New Britain herald., 1930-03-21
Tire Tracks First Clue
 In Cedar Park Murde!
The Second Step

'rrhe first step is to find q clue Merdon was telling his friend, Pills l bury, the author,
 Medrou had been a detective for years. Pillsbury was questioning him about his work, Detective stories were greatly in vogue and Pillsbury wanted,to to write some.
 T should think" Pillsbury said, "that the finding of the clue was about all there is to q murder case.
 "Oh no-the second step is most important. A man might find twenty clues, and be unable to run down one of them. The second step is important, most important, and e-that is in finding how to run down the clue-how to pin this clue to the guilty party"
 Aren't you talking in circles, ~Medron? Of course the detective, professional or amateur, has to get the evidence against the criminal-' . Wait, you don't get what I mean. Take the OYington murder case, for example. I didn't work on it, so can praise Unger, who solved it, as he deserves to be praised. It hap pened a, couple of years ago, out at Cedar Park-you know the suburb. Quite a foreign settlement out there.
 T know-it's just below that pretty little town of Haldeau" "Yes. Well, a girl, around ninc- teen, was found murdered in her home. She had evidently been alone there. Her father and mars ried sister were away. The girl had been shot to death. Ungcr was sent out from Haldean to look around. Only one person had been in the little cottage, a woman nelghbor and she had only walked in far enough to see the dead girl and rush out to telephone.
 'Unger arrived with the police He couldn't find 2. footprint, q fin. ger mark other than finger marks <. of the family, not a scrap of evi- p dence. The bullet was a, .32 calibrc, 9 like those used in thousands of re- volvers. It revealed nothing, if bore no scratches that might link il with any particular revolver barrel and a man cant round up all the .52 calibre revolvers in the country to find that out
 50 Unger began to ask questions The girl wasn't. engaged, so far as was known, she knew dozen young men, but none were what might he called her steady sweethearts. He went outside and searched, but it had been very dry weather and there were no traces of footprints, cars or anything else on the hard beaten dirt of the yard of this house.
 ,- Cedar Turnpike ran past the s'house, wide and cemented. Not q trace there. Perhaps you know about the two highways out there, T Pillsbury. Here. I'll show you - He drew rough outline as shown on this page, marked A. -s Lust below the house where the murder was committed the Cedar Turnpike curves to within quarter mile of the Haldean Turnpike, but they never meet. At this point there is all old dirt road connecting the two turnpikes, Unger went down there and walked across, It was boggy land and not well filled in. There was a long, damp place. Over this damp place Unger found his first step-tirc car tracks-you know, automobile tire tracks. It was a common sized tire of popu- Jar make. thousands of cars there abouts were equipped with such tires. Here, I'll show you what Un- ger saw"
 Medron drew a rough sketch of the tire tracks Detective Ungcr found in the damp dirt road t(B). well, Pilsbury, here was tn, gers first step. How did he carry out his second Step?"
 Pillsbury, the author, couldn't solve it.
 Can you?