The Savannah morning news., 1904-11-04
BROKEN SEAT REVEALS THIEF.
Detectives Long Quest Ends Sue
cessfuIly Through Trivial Ac-
cident in Thenter

| c10ent In TheHter
From the st. Louis Globe Democrat.
THE breaking down of seat in
theater," remarked an old st. Louis de-
tective the other day, "once enabled
me to get hold of a chap for whom l
| had been searching for several months.
| He was thief on a somewhat heavy
| scale, and he's still doing his bit in
! Joliet He was the confidential man
| of a big Chicago Board of Trade oper-
/ ator, and he made his jump with about
| 100000 of his employers money. The
| employer, for some reason or other,
didn't report the defalcation for nearly
ten days. and this delay gave the en-
bezzler a pretty good start.
THE departing steamers on the East
| and West coasts were, of course, COW
cred by wire as soon. as the defalca-
ton was reported, but by that time
the thief had had plenty of chance to
be almost as far as Egypt. After
few days of nosing around, l got hold
| of enough to lead me to believe that
the chap had taken to the West, and
| when l got to Omaha l was still more
convinced of this. 1t was a pretty
| Chilly trail, however, although | found
| marks of it, after quitting Omaha, at
| Cheyenne, Ogden, Salt Lake and a lot
of other points along the line of the
OIlOn ttIlQ central racine.
From Salt Lake l went 20 San
Francisco, where the thief had rela-
| tiyes, and it took a lot of time for
| me to watch those relatives mail and
| the like. l had been on the hunt for
nearly three months before / became
| convinced that the absconder had COW
| cred up his tracks, and that there was
| no further need of my hanging around
| San Francisco. l was about to double
fn xrrIa I mia
| from the chief directing me to run UP
| to Portland, Ore, to look up another
Chicago thief who was supposed to be
| in that town. l got this No. fellow
| within twenty-four hours after my ar
| rival in Portland, and, as he consent
| ed to come back without requisition
papers, bought tickets and arranged
| TO start for Chicago with him on the
following day.
THAT night went to one OF the Port
| land theaters. The house was damned,
| and so l stood UP and leaned on the
rail at the back. 1 had seen the show,
| in the East. so it didn't amuse me
particularly. and near the close of the
second act l decided to go back to my
| hotel and put in a big nights sleep
| in preparation for the overland Jour-
ney to begin on the following day. l
was just turning to so out, when there
was crash down in front. followed
by a giggle.
Il turned back and rubbered over the
| rail, and saw that the seat under
| young fellow with Van Dyke beard
had let him down. He didn't take it
good naturally, but came up the
aisle scowling. Out of habit, looked
at him closely, when l saw a small red
mark on his white forehead, a birth
mark not unlike an acorn in shape.
| felt little excited underneath my
vest. That acorn mark was the dis
tinguishing identification mark of the
| fellow for whom 1 had set out from
Chicago several months before. But
he had a beard, this chap coming
| down the aisle with the angry scowl
on his face, whereas my man had al
ways been smooth faced. His hight
and build, however, correspondent with
my description of him, and so decid-
ed to take a chance. followed him
out into the lobby of the theater, and
as he was buttoning up his overcoat I
placed my on his shoulder and said:
Hello, Burdock! Didn't hurt you
much, I hope?"
"Burdock-that's close enough to his
name-wheeled upon me like man
who things a trolley car is only four
feet behind him and coming at full
speed, and the pallor of his counte-
nance convinced me that l had the
boy all right, even before he spoke.
But what he said gave him away
Who told you my name was Bur-
doclx?' he faltered, getting paler all
"'Oh, a little bird in Lincoln Park
Chicago said I, and then l put the
wristlets on him while he wasn't look
ing,
TT is singular how enormously pure
bull headed luck helps along detec-
| fhau racaiUa in finishing 81
Ience credit for astuteness worthy OF
that Impossible hop fiend. Sherlock
Holmes. I've had a whole heap OF
that sort of luck myself. but, being
human, i've not let anybody else
know that it was luck. About five
years ago, when hold-ups in Chicago
were even more frequent than now
and that's saying a lott was sent out
to see what I could do toward round
ing up some of the members of the
South Side gum shoe fraternity.
got hold of quite a few of them, but
there was one man that I wanted par
ticularly, and I couldn't seem to land
him.
For about six months this char
had been pinching the diamonds out
of women's ears. That was his spec
ialty. He's pick out women idiOtiC
enough to wear their shiny rocks aft
err nightfall, and he'd nail them as
they entered their front gates or the
entrances to their apartment houses
and then he'd give 'em the knee and
. the strange. nip the goods out of theii
ears and be swallowed up. He held
UP number of women right In the
lighted vestibules of their fiathouses II
this way. None of these women were
able TO see much OF the fellows make
up, but some of them caught glimpse
Of the right hand that he used e
nj ofa %
the hand had a number of five pointed
stars and some compasses tattooed OF
the back OF it.
II kept an eve out in rubberinl
around the dives for a man with q
right hand consistently out of view
when / was around. but I had no luck