Crewe grew interested in developing the boy's
talent for detective work. When the lad's mother died Crewe decided to
take him into his Holborn offices as messenger-boy. Crewe soon discovered
that Joe had a useful gift for "shadowing" work, and his street training
as a newspaper runner enabled him not only to follow a person through the
thickest of London traffic, but to escape observation where a man might
have been noticed and suspected.
"Well, Joe," said Crewe, as the boy entered on the heels of Stork, "I
have a job for you this morning. I want you to find the glove
corresponding to this one."
Crewe, having finished his examination of the glove, handed it to the
boy, whose first act was to slip it on his left hand and move his fingers
about to assure himself that they were in good working order in spite of
being hidden. It was the first occasion on which Joe had worn a glove.
"It was found in the room in which Sir Horace Fewbanks was murdered,"
continued Crewe. "The other one was not there. The question I want to
solve is, did it belong to Sir Horace, or to some one who visited him on
the night he was murdered? The police think it belonged to Sir Horace
because it is the same size as the gloves he wore, and because Sir
Horace's hosier stocks the same kind--as does nearly every fashionable
hosier in London.
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