Twenty Years a Detective in the Wickedest City in the WorldWooldridge, Clifton R. (Clifton Rodman)
History
Twenty Years a Detective in the Wickedest City in the World
Wooldridge, Clifton R. (Clifton Rodman)
Crime -- Illinois -- Chicago; Police -- Illinois -- Chicago
The arrest of Beverly and Mrs. Dixon was made on a warrant signed
by Miss Miller, who had entered into correspondence with them from
her home in Portland, Ore. The fee in Chicago was to have been $50,
according to the letters she received from the mediums, as in the
preceding instance. She borrowed money to come to Chicago, and had
but $25 to pay the "healers." When she received no benefit from their
treatment she made complaint and was threatened with violence, she
alleges. Thereupon she laid her case before Chief Collins, resulting
in the raid and the closing up of this place.
Thus did the sleuth a-sleuthing vanquish the ubiquitous "spook," the
"ghost," the "spirit," the re-incarnation, the Mahatma, the "sending,"
and all the hosts of the immaterial world, whose immaterialism was
being converted into good hard material cash by the producers of the
evanescent shapes from beyond the veil.
Thus did Clifton R. Wooldridge and his able assistants make "spooking"
a dangerous business in Chicago.
WIFE OR GALLOWS?
PREFERS HANGING TO LIVING WITH HIS WIFE.
Hugo Devel prefers being hanged to living with his wife.
Unable to escape her in any other way, lacking the courage or nerve to
kill himself, and shuddering at the idea of life imprisonment with the
woman he had promised to love and cherish, he confessed to a murder
he did not commit, and was ready to go upon the gallows or to penal
servitude for life in the stead of the real murderer.
[Illustration: HE'D RATHER BE HANGED THAN LIVE WITH HIS WIFE.]
Now he is free, and miserable, and in his home at Lubeck, in Germany.
He is envying Franz Holz, who is awaiting the gallows.
Devel admits sadly that he had a double purpose in wanting to die on
the gallows. First, that he would escape his wife; and, second, that,
by being hanged he would make it improbable that any other man should
meet his fate--not his fate on the gallows, but his fate in having
wedded Frau Devel.
The case, which was cleared up by the Hamburg police, furnished a
problem that would have defied the cunning of Sherlock Holmes and all
his kindred analysts. Briefly stated, the facts in the case, which is
the strangest one ever given to a detective department to solve, are
these:
WOMAN WAS ROBBED AND MURDERED.
A few months ago a certain Frau Gimble, of Munich, was cruelly
murdered by a man. The evident motive of the deed was robbery, and
that the crime was planned and premeditated there was sufficient
evidence. Every clew and circumstance pointed to Franz Holz. He
was known to have been at or near the scene of the murder shortly
before its commission. He knew the woman, and had knowledge that she
kept a considerable sum of money in her home. He was known to have
been without money for days prior to the murder, and immediately
after the deed, and before the body was discovered, he had appeared
with a quantity of money, made some purchases, bought drinks for
acquaintances, and then disappeared.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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