OF CALIFORNIA RIVERSIDE 'OOK CO. {. .\. ^ ~^ <'f~ t ,,,7 1 , T [}IQ > -'"lif. 91204 ^e: CI 4-OS28 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE THE RECOLLECTIONS OF A SPY TWENTY-FIVE YEARS IN THE SECRET SERVICE BY MAJOR HENRI LE CARON WITH NEW PREFACE. 8vo boards, price 2s. 6d., or in cloth, 3s. 6d. The Library Edition, with Portrait and Facsimiles, is still on sale, Svo, price 14s. LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN, 21, BEDFORD ST., w.c. MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE INCIDENTS IN THE LIFE OF JOHN WILSON MURRAY WITH PORTRAIT AND FACSIMILES LONDON W 1 LLI A M H KIN E M ANN 1904 This Edition enjoys copyright in rill countries signatory In th<: Herne Tic/ity, and j.s tiol to hr imparted lit ilir. Uuilid i/n/cis if Ann: iicn. CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE I. MURRAY I II. FROM BABYHOOD TO BATTLESHIP ..... 6 III. THE FIRST CASE : CONFEDERATE COLE'S COUP . . IO IV. A WORD BY THE WAY 2O V. KNAPP : A WEAZENED WONDER ..... 26 VI. THE FEMININE FIRM OF HALL AND CARROLL . . 32 VII. THE EPISODE OF POKE SOLES 37 VIII. HOW A FEUD ALMOST BURNED ERIE .... 40 IX. TWO SCARS, BY THE BLADE OF NAPPER NICHOLS AND THE BULLET OF WHITEY STOKES .... 43 X. A KING, A LUNATIC, AND A BURGLAR THREE IN ONE, AND NONE AT ALL ...... 46 XI. THE BOX-CAR BATTLE OF SWEETMAN, AND THE THRASHERS WITH THE WHEAT . . . 5 2 XII. WITH THE HELP OF JESSIE MCLEAN .... 58 XIII. THE COURSE OF A CAREER ...... 60 XIV. SANCTIMONIOUS BOND ....... 64 XV. WHEN RALPH FINDLAY LURCHED AND FELL . . 69 XVI. THE TINKLING HOUSE OF WELLINGTON SQUARE . . 77 XVII. THE DRIVERLESS TEAM ON CALEDONIA ROAD . . 8 1 XVIII. APROPOS OF HUNKER CHISHOLM . 86 vi CONTENTS CHAh. PAGE XIX. THE WHITESIDES OF BALLINAFAD . . 89 XX. THE MONAGHAN MURDER . 9 1 XXI. THE SIX-FOOT NEEDHAMS : FATHER AND SON . . 95 XXII. PRETTY MARY WARD OF THE GOVERNMENT GARDENS IO2 XXIII. THE FATAL ROBBERY OF THE DAINS . Io8 xxiv. "AMER! AMER ! AMER ! " . .120 xxv. MCPHERSON'S TELLTALE TROUSERS . . . -125 XXVI. WHEN GLENGARRY WRECKED THE CIRCUS . .128 XXVII. THE DISAPPEARING STORES . . . 136 XXVIII. MARY ANN WEATHERUP, COQUETTE. . 142 XXIX. THE CAPTURE OF LOCHINVAR SPROULE . . . 146 XXX. THE MILLION DOLLAR COUNTERFEITING . . 151 XXXI. HENEY, OF THE WELTED FOREHEAD . . 1 66 XXXII. THE TOOKES'S REVEL IN RICHES . . . .173 XXXIII. BIG MAC OF SIMCOE, YOUNG SMITH, AND BILL NAY. 178 XXXIV. JOHN DOBBIN, FROM BEYOND THE QUICKSANDS . 184 XXXV. LUKE PHIPPS, WHO BURIED HIMSELF ALIVE . . 193 XXXVI. THE NEW YEAR'S MURDER OF STILLWELL OF BAYHAM 203 XXXVII. THE WINTER ROAD TO MANITOULIN . . 206 XXXVIII. THE LONG POINT MYSTERY , . . . 2IO XXXIX. JOHN STONE, GENTLEMAN . . . . .217 XL. DATES OF ALLANBURG'S FUNERAL PYRE . . . 226 XI. I. A SPREADER OF ARSENIC ..... 230 XI. 1 1. FOR A MESS OF POTTAGE ..... 234 XI. III. SHET-I:I.ACK HKRRES OF THE DING-DONG MUSTACHEES 239 XUV. I1AI.UY DRINKWATER . ."".-. . . 247 XI.V. OLU JOHN KLII'PERT OF WATERLOO . . . 254 CONTENTS vii CHAP. PACE XLVI. THE RETURNING OF DARKY GEORGE CLAXTON . 260 XLVII. TWO DISAPPEARANCES . . . . . . 263 XLVIII. THE HOLLOWED CHOCOLATE 269 XLlX. THE SHANTY CITY OF SLABTOWN . . . .271 L. WHY TAMELY SLEEPS IN GEORGIAN BAY . . .277 LI. REGINALD BIRCH ALL : OCCUPATION, MURDERER . 281 LII. THE FOOTMARK BY LANGFORD's BED . . . 308 LIII. THE LADY OF THE PIERCING BLACK EYES -. . 313 LIV. AN ESCAPER OF GENIUS 318 LV. PENNYFEATHER OF THE BANK .... 325 LVI. THE TOUR OF CHARLES HILTON DAVIDSON . . 329 LVII. OVER THE ANDES FOR AITKEN .... 339 LVIII. THE CASE OF PERRY WEINBERG .... 354 LIX. THE FOUR BARN BURNINGS OF CHATHAM . -357 LX. ALMEDA CHATTELLE, THE HAIRY MAN . . . 360 LXI. THE GANGS OF BURTCH AND RUTLEDGE . . . 365 LXII. THE MIDDLEMARCH MYSTERY ..... 369 LXI1I. THE GRADED GRAYS ...... 374 LXIV. GEORGE ALGER's GRAVEYARD POLICY . . -378 LXV. THE KILLING OF JAMES AGNEW .... 380 LXVI. THE VOICE OF THE HAUNTED HOUSE . . . 385 LXVII. OLIVE ADELE SEVENPIPER STERNAMAN . . . 388 LXVIII. SIMPERING JIM ALLISON ...... 393 LXIX. THE TURNIP PIT TRAGEDY ..... 399 LXX. FOOLISH FRANK OSIER AND WISE SAM LINDSAY . 403 LXXI. EDDIE ELLIOTT, BOY MURDERER .... 407 LXXII. DEMURE KATE PENDER OF EMSDALE . . .41! viii CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE LXXIII. WHY HUMPHREY WENT BACK TO PRISON. . . 413 LXXIV. LAING OF LAWRASON's, THRIFTY THIEF . . -415 LXXV. LEE CLUEY OF CATHAY 418 LXXVI. MELVIN HALL, FREEBOOTER . . . . .42! LXXVII. THE MURDER OF JOSEPH SIFTON .... 426 LXXVIII. THE THREE DYNAMITARDS . . . . -431 LXXIX. THE TEMPORARY QUIRK MYSTERY .... 445 LXXX. TWO CROOKS IN CLOVER .... . 447 LXXXI. THE CRIME OF CHARLIE KING. .... 450 LXXXII. IN CONCLUSION 454 Memoirs of a Great Detective Chapter I MURRAY IN a tangled swamp on a farm near Gait, in the county of Waterloo, Province of Ontario, Canada, in August 1897, searchers were hunting for the body of a farmer's wife. She had disappeared, and blood by the wood pile and near the house told of a crime and the hiding of the body. One of the party beating the swamp came upon a half-dug grave. He kept silence as to his discovery, and, when night fell, he secreted himself in the thick brush near the grave and waited, in the faint hope that the murderer would return and finish his task, perchance bringing the body with him. It was bright moonlight overhead. In the thicket of the swamp all was gloom, save for a broken filtering of pale light where the underbrush and tall briar had been thinned out. It was a lonely, dismal place. An owl's wailing and the swamp-frog's croaking were the only sounds. The hours passed. Midnight came and went. Not even a lizard appeared by the grave. The watcher was about to creep closer and ease his limbs, when a rustle sounded in the brush, a noise like the wind swishing a bush. It ceased, then came again, then all was still. Suddenly, on the side of the grave farthest from the watcher, a figure crept swiftly out of the thicket and stood erect. The moon shone full upon him. He was tall and broad- shouldered, with a pose like that in the old-fashioned prints of heroic figures of the ancient wars. He wore knee-boots, with a long, loose coat reaching to their tops, and buttoned to the chin. A slouch hat, pulled well down on the forehead, shaded his face. In his left hand he held a spade. He paused by the grave, thrust his spade into the earth, and left I 2 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE it upright like a headstone, then shoved back the hat, and knelt on all fours, with his face close to the ground, for all the world like a bloodhood sniffing for a scent. On hands and knees he crept around and around the grave. Finally, from a pocket of the long coat, he produced a tiny lamp, and turning its light full upon the ground, he resumed his circling of the grave, his face not five inches from the earth, his eyes searching every foot of ground. For half an hour this creeping around the grave con- tinued. Then the figure squatted by the mound of earth and sat motionless. Suddenly he arose, seized the spade, and swiftly tossed away the mound of earth dug from the grave. All was done so noiselessly, so deftly, that it seemed unreal, phantom-like, the antics of a ghost. As he neared the bottom of the pile of earth his care redoubled. At length, he began to dig around the remnant of the pile as if making a second grave, beside the first. He had left about four inches of the earth from the first grave lying undisturbed on the site of the second grave. It was thick, sticky soil, that held together firmly, being less watery than elsewhere in the swamp, yet being full of heaviness and moisture. He dug cautiously, sinking the spade about four inches in the soil, then driving it under, as would a man in cutting sod. When he thus had cut under the entire remnant of earth from the first grave he cleared a space on the ground beside it, and as one would turn a pancake on the griddle, he flipped the earth out and turned it on to the cleared space, so that the remnant of soil from the first grave was underneath. He then painstakingly lifted away the upper layer, and thus exposed to view the soil from the first grave, precisely as it had formed the surface or top of the earth before the digging of the grave began. He knelt over this earth as a mother over her child. He turned the light of the little lamp full upon it. Then he grunted, a subdued, deep, satisfied grunt. With the spade he carefully cut out a piece of the earth about a foot long and half as wide. He produced a measuring rule, and for half an hour worked over the piece of earth. Then he took the earth in his arms as tenderly as if it were a babe, picked up the spade, and vanished in the thicket. MURRAY 3 Like a flash it dawned on the watcher that this mysterious figure had been searching for footprints. He had found no clear footprint around the grave. The marks there had been trampled by those of the watcher. But on the surface of the earth, where the grave had been dug, the footprints of the digger were certain to appear. So the figure in the long coat had reclaimed this surface undisturbed, and, judging from the one sound he made, the grunt of joy, he had found what he sought. The watcher trailed after him, ignorant of who he was or whence he came. The grey dawn was creeping into the sky as he entered his hotel at Gait. A sleepy porter was lolling on a table. Footsteps sounded in the hall, and past the office door on his way upstairs went the figure of the long coat. The coat was in his arms, borne carefully, for it concealed the precious piece of earth. " Who is that ? " asked the watcher. " That ! " said the porter, with a yawn. " That's Old Never-let-go." " Who ? " asked the watcher. " Old Never-let-go," answered the porter. " Murray, John Murray, Old Never-let-go, the greatest genuine detective that this here or any other bloomin' country can produce. He's snoopin' around now a gettin" ready to fix a hangin' for whoever killed Mrs. Orr." The figure of the long coat was in his room before the porter finished. He had laid the piece of earth on a table and turned the light full on it. A footprint showed, distinct in every detail of the shoe's outline. He remeasured it care- fully, noting the measurements on a slip of paper. When he finished he compared this slip with another slip. Then he went to a closet, and drew forth an old shoe, earth-stained and worn. He gently lowered this shoe into the imprint on the piece of earth. It matched. The clue held true. After locking the piece of earth in an iron box, he went straight to the gaol or lockup, where a suspect was under guard. He entered the cell, and slammed the door. An hour later he returned to his room at the hotel, glanced longingly at the bed, then at his watch, shook his head, and 4 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE five minutes later was in a cold bath. When he appeared in the hotel office shortly after, the newspaper men and others including the watcher in the swamp, crowded around him. " Any news ? " they asked eagerly. " The murderer's locked up," was the reply. " Who is he ? " "Jim Allison, the chore boy. He'll confess before he's hanged." Allison was tried and convicted, and he confessed before he was hanged. At the trial there was no inkling of the all- night labours in the swamp or of the fatal footprint. The case was complete, without a revelation of the methods of the man who ran down the necessary evidence. If it had been necessary, the piece of earth with the tell-tale tread, a plaster cast of it to make it still plainer, would have been in evidence at the trial. It was not needed, and hence it did not appear. In a somewhat similar case a few years before, proof of footprints was needed, and it did appear. " You're sure Allison did it ? " asked the newspaper men at the Gait hotel. " Sure," said Murray, and he went to breakfast. It was the writer's first experience with John Wilson Murray, Inspector of the Department of Criminal Investi- gation of the Department of Justice, with head offices in the Parliament Building at Toronto, Canada. For almost thirty years he has been inspector, and, in that time, murders by the dozen, burglaries by the score, crimes of all kinds, totalling thousands, have been solved by him, and the perpetrators apprehended. His career is a record of events outrivalling the detective tales of fiction ; for fact, in its fullest scope, is stranger far than fiction. He has followed men over two con- tinents ; he has pursued them over land and sea, from country to country, from hemisphere to hemisphere, from New World to Old World and back again. He has travelled over 30,000 miles in the chase of a single man. He has shot and has been shot. He has been worsted in desperate struggles when help came in the nick of time, and he has fought grim battles single-handed when defeat would have meant death. His prisoners have ranged from men of high estate to creatures MURRAY 5 of the lowest depths. The cases he has solved range through every variety of crime known to the police records of the world. He has run down counterfeiters of $1,000,000 and more ; he has unravelled the mysteries of murder where life was taken for eighty cents. Me has the counterfeiting plates, valued at $40,000, as a trophy of the one chase, and he has a rusty iron pipe as a souvenir of the other. He lives in Toronto, in a comfortable brick house in Brunswick Avenue. As he comes and goes, a stranger seeing him would regard him as a prosperous business man, of placid life and uneventful career. His home life is the antithesis of his official life. He lives alone, with a trusted housekeeper and discreet servants. His pleasure, apart from his work, is in outdoor life, with his dogs and gun, his fishing tackle, or, above all, a boat on the open sea. Beside his desk in the library of his house, are his favourite books on a separate shelf the poems of Robert Burns, the works of Scott, the essays of Emerson, the Count of Monte Cristo, Gulliver's Travels, and the Bible. He is an omnivorous reader, but these are his favourites. On the wall, side by side, are pictures of Queen Victoria and Abraham Lincoln. His den is filled with reminders of his life's work. There are rusty bullets that have come from the brains of murdered men ; there are bludgeons, knives, revolvers, sandbags, pieces of pipe, jemmies, kits of burglars, outfits of counterfeiters, symbols of the crucial clues that fastened on criminals the guilt of their crimes. Each has its history, and in the story of his life all have their place. In a gold frame on the top of his desk, in old English lettering on heavy paper, is the following : They talk about a woman's sphere As though it had a limit : There's not a place in earth or heaven, There's not a task to mankind given, There's not a blessing or a woe, There's not a whisper, yes or no, There's not a life, or death, or birth That has a featherweight of worth, Without a woman in it. Murray smiles when a visitor reads it. 6 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE Chapter II FROM BABYHOOD TO BATTLESHIP EVEN the early years of the life of John Wilson Murray were eventful. He was born in the city of Edinburgh, Scotland, on June 25th, 1840. He is sixty-five years old, and looks little past fifty. He came of a sturdy family of sea- faring men, who had been sailing the globe for generations before him. His father was Daniel Duncan Murray, a sea captain, and his grandfather was Hector Murray, a sea captain of some note, who owned a number of coasting vessels off the north of Scotland and in the German Ocean, and who was a rich man until a storm at sea swept many of his ships away. Murray's mother was Jeanctte Wilson, daughter of Dr. Alex. Wilson, of Belfast, County Antrim, in the north of Ireland. Her father and mother died when she was quite young, and the lass was raised in Scotland at the home of a relative of Murray's godmother, named MacDonald, an Edinburgh merchant's wife. There Daniel Duncan Murray met her, a winsome maid, whose picture is a gem, and married her in 1834. He sailed the seas, returning to Edinburgh for short visits after long voyages to all parts of the earth. There were two children who survived infancy. One was John Wilson Murray, the other was his sister, Mary, five years older, who died some years ago. When young Murray was five years old the family moved to New York. Captain Daniel Duncan Murray sailed ships out of New York for a number of years. Among them were the Benjamin Adams, the Flying Cloud, and the Ocean Wave, in its day a fast clipper. Young Murray was sent to school in New York, but in 1851, when he was eleven years old, his mother's health failed, and she returned to Scotland, taking him with her, but leaving his sister, Mary, attending school in Hartford, Conn. The mother, on her arrival in Edinburgh, placed her son at the old Royal High School on the east end of Princess or Regent Street. A few months later she heard that her daughter in Hartford had been FROM BABYHOOD TO BATTLESHIP 7 thrown from a horse, and that her arm had been broken. She immediately started for New York, leaving young John Wilson Murray at school in Edinburgh. The son soon showed the family love for roving, a trait dominant in his father and his father's father. He became dissatisfied ; he disliked his teacher. The dissatisfaction and dislike grew when he heard his father was due a month later in Liverpool. In 1853 this boy of thirteen ran away from school, shipped on a coaster and made his way to Liverpool. He travelled the Liverpool docks a night and a day before he found his father's ship. " I'll tack you back to Edinburgh on the morrow," said Captain Daniel Duncan Murray. " Gin you do, I'll be off again on the next morrow," replied his thirteen-year-old son. Captain Murray laughed mightily at this, and when his ship sailed for New York he took his son with him and turned him over to his mother again. Mrs. Murray took him to Washington and sent him to the Georgetown Academy. He stayed there until 1855, when the spirit of adventure seized him and he ran away a second time. With him went another lad of the school, who now is a prominent man in the business affairs of the United States. The two boys went to Baltimore. They tried to ship aboard a whaler. At the first shipping office, they entered, the man in charge eyed them suspiciously as they glibly told of an imaginary career, since infancy, at sea. " Hold out your hands," he said suddenly. The astonished lads obeyed. " Bah ! " he roared, as he spat on the white unmarked palms. " Out of here, or I'll have you both arrested. Go back to your mas and your milk, ye pair of umveaned liars. Ye're dressed for a party." Thereupon he spanked them both soundly, and sat them down with a thud. They fled, not alone from the office, but from Baltimore, going to Philadelphia. They prowled around the water-front of the Quaker City looking for a whaler. After their Baltimore experience they had decided to steer clear of all shipping offices. After a week of unavailing 8 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE search for a whaler that would carry them to the far north, where they expected to bag whales by the score and seals by the thousand, young Murray met a fruiter. She was a brig. They wanted a boy, but did not want two boys. Murray's companion in adventure found a berth on a Liverpool ship, and the lads separated, not to meet again for thirty years, The fruiter on which Murray shipped was the Sequence- She went to the West Indies, Murray receiving the princely wage of $7 a month. The Sequence stopped at the Barbadoes. Trinidad, and St. Kitts, then sailed for Boston. The boy, who had stepped aboard in velvet knickerbockers at Philadelphia, stepped ashore in duck togs at Boston. He sailed on the Sequence four months ; then returned to Philadelphia and shipped again, this time on the Dauntless, a full-rigged ship bound around the Horn. He left Philadelphia early in October 1855, going out for guano on the islands off Lima on the west coast of South America. She struck appalling weather off the Horn, and limped into Callao badly battered. In this hurricane young Murray was sea-sick for the first and last time in his life. On his return from the guano islands, he shipped on the brig Tortoise, for a short trip to San Domingo after logwood. He was out two months, and when he landed in Philadelphia he heard of a grand new vessel on the great lakes, and straightway started for Buffalo, and shipped on the Great West, at that time (1856) the biggest vessel on the lakes. Captain John Bampton, a giant in bulk and heart and voice, was her master, and Toppy McGee, of Oswego, was mate. She was a full-rigged ship, the only one on the lakes at that time. . Murray sailed on the Great West between Buffalo and Chicago, and had made several trips when, one morning at the docks in Buffalo, Captain Daniel Duncan Murray appeared and led his runaway offspring back to New York. " This time you go to school and you stay at school," said the captain. " 'Tis a profession 1 intend you should follow. From the cut of your jib you'll make a fine preacher-person ; or, at the worst, I'll turn you out a doctor-man." " I may go, but I will not stay," said young Murray. The captain placed him in school. Young Murray Ian- FROM BABYHOOD TO BATTLESHIP 9 guished through the winter months, and when spring came, the spirit of unrest stirred within him, and away he went, back to the sea. In the late spring he returned to the Great Lakes, and on June 5th, 1857, he enlisted in the United States Navy, joining the U.S.S. Michigan, then in Chicago, although her headquarters were in Erie, Pa. He stayed aboard the MicJiigan until the Civil War broke out in 1861. He was twenty-one years old then, and the opportunity came for him to realise the ambition of his early years. There was a shortage of officers in the regular service, and Murray was picked as one of the likely young fellows to be sent on to the training-school at Washington. He worked and studied faithfully then, and when the examinations were held he passed, and received a commission in the United States Navy. Murray served through the Civil War in the Navy. He was in the Mississippi or Gulf Squadron a part of the time, under Commander Jewett, and he fought under Farragut, and was in a number of engagements, including the fight at Mobile. " The first time I saw Farragut was aboard the Hartford, and I can see him now, over forty years after, as distinctly in memory as I saw him then in reality," says Murray, in speaking of the great naval genius of the war. " Once seen, never forgotten." From service in the Mississippi and the Gulf, Murray was ordered to the Great Lakes aboard the MicJiigan. He continued aboard her until after the close of the war, and in December 1866 he left the MicJiigan and the service. Thus, at the age of twenty-five, Murray had sailed the south seas and around the Horn, had stood the gruelling, of a six months' trip to the guano fields, had been through the pounding life aboard the West Indies fruiters, had fought through the Civil W r ar, and stood, a powerful, self-reliant young giant on the look-out for his calling in life. One of those who knew Murray in these days, and who is a banker in Ohio now, says of him : " He was strong as a bull, quick as a cat, rather a silent fellow, slow to anger, and plenteous in vengeance once he was io MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE aroused. He feared neither man, gun, nor belaying pin. He was a faithful friend and a relentless foe. He was the last to pick a quarrel, but once it was picked he was the last to drop it. His associates liked him. He was a silent, sturdy, self-contained man, with a remarkable gift for gaining the confidence of other men." The war left its indelible imprint on the life of Murray, as it did on the life of many another man. It tended to mould his ambitions and direct them along the line of what later became his occupation. In Murray's mind it is a settled belief that if he had not served in the Navy during the Civil War he would have been a sailor until he died, following in the way of his ancestors, and traversing all the seas to all parts of the world as master of his own ship. His career was not cast ashore by any dread of hardship afloat, or by any dislike of service at sea. It was influenced by an event that is one of the important, yet little-known, episodes of the Civil War. It sufficed to decide finally the future work of Murray. He holds it, therefore, a bit apart from other excitements of his career, for in it the hand of fate pointed the way of his destiny. Chapter III THE FIRST CASE : CONFEDERATE COLE'S COUP IT is a wonderful story, this narrative of the attempt of the Confederates, in 1864, to capture the U.S.S. MicJiigan, to take Johnson Island in Sandusky Bay in Lake Erie, release 