Jasper County Democrat, Volume 10, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 August 1907 — Martin Hewitt, Investigator. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Martin Hewitt, Investigator.

5/>e Lenlon Croft Robberies.

By ARTHUR MORRISON.

Fubliihed by Arrangement With Harper 41 Brothers.

j "Batter than Sherlock Holmes" jfa the term used by the New York \Tribune's reviewer in describing the stories in which Martin Hewitt, investigator, plays the leading part. In keen witted deduction, unfailing logic and unerring observation of details this English unraveler of mysteries is unsurpassed among the detectives of fiction or history. No circumstance is too trifling to afford him a clew to tho untangling of the thread of crime or mystery. Withal, his methods are mo simple and easily intelligible that the reader declares after following his explanation without even a trace of difficulty, '"Why, I might have seen that for \myself /" Yes, of course, but | the reader hasn’t done so until Martin Hewitt pointed out the way. And therein lies the chief \charm of the detective's disclosures. HOSE who retain any memory I I of the greut law cases of tit' 1 I teen or twenty years back will LSJ remember at least the title of {that extraordinary will case Bartley 'versus Bartley and others which occu to led the probate court for some weeks jon end. The affair will perhaps be more readily recalled as tho occasion of the sudden rise to eminence in their profession of Messrs. Hunt & Crellan. solicitors for the plaintiff, u result due entirely to the wonderful ability shown in this case of building up apparently out of nothing a smashing weight of irresistible evidence. But there are not many of the outside public who know that the credit of the Whole performance was primarily due to a young clerk in the employ of Messrs. Crellan who had been given charge of the seemingly desperate task of collecting evidence in the case. This Mr. Martin Ilewltt had. however, full credit and reward for his exploit from his firm and from their client, and more than one other firm of lawyers engaged in contentious work made good offers to entice Hewitt to change his employers. Instead of this, however, he determined to work inde pendently for the future, hnving conceived the idea of making a regular business of doing on behalf of such clients as might retain him similar work to that he had just done with such cbnsplcuous success for Messrs. Crellan, Hunt & Crellan. 1 I myself first made Hewitt’s acquaintance ns a result of an accident resulting in a Are at the old house in which his office was situated and in an upper floor of which I occupied bachelor chambers. I was able to help in saving a quantity of extremely important papers relating to his business. The acquaintance thus began has lasted many years and has become a rather close friendship. “I consider you, Brett.” he said, addressing me. “the most remarkable journalist alive. You have never yet been guilty of giving away any of my little business secrets you may have become acquainted with.” This he said, ns ho said most things, with a cheery, chaffing good nature that would have been, perhaps, surprising to a stranger who thought of him only as a grim and mysterious fliseoverer of secrets and crimes. Ins leed, tjie man had always as little of (the aspect of the conventional detective feus may lie Imagined. Nobody could appear more cordial of less observant In manner, although there was to lie seen i certain sharpness of the eye, which might, after all, only be the twinkle »f good humor. I did think it worth while to write something of Martin Hewitt’s investigations and a description of one of his idventures follows. *•••••* At the head of the first flight of a dingy staircase leading up from an ever open portal in a street by the Btrand stood a door, the dusty ground glass upper panel of which carried in Its center the single word “Hewitt,” while at its right hand lower corner, in smaller letters, “Clerk's Office” appeared. On a morning when the clerks In the ground floor offices had barely bung up their hats, a short, well dressed young man, wearing spec tacles, hastening to open the dusty door, ran into the arms of another man who suddenly Issued from it. “I beg pardon,” the first said. “Is this Hewitt’s detective agency office?” “Yes, I believe you will find it so,” the other replied. He was a stoutish, clean shaven maq of middle height »nd of a cheerful, round countenance ■You’d better speak to the clerk.” In the little outer office the visitor was met by a sharp lad with inky fingers, who presented him with a pen Mid a printed slip. The printed slip having been filled with tho visitor’s name and present business and conveyed through an inner door, the lad reappeared with an Invitation to the private office. There, behind a writing table, sat the stoutish mail himself. I ‘*ooolll .morning, Mr. Lloyd—Mr. Ver-

