- 2 days ago
Sunday, May 18th, 1913
World's Most Famous Detective Must Disregard All Theories Advanced Thus Far and Must Evolve His Own Solution of the Mysterious Slaying.
By AN OLD POLICE REPORTER.
Can William J. Burns solve the Phagan mystery?
I certainly hope so, as does everybody else who would like to see the guilty person in this extraordinary case brought to justice.
Unless Burns and his assistants are successful, I fear we shall never know who actually committed the crime.
In my article in The Sunday American on May 4, I said: "At present, on the evidence now before the public, there is little or nothing to lead to the belief that the mystery has been solved. Will it ever be solved? My own guess is that it will not."
What can Burns do that has not been done? Everything, of course.
He will begin at the beginning. He will take up the case as a medical diagnostician takes up the case of a new patient, with out any reference whatever to reports of previous experts.
It is sometimes said in criminal circles, after a case has hung fire as the Phagan mystery has for several weeks, that "the trail is cold," meaning that so much may have happened between the commission of the crime and the period at which new men begin work, that everything is very much against the unraveling of the mystery.
This is not necessarily true, however. A cold trail is sometimes the best of all.
Mediocre detectives, like mediocre medical men, often get very fixed ideas and refuse to see new angles, new loopholes, new clews, or to examine new theories.
Very good medical men have pronounced patients incurable, or suffering from this, that, or the other disease, when a real expert brought into the case has gone at the matter from a radically different point of view, told them the true source of trouble, and remedied the evil.
WILL DISREGARD OTHER THEORIES.
If Burns does take up the Phagan case, he will not consider any of the testimony or evidence collected so far until he has first studied out the location of the crime, and from the moment the body was found, he will follow every clew, old or new, on his own line of investigation, without any reference to what may have been developed by the city detectives or at the Coroner's inquest.
After he has built up his own Frankenstein, he will take the reports of the various detectives, compare them with his own, and from these two reports he may be able to construct an entirely new and different case.
It does not follow that because nothing very positive has yet been discovered the mystery may not be solved; or, if it is not solved within the next few weeks, that it will not be solved within a year, or two years to come.
Burns is a relentless man. He knows no fear. No pull or power can influence him. He never forgives nor forgets. He never lets up. His horizon is broad;
World's Most Famous Detective Must Disregard All Theories Advanced Thus Far and Must Evolve His Own Solution of the Mysterious Slaying.
By AN OLD POLICE REPORTER.
Can William J. Burns solve the Phagan mystery?
I certainly hope so, as does everybody else who would like to see the guilty person in this extraordinary case brought to justice.
Unless Burns and his assistants are successful, I fear we shall never know who actually committed the crime.
In my article in The Sunday American on May 4, I said: "At present, on the evidence now before the public, there is little or nothing to lead to the belief that the mystery has been solved. Will it ever be solved? My own guess is that it will not."
What can Burns do that has not been done? Everything, of course.
He will begin at the beginning. He will take up the case as a medical diagnostician takes up the case of a new patient, with out any reference whatever to reports of previous experts.
It is sometimes said in criminal circles, after a case has hung fire as the Phagan mystery has for several weeks, that "the trail is cold," meaning that so much may have happened between the commission of the crime and the period at which new men begin work, that everything is very much against the unraveling of the mystery.
This is not necessarily true, however. A cold trail is sometimes the best of all.
Mediocre detectives, like mediocre medical men, often get very fixed ideas and refuse to see new angles, new loopholes, new clews, or to examine new theories.
Very good medical men have pronounced patients incurable, or suffering from this, that, or the other disease, when a real expert brought into the case has gone at the matter from a radically different point of view, told them the true source of trouble, and remedied the evil.
WILL DISREGARD OTHER THEORIES.
If Burns does take up the Phagan case, he will not consider any of the testimony or evidence collected so far until he has first studied out the location of the crime, and from the moment the body was found, he will follow every clew, old or new, on his own line of investigation, without any reference to what may have been developed by the city detectives or at the Coroner's inquest.
After he has built up his own Frankenstein, he will take the reports of the various detectives, compare them with his own, and from these two reports he may be able to construct an entirely new and different case.
It does not follow that because nothing very positive has yet been discovered the mystery may not be solved; or, if it is not solved within the next few weeks, that it will not be solved within a year, or two years to come.
Burns is a relentless man. He knows no fear. No pull or power can influence him. He never forgives nor forgets. He never lets up. His horizon is broad;
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Short filmTranscript
00:00Burns. Called in as last resort, faces cold trail and baffling Fagan case, Atlanta, Georgian Sunday,
00:06May 18, 1913. World's most famous detective must disregard all theories advanced thus far and
00:12must evolve his own solution of the mysterious slaying, by an old police reporter. Can William
00:17J. Burns solve the Fagan mystery? I certainly hope so, as does everybody else who would like
00:22to see the guilty person in this extraordinary case brought to justice. Unless Burns and his
00:27assistants are successful, I fear we shall never know who actually committed the crime.