4,000 Confederates imprisoned there, burn the island, if possible, destroy Detroit, Cleveland, and Buffalo by fire, and strike terror to the heart of the North. The man who discovered the plot was Murray, and it was he who unearthed the identity of the picturesque leader and was instrumental in frustrating the schemes so cunningly devised. The war was at it zenith, says Murray, in telling the story. It was the year 1864. Commander J. C. Carter of the United States Navy sent for Murray and detailed him to special CONFEDERATE COLE'S COUP n duty. There had been talk of a Confederate plot to blow up Johnson Island and liberate all Confederate prisoners and land them safely in Canada across Lake Eric. " ' Try to get to the bottom of the conspiracy, if there is one,' said Commander Carter to me, in the latter part of May 1864," says Murray. "Carter added : 'Go to any place and every place ; you have an unlimited commission. Report to me from time to time.' " Murray went first to Detroit and conferred with Colonel Hill, who gave him what information he had. It was meagre. At that time, Vallandingham, a member of Congress from Ohio, was in exile in Windsor, Ontario, across the river from Detroit. Vallandingham was a Southern sympathiser. Murray in the garb of a civilian, of course crossed to Windsor, and settled down to learn, first of all, the ways of Vallandingham and any other Confederate sympathisers gathered there. He observed closely all who called on Vallandingham. Among them he noted a dapper, energetic, little fellow, who came and went at Vallandingham's head- quarters. Murray, unsuspected, learned his name was L. C. Cole, and that he was reputed to be a Confederate agent. Cole was about thirty-eight years old, five feet seven inches tall, weighed a hundred and thirty-five pounds, with red hair and long mustachios, and grey eyes, so small and sharp and bright, that Murray says the first thing he noticed about Cole was his eyes. Murray finally caught a scrap of conversation between Cole and Vallandingham that con- vinced him Cole was an important and dangerous figure. He communicated with Commander Carter and made ready to follow Cole, if it led to the ends of the earth. Cole left Windsor, with Murray on his trail. He went first to Toronto and stopped at the Queen's Hotel, where he was joined by a number of other rebel sympathisers. Murray says a dozen or more gathered instantly to greet him, all being strangers. Cole clearly was the chief among them, as they deferred to him. After long conferences, Cole went to Montreal. Murray went on the same train. Thus the chase began. Murray was a young fellow of twenty-four, inexperienced as a detective, untrained in 12 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE shadowing a man or in running down a clue or solving a mystery. Cole, on the contrary, was an experienced and trained agent, schooled in all the tricks of that branch of war in which he was engaged. The difficult task, however, seemed simple to Murray ; he adjusted himself to it from the outset. It serves to indicate his natural bent toward the work of a detective. A coincidence of his career is that his first visit to Toronto, where later he established his headquarters in his life work, was as a detective, trailing his man. 11 I learned then the simple rule for following a man," says Murray. " Keep him in your sight as much as possible, and keep yourself out of his sight as much as possible." When Cole alighted from the train in Montreal, Murray was a car length behind him. Cole went to the St. Lawrence Hall Hotel and Murray followed. There Cole was joined by a woman. " She was an elegant-looking lady," says Murray. " She was big and stately, a magnificent blonde, with clothes that were a marvel to me. I did not know her then, but later she turned out to be the celebrated Irish Lize. The contrast between her and Cole was striking. She was big, stout, and fine-looking ; he was a little, sandy, red-haired fellow, but smart as lightning." From Montreal, Cole and Irish Lize went to Albany. The impulse was strong on Murray to seize them and notify Commander Carter. He debated it with himself. He had evidence that they were Confederate sympathisers, but he had not the desired evidence as to a plot or their plans. He decided to follow them, half expecting they would go far South before returning to execute any desperate plans in the North. They stopped over night in Albany, then went to New York and then on to Philadelphia and thence to Wash- ington. Murray trailed them from city to city, from hotel to hotel. Cole and Irish Lize met one, or sometimes two or three strangers in each city, evidently by previous appoint- ment, as in every instance they were waiting Cole's arrival. From Washington, Cole and Irish Lize went to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and from Harrisburg to Buffalo, New York, CONFEDERATE COLE'S COUP 13 and thence to Cleveland, Ohio. In Cleveland they were joined by a young man, whom they had seen in Philadelphia. He was Charles Robinson, son of a former judge. They stayed in Cleveland two days and then went to Sandusky, Ohio, where Cole and Irish Lize stopped at the West House, and Robinson at a private boarding-house. They arrived at Sandusky about June 2Oth, 1864. Murray arrived on the same train. " I learned for myself on that trip," says Murray, " the various ways to ascertain a man's destination before he boards his train. Sometimes he states it at the hotel when paying his bill, sometimes it can be learned when he buys his ticket, sometimes the conductor is obliging, and sometimes, when the worst comes to the worst, you can sit in another car, or at the other end of the same car, and keep an eye on the stations. All this has changed greatly in recent years. Co-operation among the police forces of all cities and of hotel, railroad, and other detectives has simplified this task of trailing a traveller." Cole posed at Sandusky as an oil prince. Irish Lize passed as his wife. Soon after their arrival an assistant joined Cole. He was known as G. C. Beal. One week to the day after Cole arrived at the West House, a young man registered as John U. \Vilson of New Orleans. In the course of a few days he met Cole casually, as guests staying for long at the same hotel are apt to meet. They drank together, and seemed to become well acquainted. Cole bought fast horses and finally chartered a yacht. He made the acquaintance of the officers of the U.S.S. Michigan^ then lying off Sandusky, and also of Colonel Hill (not the Colonel Hill whom Murray had seen in Detroit) and the U.S. Army officers in charge of Johnson Island. Cole appeared a jolly good fellow, who spent money like water, and was too busy having a merry time to give heed to the affairs of war. He became a great favourite with both the Naval officers aboard the Michigan and the Army officers on the Island. He sent baskets of wine and boxes of cigars aboard the vessel and over to the Island. Murray, meanwhile, had reported to .Commander Carter. i 4 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE About the middle of July 1864 Cole arranged a party to the Seven Mile House, seven miles out of Sandusky. He invited all the officers of the Island and the ship. A number of them were making preparations to go. Young Wilson, of New Orleans, was Cole's assistant in planning the details of the outing. Early that morning Cole received a telegram from Detroit : " I send you sixteen shares per messenger. B.D." On this particular morning, on the steamer Philo Parsons, plying between Sandusky and Detroit on daily trips, with a stop at Windsor, Ontario, ten men got aboard at Windsor, and eight more got aboard at Amherstburg, in Canada, at the mouth of the Detroit River. They had their luggage with them. They were the sixteen shares sent by two messengers to the merry Mr. Cole at Sandusky. After the steamer Parsons got well out into Lake Erie, these eighteen men opened their luggage boxes, took therefrom braces of re- volvers and captured the Parsons, making her captain a prisoner. Then they steamed on to Kelly's Island, off San- dusky, where the steamer Island Queen was lying. They sent some of their men aboard the Queen, caught the few of her crew aboard unawares, gave orders to Engineer Richardson, and .when he refused to obey, shot him dead. They then took the Island Queen out into the lake and ran her on to-Gull Island and abandoned her there. Then they headed for Sandusky in the Parsons, which was due at 6 o'clock in the evening. While this was occurring on Lake Erie, Cole was in San- dusky with his plans all made for the party that would call practically all the officers on the Michigan and on Johnson Island to the Seven Mile House, well away from their posts of duty. They were to start from Sandusky in the afternoon. Cole and young Wilson waited, and finally Cole, becoming impatient, said to Wilson : " It's strange these officers are not ashore before this. You go off and see them." " They would not come for me," said Wilson. You'd better go." Cole, who usually dressed in black or dark clothes, was CONFEDERATE COLE'S COUP 15 dressed on this day in a suit of grey. He discussed the matter of going over for the officers with Wilson, who walked down to the dock with him and said : " Here's a boat belonging to the ship now. Go off in her and get them. I'll go with you." Cole handed a $10 bill to the coxswain of the boat's crew and told him to take the boys up for a drink. All went except the boat-keeper, who waited with Cole and Wilson, and James Hunter, an officer of the Michigan, who was ashore. When the crew returned they willingly pulled off to the U.S.S. Michigan, lying three miles off Sandusky. About half way out, Cole, who seemed to have a presentiment of trouble, decided to turn back. "The pennant of the ship is flying," remarked young Wilson to the coxswain. "Yes, we'll have to go on and I'll bring you back as soon as I've reported," said the coxswain. They went on to the Michigan. The officers aboard greeted Cole cordially and invited him to have a glass of wine, telling him they were sorry to disarrange his plans or delay his party. Young Wilson called on Carter in his cabin. " I have the man," he said as he entered. " The right man ? " " Not a shadow of doubt," said Wilson. " Bring him up," said Carter. Young Wilson turned to the orderly. " Tell Mr. Cole Captain Carter wishes to see him," he said. Cole appeared, smiling and merry. Young Wilson met him on deck. " The captain wants to see you," said young Wilson. At the tone of his voice Cole stopped short and looked at him, his eyes like gimlets boring for what it all meant. Then he laughed and went to see Carter. He entered with Wilson. " Captain Carter, this is Mr. Cole, a rebel spy," said \Vilson. " Murray, arrest him," said Carter to young Wilson. " I am not a spy ; I am a Confederate officer," said Cole, who had straightened and stiffened. Carter smiled. Cole thrust a hand in his grey coat and drew forth his commission, signed by Jeff Davis, showing him 16 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE to be a major in the Confederate army. Murray took it and read it. " Take him and search him, Murray," said Carter. Cole, accompanied by his former friend, Wilson of New Orleans, now Murray of the Michigan, went to a cabin, and a sentry was placed at the door. Murray searched him and found $600 in currency, some letters and papers, and ten certified cheques for $5,000 each, on the Bank of Montreal, Canada, payable to bearer. Murray laid them all out. Cole eyed him and laughed. " You served me well, Murray Wilson, or Wilson Murray, or whatever the deuce your name may be," he said. " I served the best I could," said Murray. " Sit down," said Cole. Murray and Cole sat down. " ' Now, you're a pretty smart young fellow,' said Cole to me," said Murray, in telling of what occurred. " ' We got along very well, didn't we ? You wouldn't like to see me hung, would you ? ' " I said : ' I wouldn't like to see anybody get hung.' " ' Well, that's what you're trying to do with me,' said Cole. " I said : ' It's a very unfortunate thing, and I hope I am not responsible.' " Cole was very cool. He had the best nerve of any man I ever saw. He made no fuss, his voice never changed, his face never lost its jolly, careless expression for a minute. ' I suppose I ought to shoot you,' he said, 'and, if I had a gun and could get away, I'd probably do it, for business is business, Wilson, and war is hellish business. There is $50,000 in gold in those cheques. They are as good this minute as the gold in the Bank of Montreal. You can keep them. No one aboard here knows I have them. You can cash them when you wish. All I ask is that you won't know enough to get the rope around my neck and that, if the chance comes, you'll do me a friendly turn to get away. Once I'm out, you can give me $500 or enough to get South, or you needn't give me five cents. It's a fair bargain, isn't it, Wilson? My young friend, you'll never get such a chance again in your life." CONFEDERATE COLE'S COUP 17 " I saw the possibilities of it in a flash. It was a fortune in my grasp, yet if I took those cheques, the merry little Mr. Cole could have sent for Carter and said : ' Let me suggest you search your man, Murray, or Wilson. I think he's the one of us who should be under arrest." Or, if Cole saw that to play me false would mean his own death, there still was the idea of selling out your country ; and I wouldn't have done that for as many millions. I was a young fellow and $50,000 was more then than $500,000 would look now, but I thank the everlasting God that I had the sense to say : ' That may be, Mr. Cole. I may never get such a chance again. I'll do what I can consistent with my duty, but I cannot well make you any promises.' " ' Wilson, you're a fool,' he said. " ' Mr. Cole, would you sell out the Confederacy ? ' I asked, for I was vexed over the turn of affairs with him. " His manner changed. He put out his hand and shook mine. " ' No, Mr. Wilson, I wouldn't,' he said. ' I understand you now.' " We chatted pleasantly. He asked me where I first saw him. I told him the whole story of my trailing him, giving him even the numbers of the rooms in the hotels at which he had stopped. " ' You're right,' he said, ' but I could swear, on a stack of Bibles as high as this ship, that I never saw you before I saw you in Sandusky.' " As I left him, a prisoner, he shook hands and said : ' You won't reconsider about the cheques ? ' I shook rny head and left him smiling in the little cabin with the sentry at the door." Carter alone had been in the secret of Murray's masquerade as Wilson. Officer James Hunter, of the Michigan t rendered valued assistance on the day of the arrest. Murray had arranged for the boat's crew to be waiting at the landing to take Cole to the ship, and Murray had intercepted tele- grams to Cole and thus had learned of the telegram about the "sixteen shares." " My own common sense told me the sixteen shares meant 2 i8 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE sixteen men," said Murray. " The way they would come would be on the Parsons." With Cole a prisoner aboard the Michigan, Carter made ready to capture the men on the Parsons. Neither Murray nor Carter knew at that time that Cole had arranged for the Parsons to stay outside until he should go out with his yacht and give them a signal to come in. He was to slip away from his guests at the Seven Mile House, drive swiftly to Sandusky, and go out to meet the Parsons while the officers were enjoying themselves seven miles away. " They had all their plans made," says Murray, " to meet Cole, and go in small boats to the Michigan, capture the ship, and then run over to Johnson Island and release the four thousand Confederate prisoners, chiefly officers, imprisoned there. They planned to land them at Point Pelee in Canada, right across the lake. They were to approach the Michigan, and when asked who came there Cole would answer. He was well known to all, and relied on no one to suspect him. Once aboard, he believed he could carry the hatches with a rush. The Michigan had fourteen cannon aboard her, six parrot rifles, six twenty-four pound howitzers, two light howitzers, and over a hundred tons of ammunition. They had no other heavily armed craft to fear on the lake. They believed they could not only liberate their four thousand men on Johnson Island and land them in Canada, but also could sail the lake without fear of superior vessel until they had bombarded and burned Detroit, Cleveland, and Buffalo. Some of the captured papers corroborated details of this plot." But the Parsons did not go in at Sandusky. Her Con- federate crew waited in vain for the signal from Cole. They became alarmed, scented disaster, went back to the Detroit River under cover of darkness, scuttled the Parsons, and landed in Amherstburg, Canada. The Michigan, after watching all night for the Parsons, went searching for her the next morning, and found her scuttled. " The rumour of the plot had spread with the arrest of Cole," says Murray ; " and when the Michigan returned to Sandusky all guns were trained on her until it was learned that the Confederates had not captured her. Some of her CONFEDERATE COLE'S COUP 19 officers went off her, and were recognised, so that she would not be fired on. " That night, another officer went with me, and we arrested Robinson at his boarding-house in Sandusky. He had twenty revolvers in a trunk. A family of Southern Hebrews, named Rosenthal, also found themselves in trouble. Quite a little colony of Southern sympathisers were clustered in Sandusky at that time. I next went to Irish Lize. She was infuriated. When I searched her trunk she seized me, and when I shook her off she wanted to shoot me. In one of her trunks were dozens of pairs of gloves. She informed me gratuitously that she never wore a pair of gloves a second time. I told her that, if she had not tried to shoot me, I would have believed her a perfect lady, even if I knew nothing about the gloves. " There was quite a how-de-do over the entire affair. Major- General Hancock and Major-General Heinzelman were sent on to investigate. I was sent to Cleveland to meet them, and accompanied them to Sandusky. They talked at first of trying Cole by a military commission. I told them what I knew of the matter, and what sort of chap Cole was. After hearing all the facts they returned to Washington. " Cole was transferred from the MicJiigan to Johnson Island, and thence to Fort Lafayette at New York, and from there to Fort Warren, in Boston, where he was held until after Lincoln's proclamation. I had sold his horses for him, and closed up his business affairs at Sandusky, and turned over the proceeds to him. The Rosenthals were liberated. Beal disappeared. Robinson was held until after Lincoln's pro- clamation. Cole never was tried. He came to see me after his release. " ' Murray,' he said, ' you \vere a fool.' " I thought of Irish Lize, and concluded that while Cole was a little fellow he was a bigger fool than I." Chapter IV A WORD BY THE WAY WHEN the war was over and Murray left the Service he went to Washington. It was the day before Christmas in 1866. He called at the Navy Department. There were officials there who remembered his work in the Cole case, and before New Year arrangements had been made for Murray to become identified with the United States Service on special duty. " Wood was chief of the Secret Service in those days," says Murray. " I became, so to speak, a special agent in the Navy Department. For about two years I engaged in this work. It took me all over the country, particularly through the South. 1 was in New Orleans, Mobile, Charleston, Pensacola, and other Southern cities, and was on duty in New York for some time. My experience here settled finally my deter- mination to make the detective business my life work. I realised that to make a success of it I would have to go to work to perfect myself in it, just as does a man fitting himself for any other business, and advancing himself after he engages in it. " The detective business is the higher branch of the police business. A man may be an excellent policeman, and yet be an utter failure as a detective ; and I have seen many a clever detective, who was out of his element in the simpler lines of police duty. There is no magic about the detective business. A detective walking along the street does not suddenly hear a mysterious voice whisper : ' Banker John Jones has just been robbed of $1,000,000.' He does not turn the corner and come upon a perfect stranger, and then, because the stranger has a twisted cigar in his mouth, suddenly pounce upon him and exclaim : ' Aha, villain that you are ! give back to Banker Jones the $1,000,000 you stole ten minutes ago ! ' The detective business is of no such foolish and impossible character. Detectives are not clairvoyants, or infallible prophets, or supernatural seers. They possess no uncanny powers and no mantle of mysterious wonder-working. A WORD BY THE WAY 21 I remember a few years ago I was subpoenaed before a grand jury in the city of New York to testify on a matter pertaining to a prisoner, whose record I knew here in Canada. The foreman of that jury was a man prominent in New York's business life. When I was called he looked at me and suddenly said : "'Inspector Murray, what crimes have been committed within the past hour in New York, and who committed them ? ' " ' I have not the slightest idea,' I replied. " ' Oh, ho ! So you cannot go out and put your hands on every man who has committed a crime ? You are a detective, yet cannot do that ? ' he said. '" I am not that kind of detective,' I replied. 