non Lloyd," he suid affably, looking again at the slip. "You’ll excuse my care to start even with my visitors—l must, you know. You come from Sir James Norris, I see.” “Yes; 1 am his secretary. 1 have only to ask you to go straight to Lenton Croft at once, If you can, on very Important business. Eleven thirty Is the first available train from Paddington." "Quite possibly. Do you know anything of the business?” “It Is a case of a robbery in the bouse, or, rather, 1 fancy, of several robberies. Jewelry has been stolen from rooms occupied by visitors to tho Croft The first case occurred some months ago—nearly a year ago, In fact. Last night there was another, but I think you had better get the details on the spot. Sir James has told me to telegraph if you are coming, so that he may meet you himself at the station, and I must hurry, as his drive to the station will be rather a long one. Then I take it you will go, Mr. Hewitt? Twyford Is the station." “Yes, I shall cotne and by the 11:30. Are you going by that train yourself?” “No; I have several things to attend to now I am in town. Good morning. I shall wire at once.” Martin Hewitt locked the drawer of his table and sent his clerk for a cab.

At Twyford station Sir James Norris was waiting with a dogcart. Sir James was a tall, florid man of fifty or thereabouts, known away from home as something of a county historian and nearer his own parts as a great supporter of the hunt and a gentleman much troubled with poachers. “I have sent for you, as Lloyd probably told you, because of a robbery at my place last evening. It appears, as far as I can guess, to be one of three by the same hand or by the same gang. Late yesterday afternoon”— "Pardon me, Sir James,” Hewitt interrupted, "but I think I must ask you to begin at the first robbery.” “Very well. Eleven months ago or thereabouts! bad rather a large party of visitors and among them Colonel Heath and Mrs. Heath—the lady being a relative of my own late wife. Colonel Heath has not been long retired, you know—used to be a political resident in an Indian native state. Mrs. Heath had rather a good stock of jewelry of one sort and another, about the most valuable piece being a bracelet set with a particularly fine pearl. “It was a very noticeable bracelet, the gold setting being a mere featherweight piece of native filigree work, almost too fragile to trust on the wrist, and the pearl being, as I have said, of a size and quality not often seen. Well, Heath and his wife arrived late one evening, and after lunch the following day, mbst of the men being off by themselves shooting, I think —my daughter, my sister, who is very often down here, £nd Mrs. Heath took it into their heads to go walking—fern hunting, and so on. My sister was rather long dressing, and while they waited my daughter went into Mrs. Heath’s room, where Mrs. Heath turned over all her treasures to show her, as women do, you know. When my sister was at last ready, they came straight away, leaving the things littering about the room rather than stay longer to pack them up. The bracelet, with other things, was on the dressing table then.” “One moment. As to the door?” “They locked It. As they came away my daughter suggested turning the key, as we had one or two new servants about.” “And the window?” “That they left open, as I was going to tell you. Well, they weut on their walk and came back with Lloyd, whom they had met somewhere, carrying their ferns for them. It was dusk and almost dinner time. Mrs. Heath went straight to her room and—the bracelet was gone.” “Was the room disturbed?” “Not a bit. Everything was precisely where it had been left except the bracelet.” “Y'ou called the police, of course.” “Yes, and had a man from .Scotland Yard down in the morning. He seemed a pretty smart fellow, and the first thing he noticed on the dressing table, within an inch or two of where the bracelet had been, was a match which had been lit and thrown down. Now, nobody about the house had had occasion to use a match in that room that day and if they had certainly wouldn’t have thrown it on the cover of the dressing table. So that, presuming the thief to have used that match, the robbery must have been committed when the room was getting dark, immediately before Mrs. Heath returned, In fact. The thief had evidently struck 'the match, passed it hurriedly over the various trinkets lying about and taken the most valuable.” “Nothing else was even moved?" i "Nothing at ail. Then the thief must have escaped by the window, although it was not quite clear how. The walking party approached the house with a full view of the window, but saw nothing, although the robitery iinust have been actually taking place a moment or two before they turned • up. “There was no water pipe within any practicable distance of the window, but a ladder usually kept In tho stab! o

yard was found lying along the edg* of the lawn. The gardener explained, however, that he had put the ladder there after using it himself early In the afternoon.” “Of course it might easily have been used again after that and put back.” „ “Just what the Scotland Yard man said. He was pretty sharp, too, on the gardener but very soon decided that be knew nothing of It. No stranger bad been seen in the neighborhood, and a stranger could scarcely have known enough to go straight to the room where a lady, only arrived the day before, had left a valuable Jewel and away again without being seen. So all the people about the house were suspected in turn. The servants offered in a liody to have their boxes searched, and this was done; everything was turned over from the butler's to the new kitchen muid’s. I believe the Scotland Yard man got as far as suspecting me before he gave it up altogether, but give It up he did in the end. I think that's all 1 know about the first rohbery. Is It clear?” “Oh, yes; I shall probably want to ask a few questions when I have seen the place, but they can wait What next?"

