Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 90.djvu/58

 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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