dissembler kept up the fraud for more than half a century, and when he died his eldest son was fifty-one, the rest of his children were middle-aged, and none of them had the smallest idea of their father’s wealth, or of his other existence. The case is not singular, moreover. Another on all fours, and even more romantic, was that of two youths with different names, walking side by side in the streets of New York, who saluted the same man as father; a gentleman with two distinct personalities.

Such deception may be long undetected when it is no one’s business to expose it. Where crime complicates it, where the police are on the alert and have an object in hunting the wrong-doer down, disappearance is seldom entirely successful. Dr. Jekyll could not cover Mr. Hyde altogether when his homicidal mania became ungovernable. The clergyman who lived a life of sanctity and preached admirable sermons to an appreciative congregation for five full years was run down at last and exposed as a noted burglar in private life. “Sir Granville Temple,” as he called himself, when he had committed bigamy several times, was eventually uncloaked and shown up as an army deserter whose father was master of a workhouse. Criminals who seek effacement do not take into sufficient account the curiosity and inquisitiveness of mankind. At times, just after the perpetration of a great crime, when the criminal is missing and the pursuit at fault, every gossip, landlady, “slavey,” local tradesman, ’bus conductor, lounger on the cab rank, newsboy, railway guard, becomes an active amateur agent of the police, prying, watching, wondering, looking askance at every stranger and newcomer; ready to call in the constable on the slightest suspicion, or immediately report any unusual circumstance. The rapid dissemination of news to the four quarters of the land by our far-reaching, indefatigable, and wide-awake Press has undoubtedly secured many arrests. The judicious publication of certain details, of personal descriptions, of names, aliases, and the supposed movements of persons in request, has constantly borne fruit. In France police officials often deprecate the incautious utterances of the Press, but it is a common practice of theirs in Paris to give out fully prepared items to the newspapers with the express intention of deceiving their quarry; the missing man has been lulled into fancied security by hearing that the pursuers are on a wrong scent, and, issuing from concealment, “gives himself away.”

THE PORTRAIT WHICH LED TO LEFROY’s ARREST (p. 12). (By permission of the “Daily Telegraph.”)

III.—THE PRESS AN AID TO THE POLICE.

Long ago, as far back as the murder of Lord William Russell by Courvoisier, proof of the crime was greatly assisted by the publication of the story in the Press. Madame Piolaine, an hotel-keeper, read in the newspaper of the arrest of a suspected person, recognising him as a man who had been in her service as a waiter. Only a day or two after the murder he had come to her, begging her to take charge of a brown paper parcel, for which he would call. He had never returned, and now Madame Piolaine hunted up the parcel, which lay at the bottom of a cupboard, where she had placed it. The fact that Courvoisier had brought it justified her in examining it, and she now found that it contained a quantity of silver plate, and other articles of value. When the police were called in, they identified the whole as part of the property abstracted from Lord William Russell’s. Here was a link directly connecting Courvoisier with the murder. Hitherto the evidence had been mainly presumptive. The discovery of Lord William’s Waterloo medal, with his gold rings and a ten-pound note, under the skirting-board in Courvoisier’s pantry was strong suspicion, but no more. The man had a gold locket, too, in his possession, the property of Lord William Russell, but it had been lost some time antecedent to the murder. All the evidence was presumptive, and the case was not made perfectly clear until Madame Piolaine was brought into it through the publicity given by the Press.

In the murder of Mr. Briggs by the German, Franz Müller, detection was greatly facilitated by the publicity given to the facts of the crime. The hat found in the railway carriage where the deed had been done was a chief clue. It bore the maker’s name inside the cover, and very soon a cabman who had read this in the newspaper came forward to say he had bought that very hat at that very maker’s for a man named Müller. Müller had been a lodger of his, and had given his little daughter a jeweller’s cardboard box, bearing the name of “Death, Cheapside.” Already this Mr. Death had produced the murdered man’s gold chain, saying he had given another in exchange for it to a man supposed to be a German. There could be no doubt now that Müller was the murderer. His movements were easily traced. He had gone across the Atlantic in a sailing ship, and was easily forestalled by the detectives in a fast Atlantic liner, which also carried the jeweller and the cabman.

Where identity is clear the publication of the signalement, if possible of the likeness, has reduced capture to a certainty; it is a mere question then of time and money. Lefroy, the murderer of Mr. Gold, was caught through the publicity given to his portrait, which had appeared in the columns of the Daily Telegraph. Some eminent but highly cautious police officers nevertheless deprecate the interference of the Press, and have said that the premature or injudicious disclosure of facts obtained in the progress of investigation has led to the escape of criminals. It is to be feared that there is an increasing distrust of the official methods of detection, and the Press is more and more inclined to institute a pursuit of its own when mysterious cases continue unsolved. We may yet see this system, which has sometimes been employed by energetic reporters in Paris, more largely adopted here. Without entering into the pro’s and con’s of such competition, it is but right to admit that the Press, with its powerful influence, its ramifications endless and widespread, has already done great service to justice in following up crime. So convinced are the London police authorities of the value of a public organ for police purposes, that they publish a newspaper of their own, the admirably managed Police Gazette, which is an improved form of a journal started in 1828. This gazette, which is circulated gratis to all police forces in the United Kingdom, gives full particulars of crimes and of persons “wanted,” with rough but often life-like woodcut portraits and sketches that help capture. Ireland has a similar organ, the Dublin Hue and Cry; and some of the chief constables of counties send out police reports that are highly useful at times. Through these various channels news travels quickly to all parts, puts all interested on the alert, and makes them active in running down their prey.

IV.—THE IMPORTANCE OF SMALL CLUES.

Detection depends largely, of course, upon the knowledge, astuteness, ingenuity, and logical powers of police officers, although they find many independent and often unexpected aids, as we shall see. The best method of procedure is clearly laid down in police manuals: an immediate systematic investigation on the theatre of a crime, the minute examination of premises, the careful search for tracks and traces, for any article left behind, however insignificant, such as the merest