Evening star., 1922-02-19

Il recall at once" he said. "a rather
exceptional case which had complete
ly baffied the police of a town in the
provinces, but that we succeeded in
clearing up in a few hours. Our as
sistance was asked for by the chief
constable of the place. who confessed
that his men were stumped!
THE problem was to discover the
author of a series Of annoyances to
which a leading physician OF the town
and his family were being subjected.
The persecution had begun with a
stream Of anonymous letters. all of
them Objectionable and some of them
obscene. addressed to the doctor and
other members of his household. One
of these letters was received almost
daily. They were not stamped and
had not come through the post. They
were invariably found in the front
hall and apparently had been dropped
through the letter box. but though
a secret watch was kept on the front
door. no one was seen to approach it.
The household consisted Of the doc
tor, his wife. and three children. a
Eoverness, q cook. a housemaid and
an 'tweeny' or between maid the
latter aged fifteen. None of the ser
wants was in any way suspected
shortly after the beginning Of this
deluge Of anonymous epistles the
house appeared to become bewitched
If the cook laid down a pound of but
ter it disappeared. One by one the
doctors instruments vanished. vari-
ho1o 1f 1T o.
and other members Of the household
appeared to have taken wings and
flown. Finally. the situation SO preyed
on the physicians mind that he found
it next to impossible to attend to his
practice. 1t was then that he sought
the assistance of the local police.
"1t appeared evident that all this
was the work of somebody in the
house, but who it was the best efforts
Of the local sleuths failed to disclose
The entire series of letters, which
were in a hand unlike that Of any
member Of the household. had been
handed them over to the instructor of
our detective class and told him he
had better go and make an investi-
cation.
X X
ssIIE caught q train that started a,
ten o'clock the next morning
and before eight in the evening was
back at the Yard. He reported that
he had cleared up the case and that
the culprit was under arrest. asked
how he had done it SO quickly.
"Well.' he said. I took the whole
bunch of letters with me and made a
study Of them in the train. That study
revealed that seventeen words were
misspelled in all the letters. Having
discovered this. I composed a little
narrative that contained all the mis-
spelled words. On arriving at the
house had a look around and cross
examined the various members of the
household.
""rhen assembled them all. from
the doctor himself down to the
tweeny.' in the dining room. had them
provided with writing materials and
told them that each must write what
I was going to dictate. I then read
my little composition and each OF
them wrote it down. After examining
their respective productions I knew
had found the guilty party. I asked
everybody but the doctors wife and
the between maid to leave the room.
Then I ordered the little servant to
take us to her bedroom. She did SO
after making a show os Indignation.
The room contained her trunk, which
was locked. She declared she had
lost the key. but produced it on being
told that IL she failed to I should
force the lock. When the trunk was
opened We found It contained, not
only all the articles that had SO mys-
teriously disappeared. but also a sup
ply Of stationery Identical with that
on which the anonymous letters had
been written.
"Then' the girl broke down and
confessed. Young as she was. when
writing the letters she had disguised
her handwriting 90 cleverly as tn
make it completely unlike her usual
fist She had no particular griev-
ance against any member Of the fam
ssx, h,,f anueared 70 havA hAe0 In.