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ILTON BARNSTABLE was the inventor of a new school of detection of crime. The system came in with him, and it may go out with him for lack of a man of his genius to perpetuate it. He insisted that there was nothing spectacular or romantic in the pursuit of the criminal, or, at least, that there should be nothing of the sort. And he was especially disgusted when anyone referred to him as "a second Sherlock Holmes."

"I am only a plain business man," he would insist, urbanely, with a wave of his hand. "I have merely brought order, method, system, business principles, logic, to the detection of crime. I know nothing of romance. Romance is usually all nonsense in my estimation. The real detective, who gets results in real life, is not a Sherlock Holmes."

The enemies of Wilton Barnstable sometimes said of him that he was jealous of Sherlock 231