SHERLOCK HOLMES OF THE STATES

Gisborne Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 3348, 14 October 1911, Page 3

SHERLOCK HOLMES OF THE STATES

HOW HE OUTWITTED AN ENTIRE CORPS OF DETECTIVES. MAN WITH THE HUMP. How Mr William J. Burns, the Sherlock Holmes of the United States, used Iris powers of deduction to make an entire detective corjas look ridiculous is related in “McClure’s Magazine.” Mr Bums was concerned in the rG ~ cent apprehension of several tradesunionists accused of.. dynamiting. He was accused of spiriting one of his prisoners from Indianapolis to Los Angeles without due process of law, and a warrant was issued for his arrest on a charge of abduction. As soon as he heard of the warrant Burns returned to Indianapolis, knowing the county detectives would be ready to arrest him. Instead of slipping into town secretly he arrived by train, went through the streets to the principal hotel, and registered under his own name, requesting the clerk not to tejl anybody his room number. He was receiving His assistants and ■ friends in his room several hours before the local detectives could convince themselves that the name on the register was not a clumsy trick to make them ridiculous. They could not learn from the clerk the number of Mr Burns’s room, but by watching the coming and going of visitors they located his floor. Two detectives were posted at either end of the corridor to watch the doors. This prevented Mr Burns’s visitors being admitted to see him, so the decided to go to them. He took his hat in hand, humped up one shoulder, shortened one leg, and limped out of liis room and past the unsuspecting detectives. Their description of Mr Burns —whom they had never seen —did not include a humped shoulder and a limp. Downstairs Mr Burns straightened up and walked out. After transacting his business he returned, and passed the detectives as before. Reporters in the hotel corridor, who had learned the joke, rushed laughing upstairs and told the detectives what had been done, and explained that the room entered by the humped man with the lame leg was Mr Burns’s apartment. The detectives banged at the door and demanded admittance. Along one side of the room were three doors. One led into a clothes closet, and Mr Burns allowed it to remain unlocked. Another led into a second room, and the third was the bath-room door.’ Burns locked the second door, and then signalling to his assistant to admit the detectives, he went into the bath-room, locking the door after him. The detectives rushed in, but they could learn nothing from Mr Burns’s assistant. Tlie clothes closet they examined, and then, finding the two other doors locked, they concluded both led into the room beyond. They rushed out in pursuit of Mr Burns, who they imagined had got into the other room. They continued searching for him, while Mr Burns left the bath-room, finished his business at his desk, and then quietly left the hotel while the detectives were hunting high and low. He made his way to the courthouse and surrendered himself, being released at once on bail. The incident is cited in the article as showing liow a first-class detective depends on simple expedients and on “out-guessing” the other man.