Courier Democrat. (Langdon, N.D.) 1891-1920, 1905-08-03

1t occurred to me that II, these appeals
came, rs l expected, from some one
who had been intimate with the lady
in her early life n combination which
contained two Els with three letters
between might very we'll stand for the
name ELSIE On examination I
found that such a combination formed
the termination Of the message, which
was three times repeated. It was GER
tsin1y some appeal to Elsie In this
way l had got my L, S and L. But
what appeal could it be? There were
only four letters in the word which
preceded Elsie and it ended in e.
Surely the word must be COME l
tried all othet' four letters ending in
E, but could rnd none to TT the case.
So now l was in possession of C, o
and NJ. and l vas in Il position to at
tack the first message once more, d.
viding it into words and putting dots
for each symbol which was still I'M
known. SO treated it worked out in
this fashion:
NJ ERE ..E ST. NE.
"Now, the first letter car only be A,
which is Il most useful discovery, since
it occurs no fewer than three times in
this short sentence, and the H is also
apparent in the second word. Now it
becomes:
AM HERE A.E SLANE.
Or. filling in the obvious vacancies in
the name:
AM HERE ABE SLANEY.
l had so many letters now that l could
proceed with considerable confidence
to the second message, which worked
out in this fashion:
4. ELRI. ES.
Here l could only make sense by put
ting L and G for the missing letters
and supposing that the name was that
Of some house or inn at which the
writer was staying"
Inspector Martin and l had listened
with the utmost interest to the full
and clear account of how my friend
had produced results which had led
to so complete a command over our
difficulties.
What did you do then. sir?' asked
the inspector.
Il had every reason to suppose that
this Abe Slaney was an American,
since Abe is an American contraction
and since a letter from America had
been the starting point of all the trou-
BILE. l had also every cause to think
thar thnrp u-a Soma orir,,iroJ c0orot
in the matter. The lady's illusions to
her past and her refusal to take her
husband into her confidence both point
ed in that direction. l therefore cabled
to my friend, Wilson Hargreave of the
New York police bureau, who has
more than once made use Of my knowl-
edge of London crime. I asked him
whether the name Of Abe Slaney was
known to him. Here is the reply: The
most dangerous crook in Chicago On
the very evening upon which / had his
answer Hilton Cubitt sent me the last
message from Slaney. Working with
known letters, it took this form:
ELSIE. RE. ARE TO MEET THY GO .
The addition of a P and a D completed
a message which showed me that the
rascal was proceeding from persuasion
to threats, and my knowledge Of the
crooks of Chicago prepared me to find
that he might very rapidly put his
words into action. l at once came to
Norfolk with my friend and colleague.
Or. Watson, but, %unhappily, only in
time to find that the worst had already
occurred"
ut is a privilege to be associated
with you in the handling of a case,''
said the inspector warmly. You will
excuse me, however, if l speak frankly
to you. You are only answerable to
yourself, but l have to answer to my
superiors. If this Abe Slaney, living
at Elrige's, is indeed the murderer, and
if he has made his escape while I am