THE WRONG CLUE.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume XIX, Issue 1065, 4 August 1910, Page 23

THE WRONG CLUE.

— “I have found outflow the fire started,”- said the detective. “A man on the top floor dropped a match down the lift shaft- It went off as it struck the bottom, and set fire to some waste paper.” , “How do you know?” asked the chief. „•••

“I followed a man on suspicion, searched him, and found he had no matches about him. That was all the clue I needed. He had dropped his last match down that shaft.” “That won’t do,” said the chief, carelessly throwing away the stump of his cigar. “Don’t you know, .you ignoramus, that a man’s last match always goes out?” Stung by this exposure of the palpable absurdity of his hypothesis, the mortified detective hurried away in search of a new clue.