The evening times. [volume] (Grand Forks, N.D.) 1906-1914, 1912-03-08

100000 worth of which were shipped
IN the upholstery of a sofa. Burns
looked for a clew and the only track
left by the clever c~onspirators was
the mark N. X" with the figure 1884
beneath it on the burlap In which that
sofa had been packed. So instead Of
going to Costa Rica Burns made a per-
burlap manufacturers. He found that
one that turned out that kind of bur-
lap. but the manufacturer of course.
could not remember all the people
who had purchased it. The shipment
however. had started from Long Is
land and Burns searched s~alesbooks
Of the factory until he discovered Il
department store where he found a
clerk who remembered selling Il piece
of goods to a woman whose description
fitted that of the chief conspirator's
mother-in-law. Which was barred
curtains for Ricardo de Requescns.
h fact that the famous TAYLOR
Bredell forging combination contained
an expert in photography work was
sufictent to turn the trick that Won for
Burns In a long chase Of the only
counterfeiters who ever rivaled Ulrich
and who made a 800 silver certificate
so good that many government experts
pronounced it genuine.
Similarity in so trifing a material as
saWdust packing made the detective
certain Of his quarry in the Los An
geles dynamite case, just cleared up by
the McNamaras' confession. AS Sher-
lock Holmes himself might have put
1t. quite elementary, my dear Wat
! SON"
Yet it was by going far back into
the record of one G. NJ. Roy. an asso-
ciate of Mayor Schmitz of San FRAN
cisco. that an old. old crime cropped
out-a forgery of the signature OF a
member of President McKinley's cabi-
net n an embezzlement of govern
ment money in Guthrie, Okla. And
then RoN-or Maurice Golden"-was
on his knees n Burns promised him
immunity from %extradition if he would
confess. So Ruef and Schmitz came
TO book. Which would hardly be
classed as elementary" being moro
on the'involved order of a Gaboricau
achievement by NJ. Lecoq.
Detective Burns is nothing il not
thorough. When he assume a char
acter he becomes it. When he went to
that little Ohio town to ferret out a
barbarous lynching mystery in which
everybody was conccrned-and SO sus-
picious that strangers were in danger
OF their lives on an innocent VISIT
burns went as an insurance agent.
Hut first he took a course in jnscur-
ance and became a regularly register.
cd agent of a we'll known
And then he sold insurance through
half a dozen little towns first, and then
he came to the town Of the lynching
and it wasn't two weeks before two
men from h "a town called on tho
nome office of that insurance company
to know IT Mr.. So and So really was
a registered agent. And it Mr.. So and
| So had nNt hpan IL 10 r1Aen <ia,~ ~~,-L
able there would have been another
lynching in that town with a great
detective as the central figure. As
1t was he lived with those people and
lulled their suspicious and found out
every man that had a hand In the
outrage: 1t may be added that "hcmp
parties" have been distinctly
lar in a certain Ohio community since
the advent of a certain bland insur-
ance agent.
But if vol ever meet William J.
Burns, detective-unoficially of course
somebody will have to whisper the
detective part of it in Your ear or YOU
VIII take it for granted that this MFR.
burns YOU have met or the street or
III the train or anywhere else. There
are no signs attached to MFR. Burns.
He docs not talk about sleuthinr. IIe
does not remark. AHA. I see YOU have
mad a disagreement with the cook this
m%orntng!" You will see a stocky, al
mos pudgy business man. SO years old
and YOU never would guess to look at
him that half of the fifty years have
been spent In chasing the worlds clev-
crest wr~ong-doers on the Burns the
DRY tina every criminal leaves a
track" Only. you might remember
Iatterward that the pudgy man had DOL
light blue eyes that looked very
straight into yours and gave you an
odd sensation as If he knew what YOU
! were going to say before you said it.