The Roswell daily record. [volume] (Roswell, N.M.) 1903-current, 1906-01-25
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ness was this. One morning L took IN
q paper and read that John Mulholland.
a farmer living on the Arlington road.
had been found dead with a bullet in
his heart. There was no clew to the
murderer. / was out of a job at the
time and made up my mind that 7
would test my natural bent for detec-
uve work by trying to unravel what
appeared to be an insoluble problem.
l went to the house and found the doc
tors engaged in extracting the bullet
from the dead mans heart. l asked to
see it and was permitted to do so. MY
reason for wishing to examine it was
that / had always heard that every
m1nutia in detective cases was impor-
tant- The truth is 1 was green and
didn't know how else to begin.
The bullet was of the usual conical
shape. l looked 1t all over and noticed
places where it had been rubbed or
scratched. There were three of these
marks. w near together, a third on
the opposite side. 1t struck me that
there had been some projection in the
barrel of h pistol that had caused
these scratches. If I could find the pis-
toll that would make similar scratches
on other bullets fired from it I could
a. [AS OdPOA I'LL i
Mulholland had been killed. But no
weapon had beer found near h body.
Stories about murderers leaving niv
sticking in their victims or dropping
pistols in their haste to get away are
inventions. Murderers do q lot of
things to incriminate themselves, but
they're not so stupid as that.
/ secured an interview with the MUIR
dered mans wife and asked her to tell
me about every one that had had any
connection with her husband during q
year or SO past. He had had trouble
with the owner of an adjoining farm
about the boundary. A tramp had
been turned out Of the barn a few days
before the murder and had gone off
muttering curses. A farm hand had
been discharged, but an interval of
three months had elapsed since the
discharge; besides, man had made
no demonstration at the time.
OF the three my suspicious were for
the tramp. / hadn't the means of
securing the country for him, so I
went to the police and recommended
them to do so. The tramp was hunted
down and arrested. He had no pistol
on him, but he had a pawn ticket The
pawnbroker where it was issued pro-
duced a silver watch that it stood for
of little value. After the police had
dropped the scent 1 went to the pawn
broker, hoping to elicit some clew.
While we were chatting l stood lean
ing on a glass case containing pawned
articles. Among them 1 noticed a pis-
toll. It was a cheap, old fashioned arti-
Gle worth a few dollars. Something
moved me to ask the broker who had
pawned it. He said that the man was
a negro. l asked the broker to let me
look at the weapon, and he handed it
to me. Taking it to a window where
the sun vas shining in, I looked into
the barrel. Near the muzzle I noticed
some spots of rust. There were two
near together and one opposite.
Noting the caliber, 1 went out and
got some cartridges to fit the pistol
and, going into the back yard with it,
fred a bullet into a barrel of water.
When l examined the lead 1 found
scratches on it exactly like those ON
the bullet that killed Mulholland- I
fired several more bullets, and every
one was marked exactly like the first.
Without saying a word to any one, l
went to Mrs. Mulholland and asked
her if her husband had ever had any
trouble with a negro. At first she an
swered NO" but presently remem-
bered that three years before a negro
had stolen some clothing and Mulhol-
had been instrumental in sending
him to the penitentiary. The negro was
an ugly fellow, with a bad record. I
hunted up his case and found that his
time had expired and he had been re-
a few days before the murder.
At this point l made a grave mis-
I was not willing to give the po-
lice the benefit of my discovery, so l
traced the negro myself and found him
in a low negro dive. 1 swore out a
had him arrested and in his |
pocket found a pawn ticket for the pis-
toll I had discovered.
1 then made out the papers accusing
the prisoner of the murder of John
The police. who had in
the first place resented my interior
ence, treated me with whitening con-
"Young feller," said the, chief, when
been mixed up with criminals
one thing to suspect a man or even to
know he's the n you want and an
other to prove it. It's just such men
dS you IAdI COSl lue Sldle hOACy SpCAI
uselessly."
/ made no reply. hiding my time.
When the trial came off the prosecut-
ing attorney was well posted by me on
the case and demonstrated before the
fury what I had discovered In the
pawnbroker's back yard. He showed
the bullet that had killed Null
holland, then too a cartridge and fred
1t into a barrel of water. The bullet
out marked as the n he hao