FROM SLENDER CLUES

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 81, 6 April 1938, Page 17

FROM SLENDER CLUES

There used to be a tendency on the part of detective-story writers to treat our policemen as lacking in subtlety in the matter of clues and crime detection. Such an attitude must noAV be definitely old-fashioned in view of detective achievements in recent years. The latest evidence in support of this is the arrest of an alleged woman thief on the strength of a couple of eyelashes, matching her own, found in a cosmetic box, states an English paper.

Our policemen—and the policemen of most civilised countries —have become industrious pickers-up of unconsidered trifles. Not so very long ago a man was charged and convicted at Bow Street for stealing a tin of petrol. He had made one of those slips beloved of Inspector Hornleigh, of wireless fame. "As he passed me, carrying the tin," reported Constable Sherlock Holmes, "I noticed that his ears went red." Asked by the Magistrate exactly Avhat he deduced from the man's red ears, the : constable replied that they gave him a guilty look, inviting investigation.

Even our Magistrates are keener on the scent than they used to be. A feAV years ago a Gateshead man \vas accused of stealing some ham, which the police alleged he had hnd in his pocket. To satisfy himself, that this was the case the presiding Magistrate smelt the pocket of the prisoner's coat and announced that there had certainly been ham there. The . prisoner tried to get out of it by saying what the Magistrate smelt was merely spilt soup, but he was laughed to scorn.