'When I get a guilty man it usually is by hard work or good luck, and often by both.' " ' Thank the Lord we've found a detective who is not greater than God,' he said. " As a matter of fact the detective business is a plain, ordinary business, just like a lawyer's business, a doctor's business, a railway manager's business. It has its own peculiarities because it deals with crime, with the distorted, imperfect, diseased members of the social body, just as a surgeon's business deals with the distorted, imperfect, diseased members of the physical body. But it is not an abnormal or phenomenal or incomprehensible business. There is nothing done in it, nothing accomplished by any detective, that is not the result of conscientious work, the exercise of human intelligence, an efficient system of organisation and inter- communication and good luck. A good detective must be quick to think, keen to analyse, persistent, resourceful, and courageous. But the best detective in the world is a human being, neither half-devil nor half-god, but just a man with the attributes or associates that make him successful in his occupation. " A wide acquaintance is one of the most valuable assets of a detective. The more crooks he knows the better. I have seen detectives visit a prison, and walk through it, recognising man after man hundreds of them. I have seen detectives stand before photograph cases, and name and 22 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE describe criminal after criminal, even to the minute eccen- tricities of each one. A good memory is a great help ; in fact, it is essential to the equipment of a clever detective. A wide acquaintance of the proper sort is invaluable. Personal friendship, among detectives and police departments of different cities and different countries, is one of the greatest aids to efficient detective work. Detectives and police departments can help one another, for by their co-operation they create a detective system that covers the world. If a criminal escapes in one city he is apt to be captured in another, and times without number the perpetrators of crime in one community are arrested by the police of another, and held until called for by the police of the place where they are wanted. From the outset of my career I have made it a point to increase steadily and systematically my acquaintance among detectives, among criminals, among bankers, lawyers, business men, professional men, people of all sorts and conditions. Hundreds of times I have had occasion to be glad I did this. By knowing a man in the right way person- ally, you will find he will do things for you in a pinch, that he never would do for you otherwise, under any circumstances. " Personal knowledge of crooks is valuable, for many reasons. Often you may recognise the perpetrator of a crime from a witness's description of a person seen in the vicinity. You may recognise a certain kind of burglary as the work of a certain gang. In an emergency you may gather informa- tion from crooks that will enable you to lay your hands on the very man you are after. " Much has been written about crooks by students of the social problem and by scientists. At least all writers agree that they are a queer lot, a class by themselves, with a life of their own and a point of view that is peculiarly their own. They have the characteristic of gratitude in perhaps a greater degree than some other classes of humanity. Of course, there are exceptions. But crooks as a whole have a code of honour, or rather a code of dishonour, that is always paradoxical, yet they adhere to it. If you do one of them a favour that is, a turn that he, not you, regards as a favour to him he will not forget it. More opportunities than are imagined present A WORD BY THE WAY 23 themselves where, in no way inconsistent with his duty, a detective may gain the favour instead of the disfavour of a crook. The best crooks make the least trouble personally to a detective. They are the hardest to catch, next to un- known crooks who are on the road for the first time, but once they are caught they realise that the part of wisdom is to acquiesce. " Crime is a disease. It is hereditary, just as consumption is hereditary. It may skip a generation or even two or three generations. But it is an inherent, inherited weakness. I am satisfied of this. I have seen instances where the identical kind of crime has appeared in generation after generation, great-grandfather down through grandfather, father, son, and grandson. I have known men whose grandfathers were horse thieves or counterfeiters, and whose fathers were honest, to become horse thieves or counterfeiters and do nothing else dishonest. In the oldest records of crime we find inherited crime traced through three hundred years, and even longer. The conditions of the criminal may be bettered, just as the conditions of the consumptive may be bettered. The disease may be checked : in some instances it may be averted, but the crime-germ, if I may use the word, is there, lurking in the life of the victim. You have read of people living immaculate lives for many years and suddenly succumbing to crime. The disease was ever present, but was not manifest. Crime also is contagious. Constant contact with criminals often leads others to become criminals. It is the old story of ' evil associations.' " Once dishonest, always dishonest. That is the general rule. I believe in it absolutely. Reformation is the excep- tion. The degree of dishonesty may vary, but the fact of dishonesty does not alter. I made up my mind slowly on this point, and I reached my decision with reluctance. But I have seen it over and over again. It is observed more clearly about professional dishonesty than amateur dishonesty, if I may draw such a distinction. The crook who goes to prison once is apt to turn up again in the hands of the police. The mark of professionalism in dishonesty is acquaintance, as a prisoner, with the police. There is many an amateur 24 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE who belongs to the professional class ; and there are those in the professional class who belong to the amateurs. That is one of the vexations of the detective business. " The business is full of vexations. There are times when you know to a certainty the doer of a deed, yet arrest must wait until the evidence is in hand. Sometimes the evidence never comes, and you see the years go by, with a guilty man enjoying the liberty denied to another, no more guilty, who had not the good fortune to lose some links in the chain of evidence that surrounded him. It is the law of chance. " I believe in circumstantial evidence. I have found it surer than direct evidence in many, many cases. Where circumstantial evidence and direct evidence unite, of course, the result is most satisfactory. There are those who say that circumstances may combine in a false conclusion. This is far less apt to occur than the falsity of direct evidence given by a witness who lies point blank, and who cannot be con- tradicted save by a judgment of his falsity through the manner of his lying. Few people are good liars. Many of them make their lies too probable ; they outdo truth itself. To detect a liar is a great gift. It is a greater gift to detect the lie. I have known instances where, by good fortune, I detected the liar and then the lie, and learned the whole truth simply by listening to the lie, and thereby judging the truth. There is no hard and fast rule for this detection. The ability to do it rests with the man. It is largely a matter of instinct. " The best detective, therefore, is a man who instinctively detects the truth, lost though it may be in a maze of lies. By instinct he is a detective. He is born to it ; his business is his natural bent. It would be a platitude to say the best detectives are born, not made. They are both born and made for the business. The man who, by temperament and make-up, is an ideal detective, must go through the hard years of steady work, must apply himself, and study and toil in making himself what he is born to be. Sandow was born to be a strong man, but, if he had not developed himself by hard work, he would not have become the strongest man of his time. As a detective advances in his business he will A WORD BY THE WAY 25 find that the more he studies and works, the stronger his powers of intuition, of divination, of analysis, become. A very simple broad illustration will prove this. If a detective is chasing a criminal from country to country, and has learned, by study of the extradition treaties, that a certain country offers a better haven than another, he may save himself many a weary mile by going to the country where his common sense tells him his man is more likely to be. A mechanical knowledge of the use of tools, a knowledge of the effects of poisons, a knowledge of the ways of banking, of the habits of life of the various classes in various callings, a knowledge of crooks, and, above all, a knowledge of human nature, in whatsoever way manifest, are invaluable elements of the equipment of a good detective. " In a vague way I held these opinions away back in 1866, when, as a young fellow of twenty-six, I left the Service in the Navy after the war, and for about two years served as a special agent in the employ of the United States Government. I made acquaintances all over the country in those days, many of them being young fellows like myself, who were in the police business then, and later became heads of detective or police departments. I obtained my first experience then in the secrets of counterfeiting, in the arts of burglars, in the ways of the classes of thieves busy in those days in all parts of the United States, and more or less bothersome at times to the Government. It was precisely the experience and training I needed at that time. " In 1868 I was persuaded to go to Erie, Pennsylvania j where I had made friends during my early days on the lakes, including prominent railroad men, and joined the police force there. In the four or five years I remained there I had plenty to do, and it fitted me further for the work I had outlined for myself. I became a detective on the force in Erie. Tom Crowley, a man I loved and respected, was chief at that time. " Sometimes, when the wind howls and the world is full of gusts and gales, and I am caught where the man next me has a pipe as old as Methuselah, and tobacco as strong as Samson, my mind turns back to Crowley, and there flit 26 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE through my memory, like ghosts of long ago, episodes of the old days in Erie when I was a sleuth from Sleuthville, and mighty proud of it, too." Chapter V KNAPP: A WEAZENED WONDER A PLAGUE of sneak-thieving broke out in Erie in 1869, shortly after Murray became a detective. It grew to be epidemic. Furniture vanished out of houses. Clothing seemed to fall upon the backs of invisible wearers and saunter into Spookland. Ploughs disappeared from farmers' fields, as if they had started on the shortest route to China. Horses trotted off into nowhere. Entire shelves in stores were swept bare in a single night, and from one of them twenty dozen pairs of shoes seemed to walk out of sight at midday. " ' We had better order the people to anchor their houses,' said Crowley to me," says Murray, in telling the story. " We watched all day and we watched all night for weeks, but the stealing went on just the same. Crowley said it must be giant rats, who had a den in the bowels of the earth and decided to furnish it from Erie. He said some one had told him that in India they had a plague, by which people wasted away and finally dried up. He concluded that the plague had spread from India to Erie, and had seized upon every- thing portable in and around the town. ' They're not stolen, they just waste away,' said Crowley. 'It's a case of now you see them, now you don't.' To clinch this, one of the men began to lose his hair. Crowley pointed to it and exclaimed : ' See, it's just wasting away.' I had a moustache that was not flourishing just then and I shaved it off. When I appeared for duty the next day Crowley gasped : " ' Great Scott, Murray ! They didn't steal your mous- tache, did they ? ' " Finally, a new democrat waggon disappeared. It belonged to James Tolwarthy, a grocer, who had left it in front of his KNAPF: A WEAZENED WONDER 27 store the day after he had paid $275 for it. The democrat had gone, as completely as if a modern Elijah had impressed it for chariot service to the skies. Tolvvarthy was angry. He kept his waggons usually in a hotel shed near his store. When he went there to look for his new democrat he found an old crackey waggon standing in its stead. It stood there for weeks, and every day we went to look at it, as if its tongue could tell us who left it there. " We searched every stable and every vacant building in the town. Not a trace of Tolwarthy's democrat or of any other vanished property did we find. A little child can lead us, however, and I came across a boy who said he thought he had seen the man who left the waggon in Tolwarthy's shed. He described him as best he could. It was not much of a description, but a poor description is as good as a good photograph any day. I would rather have a fair description than a dozen photographs when it comes to going after a man I never saw. I took the lad's description and started out to visit every farmhouse on every road leading out of Erie. I nosed into all of them for a radius of several miles. I found no such man as the lad described, and no hay-mow hid any plunder either, for I climbed into all of them. " At last I found a farmer who had seen a fellow drive by his house in a new democrat about the time Tolwarthy's waggon vanished and the description of the democrat tallied with that of Tolwarthy's democrat, while the de- scription of the man proved him the same fellow seen by the lad. " Crowley, Officer Snyder, and myself got a team and started to drive the road the stranger went with Tolwarthy's waggon. We stopped at every house along the way, but not a sign or trace of him could we find. For a dozen miles we made this farm-to-farm search. After fifteen miles or more we decided to put up the horses for a feed and rest. We turned off the main road, and in a secluded, out-of-the- way place, in a clearing with about twenty-five acres of pine woods around it, we saw a house. No one was in sight. We hailed, and presently a buxom, blooming woman, about twenty-five years old, seemed to pop out of nowhere and ask 28 us if we wanted anything. Crowley asked for the man of the place, as he wanted to feed his horses. The woman whistled and out from a clump of bushes near the barn came a little, weazened old fellow, about fifty years old. He reminded me of a muskrat. The moment I laid eyes on him I recalled the description by the lad of the man who left the crackey waggon. " We alighted and fed the horses. The old man eyed them keenly and looked at their teeth. " ' What's your name? ' I asked him. " ' George Knapp,' he said. " ' Lived here long ? ' " ' Me and my wife been here about a year,' he answered. " ' Your wife ? ' I said. "'Yep, ain't she a bloomer?' and the old man chuckled hideously as he leered at the young woman who was standing in the doorway of the house. " He was keen as a scythe. I innocently asked him if he had seen any stranger driving past his house in a new democrat waggon. " ' Nope ; no one ever drives past here,' said he. ' There ain't no past. The road stops here.' " He parried us at every point. We searched his place, barn, house, and outbuildings and found nothing. Yet I was morally certain we had our man. As I sat in the shade by the barn I gazed idly at the stretch of cleared land running down to the creek. I noticed a place or two where the sod had been turned recently. It is the little things that point the way to big results. A signboard a foot long often tells you the road for the next forty miles. " ' Knapp,' I said, ' I am going fishing in that stream.' " ' All right,' said Knapp. ' Hope they bite.' " ' Lend me a spade,' I said. " ' What for ? ' said Knapp, with a sudden sharpening of his glance. " ' I want to dig some bait,' said I. " Knapp hesitated, then brought a spade, and followed me as I set out for the stream. I halted at one of the spots where the sod had been turned. KNAPP : A WEAZENED WONDER 29 " ' No good digging here/ said Knapp. ' Come on farther down.' "'Why? 'said I. "'This has been dug,' said Knapp. 'It's worm-scarce right here.' " Never mind,' said I. ' I only want a few, and it's easier digging.' " The perspiration started on Knapp's weazened, wrinkled face. I never dally in my garden with my spade but I see a vision of Knapp dripping like an April shower. " I drove in the spade. It struck something hard. I turned back the soil and there lay one of the wheels of Tolwarthy's democrat buried beneath a foot of earth. I looked at Knapp and he was grinning in a sickly sort of way. 1 called Crowley and Snyder and arrested Knapp. Then we led him down to the stream and sat down and informed the old man, on the edge of the water, that the wise thing for him to do was to confess the whole series of thefts. He looked at us and then at the water and then back at us. I think he under- stood. At any rate he stood up. " ' Come on,' he said, and led the way to the house. " The buxom woman met us at the door. " ' Get the shingle,' said Knapp. " Without a word she went indoors and returned with a broad shingle. It was covered with red dots, which Knapp explained were made with chicken blood. One big blotch was to show where the barn stood. The smaller dots spreading out beyond it showed where Knapp had buried the plunder. " We began to dig. The first thing we struck was a coffin. " ' You murderer ! ' said Snyder. ' Now we know why you used blood to dot the shingle.' " We lifted the coffin carefully out of the ^rave. It was very heavy. We prized off the lid, expecting to see the mutilated body of one of Knapp's victims. Instead of a pallid face and glazed eyes we found dozens of boxes of shoes. Knapp chuckled. " ' Coffins ain't only for corpuses,' he said. 30 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE " We unearthed samples of everything from a needle to an anchor, a shroud, a toilet set, a baby carriage, forty silk dresses, gold watches, seven ploughs, a harrow, surgical instru- ments, a churn, a log chain, a grandfather's clock, a set of grocer's scales, hats, overcoats, pipes, a barber's pole, even a policeman's shot gun, that cost one of the Erie policemen $80, and that Knapp had stolen from his house. One of us would dig for a while, then Knapp would dig, and if any one dug more than his share it was Knapp. We uncovered ten waggon loads of stuff, including Tolwarthy's democrat, which Knapp had buried piece by piece ; even the bed or body of the waggon being interred behind a clump of bushes. It was the most wholesale thieving I had known. Old Knapp gloried in it, chuckling over each fresh discovery we made. The marvel of it all was how he had managed to steal the stuff. He swore to us that he had stolen it all single-handed, and I believe he did. " We took Knapp and his wife to Erie, and locked them up. We hired a large vacant store in the Noble block in Erie, hauled in the plunder from Knapp's, and put it on exhibition for identification. It filled the place. Knapp had stolen enough to equip a department store. " In burying his plunder he had boxed it up, preparatory to sending it away in the fall. He said frankly that he had been stealing for years. He explained that the way he did it was to drive into town in a waggon, pretending he was selling farm produce or garden vegetables, and seize oppor- tunities in that way to familiarise himself with houses, and then sneak in later, and steal whatever he could carry away. No one seemed to know much about him, either who he was or whence he came. A year before he had settled in the secluded tract of timber, and had kept entirely to himself. He told me he had preyed on other places before he set out to steal everything portable in Erie, but never before had he been made to dig for two straight days uncovering his own plunder. " Knapp was very angry over being compelled to work so steadily with a spade. He vowed he would get even. Some- time after he had been locked up in Erie, he called us in KNAPP: A WEAZENED WONDER 31 and informed us, in profound confidence, that he had buried $2,500 in gold out on his place, and if we would take him out there he would show us where it was. The story was plausible, and three of the fellows got a team, and drove out seventeen miles with Knapp to his place. They took three spades and a pick with them. Knapp began a lot of manoeuvring, pacing off distances from house to barn, and from barn to tree, and from tree to stump. They followed him, and he tramped about for an hour, leading them through briars and swamps, and finally back toward the barn again. " There is the place,' he announced. "They began to dig as if their hope of eternal salvation depended on it. Knapp encouraged them to greater exertion, and told them he had buried the gold seven feet deep to have it secure. They toiled for hours, digging to a depth of eight feet, but finding nothing. One of them, who knew unbroken earth when he dug it, accused Knapp of tricking. The old man said he might have made a mistake in his measurements, and he led them off for another tramp through brush and wild wood, and ended up about ten feet from the hole they had dug just before. "'Ah, yes, I remember. This is the place/ said the old man. ' There is $2,500 in gold in two canvas bags.' " They fell to again. It was a broiling hot day. They toiled until toward sundown, when the old man began to chuckle. " ' That'll do,' he said. ( I'm even.' " ' Even for what ? ' they asked. " ' For the two days I had to dig,' said Knapp. " ' And there's no gold here ? ' they demanded wrathfully. " ' There's gold all right, but I cannot remember where it is,' said Knapp with a chuckle. " They drove him back to Erie, and locked him up again. He was tried, convicted, and sentenced to sixteen years in the Alleghany Penitentiary. His wife was released. Knapp played insane, and beat the Penitentiary. He was trans- ferred to the lunatic division, and, soon after, he sawed the bars, escaped, and never was caught. I saw him several 32 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE times in the Erie gaol before he was sent away. He always was chuckling. " ' Murray,' he would say on each occasion, as I was leaving, ' remember you are leaving a man who never met a man who knew enough to be his partner.' ' What became of him no one knows. He was a weazened wonder." Chapter VI THE FEMININE FIRM OF HALL AND CARROLL A COMPARATIVELY short time after Knapp was sent away thieving began again in Erie. It was not on quite the same wholesale basis, but what was lacking in quantity was present in quality, for the thieves made it a point to steal the finest silver ware and jewellery. Instead of sneak-thieving it was burglary. The marks of jemmies on doors and windows were sufficient to demonstrate this. " Crowley thought at first that Knapp might have returned and changed his tactics," said Murray. " We drove out to Knapp's and made sure he was not there, although after his escape from the penitentiary no one could tell what had become of him. I was satisfied from the outset that Knapp had no hand in the thieving. Knapp prided himself on his cleverness as a sneak thief. Burglary would be a clumsy way of stealing, according to Knapp's ideas. " After the second or third job it was apparent that no lone burglar was at work. There was a gang, for some of the jobs necessarily called for a watcher or lookout on the outside while a pal was inside a house. Silver ware, fine clothing. and jewellery began to disappear with a regularity that reminded us often of the day when Knapp \vas in his prime. Mr. Skinner's house was ransacked and a great quantity of silverware taken, and soon after the Skinner robbery the home of Mr. Bliss was plundered and a big haul of silver ware and jewellery was made. " Crowley was worried. So were the rest of us. We put FEMININE FIRM OF HALL AND CARROLL 33 in about twenty hours a day, and I verily believe we scrutin- ised every man in and around Eric. We made every stranger account for himself. We gathered in all our regulars in the suspicious character line. We redoubled our patrol pre- cautions at night. It was of no avail. The burglaries went on just the same. One night a house in one end of the town would be robbed and the next night the burglars would do a job in the other end of the town. The only clue or trace of them that I could get was a peculiarity in the jemmy marks, showing a piece had been chipped or cut out of the jemmy. But to tell the truth we were at our wits' end and could make no headway. There were so many burglaries, yet we could not get on to them. " Our last hang out at night was the Reed House. We would step in there regularly before going to bed. As we stood talking in the Reed House in the early morning hours or shortly after midnight, I noticed by the merest chance a woman slip quietly down the back stairs and out into the night. For three or four nights I observed her doing this. The clerk told me she was a scrubwoman, who worked late and lived outside the hotel. There was nothing suspicious about that. I asked the clerk where she lived. He said he did not know. It was a pleasant night and I felt like taking a walk, and just for amusement I decided to follow the old scrubwoman. She slipped down the back stairs as usual and went out. I trailed after her. We had not gone five blocks when I lost her. She seemed to have been swallowed up by some hole in the earth that vanished after devouring her. I laughed at the joke on me, unable to trail an old woman, and I went to bed. " The next morning Crowley was glum. ' Another bur- glary last night,' he said, and named a house about four blocks from where I lost the old woman. I said nothing, but that night I was at the Reed House, waiting for my old scrubwoman. About one o'clock in the morning she appeared, a flitting figure on the back stairs, and darted out. I was after her in a jiffy. For about fifteen blocks I followed her. Then she suddenly turned a corner and when I came up she was gone. The next morning Crowley was mad as a hornet. 