Bucholz and the Detectives | Page 2

Visit to South Norwalk.--He Makes the Acquaintance of
Sadie Waring.--A Successful Ruse.--Bucholz Confides to his Friend the
Hiding Place of the Murdered Man's Money 260
CHAPTER XXVI.
Edward Sommers as "The Detective."--A Visit to the Barn, and Part of
the Money Recovered.--The Detective makes Advances to the Counsel
for the Prisoner.--A Further Confidence of an Important Nature 270
CHAPTER XXVII.
A Midnight Visit to the Barn.--The Detective Wields a Shovel to Some
Advantage.--Fifty Thousand Dollars Found in the Earth.--A Good
Night's Work 284
CHAPTER XXVIII.
The Detective Manufactures Evidence for the Defense.--An
Anonymous Letter.--An Important Interview.--The Detective Triumphs
Over the Attorney 295
CHAPTER XXIX.
Bucholz Grows Skeptical and Doubtful.--A fruitless Search.--The
Murderer Involuntarily Reveals Himself 309
THE JUDGMENT.

CHAPTER XXX.
The Trial.--An Unexpected Witness.--A Convincing Story.--An Able
but Fruitless Defense.--A Verdict of Guilty.--The Triumph of Justice
319
CHAPTER XXXI.
Another Chance for Life.--The Third Trial Granted.--A Final Verdict,
and a Just Punishment 338

PREFACE.
The following pages narrate a story of detective experience, which, in
many respects, is alike peculiar and interesting, and one which evinces
in a marked degree the correctness of one of the cardinal principles of
my detective system, viz.: "That crime can and must be detected by the
pure and honest heart obtaining a controlling power over that of the
criminal."
The history of the old man who, although in the possession of
unlimited wealth, leaves the shores of his native land to escape the
imagined dangers of assassination, and arrives in America, only to meet
his death--violent and mysterious--at the hands of a trusted servant, is
in all essential points a recital of actual events. While it is true that in
describing the early career of this man, the mind may have roamed
through the field of romance, yet the important events which are related
of him are based entirely upon information authentically derived.
The strange operation of circumstances which brought these two men
together, although they had journeyed across the seas--each with no
knowledge of the existence of the other--to meet and to participate in
the sad drama of crime, is one of those realistic evidences of the
inscrutable operations of fate, which are of frequent occurrence in daily
life.

The system of detection which was adopted in this case, and which was
pursued to a successful termination, is not a new one in the annals of
criminal detection. From the inception of my career as a detective, I
have believed that crime is an element as foreign to the human mind as
a poisonous substance is to the body, and that by the commission of a
crime, the man or the woman so offending, weakens, in a material
degree, the mental and moral strength of their characters and
dispositions. Upon this weakness the intelligent detective must bring to
bear the force and influence of a superior, moral and intellectual power,
and then successful detection is assured.
The criminal, yielding to a natural impulse of human nature, must seek
for sympathy. His crime haunts him continually, and the burden of
concealment becomes at last too heavy to bear alone. It must find a
voice; and whether it be to the empty air in fitful dreamings, or into the
ears of a sympathetic friend--he must relieve himself of the terrible
secret which is bearing him down. Then it is that the watchful detective
may seize the criminal in his moment of weakness and by his sympathy,
and from the confidence he has engendered, he will force from him the
story of his crime.
That such a course was necessary to be pursued in this case will be
apparent to all. The suspected man had been precipitately arrested, and
no opportunity was afforded to watch his movements or to become
associated with him while he was at liberty. He was an inmate of a
prison when I assumed the task of his detection, and the course pursued
was the only one which afforded the slightest promise of success; hence
its adoption.
Severe moralists may question whether this course is a legitimate or
defensible one; but as long as crime exists, the necessity for detection is
apparent. That a murderous criminal should go unwhipt of justice
because the process of his detection is distasteful to the high moral
sensibilities of those to whom crime is, perhaps, a stranger, is an
argument at once puerile and absurd. The office of the detective is to
serve the ends of justice; to purge society of the degrading influences of
crime; and to protect the lives, the property and the honor of the

community at large; and in this righteous work the end will
unquestionably justify the means adopted to secure the desired result.
That the means used in this case were justifiable the result has proven.
By no other course could the