The Modern Scientific Detective 



By A. D. Montgomery 



The following article is published with the cooperation of the New York Police Depart- 

 ment. Inspector Faurot, well known throughout the country as the head of one of the 

 ablest detective bureaus in the country, staged the crime which is illustrated in the 

 accompanying photographs. The pictures have been made with the sole idea of illustrat- 

 ing the scientific methods which are now employed by Inspector Faurot and his men in 

 bringing a criminal to book. — Editor. 



THE last person who had seen the 

 mining engineer aHve was the clean- 

 ing woman. She had left him in his 

 office at 5.30 o'clock in the evening. The 

 office force had gone home, and he had 

 remained to finish up some work. In the 

 morning he was found bowed down over 

 his desk — stabbed to death. Evidently he 

 had been dead for many hours, and the 

 murderer had had ample time to effect his 

 escape. There must have been a brief 

 struggle. Apparently he had tried to 

 summon assistance by telephone before he 

 was killed. 



When Inspector Faurot appeared on the 

 scene, the first step was to photograph the 

 room from every angle. Why? Because 

 the relative positions of clues might prove 



of importance, and these positions might be 

 disturbed by a careless rummaging around. 

 Then began a minute examination of the 

 room. Not a square inch was over- 

 looked — not a scratch, not a stain. 



A few days later Inspector Faurot 

 summoned one of his men. 



"Look for a man who has consumption, 

 who has dark hair and who owns a blue 

 serge suit," said the Inspector. 



Two enemies of the murdered man were 

 arrested. One of them had been associated 

 with him in mining work and the other had 

 incurred his displeasure by requesting him 

 to make a false report. One of the two had 

 a cough. His sputum was examined and 

 found to be full of tuberculosis germs. 

 Unable to prove an alibi, he broke down 



and confessed. 



It is perfectly apparent that science 



played some part in this tracking of a 



criminal. But how? 



Like all modern detectives. Inspector 



Faurot calls in chemists to help him. He 



uses their special knowledge as he would a 



tool. He brought with him to the scene 



The first thing the poUce do on reaching 

 the scene of a murder is to photograph 

 the room before anything is touched. The 

 photograph above shows where a particu- 

 larly baffling murder was committed. The 

 murdered man fell forward with his head 

 on the desk. Had it not been for the pool 

 of blood on the floor, the overturned chair 

 and the fallen telephone it might seem 

 that he had simply fallen asleep over his 

 work. The crime was committed after 

 business hours and was not discovered 

 until the next day so that the murderer 

 had time to escape. Yet he was arrested 



The murderer spat upon the floor. The detec- 

 tives discovered it and are taking a sample of 

 the sputum for examination in the laboratory 



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