The Courier-Journal from Louisville, Kentucky • Page 48

ILLUSTRATED SUNDAY MAGAZINE A Weekly Pictorial and Literary Publication for All The Family. LOUISVILLE, KY APRIL 18, 1909. TRUE STORIES OF A WOMAN ETECTIVE Tke Oak Tree Tragedy By Hugh C. eir and Mary E. Holland, the World Famed Scientific Investigator "In the first horror of the discovery, the relatives began a frenzied search for the murderer.

Escape from the door was impossible. The assassin would have bumped squarely into the members of the family had he attempted this exit. There remained only the open window, but there were no footprints on the newly turned soil below, and no marks of rope nor ladder on the sill above. "Again, had the shot been discharged from, a was the tenth day and I was wearied with the strain of waiting-. The still hunt was producing- nothing.

I was groping in the dark, hoping against hope that the circles of my clues would gradually narrow to the midnight assassin, and abruptly I awoke to the fact that I had 1 trusting to luck and not logic. If I were to name the hand that had sought the life of Carolyn "West I I must change my tactics at once. With my sudden decision lending a new vigor to my steps I made my to the plainly furnished room which served as the office of the sheriff, plump hand of the official good naturedly waved me to a vacant seat his crossed legs descended apologetically from the desk to the floor. I have come to announce a change in my plans," I began without close range the victim's face would have been grimed with powder. But there was not the slightest discoloration.

"With the exception of the deepening -ircle of blood, it was as white as the pillow on which it rested. "The shot, then, had been fired from a distance and from the outside. The murderer had taken aim from the deserted lot below the window and the sleeping girl above, unconscious of the peril which threatened her from the darkness, had received the bullet before a cry could leave her lips. "It was a clear, moonlit night. Doubtless her form could have been traced without difficulty by a person familiar with her Tlu- sheriff took the long, black cigar from his hps plain astonis, "A change?" he repeated.

Kxactly. Carolyn West was shot two ks ago. Our efforts to locate the ted assassin are producing nothing. blunt, we know no more about tne wny wherefore of the case now than we did the affair was first discovered." i drew my chair closer to the sheriff's "Let me give you the original facts he crime, and we will see if the two ks have added to them." The officer doubtfully. -on a certain sultry night two weeks i began, "a loud rille shot was heard in UYsi home, apparently from the apart-; of Miss Carolyn, a popular school young as well as popular.

When family reached lu-r room the girl was in a dying condition, with the blood i an ugly bullet wound in her neck crimsoning the pillow and sheets of -u. She had evidently retired some time habits. Undoubtedly the assassin had waited for some minutes for his opportunity, waiting with fiendish patience until nothing could stop his deadly bullet or prevent its reaching its human target. "At a point midway in the vacant lot towered a huge oak tree, whose heavy branches formed a wide canopy over the ground. Had a surveyor located its position, the line between it and the sleeping girl's window could not have been more straight or exact.

If the confused mass of footprints on the ground did not lie, it was here where the assassin had taken his stand. Under the black shadows he could have aimed and fired in perfect security. "From this point the case was plunged into a which showed absolutely no ray of light." I paused musingly and the sheriff took another of his long, black cigars from his vest pocket. "It was comparatively simple to explain how the crime had been committted. To show the identity of the criminal, however, was another and a deeper question.

We were confronted "with a crime without a motive or without a clue. Nothing had been "Her bed had been drawn under an open the lower half of which had been a distance of fully eight inches. It was unusually warm season and she had uently sought every breath possible of sluggish breeze, her pillow resting per-three or four inches above the sill. "The room was located in the second and faced a wide, open lot, stretching into the darkness. There was not house within a distance of fully one inured and fifty feet, at which point stood small cottage on a somewhat abrupt "I Have Come to Announce a Change in My Plans." (Continued on Page 16.).