The San Francisco call., 1898-01-10
Speculation as to Which of the Two Men
 Fired It.
Circumstances Show That StrOh Could Hardly Have
 Done It.
Questions Raised by the Finding oi the Bullet in Gardiner's
 Spine.

The finding of the bullet fired into the body of Gardiner on the night of December 24 has led to the conclusion that perhaps the leaden pellet came from a friendly revolver instead of from that of the midnight marauder.
 Dr. Jones, by whose efforts the bull let was located, declares that it enter ed Gardiner's right shoulder from an angle of 30 degrees. This, is the start ing point in the search for where it came from.
 When he was shot Gardiner was standing in the doorway of the rear room of his residence, at 1135 Geary street, on the south side. The door in which he was standing faces to the east and opens out on a little porch scarcely five feet square. which is at the top of the back stairway leading from the back yard, three stories be- low. Directly across the little porch from the door spring two posts to the roof, one on each side of the center line of the doorway, and climbing up the one which was at Gardiners left hand as he looked out. was Stroh, the pursued burglar. Four feet beyond the posts is the side of the adjoining house east of the Gardiner residence, and perhaps ten feet farther to the rear of the building is a brick chim- ney about three feet high.
 When Gardiner looked out he had the screen door opening on the porch not quite half way open. The burglar was almost directly in front of him and on the roof of the adjoining house, and nearly as far to the rear as the brick chimney was Murphy, the patrol driv- CT, looking for Stroh. There was a flash and report, and Gardiner fell backwards into the room with a bullet in his right shoulder. Almost in the center of the door and at a height of five feet four inches from the floor, a hole in the screen marks where the bull let went through. The wires are cut clean at the top of the hole and are crushed at the bottom. leading to the certainty that the bullet came from the left on the left side of the hole looking outward. showing that the bullet came from point at Gardi- ner's right. As he held the latch Gard | iners shoulder was below and to the left of the hole.
 | Stroh, as he came down the post, was facing toward Geary street, or to l AE l fire a shot he would have had to reach 1 around the pole. Had he done so he | could not have fired in such a manner | as to bend the wires of the door to the right.
 Both the burglar and the patrol driv- i CT were at about the same angle from | the bullet hole, for while at different distances they were at different heights and so were about in the same plane.
 Detective Dillon and Murphy were on l the roof of the house adjoining Gardi- ner's when Dillon heard some one cry ing, Here he is." Dillon immediate | ly started down the ladder at the rear | of the house he was on, and Murphy sprang to the side of the house and looked over on to the little porch out side of Gardiner's back door. He fash ed the light from his wagon lamp down into the space between the buildings l and spied the man he was after tryine to climb the post to get on the roof | He says he fired over his head to scare him, and the man dropped to the little porch.
 Mu1 phy heard no shot but his own; | Dillon heard but one shot; Gardiner heard but one shot, and his wife, who stood right behind him as he fell, heard | only one shot Murphy says he fired over Stroh's head, but he does not know in which direction his pistol was pointed, and careful examination oi the houses in any of the directions ir which he could have shot failed tc find any other bullet mark besides the one in the screen door. Then, too there are no powder marks on the ten nis-fiannel night gown which Gardi- ner woge, a circumstance to be expect ed when a revolver is as close as six feet. Murphy was fourteen feet away
 Stroh had no pistol on him when he was caught. It was said he could have thrown it down into the sand in the yard in the rear of Gardiners house and one of his partners could have talk en it away, but no one was seen in the | yard, and 1t would have been hard tc find the pistol without the aid of Q | light.
 The bullet extracted from Gardiner's body was fired from a .3S caliber re- volver and from a 'short" cartridge The revolver carried by Murphy was loaned to him by Detective Dillon just before he went on the roof. It was 2 .38 caliber Smith & Wesson, and uses short" cartridge.
 Gardiner himself sent for Captair Lees a few days ago, and told him ht thought the bullet had not been fired by Stroh. He said he did not have any sympathy for Stroh, but he did no want to be the means of making hi. punishment unjustly hard; in conse quence he altered that part of hi. statement which accused Stroh o shooting him, but he blamed no ont else.