The Springdale news., 1912-09-13

tective Kent" he said with assumed gravity. for he was still in a chaffing mood. where would be the best place for us to go next?
 "To Hugh Crandalls apartments. cried, determined to convince him of my view of the case
 That Is exactly where we are bound" he replied to my amazement.
 But" stammered. T thought from your manner that you disagreed with me as to Crandall's guilt"
 "I do. I doubt every mans guilt until It Is definitely proved. I admit there Is plenty of evidence of Gran dalls connection with the case. I do not admit that any of the evidence yet shows 1t to be a guilty connection"
 Again l started to explain my req sons for thinking Crandall guilty, but again he refused to listen.
 My dear fellow" he said. Tn my years of Investigating crimes I have thoroughly learned one lesson. and that 1t the unwisdom of jumping at conclusions. There is only one rule that never fails. Collect all the evi- dence possible first and then see to whom 1t points. Most detectives, both professional and amateur, make the fatal mistake of deciding on a theory and then setting out to prove It. That Is the reason so many innocent men are convicted and so many guilty ones escape You can prove almost any thing about anybody if you work hard enough. Starting out with the theory that no such man as Napoleon ever lived, l could gather many convincing proofs"
 He stopped the taxieab at the cor her long enough to gather in an arm ful Of afternoon papers from a news boy, and began scanning their first pages and throwing them aside. From the disappointment in his face I judged he had not found what he was looking for.
 What did you expect to f1nd?" I asked wonderingly.
 Other suicides" he said tersely. keeping on with his hasty reading.
 Though l have known Miller Davis for years l must confess that I con- stantly find myself almost dazed by the seeming rapidity Of his mental processes and their apparently cratic course. Here he was rejecting my theory of Crandalls guilt, yet Jumping wildly to the conclusion that there would be other suicides, possibly con- nected with Katharine Farrish's act and Andrew Esler's death. It was en- tirely beyond my comprehension, and the next tack of his mind seemed even even more puzzling
 Do you know anything about art :" he asked as calmly as If We were hav- Ing an after-dinner chat at the club.
 A little. not much"
 If any one asked you to define technique l doubt If you could do 1t. l do not believe there is a painter or an art critic who could give satisfae. tory definition Yet any one who knows even little about painting knows something of technique. We know that every painter has his own technique. Show me paintings by Henri, Lawson and Glaekens and you do not have to label them for me to tell them apart. I recognize the work of each man by his technique. Even If Lawson painted portrait and Henri landscape. the Individuality of the artist would make his work recogniz- able. though masked by subject un- usual for him. Crime Is like art In one respect at least-teehnique Ev- cry criminal brain has it's own tech nfque. Any one who has investigated crime, who has studied evil-doers un- der all conditions, who has matched his wits against theirs, inevitably comes to recognize types of crimes. Given any particular crime to trace. from the very nature of 1t he Is able to say at once. This is the work of So-andso. Now in the Parrish case l am confident that a crime of some kind has been committed or is even now being committed. 1 may not know what particular thing It was that drove Katharine Parrish and old Elser to seek deafh-in fact do not know as yet-but that makes no difference. I know the type of crime l recognize in the case certain indefnable things which convince me that behind it all Is a cunning criminal brain that has planned some farreaching plot. If 1t was deYilishly ingenious enough to drive two people to suicide, in all probability it will have the same effect on others. There may be no other suicides, but I believe there will be. I shall watch every report Of sui- eide for the next few days with par ticular interest Who the criminal is, and who his associate is-for l am convinced 1t Is a crime of the pair I have no idea. Investigation of mail thefts and stamp counterfeiting never has brought me in touch with this par tieular sort of crime, SO that as yet l am entirely at sea as regards the identity of the criminals.
 All you have said. told him. 'only eonvtnces me that 1 am right about Hugh Crandall. An intelligent. edu- cated man gone wrong, respectable brOker with a spprat propapsify fOr