The Clue of the Scratched Hand

An anonymous 'expert' postulates a theory in the murder of William Starchfield.

With no progress in the Willie Starchfield murder forthcoming, the press, in this case The Globe, took to writing a report worthy of a Sherlock Holmes plot.

The headlines read:

CURLY HAIRED BOY’S STRUGGLE FOR LIFE.

THEORY OF MURDERER WITH SCRATCHED HAND.

STILL NO CLUES.

Not for some time has public attention been arrested to such an extent by a crime as it has by the murder of the boy Starchfield.

There are several reasons for this, one being the apparent lack of motive for the crime; another the complete mystery in which it is developed. Yet again the circumstances of the case are made still more remarkable because of the unusual appearance of the boy.

He had dark brown corkscrew curls falling to his shoulders, and it seems extraordinary that nobody should have noticed him in the period of nearly four hours which elapsed between his leaving a shop hardly 200 yards from his home and the discovery of his body soon after the train left Mildmay Park Station.

PERPLEXING GAP

The filling up of that gap is the problem upon which the police are at present concentrating. The murderer has left no clue, and the detectives are faced with a blank wall until they can discover some of the circumstances which preceded the finding of the body on the railway.

The events of Thursday form a simple narrative. The mother was away from home during the morning, visiting a friend in Soho-Square. She remained with her from about ten o’clock to two. The boy was left at home with the landlady.

The apartment to let card that he was sent to return to the stationers was not in his possession when his dead body was discovered in the railway carriage.

After a further examination of the body, it is now believed that the boy made a desperate struggle for life while he was being strangled with a fine cord. In the opinion of an expert it is almost certain that the boy must have scratched the hand of the man who was strangling him.