A GREAT DETECTIVE

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 243, 13 April 1912, Page 2 (Supplement)

A GREAT DETECTIVE

m'RXS' FIRST BI(. t £ASE. Twenty-five years ago William J, Burns, who lately brought the Los Angeles dynamiters to justice, was one of i he popular youths of Columbus, Ohio. His father, who was a merchant tailor, had been elected to the Hoard of Police Commissioners of Columbus as the result of the public spirit that he had shown in some "campaign for decency" of the time. Through his father's work as commissioner. Burns became interested in the problems of the department. One of the commissioners, Barney MeCabe, had been a noted detective in his earlier days; he itook a great liking to the son of' his colleague, for the reason that young Burns was likeable. In spite of the disparity of their ages they became chums, and it was MeCabe who first appreciated ■Hums' practical ability. A number of nnted houses in St. Louis had been burned, one by one, under suspicious circumstances, that included, in several instances, a "plugged" Arealarm box and a smell of incendiarism. The owners of the houses were obviously

innocent, and they had lost by the tires; but the tenants, in each case, had oeen protected by insurance upon household furniture unusually expensive; and detectives hired by the insurance companies had found evidence on which to found a •'theory" that the original contents of the house had been secretlv replaced by second-hand goods, and the companies swindled into paying an excessive fire loss on the substituted furniture. In one instance an invalid, taken from an adjoining house during a fire, had died as a result of exposure. Eventually the companies, after paying out a good deal of monev, decided to resist further claims. Tom Furlong, then one of the ablest detectives in St! Louis, was asked to take up the enquiry" after others had failed, and he called in Burns, of whom he had heard good reports. The previous detectives had reported that a man named—let us say—Bob Judd had probably been the driver who had moved the furniture, but thev had not succeeded in proving it. They had tried to "rope" him, and thev had failed. He had long since disappeared. Burns started out to find him. He found the house in which Judd bad lived—a quite ordinary lodging-house on a quite ordinary street; and the mistress of the house was a quite ordinary landlady. The. merely ordinary young man who came there to ask for his friend •Judd had behaved in no extraordinary manner. He was naturally disappointed to find ,that Judd bad left some months before, and that the landlady did not know where he had gone. She thought hat he had left town. She did not I know the name of any relative or any I friend of Judd's from whom it would he possible ito learn his address. "Well, he had a sweetheart, hadn't/ he? Burns hazarded with a confident smile.

"Yes," slip said, '-],o had that. But I tlon t remember her name." "Where did she live?" "I don't know that either. But I mind Her hither was a carpenter." "Where did he work?" ••Why," she said, "he worked, to be sure, wherever lie had work to do. He was a carpenter." "Can't you teil me any one place where nc ever worked?" down to the Pan- gronnda-when they were building them sheds." "Well," Burns ended cheerfully "if you see Bob tell him I was looking for ->ni. 'Burke,' tell him-'Jfed Burke.' I m sorry he didn't leave his address." lewent then .to the Fair grounds and S fc n .I*™, ° f the eon t>actor who had built the sheds. When he found the contractor's office he obtained a list of the carpenters who had been employed on the contract. And the list, naturalJ was long.

After three or four days he arrived at the home of a carpenter named Martin, and it was a small frame house in the suburbs of St;. Louis with nothing to indicate hat .there was ft « rayster e y ,, c ™. eealed behind the Nottingham lace curtams of its front windows or the panels of its sun-blistered door. Burns knocked m a manner altogether matter-of-fact. iJie girl who answered was pretty ne-

"i ner black hair. < Tm ]ooki f gentleman in connection « v ith an i,„ portant matter that [ have in hand" Burns explained, with formal vagueness, and f thought von might be able to H&yjs* hhn - »-■-—» sCde, Aml " h ° P,nnml " aek "" "'« The cottage had no hall .and the front door opened directly upon the tidiness o the little parlor. There was no one in that room, >ut through the doorway be yond-m what was evidently a so t of Ammg-room and living ~«,'„, _ Bur ° s r could see a tall young man sitting wi h "s head turned to listen. It W.J *t t th »* t,lp KM looked over herloul ntth£ rose ' a " ,I^ nisad ™ dt °;

