The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1905-04-06
JAMES HOPE. INSPECTOR.

When Scotland Yard was called upon
to furnish its best detective James Hope
was always the man selected. He was
so far away and above all his fellow
detectives in acumen that there was no
professional Jealousy. They called it
luck logic and accident, but yet they
praised his work and gave him all due
credit.
Inspector Hope was a man who never
INDUCED in "reminiscences with report
erS, and what the press learned of him
came through others. You may have
read that he was the man who foiled
three or four dynamite plots when the
Fenians were active; that he captured
a gang Of bank robbers after the best
French detectives had given the case
up; that he found Lady WilmOts dia-
monds after following the thief to
Japan; that he solved three of the
greatest murder mysteries of the cen
fury; that, while sitting as a witness
in the Old Bailey, he picked out a muir
derer among the audience for whom the
Yard had been looking for two years.
It would take a. pretty large book to
record all the adventures of this English
VidOcq and it was no doubt true as
asserted by his admirers, that he had
twenty successes to every failure. The
career of successful detective is al
ways greatly exaggerated, but in this
case you have the word of Scotland
dLL 4LSClL LlldL JdA4lGS nope was a
wonder. In time it came about that he
was detailed only on cases that had
bamled all others, and sometimes when
he left London on clue he went half
way around the world before returning.
Inspector Hope was 45 years old and
a the zenith of his fame when he was
given the case of The Brown Eyes to
work up. The beginning OF the case
was a murder committed in a London
omnibus. While the vehicle was rolling
oil NIT
one a banker and the other a lady-the
banker was stabbed to the heart and
lady swung herself off the step and dis
appeared among the crowd. The bank
er lived along enough to say that she
was young and handsome woman,
richly attired, and that she had large
brown eyes. She had not robbed him.
nor could he tell why she had sought
his death. She sat near him, but they
had not spoken a word when she sud
denly drew a dagger and plunged in in
to his side. Fifty different people saw
the young woman leave the omnibus,
but five minutes later when the alarm
was given, no one could say in which
direction she had disappeared.
Even in his dying hour, as was after
wards ascertained, the banker had lied.
Many years previous and in another
city, he had Wronged trusting girl
and left her to die in shame and dis
grace. That girl had a sister and the
she. The banker had two sons, both
of them young men. One held a respon-
sible position in a large jewelry house,
and the other was just setting up as
barrister. The police thought it would
be an easy matter to pick up the wo-
man with the brown eyes. but they
found to the contrary. She did not
have half an hours start of them, and
yet they failed to discover trace For
weeks and weeks they We're looking for
brown-eyed women and keeping them
under surveillance, but nothing came Of
it.
One day three months later a young
woman who spoke French fairly we'll
but who was undoubtedly English. call
ed at a jewelry house in Bond street
and looked at a lot of valuable gems
and asked that they be sent to her
rooms at a certain hotel at a certain
hour She would then pay for what
! she finally selected It was the house
/ in which the bankers son was employ
/ ed, and he was selected TO go with the
! Valuables. He reached the hotel was
( conducted to the lady's rooms, and two
/ hours later was found dead there He
J mad also been stabbed. AS none of the
1 gems had been taken, and as the Wo-
/ man had mysteriOusly disappeared. it
! was set down as a case of revenge. Ac-
/ corclng to the clerk and the servants
/ OF the hotel the murderess had large
! brown eyes, and her general description
] ntted that of the woman of the cab.
! At this time two events happened in
the life Of Inspector Hope. He was
given the case of the brown-eyed wo-