Detective Fiction Weekly. Vol. 104, No. 4, August 22, 1936

There was a lot of other dope on this loveable character, but you didn’t have to be drawing my wages to see, if you’d gotten that far down the card, why he was out of the running as far as the Blaney case was concerned. “Impulse only recurs at lengthy intervals of six months to a year, and comes on slowly; normal in between times, likable, pleasing personality. Well-educated, neat dresser, able to earn good money at various white-collar jobs as long as his condition permits him to retain them—” And then it went on into a physical description of him.

The whole thing dated way back to the Twenties, and wound up with this brief summary, which just about clinched the matter anyway, as far as our present purposes were concerned:

Married Barbara Newton, Buffalo, N. Y., April 15, 1923. Newton woman met death May 12th, same year, during his absence. Verdict of coroner’s inquest: death by strangulation, assailant unknown.

Married Rose Lawton, New York City, December 10, 1923. Arrested charged with causing her death by strangulation, June 5, 1924. Brought to trial September 24th; acquitted.

Married Sylvia King, Toronto, Canada, February, 1925 under name of “Spencer White.” Bride found dead by strangulation July same year, Cleveland, Ohio. Brought to triad and admitted identity as Garvey. Adjudged insane and committed to State Institute May 31st.

Escaped October, 1928. Body recovered from Lake Erie, December 14, 1928.

The first, and only, time I had gotten down that far, all the way to the bottom, I wondered what the card was still doing, in the file under the circumstances; it should have been chucked but, or at least transferred. But at the very end there was this notation, penciled-in, probably by some long-forgotten predecessor of mine on the squad:

“Retain. N.B. — Identification never fully verified.”

And then something further after that, so blurred as to be all but illegible. Which explained why it was still in there, if nothing else. As for being of any use in the Blaney case, that was another matter. It was just that it kept getting in my way constantly, until I’d taken almost a hatred to it. There were dozens in there along with it, still on the active list, that had better possibilities; I would have liked to have them all out, separate, where I could put my fingers on them in a hurry when I wanted to, I suppose.

I was at it again, going after some poor punk named Montaigne, just because he had carved quite a bad name for himself with an axe up in a number of lumber-camps in the Northwest, when the Blaney case suddenly blew up by itself without any help from any of us. I slammed the damn file-case shut the minute the rumor first percolated out from the Chief’s office, and barged in without being sent for to find out if it was true, and so did everyone else around me. The Chief looked plenty relieved, if not particularly pleased, for which you couldn’t blame him. It had had us up a tree, and no mistake!

“Yeah,” he sighed without being asked, “it’s over — and no credit due to us, either! I’m not blaming you lads, but the damn breaks we got! It wound up as screwy as it began, it was a jinx all the way through. Just listen to this, will ye? I got a long-distance a few minutes ago from a little one-horse town down in Virginia — never heard of it before. Some farmer down there yesterday afternoon set his dog on a tramp he caught mooching his fruit. The tramp picked up a rock and knocked the dog’s brains out. So the farmer grabs him, hauls him along with him, and presses charges. The constable sets a fine, the tramp can’t pay it, and he’s thrown into the coop. The tramp is full of interesting stories. His crime isn’t a particularly heinous one, and the first thing you know this hick constable and his prisoner have cracked a bottle of corn together and are chewing the rag until all hours of the night, both of them higher than blimps. Murray and Leftwich, you go down there and bring him back with you. He killed Mrs. Blaney six weeks ago up here. Hardcastle’s the name of the place, they’re holding him for us. Take an Atlanta train and change at Richmond—”

“How was the constable able to remember, if he got tanked along with him?” somebody asked.