I MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE THE RECOLLECTIONS OF A SPY TWENTY-FIVE YEARS IN THE SECRET SERVICE BY MAJOR HENRI LE CARON WITH NEW PREFACE. 8vo boards, price 2s. 6d., or in cloth, 3s. 6d. The Library Edition, with Portrait and Facsimiles, is still on sale, 8vo, price 14s. LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN, 21, BEDFORD ST., w.c. Photograph by George Prince, Washington JOHN WILSON MURRAY MEMOIRS OF A INCIDENTS IN THE LIFE OF JOHN WILSON MURRAY WITH PORTRAIT AND FACSIMILES LONDON WILLIAM HEINE MANN 1904 This Edition enjoys copyright in all countries signatory to the Berne Treaty, and is not to be imported in the United States of America. CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE I. MURRAY I II. FROM BABYHOOD TO BATTLESHIP 6 III. THE FIRST CASE: CONFEDERATE COLE'S COUP . IO IV. A WORD BY THE WAY ....... 2O V. KNAPP : A WEAZENED WONDER ..... 26 VI. THE FEMININE FIRM OF HALL AND CARROLL . 32 VII. THE EPISODE OF POKE SOLES 37 VIII. HOW A FEUD ALMOST BURNED ERIE .... 40 IX. TWO SCARS, BY THE BLADE OF NAPPER NICHOLS AND THE BULLET OF WHITEY STOKES .... 43 X. A KING, A LUNATIC, AND A BURGLAR THREE IN ONE, AND NONE AT ALL ...... 46 XI. THE BOX-CAR BATTLE OF SWEETMAN, AND THE THRASHERS WITH THE WHEAT . 5 2 XII. WITH THE HELP OF JESSIE MCLEAN .... 58 XIII. THE COURSE OF A CAREER 60 XIV. SANCTIMONIOUS BOND ....... 64 XV. WHEN RALPH FINDLAY LURCHED AND FELL . 69 XVI. THE TINKLING HOUSE OF WELLINGTON SQUARE . 77 XVII. THE DRIVERLESS TEAM ON CALEDONIA ROAD . 8 1 XVIII. APROPOS OF HUNKER CHISHOLM . 86 vi CONTENTS CHAP. 1-AGB XIX. THE WHITESIDES OF BALLINAFAD . 89 XX. THE MONAGHAN MURDER . 91 XXI. THE SIX-FOOT NEEDHAMS : FATHER AND SON . 95 XXII. PRETTY MARY WARD OF THE GOVERNMENT GARDENS IO2 XXIII. THE FATAL ROBBERY OF THE DAINS . Io8 " xxiv. "AMER! AMER ! AMER ! 120 xxv. MCPHERSON'S TELLTALE TROUSERS . .125 XXVI. WHEN GLENGARRY WRECKED THE CIRCUS . .128 XXVII. THE DISAPPEARING STORES ..... 136 XXVIII. MARY ANN WEATHERUP, COQUETTE. 142 XXIX. THE CAPTURE OF LOCHINVAR SPROULE . 146 I I XXX. THE MILLION DOLLAR COUNTERFEITING . 5 1 XXXI. HENEY, OF THE WELTED FOREHEAD . 66 XXXII. THE TOOKES'S REVEL IN RICHES . .173 XXXIII. BIG MAC OF SIMCOE, YOUNG SMITH, AND BILL NAY. 178 XXXIV. JOHN DOBBIN, FROM BEYOND THE QUICKSANDS . 184 XXXV. LUKE PHIPPS, WHO BURIED HIMSELF ALIVE . -193 XXXVI. THE NEW YEAR'S MURDER OF STILLWELL OF BAYHAM 203 XXXVII. THE WINTER ROAD TO MANITOULIN 206 . 2IO XXXVIII. THE LONG POINT MYSTERY . XXXIX. JOHN STONE, GENTLEMAN . .217 XL. BATES OF ALLANBURG's FUNERAL PYRE . 226 2 XLI. A SPREADER OF ARSENIC . 3 XLII. FOR A MESS OF POTTAGE 234 XLIII. SHET-BLACK HERRES OF THE DING-DONG MUSTACHEES 239 2 XLIV. BALDY DRINKWATER . 47 XLV. OLD JOHN KLIPPERT OF WATERLOO . 254 CONTENTS vii CHAP. XLVI. THE RETURNING OF DARKY GEORGE CLAXTON . 260 XLVII. TWO DISAPPEARANCES .... 2 6? XLVIII. THE HOLLOWED CHOCOLATE 2 6o XLIX. THE SHANTY CITY OF SLABTOWN 271 L. WHY TAMELY SLEEPS IN GEORGIAN . BAY . .277 LI. REGINALD BIRCHALL : OCCUPATION, MURDERER . 281 LII. THE FOOTMARK BY LANGFORD's BED . 308 LIII. THE LADY OF THE PIERCING BLACK EYES . -313 LIV. AN ESCAPER OF GENIUS ...... 318 LV. PENNYFEATHER THE OF BANK .... 325 LVI. THE TOUR OF CHARLES HILTON DAVIDSON . 329 LVII. OVER THE ANDES FOR AITKEN .... 339 LVIII. THE CASE OF PERRY WEINBERG .... 354 LIX. THE FOUR BARN BURNINGS OF CHATHAM . -357 LX. ALMEDA CHATTELLE, THE HAIRY MAN . 360 LXI. THE GANGS OF BURTCH AND RUTLEDGE . 365 LXII. THE MIDDLEMARCH MYSTERY ..... 369 LXIII. THE GRADED GRAYS ...... 374 LXIV. GEORGE ..LGER's GRAVEYARD POLICY <> &&**4> . 378 LXV. THE KILLING OF JAMES AGNEW/Q/^ . 380 LXVI. THE VOICE OF THE HAUNTED HOUSE . 385 LXVII. OLIVE ADELE SEVENPIPER STERNAMAN . 388 LXVIII. SIMPERING JIM ALLISON ... 393 LXIX. THE TURNIP PIT TRAGEDY ... 399 LXX. FOOLISH FRANK OSIER AND WISE SAM LINDSAY . 403 LXXI. EDDIE ELLIOTT, BOY MURDERER . 47 LXXII. DEMURE KATE PENDER OF EMSDALE . 411 viii CONTENTS CHAP. PACK LXXIII. WHY HUMPHREY WENT BACK TO PRISON. 413 LXXIV. LAING OF LAWRASON's, THRIFTY THIEF . .415 LXXV. LEE GLUEY OF CATHAY . .418 LXXVI. MELYIN HALL, FREEBOOTER . .421 ' LXXVII. THE MURDER OF JOSEPH SIFTON . 426 LXXVIII. THE THREE DYNAMITARDS 431 LXXIX. THE TEMPORARY QUIRK MYSTERY .... 445 LXXX. TWO CROOKS IN CLOVER 447 LXXXI. THE CRIME OF CHARLIE KING. .... 