tice could not be retarded, however, and an
investigation duly followed by the grand jury of the County of
Fairfield, at which the evidence thus far obtained was presented and
William Bucholz was eventually indicted for the murder of John Henry
Schulte, and committed to await his trial.

CHAPTER VIII.

_My Agency is Employed_--_The work of Detection begun._

The events attendant upon the investigation and the consequent
imprisonment of Bucholz had consumed much time. The new year had
dawned; January had passed away and the second month of the year had
nearly run its course before the circumstances heretofore narrated
had reached the position in which they now stood.

The ingenuity and resources of the officers at South Norwalk had been
fully exerted, and no result further than that already mentioned had
been achieved. The evidence against Bucholz, although circumstantially
telling against him, was not of sufficient weight or directness to
warrant a conviction upon the charge preferred against him. He had
employed eminent legal counsel, and their hopeful views of the case
had communicated themselves to the mercurial temperament of the
prisoner, and visions of a full and entire acquittal from the grave
charge under which he was laboring, thronged his brain.

The violence of his grief had abated; his despair had been dissipated
by the sunshine of a fondly-cherished hopefulness, and his manner
became cheerful and contented.

It was at this time that the services of my agency were called into
requisition, and the process of the detection of the real criminal
was begun.

Upon arriving at my agency in New York City one morning in the latter
part of February, Mr. George H. Bangs, my General Superintendent, was
waited upon by a representative of the German Consul-General, who was
the bearer of a letter from the Consulate, containing a short account
of the murder of Henry Schulte, and placing the matter fully in my
hands for the discovery of the following facts:

I. Who is the murderer?

II. Where is the money which is supposed to have been upon the person
of Henry Schulte at the time of his death?

Up to this time no information of the particulars of this case had
reached my agency, and, except for casual newspaper reports, nothing
was known of the affair, nor of the connection which the German
Consul had with the matter.

At the interview which followed, however, such information as was
known to that off