CONCEALED WEALTH.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1121, 3 January 1884, Page 3

CONCEALED WEALTH.

“ 1 have been sent for very often in my time,” said an elderly detective, “ to search for money concealed by eccentric people. There was more of this hiding of cash forty years ago than there is now, owing probably to the doubtful character of many of the old savings banks. “ Some fifteen years ago I went up to a farmhouse, at the request of the heirs to look for money. The deceased had no striking characteristics for my purpose, and after trying several lines of search for three days I grew doubtful. His riding saddle had been ripped open, his boot heels knocked off for diamonds, his shoos split up, and his upholstery pulled to pieces. Bricks had been taken out, the hearth torn up, and the wainscoting pulled down. Even the backboards of picture frames had been taken out, and the boys had dug around the roots of every tree in the orchard, but still no money had been found. The reward was too large to be lost, but I was nearly at my wits’ end. Finally the thought came like a flash : ‘ Where was the old gentleman in the habit of sitting;’ 1 asked. ‘Oh, he almost always sat at the window,’ said the brother ; ‘ but we’ve pulled everything to pieces round there.’ ‘Sit down just as he did.’ The man sat down. ‘ln which direction was he most apt to look?’ Nowhere in particular; out of the window generally.’ ‘ Towards the barn?’ ‘No, this way.’ I followed the look ; it was directed toward an old, used-up pump, ‘ Which way did he walk when he went out to the field ?’ Over to the pump, and thei made a bee-line for the pond.’ These answers had a certain significance. Men like to have the place of concealment in sight, and it is well known that they will often walk over money they have buried to see that the soil is undisturbed. 1 had the pump taken up and excavations made- no money. They pump was replaced. I entered the room once more and stood by the window, Suddenly I saw a faint but peculiar looking mark on the sill; it was a surveyor’s point. I lined it up to the pump, measured out the exact centre of the line, and the digging began. A twoinch steam pipe was struck at a depth of four feet. The end was plugged. I took home a £loo-note that night. “ I had a curious case a few years ago. A wealthy man had been attacked with partial paralysis, and his speech and the greater part of his memory had failed him. He wrote out the question ; 1 Where did I put my money ?’ The amount was large, £32,000 in bonds, which he had been about to take to a safe deposit building. The heirs were wild. I stopped all the tearing up and cushion-pricking business, for the man was not a ‘concealer,’ though it was supposed by the doctois that he felt the attack coming on and put the money in some out-of-the way place. Just how or in what spot in his library he had fallen could not be made out. After a day’s reflection my partner and I had to conclude that he had been robbed. Two courses were open to us: We could make sudden arrests without any real evidence (always a hateful course for a good detective to take), or we must find the exact spot where the man fell, and ‘ line ’ up from that. The doctors helped us here. They suggested that we examine the gentleman’s body. We did so, and found a long horizontal mark on the hip, and blue marks on the knee and elbow. He had fallen sideways over some object not more than sixteen inches high, and having a narrow rounded head of metal, for an iron mark was found on the clothing. Every piece of furniture in the house was inspected, but to no purpose. We took all night to think the matter over. Then my partner spoke of the cellar. They all laughed. ‘He hasn’t been there for a year,’ they said. We went down. My partner glanced quickly around, and then gave me a look which rather puzzled me. But I soon understood its meaning. He had discovered some common household articles which had not been used since the family had searched the fireplaces. He was in fact looking over a lot of coal scuttles. He turned the scuttles carefully, and from out of a mass of waste paper there roiled at last the £32 000 worth of bonds. The paralytic had fallen over the scuttle, and the money had dropped into it among the waste papers. My partnerand I divided £IOOO between us that night.”—Tit Bits.