The Press., 1889-06-27
AN AWKWARD DISCOVERY.

Wealth, like poverty, has it's drawbacks, and no one realized this more fully than Mrs. Beecham- -Beecham, when on return ing home one evening just in time to dress for dinner, she found that her house had been entered by burglars, and that not only all her valuable jewelry, but also a considerable amount of money was miss ing. It was the same old tale that has been told so often of late. During the af- ternoon, when the master and mistress were out and the servants were chatting and resting down stairs, and the upper part of the house was deserted, the thieves had ascended or descended to the front balcony, forced back the window catch, entered the drawing room and gone straight from there to the floor above, on which were the apartments of Mir. and Mrs.
 Beecham- -Beecham. A putty knife laying near the window of the drawing. room, and chisel on the floor of the lady's bed adopted by the artists. The operations. had been carried out with the greatest skill and discrimination. Nothing had been tempered with except the wardrobe and dressing case of the lady of the house. The door of the former had been forced, while the latter having been entirely rifed of it's contents, lay a complete wreck on the 1 floor close beside the chisel. The con- tents were said to be G8, 900 worth of jew | elry and G40O in Bank of England notes. l A goodly haul, indeed, for the burglars j; and when Mrs. Beecham- -Beecham fully cealized her loss she flung herself on a rouch, buried her face in her hands, and sobbed as she had never sobbed before not even when she lost her first husband. Mir. Beecham- -Beecham was her second venture in matrimony; she having been at the time of her wedding, three years ago, buxom widow of some forty summers, and he handsome dissipated youth of twenty five. The motives that had led to union had on each side been purely com position and society. She was immensely rich he was everything desirable as far as connections and standing went. She felt that she could not enjoy the wealth her late husband, the pawnbroker, had left her without getting foothold in what she called the upper ten thousand; he realized that his only security from the bankruptcy court was union with an heiress or we'll endowed widow. Out of score of impe- cunious aspirants for her late husband s position, she had selected MT. Beecham- Beecham, on account of his good looks and excellent pedigree. And her husband had chosen her because she was the only per- son he knew who came up to his require ments. The two had got along fairly well after marriage, for she had taken care not to lose control of one penny of her fortune, and the amount her husband received as pocket-money depended entirely on his ability to keep her in good temper.
 While she was still lying on the couct sobbing, MT. Beecham- -Beecham returned | ol,, hx the butler of what had happened, hasteneo dressing case, and, in voice often chokeo l by sobs, proceeded to relate what haG l happened. The first practical suggestion made in that bewildered household since the discovery of the robbery came from its , master. ''Send to Scotland-yard, saic :, he, and to Scotland yard they sent. Aftel an interval of an hour, during which MT Beecham -Beecham dutifully sympathizee and consoled with his wife, two detectives arrived from headquarters. They rapidly , surveyed the premises, questioned the ser wants and took notef. Nothing new re , suited from their researches and inquiries s
 except that, apparently, the thieves hae
 reached the balcony of neighboring empty house by ladder in use by workmen r and had stepped from one balcony to an other. Having made this valuable dis
 covery, and finding that none of the ser wants had seen any person or heard any
 noises about the house, the detective:
 took their departure.
 . A week elapsed, and not single clev
 had been found either to the thieves or the missing valuables. Very little notice o
 the robbery had appeared in any of the papers, as both Mr. Beecham- Beechan ja and fho r,Olioa uara cOnfi6nDt that tO( much publicity would only injure the chance of recovering the property or dis
 covering the culprit. Further than this
 her husband had impressed on Mrs. Beech
 am BeecEam the absolute necessity o
 keeping the matter quiet, and not ever discussing it with her most intimate friends. But under this restraint she soon grew restive; and so it happened one day she poured out the story into the sympathetic ears of an old city friend o
 her late husbands, who, after ponderine over the matter for considerable time
 put to her the very obvious question, why the whole affair had been so quiet. Mrs
 Beecham- Beecham told him that neither her husband nor the police wanted the robbery talked about, and that all the pub
 licity they had given was in advertising { description of the stolen jewelry.
 "Bah p he said, contemptuously, ''youl husband is very foolish, inexperienced youth, and naturally the police wish the affair kept secret because they know they cannot ferret it out, and don't want to be charged with incompetency? You leave this matter with me and I will put some private detectives on the case at once
 They are men who can find out anything
 Come to my office tomorrow at 12 o'clock -~h