SCIENCE TELLS

Evening Star, Issue 20995, 8 January 1932, Page 2

SCIENCE TELLS

IN SCOTLAND YARD HOW WORK IS DONE Science plays a major role in the elucidation ,of crime by Scotland Yard. It is not overstating matters to say that the verdicts in many of the most baffling cases of recent times in Britain have been based on the evidence of the scientifically trained detective, says a writer in the ‘ San Francisco Chronicle.’ This may have the ring of Sherlock Holmes, but it is true. And the scientifically trained detectives of Scotland Yard may be the man,of medicine, the toxicologist, the raicroscopist, the analytical chemist, the X-ray specialist, or the man who once wore the tunic and helmet and patrolled a beat. Take the William Podmore case—to go no farther back. Science was largely instrumental in forging the chain of evidence which sent that murderer to the scaffold. The exceedingly intricate and involved investigations of a scientific nature included microscopical tests of books and documents, and the treatment by chemicals of a small scrap of paper foot-trodden, oilstained, and with the writing almost totally obliterated—found in the garage where the body of the murdered man, Victor Mcssiter, an American, was also found. This fatal “scrap of paper,” probably more than anything else, connected Podmore with the murder, and but for it the possibility is that he would never have been arrested and finally convicted. COLLECTING EVIDENCE. But for weeks Podmore enjwed his freedom. He sneered at the efforts of Scotland Yard to solve the murder for which he was later to bo hanged. Then Podmore, foolishly, imagined that the gentlemen of the Yard had dismissed him from their minds. There he blundered. They were merely collecting evidence that would hang him. Illimitable and inexhaustible is the patience of those who work out of the Yard.

In a room of the Yard, at a table, sat a man with his eyes glued to the barrel of a microscope. Before him lay three queerly mis-shaped lead pellets—bullets that had struck living bone and subsequently had been removed from a corpse. A brass cartridge case was also among the gruesome exhibits. The microscopist has fired over 3,000 bullets from practically every known make of revolver into blocks of wood, and examined the result to gun barrel and bullet. He has been on the job day and night. Firing and peering into the microscope, peering into the mkroscope and firing. He, must keep on peering and firing, firing and peering. He is finding things. The bullets before him are not ail the same type.

Something else, quite important, the leaden pellets are not from one gun, but two. Again, one of the bullets was catapulted on its deadly mission by black powder instead of the customary cordite. . , And the object of these investigations? ■ ~ , ~ To find the guns from which the three misshapen bullets had been fired. And when he finds those particular weapons he will be able to establish to the satisfaction of a British jury that the bullets which had struck hying bone could have been fired from those guns and no others. Almost a year later two men, a desperate Irishman and an Englishman of bad reputation—Kennedy and Browne —are picked up for the theft of an automobile. They are taken into custody, and in their lodgings are found guns and cartridges. MORE WORK. The man at the microscope in Scotland Yard is told of the find —two guns and the cartridges! . There is more peering and firing, more firing and peering, all of which is followed by a charge of murder. The men are found guilty and hanged. | The evidence collected “so patiently by the man with the microscope and his expert knowledge of firearms and how lead bullets behave when they crash upon a tough living structure, like skull bone, was all a British ]ury needed. As Kennedy stepped on the scaffold, he smiled l wanly and then said:— “ My wife told me not to trust Scotland Yard, idling me that they’d, get me, if they had to wait till Doomsday and pluck me from the pits of Hell. “Well, they plucked me all right. Browne also confessed. And thus ended the mystery over the slaying of Police Constable Gutteredge. Consider another little masterpiece of sleuthing. - . . ' The British War Office is in a ferment. A document containing military information of the most secret character is missing. Where can it be P Where indeed! It’s a job for the. Special Branch, whose duties are varied and delicate. It conducts counter-espionage, getting a line on all known or suspected secret agents arriving in the United Kingdom and shadowing them. Before night falls the Special Branch of the Yard has traced the missing document to the mysterious building in which the Russian Trade Delegation maintains its headquarters —the place known as Arcos. But there can he no raid on the premises until the heads of the War Office, the Prime Minister, the Home Secretary, and the Secretary for Foreign Affairs Knows just what information the Special Branch has relative to the missing document, and also why Scotland Yard is so absolutely certain that it will be found in the concrete and steel safe of Arcos. ANOTHER SCORE. A pretty mess the British Government will find itself in if there is a raid upon the headquarters of the Russian Trade Delegation, and its sale rifled—and no missing document found! If the search fizzles, the Government may fall, if not that, the Home Secretary will surely be ousted out of office, for he has ordered the raid. Scotland Yard lays its cards lace down on the table—the Government chiefs ’are satisfied. The raid is ordered. , _ The dragnet for. the Russians is thrown out, and while they are being questioned, unconscious of the > real nature of the proceedings, batteries of pneumatic picks tear through the outer concrete walls of the strong rooms, while the hissing oxyacetylene blow lamps bite into the steel walls of the monster safes. The document is unearthed. The Wav Office is satisfied. The Russians protest over the “ unwarranted entry into the premises ” and threaten all sorts of reprisals, and then proceed to forget all about the matter. Scotland Yard has scored*