The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1890-02-03
4 QUEEE QUEST.
How a Detective Spent Two Years
in Search Of a Street Which he
Knew the Location Of.

met me, he said.
Dem it, sir, but you should have
more manners than TO keep me cooling
my heels around a place like this!'
"But / didn't know you were here"
"It was your business to knowl Dem
it, sir. Iam put out with you, sirf'
"Well / am here, and now what can I
do for you?"
Resign your place here at once!'
"What?'
Cant you understand the English
language? Resign, SIR"
'sFor what reason
''That you may engage with me-"
He handed me his card, and / ssw that
HIS name was Ronald Terry. After a bit
ne informed me that he was anoId bach
elor, with plenty of cash, and that he
had q scheme on hand which he wished
to work put. He offered to engage me
for two years at four times the salary ]
was then receiving, but would not tell
me what the work was. After two or
three Interviews with him and after as
certaining from trustworthy men that
he was what he represented himself, |
closed with his offer. The day ] entered
upon his service he said to me:
"You have been in most of the large
cities of the United States. Did you
ever happen to notice a situation like
this: A street about fifty feet wide run
ming off a business street at an angle,
but only two blocks long before it ended
at a bluff? This short street is built up
with brick houses. On the first corner
on the right is a drug store. The inter-
secting street is hardly wider than an
alley and is not paved"
81 think you win find something very
like it in almost any city, excepting the
bluff. II is not unusual for streets to
come in that way"
.But the bluff. If the short street
does not end at a bluG our search will
be useless"
"We shall have to go from town to
town until we find it,"
"ExactIy, and we start tomorrow.
Be at my hotel at 8 o'clock in the morn
ing. I shall lay out our route, and when
ever we arrive in a city you will do the
searching. That's what / have hired you
for"
From the foregoing you will be pre-
pared to believe that l thought him
slight in the head as the expression
goes, if M worse. However, as he had
the money and was his own master, and
as he was paying me a big salary, it was
not my business to find fault. / 0
discovered that he had his W peculiar
ideas in the most tri6ing matters. For
instance, / was not to know him when on
the train. | must, il possible, take the
front end of the car, whilo he took the
rear. At the hotel | must, il such an
arrangement were possible, sleep Oh the
floor above him. Amy business between
US must be done as formally as if we had
never met.
At u first stopping place he planned
to stay just SO many days. / was to
cover only so much of the city per day.
A queer duck you win think him, but I
couldn't record the tenth of his strange
doings and sayings.
We went directly to Portland, Me-, to
begin search, and although | could
have covered the city in two days he
planned that we should stay sixteen.
l1CkCLOIS, dllCI liz II ~ wv Idy ., L ndI
nothing to do but loaf around. On the
seventh day he sent his card to my room
with a request that l call upon him on a
matter of business, and when I entered
he asked:
"Well, what progress in your searchg'
81 can find no such street here, sir"
Every we'll; / give you nine more days
in which to make sure"
l spent the nine days in fishing and
Augusta. We put in six daysthere, and
then went TO Montgomery, Vt. Wetook
each state in rotation, visiting every
city above 10000 population in each
state, and by the time we were through
with the state of New York the first
year was up. Every day found Mr..
Terry the same queer, quaint specimen
Of humanity. The same ~formality was
observed, and once, in a railroad smash
up, when I ventUred to address him to
inquire if he had been hurt, he looked
at me with q cold stare and replied:
"Dem it, sir, you must have mistaken
me for some one clse!'
We We're well alongi in the second year,
and were in Wilmington, Del, when !
met an old friend from the west and told
him what a wildgoose chase / was on.
He looked at the diagram for a few
minutes and then said:
you'll strike this in Cincinnati. /
could guide you to the exact spot"
He went fishing into his baggage and
found an old map of Cincinnati, and in
FIVE minutes we had located the spot. l
sent my card up to Mr.. Terry, and fol-
lowed it to inform him of my discovery,
but he sat down on me with:
''Dem it, man, if you are tired of my
ways and wages, you al quit! told
you at the outset that | should run this
thing myselfp
And 10 prove that he meant to, he
planned a route which did not permit
us to reach Cincinnati for nearly four
months. He gave me to understand, on
arriving there, that we should remain
thirty-one days; and. although | could
have found .sB" street in an hour, /
knew Mr.. Terry too well to object to his
plans. On the second day | went over
the street. It was ancient and vather
queer, but no more SO than many 9TH
ers. 1t was tennnted by a Door but re-