Evening star., 1927-12-04
RY GEORGE DU.NOT,
Foremost Authority on Scotland Yard.

Foremost Authority on Scotland Yard.
% HERE is an engaging and de
luding air of simplicity about
Billy Cough. There are SO
many things that he processes
to know nothing about. You
might talk with him for hours and
set any man down as a liar who told
YOU that Cough had been one OF the
most formidable detectives of Bow
Street and Scotland Yard. Put him
in a strange place and the confidence
men would line up with shame in
their minds AT taking advantage Of
his artleSSneSS. 1t is not a pose,
either. He knows there are crooks
in the world because he has spent his
life fighting them. hut he prefers to
believe that the majority of tho world
is honest.
| remember that he once asked me-
with grave Innocence what a sucker
was. And give him a chance and Il
quiet hour and YOU will hear-not
stories o( mystery and crime, bat
tales Of 2 wonderful wife whom he
married iust rs he was starting his
career. and who he thinks is still
more wonderful ut this day.
Sllv Gou< must he getting on for
81 now. He is still as straight AS
a ian,S. spd has the face and phT-
sique of man Of 40. And beneath
that mask Of natural urbanity there
still turks that habit of thinking in
a straight line which served him SO
well when he was a divisional in,
spector at Bow Street and later
chief detective inspector at Scotland
Yard. IT was this habit that enabled
him to run down the murderer Of
Capt. Tighe when all apparent clues
had burst like bubbles at the first
touch.
Capt. Tighe was an elderly army
officer who lived in a big house
Winfield Lodge-overlookins Vim
bledon Common. one of the finest
open spaces on the fringe of London.
The old captain was troubled with
asthma and for that reason he slept
in a remote room of the house so
that mis- fits of coughing should not
disturb his wife or the other occu-
pants. on a November morning in
1917 maid with an early cup of tea
knocked at his door. There was no
answer. but that was not unusual.
She quietly pushed open the door
with the intention of pulling up the
blinds. At her first glimpse inside
the room the cup crashed from her
hands. Her master, fully dressed.
was lying unconscious and dying on
the floor, his head in a pool of blood.
The girl raised the alarm. Medi-
cal help and the police We're tele-
phoned for, but the captain was too
desperately hurt for any efforts to
avail. He died without recovering
consciousness. There was no need to
look far for the rough details of the
crime. \ heavy poker stained with
blood and bent with the terrific force
of the blows was found in the bed
room. Tighe had been sitting in a
chair by his fire when he had been
attacked from behind with this i'm.
plement. The method of the murder
was plain. The motive was not so
obvious.
THE local detectives were puzzled
There was no one known to have
any grudge against Tighe, no person
against whom suspicion could be lev
eled who would derive any benefit
from his death. That left the theory
of burglars. This was supported by
the discovery of heelmarks in the gar
den outside the study window, which
was partly open. There was a finger.
print on one of the panes, but the eX
perts found it too blurred to be of
value. 1ldSISf casts were taken
of the heelmarks, although the most
cursory inspection made it obvious
that not one of them was clean cut
enough to be of any use for purpose
of identity. Nor could the detectives
feel certain that the murder was the
work of burglars. There were few
of the ordinary signs of robbery about
the house. Nothing of value was
missing. Only after great deal of
trouble was it revealed that two gun
metal watches belonging to the dead
man were gone, as was a raincoat be-
longing to one of the servants. This
was not heavy spoil to take from the
house OF a well-to-do man as the price
OF murder. 1t was noted as a signifi-
cant fact that the servants entrance
to WINFIELD Lodge had not, by some
mischance, been locked or bolted on
the night of the murder.
A week of hard but fruitless inves-
tigation went by before Cough was
sent down from Scotland Yard. /
gather from what he later told me
that a preliminary survey Of the sit
uation did not make him optimistic.
The ordinary professional burglar, in