The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1893-07-18
THE ARREST OF D
BY ROBERT BARR.

~~S AA~ 4 $~@@~~-
than his muscle. It was all right
enough, when starting out to commit
a burglary, to take a knife with you,
or a loaded club, or a pistol, but Billy
claimed that the doing of this showed
a lack OF mental ingenuity. Any mus
cular fool can bludgeon the senses out
OF a half-awakened house holder
aroused from his first deep sleep by
the noisy entrance of a thief through
the kitchen window, but b~ludgeoning
Billy looked upon as clumsy and In
necessary. The consequence vas that
Billy, by strict attention to business,
and the endeavor to please customers,
soon began to build up for himself an
enviable reputation among the police.
They never caught sight of Billy or his
pals, but they always recognized his
handiwork by the neatness and dexter
ity of it. They did not even know his
name, but they called him among
themselves Billy Haven out of respect
for the memory of a detective of that
name, who was especially good at
tracking crimes of a kind whose origin
was obscure, and the clue to which
was not visible. They said among
themselves when their attention was
first directed to the kind of burglary
the new burglar was doing, that this
was a job Billy Haven would like the
unraveling of if he were alive, and so
they drifted on, never getting a sight
of the burglar, until the crimes were
called Billy Haven jobs, and finally the
unknown cracksman came to be called
Billy Haven.
AS a general thing, where Billy
Haven was at work, the inmates of the
house never knew a robbery had been
committed until next morning. Billy
and his gang left almost no trace of
their visit except the disappearance of
the most valuable things in the resi-
dence.
At last these neat burglaries ceased,
and there were no traces of Billy for
years. 1t is probable that the authori-
ties would never have known any par
ticulars about Billy's career, if it had
not been that a convict dying in one of
the prisons told about Billy's last and
successful coup, which enabled Haven
and his gang to retire into respectable,
but monotonous private life.
Billy, it seems, had long looked with
h~ungering eyes on a large mansion that
stood in a lonely part of a lonely sub
urb. 1t was entirely surrounded by a
high brick wall, and Billy felt that if
he and his mates eve got inside that
mansion they could work in uninter-
rupted security.
Inquiry showed Billy that it was the
residence Of Mr.. Slider, the well known
banker, a man intimately connected
with numerous prosperous companies,
and a man of great reputed wealth.
The name Of Slider was a power in the
city. Billy's Investigations led him to
the knowledge that Mr.. Slider was a
most careful man, who had arranged
every electrical appliance then known
for the discovery of a burglar. He ap-
peared to aealize that if once a burglar
got entrance into the big house, the
family would be, comparatively speak
ing, at his mercy; and so it was that
every window was protected by half a
dozen different devices. The door
mats and windows were so arranged
&In% nEE0n ouo~uhnGu "on% 4n bod tho
lightest football on any of them would
light all the electric lamps in the house;
would ring a large bell in the tower;
would telegraph a warning to the near
est police station, and would set more
gongs ringing all over the place than a
burglar who was at all nervous cared
to hear.
Billy realized, then, that the ordi-
nary methods would have a tendency
to fail if applied to the big house stand
ing in it's own extensive grounds, and
so he resolved that when he and his
pals entered the house it would be by
the door, and not by one of the win
dows, and it would be at a time when
the family had not retired to rest.
Chilly plans, when matured, were
very simple. He obtained the costume
of a police Inspector for himself and the
clothes of an ordinary policeman for
each of his our pals. He got, likewise,
a very good imitation of a warrant of
arrest, made out in the name of MI.
Slider. Billy was the man of brains in
the gang. and the other four, realizing
this, did exactly as he told them. They
were in a perfect state of discipline