The Sherlock Holmes of Berlin

by Gazette and Times, Thursday 10th March, 1898

Dr. Jeserich is the Sherlock Holmes of Berlin.A Berlin correspondent describes him as a specialist in detective work. 

Not the footprints of murderers and burglars, however, but the thumb-marks of
forgers and mail robbers form his special study.

Recently he unmasked a clever cheat. A watchmaker had sent to a creditor a letter alleged to contain £20. When the letter was opened it was found to contain blotting paper

A careful examination of the missive shewed that the envelope had been skilfully slit open and closed again by means of an extremely thin slip of gummed paper inserted along the inside edge of the cut sides.

This is a frequent trick with mail robbers in Germany. How to discover the criminal was the problem set Dr Jeserich. The detective sought the aid of photography. An enlarged picture of the blotting-paper at once disclosed the stamp impressed upon it
of the post-office from which the letter
was first forwarded.

There could be no question, therefore that the blotting paper was inserted in the letter before it came into the hands of the postal authorities.

The suspicion consequently at once arose that no robbery at all had been committed, but merely a fraud upon the part of the watchmaker.

Further photographs strengthened this view by revealing a thumbmark stretching over the strip of gummed paper from the inside of the envelope. It was thus plain that the strip of paper was inserted before the envelope had been closed.

 A comparison of the thumbmarks in the letter and those of the watchmaker at length established beyond doubt the latter's guilt. The watchmaker is now in prison. philosophising, probably, on the simplicity of the detective's task compared with that of the man who would successfully deceive. The story of the discovery of the fraud sounds, indeed, as simple as A B C.