Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 41, Number 90, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 July 1909 — A PROCESS OF DEDUCTION. [ARTICLE]

A PROCESS OF DEDUCTION.

“Mac,” said the chief to me, “take up the Peet case. He has been convicted of murdering Walker in his (Peet’s) house. They were friends, and Peet has borne a good reputation. Pettingill, his attorney, has been in and says he has got a ‘stay,’ so that one more effort may be made to solve what he considers a ’mystery.” I took up the case with interest and went with Pettingill to the house where the murder had been committed. He showed me the lounge where Walker was lying asleep one warm September afternoon and the hole in the window pane through which the bullet had either entered or left the room. Pettingill would have claimed that it entered, indicating that Walker had been shot from the outside. But it went clean through Walker’s head and made no dent in the room. I’m a methodical man. If I weren’t I wouldn’t be a detective. Pettingill said that a search had been made for the bullet within a limit of the carrying power of a revolver and it had not been found. I examined the hole in the pane. There was a clean sweep outside of a mile without an obstruction, except several different houses from 500 to 1,000 yards away. I made up my mind first to find that bullet if I had to hunt six months for it. After an hour chatting, thinking, examining, I went away, resolved to come back the next day with a small telescope with which to fix directions. The sun rose clear In the morning, with not a cloud in the sky. I brought my telescope to bear on different houses in the way of possible shots. There was a sideboard in the room, and one of the directions 1 noted was along its top. On this top rested glass table articles, consisting of tumblers, finger bowls, etc. I made a diagram in my notebook of certain points outside, intending first to examine them and, if no bullet was found imbedded in them, to hire an army of boys to hunt on the ground. One of the first points I searched was a barn in line with the sideboard and the hole in the window pane. I got a ladder and climbed to the peak of the roof. I hadn’t moved my ladder more than two or three times before I found a suspicious hole. With my knife I dug out a bullet. It was not a pistol bullet, but a rifle bulletr Of course It might have been fired into the barn by anybody. However, I got a piece of chalk and made a white round spot as big as a football. Then I went back to the house and, laying a cane on the sideboard, with little adjustment pointed it directly at my chalk mark. The hole in the window pane was in line. Still I had nothing to build on. I sat looking at the sideboard, racking my brain for some possible connection between it and the direction of the bullet. A decanter filled with water stood on the sideboard. Its body was round and smooth. The sun was shining on it, and the decanter concentrated the rays in a focus. Somehow I went out and got some gunpowder and poured a few grains on the cane where, if it were a rifle, the nipple would be. The focus of the sun's rays approached the powder which I had put in its path. Presently there was an explosion. Remote as were the probabilities in the case, I began to be interested in the hypothetical structure I was en-~ deavorlng to find a foundation for. I confess I smiled at the connection which I was building as showing how far a man may reach out for a clew. This was as far as I had got: A man pointing a flintlock musket over the sideboard would not need to pull the trigger—the sun and the decanter would do it for him. But we detectives must follow a trail blindly. What firearms were there in the house? I searched and in a closet found a rifle. I took out an exploded cartridge. The bullet I had found fitted the metal case exactly. This hypothetical germ that was developing in my brain suddenly took a start, but prudence forbade my hurrying on. I had found the rifle and the ball with which Walker had been killed, but had I not proved that Peet had killed him? Why had not the prosecution got on to the rifle? Lucky for Peet that they had not, though, since they had convicted him it made no difference. I found a box of cartridges with the I rifle and fitting one in it went downstairs, laid it on the sideboard and I pointed it at my chalk target. The 1 muzzle of my gun, the place where Walker’s head had been, the hole in the glass, were all in a straight line. Had it not been for the focus of the sun’s rays I should have proved Peet guilty. As It was the focus may have fired the gun. Here was a cue to the solution. I questioned Peet and he remembered that he had cleaned and loaded his rifle and laid it on the sideboard while he went upstairs. The sun, acting on the nipple through the decanter, had. fired the gun. In the excitement attending, the discovery of the murder had stood It ina corner from whence It had been taken upstairs, where it vias forgotten. Who took it away was never known, probably a servant This seems a very easy solution. That’s because I happened to be on the right track, tn ninety-nine in a hundred cases I would have been chasing an •>. absurdity.—C. Mason Bradstreet