00:32In my article in the Sunday American on May 4th, I said, at present, on the evidence now before the
00:38public, there is little or nothing to lead to the belief that the mystery has been solved.
00:43Will it ever be solved? My own guess is that it will not. What can Burns do that has not
00:48been done?
00:49Everything, of course. He will begin at the beginning. He will take up the case as a medical
00:54diagnostician takes up the case of a new patient, without any reference whatever to reports of
00:59previous experts. It is sometimes said in criminal circles, after a case has hung fire, as the Fagan
01:05mystery has for several weeks, that the trail is cold, meaning that so much may have happened between
01:11the commission of the crime and the period at which new men begin work, that everything is very
01:16much against the unraveling of the mystery. This is not necessarily true, however. A cold trail is
01:22sometimes the best of all. Mediocre detectives, like mediocre medical men, often get very fixed
01:27ideas and refuse to see new angles, new loopholes, new clues, or to examine new theories. Very good
01:34medical men have pronounced patients incurable or suffering from this, that, or the other disease
01:40when a real expert brought into the case has gone at the matter from a radically different point of
01:45view, told them the true source of trouble, and remedied the evil. Will disregard other theories.
01:50If Burns does take up the Fagan case, he will not consider any of the testimony or evidence
01:55collected so far, until he has first studied out the location of the crime, and from the moment the
02:01body was found, he will follow every clue, old or new, on his own line of investigation, without any
02:08reference to what may have been developed by the city detectives or at the coroner's inquest.
02:13After he has built up his own Frankenstein, he will take the reports of the various detectives,
02:18compare them with his own, and from these two reports he may be able to construct an entirely
02:23new and different case. It does not follow that because nothing very positive has yet been
02:27discovered, the mystery may not be solved, or, if it is not solved within the next few weeks,
02:32that it will not be solved within a year or two years to come. Burns is a relentless man. He
02:38knows
02:38no fear, no pull or power can influence him. He never forgives nor forgets. He never lets up.
02:44His horizon is broad. His imagination is strong. It is possible that some slight clue,
02:50overlooked by our city detectives, may start him on a line of investigation that will solve the
02:55mystery. I hope so yet. I am doubtful. I have talked with Thomas B. Felder, the Atlanta attorney,
03:01about the Fagan case and Burns' proposed connection with it. Felder has been employed to help bring the
03:06murderer of Mary Fagan to justice. He is one of the most intelligent lawyers in Georgia, level-headed,
03:11cool, incisive, and acutely inquiring. He has no large fee at stake, but he evidently is profoundly
03:16interested in the problem submitted to him. Felder takes great pride in achievement. He delights to
03:21do things, to put over unusual and extraordinarily difficult undertakings. Felder stakes reputation.
03:27I think he feels that he must not fall in locating the slayer of Mary Fagan. I believe he has
03:32staked
03:32a large measure of his professional reputation for astuteness and effectiveness against the seeming
03:38improbability of the Fagan case being cleared up. Burns' name was brought into this case at Felder's
03:43suggestion. To my mind, that proves two things. First, that Felder feels he must win at any cost.
03:49Second, that he feels the chances are against him. It is in just such emergencies, however,
03:54that both Felder and Burns work at their best. The commonplace interests neither. The bizarre,
04:00the grotesque, the elusive, and the mysterious challenge both to their most intelligent effort.
04:04Felder believes in Burns. He knows Burns' history, from start to its present status.
04:10He recites case after case scores of them in which Burns has triumphed over the apparently impossible.
04:15Like that master detective of fiction, Sherlock Holmes, a case either interests Burns immediately
04:20or not at all. He either brushes it aside or he grasps it vigorously. Unlike Holmes, however,
04:26Burns never injects morphia hypodermically into his circulation, nor does he play dreamy and severely
04:31classical music on a violin now and then. I understand he is rather fond of playing the
04:36pianola, and that he will pause occasionally to hear a phonograph grind out one of George M.
04:40Cohan's rattlete-bang pieces, particularly if it is something or other about the grand old rag,
04:46star-spangled and glee-o-ryas. Such simple diversions as listening to a phonograph or a pianola,
04:52moreover, are to my mind more convincing of mental alertness than hypodermics of morphia.
04:57For the purpose of a fictitious detective creation, habitual injections of morphia are
05:02more picturesque by way of accounting for subsequent extraordinary mental agility, perhaps,
05:07than pianola recitals. But in this everyday world, pianola recitals undoubtedly have brought about
05:12many more results that are substantial and practically logical in the detection of crime,
05:17all of which may be more or less a seeming digression from the point primarily in mind,
05:21and yet it is well enough to remember that Burns is a human being, an actual person, famous in fact,
05:27and not in fiction, and that Sherlock Holmes merely is a highly interesting creature of the wonderful
05:32brain of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, novelist and short story writer. In digging into Burns' remarkable
05:38history as an unraveler of criminal mysteries, Felder found one case in New Jersey almost exactly
05:44paralleling the case of Mary Fagan in Atlanta. There, a sixteen-year-old girl was found at the head of
05:49a
05:49blind alley in Jersey City, her throat cut from ear to ear, and her body rudely concealed. Local
05:56detectives worked on the case for months. Suspects were rounded up, and it was shown that thus and so
06:02might have committed the crime. But nothing came of these investigations and suspicions. After a time,
06:07public interest in the case began to lull, and when it had all but died out, Burns was called in.