450 LXXXII. IN CONCLUSION 454 Memoirs of a Great Detective Chapter I MURRAY IN a tangled swamp on a farm near Gait, in the county of Waterloo, Province of Ontario, Canada, in August 1897, searchers were hunting for the body of a farmer's wife. She had disappeared, and blood by the wood pile and near the house told of a crime and the hiding of the body. One of the party beating the swamp came upon a half-dug grave. He kept silence as to his discovery, and, when night fell, he secreted himself in the thick brush near the grave and waited, in the faint hope that the murderer would return and finish his task, perchance bringing the body with him. It was bright moonlight overhead. In the thicket of the swamp all was gloom, save for a broken filtering of pale light where the underbrush and tall briar had been thinned out. It was a lonely, dismal place. An owl's wailing and the swamp-frog's croaking were the only sounds. The hours passed. Midnight came and went. Not even a lizard appeared by the grave. The watcher was about to creep closer and ease his limbs, when a rustle sounded in the brush, a noise like the wind swishing a bush. It ceased, then came again, then all was still. Suddenly, on the side of the grave farthest from the watcher, a figure crept swiftly out of the thicket and stood erect. The moon shone full upon him. He was tall and broad- shouldered, with a pose like that in the old-fashioned prints of heroic figures of the ancient wars. He wore knee-boots, with a long, loose coat reaching to their tops, and buttoned to the chin. A slouch hat, pulled well down on the forehead, shaded his face. In his left hand he held a spade. He paused by the grave, thrust his spade into the earth, and left I 2 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE it upright like a headstone, then shoved back the hat, and knelt on all fours, with his face close to the ground, for all the world like a bloodhood sniffing for a scent. On hands and knees he crept around and around the grave. Finally, from a pocket of the long coat, he produced a tiny lamp, and turning its light full upon the ground, he resumed his circling of the grave, his face not five inches from the earth, his eyes searching every foot of ground. For half an hour this creeping around the grave con- tinued. Then the figure squatted by the mound of earth and sat motionless. Suddenly he arose, seized the spade, and swiftly tossed away the mound of earth dug from the grave. All was done so noiselessly, so deftly, that it seemed unreal, phantom-like, the antics of a ghost. As he neared the bottom of the pile of earth his care redoubled. At length, he began to dig around the remnant of the pile as if making a second grave, beside the first. He had left about four inches of the earth from the first grave lying undisturbed on the site of the second grave. It was thick, sticky soil, that held together firmly, being less watery than elsewhere in the swamp, yet being full of heaviness and moisture. He dug cautiously, sinking the spade about four inches in the soil, then driving it under, as would a man in cutting sod. When he thus had cut under the entire remnant of earth from the first grave he cleared a space on the ground beside it, and as one would turn a pancake on the griddle, he flipped the earth out and turned it on to the cleared space, so that the remnant of soil from the first grave was underneath. He then painstakingly lifted away the upper layer, and thus exposed to view the soil from the first grave, precisely as it had formed the surface or top of the earth before the digging of the grave began. He knelt over this earth as a mother over her child. He turned the light of the little lamp full upon it. Then he grunted, a subdued, deep, satisfied grunt. With the spade he carefully cut out a piece of the earth about a foot long and half as wide. He produced a measuring rule, and for half an hour worked over the piece of earth. Then he took the earth in his arms as tenderly as if it were a babe, picked up the spade, and vanished in the thicket. MURRAY 3 Like a flash it dawned on the watcher that this mysterious figure had been searching for footprints. He had found no clear footprint around the grave. The marks there had been trampled by those of the watcher. But on the surface of the where the had earth, grave been dug, the footprints of the were certain to digger appear. So the figure in the long coat had reclaimed this surface undisturbed, and, judging from the one sound he made, the grunt of joy, he had found what he sought. The watcher trailed after him, ignorant of who he was he came. or whence The grey dawn was creeping into the as he entered his sky hotel at Gait A sleepy porter was on a table.