The Providence news. (Providence [R.I.]) 1891-1906, 1895-06-13

reasoning he had arrived at the conclu-
sions that gave him the key TO the mys-
terry, nor did / understand "the agony
column" message, and / said SO.
''ln the beginning" Hewitt explained,
"the thing that struck me as curious was
the fact that LalSer was said to have given
his own name at Palmer's in buying his
ticket Now, the first thing the greenest
and newest criminal thinks of is changing
his name, so that the giving of his own
name seemed unlikely to begin with.
Still he might have made such mistake,
as Plummer suggested, when he said that
criminals usually made a mistake some
where-as they do, In fact. Still, 1t was
the least likely mistake i could think of,
especially as he actually didn't wait to be
asked for his name, but blurted 1t out
when 1t wasn't really wanted And 1t
was conjoined with another rather curious
mistake, or what would have been
mistake, IL the thief were Laker. Why
should he conspicuously display his wallet
such distinctive article for the clerk
to see and note2 Why, rather, had he
not got rid of il before showing HIMSELF
Suppose 1t should be somebody imperson-
ating Laker? In any case, determined
not to be preiudiced by what had heard
of Laker's betting. A man may bet with
out being thief
'But, again, supposing it were Laker
Might he not have given his own name
and displayed his wallet and so on while
buying ticket for France, in order to
draw pursuit after himself in that direc-
Ton, while he made of in another, in an
other name, and disguised? Each sup
position was plausible. And In either case
1t might happen that whoever was lay
ing this trail would probably lay il a little
further. Charing Cross was the next
point, and there / went. / already had
1t from Plummer that Laker had not
IL Il l..
had been laid in some other manner.
Something left behind with Laker's name
on 1t, perhapsP l at once thought of the
umbrella with his monogram, and, max
ing long shot, asked for II at the lost
property ofiie, as you know. The guess
was lucky. In the umbrella, as you know,
j found that scrap of paper. That,
judged, had fallen in from the hand of
the man carrying the umbrella. He had
torn the paper in half In order to fling it
away, and one piece had fallen into the
loosely Tapping umbrella. It is a thing
that will often happen with an omnibus
ticket, as you may have noticed. Also,
II was proved that the umbrella was un-
rolled Immediately IL was found, So here
was piece of paper dropped by the per-
son who had brought the umbrella to
Charing Cross and left it. Igot the whole
advertisement, as you remember, and
studied 1t. 'Yob' is back slang for
DOyy ulu ~ IL OibeU uStu III IlCknnamCS
to denote a young, smooth faced thief.
Gunter, the man / suspect, as matter
of fact, is known as the 'Hoxton Yob. ,
The message then was addressed TO some
one known by such a nickname Next,
I'll. X. shop roast. Now, in thieves
slang, to roast a thing or person is
TO watch it or him. They call any place
shop notably thieves den. So that
this meant that some resort--perhaps the
Hoxton Row shop-was watched. 'You
LIST there tonight would be clearer, per-
haps, when the rest was understood. /
thought a little over the rest, and Il
struck me that ii must be a direction to
some other house, since one was warned
of as watched Besides there was the
number 1917, and red bL which would be
extremely likely 10 mean 'red blinds. by
way OF clearly distinguishing the house
And then the plan of the thing was plain.
You have noticed, probably, that the map
of London, which accompanies the post
Office directory, Is divided for convent
ence of reference, into numbered
squares?"
"Yes. The squares are denoted by let
ters along the top margin and figures
down the side. So that il you consult the
directory and find place marked as being
ID 5, for instance you find vertical divi-
sion ID, and run your finger down IL until
IL intersects the horizontal division 3, and
there you are i"
Precisely. got my postofTice directory