06:13The case interested him. He undertook its solution in his own way and after his own fashion.
06:18In an astonishingly short period of time, Burns had fixed the crime upon a degenerate youth in
06:23Jersey City, therefore utterly unsuspected by the police. Burns had seized upon a little bit of a
06:29circumstance, entirely overlooked by others who had preceded him, and finding himself on the right
06:34trail, rapidly pursued it to its inevitable end. There wasn't much of a fee in it for Burns,
06:40but his interest had been wedded by the baffling phases of the case, and when once the Burns' interest
06:45is wedded, it is rapacious. Again, Felder cites the case of Wilberforce Martin, a rich cotton broker
06:51of Memphis Ten. Martin disappeared in London, supposedly with a large amount of money on his
06:55person. The flower of Scotland Yard was put on the case, and every effort to locate Martin was
07:01exhausted. Finally, the Scotland Yard detectives, being unable to locate Martin anywhere on the face
07:06of the earth, proceeded to locate him somewhere beneath the surface thereof, and they reported that
07:11Martin unquestionably had been sandbagged, robbed, and thrown into the Thames, and that his friends,
07:16if they desired to recover his body, might do so by dragging the river between such and such points.
07:22Dragging failed to disclose a deceased Martin, however, and so, after a while, Burns was called
07:28into the case. Found Martin, but not dead. He went at it in his own way, and pretty soon he
07:33said that
07:33Martin was not at the bottom of the Thames, never had been there, and furthermore never had been
07:38sandbagged or robbed. A few days later, Burns turned up Martin, safe and sound, in a little
07:43Swiss village, where, for reasons of his own, he had elected to conceal himself for a time.
07:49Naturally, Scotland Yard was much chagrined, but there was Martin, alive and kicking, so what could
07:54Scotland Yard do but acknowledge its comparative stupidly beside the prowess of Burns? And that,
07:59I think, surely would have delighted Sherlock Holmes and good Dr. Watson, were there any such persons in
08:04reality? Then, of course, there is the famous and recent case of the Los Angeles Dynamiters.
08:10That story is so well known, and Burns' remarkable work in connection with it is so familiar to the
08:15public that detail recital of it here would be out of place. It took him a long time to ferret
08:20out the
08:21truth of that, but he did it nevertheless. That's Burns. All over he is untiring and relentless. It will
08:27be seen, therefore, that Mr. Felder's supreme confidence in Detective Burns is now without reason.
08:32Burns is a remarkable man, remarkable for his common sense, his business-like methods, his attention to
08:38the seemingly unimportant and inconsequential, his knowledge of men and their ordinary trend of
08:43though, his wide and diversified experience, and his absolutely unalterable determination and
08:49persistence. Maybe Burns can and will solve the Fagin mystery. No person, not a party to the crime,
08:55or a similar crime or crimes, will fail to hope and pray that he may. Good men and good women
09:00stand
09:01ready to finance his undertaking to the limit. That much seems assured. If Burns cannot find the
09:06slayer of the little girl, who can? I am sure I cannot imagine. Credit all his if he wins.
09:11Burns is not infallible. He has encountered mysteries he could not fathom mysteries, perhaps,
09:16beyond the fathoming of human beings. But he has been most amazingly successful where the
09:21crime de la crime of the world's detective talent has failed. Unquestionably, he will come into the
09:26Fagin case if he does come, because it appeals to him, because it challenges his genius and his
09:31most aggressive ingenuity. Like an expert surgeon who glories in the successful performance of
09:37delicate operations, so Burns glories in solving the most delicate and intricate problems, in unveiling
09:43the most obscure mysteries. The Fagin case will afford Burns a great opportunity further to clinch
09:49his right to the title of the world's greatest detective. He will fight it out alone and in his own
09:55way. He will be accorded the same treatment that other detectives have been accorded in
09:59investigating the case. State, county, and city officers will cooperate with him in exactly the
10:05same degree, if he wishes, that they cooperated with the other detective talent, local and otherwise,
10:11heretofore exploited in the case. That much no more and no less. If Burns wins, the credit will be his
10:17if he loses. The loss of prestige and the shame of failure will fall upon Burns's broad shoulders.
10:22That, however, is the way he likes it to be. He has been placed in that position so many times,
10:28and there are so many detectives, real and near, gone to their rewards, unwept, unhonored, and unsung,
10:34and Burns so decidedly and so emphatically still as Burns that, well, it looks as if the right man is
10:40to take the job in hand at last. I sincerely hope so, anyway.
10:42Hope so.
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