. "Are you Mr. Judd? lam sorrv if I interrupted " • i r es." said Judd coolly, " and I know who you are. You're another of thosl Jrteot.ves And 1 want to tell you » Jd wenton>u can - tdoanybus^ g thi„ t , d ° nt want ,t0 h »ve anything to do with any of you. In my opinion, you're a lot of crooks." J lUurns had come without any exDectation of meeting Judd. and. of course £ no pan prepared for "roping" him.'The gnl had her hand on Judd's arm as if to restrain him. "That's all ri-^ht'' ' ttant «'l to hear." And that remarkward 7 irßt T B V, P ° f hh »PP«»acT"i wauls roping Judd, Won),] !l' C ■ i,,Ren,,it . v of "'hat followed seem uncanny. Burns explains: it jou re going to gain the confidence of a suspect, you have to go in the same diree ion that he's going, don't vou° , ou f VB t0 move with his mind. You Jl'rWof *'" Stq ' with him - Jll<W had a gnevance against detectives. My only have a grievance againsi

So, when Judd further had expresTed that they were all crooks, Burns said, bJ- v, ,'f C ' X v°* ly What : want Prove 1, ""• ~ 1 m an a «orn,y from Chicago, m >*. IVc believe that we've been rob<<lhv these men. We find where you thousand dollars, and wi c.nt find any reports to cover it" Judd wan (l lank ami muscular sort of f '7 "» ?«'*«■■ with a lean, shrewd T J. ol( ' il ' l - He said, "What? Hk-7 never paid me twenty penis." "Exactly!" Burns said. ' "But they've What I want to do is to brin" \™* l^ d , ha i y e these fellow, arrested." " °". the dirty crooks!" it we can prove that bv von, that's all we want. And we'll appreciate i very much. Now, I don't want to inter fore w,th your call this afternoon, but if you car. arrange to come to the Southern llotel to-morrow morning-my name is tlieie, and if you can come there to mor row morning at 10 o'clock »

He saw a boy, who evidently lived in the neighborhood—a boy who looked ordinarily intelligent, about ten years old, and dressed in the "prevailing stvle" of boys. -Do you live around here," son'" Burns asked. "Yes, sir." "Do you know who lives in that house?" He pointed to Martin's cottage. "Ye.s," the boy said. "That's Martin's."

'T)o you know Miss Martin?" He nodded. '•Well," Burns confided, "she's a sweetheart of mine. There's a fellow in there calling on her. I want to find out where lie lives. Do you think you could follow nim when he comes out, and find out where he goes—without letting him see you?" The boy grinned. Burns took out two silver dollars. "If you find out where he goes to, and get the number and the streets and come to the Southern Hotel' to-morrow morning at nine o'clock and tell me 111 give you three dollars more" The boy pocketed the two dollars. wnens he coming out?" "You'll have to wait and see. And ' don t tell anyone I got you to do this. i don t want her to know." "A' right," he said. He had his eves already fixed on the house, as if he were afraid that the door might open at any moment, and those three dollsvs make a wild effort to escape him. I t ~ n , °r nin" t!,e b °v ««"v«l with J Judd s address, and got the promised reward and departed with it. Then ]!,„■„< I , went back to his room to wait for Judd" i and at ten o'clock Judd was announced' and .Burns ordered 11)0 bell-bov to -how him upstairs. He came unsuspiciously. Bums was glad to see him-and said so. "I' m immensely pleased that I found vou." he told Judd, and lie described 'how he wl T,?! r' MSS Martin ' and with Judd over some details of the hunt for her He explained that he was trying to find everyone to whom the detec«m,? n T med « at .. they had P aid »<"«*. "What I would like" he said, "is *„ have you run out all these others I'll give you a H s t ot names, and you can easily learn from them how much the detectives really paid them." There can't have been very many" Judd said. "There was only Black's "You worked for Black, didn't you'" ) gons."' dr ° Ve ° ne ° f S P indl «' s ™ g -

"•Taking out second-hand (roods'" ! ti }fV Was after hour9 > dually,] that I took the things to the holiSee th.a the trouble was about" did^our I"'* 1 "'* tdi that t0 the Motives, "I didn't tell them any tiling. The fools thought I was in the game, I guess a"d they kept so busy trying to tafe me \ n and following around the streets after me, that they never gave themselves a I chance to ask anything."

