A Detective's Adventure

Turning over the leaves of my note-book—kept daily for more than a quarter of a century—my attention is riveted upon a brief memoranda, which alludes to one of the most exciting and dangerous passages in all my detective experience.

The notation reads briefly: “Capt. Burleigh, schooner ‘Dart,’ 12:50 A.M.” and, as I con it over, the remembrance of the events to which it is the key grows keener, until all the details come to mind with a force and distinctness absolutely painful, and of which I cannot, even at the present moment, think without an emotion of horror.

It was a little after midnight, early one Sunday morning, as my book shows, when I was hurriedly summoned to the Central Office by a special messenger.

“Sorry to disturb you,” said the inspector as I came in; “but the case is an urgent one. Here is a sailor who says he is a deck hand on board the schooner ‘Dart,’ moored in the North River, and that his captain has been murdered and robbed. You had better go down to the barge office, get a boat and board the schooner, and take such steps as may be requisite; now my man,” he added addressing the sailor, “you go with the officer.”

On our way to the barge office, the sailor informed me that the schooner ‘Dart,’ was a coaster plying between Eastport and New York; that the captain, M. James Burleigh, had come on the schooner at a late hour on Saturday afternoon, having with him two canvas bags, containing one thousand dollars in gold each—that he had taken an early supper and gone ashore, telling the watch to keep a sharp lookout for river thieves.

The sailor thought it must have been about ten o’clock when the captain returned, and that it was nearly twelve when he heard a violent noise in the cabin… Read More