3 34 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE 'Another burglary last night,' said he. I was a little hot myself. But that night I turned up at the Reed House, and at one o'clock out came my vanishing scrubwoman again and away she went, with me on her trail. " I have shadowed many people in my life, but that old scrubwoman was one of the most artful dodgers I ever knew. I followed her from one o'clock until after four o'clock in the morning, up streets and down streets, through alleys, across lots, around buildings, and then across lots again. But I stuck to her and there was no corner she turned that I was not close up to spot her if she dodged. Soon after we started a cat suddenly mewed and startled her mightily. Along about dawn she headed away to the outskirts of the town and stopping in front of a double house tossed a pebble up against a window and a moment later went in. I sat down some distance away and thought it all over. I was puzzled. Women burglars were something unknown in Erie or anywhere else, just then. Yet to think that an old woman after scrubbing for hours in an hotel would go out for a stroll and prowl around all night for her health was out of the question. I waited until broad daylight and when she did not come out I went to headquarters. " ' Another one last night, Murray,' said Crowley. " Then it could not have been my old scrubwoman, for I had her in sight every minute. However, I determined to pay her a visit. I took Jake Sandusky of the police force, who now is the Pennsylvania Railway detective, with head- quarters at Erie, and went out to the house. On one side of the double house lived Mrs. O'Brien, a respectable woman. She knew nothing of the occupants of the other side of the house, beyond the fact that they were women and had lived there less than a year. " I knocked at the door. There was no answer. I banged again, loud and long. I heard a scurry of feet inside and finally the door opened. A big, fine-looking girl, about twenty-three years old, stood in the doorway. I walked right in. "' What is your name?' I asked her. " ' Mary Ann Hall/ said she. FEMININE FIRM OF HALL AND CARROLL 35 " ' Do you live alone ? ' said I. " I live with my mother,' said Mary Ann. " ' Call your mother,' I said. " Mary Ann opened wide her mouth and let out a bawl like a donkey's bray. " ' Ma-a-a-aw ! ' she bellowed. " Out from the adjoining room pranced my old scrubwoman as sprightly and spry as any being of sixty years I ever saw. " ' What's your name ? ' I asked. " ' Mrs. Julia Hall," said my old scrubwoman, and if ever there is a gallery for the portraits of sixty-year old coquettes I will contribute the picture of Julia Hall. " ' Who else lives here ? ' I asked. " The answer was the opening of Mary Ann's mouth in another prolonged bellow. "' Ma-a-ag-gie ! ' she shouted. " Out from the adjoining room trotted a second old woman, a little bit of a body about fifty years old, with a face like an eagle's. She had a loose ringlet that flipped around her cheek, and she constantly blew at it out of the side of her mouth to fleck it back to her ear. " ' Ladies,' said I, ' sit down.' " To my astonishment all three promptly sat on the floor I observed that the chief articles of furniture in the room were a cook stove, a rough kitchen table, and one dilapidated rocking chair. " ' Mrs. Julia Hall,' I say, and I can see her coy leer as she sat on the floor, ' you were out all night, last night.' " ' I always am,' she said. " ' Yes, Julia cannot sleep in the dark,' spoke up the eagle- faced woman, who hastened to add apologetically, ' I am Mrs. Maggie Carroll, her friend.' " ' I never sleep in the night,' said Mrs. Hall. ' I work or walk all night, and when daylight comes I sleep.' '" It's an affliction,' said Mrs. Carroll. 'She had the fever when she was a child.' " I talked on with these three strange creatures squatted on the floor. They puzzled me. I mentioned the burglaries to them. They knew nothing of them, they said. Mrs. Carroll 36 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE was particularly vehement in protestations of ignorance. I crossed over and sat down in the dilapidated rocker beside the range. There was a kettle on the stove, but no fire. Suddenly the chair collapsed with a crash. Over I went with my heels in the air. One of my feet struck the kettle and it fell to the floor and the lid rolled off. The three women had laughed uproariously when the chair broke down ; Mary Ann haw-hawing, Mrs. Hall tittering, and Mrs. Carroll cackling. But when the kettle fell and its top rolled off there was sudden silence. I looked at the three women and then at the chair and then I saw the kettle. Its top was towards me and inside I observed what I thought was a stove lifter. I reached for it and drew it out. It was a jemmy ! Moreover, it was a nicked jemmy ! " I stood up and eyed the three women. Mrs. Carroll feigned weeping, but Mrs. Hall tittered and made saucer eyes, as if bent on conquest, even on the penitentiary's verge. " ' Mary Ann,' I said, ' you might save me the trouble of searching the house by hauling out the plunder.' " At this Mrs. Hall struck Mary Ann a resounding whack on the head and bade her : ' Squat where you be, you hussy ! ' " I searched the house. I found silverware, jewelry, linen, fine clothes in amazing quantities. The Skinner silverware, the Bliss silverware, the plunder from many houses, all was recovered. I found also a complete set of pass-keys and a house-breaking kit of burglar's tools. " We arrested the three women. All three were tried. Two, Mrs. Julia Hall and Mrs. Maggie Carroll, were sent to Alleghany for four years, and Mary Ann was let off. While in gaol Mary Ann gave birth to a bouncing baby. I asked Mrs. Hall about her tramp through the night when I was following her. She laughed in a flirtatious way that was ludicrous. From Mrs. Carroll I learned that she and Mrs. Carroll were to have done another job that night, and Mrs. Hall was to meet Mrs. Carroll at two o'clock in the morning. But Mrs. Carroll had spied me trailing Mrs. Hall, and had mewed suddenly like a cat, a signal to Mrs. Hall that she was being followed. That was the cat's cry that had THE EPISODE OF POKE SOLES 37 startled Mrs. Hall, and caused her to prowl around all night and not go home till morning. " They were the only pair of professional women burglars working alone that I ever met red-handed. They had been caught first in Ireland and were sent to Australia, when they got into trouble again and jumped to the United States. Mrs. Julia Hall was the genius of the two. I often thought that she was foolish to use a nicked jemmy. Her cracked smile would have broken into almost anything." Chapter VII THE EPISODE OF POKE SOLES POKE SOLES was a " shovcr of the queer." An episode of his life occurred at Erie, following the capture of the women burglars, which reveals now for the first time the story of Tom Hale, a counterfeiter, who subsequently was a side- member of the United States Secret Service. Poke's duties as a shover of the queer were to pass counterfeit money. " In the winter of 1869 and 1870 some $20 bills that were queer, appeared in Erie," says Murray. "It was some time after the women burglars had been tried and sentenced. Fred Landers kept a restaurant in Erie, and one day I hap- pened to drop in, and he told me of a fellow who had been in and ordered a light lunch and paid for it with a $20 bill, and who bought a drink as he went out and offered a second $20 bill to the bar-tender, who said he could not change it. I looked at the banknote Landers had taken. It was a clever one, but it was queer. My experience with counterfeiters in the special service of the United States was of instant value Landers described the man. I spotted him at the railroad station and got him, but did not find any of the stuff or counterfeit money on him. He simply was a shover, one who passed the money, and he received only a couple of $20 bills at a time. " Few classes of crime are organised so scientifically as counterfeiting. The man who makes the plates never does 38 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE business with the men who pass the money. The plate-maker is an engraver who usually gets a lump sum for his work. Those who print the money are the manufacturers and they sell the queer in wholesale quantities to dealers, who sell to retail dealers, who have their shovers out passing the money. The man I got was a shover. I locked him up and in searching him I found the name ' Tom Hale, New York.' I reported to Crowlcy and sent a telegram addressed to Hale and reading : " ' Come on. I am sick. Stopping at Morton House. Room 84.' " I made all arrangements with the hotel clerk to get track of any one who called and asked for the man in room 84. No one came. I kept the shover, whose name was Soles, locked up in gaol. Landers and the bar-tender had identified him. A week passed. It was in the winter of 1870 and the trains were blockaded and it snowed and blew and delayed all traffic. On the ninth day a nice looking man walked into the Morton House. It was bitter cold and yet he had no overcoat. He asked for Mr. Soles in room 84. I was in the hotel at the time ; the clerk tipped me and I walked over and collared the stranger. I took him down and searched him and locked him up. He had several hundred dollars of good money on him, but no counterfeit money. I intended to hold him while I hunted for his baggage, for at least a man dressed as he was, would have an overcoat somewhere near. " The next morning Officer Snyder and I went to the rail- road station and began,' from there, a systematic search for trace of the stranger's overcoat. In the morning we were in the habit of stepping into John Anthony's German saloon for a mug of beer. On that morning Anthony said: 'A funny thing happened yesterday. A nice looking fellow came in and washed his hands and went away leaving his overcoat.' " ' Let me see it, John,' said I. "Anthony produced the coat. In the first pocket in which I thrust my hahd I found a roll of something wrapped in a handkerchief. I drew it out and found $1000 in counterfeit $20 and $100 bills, with coupons attached to the ends. They were such excellent counterfeits that later I passed one at THE EPISODE OF POKE SOLES 39 a bank as a joke and then told them of it. I took the coat to the lockup. " ' Hello, Hale ; here's your coat,' I said. " ' All right. Thank you,' said the stranger, who was Tom Hale. " I said : ' That's your coat, Tom ? ' " ' Oh, yes,' said he. " Then I hauled out the counterfeit money from the pocket. He then said it was not his coat. I made him put the coat on and it fitted him perfectly. Then John Anthony identified him as the stranger who had left the coat in his saloon. " Soles was held for passing counterfeit money. He pleaded guilty and was sent to Alleghany for five years. The United States authorities took Hale to Pittsburg, then to New York, and then to Washington. He promised to do everything for the Secret Service Department. He was going to give away the whole counterfeiting business. " Wood, then chief of the Secret Service, appointed him to the United States Secret Service and sent him to New York. Hale never gave any one away, but a few shovers and small Italians. In the meantime, Wood left the Service. Colonel Whiteley became chief. He sent for Hale and told him he was doing nothing. Hale practically told Colonel Whiteley to go to hell, which showed Hale was not so wise as some people seemed to think he was. " Finally Hale was arrested and taken back to Pittsburg and tried. Butcher Swope was the United States prosecuting attorney. Hale was convicted and sentenced to fourteen years in the penitentiary. It was proved where he stood in with thieves. Butcher Swope was a cracking good prosecuting attorney, and a hard man after these crooked fellov/s. "The last time I saw Tom Hale was about 1884. He was keeping a dime lodging house on the Bowery in New York at that time. He fared far worse in his sentence than did Poke Soles who stood up like a man when he was caught and did his time. I understand Hale never set foot in Erie again and vowed he never would. The most disappointed man was John Anthony, when the owner of the overcoat was found and the $r,ooo turned out to be queer." 40 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE Chapter VIII HOW A FEUD ALMOST BURNED ERIE A FEUD broke out in the Fire Department in Erie in 1869. Crowley, Murray, and the police were busy on other matters, and paid no attention to it at the outset. It began with a contest = ; for the position of chief of the Fire Department- Before the struggle was over, Erie was threatened with destruction by fire, and the underwriters refused to issue insurance. " There were two bodies of the City Council," says Murray. " The Common Council discharged the old fire chief, and the Select Council would not sanction the appointment of the new chief. The Fire Department also promptly took sides. Part of it stood with the old chief and part of it stood with the new chief. Feeling ran high and there was much bitterness. " When the fight first started, various fires occurred. Old houses and old barns in out-of-the-way places caught fire in mysterious ways, and the rival factions in the Depart- ment were kept busy. Each endeavoured to get to a fire first and thereby obtain an opportunity to jeer at the other. At length the fires began to get rather numerous. The crop of old houses and old barns became pretty well thinned out. All the rickety buildings in Eric went up in sparks and smoke. Then the fires seized upon buildings a grade better than those destroyed in the first blazes. Thousands of dollars' worth of property was damaged. Property owners became alarmed, and finally sent for outside aid, and detectives were brought to Erie from New York and Chicago. " Their presence quickly became known. It enraged the firemen. They called indignation meetings in the Fire Department, and arranged to put themselves on guard against them. Then the fires began to blaze up in bigger buildings, and, despite the presence of the outside detectives, they burned factories. At length the underwriters refused to issue insurance, and Eric was at the mercy of the Fire Department feud. HOW A FEUD ALMOST BURNED ERIE 41 " They were so devilish sly about the fires that it was next to impossible to catch them. Neither side would agree to a compromise on the chiefship, and the fires nightly reddened the sky. " One night there was a fireman's ball at Uncle Sam's Garden. I was there, of course, and so were other police. I was full of hope that before the night was over, during the dancing and the drinking, I might get some stray hint that would lead to evidence sufficent to catch some of the firebugs. Finally I went out in what they called the wine garden and lay down under a bench and pretended to be asleep. Soon two firemen came out. The bench was in a secluded corner of the garden. If there was to be any talking done that night it would be done in such a place. They came over to the bench. " ' Hello,' said one of them, ' John has his collar full.' " ' Let him sleep,' said the other. " They whispered a moment and then chuckled softly. I listened intently but could hear nothing save their subdued laughter. Then suddenly I was sprinkled, deliberately and thoroughly, from shoulders to shins, and those two firemen did it without calling the engines. My first impulse was to spring up and wallop them. But the damage had been done, so I sprawled out motionless and took it. In that interval I vowed ten thousand times that, if the chance ever came, I would get even. After tiring of the sport of saturating me, they sat down on the bench. " ' A great night for a blaze,' said one. " ' Yes,' said the other, ' and there's the nigger's barn on Parade Street.' "They were confident I was dead to the world. They talked over their plot, planning to slip away from the dance. 1, under the bench, supposed to be in a stupor, heard all that was said. When they walked away I got up, shook myself and called my partner, who was in the dance hall. " ' What's happened, John ? ' he called, as he caught sight of me. ' Did you fall into the creek ? " "'No,' said I, 'the Fire Department has been practising on me.' 4 2 " Then I told him what had occurred and what I had heard in the wine garden. I knew both the young fellows and they came of respectable families. It was a dark night, black as soot. We knew the two firemen had started for their firehouse or the old barn, and we took a short cut across a cemetery, cutting off about a mile. On the way we lost track of the pair of firemen, but we knew their firehouse and we knew the barn and we skipped on as fast as we could go. They had quite a start of us, but we got to the fire- house just in time to see one of them come out with a can of oil and a bunch of shavings wrapped up in paper. He darted over to the old barn on Parade Street. I followed. He set the shavings and sprinkled the oil over them and touched a match and away she went. "The fire-engine was there in a jiffy. In fact, the flames hardly seemed to have begun to leap when the engine arrived. The old barn burned like a tinder-box, and nothing was left but a pile of ashes. When the engine from the other faction in the department came up, there was a lot of jeering because it had not arrived first. " After the fire I went to the young fellow. I knew him well, and was a family friend. His name was Ed, and he was about twenty years old. " ' Come on, Ed ; I want you,' I said. " < What for ? ' said he. " ' You know,' said I. ' Come on, without a fuss.' "'I thought you were asleep, John, or I'd never have disturbed you,' he said.' " ' It 's not that,' said I. " Then I told him what I had heard and seen. We walked quite a distance. He sat down and began to cry. I advised him to tell me the whole story. He did so ; telling me all who were in the feud and all about it. I told him to go home to bed and report at police headquarters at nine o'clock in the morning. He did so. Crowlcy.was so tickled he chuckled off and on for a week. Whether it was at my getting it under the bench, or my getting the firebug at the darkey's barn, I never could tell. "As a result of the information obtained, we arrested TWO SCARS 43 five firebugs, and all were convicted and sent to the penitentiary. " It simply was a rivalry of factions. I saw a young fellow, who set fire to a factory, hang on the eaves on a winter's night until the water froze to an ice-coating on his clothes, putting out the fire he had set. They had no desire to destroy property. What they wanted was an opportunity to gain glory for their faction and outdo the rival faction. The great trouble was the opportunities were too costly. When I think, even at this late day, of what the eaves- dropping cost me, I am moved to retire to a Turkish bath and sojourn in the steam-room for a fortnight, at least. Yet a fortnight in a Turkish bath is better than a year in the penitentiary, and he laughs best who laughs last." Chapter IX TWO SCARS, BY THE BLADE OF NAPPER NICHOLS AND THE BULLET OF WHITEY STOKES NAPPER NICHOLS, a bad coon from Corry, Pa., turned up in Erie in 1873, and close on his arrival clicked a dispatch stating he was wanted for robbery. No one knew his right name, but as Napper Nichols he was known in Erie and many other towns. " Napper had stolen the trunk of a Mrs. Kelly, a cook in an hotel at Corry," says Murray. " He had not been out of the penitentiary long. I was acting chief, and I nabbed Nichols on the street. He was a stout darkey, as broad as he was long, with an arm on him like a horse's leg. He was a bad nigger in the worst sense. He started to buck when I nabbed him, but promptly changed his mind and said he would go with me. " I took him before Judge Phil Honiger. I stated to Judge Honiger what Nichols was accused of stealing, and I was reciting the coon's penitentiary record, preparatory to searching him and locking him up, for I knew the judge would remand him. Suddenly the coon whipped out a razor 44 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE and slashed at me. I saw it coming and dodged. The blade caught me on the left shoulder. The coon had aimed for my throat, but missed it by three inches. The slash cut away the collar of my coat, and cut through the shirt and into the flesh. " I closed with him. Over we went on to the floor, over and over, I with one hand at his throat, closing on it with every ounce of strength in my grip, while my other hand clutched his hand that held the razor. He began to bellow and snort like a bull, striving to wield the razor and sink it into me. " A handsome, heavy cane had been presented to Judge Honiger by some of his many admiring friends. When he saw us grapple, with the razor flashing, he seized the cane and vaulted over the desk and down to where we were struggling and pitching and tossing on the floor. I saw the cane whirl overhead, and I heard the smash as it sent the razor flying out of the coon's hand. Then the judge, dancing around us, planted crack after crack upon the coon's head. We tossed so much that some of the wallops landed on me. My handcuffs fell out of my pocket, and as we rolled near them I grabbed them and snapped them first on one wrist, and, after a long fight, on the other also. " Nichols was a desperate nigger. He lifted up his cuffed hands and brought them down like a pile-driver, aiming at my head. I simply had to roll out of the way. But as I rolled I pulled a billy. The momentum of the coon's attempt to smash the handcuffs on my head carried him forward, and I put the billy in. It was like beating a railroad tie, but I did a good job for the doctors. " When Nichols had his fill of the billy, I took him right over from the police court to the court-house. He was indicted within two hours, was tried within three hours more > and at half-past five o'clock that same day he was sentenced to seven years in the penitentiary, while I went out and got another collar and a change of clothes. " About six months later, Whitey Stokes, a burglar and all-round bad man, who had been released from the TWO SCARS 45 penitentiary, committed a robbery, and I had a warrant for him. I was passing Lou Shoemaker's saloon about twelve o'clock at night, and stepped in. It was a big place under a bank, with two doors leading into it. '"You . You're just in time to have a drink,' said a voice behind me. " I turned. There stood Stokes, a strapping, big fellow, with a revolver not three feet from my chest. As he fired I grabbed the revolver. The bullet bit its way through my hand. I bear the scar still : on my right hand, between the first and second fingers. As the gun went off we went to the floor together, and around we tossed like a chicken with its head off, flopping this way and that. Shoemaker ran outside for the police, instead of coming to take the gun. I stuck to the gun with my right hand, wrenched it from Stokes's grasp, and threw it across the room. I felt some- thing tugging at my hip pocket. It was Stokes reaching for my gun. " A foot-rail ran along the front of the bar, several inches from the floor. I managed to slide Stokes along the floor until I got his head near this iron rail, and I jammed it under. He had been snapping and snarling at me like a mad dog, trying to sink his teeth in me. Once I got his head under the rail I drew my own revolver, and used its butt so that Mr. Whitey Stokes was not fit to be photographed for a month. They carried him to the lock-up. I went with them to see him safe inside. " On my way home, about one o'clock in the morning, I met Dr. Spenser, who dressed my hand. Two hours after I went to bed it began to swell. Blood-poisoning had set in. My hand was as big as a boxing-glove. They wanted to take it off, but I refused. I needed the hand in my business. They prepared a bowl of diluted laudanum, and I used to soak the hand in it until I was almost stupefied. Dr. Brandes saved the hand for me, although for three months I carried it in a sling. "The hand is as good as ever; but on cold days my second finger gets numb, and the scar gets red as scarlet. However, if the scars of that struggle turn scarlet in the 46 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE cold, Whitey Stokes, wherever he may be, goes through each winter with a countenance crimson from forehead to chin, not forgetting behind the ears. Chapter X A KING, A LUNATIC, AND A BURGLAR-THREE IN ONE, AND NONE AT ALL MURRAY had his full share of exciting experiences during his service in Erie. One episode in particular he laughs over, for in it he was mistaken for a king, a lunatic, and a burglar, all in a single night. " In November 1872 a Miss Julia Oliver, sister of a prominent man in Erie, became demented," says Murray. " Her family were English people. She imagined they had large estates in England, and one of her delusions was that her brother was trying to beat her out of them. At times she had brief lucid intervals, but gradually she became worse, and they decided to send her to the Dixmont Asylum, up on the mountain near Pittsburg. I was acquainted with her, and her family, and they suggested that I would be the proper person to take her to the asylum. All the plans were made. We intended to start in the morning, but she locked and barred her bedroom door and windows, and we could not get into the room until after the morning train had gone. Fearing to have her at home another night, lest she should do some overt act or kill herself, the family decided I should take her on the afternoon train. It was an hour or two late. Miss Oliver and I arrived at the small asylum station long after dark. I remember it was a bright, cold, moonlit night in the latter part of November. The train steamed away, leaving this crazy woman and myself alone on the platform of the little station. There was not a soul around, no agent, no one from the asylum, not even a station lounger. It was as deserted as the North Pole, and almost as cold. The asylum was a mile or so up on the mountain from the station. There was a terraced walk for a part of the distance. The A KING, A LUNATIC, AND A BURGLAR 47 wind was howling, and everything was frozen tight. I