The Little River news., 1922-04-12
True Detective Stories THE RED HAND

of the London local which was due to stop at Hackney shortly after six o'clock in the evening, were even more insistent than usual In their de- mands one night in the summer, for the train was already late. and trying to make up time. But a cry of conster- nation from one of the men who was boarding the train brought the ak- tendants flocking around him.
 Look" he cried, pointing through the glass of the compartment toward the cushions of the seat on the far side My God, man! Don't you see? They are soaked with blood And there's mans walking stick and black leather bag! Where's the oc- cupant of this compartment? That was the question which pug. zled every membef of the London po- lice force, and especially Col. James Fraser, head of the department. Where was the man who had very evidently been murdered fin the coachf Who was he?
 The black bag contained no informa- ton whatever. and the walking stick was merely an ordinary one, lacking even initials. The guard who had | charge of that car said that he seemed to recall two men getting into that compartment at Fenchurst streets in London but he wasn't sure. When Colonel Fraser examined tho car carefully however, he found the print of bloody hand-a hand with short, squat fiDgers-on the wall of the coach, evidently where the mur- derer had steadied himself after com hitting the crime. But where was the body7
 This angle of the case was soon cleared up by the discovery of the ] body of man near the railroad tracks in Victoria park. The head and face had been so disflgured that Identification would have been almost impossible, had 1t not been for the card which was found in his vest pocket. By means of this 1t was found that the dead man was cer- tain Thomas Briggs, chief clerk of London banking house, who had been on his way to visit his daughter in Peckham. According to his asso- ciates, he was in the habit of carrying him, and also wore very handsome watch and chain. When the body was discovered, however, the watch, chain and the money were missing.
 Immediately after the body was dis covered Colonel Fraser measured the fingers of the left hand, but found that they were entirely too long and well shaped to fit the bloody imprint on the wall of the coach.
 Pinning his faith to the fact that the murderer would probably try to sell Briggs watch and chain, the pc i lice settled down to watch all the pawn brokers In and around London, but days passed without any develop ments from this end of the case.
 Finally, just as Fraser was nearing the end of his patience a secondhand dealer in Cheapsfde reported that chain, similar to the one worn by the dead man, had been brought into
 
 murder. The chain, he said. had been placed in with some others, and had slipped his mind, until he commenced to go over his stock. The only de- I scriptiOn he could give of the man who sold it was that he was foreign looking" in fact he felt certain he was a German. 1 More in order to quiet the press than because he attached any real i'm portance to the discovery, Colonel Fraser made public the details of the dealers story, and the following morn- ing man called at police headquar- ters, bringing witb him a card which he said his daughter had found on the l, floor of the room recently occupied by Franz Muller. The card bore the name of the secondhand dealer who had purchased the chain! Muller, stated Fraser's informant, was a German who had boarded in his house for some time past, but who 1 had suddenly disappeared, leaving most of his effects behind him.
 Didn't happen to leave a photo graph, did her"
 "Yes, sir, he did. Here it is," and the man produced a picture which the secondhand dealer immediately iden- tified as the man who had sold him the chain.
 ] It was matter of only few hours to trace the German to steamship office and to find that he had sailed, 4S hours before, for America. Wish ing his own men to have credit for the capture, Fraser dispatched two of them to New York on fast boat, and when Muller stepped off the ! gangplank he was arrested for the murder of Thomas Briggs, although he l vigorously protested his innocence, and stated that he had bought the chain from a man on the street. As further proof of his assertion, he pro- duced Briggs watch, which he said he had bought at the same time as the | chain