The daily Alaskan., 1909-08-18
A SINGULAR CASE,
sv F, A. MlrcAEL.
tcopyright. 1909, by American Press Asso-
 

ClOtlOn.l
 Are you detectives as smart as you appear to be in novels?" l asked of one who had served long while at the business.
 "The smart detective in real life usually gets left. Instead of letting the case work Itself out he forms the ories and fits facts to them, It's the methodical detective who wins. He works on the lines of what would nat urally come about narrowing proba. bnltles till he drives the remaining few through one hole, The interest ing features In detective work arc the happenings, have known many singular circumstances to betray a criminal. knew of one case where man was brought to the gallows by twig growing up out of the ground, carrying key with it."
 Please explain"
 "My chief called me into his private office one day and showed me a shoot of some kind of bush. As twig it had come up out of the ground, It's tip running through the elliptical iron end of key, which 1t carried up some five or six feet, growing around the key at the same time, He told me that some boys had found it In thicket, and beneath 1t under an older growth lay the molderlng body of a man. The chiefs theory was that tho key had been in the mans pocket and as the clothing decayed the key fell to the ground. A twig had sproutcd un- der 1t through the ellipsc, and as it grew of course tho key came up with it
 "It was to be supposed that the body had been hidden there and the man had been murdered, l was put to work on the case and began, as l al. ways do, methodically. That meant fin this case to inquire into all disap- pearances as far back as possible, You may not be aware how many people will disappear within given time, l found that from the village near by where the body was found and It's surroundings no less than six persons had disappeared In ten years and had never been accounted for, tried my key on the doors of the houses, so far as could find them, where the missing ones had lived, but it fitted none of them.
 At last heard of one Peter Moxon, ...h, h,a u,.oa olnnn n,, n email for,, in the nclghborhood, having one hired man. Some ten years back tho man, K Colburn, gave out that MoXon had sold him his farm on easy payments and gone to Alaska. Colburn had worked the farm for several years, then deserted 1t, I learned that hls dcsertlon had occurred shortly after some one of Moxon's relatives had ar rived to look up his kInsman. But the farm had remained unoccupled ever since Colburn's disappearance.
 Somehow as soon as l heard this story 1t struck me that l had got a clew to the mystery. went to the Moxon farm and put the key Into the lock of the front door, lt was too small. Going round to the rear, tried 1t on the kitchen door and unlocked 1t as easily as was possible for a rusty key. From that moment knew that the body found by the boys in the thicket was that of Peter Moxon. As I told you in the beginning, the Inter est In the case wasn't owing to any shrewdness of mine, but to the raising up of key out of the soil by grow Ing twlg. One might fancy the little Sprout the finger of an averaging angel.
 "The next thing was to find Colburn. This, of course, was mere matter Of search. Hunting for a known person Is quite a different matter from hunt. ing for an unknown person. The find ing of known person I consider matter of certainty-that is, If you go about 1t right and follow 1t to the end. just as by a given number of questions one may always guess an assumed eo' jcct. Of course assume that the per son to be found Is alive
 lnHl \ tue NutOIN NA ~. III lAoSbNS 1t may not pay to make a search of the whole world. But my experience Is that criminals of the unprofessional kind don't go or don't stay far from the scene of their crime. was order cd to get police reports from that part of the state, and If Colburn had gone or limits the matter was to be given up. sent out description of the man, but without success. He had gone too far.
 "lf one can find a woman in whom crImlnal has been interested there's al- ways chance of finding him, There was such woman in Colburn's life, and gave orders at the village post. office that any mall coming for her should be examined. Six months after I gave the order letter from Colhurn to hls friend was handed me giving his whcrcabouts
 well, had the man arrestcd, But hadn't any proof against him except what was remotely circumstantial. No body had seen him kill Moxon, Indeed, the only proof existing that Moxon bad A,N A,A