looked far up the mountain, where I could see the asylum lights shining out in the night. The crazy woman passively waited. " ' Come, Miss Oliver/ said I. ' We will have to walk. I am very sorry, but there is no other way.' " She looked at me with big, innocent, reproachful eyes. She had a very sweet, child-like voice. She made no move. " ' I know you are going to kill me,' she said so sorrowfully, and with such sweet simplicity and directness, that I started guiltily at the very candour of the accusation. ' Do kill me here,' she continued. ' Do not kill me on the mountain side, and let me roll down the hill. The one thing I dread after death is to have to roll down long hills.' " There was no use to argue. She was insane. Yet she was so self-possessed, so gentle a lady, so frank, that if I had not known positively she was crazy, I would have believed her as sane as any other person I knew. " ' If you will not walk with me I must carry you,' I said. " ' I weigh over one hundred and forty pounds,' she said solemnly. ' I will not resist, although I prefer to be killed here rather than on the mountain side. Please kill me here.' " No one likes to be regarded seriously as a murderer, even by insane folk. So, without further ado, I picked up Miss Oliver in my arms and started up the mountain. She certainly had stated her minimum weight ! She lay in my arms like a sack of salt. The wind raged about us. Step by step I made my way up the mountain, heading for the lights of Dixmont. Despite the bitter cold I sat her down and threw off my overcoat, then picked her up and laboured on. It was weary, toilsome work. I stumbled and staggered, but ever nearer shone the lights. The insane girl begged piteously to be killed. " ' Kill me ; why don't you kill me ? ' she kept crying. ' Oh, think how far I must roll after I am killed ! ' " It was useless to be angry. I trudged on. Then she began to resist. She kicked and screamed and clawed. I was compelled to put her down and sit on her while I threw off my undercoat. Then up the mountain we went, in a perambulating wrestling match. She fought valiantly. Once 48 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE she tripped me, and we rolled far down the path before I could stop. She shrieked with delight as we rolled. Then slowly, laboriously I worked our way back over the lost ground. All the asylum lights went out while we were on our way, except the few that burned all night. Finally I got her up to the door and rang the bell. As I rang, she wrenched away. I grabbed her, and she began to shriek so piercingly that it seemed as if her family away back in Erie must hear it. We were in a tangle on the ground when the door opened, and a flood of light poured out on us. " There I stood hatless, coatless, dishevelled, wet with a wild woman wailing piteously, struggling, and crying to be freed from a monster. They well might have wondered which of us was insane. I carried her inside, and the doors were closed. I knew Dr. Reed, the Superintendent, but he was away. They roused the assistant superintendent out of bed. He was none too pleased at being disturbed. I had my commitment papers in my shirt, and I drew them forth. They were as wet as if they had fallen into a basin of water. Miss Oliver was a pay patient, of course, and her bed was ready. She looked serenely around the reception room, noting the paintings and the furnishings. " ' What do you think of my castle, King George ? ' she said to me. ' Is it not beautiful, your majesty? Pray make yourself at home, your majesty.' " There never was a King George who looked as I looked just then. Small wonder a nurse sniggered. They took Miss Oliver to her quarters, and I returned to the office. I could hear the wind whistling around the corners outside. I asked if I could stay all night. They said no, it was against the rules. '" If Dr. Reed was here I could stay all night,' I retorted. '"Dr. Reed is not here,' was the icy reply, matching the zero weather outdoors. " They showed me the door. I went out, hatless, coatless, into the night. I stumbled down the mountain, and hunted for my undercoat. I found it, and then found my overcoat. But my hat was nowhere around. The wind must have blown it away. I made my way down to the station. I was A KING, A LUNATIC, AND A BURGLAR 49 getting cold, and my damp clothes were stiffening on me. I tried to find warmth or shelter at the station, but there was none. I shivered and stamped to and fro, endeavouring to keep warm. There was no hotel around, none within a couple of miles. The only house near was a gashouse, where they made gas for the asylum. It was across from the station. I saw a light in it, and I went over and stepped in. A lone man was sitting by the fire, watching the drafts. He turned as the door slammed, and seeing me hatless, with scratched face, he groaned and jumped over to the other side of the room. " ' Get out ! get out ! ' he shouted, waving his arms. ' You cannot stop here ! Get out ; I'm closing up now ! ' " ' You poor fool,' said I. 'I want to get warm, that's all. Nobody will hurt you. Sit down.' " ' Go back to the asylum if you want to get warm ! ' he yelled, as if I were a deaf lunatic . I don't warm crazy men here.' "The fellow was beside himself with terror. He thought I was an escaped madman from Dixmont, and I did not blame him. I certainly must have looked the part. Suddenly his manner changed. "'If you're really cold, my friend, I'll show you the new tavern that has been built right down the road,' said he. " I thanked him heartily. He put on his hat and overcoat, and we started out of the door. As I stepped outside he slammed the heavy door behind me, and locked it from within. It simply was a ruse to get me out. I saw it was useless to try to get into the gashouse again, so I started on a brisk walk down the road, looking for a tavern or boarding house, or place of shelter for a half-frozen man. I walked over two miles before I came to what appeared to be a boarding-house. I banged on the door. There was no answer. I shook the door by its handle. Suddenly an upstairs window was raised, and a hoarse voice shouted : 4 Who's there ? ' I answered that I was an officer who had come from the asylum and desired a bed for the night. " ' Get out of there ! ' roared the voice. 50 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE " ' Come down and open this door ! ' I shouted in reply. " The answer was the bang of a shot gun, and a charge of buckshot bored into the woodwork about a yard from where I stood. I scooted around the corner of the house as the second barrel followed the first. I crawled along behind fences until I struck a bend in the road, and then crossed to the railroad track, and started on a -fast walk back toward the gashouse. On my way I met the gasman. When he saw me he let out a shriek of terror and fled across the fields. I walked fully three miles, past the gashouse, which was locked, before I came to a tavern. Profiting by my former experience I knocked, and when I heard a window raised upstairs I got around to the other side of the house. " ' Vat you vant ? ' asked a heavy German voice. " ' I want to get in,' said I. " ' Go away ! ' said the voice. " ' I want to get in ! ' I shouted. " Bang ! bang ! went a gun. But I was around the corner of the house. I waited a few minutes, then thumped again on the door. Three times I thumped, and every time the old German roared. Finally I crossed the road and got behind a tree. " ' Hello, there ! ' I shouted. ' You'll kill some one if you don't stop.' " ' Veil, vat you tink I am shootin' for, eh ? ' " I began a long palaver with him. " ' I want to get a bed for the night,' I said in conclusion. " ' So ? Why ain't you say so first ? ' said he. " I could hear him talking to his wife. They went away from the window. I waited fifteen minutes, and kicked again on the door. Presently a light appeared in the hall. Through the glass alongside the old-fashioned door 1 could see them coming down the stairs. The wife was ahead carrying a lighted candle. The husband was behind carrying the shot-gun. " ' Hello, out there ! ' he shouted, as they neared the door. " ' Hello ! ' I answered. " ' Who are you ? ' he asked. " I told him. A KING, A LUNATIC, AND A BURGLAR si " ' How do I know you are who you say you are ? ' he demanded. " I recited a long list of people I knew. "' How do I know you know them ? ' he asked. " I pondered. The only way to convince him was to hit upon some man he would be sure to know well. I saw a whisky sign by the door.- " ' Do you know Fred Applcbaum, of Pittsburg, the singer and whisky man?' said I. " ' Freddie Applebaum ? Do I know him ? ' he said, and I could hear the bolt shot back. " I fairly leaped inside. The old German kept pointing the shot-gun at me. He said there had been many burglaries in the vicinity, some of the robberies having been committed by men who called late at night and said they wanted lodgings. His wife brought me whisky, and I took a big drink. The old German meanwhile held the shot-gun full upon me. I sat close to the fire, and after thawing out I went to bed. The old German followed me with the shot- gun and a candle. He sat down in a corner of the room with the candle on the window sill and the shot-gun pointed at the bed. I fell asleep. It was daylight when I awoke. There sat the old German sound asleep in his chair, with the shot-gun across his knees and the candle down in the socket. I coughed, and he awoke with a snort. When I came to pay my bill he said, ' Fifty cents for bed, fifty cents for breakfast, and fifty cents for extra.' " ' What's the extra for ? ' I asked. " ' For keeping watch on you,' said he. ' How do I know you ain't a burglar?' " ' Would you take in a burglar ?' said I. " ' If he was half froze,' said he. " I took the first train for Erie, after buying a hat in Pittsburg, and patching my scratched face with court plaster. It was the only night of my life in which I had been invited to a palace as a king, locked out of a gashouse as a lunatic, shot at as a burglar, and put to bed with a shot-gun pointed at my head." $2 MEMOIRS OF* A GREAT DETETIVE Chapter XI THE BOX-CAR BATTLE F SWEETMAN, AND THE THRASHERS WITH THE WHEAT^? * \ IN addition to his regular work on the Erie police force Murray was gradually drawn into the service of the men at the head of the Pennsylvania Central Railroad. His success in the cases he undertook attracted their attention to such a degree that they finally urged him to sever his connection with the Erie Police and devote himself exclusively to rail- road detective work. William L. Scott, the railroad magnate, whose home was in Erie," and for whom Murray had done considerable difficult railroad detective work, was particularly desirous of obtaining Murray's undivided services. Mr. Scott, Milton Cartvvright, who built the Dismal Swamp canal, and was interested in the building of the Elevated Railway system in New York, James Casey, George Ham of Boston, and others, united in the building of the Canada Southern Railroad, now the Michigan Central, between Buffalo and Detroit, with its route in Canada from Fort Erie, opposite Buffalo, through St. Thomas to Windsor, opposite Detroit. They had difficulties in Canada. Station houses were burned. Trains were derailed. Bridges were fired. The trouble primarily grew out of the right of way. Some of the country folk seemed to think the railroad should make them all rich. The officers of the company knew Murray, and they held a conference and urged him to leave Erie and straighten matters out in the Canada Southern's troubles. Their offer to Murray was so flattering that he agreed to go for three months, with the right to return at the end of that time if he did not find matters satisfactory. In May 1873 Murray left Eric and went to Canada as head of detectives of the Canada Southern Railroad of which William L. Scott was president and F. N. Finney was general superintendent. He established headquarters in St. Thomas and travelled between Buffalo and Detroit, and frequently Chicago. " The bridge-burning stopped first," says Murray. " I began THE B^X-CAR BATTLE 0F SWEETMAN 53 a systematic watch of the bridge that was the scene of the most trouble. Night after night I lay in a clump of brush by the railroad track. They were hard to catch, but even- tually the bridge-burning stopped, along with the firing of stations, for I gave chase in earnest and caught some of the incendiaries and they were sent to the penitentiary. " Soon after the bridge-burning was broken up, L. D. Rucker, of the Canada Southern, called my attention to complaints of wholesale robbery of cars. Goods consigned from Boston and New York to the west were found to be missing on the arrival 'of the cars at their destination. The various roads over which the cars passed had to pay pro rata the loss to the shippers." The selection of Murray to run down this wholesale train robbing, affecting various railroads, indicates the reputation he had earned at that time as a clever detective. It was a hard case. " I went to Boston and started over the route of the goods," says Murray. " I saw the cars go through unbroken to Black Rock at Buffalo, where customs officers and sealers inspected and resealed the cars, after which they went on west through Canada. After following the route of goods several times I became convinced that the robberies were perpetrated at Black Rock, and that car sealers and railroad employees were in collusion. They, alone, could have the necessary knowledge or opportunity. " Mose Mills was Customs Officer at the International Bridge at that time. I put up a job with Mills. We made a fake manifest showing boots, shoes, silks, and clothing, making a fat car. We gave the number of the car and sent the manifest out as usual, and then had the car placed at the old Bathurst Street yards at Black Rock. I got Police Captain Dixon, of old No. 5 station in Buffalo, and two of his men, Joe Henderson and Andy Dayton, a brother of Mayor Dayton. A fence ran along by the tracks. We got outside the fence and lay in wait. " I remember the night well. It was the night of July I2th, 1874. It was blazing hot, breczeless, suffocating. We grouched alongside the fence for several hours. About 54 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE 1.30 o'clock in the morning we saw two lanterns dodging in and out among the trucks. Three fellows slipped along silently, looking for the car numbered in the fake manifest. " ' Here it is,' said one of them. " They broke the seal, slid the door, climbed in and began to open the boxes. When they were well along with their work we made a break for the car. Two of the three ran, with Dixon, Henderson, and Dayton after them. I grabbed the third fellow, a powerful giant in a cotton shirt and overalls. We grappled in the car and fell among the boxes. It was stifling hot in the box car and the water began to pour off us. Neither spoke a word. It was a silent struggle in the darkness. I recognised the fellow as one of our road's employees named Sweetman, counted one of the huskiest men in the business. He tried to strangle me to death, tried it so deliberately I had to admire his coolness. I broke his hold and, when he tried to jam me behind the boxes where he could shove a big packing case on me and crush me, I forced him over by the car door. There we heaved and strained amid the big boxes. " I had stripped him naked in the first grapples of the fight. His cotton shirt and overalls had come off like the peeling of a banana. In his fury he tore my clothes off me and as we lurched toward the car door we fell out to the track below, two naked men, drenched with perspiration as if a tub of water had been emptied on us. We fell in a bunch and over we went on to the cinders and ballast and ties. There was no let up. Whichever man got the chance banged the other's head on the rails, jammed his face in the cinders or thumped his bare body on the ballast and ties. A free hand meant a stunning blow. We fought under the car and out on to the other tracks. All the while we were silent as two mutes. It was a case of which or t'other on top. He was worrying me. I was busy as I could be and I could not yell, and my gun was gone. " We came to a full stop on the track between the rails beyond the car where our fight began. Neither of us was on top. \Ve were a tangled bunch. As we lay straining, gasping, we heard a creaking and crunching. Instinctively THE BOX-CAR BATTLE OF SWEETMAN 55 both of us looked down the track. An engine had backed some cars in and they were bearing slowly, steadily down upon us. Sweetman was a game man, he never flinched. ' You first ! ' he gasped, as he strove to roll me nearest the approaching cars. My answer was a heave that turned him prone between the rails and there I held him, panting and desperate, not daring to relax my hold. Nearer and nearer came the cars. We could hear the grind of the flange. Sweetman writhed and strove tt> drag me down and force me over. "'Give up?' I gasped. " Sweetman shook his head and butted me full between the eyes. Together we reeled back on the track. The trucks of the nearest car were not thirty feet away, when Joe Henderson came running down the track, from the chase after the other two men, and dragged us back and snapped the handcuffs on Sweetman. Henderson had captured his man and the third escaped. I was somewhat disfigured and had to borrow some clothes, but I was mightily relieved when I saw the grim trucks of the freight cars go by and felt my bones safe beyond their reach. Sweetman was a partner of Slip Lewis. He was locked up, and later his attorney made a fight on some technicality. " But this stopped the car burglaries. The railroads thanked me, and thereafter goods went west and arrived at their destination unmolested." When Murray returned to St. Thomas, after breaking up the car burglaries, he found complaints of train tapping and quickly located it at the west end of the road in the vicinity of Amherstburg, on the Canadian side of the mouth of the Detroit River. Cars laden with grain would lose bushels in transit, in some unknown way. The cars were weighed at Detroit to make sure of their cargo and when weighed later by the railroad they were many bushels lighter. Murray by a plan of frequent weighing of the cars, narrowed the territory, where the thefts were committed, to the vicinity of Amherstburg. "The method employed by the train tappers," says Murray, " was to crawl under a grain car at night, bore holes in the 56 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE floor of the car with an auger, fill as many bags with grain as they could cart away, and then plug up the auger holes, and the car would bear no visible outward sign of having been robbed. Hundreds of bushels of grain would be stolen in this way. One night a single train was rifled of enough grain to make two waggon loads of filled bags. The quantity stolen in such a short time satisfied me that a gang of six or or seven did the job, and that it was not the work of only one or two. So I nosed around looking for sixes or sevens who would be apt to engage in train-tapping. I was puzzled to learn what became of the grain, if the thieves were people in the vicinity, for I could find no trace of any sales of grain apart from the usual barter in crops by farmers. " I arranged for a string of grain cars to be laid out on a siding, and the first night I spotted a figure sneak under some of the cars and bore holes and put in plugs. No attempt was made that night to steal any of the grain, and evidently the cars were being prepared for the next night's raid. I decided to follow the fellow to his home on the first night, and I did so. The trail led to the home of the five Thrashers, a father, mother, and three sons, whose constant companions were two fellows named Johnson and Mike Fox. " I went back and got two constables, and told them to meet me at a point in the yards, where 1 would have a freight engine. I got a switch engine, but the constables failed to appear, so I went alone with the engineer, John Savina by name, and the fireman. The engine stopped opposite the Thrashers, and I went out to the house to arrest the five people. I told the engineer and fireman to be prepared to come in a jiffy. I knocked at the door, and no one answered. I knocked again, and when no response came I shoved against the door and walked in. No one was in sight. I passed through the kitchen, and was about to enter a room opening off it when a tremendous screech came from the room. I stood and listened. It was like the high, quavering note of a calliope or steam piano. Without further ado I shoved open the door and entered. All I could see was a big, old- fashioned bed, surmounted by a mosquito net. Sitting upright in this bed was one of the ugliest women I ever saw THE BOX-CAR BATTLE OF SWEETMAN 57 in my life. She would glance at me, and then throw back her head and screech just as a coyote howls when he serenades the moon. She was Mrs. Thrasher. I bade her get up. She answered with a series of ear-splitting screeches. I spent about ten minutes trying to persuade her to get out of bed. When words were of no avail I laid hold of the mosquito netting and pulled it out of the way. " ' I am palsied ! ' shrieked Mrs. Thrasher. ' I am paralysed, and cannot be moved ! ' " I approached the bed, and she dealt me such a thump on the head with her clenched hand as no paralytic ever was able to do. I sought to take her out of bed, but she buried herself in the bed clothes. So I simply took the tick, and pulled it off the bed, and was preparing to take the bed apart with her in it, when she sprang out and fled through the kitchen. I knew I could get her later, and the tick had seemed very heavy in my hands. I slit it open, and found it filled with new boots and shoes. While I was emptying them out I heard a stealthy step behind me, and whirled around just in time to see Mrs. Thrasher swing an axe and aim it at me. I dodged, and laid violent hands on Mrs. Thrasher's ankles, and landed her on the floor with a thud. Before she could regain the axe I just rolled her into the emptied tick, and fastened her by one of the tall bedposts, where she kicked and screeched, and probably well-nigh suffocated while I was searching the house. " They had a number of bed ticks all filled with wheat. They also had a big chimney that was unused. They had stuffed this chimney full of bags of wheat. Old man Thrasher came out of a closet, and I arrested him. The engine hands helped me take the plunder away. I went to the place of Mike Fox near by, and arrested him after finding more of the stolen stuff on his premises. I also arrested Johnson, and took the whole batch before Magistrate George Gott, who also was Canadian customs officer, and he committed them to Sandwich gaol for trial before Judge Home, who sent them to Kingston Penitentiary for four years each. " That broke up train-tapping. Mrs. Thrasher averred that after she was bagged in the tick she experienced a 58 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE sensation similar to that caused by smiting the outside of the tick with the open hand. I suggested to her that perhaps she had wriggled and kicked so much as to bump herself against the bedpost. But she seemed to cling to the idea that she had been spanked soundly, not beaten or bruised, but simply spanked strenuously. What could a woman named Thrasher expect ? " Chapter XII WITH THE HELP OF JESSIE McLEAN ON a bright, sunshiny day in 1874 Murray walked out of General-Superintendent Finney's office in the Canada Southern Station at St. Thomas. He had just returned from Cleveland, and had made a report on the arrest of a thief, who at one time had been bothersome to the company. As he strolled down the platform he saw a group of trainmen laughing and chatting and sunning themselves. They were talking of fires. " Sparks from Canada Southern locomotives seemed to become contagious, and various buildings along the line began to shoot sparks and to go up in smoke," says Murray. " It grew to be bothersome, and the insurance companies became considerably wrought up. The complaints, of course, came to me. " At that time one of the features of life in St. Thomas was Jessie McLean. Jessie was as bonnie a Scotch lass as a man could meet in twenty counties. She was good-looking, with peachy cheeks and sunny hair and merry eyes. But, above all, Jessie weighed 250 pounds. She was the biggest girl in St. Thomas. Some of the fellows used to joke at Jessie, but I always treated her with courtesy, and I remember the days when I used to walk a quarter of a mile just to see Jessie McLean on her way to church. It was not a case of love, but simply a desire to see a 25 the Cherrys, and the