CLEVER DETECTIVE RUSE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LI, Issue 15554, 11 March 1914, Page 12

CLEVER DETECTIVE RUSE.

Apbopos of the recent device of a detective to discover a suspected thief by dusting sovereigns with violet powder, and then, when the coins were missed, calling upon the suspect to exhibit her fingers, recalls a story told of a barrack-1 room theft by. a one-time major in the Imperial Army. The culprit could not be discovert!, so it was decided to subject the whole company to an "ordeal by touch." One evening the officer in charge assembled the men and explained how he proposed to find the thief. On the floor of the mess-room, he said, he had put an inverted bowl, and, underneath the bowl was the barracks cat. The lights would be turned down, and the men would walk in the gloom through the mess-room [one by one, each touching the inverted bowl as he passed. In this way the thief would easily be discovered, the officer assured them, because, when he touched the bowl, the cat would mew. After the lights had been lowered the men filed past the bowl, but, as might be expected, the cat did not mew. Then the lights were turned up, and it was found that each man who had touched the bowl had blackened his hands with the soot that the officer unknown to them, had smeared on it. Only one man, the conscience-stricken thief, had clean hands! He had not dared to risk touching the bowi.