The New York herald., 1922-11-26
SIR. BASIL THOMSON

course don't take too much time. but
do what you can
Inspector Blodgett was gone Just
forty eight hours.
whats the matter. Blodgett?" do
manded Sir Basil.
Nothing at all, SIR" explained
Blodgett. "It was quite simple. We
have her locked up and a confession.
SIR"
"who7"
THE cooks girl A half grown
young woman. The scullery maid, so
to speak"
"You see. sir" explained Blodgett.
''I asked them the minute I got there
to let mo read the letters. Quite q
stack Of them there WIS. Forty or
Atty should say. spent two
hours reading them. I noticed In some
Of them words repeatedly misspelled
-'w-i-c-h.' 'm-a-b-y.' 'c-e-l-l-e-r,'
K-u-r-b.' 1-o-v-e-i-n-g.' &C. Well, sir,
I made up list OF those misspelled
words and called together all men,
bers Of the family and all the servants.
/ had them all together and gave each
pencil and a block OF paper.
"'Now,- said I. you viii be kind
enough to write down what dictate
We'll, sir, dictated something or
other to them slowly. using all the
misspelled words. Then collected the
papers. looked them all over and went
to the scullery maid and said:
SEQ here. young woman, where's
that typewriter
"Blest II she DIDN'T brazen Il out
until showed her her nisspelled
words in the 'dictation and the same
misspelling IN the letters. And then
she took me Off to where she had the
typewriter hidden. They'd never heard
her using It. because she never used
Il near tho house."
SO how about that. Mr.. Holmes?
The Broken Button Mystery;
Or. Who Killed Costermonger
Sir Basil tells OF one Of the many
missing and broken button mysteries.
What odty hasn't had It's murder
whore the only olew WAS . button or
a piece Of button found near tho scene
Of the crtmss But here was a London
costermonger murdered of q Saturday
Dashed In. Whoever did Il took the
mans overcoat too. Twenty feet
away from tho body the police found
piece Of fairly large and altogether
common bono button.
Tho button might have had nothing
at all to DO with the murder. To re-
peat, Il was, after all. only a silver of
button. This murder happened in
the winter. Scotland Yard men
searched the public houses In the dis
trict and suspected this man and that.
But there was no arrest that winter.
They did not find the missing overcoat
either. although all the hundreds of
pawnbrokers were interviewed and old
clothes men examined.
But along about overcoat time of the
following winter one of the inspectors
asked Sir Basil to let him have Just
one more go at Il. They had saved the
foolish little silver of bone button. The
inspector took II and Jared forth 10
Limehouse. From pub to pub he went.
Stimulating drunkenness. He'd paw
men and fall against men. He would
become embrolled In arguments and
fights. He was having a pretty rough
time OF II. sPresently he came TO n
particularly mean pub where the muir
dered man had been wont to do his
drinking.
The inspector lurched among the as
sembled costermonsers and suddenly
he came TO a man with an overcoat
that sported button that was not
quite whole. He picked fight with
the wearer OF that overcoat and
promptly knocked him stiff, as we
Americans are wont to say. The
roughnecks present applauded the vic
tory of n drunken man over a sober
heavyweight but paused, somewhat
startled, when the former shed his pre-
tense of lntoxicatlon and coolly fitted a
silver OF bone button to the incomplete
button on the dazed coster's overcoat
That is all The wearer OF the over
coat was hanged for the murder. He
confessed before Jack Ketch ended
him. A bit OF brain work. that. And
the brain came from Scotland Yard.
Sir Basil sets forth the most valuable
assets OF the detective department and