The Springdale news., 1912-10-11

hundreds of other coats and skirts worn by hundreds of other women"
 You lose" he responded tersely With one finger he began to trace an almost invisible line on the goods where there had once been a seam. Do you see that mark?"
 "Yes," l replied q noticed that skirt has been heightened or short ened, but what of it2"
 Tt means more than that" he an swered almost severely, IS if reproach- ing me for my lack of observation. "It means that thirty-eight skirt has been heightened an inch and a half. Look at this coat. The sleeves have been heightened two inches. It Is thirty-eight coat. Can't you see how simple the problem has beeome!"
 "1 confess l cant see 1t at all.
 Let me state 1t for you: A woman from somewhere in Connecticut buys a black suit of rather peculiar tex ture from cloak and suit house that receives a great many mall orders She requires thirtyeight coat with sleeves heightened two inches and thirty-eight skirt let down an inch and @ half That's enough to identify any person"
 q must confess still don't see how that knowledge will help you"
 In these days of system every house that sells womens garments has elaborate card indexes. The great est expense they have Is in altera- tions. They figure that a roll of cloth that costs so much will make so many suits of certain pattern which they will sell for so much in a certain length of time. They figure on mak ing so much profit on the suits. If the cloth is all right, the pattern pop ular and the price reasonable, they can figure to a certainty on their prof it's, except for one factor-alterations Alterations require the time of skilled work people and also corresp spondence and frequently extra express charges. The aim of the manager Is to reduce alteration to minimum. For that reason he keeps a record of every al- teration made. This particular dress happened to come from a store where 1 know the manager we'll. It is their busy season just now. and 1 took chance on finding him in his office. 1 described the goods in the suit, gave him the size and the sort of altera- tions that had been made on 1t and asked him to have his card index I al f,, oil ability the woman I wanted to know about came from Bridgeport, Conn, or near there. It happened that only three of the eight suits they had made from this piece of goods-at least the only ones entered on the alteration cards--had gone to Connecticut. Of the three, two were thirty-six coats, 60 they could be eliminated at once. The third one had had the sleeves heightened and also the skirt The sizes cerresponded. so there was very little doubt that it had been this wom- an who had bought 1t, Miss Sarah Sackett, the woman who committed suicide here"
 "But even so" protested. still mar yelling at his revelations. "how did you get the rest of your information about her so quickly?"
 "The address she had given was in care of the express agent at Bridge port. Such an address in a large city would mean nothing but in place the size of Bridgeport the inference was plain that the agent was probably an acquaintance. If she lived in Bridgeport, she would have given street and number concluded at once that she lived in the suburbs near Bridgeport. l called up the ex-