The daily Alaskan., 1916-04-24
SCENTING \ CRIME
How a Russian Police Inspector
 Formulated a Theory.
WORKING UP A MURDER CASE.


 Case Fit Into Each Other Perfectly
 and Then Proceeded to Demonstrate
 His Accuracy of Deduction.
 We are not encouraged to believe that the Russian police inspector is the equal of the trained French official If Anton Chekhoff's story of the deduc- tive method in Russia is illustrative.
 One morning a young man hurried into the office of an inspector of police and reported that his master, an officer of the guard who had been separated from hls wife and lived alone, had been murdered. He was greatly ex- cited. The inspector went with him at once to the scene of the tragedy.
 When he arrived at the house he found the door to the officers bedroom locked, the key on the inside. The servants, unable to awake their mas ter. had concluded that he was dead. The inspector found the door unin. jured. He had it forced open. The bed lad been tossed about, the pillows on the floor. On a table near the bed was the officers watch and some silver coins. The officer and his clothing were gone except for a single boot that lay on the floor The inspector exam med the room carefully. The only thing he found was a partly burned sararg match. IL was known that the ou'ger dld not smoke and used only sulphur matches for h's candles. He examined the garden below the win dow. The grass and some bushes had been trampled. He found q piece of cul.on on some twigS and some fine threads of dark blue wool. At some distance from the window, in the gar den under bush he found the second top boot.
 The inspector came to the conclusion, from the evidences, that the man mad been strang.eG and his body taken out through the window.
 Tie fact that the watch and money were uudisturbed showed that the pur. pose of the crime was not robbery. The safety mach indicated that some BersUn above the ordinary was con nected with the affair, since peasants or common servants would have only sulphur matches. The fact that one bC0t remained in the room made the iusrcctor believe that the guardsman had been killed while he was undrcss- ing. The finding of the other boot in tine garden indicated that this one had been partly removed and had fallen oG while the body was being carried nway
 The inspector in his report recon structel the crime: On the evening in question the guardSman, who had been on prolonged debauch, went to his room druuk As he sat on his bed, taking of one of his boots, he had been attacked and smothered with the pill low. During the struggle the candle was knocked over and aftCrward one of the assassins rellghtcd it, striking a safety match When the man was dead his body had been taken out through the window and carried across the gar den. As it passed the lilac bush the remaining boot, partly removed by the man before he was attacked, dropped off.
 The inspector, having arrived at this deduction, determined 10 locate the safety match. He went to all the shops In every direction, but not one of them carried in it's stock such a thing as a box of safety matches Finally, at some distance from the scene of the tragedy, he found a shOpkeeper who had a single pack of such matches. It was a broken pack, with one box miss ing. The shopkceper remembered pre- cisely who had purchased this missing box. It was the wife Of the guards man, big, masculine woman of un- usual physical strength. She lived near the apartment in which the guards man had been murdered. It was now night, but the inspector went at once to the woman and charged her with tue murder of her husband.
 ''I know all about It," he said. Take me at once to the place where you have concealed your husband"
 She got a key from a nail on the wall and went out into the courtyard The inspector followed. They finally reached a little house at the end of the garden. The woman unlocked the door and they entered. By the light of a candle the inspector saw the long body of a man lying motionlcss on Q bed in the corner of the room. He approached to examine the murdered body.
 But here his deductions wentN to pieces. The supposed dead man sat up. and the explanation of all the tragic incidents appeared. The guards man was going to bed every night drunk. His wife heard of It and went across the garden to his window to remonstrate with. him. He put the window up and, seeing who 1t was, threw his boot at her She was a resolute woman in masculine efficiency. She climbed in through the window, thrashed the drunken guardsman soundIy, dragged him across the gar
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