Finding a Criminal

From the Notes of an English Detective

by Sylvanus Cobb, Jr.

I was aroused one morning from a sound sleep by a quick, loud rap upon my door. I had been on duty late into the morning, and hence kept my bed longer than usual. By the time my wife had reached my room, I was up and half dressed. She told me that Inspector Starling, one of my brother detectives, wished to see me. I hurried down, and found him pacing to and fro across the room in a state of considerable excitement.

“Ah, Goff, we’ve got some work on our hands,” he cried, the moment he saw me. “There’s been a murder—a strange one—by Newgate Market. But come along, and I’ll tell you as I go.”

As soon as we gained the street, Starling resumed—

“Last evening one of the butchers packed a box of meat to go off today, but this morning he changed his mind, and concluded to unpack it, as there was some doubt about the stuff’s keeping. When he removed the cover, he found the body of a man cut up, and stowed snugly away in place of his meat, and this latter article was afterwards found in a neighboring cellar.”

I asked if the butcher was not suspected.

“No,” replied my companion. “We know it could not have been he, for his time is all accounted for; and beside, his character is above suspicion. No—someone who knew that the box was packed to go off this morning, must have taken advantage of the circumstance, and thus hoped to gain time for escape, or, perhaps, to have thrown the blame upon another. It was an old man who was murdered, and it was evidently done for revenge.

“Why do you think so?” I asked.

“Because fragments of the clothing were upon the limbs, and a watch and some money were found in the pockets. Strange, isn’t it?”

I acknowledged that… Read More