Lowells. I was satisfied after these interviews with Hannah that she had no guilty knowledge, and that she had nothing whatever to do with sending the packages. " I did develop promptly a strong suspicion as to the person who did send the poison packages. I searched the drug-stores through Canada, and examined the poison-books in all of them, and went so far as to describe to some of the the druggists the person I suspected ; but I found no clue that would hold in a trial as sufficient evidence to convict anybody. It is one of the most aggravating cases of my entire experience, yet I hold steadfast to my first impression." Chapter XLIX THE SHANTY CITY OF SLABTOWN SLABTOWN is a sprawling settlement of shanties along the feeder to the Welland Canal on the outskirts of Dunnville in the county of Haldimand. It is a Government reserve, and the residents are squatters. They are a motley population, 272 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE who pay no rent, and fish or loll through life with an occasional industrious man among them. They are as distinct, in their way, as a nation apart from Canada, for they seem to have a code of morals all their own, and their customs in business are unique. One of the flourishing features of trade in Slabtown is in wives. They trade wives like knives in Slabtown, a fair swap and so much to boot. The women do not object, and the families increase and multiply upon the bank of the canal, one mother and several fathers. This results in quite a tax on the memory of Slabtown society. Mrs. Sallie Poney, for instance, using fictitious names, had seven children. One was Johnnie Poney Scollie. another was Mickey Poney Ready, another was Luella Poney Stott, another was Mabelle Poney Watkins, another was Thomas Poney Colter, another was Samson Poney Pettingil, and another was Tillie Poney Scollie, for in the end Mrs. Sallie had been traded back to the father of Johnnie Poney Scollie. Tobias Stott could point, as could other men of Slabtown, to a fine family of sons and daughters scattered through the shanties. Not all the elite of Slabtown were of the Stott or Scollie kind, of course, or the population would have become hopelessly mixed. As it was, a 'man was living with his great aunt, while an uncle traded for his niece's daughter by his aunt's son. In fact, one Slabtown dame once said that she had become her own mother. " Shure, Patty Scollie is his own grandfather for he traded for his father's great aunt's mother's son's daughter," said she. A stranger appeared in Dunnville on October 3ist, 1888. " He was an old gentleman," says Murray, " about fifty-five, well dressed, apparently respectable. He had money. About eleven o'clock at night John Upper, living near the canal bridge on the edge of Slabtown, heard a loud scream and a splash in the water, then a clatter on the bridge, as if a man ran across it to Slabtown. Upper spoke to several persons about it, and in the morning they looked for signs of a struggle but nothing was to be seen. Nine days later a body was found floating in the canal west of the bridge. It proved to be that of the old gentleman who was in Dunnville on THE SHANTY CITY OF SLABTOWN 273 October 3 1 st. He had been murdered before the body was thrown into the canal. There was no water in the lungs, and the base of the skull was fractured. The pockets were turned inside out, his money was gone, no papers were found on him, and there was no clue to his identity. He was last seen about five o'clock in the afternoon on his way to Slabtown, slightly under the influence of liquor. I sent out his picture and long afterward I learned that he was a harness maker named Lowrie, from Toronto. " The autopsy I ordered, when I had the body exhumed on my arrival, showed that the man not only was dead when put in the water but the body was still warm. This was shown, said the doctors, by the fact that what a layman calls gooseflesh, was visible. This appears and remains when a warm dead body is put in the water. Thus it was evident that the old gentleman had been attacked, had screamed, had been struck on the head with a blunt instrument and killed, then had been robbed and the body thrown in the water. " I became a frequenter of Slabtown. I collected a marvellous mass of information. You can get all kinds of information in Slabtown. Anything you want to know, they will tell you. I learned from a Slabtowner, named Henry Overbold, that three hours before John Upper heard the scream and splash in the night, Joe Clemo, of Slabtown, had stopped at Overhold's, and told him that before morning he would be a rich man. Joe Clemo then went out and returned to Overhold's house at seven o'clock in the morning, and drew a big roll of bills from his pocket and slapped them down on the floor. " ' Hanky,' said Joe Clemo, ' I made that since I saw you last.' " Overbold told this to me solemnly. I looked up Joe Clemo's record and found he was a bad egg, and for so young a man he had spent much time in the penitentiary. I learned from an hotel man in Dunnville that, two days before the murder, Joe Clemo had borrowed five cents. He always was broke. " I called on the aristocracy of Slabtown. They received me with open arms and soapsudsy hands or fishy fingers. 18 274 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE Huldy Smith led me out to the bank of the canal, and there told me that Joe Clemo had called on her when John William Smith was out. " ' Joey showed me the squidge of bills, and he shook them to me so's I smelt 'em, and he says to me : " Huldy, fly with me to the United States." Joey says it to me.' " ' Was that all he said ? ' I asked. " ' Oh no,' said Huldy. ' He says he love me and I smelt the bills again. Bills has a funny smell.' " ' Didn't Joey tell you where he got the bills ? ' I asked. " ' No ; I didn't ask,' said Huldy. " ' But if Joey really had loved you he would have told you where he got them,' said I. " Huldy bridled up. "'Huh!' said she. 'So he did tell me. While I was smelling the bills Joey Clemo whispers to me : " Huldy I love you ; fly with me ; and I killed an old man because I had to hit him to rob him, and I hit him harder than I meant, so when he wouldn't come to I pitched him in the canal. Fly with me." I told Joey that was no way to get money, and for him to go on about his own business and fly himself, but he wouldn't fly me with him. I stood by for John William, who ain't hitting people too hard on the head and pitching bodies into the canal.' " I found Joe Clemo had skipped out a few days after the murder. I hunted him for months, and finally heard of a fellow answering his description near Essex Centre, in the county of Essex. I went there late in March, and on April 4th I arrested the man, who was Joe Clemo. He had stopped at a farmhouse and was on his way to the United States. I handcuffed him, but said nothing about the charge against him. " ' What are you arrested for ? ' asked the farmer's wife. " ' Oh, I am arrested for murder, that's all,' said Joe Clemo. " He had excellent power of divination. He evidently expected to be arrested for a murder. Men who have done no murder seldom expect to be arrested for killing a man. I took Joe Clemo to Cayuga before Squire Wintermute, and I summoned a number of Slabtown witnesses, and the magistrate THE SHANTY CITY OF SLABTOWN 275 Was satisfied of Joe Clemo's guilt, and on April i6th, 1889, Joe Clemo was held for trial. Sam Smith, who, it was said, had been seen in Joe Clemo's company, also was remanded. I arrested Sam in Dunnville, but later no bill was found against him. " In making ready for the trial of Joe Clemo, I found the Slabtowners eager to be called in the case. Every time they told their story they made it stronger, as if they feared they would be overlooked unless their testimony was sensational and positive. They seemed to enter into a competition to see who could tell the most damaging story against Joe Clemo. This rivalry became so keen that Joe Clemo, according to the tales of the witnesses, had waved the banknotes before several women and while they smelt them, Joe said : ' Fly with me.' When Huldy Smith said Joe had asked her first, another promptly declared Joe Clemo had asked her three times and had showed her how he had killed the old gentleman and had dived with the body to the bottom of the canal, and had stuck it head first in the bottom so it would not come up, and had robbed it under water so no one would see him do it. One of the women finally said that Joey embraced her and said : ' You need not fly with me, if you don't want to. I love you so that you can take the money and not fly.' She added that she refused the money. This aroused other witnesses to still greater efforts. "I conferred, finally, with Crown Prosecutor Colin Macdougal, and I explained the situation to him and said frankly that it was one of the strangest cases I ever had encountered. Meanwhile, the grand jury, after calling only a few of the witnesses, had found a true bill against Joe Clemo, and his trial came on before Chief Justice Armour. We were in an awkward position. While I thought Joe Clemo did the deed, I did not think the witnesses were telling the truth, as they kept changing their stories constantly, and finally, as I have said, got into a competition as to who could tell the strongest story. Joe Clemo was defended by an able counsel, the present Judge Snyder, of Hamilton. I had a conversation with him, and he had very little hope of getting Joe Clemo out of his trouble. I had another conversation with the 2/6 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE Crown Prosecutor and advised him to speak to Chief Justice Armour about the matter. I knew there would be no restraining many of the witnesses, once they got on the stand. They simply would vie with one another to tell the biggest story and make the grandest appearance on the witness stand. She who carried off the honours would be queen of Slabtown, and her various children would bask in her glory. However, we hit on a plan of our own. " First we proved the death of the old gentleman. Then we selected some of our choicest Slabtown witnesses. Sarah Scollie was one. Sarah Scollie and Sally Poney were not the same woman. Sarah told her story. It was just grand to see her swell before the Slabtowners on the benches. Then came her cross-examination. " ' Are you married, Sarah ? ' asked Mr. Snyder politely. " ' None of your business,' replied Sarah haughtily, with her nose elevated and her head held high, as a sign of utter disdain. " Sarah meant to squelch her cross-examiner. So she gave him the Slabtown snub. Her answer gave the judge and jury an idea of Sarah's character. She was instructed to answer the question. " ' Not by a sight,' said Sarah. " She was asked with whom she was living at that time. " ' Sam Smith,' said Sarah, sniffing. " ' How long have you lived with Sam ? ' " ' Two years,' said the haughty Sarah. " ' With whom did you live before that ? ' " ' Ben Hughes,' said Sarah, glaring. '"How long?' " ' About a year and a half,' said Sarah. "'Was there not a dicker between Sam Smith and Ben Hughes about your transfer ?' " Sarah tossed her head and looked unutterable scorn. " ' What transfer ? ' she snapped. " ' Of you to Smith.' " Sarah glared. The court instructed her to answer. " ' Yes,' exclaimed Sarah. ' A cow and a couple of dollars.' " Sarah stepped down. Next came Mrs. McCann. She WHY TAMELY SLEEPS IN GEORGIAN BAY 277 was of the same stripe, only she was better natured than Sarah. She had lived with one man after another and there had been bargains and barter. After a few more of these witnesses the judge asked Mr. Macdougal if that was the kind of witnesses the Crown proposed to produce throughout the prosecution. " ' We take the witnesses just as they come," said Mr. Macdougal. " ' Well, I would not hang a dog on the testimony of such witnesses,' said the court. " We had some respectable witnesses, but they were not our main ones. Joe Clemo went free. He was the hardest- looking man in the dock I ever saw. He was cross-eyed, so that he seemed to hold his head sidewise to see you. He was so well known as a bad character that the jury would have been apt to convict him. I was under the impression he was guilty, but I did not think it right to convict a man on the testimony of people whom the Crown officers did not believe; and, under the circumstances, I was glad he was acquitted. " Numerous unsuccessful efforts have been made to break up Slabtown. The ministers and county councils and others have tried it, but there it is and there it seems to stay. There arc honest, industrious folk in Slabtown. It is not a nest of thieves or a mere place of dissolute people. They simply are traders, even in wives." Chapter L WHY TAMBLY SLEEPS IN GEORGIAN BAY HIGH on a hill overlooking the waters of Georgian Bay stands a white farmhouse. It may be seen from afar, shining like silver in the sunlight. Mariners know it as the White House on the Hill. They point it out, across the waters, a mere white speck ; or, when nearer, they nod toward it, as if to the marble tomb of some mighty chieftain. A lad once lived at this White House on the Hill a fair-haired, blue-eyed, merry lad, whose grandfather carved small boats 278 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE for him and taught him to sail them, first in the watering trough, then in the duck pond, and finally in the creek. The old man and the boy were wont to sit for hours in the shade, looking out over the bay, where the waters shimmered and sparkled, where the ships came gliding up out of the nowhere, beyond the line where the sky dipped down to the earth. Stories of terrible tempests, tales of phantom ships, yarns of gallant seamen and how they went to their death were spun by the old man, while the boy listened, wide-eyed and open- mouthed. " The waters rock them to sleep," the old man would say. " The ships that go down are the cradles in which the seamen sleep." A great love for the water came to possess the boy. The land seemed a hard and desert place. He yearned for the life of a sailor. He used to tell his mother of his dreams, when golden ships came sailing over shining seas with a ship for him on which his name glittered. He plodded on about the farm, toiling in the soil and dreaming of the sea. " When he was twenty-two years old," says Murray, " he packed his duds in a bundle and went to Owen Sound, deter- mined to be a sailor. The Baltic, a steamer plying on Georgian Bay, between Owen Sound and Sault Ste. Marie, was in port at that time. He went aboard. It was in September 1889. "' I want -to ship as a sailor,' said he. " ' What's your name ? ' they asked him. " ' George Tambly, of the county of Grey,' said he. " ' Ever been afloat ? ' "' No, I've lived on a farm near Wyerton.' " ' They laughed ; but they hired him. He shipped as a deck-hand, and it was the proudest moment of his life when he went ashore and sent word home that he had shipped and was going to be a sailor. The Baltic carried a crew of about ten deck-hands, four firemen, two wheelsmen, two engineers, and a chief cook. Captain Robinson was her master. Many of the crew were rough-and-ready fellows, hardened to the life they led, reckless and devil-may-care. They were a different crowd from the gay adventurers who manned the shining ships in the farmboy's golden dreams. They were WHY TAMELY SLEEPS IN GEORGIAN BAY 279 no gentlemen with velvet coats and jewelled daggers and bags of gold. Instead, there were slovenly, grimy, hard- spoken toilers, to whom life was a stern and merciless task- master, to be greeted with a sneer or a guffaw. " The crew quickly learned of young Tambly's high ideals, and they gibed him constantly. The green country boy shrank from them, and sought to be alone. There was liquor in the cargo on this trip. It was alleged that some of the crew pilfered and that a group of them broached the cargo. Certain it is that they hunted out Tambly and dragged him from his hiding-place, and sat him down in the centre of their circle and bade him drain a cup of liquor. He refused. They seized him, to force it down his throat. He set his jaws, and they could not open them. So they drank around the circle, each draining the cup that Tambly had refused. They spat on the country boy, and kicked him until he broke away and hid again. " ' He knows of the broached cargo,' said one. " ' Aye, and he refused to join us,' said another. " They debated it in their drunken way. Their contempt for the country boy grew to dislike and deepened to a deadly hatred. " ' Let's coat him, and make him dance," said one. " With a shout they leaped up to carry out the suggestion. Two went for tar ; one stole a pillow, and slit it open and made ready the feathers ; the others began a search for Tambly. They found him hid near his bunk. He fought and kicked, but they choked him and dragged him out in the moonlight. They stripped off his clothes and beat him, and then the hot tar was brought forth and they tarred him, slapping it on with paddles and smearing it over his naked skin. In agony he broke from his tormentors and ran around the ship. He shouted to the ship's officers for mercy, he pleaded with his pursuers to have pity. He fell on the deck and writhed as they chased after him, slapping tar on him and thumping him with the paddles. He knelt in anguish, and begged them to desist. Their answer was taunts oaths, and more tar. The captain was aware of the persecution, but made light of it. Then they chased him again. 280 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE Around and around the deck he fled, a hunted, tortured being, the tar stiffening and smarting. In despair he sprang upon the rail, and struggled to climb beyond reach. They gathered below him like a pack of hungry, snarling wolves. " Tambly looked down at them and then out across the water. High on the hillside he saw a light shine out, bright as the evening star. It was the light of home. He knew the old man was there, and probably had the glad note spread out before him, reading of how George had shipped as a sailor. A door in the farmhouse opened, and a stream of light poured forth like a beacon to beckon him home. The boy, for he was only a boy, hesitated. The waters looked cold and dark in the night. The drunken crowd beneath him clamoured for him to come down. One started to climb up after him. The door in the farmhouse on the hill closed. The light went out. His cry rang out in the night, and he leaped. There was a splash, and the ship went on. " The bodies that go down in these waters never come up. The water is too cold, and the depths are far, far down. Tambly sank, and never rose again. Quiet fell aboard the Baltic. " A passenger who was aboard the steamer on this trip heard of the outrage. He notified the proper authorities, and on the next trip I boarded the Baltic at Wyerton. I made the trip, and I drank with some of the crew and got the story and the names, and I arrested six of them, includ- ing Russell, the second engineer ; Tripp, the chief cook ; a deck-hand named Jennings, and others. I took them to Owen Sound and locked them up, and they were com- mitted for trial for manslaughter. Later four of them were sent to prison. The captain's licence was revoked for a year. " I went to Tambly's house. I asked what they last heard from the boy. They told me that they had received his note about shipping as a sailor ; and the old man had taken it out again, for the hundredth time, to read it, and as he read he thought he heard a cry in the night. " ' I thought George was calling,' said the old man, and he opened the door and stepped outside and listened. REGINALD BIRCHALL, MURDERER 281 " Far out on the water he could see a steamer's lights. He heard nothing, and went indoors. "' I thought George called,' he said, ' but I was mistaken. George is where, even if he called, I could not hear.' " The old man was right. George, far down in the icy waters, was where, even if he called, the old man could not hear." Chapter LI REGINALD BIRCHALL: OCCUPATION, MURDERER THICK grow the briars in Blenheim Swamp. Fallen logs and tangled thickets mingle in a maze, impassable save where paths penetrate the dense underbrush. Desolation and loneli- ness pervade the place. The spirit of solitude broods over the marsh. Wild creatures are its only habitants. They flit to and fro, their weird cries echoing in the stillness. On an edge of it is a deep and silent pool, Pine Pond. Its inner fastnesses for many years were an undiscovered country, from whose bourne at least one traveller did not return. The bones of dead men had been found in the swamp ; but not until February 1890 did it reveal a body lately dead a body that lay like a bundle, half concealed. Two woodsmen passing came upon it and rolled it over. Two long arms flapped life- lessly, two glassy eyes stared vacantly, and a cold, white face turned skyward, with a purple blotch to tell where a bullet bored its fatal way. Only the wild creatures of the swamp had beheld the tragedy. From the treetops and the moss lands they saw a young man, a gentleman, come walking up an old narrow trail. Gaily he came. He was smoking, and gazed eagerly ahead as if the bush-grown road were a golden highway to a promised land. They saw him point forward and press on. They saw death walking at his elbow a second figure, hand- some and alert, swift of movement, stealthy, noiseless. They saw the glitter of steel, the flash of flame, the puff of smoke, and heard the explosion ring out through the forest. They 282 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE saw the blithesome young gentleman lurch forward, sway and fall, as a second shot went echoing over the marsh. They saw the murderer coolly feel the pulse, quietly search the pockets, then deliberately produce a pair of scissors and clip from the dead man's clothes all tell-tale traces of his identity or of the place whence he came. Nothing was done hurriedly. The noise of the shots was the rudest part of it. All else was done softly, placidly. The murderer raised the body by the arms and started toward Pine Pond, but the way was choked with tangles, and the blood left a crimson trail. So he laid the body down in a lonely spot, hid it as best he could without too great exertion, washed his hands in a pool, and walked briskly out of the swamp, whistling softly a merry tune. * The murderer neither hurried nor lagged. He cast no furtive glances around him. Perfect self-possession marked his mien. He seemed to have no fear. He skirted Pine Pond, whose unfathomed depths would have told no tale if the body had been buried there. All was silent, for picnic parties had not visited the pond since a fire and storm felled trees and blocked the way. He vanished down the picnic road, where the year before jolly parties journeyed on merry outings, and where Lord and Lady Somerset, spending some months at Woodstock, eight miles away, were fond of coming to explore the Blenheim Swamp before they returned to England. "The body was found," says Murray, "by the Elridge brothers, Joseph and George. They lived in that vicinity, and were out chopping on Friday, February 2ist, and one of them, in the tangle of the bog, amid a snarl of logs, and vines, and briars, and brush, stepped on the body, slipped, and almost fell upon it. They bore it out of the swamp, and, in response to a telegram to the Department of Justice, I went immediately to the township of Blenheim, in the county of Oxford, and saw the body. It was the body of a young man, smooth shaven, of refined appearance, and clearly a gentleman. The clothing was English in style and cut, with a check caped mackintosh. The underclothing was of English make, for I had ordered some of the same kind and make in England REGINALD BIRCHALL, MURDERER 283 some months before. There was no clue to his identity. The name of his tailor and the label on his clothes had been cut out carefully. The label of his brown Derby hat had been removed. Even a possible tell-tale button had been severed. I sat down with the body, placing it in a sitting posture opposite me. I looked at it as if it were a man asleep. He was little more than a big boy, a gentle lad, a youth just out of his teens, a refined son of refined parents. In the back of his head was the purplish black hole of the bullet, and near the nape of the neck was another. He had been shot from behind ; perhaps he never knew who shot him. Death crashed upon him from the rear, and he fell without a glimpse of his murderer. " What could have brought this young Englishman of gentle birth to this desolate spot, and what could have been the motive for his murder? Possibly he had been murdered elsewhere, and the body taken secretly to the swamp and hid, to shrivel and wither and crumble away until only a string of dead men's bones remained to tell of the tragedy. " ' Who are you ? ' I asked the dead body as it sat facing me ; but, in answer, it lurched forward and fell on its face. " I had it photographed. I gave copies of the photograph to the newspapers of Canada, and requested them to print the picture and to ask other papers throughout the United States and England to reproduce it. I hoped that some one some- where in the world, seeing the face of the unknown dead, would recognise it, and thus solve the mystery of his identity. Even in death he was so typically English, so characteristically British, that I said at once he was not from Canada or the States, but was from England. But where had he been murdered ? " I went to the snarl in the bog in Blenheim Swamp where the body had been found. I saw where it had lain, half hid, where only an accidental stumbling on it would have revealed its presence. I pondered on the mystery of Providence in guiding the Elridges to the precise spot where the body lay. A regiment of hunters might have tramped through the swamp and not come upon it, yet one of these two brothers, by favour 284 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE of good fortune, had slipped and stepped on it, and so discovered it. I saw the crimson stain where the head had been. I crawled on hands and knees over the surrounding ground, and I found a crimson trail. I followed it back a few paces, and it stopped in a blotch of blood. Beyond the blotch there was no further trace of blood. Here the murder had been done, here the shot had been fired, here the victim had fallen. His murderer had borne him to the denser place and hid him there. I crawled about the scene of the crime. I went over the ground inch by inch. On three separate visits I did this, hoping that some clue, some bit of a label, some little button, some shred out of his past life, might be lying in the swamp- land. On my last search I came upon a cigar-holder with an amber mouthpiece marked ' F. W. B.' It was half buried, as if it had been stepped on. It was the first clue. " Five days had passed since the finding of the body. No identification came. The picture was in all the leading papers in Canada, and in a few days more it would be published in England. The body was buried at Princeton, a town a few miles from Blenheim Swamp. On the sixth day a man and woman arrived at Princeton, and asked to see the body of the young man who had been found in a swamp, and whose picture had been printed in the papers. They said they had crossed from England recently, and on the same ship was a young man who resembled strongly the picture of the dead man. The body was dug up on March ist. The lady and gentleman looked at it, and both identified it as the body of their fellow-passenger, and both were shocked deeply. "'His name, we think, was Benwell,' they said. 