in short order. Then he climbed into his seat to test it out. Then he drove off with- out troubling to return the borrowed ham- mer.

Did the mechanic, the detective asked, remember what the ungrateful stranger looked like?

Sheepishly the mechanic said no, he did not note the stranger’s face. The detectives investigated the mechanic and became con- vinced that he knew no more of the murder than he had told.

Meanwhile another squad searched the premises of the murder. Behind a drum of oil they found a crumpled piece of oil- stained paper, on it a notation in pencil. ““Gar——Saty——10 a.m., or—12.30.” It was obviously a note of an appointment at the garage for some Saturday; and it was on a Saturday that Messiter had been mur- dered.

The handwriting was not Messiter’s.

The detectives from London then went through the waste basket of the garage office and searched and sifted other litter about the place. From these they selected as interesting, several bits of paper which would have been passed by as worthless by other investigators. One was a screwed-up fragment of a note bearing only the signa ture “Thomas.” The other was also part of some memorandum, its contents missing, leaving only the signature “W. F. Thomas.”

There was nothing about these signatures

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to indicate that they were clues, but Scot-

land Yard made note of them nevertheless.

In the garage, by the side of the delivery truck, lay the body.

was visited and questioned. In this way Scot- land Yard plodded on till one day they found the factory that had made the ham- mer; then the store that had sold it. Then the district about that store was canvassed, until a man was found who said:

“Yes, this hammer belongs to me.”

He was a mechanic in a local automobile factory, but had kept the hammer at his home in a working-class neighbourhood in Southampton. He told of being here one Sunday when, looking out of a window, he

1938

OCTOBER,

At the same time the detectives examined ' Messiter’s business books. Exhaustive in- vestigation of the recorded entries yielded nothing. But the Scotland Yard men found also a receipt book, blank, but showing that nine pages had been torn out. On the tenth page, however, they found the faintest pos- sible indication that something had been written on the page on top of it; the pres- sure of the writing had left its mark on

saw a small delivery automobile was stand- ing in front of his house. The chauffeur was tinkering with the engine. The mechanic came down and asked if he could be of assistance.

“Yes,” the stranger told him, “you the blank page beneath. might lend me a hammer for a few moments. I left mine in my garage.”

The mechanic went indoors and came out with the hammer. The chauffeur of the delivery truck seemed intelligent about motor trucks, for he got the engine to work

ReEcEIPT Book GivES CLUE

With the aid of powerful lenses and a special process used in the laboratories of Scotland Yard on such clues, these indenta- tions were finally read and photographed.

BRITISH COLUMBIA DEPARTMENT OF MINES

The value of mine production in 1937 was $74,475,902, an increase of $20,393,935 over 1936. All phases of the mining industry have shown increases in both volume and value.

For copies of the Annual Reports of the Minister of Mines and other publications dealing with the mining industry of this province, apply to:

DEPUTY MINISTER OF MINES

VICTORIA, B.C.

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