horee had been returned juet be fore midnight. About 10 o'clock, as I had forgotten to tell you, there was an alarm of fire in Blankville, and the fire department was called cut to quench a fire which had been set in one corner of a large tannery. The flames had not got much of a start and were speedily drowned out, and the case was reported as the work of boys. I had, then, after two weeks' work, a clue. Two bank robbers, doubtless from Chicago, had come to Blankville to do up a bank, but had been frightened away after cotnmitingamurder. I|ktiew how they reached Blankville and juet how they loft it, and I had descriptions of both. You may say I had but little to work on, as the men had come 200 miles and might not then be within a thousand, or if they were, the} had changed their identity : but even the smallest points will encourage a detectivo who has his heart in his work, In describing the men the stable-keeper, who was naturally observing and had a good memory, remembered that the older one carried a lop shoulder, had gold filling in her front teeth, and there was a tremulous motion of the eyelid?. You have ob j erved this in people. Those who do it would stammer if they did not wink There were no points in the description of the oiher which would serve to identify him on the street. He simply (< looked enough like the other to be hi* brother." I spont two weeks in Chicago looking for my man, and. although I Wdb well ad sidted by the detectives, my search was vain No one couli remember a* crook bearing that description. I was at the depot ready to tako the train for home, when I ran across a Chicago Burlington and Quincy Railroad detective, whom I had not seen for several months As wo talked about the Blankville murder I gave hirnarieecription of my men, and I had hardly done so when he replied : "I know them both, or at least where they can be found. I saw them in B— yesterday, and they are often on the road." The town he named was about seventyfive miles from Blankville, on a cross-line railroad, and I had not been in it two hours when I located my men. They were brothers, and one kept a bakery and the other a taloon. Both had the reputation of being peaceful, law abiding men, and they had families. It therefore behoved me to go slow, and the anests were not made until they were positively identified by the liv=ry man, and I had positive evidence that they were away from home at the time. In each case, when making the arrest, I was aeked concerning >he nature of the offence or crime, and I replied that it was for the murder at Rossburg The prisoners were strangely silent, and, though seemingly anxious about- the future, they refuted to talk of the case. I took them to Rossburg, put them in gaol, and in two or three days they were arraigned. They had sent to Chicago for coun-el, but he had not arrived. Temporary counsel appeared for them They pleaded not guilty, and in an hour or two were returned to gaol. You may now ask yourself what ca?e I had against the brothers. As I looked it over 1 came to the conclusion that my work had just begun. They had left home without noise, if not secretly ; had hired a horse and buggy under false pretences ; had driven secretly acrops the country and under cover of darkness. They wero objects of suspicion, but I had no proote. It was my duty to hunt for proofs. I went to the bank to have gome questions answered. It wa? in summer, and the fronc door stood open. A new janitor had been employed, and as I entered the cashier was saying to him : "John, get a paper and wrap around that brick which holde the door back. It is no ornament aa it is." Naturally enough, I glanced down at the brick. As a janitor lifted it up I took it from Mb band, and the nes:t instant I had made a discovery. There was a clot of dried blood on the brick, and in the clot were atioking several hairs which I knew had come from the dead janitor's head. I bad made an important discovery, but had at the same time ruined my case. The brick had been in the office a year or more. The blood and tbe hairs were evidence that it was the weapon used to strike the janitor with. Then followed the queries : " Would men come to rob the bank without weapons ? Was it likely that the brick was used ?" I replied to these in the negative, and I walked straight over to the gaol and into the presence of the prisoners, and said ; *• Neither of you is guilty of the murder of the janitor ? " "We are not," they answered. " You were not near the bank that night?' "We were not." " But you had a secret purpose in coming hers that night ? " "We had." "What was it?" "We will not tell." That ended the interview, Mind you, every man in the community believed them guilty of murder, and I was the recipient

« of praise oh every hand for what was termed a olever capture. You may think it strange that I went away from the gaol as fully determined to clear them as I had been to convict them. The drawbaok to good detective work is the hesitancy to drop a 'also scent, or to admit that a pet theory is wrong. I returned to the bank and asked for the average health of the dead janitor. He had been heard to complain of pains about the heart, but otherwise nothing could be said. " Gentlemen," I said to the bank officials, " your janitor had gone to his cot for the night. A sudden illness seized him, and in his alarm he made his way to the door to call for help. He had got the door open, when he fell to the floor, probably dead, and in his fall his head came in contact with the brick." i "That is theory," they answered. " But I will furnieh the proofs. I want i a postmortem examination on the body." I had hard work to get it, but the result was that three reputable doctors found that the man came to his death from heart trouble. They mixed in some proiessional terms and some Latin, but that was tbt, substance of it. The day the two prisoners were discharged from custody I said to them: "I caused your arrest, but I have also biought about your liberation. Now tell me what brought you to Blankville that night." " And you will keep it a secret?" "Yes." "To burn the tannery. It belongs to an estate in which we should have shared, but we were defrauded of our rights. In revenge we sought to burn up $15,000 worth of property. I kept the secret until both were dead."Philadelphia Times."