Courier Democrat. (Langdon, N.D.) 1891-1920, 1899-12-14
CHAPTER III.
At. Fault.

- CHAPTER III.
At Fault.
saw Inspector Trail several times
during. the following week. and he
seemed more and more worried and
anxious each time we met: The rea-
son was simple. The Cato Street case
had been intrusted to his special
charge. and hard proved to be one of
unexpected difficulty. 1t had seemed
TO be a foregone conclusion that the
missing tenant Tom Webb, must inev-
itably be traced and captured within Il
few hours. Yet, so far, not the fa:ntest
clue to his whereabouts had been OBJ
tanned; While, as for his supposed ac-
completes, they We're equally undiscoy-
cradle o.
This. from detectives point of
view, was most aggElvating state Of
affairs; but. perhaps. worse still, he
had despite the most strenuous efforts
entirely failed to establish the identity
of the murdered man. / attempted to
console him by pointing out that the
entire police force was equally respon-
Sible for these failures; which Were
due to the stupidity or laziness of an
army Of constables scattered all over
the country: but he found no comfort
i'll my words.
''That sounds reasonable enough" lie
remarked, blumly: but it won't go
down With my chiefs. nor with the
| public. either. for the matter of that
IiEe man in charge of the case is the
man the chief looks to for: results.
ann in charge of this case. l have got
10 results. and I'll be hanged if l sec
any way Of getting any,
Then you deem this case to be IN
exceptionally difficult one?'
Yes now | do: though I did not
think so ut first" he acknowledged.
! "WeEb's capture seemed certain, ana
counted on hearing something in the
soho slums: especially as l believed in
your theory as to the murderer being
wGrkingman. You ought to know. by
this time. Mr.. Weston, that in tracking
down a criminal. we rely, almost en-
tirely. upon what is officially termed
information received And. of course.
this simply means information eXtort-
ed by brides or threats from the sus-
pected mans pals. But very careful
inquiries have satisfied me that, in the
present case no such information will
ever be forthcoming; because the man
/ want had no pals. at least among the
known law-breaking lott
"Well. but what about Webb?"
asked 81 am convinced he did not
leave the house in Cato street by him
self. otherwise he could not possibly Gn
his drunken condition. have escaped
the search that was almost immedi-
ately made for him. 1t was the other
MANTLE man with the strong grip
who got him away; and it's very long
odds against his being alive now. 1t
stands to reason that the murderer
would not intrrlst the safety of his
neck to the keeping of a nervous
drunkard. who might. at any moment,
blab the fatal secret. No, no! The rea-
son Webb has not been found is that
he las been made away WITH
There was a ring of conviction in
Trails voice which, backed up by the
obvious force of his reasoning, made
me feel very Respondent as to poor
Webb's fate. Let me frankly admit
that it was not from any especial love
| L DOIC lllC uouDC IL IL NShS pOo
sible for any one Except, perhaps, some
poor martyr-wife) to care long for a
confirmed drunkard. But l was very
fond of his youngest sister, Madge.
We were tacitly, almost avowedly, en-
gagged to be married: and. in every let
ter received from her, she begged for
news of her brother, who had long
ceased to correspond with any Of his
| IJi41,ovtn had OOa1
to evade telling her the truth as to
Toms downfall. Why make her, and
the kindly old couple, her parents. mis-
cradle by telling them that the hope
and pride of the family had gone ut
terly to the dogs? And so had kept
back the real facts, hoping almost
against hope) that he would turn over
new leaf and be man again.
I had latterly felt more awkyardly
situated than ever with respect to
Madge, and had put off writing to her
because I simply had not the moral
courage even to hint at the disaster
which had overtaken her vagabond
brother. 1 preferred, somehow, to let
her get the first news of the trouble
through some other SOurce-say, a
chance newspaper paragraph. Yet
felt now that I could not well remain
silent any longer in the face of Inspect
or Trails conviction that Tom had
met with foul play. The question sim
ply was, how l could best break the
sad news.
AS so often happens in real life, the
problem solved itself. By the last post
that night I received two letters, one
of them from Madge. 1t was very
short hut very much to the point. She
implored me to ascertain, and let hel
know at once, that the inclosed cut
ting from the Dorset Courier had nc
reference to her brother The Enclosure
ran thus: =
"Another London Mystery-The corpse
Of q gentleman, believed to be for