The Little River news., 1922-04-05
True Detective Stories
VANISHING MAN
:s@*v*aa''S'aaes.s' Copyright by The whSsiif SyhdfcateS In,


 TWEEN Gideon Rabshay. chief .ot w detectives df Cleveland, Ohio,
 was notified over the long dis tance wire from Buffalo, that the police of that city had captured the fouf men responsible for the murder of .Parolmari. Leroy Bouker. he smi1ed, shrugged his shoulders, and muttered |:
 'Fine workl That much is out of the way!"
 But, had Rabshaw only known 1t, his troubles were only beginning for one of the bandits, a man by the name of Meaney, determined to fight for his life with every weapon that the law afforded him.
 Securing an attorney familiar with the kinks and twists of criminal law, ha quickly succeeded in manufactur- ing an alibl which appeared to be iron clad. Half a dozen witnesses swore that, at the time Bouker was shot, Meaney had been in their company, and that 1t was physically impossible for him to reach the scene of the crime in tune to take part in the murder.
 Meapey's lawyer followed his clients instructions to make the alibi good enough for me to have 24 hours clear ance-once I'm out of Cleveland they'll never find me" and the district at- torney, rather than lmperil the entire case, decided to drop the proceedings against Meaney and concentrate his attack upon the other three men who had the foresight to provide themselves with capable legal assistance. There fore, in spite of the pleadings of Chief Rabshaw, Meaney was released.
 Less than twelve hours later, the chief of detectives secured eyideHce that riddled the carefully prepared alibi-eyidence which proved that Meaney had been directly implicated in the murder. But it was too late. The gunman had vanished, apparently into thin ar
 Spurred on by a realization that he had had the man he wanted, actually lodged in jail, only to have him slip through a loophole In the legal wall which surrounded him, Rabshaw de- termined to nail the escaped murder CT if, as he stated. lit took ten years and every man on the force to do it."
 The city of Cleveland was combed from one end to the other. Every known meeting place in the under world was watched and raided and closed.
 But the days heightened into weeks and the weeks into months, and still there was no trace of Meaney.
 At night, when his days work was finished, Rabshaw would relieve the man always on watch at the former Meaney home, for the chief had a theory that some day the fugitive's wife would provide the clue which would lead them to the man they wanted.
 "Yes, I know it's hard work and tedious work" Rabshaw would say, as he took up his nightly vigil. But there's no woman alive that can out @it us if we keep steadily at it.
 As events proved, however, Rab- shaw was wrong. The clue which led to the final capture came from an- other and unexpected source.
 It was some eleven months after the Bouker murder-after Meaney had been traced to Toledo and Pittsburgh and St. Louis and Toronto and vari- ous points in between, the police al ways one jump behind him-that Rab- shaw dropped into the Cleveland post office to purchase stamp. There was nothing unusual in the action itself. He had bought stamps at that window hundreds of times before. But there was something in the attitude of the woman ahead of him in line, some thing furtlve about the manner in which she attempted to conceal the address of the letter which she car ried, which made the chief of the de- tectives wonder what was wrong.
 When he caught a flash of her face, half-hidden under a long black veil, he had an intuition that he knew her reason for trying to prevent anyone from seeing the letter. The woman was Meaney's sister-in-law.
 As she purchased the stamp and bent forward to affix it, Rabshaw stepped swiftly out of line, and sue ceeded in catching a glimpse of the envelope. One glance was all he needed. The missive was addressed to John NJ. Oliver, at a number which Rabshaw knew was in a secluded and quiet part of Indianapolis.
 Early the following morning Rab- shaw took up his vigil outside the house where Oliver was supposed to be living. But no one answering to the description of the missing man made his appearance so the Cleveland chief determined to force the issue by sending two of the local police in to find out if anyone by that name re- sided there. Scarcely had they re- ported that "Oliver lived there, but was out at the time," than Meaney strolled down the street and started to mount the steps of the house, total. ly unsuspicious of his danger. An in. stant later, Rabshaw was upon him,