MUSIC AND MYSTERY

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume XLV, Issue XLV, 15 November 1918, Page 1

MUSIC AND MYSTERY

It is a striking fact- that the ordinary criminal is peculiarly deficient in musical sense (says an English writer}. While some of the most notorious offenders have been good performers on one instrument of another, ihe majority of the criminal population, though they may like noise, lack in a peculiar degree the musical faculty. Lonibroso, the great, criminologist, caused one nf his colleagues. Gradenigo. to make a series of experiments as to the ordinary offender's sense of hearing. He found that i'2 per cent, of the criminals ■were remarkablly inferior to the ordinary person in this respect- Music, except of" the most bar- ' baric kind, would hardly appeal to them. But music lias now and again attracted the notorious offender. Years ago circumstances led the police to investigate tho contents of a villa in Peck-ham. 'lTia mysterious gentleman to whom it belonged had fallen into their hands, and they were curious to learn all they could about him. 1 ho place was beautifully and artistically furnished. But among the most remarkable contents of those rooms were the musical instruments. There was a magnificent piano, and close to it was a guitar—a beautiful instrument, superbly inlaid. But- the violin was evidently the favorite instrument-. There were nine of them—all C'remonas, of excellent quality, too! The owner of that- house was a mysterious, dark-skinned person. lie had' been interrupted while breaking into a house at Blackheath, and had nearly murdered a policeman before beinj captured. He gave the name of Jsmes Ward, but he was, the detectives found later, Charles Peace, the murderer and burglar for whom they had been seeking for years. Those Cremonas had not cost him a penny! He had stolen every one nf them from houses he had broken into. Peace was by no means an indifferent performer on the instruments. He had. some years before, taken lessons of one of tho best-known teachers of the violin at Sheffield. One of the criminals that Robert Pinkerton, the American detective, brought to justice was. like Peace, an artist- on the violin. Benu'rove—suc-li vas his name—used to take apartments at- a good hot-el. He was a- man of refined manners, and his wife was a charming invalid lady. Poor Mrs Bemgrove received the most-"devoted attention from her husband. Every evening he played the violin to her. and sometimes. when she was unable to sleep, ho played almost the- night long. Suspicious . circumstances, however, loi to Robert Pinkerton investigating those sleepless nights of the devoted couple, aud he discovered that whenever Mr-? Bemgrove had a night like that some -great burglary was effected in the neighborhood. But* how ■could Bemgrove. bo suspected of beiiii' concerned in them? The people in the hotel had heard his violin till the small hours of the morning. That playing was a mere blind to heH Bc-merove to establish an alibi. It was the'kdy— she was by no means an invalid—who performed. Pier husband used to make his exit bvH-he window of the rooms they occupied, do ms evil work, and return to their apartments by means of a rope ladder that .his watchful wife let -clown for him . Canler. the chief of the Paris police, was once sorely perplexed by the "apparently incessant- tuninp- of a piano in a that Ire frequently visited in the hope of laying his hands on an offender he much wanted. lie could never find him. though he felt assured tho " wanted " one was somewhere in hiding. And that piano was alw-iys being tuned! The noise came to him from a house nesrly opposite the one he suspected of sheltering his quarry. r At I.ist -a more than 'usually acute detective suggested that the tuning conveyed a message\sent by an accomplice warning the culprit to' escape, and the timer one day found himself ' rudely interrupted in his attentions to his ; beloved instrument. The warninf voice ; was stopped, and Canler, entering the ■ opposite house, pounced on his maif i Mr Arthur Mbrrison, in his book of . detective stories, ' Adventures of Martin ; 'Hewitt/ tells how a crime was revealed - by the reading of a secret, message hidden i in the writing of some bars of music < "The Flitterbat- Lancers.' The note representee! certain letters. This was a method of communication adopted bv a. woman swindler named Forrest. "She ; carried on a correspondence with an ~c-complice complice -wholly by means of the most t innocent-looking pieces of music. • 'lhe most acute readers of her correspondence . could hardly suspect those 'nnocent-Jook-iug sheets. Yet. there was somethni:' queer about them] The lady u»nallv only sent a torn-off sheet, with just the most innocent message written on it. It v-as at last noticed that- under some of tho notes there were minute . dots i>i ink. What was tlio ijk-aninjr of them: An expert- iu cryptographic communication at

last succeeded, in discovering the key. The trick was qui to simple—when one knew it.