“Well,” Sir James pursued, “the next was a very trumpery affair that I should have forgotten all about probably if it hadn’t been for one circumstance. Even uow I hardly think It could have been the work of the same hand. Four months or tlierea bouts after Mrs. Heath's disaster—in February of this year, in fact—Mrs. Armltage, a young widow, who had been a school fellow of my daughter's, stayed with us for a week or so. Mrs. Armltage Is a very active young lady and was scarcely in the house half an hour before she arranged a drive in a pony cart with Eva, my daughter. They were late for dinner. Mrs. Armltage had a small plain gold brooch—not at all valuable, you know; £2 or £3, I suppose—which she used to pin up a cloak or anything of that sort. Before she went out she stuck this in the pincushion on her dressing table and left a ring—rather a good one, I believe—lying close by.” "This,” asked Hewitt, “was not in the room that Mrs. Heath had occupied, I take it?” “NO; this was in another part of the building. Well, the brooch went—taken evidently by some one in a deuce of a hurry, for when Mrs. Armltage got back to her room there was the pincushion with a little tear In It where the brooch had been simply snatched off. But the curious thing whs"-that the ring, worth a dozen of the brooch, was left where it had been put. Mrs. Armltage didn’t remember whether or not she had locked the door herself, although she found it locked when she returned, but my niece, who was indoors all the time, went and tried it once, because she remembered that a gasfitter was at work on the lauding near by, and found it safely locked. The gasfitter, whom we didn’t know at the time, but who since seems to be quite an honest fellow, was ready to swear that nobody but my niece had been to the door while he was In sight of it, which was almost all the time. As to the window, the sash line had broken that very morning, and Mrs. Armitage had propped open the bottom half about eight or ten inches with a brush, and when she returned that brush, sash and all were exactly as she had left them. Now, I scarcely need tell you what an awkward job it must have been for anybody to get noiselessly in at that unsupported window and how unlikely he would have been to replace it, with the brush, exactly as he found it.” “Then, as to getting’ in at the window, would it have been easy?” “Well, yes,” Sir James replied; “yes, perhaps it would. It is a first floor window, and it looks over the roof and skylight of the billiard room. It would be easy enough to* get at the window from the billiard room roof. But, then,” he added, “that couldn't have been the way. Somebody or other was in the billiard room the whole time.” “Well, was anything done?” “Strict inquiry was made among the servants, of course, but nothing came of it. It was such a small matter that Mrs. Armitage wouldn’t hear of my calling in the police or anything of that sort, although I felt pretty certain that there must be a dishonest servant about somewhere. A servant might take a plain brooch, you know, who would feel afraid of a valuable ring, the loss of which would be made a greater matter of.” “Well, yes, perhaps so. What made you connect these two robberies together?" “Nothing whatever for some months. They seemed quite of a different sort. But scarcely more than a month ago I met Mrs. Armltage at Brighton, and we talked, among other things, of the previous robbery—that of Mrs. Heath’s bracelet. I described the circumstances pretty minutely, and when I mentioned the match found on the table she said: ‘How strange! Why, my thief left a match on the dressing table when he took my poor little brooch!' “The coincidence appealed to me so far that it struck me it might be worthwhile to describe the brooch to the po lice in order that they could trace it if it had been pawned. They had tried that, of course, over the bracelet without any result, but I fancied the shot might be worth making and might possibly lead us on the track of the taore serious robbery." “Quite so. It was the right thing to do. Well?” “Well, they found it. A woman had pawned it in London at a shop in Chelsea. But that was some time beforfl&j and the pawnbroker had clean forgotteu all about the woman’s ftppearaneg. The name and address she gave wemi false. So that was the end of that business.” “Had am* of your servants left you

between the time the brooch was lost and the date of the pawn ticket?” • “No.” , ,• " «' . “Were all your servants at home on the day the brooch was pawned?” “Oh, yes I I made that inquiry myself." “Very good. What next?” “Yesterday—and this is what made me send for you. My late wife’s sister came here last Tuesday, and we gave her the room from which Mrs. Heath lost her bracelet. She had with her a very old fashioned brooch, containing a miniature of her father and set in front with three very fine brilliants and a few smaller stones.

