Evening star., 1932-01-31
By
William G.. White
Drawings by
Stockton MuJord

The local police sent men to Dublin and found
that the telegram was sent by one ~. Hartigan,"
who had given a false address in Dublin; yet that
name was found on the passenger list OF ooac
that ran from England to Ireland. The hand-
writing on the telegraph blank reSembled that OF
a German The police secured vague descrip-
ton of the man and began search for hlm.
At the same time they carefully investigated
the Young officers friends and acquaintances and
questioned particularly the man who had been
the first husband of the young wife. Ihls man
insisted that while he was certain that foul play
had occurred he was innocent, mo matter What
insinuation or direct accusation is made against
me-" He proved, further, that he was away from
Aldershot at the time of the officers death
Three weeks had passed since the poisoned
partridge had been served and each path OF So
luton had turned into blind alley.
Then Orientasts entered the investigation and
thoroughly confused theories and suspicious.
They said that the Chinese in that Manchurlan
district from which the partridges had come
often attach berries of nuX vomca, the strych-
nine bush on to the wild garlic which Is the
favorite food of these game birds. The bros
swallow the poison during feeding, thus saving
the Chinese the trouble of shooting tnem; the
Chinese claim that if the birds are properly
cleaned no harm can come to humans from eat
ing them.
Other experts IN LnaC pdII VI Il1e "oiio
added a second story-that very often partrldgeS
poisoned with strychnine are used as bait LOT
fur-bearing animals Had some Manchurlan
poacher found trap baited, removed the
birds and, pretending to have bagged them, SOLD
them to a game dealer, who eventually shipped
them to England?
Whatever the answer, it was unknown SIX
weeks after the death of the young officer In lts
place stood three questions: Who had killed him,
if it was murder? Why had he got such tre-
mendous dose of poison, having eaten almost
none of the fowl? And why, If the birds were
roasted together, had the little bird not been
poisoned, thus killing the wife as we'll? 1t was
demonstrated by actual cooking that one poi
soned bird could Infect" the other during baking.
The mystery caught Englands imagination; it
surpassed any of the recent "thrillers." News
papers, seeing the tremendous difficulty
the local police were having, began to
urge Call in Scotland Yard" That
D. great institution of detective skill, with
it's 900 detectives and its millions OF
& fingerprints, was standing by, doing
nothing. For there was nothing it could
do since Scotland Yard has no original
jurisdiction outside the London area 1t
can work no case outside unless in
vited by the local police.
II u AND did the local police call in Scot
S land Yard? They did not! fiction
writer would have had the Yard in long
before, and the inspector would have
L. turned out to be an expert, just side
line on things Chinese. But in this
tual case the head of the local police said,
faasA "We are quite capable of conducting
IN own affairs. I don't want any further
. reference made to this!" Thus Scotland
Yard waits, unable to investigate any
crime that may occur, roughly, more than
Sx Is miles outside of the center of London
E unless the local authorities so desire.
1 And they do not always SO desire, for
81 the local police have regulations to earn
NSasaMs or to maintain, duty which they Oft
SN times consider more important than
#MM solving crime.
u - Scotland Yard has about 10000 en-
III ployes, 10000 of them, in uniform, work.
N ing out of district police stations and