Helena weekly herald. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1867-1900, 1886-03-11
No. II

made myself understood am going to the
head office and | have got IA letter of intro
duction to the chief Inspector in the detective
department. j am afraid | omitted to men-
ton that"
1T doesn't make any difference proceeded
the other, as coolly as ever You have
asked for my advice, and give you my adj
vice Tear up your letter of introduction,
and don't stir step farther in the direction
of Whitehall"
Mr.. Troy began to understand "You
don't believe in the detective police!' he said.
WHO can believe in them who reads the
newspapers and remembers what he readsf'
his friend rejoined fortunately for the
detective department, the public in general
forgets what it reads Go to your club
and look at the criminal history of our
own time recorded in the newspapers. Every
crime is more or less mystery. You will
see that the mysteries which the police dis
cover are, almost without exception, mys-
teries made penetrable by the commonest
capacity, through the extraordinary stupidity
exhibited in the means taken to hide the
crime. On the other hand, let the guilty
man or woman be resolute and intelligent
person. capable of setting his or herr wits
tHc WIS VI Tue pOuCe-ln
other words, let the mystery really be
mvsterv-snd cite me a case it, you
can IA really difficult and perplex king case in
which the criminal has not escaped Mind,
l don't charge the police with neglecting
their work. No doubt they do their best,
and take the greatest pains in following the
routine to which they have been trained. 1t
is their misfortune, not their fault that there
is no man of superior intelligence among
them-I mean no man who is capable, i'll
great emergencies, of placing himself above
conventional methods and following a
new way of his own. There have been
such men in the policemen naturally
endowed with that faculty of mental
analysis which can decompose mystery, re-
solve it into its component parts, and find the
clew at the bottom no matter how remote
from ordinary observation it may be. But
those men have died or have retired. One of
them would have been invaluable to you in
the case you have just mentioned to me. As
things are. unless you are wrong in believing
in the young lady's innocence, the person
who has stolen that bank note will be no easy
person to find. In my opinion there is only
one man now in London who is likelyt TO be of
the slightest assistance to you, and he is not
in the police"
''Who is he?" asked Mr. Troy.
'An old rogue, who was once IN your
branch of the legal profession" the friend an
swered You may, perhaps remember the
man; they call him Old Sharon"
What the scoundrel who was struck off
the roll Of attorneys years since! Is he still
alive!
"Alive and prospering. He lives in a court
or a lane running out of Longacre, and he
offers advice to persons interested in recover
ing missing objects of any sort. Whether
you have lost your wife or lost your cigar
case, Old Sharon is equally useful to you.
He has an inbred capacity for reading the
riddle the right way in cases of mystery,
great OF small In short, he possesses exactly
that analytical faculty to which | alluded
Just now have his address at my Office if
you think it worth while to try him."
+ "Who can trust such a man." Mr.. Troy
objected. He would be sure to deceive
me"
''You are entirely mistaken Since he was
struck off the rolls Old Sharon has discovered
that the straight way is, ON the whole, the
best way, even in mans own interests. His
consulate ion fee is guinea; and he gives a
signed estimate beforehand for any supple
rnentary expenses that may follow. l can
tell you this is, of course strictly between
ourselves) that the authorities at my Office
took his advice in a government case that
puzzled the police. We approached him, of
course through persons who were to be
trusted to represent us without bet1aying the
source from which their instructions were
derived and we found the old rascafs advice
well worth paying for 1t is quite likely that
he may not succeed so well in your case. Try
the police, by all means; and if they fail,
why there is Sharon a last resource"
This arrangement commended itself to Mr..
Troy's professional caution. He went on to
Whitehall, and he tried the detective police.
They at once adopted the obvious conclusion
to persons of ordinary capacity-the con-
clusion that Isabel was the thief.
Acting on this conviction, the authorities
sent an experienced woman from the office to
Lady Lydiard's house to examine the poor
girls clothes and ornaments before they were
packed up and sent after her to her aunt's
The search led to nothing. The only objects
of any value that were discovered had been
presents from Lady Lydiard. No jewelers.
or millihers' bills were among the papers
found in her desk. Not sign of secret ex-
travagance in dress was to be seen anywhere.
Defeated so far the police proposed next to
have Isabel privately watched. There might
be prodigal lover somewhere in the back
ground, with ruin staring him in the face
unless he could raise five hundred pounds.
Lady Lydiard (who had only consented to
the search under stress of persuasive argu-
ment from Mr.. Troy resented this ingenious
idea as an insult. She declared that if Isabel
was watched the girl should know of it in
stantly from her own lips. The police lis
tened with perfect resignation and decorum,
and politely shifted their ground. A certain
suspicion they remarked always rested in
cases of this sort on the servants Would
her ladyship object to private inquiries into
the characters and proceedings of the SER
vantss Her ladyship instantly objected, in
the most positive terms. Thereupon the lin
spector" asked for minutes private conver-
sation with Mr. Troy "The thief is GER
tainly member of Lady Lydiard's house
hold" this functionary remarked, in his
politely positive way IF her ladyship per-
sists in refusing to let us make the necessary
inquiries our hands are tied, and the case
comes to an end through no fault of ours. If
her adyship changes her mind perhaps you
will drop me line, sir, to that effect. Good
morning"
SO the experiment of consulting the police
came to an untinely end The one result
obtained was the expression of purblind
opinion by the authorities of the detective
department. which pointed at Isabel or at
one of the servants the undiscovered
thief Thinking the matter over in the re-
tirement of his own Office, and not forgetting
his promise to Isabel to leave no means un-
tried of establishing her innocence, Mr.. Troy
could see but one Alternative left to him.
He took up his pen an wrote to his friend