'He was merely a casual acquaintance aboard ship, and we knew nothing of him.' " The lady and gentleman returned to Paris, about ten miles from Princeton. I had been to the swamp and out among the people living in that section, seeing them one by one, and I returned in time to join the lady and gentleman at Paris. We met in the hotel. I introduced myself, and the three of us were alone in the parlour upstairs. "'I am J. W. Murray, of the Department of Criminal Investigation,' I said. 'You arc the gentleman who has been REGINALD BIRCHALL, MURDKRER 285 out looking at the body of the young man found in the swamp? ' "The gentleman was dressed in perfect taste. He was handsome and easy in manner, with a certain grace of bearing that was quite attractive. He came toward me, and I saw he was about five feet nine inches tall, supple, clean cut, well built. His hair was dark and fashionably worn ; his forehead was broad and low. He wore a light moustache. Two dark-brown eyes flashed at me in greeting. Clearly he was a man of the world, a gentleman, accustomed to the good things of life, a likeable chap, who had lived well and seen much and enjoyed it in his less than thirty years on earth. The lady stood by the window looking out. She was a slender, pleasant-faced blonde, a bit weary about the eyes, but evidently a woman of refinement. She half turned and watched us as the man advanced to meet me. " ' Yes,' said he, in quiet, well-modulated voice ; ' my wife and I were out at the grave and saw the body.' " The lady shuddered. The man continued that he was very glad to meet me. " ' You knew the young man ? ' I asked. " ' Yes, very slightly/ said he. " ' Ah, I am very glad to hear it,' said I. ' At last we may know who he is. Where did you meet him ? ' " ' In London,' said he. " ' London, Ontario, or London, England ? ' said I. " ' He came from London, England,' said he. ' A mere casual acquaintance. I met him, don't you know, on the ship aboard ship, in fact.' " ' His name ? ' I asked. " ' I think it was Bentwell, or Benswell, or Benwell,' said he. ' I knew him very slightly.' " ' What ship ? ' said I. " ' The Britannic of the White Star Line,' said he. ' We arrived in New York on Friday, February I4th.' " ' When did you last see the young man alive ? ' I asked. " ' He was on his way to London, Ontario, and as we were travelling to the Falls our way was the same. I last saw him 286 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE at the Falls. He had a great deal of luggage down there. He left some of it, in fact.' " ' I'm very glad to know this,' said I gratefully. ' You will be able to point out his luggage ? ' " ' Yes,' said he. ' I'll be very glad to aid you. I am returning to the Falls to-day. We came, you know, because we saw the picture in the paper.' " ' Will you take charge of the luggage for me ? ' I asked. " ' Gladly,' said he. " ' Your name, so that I may find you at the Falls ? ' I asked. " ' Birchall,' said he. ' Reginald Birchall, of London- London, England.' " ' Very glad to know you, Mr. Birchall ; very glad indeed,' said I. " During our conversation he became quite familiar and talkative. His wife was very nervous, as if the sight of a dead body had upset her. She began to pace up and down the room. " ' How was the young man dressed when you last saw him ? ' I asked. " I had a navy-blue overcoat on at the time. Mr. Birchall put his hand on the coat sleeve. There was no tremor in it. I noted it was rather a dainty hand. "'Like that,' he said. " ' A whole suit of that colour ? ' I asked. " ' Yes,' said he. " ' Would he take a glass, do you know ? ' " ' Oh, yes, he used to get very jolly,' said he. "'That London, Ontario, is a bad place,' said I. 'They'd kill a man for a five-dollar note there. And this poor young man went to London, eh ? ' " I could see the wife's face clear with an expression of relief. The man reiterated his pity for the young man, and his desire to be of any service possible to me. We chatted quite cordially. " ' Were you ever on the continent before ? ' I asked. " ' Yes, New York and Niagara Falls, but never in Canada,' said he. REGINALD BIRCHALL, MURDERER 287 " After further conversation I produced my note-book. " ' I am greatly indebted to you, my dear sir, for your kindness,' said I. ' This information is most valuable. It tells us just what we wish to know. May I trouble you to repeat it, so that I may note it accurately ? ' " The lady began to pace the floor again. The man told once more the story he had told to me. He made occasional pauses to ask the lady a question, as if his own memory had failed to note certain desired details of a casual acquaintance. She answered in a weary, anxious voice. " ' And I bade him good-bye at the Falls,' he concluded, ' and he went on to London, Ontario.' " ' Did you hear from him ? ' I asked. " 'Just a line/ he said. " ' Have you got it ? ' I asked. "' Have I got Fred's note, my dear ? ' he asked his wife. " ' No,' said the lady, ' but I remember seeing it.' " ' It was just a note to get his luggage through,' said he. " ' His first name was Fred ? ' I asked. " ' I think so,' he said quietly, as we eyed each other. ' It was so signed in the note.' " His manner changed to even effusive cordiality. "'Mr. Murray, come down and spend Sunday with us at the Falls,' he said heartily. " 'Delighted, but I must go to Toronto/ said I. " ' Toronto ! ' said he. ' I'd like to see Toronto. My dear, will you go to Toronto on Sunday as Mr. Murray's guest ? ' " ' Unfortunately I will not be home on Sunday/ said I. 1 Will you meet me at nine o'clock on Monday morning at the Falls, and get all the luggage at the Customs House ? ' " ' Delighted to aid you/ said he. " We shook hands and bowed. The tired lady bowed, and I withdrew. I walked straight to the telegraph office. On the way I thought it over. The man was lying ; I was sure of it. Yet, if he knew aught of the crime, why should he come to Canada at least a week after the deed was done and identify the body ? The autopsy had shown the young man had been dead a few days, but not over a week ; so it was within eight or ten days after the murder that this suave, 288 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE handsome Englishman and his gentle wife had come from the Falls to Paris and thence to Princeton to view the body. Why had they come? This story of seeing the picture in the paper was quite plausible. If he were telling the truth I could understand it, but I was satisfied he was lying. Yet the London, Ontario, part of it might be true. I wanted a few hours to investigate it and make sure. So I entered the telegraph office and sent a telegram to the Falls, describing Birchall and telling of his return to the Falls later that day. " ' Shadow this man,' I telegraphed. ' Do not arrest him unless he tries to cross the river to the States. I will be there Sunday night.' " I jumped to London, Ontario, and called on acquaintances there for trace of this young Fred Benwell. Among those I saw was Edward Meredith, a lawyer, to whom I spoke of Benwell and the steamer Britannic, and he told me that Barrister Hellmuth, of London, Ontario, had returned from England on the Britannic. I made sure that Benwell, or whoever the young man was, had not been to see Attorney Hellmuth ; in fact, I scoured London, and satisfied myself he had not been there at all. Birchall and his wife, meanwhile, had returned to Niagara Falls, Ontario ; and on March 2nd Birchall was arrested, his wife being taken into custody two days later. They were remanded until March I2th. " I found that Birchall and Mrs. Birchall and a young man named Douglas Raymond Pelly were stopping at Baldwin's at Niagara Falls, and had arrived there the day after the murder. I saw Mr. Pelly. He was a handsome young fellow, about five feet nine inches tall, slight build, small light moustache, and a decided English accent. He told me he was the son of the Rev. R. P. Pelly, of Walton Place, Vicar of Saffron W T alden, Essex, England. He was twenty- five years old, a graduate of Oxford, and a cousin of the beautiful Lady Pelly, who was one of the suite of Lord Lansdowne, formerly Governor-General of Canada. He told me he knew both the dead man, whose picture was in the papers, and Birchall. " ' Benwell, Birchall, Mrs. Birchall, and I all came out from England in one party,' said Pelly. ' Birchall and Benwell REGINALD BIRCHALL, MURDERER 289 left us for a day, and Ben well never came back. I saw the picture of the dead man in the paper a few days later, and I told Birchall it was Benwell, and that he ought to go and identify the body and make sure.' " I sat down with Telly, and for several hours he talked, telling me what he knew of Benwell and Birchall. Among Birchall's papers, found in searching his effects, were letters corroborative of what Felly said. Pclly, with his Oxford course finished and the world before him, was looking for an opening in life when, in December 1889, he read an advertise- ment in London, England, newspapers as follows : ' CANADA. University man having farm wishes to meet gentleman's son to live with him and learn the business, with view to partnership ; must invest five hundred pounds to extend stock ; board, lodging, and 5 per cent interest till partnership arranged. 'Address, J. R. BURCHETT, Primrose Club, 4, Park Place, St. James', London.' " Pelly saw this advertisement, and wrote to J. R. Burchett about it, asking for particulars. Pie received in reply, on December pth, a telegram from J. R. Burchell, stating that he would go down to Walden Place, Saffron Waldcn, on the following Thursday. Pelly answered with a note, which was found with other letters in Birchall's effects, hoping he would stay all night as it was a long way to come for such a short interview, and also as he desired to have his father meet J. R. Burchell. On the appointed day J. R. Burchell arrived at Waldcn Place, and later met Pelly in London, and won over both Pclly and his father. He pictured to them a large farm one and a half miles from Niagara Falls, Ontario ; a farm with large brick houses and barns, the former heated by steam and lighted by gas and the latter by electric light, with lights placed around the farm. He told of the big and profitable business, and mentioned the fine fishing, shooting, and other sports to be enjoyed on the farm. He explained that the business carried on was buying horses in the rough and grooming them to sell for profit ; that the farm was used to raise horse feed ; 19 290 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE that during J. R. Burchell's absence, his overseer, a Scotchman named McDonald, and several hired men looked after the farm and business ; that he had a branch business at Wood- stock, and had rooms there, where he and Mrs. Burchell lived at times. He said a number of Englishmen lived around Niagara Falls, and that a club had been created in which the members lived in English style and had English servants. J. R. Burchell said he organised the club. The country was an earthly paradise, with wealth to be had for simply sojourning in the land. This glowing description captivated Pelly, and on January iith, 1890, he wrote from Hollington, St. Leonard's-on-Sea, to J. R. Burchell, saying : ' Please consider all settled. If you will have the agreement drawn up, I will sign it and forward you a cheque for one hundred and seventy pounds at the same time. I shall look to meeting you on February ist. When you get my steamer tickets would you be so kind as to forward me some steamer labels at the same time ? ' " References had been exchanged. Pelly had referred J. R. Burchell to Edward Cutler, Esq., O.C., 12, Old Square, Lincoln's Inn ; Godfrey Lawford, Esq., 28, Austin Friars, E.G., and the Rev. Alfred Rose, Emmanuel College, Cambridge. J. R. Burchell referred to David Stevenson, Bainbridge, Maberley Road, Upper Norwood, master of transportation of the London and North- Western Railroad. J. R. Burchell drew up the following agreement : ' Memorandum of agreement, made this day of , 1890, between J. R. Burchell, of Niagara, Ontario, Canada, and Bainbridge, Maberley Road, Upper Norwood, England, on the one part, and D. R. Pelly, of Waldcn Place, Saffron Walden, in the county of Essex, on the other part, to the effect that the said J. R. Burchell agrees to provide the said D. R. Pelly with board, lodging, washing, and household extras for one year, also with travelling expenses in Canada and United States, use of horses, carriages, sleighs, and such things as he may require pertaining to his business ; also for the space of one year : the said D. R. Pelly in consideration of the REGINALD BIRCHALL, MURDERER 291 same, one hundred and seventy pounds, agrees to pay the sum of one hundred and seventy pounds sterling, the money to be invested in stock (horses) ; this sum to be repaid together with interest at five per cent, per annum in case the said D. R. Felly does not stay beyond the year before mentioned. If the said D. R. Pclly should stay for a longer period, then the aforesaid sum to be repaid or applied as the said D. R. Pelly shall determine. ' The year mentioned to date from the signing of this agreement.' " A copy of this agreement I found in Birchall's hand- writing, and beneath it were scribbled various names, in- cluding A. Slodcn Jones, 18, Talbot Road, Bayswater ; J. R. Birtwistle, Fred Bctcor, H. H. Foxby, J. B. Simons, Dear Miss Lovett, the Rev. J. Readon, and Alfred A. Atkinson. " Pelly continuing his story, told me that he met Mr. and Mrs. Birchall on February 5th, and boarded the Britannic at Liverpool. To his surprise he found a fourth member of the party, a young man whom Birchall introduced to him as Fred C. Benwell, son of Colonel Benwell, of Cheltenham, England. Birchall intimated to Pelly that Benwell was not much of a fellow, but that he was simply crossing with them to a farm, and that it would be just as well for Pelly to have nothing to do with him. So Pelly treated Benwell rather distantly, and devoted himself to Mrs. Birchall and Birchall on the voyage. Benwell seemed to reciprocate by treating Pelly coolly, so Birchall deftly kept the two young men from becoming familiar and confidential. Finally Benwell and Pelly chatted together and Benwell told Pelly he, too, was to join Birchall in the horse business. Pelly went to Birchall and threatened to withdraw. Birchall pacified him, saying : ' Never mind, I shall find some way to get rid of him.' Birchall enlivened the voyage with glowing pictures of the profits awaiting them. "The Britannic arrived in New York on February i-j-th. The Birchalls, Pelly, and Benwell went to the Metropolitan 292 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE Hotel. While there they met a fellow from Woodstock, Neville H. Pickthall, who greeted Birchall and his wife. "'Why, Lord Somerset and Lady Somerset,' exclaimed Pickthall, the moment he saw them. ' Delighted ! Are you on your way back to Woodstock ? ' " Birchall got free from Pickthall with little ceremony. Later some people supposed Pickthall had gone to New York to meet Birchall, but it turned out that green goods men had persuaded Pickthall to borrow $1,000, on his farm and go to New York to buy a lot of bogus money. Pickthall went, and happened to be there when the Birchall party appeared at the hotel. The same day the green goods men got Pickthall's $r ,000,. and sent him out to Denver, Colorado, on a wild-goose chase, and he turned up in Denver broke, and wrote to friends in Woodstock, and I had him back to testify at the trial. " Pelly said their party stayed overnight at the Metropoli- tan Hotel, and the next day, February I5th, they went to Buffalo, arriving there on the morning of February i6th, and registering at the Stafford House. Each young man was eager to see the mythical farm. It was only a couple of hours from Buffalo, said Birchall. Mrs. Birchall preferred to wait in Buffalo until sure everything was all right at the farm for her reception there. Pelly gallantly agreed to tarry with Mrs. Birchall while Birchall and Benwell went on to the farm to surprise the employees. If all was well at the farm, Benwell would remain there, and Birchall would return and take Mrs. Birchall and Pelly to the farm. Benwell and Birchali were to start at six o'clock the next morning. They did so, leaving the Stafford House bright and early on the morning of February i/th, to take a Grand Trunk train to the farm. " Birchall returned to the Stafford House in Buffalo alone at half-past eight that evening. He was in good humour, pleasant and laughing. Pelly asked where he had left Benwell. Birchall said he took Benwell to the farm and introduced him to McDonald, the overseer, and later in the day Benwell had told him he did not like the place, and did not care to associate with such people, and that Benwell had REGINALD BIRCIIALL, MURDKKKR 293 eaten nothing all day, but had stayed at the farm when Birchall left for Buffalo. Birchall said he gave Bcnwcll some addresses before leaving, so he could visit folk in the country roundabout, including Attorney Hellmuth, of London, who had been a passenger on the ship. Pelly began to ask too many questions, and Birchall said he was tired and went to bed. The next day they went to Niagara Falls, taking their luggage with them. They crossed to the Canada side and stopped at Mrs. Baldwin's, Birchall arranging for rooms and board there. "' Soon after our arrival/ said Pelly to me, ' Birchall invited me to go for a walk. I went. We walked along the river road which goes from the village up to the Falls. I had told him about ten minutes before that he was failing to fulfil the representations he had made to me. lie had replied with a shuffling explanation, and I mentally decided to give him another week, and if matters did not change I would leave him. On our walk we came to a place where Birchall said a religious body in past years had held camp meetings, and it was thought it would be nice to bathe in the river, so a stairway was built down over the cliffs with the idea that they could go down it to bathe, but it had been found impossible to bathe there because the current was too strong. Birchall o said to me : " Oh, you have never been down here ; you ought to go. It is the best way to see the Falls.'' I told him I should like to go down, and he stepped aside for me. I went down first and soon noticed it was a rotten, unsafe stairway. It led down close by the Falls. " Birchall," said I, " this is a horrid place." He was following and said : " Go on ; it will pay you." I wondered afterwards that I did not slip or miss my footing. We landed at the bottom finally. To my great surprise, there stood a man gazing into the swirling water. This man turned and looked at me. I sprang past Birchall and started back up the stairs. The man turned and resumed his gazing into the water. Birchall seemed nonplussed when we came upon this stranger in this lonely, secluded spot, with the roaring waters ready to sweep a dead -body away. Birchall followed me up the stairway, and all that day he was moody and silent. 294 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE " ' He invited me for another walk the next day,' continued Pelly. He led the way down to the cliffs close to the cantilever bridge. Underneath this bridge you cannot be seen. You get in between the brickwork of the span and the edge. Birchall took me in there so as to get a better view of the rapids. He tried to persuade me to stand close by him at the edge, but his manner seemed so coldly quiet, so repellent, that instinctively I drew back and made my excuses for not going near the edge and went away. This was the second time. A little push and all would have been over. We returned to our rooms. I saw in the papers about a murder near Woodstock. On the next morning Birchall proposed I should go to Woodstock and look at the body and see if it was Benwell. That alarmed me, and I got a revolver and put it in my pocket. Birchall and I went to the station, but the train had gone. I wanted to telegraph to New York, thinking Benwell might be there. Birchall refused to do this, and persuaded me to go over to the American side to see about some supposed matter of baggage. It began to rain while we were there, and he wanted to stay on the American side, but I said that was absurd, because his wife was at the Baldwin's boarding house and would expect us back. We started to walk back to Canada across the lower suspension bridge. It was storming and blowing. When out near the centre of the bridge, Birchall walked over by the edge and looked down at the roaring rapids. " Come, see the view ; it is superb," said Birchall, beckoning me close to the edge. I drew back. He grew white and walked on. I lagged behind, out of his reach. " Come, walk with me," he said, halting. " Your great coat will help keep off the rain." I shook my head. He repeated his invitation. I declined. He stopped, turned squarely and looked back. Then he advanced a step toward me. I stepped back and was about to run over the bridge when two men came walking across and Birchall turned and walked on to Canada. I see these things in a clearer light now that I know Benwell's fate. " ' The next day,' continued Felly, ' Birchall went to Buffalo to see about some message he said was from Benwell. When he returned he said Benwell had sent a message to REGINALD BIRCH ALL, MURDERER 295 forward all his heavy luggage to the Fifth Avenue Hotel in New York. The next day I saw the awful picture of the dead man in the paper. I took it to Birchall. " That looks like Benwell," I said. Birchall said it was impossible, as Benwell was to be in New York. I told him he should go and see the body, and I would go to New York to see if Benwell was at the Fifth Avenue Hotel. I saw him leave for Paris with Mrs. Birchall to see the body. Then I went to New York on the next train. I could find no trace of Benwell, so I returned. Birchall and his wife had been to view the body and it was Benwell, and the arrest followed." " Pelly was telling the truth from first to last," says Murray. "In going through Birchall's effects I found this note, written in a big, boyish hand : ( 20, PORCHESTER GARDENS, ' BAYSWATER, 'LONDON, W. ''December yd, 1899. ' DEAR SIR ' My father thinks I had better see you as soon as possible. I will be at my club, " The National Conservative," Pall Mall, at the corner of Waterloo Place and opposite the " Athenaeum " at three o'clock on Thursday afternoon, and will wait there till five o'clock ; or if you prefer it I will go down to Norwood or any place in London you like to name, soon, if you will drop me a line. ' ' I am, dear sir, 'Yours faithfully, ' F. C. BENWELL. 