A rich man had been murdered in a certain part of the city. He was in
his library at the time of the crime. His family was in an adjoining
room, yet none of them heard any noise, or knew what had been done
until they found him lifeless on the floor. Investigation proved that
he had been shot, but not with an ordinary weapon. The missile in
his heart was a combination of bullet and dart, evidently propelled
from a powerful air rifle or spring gun. But no clew was left by
the perpetrator of the crime, and Wooldridge carried the strange
missile in his pocket for several months before a single prospect of
apprehending the murderer appeared. Then it was the black cat that did
it. What strange coincidence or freak of fate it was that impelled
the cat to literally lead the detective to a little pile of dirt in
an alley that night Wooldridge never has attempted to explain. But
lead him it did, and when he dug into the disturbed ground he found
something entirely new in the gun line, the weapon that had discharged
the fatal bullet in his pocket. Eventually he traced the gun to its
inventor, and from there to the man who had purchased it, a young
fellow named Johnson, and a supposed friend of the murdered man's
family. The consequence was that this man proved to be the murderer.
When arrested he at first denied his guilt, broke down under the
sweatbox ordeal and confessed, and--killed himself in his cell next
morning.
For mystery and good fortune in bringing an apparently untraceable
criminal to justice this incident perhaps has never been equaled in
Chicago's police records.