The Bottineau courant. (Bottineau, Bottineau County, N.D.) 1895-1929, 1922-09-07
True
Detective Stories
ROQUOIS MURDER

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Copyright by The Wheeler Syndicate, Inc.
THERE are. many who have ridi-
culed the methods by which
Craig Kennedy, Sherlock Holmes
and other master sleuths Of fiction
have arrived at their infallibly correct
conclusions by deductive reasoning or
by mechanical apparatus which regis
tiers every fraction Of a heartbeat or
every minute change in the suspects
respiration.
But every now and then these same
methods are used by detectives in real
life, frequently with a great degree
of success.
For example, there was the Hotel
Iroquofs murder case in which Police
Commissioner Dougherty of New York
applied a mixture Of the Holmes and
Kennedy rules in such a manner al to
make the guilty nan practically con-
Wet himself, although at the time he
was ignorant Of the fact that he was
doing it.
William 81. Jackson, a wealthy guest
room n morning, stabbed through
the heart. His gold watch and sew
eral other pieces Of jewelry had not
been touched, but the only money in
his clothes were three twenty-five
cent pieces in one Of his vest pockets.
AS Jackson was known to have car
ried a good deal Of money, the sup
position was that he had been MUIR
dered by someone who had either lost
his nerve or who feared to take the
watch and jewelry because they could
be too easily traced.
Even Commissioner Dougherty's
knowledge of the working of the
criminal mind could find little that
could be digni1ed by the term "clue."
Jackson had evidently returned to
his rather late the night before
lin fact n Of the clerks recalled
seeing him enter shortly after mid
night-but the elevator boy said that
he had come up alone, and that no
n had gone up or come down from
the same floor for several hours after
wards.
"That means nothing" Dougherty
pointed out.
After a careful examination of the
room and the body Of the murdered
man, Dougherty returned to his Office
and contented himself with seeing
that the machinery Of the police was
kept carefully oiled. But to no effect.
As days passed without further de-
velopments, the public began to criti-
cfze and find fault.
Finally, when the wave Of criticism
had reached a height that he could
NJ longer afford to overlook it, Com
missioner Dougherty decided to try a
method which, as he phrased it, was
q shot in the dark-and q hundred-to-
IN shot at that"
Gall we've been able to find OUT"
he said to one of his lieutenants, "is
that Jackson was stabbed by a left
handed man, standing behind him and
slightly to one side Of him. Jackson
dropped without a sound and the muir
derer was able to lift his roll with
est. The whole thing probably didn't
take more than sixty seconds. Now,
excluding the guests in the hotel at
the time-most of whom it's manifest
ly impossible to reach-I want you to
round up every person who was in the
Tro0,1ois thof pirhf Hind ont uhfoh
nes are left-handed, and bring EN-
down here and let me talk to EN-"
Third degree, chiefT
"NOw SnOrted the commissioner.
''That wouldn't do in this case. At
least the old-fashtoned kind wouldn't.
I'm going to try something new. It's
a gamble, but we've got to take a
chance"
One by one the left-handed brigade
was marched into Dougherty's Office.
One by one he put to them a set Of
questions, n Of the first Of which
their pulse. Once he had his finger
on the. suspects wrist, he never lifted
it until the final question had been
asked and answered.
It was not until the commissioner
commenced to question Paul Geidel,
the elevator boy who had taken Jack
son up to his floor the night that he
had been murdered, that he noted any
material change in the pulse beats of
the persons he was examining. When
he asked Geidel what he had done i'm
mediately after Jackson had stepped
ont of his car the h0Y's mise hest