The Holbrook news., 1922-03-31
True Detective Stories BROKEN GLASS

NV w New York's police force reached
 Sixty-ninth street and Park ave hue shortly after the accident which caused the death of John McHugh, he found practically nothing which could come under the head of evidence"
 McHugh, it appeared, had been driv- ing along in a light buggy, shortly after dark. An automobile, speeding from behind, had struck the buggy and smashed it to bits, killing Me Hugh instantly. Apparently the only living witness to the tragedy was the horse, but, as Brennan said, there's no way of maxim horse talk"
 So the sergeant set to work to col lect what bits of evidence he could gather from the surrounding street.
 Caught on one of the spokes of the buggy wheel, where 1t had evidently been torn off by the force of the col lision, was nickel-plated lamp rim bearing the name of the Ham Lamp Company, Rochester, \. Y." That. and small fragment of automobile tire about three inches in length. ap- peared to be the only results of the damage which the automobile had sui fered.
 But Brennan figured that, as the lamp rim had been torn from its socket, the lens of the lamp would naturally have been shattered, so he set to work to pick up the bits of glass. When he returned to head quarters that night he brought with him an envelope containing twenty-one pieces of glass, together with the nick eled rim, the buggy spoke on which 1t had caught and the jagged piece torn from the automobile tire.
 "What are you going to do with that iunk?' inquired his associates on the force. If Sherlock Holmes had had those he could have told you the make of the car, the complexion of the man who was driving il, the li- cense number and how many gallons of gas there was in the tank-but, outside of a book, what good are they?"
 Maybe none at all," admitted Brennan, "but if you'll use some brains when you look at 'em you'll note sev- eral things that may be of help in lo- catin' the car that killed McHugh and then drove off into the night. l never did take much stock in the Sherlock Holmes stories-it's easy enough to fix it so that your hero can solve problem that you know the answer of but here's one case in which think that his deducin' theories will come in pretty handy.
 ''See that smudgef' and the ser geant held up the buggy spoke and pointed to what appeared to be worn place on the wood toward the end which had been nearest the wheel. At first I thought it was merely where the paint had worn off and the wood showed through. But the rest of the buggy was spick and span Only few days out of the shop So I examined it more carefully and found that it was bit of gray paint, scratched off the body of the death car itself!
 ''Take that lamp rim, now. There are fourteen cars on the market that are equipped with lamps made by that company. So that reduces the number of suspects that much more. We've got to look for gray car of one of those fourteen makes, which elim- mates more than 70 per cent of the cars in the city"
 "But what about those pieces of glass? What are they goin' to tell
 yOu?"
 Eventually, the name of the man who owned the car," replied Brennan "There are three kinds of glass there -one plain glass, one mirror lens and one cOncave-convex lens. If you'll fit 'em together you'll see that the ear carried eight-inch gas headlights and six-inch oil sidelights Therefore it was an old model. The bit of rubber was very evidently ripped off four inch tire. Now, you members of the traffic squad, what kind of a car an- swers those specifications"
 "A 1909 Packard, model 1S," came in chorus from several of the men who had been trained to recognize the make and model of an automo- bile from the appearance of its head lights.
 "Right '" snapped Brennan. -Old Sherlock Holmes wasn't so far out of the way after all. Now all we have to look for is 1909 model Packard. painted gray, with at least one gash along the paint on the right side and badly in need of repairs. The head lights are gone, so the car couldn't have travelled very far. Get after the garages around Sixty-ninth street and we ought to have our man before morning. I've done enough work for one night and I'm perfectly willin' that one of you boys should have the credit for the arrest!'
 It was less than an hour later that the headquarters phone rang and Brennan was notified that the owner and driver of the car had been ar rested and had confessed giving as an excuse tlle idCl tlliit Hc Aduii SCch McHugh's buggy until he had been right on top of 1t and then it was too late to stop the machine. But the fact that he had driven on, without stop ping to see what damage he had caused. was enough to convict him of manslaughter and send him to the penitentiary for an extended visit-all on account of few pieces of glass, bit of rubber and a smudge of paint. plus the ingenuity of the detective