400
The Green. Bag.
anxiety that the murderers should be ar rested and brought to justice had to re main content with such satisfaction as it could derive from the ordinary rumors as to the discovery of clues and from a few mis taken arrests. One evening, however, all England rang with the news that two no torious criminals, Fowler and Milsom, had been arrested in Bristol after a desperate struggle. The ingenuity which put the police on the track of these ruffians, who proved, indeed, to have been the murderers, cannot possibly be too highly praised. Shortly after the date of the outrage an acute detective noticed the fact that two " ticket of leave " men of no toriously bad character had disappeared from their usual haunts. The " bull's eye " sug gested an idea to him. He gave it to a little boy named Wilson, and directed him to get into conversation with Milsom's brother, who was also a lad, and "draw" him upon the subject. The boy asked young Milsom whether he would buy a " bull's eye" from him. The lad answered "yes," as he had lost one, and immediately claimed the police lantern, when he saw it, as his own. The two youths were engaged in disputing the question, when a rustic (the detective in dis guise) came up and succeeded in getting the scene of the discussion transferred to the nearest police station, where he elicited from young Milsom the fact that he had mended the wick with scraps of flannel with which his sister-in-law had been making a dress for her baby, and that his brother had borrowed the lantern from him, and told him to say it was lost if any inquiry was made. Armed with this clue the detective pursued his in vestigations further and soon discovered that the elder Milsom, and Fowler, who had only been released from penal servitude the month before the murder, had left London together. He and other officers at once set to work to run them down. They traced them back and forwards through the English midland and southern counties, till at last they found
that the desperadoes were living with a traveling showman, named Sinclair, and his wife in Bristol. Surrounding the house at night, the police entered, and quickly ascend ing the stairs, burst into the room where the whole party were seated. Milsom surren dered almost without a struggle. But Fow ler fought with the strength and fury of a tiger, and almost succeeded in getting pos session of a revolver, with which he would have made short work of his assailants. Ul timately, however, he was felled by a baton, and the arrest was successfully effected. Mr. and Mrs. Sinclair were speedily released from custody, and Fowler and Milsom were brought to London for a preliminary investi gation of the case against them before the Highgate police court. On the second day of the inquiry it transpired that Milsom, whose courage was of a somewhat evanes cent character, had made a confession, in which he admitted his share in the burglary, but threw the whole responsibility for the murder on Fowler. In substance his story was as follows : — Fowler called on him after his release from prison and told him that he had discovered a good plant for a burglary at Muswell Hill. Milsom agreed to take part in the job, and the two criminals, traveling by a circuitous route, reached Muswell Lodge late on the night of the 13th. They climbed over the gate and lay concealed in the shrubs for an hour or more. Then Fowler said it was time to get to work, and they moved slowly across the lawn to the nearest window, carefully avoiding the spring-gun and electric bells, of whose existence they were of course per fectly cognizant. A window was soon opened and Fowler crept in — Milsom remaining outside. In a few minutes piercing cries were heard and then all was silent again. Milsom then followed Fowler into the house and found that old Mr. Smith was dead. They took all the money on which they could lay their hands — some £110 — and decamped with it. This confession was obviously
