Highland recorder. (Monterey, Highland County, Va.) 1877-1972, 1912-01-19

the head. Nothing tEat we coulu
have done could have saved him.
Twenty feet at least above our heads
that dreadful drama was enacted IN
the air.
HE has but anticipated his fate,'
said Crewe. Poor devil! His IN.
genuity undid him. Let US go, Lang.
ton; there is no purpose to be served
by our remaining here"
On the following morning all Lon
don was agape over the latest mys-
terry. A policeman, according to the
account, had found the body OF man
, suspended from an upper Wlndo" OF
a tenement house by a rope OF
prodigious length. He had cut MIN
down, but the suicide had evidently
been dead for several hours. Inc
rope was ingeniously knotted around
the window bars; yet it had not been
fastened from within, the window De-
ing bolted and the room having been
unoccupied for more than week
previously.
Another item in the same neWspa-
per passed without notice; yet the
two were indissolubly connected.
early this morning" it ran, while
going to work, John Jarvis, plumber,
noticed strange beast in the Strand.
1t was suspended from window Sill,
and at first seemed to be dead, but
was subsequently found to be Sleep
ing. The beast was noosed and taken
| to the police station, where it was
discovered, after some investigation,
to be a harmless sloth of the arma-
dillo type. It's final destination will
probably be the Geological Gardens"
Crewe looked up at me.
"The greatest mystery" he said, "is
how the creature contrived to knot
the rope round the window bars so
that it held up the body of the burglar
after it had departed upon its noe
turnal prowlings in search of food"
"Crewe," I said, "you have not ex-
planned anything of the mystery to
me as yet. l do not know how the
burglar entered the tower, nor how
you knew him to be a South Ameri-
can, nor the meaning of the hen
tracks"
Crewe started. "My dear Langton,
forgive me-" he pleaded. 81 will do
SO at once. Do you know anything
about the habits of the sloth?"
81 never heard of such an animal
before today" l answered.
Gust So" Crewe answered, smiling.
"Now if you, an educated American,
know nothing of this animal, it Is
safe to say. that nobody else does, ex-
cept, here and there some natural
ist Is it not reasonable, therefore,
to assume that the man who owned
it was intimately acquainted with it
in other words that he was deni-
zen of South America, the continent
in which the sloth has its habitat?
And if that deduction were not log
ical enough. we have the testimony
of the pawnbroker and his neighbors
I to the effect that the man was an
Italian-the generic term in England
for all southerners of swarthy COM
| plexion."
Eyes" l said, granted the sloth,
will admit that its owner was prob
ably South American. But what
gave you the idea of it's being q
sloth, and how does it come into the
story?
"Why," said Crewe, IT saw its
marks upon the brick work of the
tower, and also at Noting Hill. The
! sloth has only three toes, and it's
I marks are as much like hen-tracks
as anything in the world. You have
undoubtedly seen a sloth's feet at the
Geological Gardens when you were a
| boy"
Undoubtedly; but they have en-
tirely escaped my recollection"
"That is the difference between
u.s." said Crewe, smiling. "But. to
continue, the sloth has acquired the
remarkable habit of hanging by its
toes from the branches of trees.
With it's head down, its heavy body
suspended by it's slender paws, it
sleeps happily all through the day,
awakening only at night, when it pur-
sues it insect prey When suspended
in this manner nothing can dislodge
, it; in fact, the sloth seems able to
defy the laws of gravitation. A
weight of a ton, affixed to its body,
would not pull it downward or dis
turb it in it's ecstatic slumbers. On
the other hand, by unclasping the
paws and pulling upward, the sloth
can be easily and harmlessly re-
moved from its resting place. And so
our organ-grinder had a sloth in
place of a monkey. The plan of dis
playing it in the streets openly, under
the guise Of a sick monkey, was a
brilliant conception, and shows us
that our criminal was man of high
degree of mentality.
"The rest of the picture, Langton,
you can fill in for yourself. Having
discovered the most convenient hour
for his enterprise, the burglar at
taches a long rope around the crea-
ture, coiling the other end around
his body, and places it upon the wall.
Our sloth,. feeling the smooth surface
beneath him, and being unable to
sleep perpendicularly, conceives the
idea that he is upon the stem of a
peculiarly high and smooth palm
tree, at whose summit he may. hope
to find a comfortable branch from
which it is his delight to feed. He