Mexico weekly ledger., 1894-03-15


Holmes, smiling at my surprise. "The
proof of it's intrinsic simplicity is that
without any help, a " a few very or
binary deductions, I was able to lay
my hand upon the criminal within
three days"
"That is true" said /.
81 have already explained to you
hat what is out of the common is
usually a guide rather than a him
drance. In solving a problem of this
sort, the grand thing is to be able to
reason backward. That is a very use
full accomplishment and a very easy
one, but people do not practice it
much. In the everyday affairs of life
1t Is more useful to reason forward,
and SO the other comes to be neglected.
There are fifty who can reason syn
thetically~f for one who can reason an
alytically."
~ confess" said 1, chat I do not
quite follow you"
81 hardly expected that You would.
Let me see if l car make it clear. Most
people, if you describe a train of events
to them, will tell you what the result
would be. They can put those events
together in their minds, and argue
from them that something will come
to pass. There are few people, how
ever, who, If you told them a result,
would be able to evolve from their own
inner consciousness what the steps
were which led up to that result. This
power is what I mean when 1 talk of
reasoning backward. or analytically."
ST understand" said I.
snow, this was q case in which you
were given the result and had to find
everything else for yourself. Now, let
me endeavor to show you the different
steps in my reasoning. To begin at
the beginning: approached the house,
as you know, on foot, and with my
mind entirely free from all impress
sions. I naturally began by examin-
ing the roadway, and there, as I have
already explained to you, 1 saw clearly
the marks of a cab, which, I ascer-
tanned by inquiry, must have been
there during the night. I satisfied
myself that it was a cab and not a pri-
vate carriage by the narrow gauge of
the wheels. The ordinary London
growler is considerably less wide than
q gentleman's %brous.ham.
'"This was the first point gained. I
then walked slowly down the garden
path, which happened to be composed
of a clay soil, peculiarly suitable for
taking impressions. No doubt it ap-
peared to you to be a mere trampled
line of slush, but to my trained eyes
every mark upon it's surface had q
meaning. There is no branch of de-
tective science which is so important
and so much neglected as the art of
tracing footsteps. Happily, 1 have al
ways laid great stress upon it, and
much practice has made it second
| nature to me. 1 saw the heavy foot
marks of the c~onstables, but I saw
also the tracks of the two men who
had first passed through the garden.
1t was easy to tell that they had been
before the others, because in places
their marks had been entirely obliter-
ated by the others coming upon the
top Of them. In this way my second
link was formed, which told me that
the nocturnal visitors were two in
number, one remarkable for his height
las l calculated from the length of his
stride) and the other fashionably
dressed, to judge from the small and
elegant impression left by his boots.
"On entering the house this last in
ference was confirmed. My well-booted
man lay before me. The tall one, then,
had done the murder, if murder there
There was no wound upon the
dead mans person, but the agitated
expression upon his face assured me
that he had foreseen his fate before it
came upon him. Men who die from
heart disease or any sudden natural
cause never by any chance exhibit agi-
tation upon their features. Having
shifted the dead mans lips, 1 detected
q slightly SOU smell, and / came to the
conclusion that he had had poison
forced upon him. Again 1 argued
that it had been forced upon him,
from the hatred and fear ex-
pressed upon his face. By the
method of exclusion / had arrived at
this result, for no other hypothesis
would meet the facts. Do not imagine
that it was a very unheard-of idea.
The forcible administration of poison
is by no g. a new thing in criminal
annals. The cases of Dolsky, in Odes-
sa, and Of Leturier, in Montpelier,
will occur at once to any toxicologist.
"And now came the great question
as to the reason why. Robbery had
not been the object of the murder, for
nothing was taken Was it politics,
then, Dr. was it a woman That was
the question which confronted me. I
was inclined from the first to the lat
ter supposition. Political assassins
are only too glad to do their work and
to fly. This murder had, on the con-
trary, been done most deliberately,
and the perpetrator had left bis tracks
all over the room, showing that he
had been there all the time. 1t must
have been a private wrong, and not a
political one, which called for such a
methodical revenge. When the in
scription was discovered upon the wall
| was inclined than ever to my
opinion. The thing was too evidently
a blind. When the ring was found,
however. 1t settled the question.
Clearly the murderer had used 1t to
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