The North-Eastern Weekly Gazette. — 1891-08-08 (Stockton-on-Tees, Cleveland, England)

DETECTIVE'S STORY.  TRACED BY A BIT OF CANDLE.  . "If the microscope will only re7eal the smallest particles in a link of evidence, and you are certain of its position, the chances are that by vigilant labour you ran forge the whole chain," said detective recently. "As a young lady in a small Southern town was retiring one mght she heard the noise of a scuffle, mingled with sharp cries, coming from the silting. room downstairs. Of a sudden a strange voice shouted something, there came the report of a pistol, and all was still. "As soon as Miss Morton recovered from her fright she flung open the window sod aroused the neighbourhood. When friends arrived they found her father stretched out on the sitting-room floor, shot through the heart. " The most careful search failed to produce any clue except a bit of candle about an inch long. This lay on the floor • few feet from the body. Bonds and notes lay untouched on the open seer..  tary. "A detective agency was given the bit of candle to work on, and kept its men studiously at work on 1, the job for a year, and then turned the whole matter to Chief of Police Whipple, of Chicago. " Whipple and I were talking over mysterious murders one day, when he mentioned this one, and *eked me to join them in it. " ' This bit of candle,' said he, producing it, 'is the only tangible clue there is in the case. Can 'you make anything out of it?' "I scrutinised it closely. It WAS a piece that sd been cat off an ordinary moulded candle. I put it under a pocket mioroscope and saw that it hied beets out trith a knife in such a manner that the wick had— been pressed down A trifle by the , edge of the ipstrument before the threads Were severed. "These shifted fibres partially covered a minute air hole in the tallow. These air holes are quite common in ordinary moulded candles. I scrutinised every particle of surface on that candle with the utmost care, and that air hole was the only distinctive mark it had.  1-hsa  ' There's your only clue,' I said to Whipple. If you can get the other piece of candle from which this was cut you have a very good link in the chain.'  " ' I'll try it,' he declared, and. he started for the town where the murder occurred. He visited every store in the place, but in only one was he successful in finding ordinary candles for sale. "'Have you sold any lately?' he asked the proprietor. !" Not for some time past,' was the reply. . . .  " 'Ever sell them in ;tame' ?' No, replied the dealer, laughing, 'they ere too leap to sell in sections.' "'But don't you ever cut them for your customers?' insis:ed the officer.  chea)  " Never cut one in my life, declared the storekeeper, emphatically.'Oh, hold on a minute, though,' he added. 'Yes, I did, too. I cut one for a little girl about a year ago She bought some things here and asked me for a little piece of candle to put in her Chinese lantern. It was a pretty toy. I remember she showed it to me.' " ' See if you can find the piece. you cut it from.'  "The storekeeper searched his candle box. 'Yes, he said, • here it is. It is an odd, short piece, so I had no call to sell it." " Whipple brought this find to Inc, and we had no trouble in matching the pieces. The air hole in the fibres joined exactly. "How did it end? Why, the little girl proved to be the niece of the man who committed the murder. He was stopping a her house, and on the night of the attempted robbery he had taken that bit of candle from her lantern to help him in his work. "It happened that Mr Merton was working on his books in the sitting-room that night, sad had taken Use larks logo upstairs in search óf something. When he returned he discovered the robber." . , Max GatiOna'S