Bucholz and the Detectives | Page 3

murderer of Henry Schulte have been
successfully punished or the money which he had stolen recovered.
The detective, a gentleman of education and refinement, in the interests
of justice assumes the garb of the criminal; endures the privations and
restraints of imprisonment, and for weeks and months associates with
those who have defied the law, and have stained their hands with blood;
but in the end he emerges from the trying and fiery ordeal through
which he has passed triumphant. The law is vindicated, and the
criminal is punished.
Despite the warnings of his indefatigable counsel, and the fears which
they had implanted in his mind, the detective had gained a control over
the mind of the guilty man, which impelled him to confess his crime
and reveal the hiding place of the money which had led to its
commission.
That conviction has followed this man should be a subject of
congratulation to all law-abiding men and women; and if the fate of this
unhappy man, now condemned to long weary years of imprisonment,
shall result in deterring others from the commission of crime, surely the
operations of the detective have been more powerfully beneficial to
society than all the eloquence and nicely-balanced theories--incapable
of practical application--of the theoretical moralist, who doubts the
efficiency or the propriety of the manner in which this great result has
been accomplished.
ALLAN PINKERTON.

BUCHOLZ AND THE DETECTIVES.

THE CRIME.
CHAPTER I.
The Arrival in South Norwalk.--The Purchase of the Farm.--A Miser's
Peculiarities, and the Villagers' Curiosity.
About a mile and a half from the city of South Norwalk, in the State of
Connecticut, rises an eminence known as Roton Hill. The situation is
beautiful and romantic in the extreme. Far away in the distance,
glistening in the bright sunshine of an August morning, roll the green
waters of Long Island Sound, bearing upon its broad bosom the
numerous vessels that ply between the City of New York and the
various towns and cities along the coast. The massive and luxurious
steamers and the little white-winged yachts, the tall "three-masters" and
the trim and gracefully-sailing schooners, are in full view. At the base
of the hill runs the New York and New Haven Railroad, with its iron
horse and long trains of cars, carrying their wealth of freights and
armies of passengers to all points in the East, while to the left lies the
town of South Norwalk--the spires of its churches rising up into the
blue sky, like monuments pointing heaven-ward--and whose beautiful
and capacious school-houses are filled with the bright eyes and rosy
faces of the youths who receive from competent teachers the lessons
that will prove so valuable in the time to come.
Various manufactories add to the wealth of the inhabitants, whose
luxurious homes and bright gardens are undoubted indications of
prosperity and domestic comfort. The placid river runs through the
town, which, with the heavy barges lying at the wharves, the
draw-bridges which span its shores, and the smaller crafts, which afford
amusement to the youthful fraternity, contribute to the general
picturesqueness of the scene.
The citizens, descended from good old revolutionary sires, possess the
sturdy ambitions, the indomitable will and the undoubted honor of their
ancestors, and, as is the case with all progressive American towns,
South Norwalk boasts of its daily journal, which furnishes the latest

intelligence of current events, proffers its opinions upon the important
questions of the day, and, like the Sentinel of old, stands immovable
and unimpeachable between the people and any attempted
encroachment upon their rights.
On a beautiful, sunny day in August, 1878, there descended from the
train that came puffing up to the commodious station at South Norwalk,
an old man, apparently a German, accompanied by a much younger one,
evidently of the same nationality. The old gentleman was not
prepossessing in appearance, and seemed to be avoided by his
well-dressed fellow-passengers. He was a tall, smooth-faced man about
sixty years of age, but his broad shoulders and erect carriage gave
evidence of an amount of physical power and strength scarcely in
accord with his years. Nor was his appearance calculated to impress the
observer with favor. He wore a wretched-looking coat, and upon his
head a dingy, faded hat of foreign manufacture. His shoes showed
frequent patches, and looked very much as though their owner had
performed the duties of an amateur cobbler.
It was not a matter of wonder, therefore, that the round-faced Squire
shrugged his burly shoulders as the new-comer entered his office, or
that he was about to bestow upon the forlorn-looking old man some
trifling token of charity.
The old gentleman, however, was not an applicant for alms. He did not
deliver any stereotyped plea for assistance, nor did he recite a tale of
sorrow and suffering