“Late yesterday afternoon as my sis-ter-ln-law was changing her dress she left her room for u moment to speak to my daughter in her room, almost adjoining. She was gone no more than three minutes or five at most, but on her return the brooch, which had been left on the table, hud gone. Now the window was shut fast and had not been tampered with. Of course the door was open, but so was my daughter’s, and anybody walking near must have been heard. But the strangest circumstance, and one that almost makes me wonder whether I have been awake today or not, was that there lay a used match on the very spot, as nearly as possible, where the brooch had been, and it was broad daylight!” Hewitt rubbed his nose and looked thoughtfully before him. “Urn! Curious certainly," he said. “Anything else?” “Nothing more than you shall see for yourself. I have had the room locked and watched till you could examine it My sister-in-law had heard of your name and suggested that you should be called in, so of course I did exactly as she wanted. That she should have lost that brooch, of all things, in my house is most unfortunate. You see, there was some small difference about the thing between my late wife and her sister when their mother died and left It It’s almost worse than the Heaths' bracelet business. Here are three persons, all ladies, all in my house, two even in the same room, each successively robbed of a piece of Jewelry, each from a dressing table, and a used match left behind in every case. All hi the most difficult one would say impossible, circumstances for a thief, and yet there is no clew!" “Well, we won’t say that Just yet. Sir James; we must see. And we must guard against any undue predisposi-

tion to consider the robberies in a lamp. Is that your gardener, the man who left the ladder by the lawn on the first occasion you spoke of?" Mr. Hewitt nodded in the direction of a man who was clipping a box border near a lodge gate. “Yes; will you ask him anything?" “No, no; at any rate, not now. Remember ti)e building alterations. I think. If there Is no objection, I will look first at the room that the lady— Mrs.”— Hewitt looked np inquiringly. “My sister-in-law? Mrs. Caxenove. Oh, yes, you shall come to her room at onceT’ “Thank yon. And I think Mrs. Carenove had better be there.” They alighted, and a boy from the lodge led the horse and dogcart away. Mrs. Cazenove was a thin and faded bat quick and energetic lady of middle age. She bent her head very slightly on learning Martin Hewitt’s name and said: “I must thank you, Mr. Hewitt, for your very prompt attention. My room is quite ready for you to examine.” The room was on the second floor— 1 the top floor at that part of the bonding. Some slight confusion of small articles of dress was observable in parts of the room. "This, I take It,” inquired Hewitt, “is exactly as it was at the time the brooch was missed?” “Precisely.” Mrs. Carenove answered, "I have used another room and put myself to some other inconveniences to avoid any disturbance.” Hewitt stood before the dressing table. “Then this is the used match,” he observed, “exactly where it was found?” “Yes.” "Where was the brooch?” “I 'should say almost on the very same spot. Certainly no more than a very few inches away.” Hewitt examined the match closely. “It is burned very little,” he remarked. "It would appear to have gone out at once. Could you hear it struck?” “I heard nothing whatever; absolutely nothing.”

*Tf you, will step into Miss Norrl# room how fora moment” Hewittsuggested, "we will try and experiment Tell me if you hear matches struck and how many. Where is the match stand?” - The match stand proved to be empty, but inatches were found in Miss Norris’ room, and the test was made. Each striking could be heard distinctly, even with one of the doors pushed to. "Poth your own door and Miss Norris’ were open, I understand; the.window shut and fastened Inside as it is now, and nothing but the brooch was disturbed?” “Yes, that was so.” “Thank you, Mrs. Cazenove, I don’t think I need trouble yea any further just at present I think, Sir James,” Hewitt added, turning to the baronet, who was standing by the door, “I think we will see the other room and take a walk outside the house, if you please. I suppose, by the bye, that there is no getting at the matches left behind on the first and second occasions?” "No,” Sir James answered. “Certainly not here. The Scotland Yard man may have kept his.” [Concluded Next Week.]

“Then this is the used match?" he observed.