~^" H ?!^.' li, ? ■ VOU - know tllcro was trouble about the houses that you took these! ond-hand furniture to?" "} * ead &i n the papers when they were burned. And I could see pretty well what was going on. But-well it wasn't any of my business »

On their way out of the hotel Burns ? aw /PProaching him a friend from Columbus whose greeting would surely b . tay him to Judd. The ruse he employ<l to escape detection was simple, too He said quickly to Judd, "Don'Ue S? s " fellow see you with me. He mi l t suspect ■" ugtlt loo? btr aWy h ? Btn - v ' aml did » ot look back. Burns received his friend, explained that he was "on a case," warned him to address him as "R. J. Williams » latm \\hen he found Judd again he expla,ned -Tou may run across°him , this investigation. I didn't want him ' Jo suspect that you were on it" Zi\

I they proceeded to the lawyer's office There Burns was received as a Chica»o r, nie's 6 '' TC Ben . tin ff the France companies. _ This is Mr. Judd," he said. tl„ em P lo y ed him to run out the expenditure in which we're inferos ed and have been astounded to find that he is familiar with every detail of the arson cases. As a matter of fact he participated to the extent of hauling t ".tenor furniture that was subsequently horned. I wish to have him make an investigation of the arson cases, consequently, and he will need help. Do you know any first-class detective whom he could employ to assist him'" Furlong. One of the best in the coun-

In l«ur ong's office, later in the day, they, took from Judd a detailed statement of h,s knowledge of the swindle; and it was a statement that supplied all the clues neccsasry to make a complete case against the swindlers. "As a matter of fact," Burns says, "his story was all that we needed. The rest was merely a matter of getting it properly sub-stantiated-with the entries on the books of the two stores and all that sort 01 thing." [ Burns remained to assist "Detective" .ludd in this corroboration, and thev became very friendly. They had 'been working some time together when Burns confessed that he was not a lawyer but a detective himself. "No, you ' d<m . t » Judd said. "You can't fool me. You're no detective. I' ve seen too many of them." "Yes, I am," Burns laughed. "But you seemed so sore on detectives when I found you that day at Martin's I didi't iike to tell you." Judd stared at him. "And all the time you were "

"I was roping you." "Oil, well," Judd said, as the sum of ills reflections, "you're not that kind of detective, anyway. I g„ css y OU > re the real th,„g'' T wh,eh, perhaps, is as good an explanation as one can give of 'Burns. He went before the grand jury and made a statement on which the 'whole band of conspirators were indicted, and among them was the well-to-do proprietor of the furniture store. It was apparently suspected by the gang that the unknown "Burns" who made this statement was one of their own number turned traitor. Within ten days the traitor was found dead-murd'ered->ehind a saloon. Burns' appearance at the trial was a shock to the others. I hey all went to prison, and Burns went hack to the Secret Service, to which he had meanwhile been appointed.

It was finally arranged, in th mo.-t natural way in the world that Judd—J who was out of work and has just come' to town to se"e Miss Martin—should give* a few hours of the following morning to I . i consultation with the lawyer for the purpose of convincing the detective of the "arson invstery" on a charge of fraud. Burns, as he left the house, did not feel sure that Judd would not change his mind before morning and fail to keep his appointment—in which ease it would be well to know where he was lodging in St. Louis, so, that some new way might ' be devised for "roping" him. To this end it was necessary to "tail" him when he left Martin's. Nothing could be simpler than the way in which Burns devised -that tail.