'J. R. BURCHELL, ESQ.' " I found other letters from Benwell to Birchall, and in Benwell's luggage I found letters from Birchall to Benwcll. Here is one : ' PRIMROSE CLUB, 4, PARK PLACE, ST. JAMES' ; ' BAINBRIDGE, MABERLEY ROAD, ' UPPER NORWOOD, S.E., 'February 2nd, 1890. ' MY DEAR BENWELL ' We sail Wednesday next, February 5th, in the White Star S.S. Britannic. I have got you a ten-guinea berth for the 296 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE eight pounds and ten shillings you sent me. So that is pretty good, I think. The ship sails in the afternoon early. I am going up first thing in the morning to ascertain the exact time of sailing. If the ship doesn't sail till after three, we shan't go down overnight, as there will be lots of time in the morning, if we leave here by an early train. Your heavy baggage must be taken on board by the tender on Wednesday, or shipped in the dock on Tuesday. However, I fancy it will be best to have it consigned to c/o the White Star Company, per S.S. Britannic. I will wire you in the morning, how to act. Of course, if we haven't time we must leave on Tuesday night. This you shall hear further of. Your labels shall be posted to-morrow morning. ' I fancy the storms are gone over now and we shall have a good voyage. You will be able to meet us on the voyage. Of this I will inform you to-morrow. ' Kind regards to Col. Benwell and yourself. ' Yours very sincerely, 'J. R. BURCHELL.' " The letters showed conclusively that Benwell, like Felly, had been caught by Birchall's advertisement, and that he had arranged with each without notifying the other. Benwell and Birchall had met and talked over the farm business. Young Benwell talked to his father, who had travelled considerably and he advised his boy to go and see the farm and then draw on him for what he required. Birchall had taken Benwell with him to this side, Benwell paying the passage money to Birchall and having an ample amount of money with him for expenses and the authority to draw on his father. " I cabled and wrote at once to Scotland Yard for information about Birchall and his reference, David Stevenson, as well as Felly and Benwell. I also advertised all over this continent for the stranger who stood at the foot of the old stairway by the Falls when Felly and Birchall descended to the water's edge. The stranger never answered o o the advertisement. He may not have seen it or he may have seen it and desired to avoid notoriety. I doubt if he were REGINALD BIRCHALL, MURDKRKR 297 an accomplice or acquaintance of Birchall. He probably was a sightseer enjoying the view. " The replies from my friends in England informed me that J. R. Birchall was none other than the younger son of the Rev. Joseph Birchall, late well-known Vicar of Church Kirk and Rural Dean of Whalley. The Birchalls had a sort of hereditary connection with Brasenosc College, Oxford, where the father held a foundation scholarship or fellowship. Wherever the young Birchall had lived he achieved notoriety. In his younger days he was at Rossall School for some time when the Rev. II. James, late Dean of St. Asaph and then head of Cheltenham College, was head master. I Ic left there suddenly and entered the Reading School, boarding with the Rev. Mr. Walker, head master. He earned a reputation in these schools that preceded him to Oxford where he went in the autumn of 1885. His name vanished from Oxford's calendar in the spring of 1888. His college was Lincoln, and the dons remembered him with sad headshakes. He was a rake and a wild one. He was an organiser of carousals, in and out of college, day and night. He had plenty of money, and kept a number of horses at college. No one was cleverer than he at evading punishment for his pranks. Often merciless in his pursuits of mischief, he would do his fellows a turn with good grace. He was hail-fellow-well-met with a number of men, who knew little of him except that he was full of humour and fun and had singular conversational gifts. His notoriety was due in no small part to his loud style of dress. He wore gaudy waist- coats, and his costume rarely lacked some adornment of flaming hue. He established at Oxford a club called The Black and Tan. It attained such a reputation for noisiness and boisterousness that it became extinct. At Oxford, Birchall showed, in his class work, great powers of mind, with an exceptional memory. He was being educated for the Church. His father's church at that time was in Lancashire, and his brother had a church near Lechladc. His father died while he was at Oxford, and the property was divided between the two sons and a daughter. Reginald's share was over $2O,OOO, but by the provisions of the will he was not to 298 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE come into possession of it until May 1891. In June 1889 he had been notified by Clement, Cheese, and Green, solicitors, of London, that his creditors proposed to throw him into bankruptcy. He replied that he had sold his interest in his father's estate for $15,000 to pay other creditors. " After leaving Oxford he went to London. There he eloped with Florence Stevenson, daughter of David Stevenson, for fifty years master of transportation of the London and North Western Railroad. This explained the reference to Mr. Stevenson when Birchall exchanged references with Pelly. Birchall's father-in-law knew nothing of the use of his name. He was a respectable, honest man, seventy-six years old. In his daughter's effects were found some pathetic letters from the old man to his son-in-law. On November 25th, 1888, when he heard of the marriage, he wrote saying : 'Let me at once recognise your perfect right to get married in the form you preferred ; but we were a little grieved that we did not see our daughter take the most important step of her life.' Other letters were marked with tender solicitude. Birchall had dabbled in theatricals before his marriage and was well known to many stage-folk in London. His favourite club at this time was the Badminton Club, 100, Piccadilly, W. When he made ready to leave England after his marriage, he cashed cheques for ^25, or $125, at the Badminton Club, and C. Stewart Sproat, secretary of the club, wrote him on January 7th, 1890, when he was back in England, to send the cash without further delay. He and his bride sailed for America in the fall of 1888, after their marriage. They wrote to David Stevenson from America, and early in 1889 Birchall wrote from Woodstock, Ontario, to creditors at Oxford, saying he was in the employ of Somerset & Co., Brock Street, Woodstock, and had a lucrative position and would pay his debts promptly. While he was in Woodstock, solicitors in England were advertising in the newspapers for his whereabouts. His father-in-law called on the solicitors and asked what such scandalous advertisements meant. When he was informed of his son-in-law's conduct the old man wept bitterly. In the summer of 1889 Birchall and his wife returned to England and lived with Mr. Stevenson, REGINALD BIRCHALL, MURDERER 299 Then it was that Birchall began advertising, under the name of J. R. Burchett or Burchell, address the Primrose Club, for young men with money to go to Canada and learn farming. " My information from England proved Pelly and Bcnwcll to be just what Pelly had said, two victims of Birchall. Pelly's father was vicar of Saffron YValden, Essex, and Benwell's father was Col. Bcnwcll, of Cheltenham. The parents of both confirmed the stories told by the letters I found in the luggage. " At Woodstock I learned that Birchall and his wife had arrived there from England in the autumn of 1888 to look over farm lands and enjoy the country life of Canada. His name was not Birchall then. He was Lord Somerset, Erederick A. Somerset, some day to be one of the lofty lords of England. His wife was Lady Somerset. They boarded at Mrs. John McKay's in Woodstock, lived gaily, dressed loudly, and became familiar figures in the country round about. They seemed to have money like the lord and lady they were supposed to be. They were fond of driving and picnics, and one of the spots Lord Somerset visited on various occasions was Pine Pond, with the Blenheim Swamp around it. This was eight miles from Woodstock and Lord Somerset came to know it well. When they left Woodstock to return to England, Lord and Lady Somerset were called away suddenly and left numerous unpaid bills behind them. Lord Somerset, from across the sea, wrote to a Woodstock acquaint- ance as follows : ' MIDLAND GRAND HOTEL, ' LONDON, ENGLAND. 'MY DEAR MAC, 'You must have been surprised to find me gone. I went down to New York for the wife's health and while there got a cable the governor was suddenly taken ill. I rushed off, caught the first steamer over, and got here just too late, the poor chap died. So I have been anyhow for some time. I am coming out to Woodstock shortly, I hope, as soon as I settle up all my governor's affairs. I owe you something I know. Please let me know, and tell Scott, the 300 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE grocer, to make out his bill, and any one else if I owe anybody anything. I was in too much of a hurry to see after them. I have several men to send out to you in August. Tell me all news and how you are. Many thanks for all your kindnesses. Let me know what I owe you and I will send a cheque. ' Thine ever, ' FREDK. A. SOMERSET.' " Lord Somerset did not return to Woodstock promptly. The next time he sailed for America was under his right name with Lady Somerset under her proper name, Mr. and Mrs. Reginald Birchall, and they had with them the two young men, Pelly and Benwell, and the four arrived in New York on the Britannic, on February Hth, and the first person they saw in New York, by the merest accident, was the farmer Pickthall of Woodstock on his way to meet the green goods men. He recognised Lord and Lady Somerset and went his way to be fleeced by others. I verified at the Metropolitan Hotel the date of their arrival and departure. I verified at the Stafford House in Buffalo the fact of the arrival of the party of four on February i6th. I verified also at the Stafford House the fact that, the next day Pelly and Mrs. Birchall stayed at the hotel, while Birchall and Benwell were called before six o'clock and went away. Birchall returned in the evening. Benwell never returned. " I took up the trail of Birchall and Benwell when they walked out of the Stafford House about six o'clock on the morning of February i7th. I saw Conductor William H Poole, who had the run on the Grand Trunk Railroad between Niagara Falls and Windsor. He had two passengers who got off at Eastwood, a station four miles from Blenheim Swamp. Their description answered that of Birchall and Benwell. The train stopped at Eastwood at 11.14 that morning. Matthew Virtue, a bailiff of Woodstock, was on the train. As the train left Eastwood he saw two young Englishmen walking away from the station, one of them wearing a cape coat. Miss Lockhart, of Blandford, was on the train, A couple of scats ahead of her in the car sat two REGINALD BIRCHALL, MURDERER 301 young Englishmen. As the train approached Eastwood her attention was drawn to them by the manner in which they were talking abut the land. They were admiring fields which were in no way to be admired. One wore a big astrakhan cap. It was easy to identify him by it. She noticed the man in the cap was very quiet and twitched in his seat, yet always was attentive to his fellow-traveller, the younger man. She saw them alight at Eastwood and start off briskly to the north, the man with the fur cap in the lead. I found others who saw the pair on the train. Alfred Hayward and his wife saw them leave Eastwood station. John Crosby, a young farmer, living in Blenheim township, was driving in Gover- nor's Road about noon when he saw the two young men walking toward Blenheim Swamp. Miss Allie Fallon, who lived with her mother a short distance from Blenheim Swamp, saw two young men pass the house on the road leading past the swamp. There was a ball at Princeton that night and she remarked : 'There go two dudes to the Princeton ball.' One, in a cape mackintosh, walked ahead. The other was walking behind. She had come to know Lord Somerset by sight the year before and she thought the man walking behind was Somerset. They were walking in the direction of the swamp. James Rapson, owner of a swamp adjoining Blenheim Swamp, was out with his men cutting timber about one o'clock in the afternoon, when he heard two pistol shots in quick succession in Blenheim Swamp. He was a little less than a mile away but heard the shots distinctly. " Thus I traced them, step by step, to the swamp and to the very hour of the murder. Then comes an interval when the murderer is alone in the swamp with his victim. The shots are fired about one o'clock, within about half-an-hour after Miss Fallon saw the two men going to the swamp. Birchall evidently had been pointing out land from the car window, as part of his farm, and had told Benwell they would take a short cut through the thick woods and surprise the men at the farmhouse. Benwell was a credulous young fellow and innocently entered the swamp and started up the abandoned winding trail, Birchall readily finding a pretext for dropping behind a moment and Benwell eagerly 302 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE pressing on for a sight of the farm the farm he never was to see. " An hour passes. At half-past two Charles Buck, a young farmer living on the road between Eastwood and Blenheim Swamp, about half a mile from the swamp, was driving home from Woodstock, when, at the cross-roads leading to Eastwood, a man turned the corner from the Blenheim Swamp road and started for Eastwood. The man wore a fur cap, and he stopped and asked Mr. Buck the way to Gobies Corners, as he wished to get to Woodstock. Buck told him he was within much less than two miles of Eastwood and he could get to Woodstock from there as easy as from Gobies Corners. The man thanked him and walked on toward Eastwood at a rapid pace. At three o'clock Miss Alice Smith arrived at the East- wood station to post a letter. As she was going into the station gate she came face to face with Lord Somerset, who had been in Woodstock the year before and who had called at her grandfather's, John Hayward's, home at Eastwood. Somerset wore an astrakhan cap. He came up to Miss Smith and shook hands pleasantly, saying : ' How do you do ? Don't you remember me ? ' and asked after her family and the ' old governor,' meaning her grandfather. He told Miss Smith he was coming back later and then bought a ticket for Hamilton. Miss Mary Swazie, another young lady of Eastwood, also was at the station for the three o'clock train. She saw the stranger. His trousers were turned up and his shoes were muddy. Miss Ida Cromwell, of Eastwood, also saw him at the station. James Hayward, an Eastwood store- keeper, saw him at the station and recognised him as the so-called Lord Somerset. "At 3.38 the train for Niagara Falls arrived at Eastwood. The stranger in the fur cap boarded the train. George Hay, a train brakesman, saw him and remembered him distinctly, and identified Birchall positively as the man. Other witnesses also identified Birchall, and I established a perfect chain of evidence showing his whereabouts from the time he left London and from the time he left the Stafford House on the morning of the murder until his return there at 8.30 that night. Witnesses identified the dead body of Benwell as that REGINALD BIRCHALL, MURDERER 303 of the young man with Birchall on the train to Eastwood and on the road to the swamp. I traced them together to the swamp, where Benwell was found dead the next day, and I traced Birchall away from the swamp and back to Buffalo, after the pistol shots had been fired. He had four hours and twenty-four minutes in which to walk the four miles from Eastwood to the swamp, do the murder, and walk back to Eastwood. Me arrived at 1 1.14 in the morning and departed at 4.38 in the afternoon. If he took three hours to walk the eight miles, he still had one hour and twenty-four minutes for the crime. " To clinch Birchall's guilt, I heard from London at this time that Colonel Benwell had just received from Birchall an undated letter, headed with the address of Niagara Ealls. The postmark revealed its date was February 2Oth, three days after Birchall left Benwell dead in the swamp. In this letter Birchall asked that the agreement be set aside, and that $500 be sent him at once. ' I have been talking to your son to-day about arrangements, and he is so well satisfied with the prospects here that he is ready to go immediately into partnership, and he is writing to you to-day on the subject,' wrote Birchall. This was three days after he left Benwell dead in Blenheim Swamp. The $500 was to be the first payment on $2,500 which Colonel Benwell was to send to his son for Birchall if the farm and prospects pleased young Benwell. Pelly identified the body found on February iSth as Benwell's body, and thus Birchall could not have been talking to him on February 2Oth. Instead of writing to his father on February 2Oth, Benwell lay dead on a slab with none to know his name. " I brought creditors of Lord Somerset from Woodstock to see Birchall. They identified Birchall as the bogus Lord Somerset. One of them, William MacDonald, denounced Birchall as a dead-beat, a swindler, and a faker. Birchall haughtily declared that such language offended and insulted him. Later a lunatic in the gaol approached him and said : ' Tell me why you killed Benwell.' Birchall laughed merrily, and was neither offended nor insulted. I brought witnesses who said Birchall was the same man who, as Lord Somerset, 304 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE had made frequent visits to Blenheim Swamp the year before, and had learned the path to Pine Pond, the lake in the swamp that is supposed to be bottomless. I studied all the data I had in hand, and worked out the theory on which I was certain we could convict this clever murderer. " Birchall had embarked in business as a murderer. He had adopted life-taking for revenue as a profession promising rich returns. He had become deliberately a professional murderer. For a year he had planned the crimes, and fitted himself for the practice of his profession. While masquerading as Lord Somerset he had selected the bottomless lake, known as Pine Pond, for the grave that would tell no tales. The Blenheim Swamp he selected as the place of slaughter, his chamber of death. He was familiar with the emigration business, through his father-in-law's knowledge of it. He conceived the idea of taking rich young men instead of poor emigrants. He created an imaginative farm, and he went back to England to select a victim. He made the mistake of taking two instead of one. Even then his plans were well laid. He would kill Benwell in the swamp and shove Pelly into the rapids at the Falls to be pounded to pieces. Neither body would be found, for he would bury Benwell in the bottomless lake and Pclly would vanish in the whirlpool. If one of the Elridges had not slipped in the Blenheim Swamp all would have been well. He stepped on Benwell's body, and the crime was known. Birchall had not intended to leave the body where any one could step on it or see it. He was heading for Pine Pond when he killed Benwell, and meant to drag the body thither ; but since his last visit to the swamp, a fire and storm had swept it and choked the way to the bottomless lake. He was relying on water to hide both his victims. Neither body was to be found. The two young men were to vanish from the face of the earth. The profes- sional murderer would have collected, by bogus letters to fond parents, the sum still due from the victims, and would have gone back to England for more victims. " He had no grudge against either Benwell or Pelly. They never had wronged him. No fiamc of fury leaped up within him inciting him to crush out their lives. It was purely and REGINALD B1RCIIALL, MURDERER 305 simply a matter of business. The life of each young man represented so much ready money, and Birchall was a mur- derer for the money there was in it. lie went about it in a practical, quiet, methodical way. Eventually he might become rich. No bodies could be found, and lost dead men are as good as live men whom no one can find, he reasoned. As he increased his capital, he might buy a farm with a bottomless lake and a dismal swamp, and kill his victims without trespassing on other people's property. He could vary his name and address and keep the families of his victims far apart, and thus minimise the risk of detection while the bottomless lake swallowed the victims one by one and kept their bones icy cold through endless years. " Fate was against the murderer for revenue only. Fire and storm had blocked his way in the marsh. Providence guided a woodman's step to the very spot where the body otherwise would have lain undiscovered, and crumbled away. Fate placed the stranger at the foot of the rotten stairway at the Falls where Felly was to die. Fate put the two strange men on the lower suspension bridge the night Felly was to be hurled into the rapids. Felly lived, and he compelled Birchall to go to Princeton and view the body. It may be that Birchall believed he would brave it through, and still kill Felly at the Falls, and then throw the crime of Benwell's death on the missing Felly. But it all failed. The hand of Fate reached out of the world of chance, and destroyed the whole fabric this professional murderer had constructed so carefully. He planned well, but Providence swept his plans aside. "The case had all the elements to make it a famous crime. It involved immigration, in which both England and Canada were interested vitally. The high connections of young Felly, the refined associations of young Benwell, the notoriety of Birchall and his previously picturesque career, combined to give it prominence. Some folks declared the murder of Benwell was but a part of a plot of wholesale killing of rich young men of England by an organised band of red-handed villains, who enticed their victims to Canada. This I never have believed. Birchall had no male confederates, and he acted single-handed. I looked up his life thoroughly, year 20 306 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE by year. John Emery, a London actor, wrote to me of Birchall's theatrical career. He was treasurer of one com- pany, and appropriated some of its funds to his own use. Later he was assistant manager of a company playing A CJiild of the West in the provinces in England. Emery was in the company, and when a difference arose over failure to pay salaries, Birchall and the manager called Emery into a room and drew a pistol, and advised him to cease being dissatisfied. Other episodes showed Birchall a desperate man if occasion demanded. His crime at Blenheim Swamp aroused Canada. Great crowds attended the inquest at Princeton on March 8th. Felly testified against Birchall. Mrs. Birchall was discharged. Public sympathy had been awakened for her. Birchall was committed for trial. Mrs. Birchall's father, David Stevenson, cabled $500 to me for his daughter the day after she was arrested. I gave it to Mrs. Birchall and her counsel, Hellmuth and Ivey, of London, Ontario. " The trial of Birchall stands out as one of the great criminal trials of Canada. It attracted world-wide attention. On September 2Oth the grand jury returned a true bill against Birchall. His trial began on Monday, September 22nd. It was held at Woodstock. Justice McMahon presided. B. B. Osier, a truly brilliant lawyer, prosecuted for the Crown, assisted by J. R. Cartwright, Deputy Attorney-General. George T. Blackstock ably defended Birchall, making a desperate effort to save his life. Cable connections led direct from the Court House to London, England. The English newspapers, as well as those of France, Germany, and Italy, printed columns upon columns of the trial, some of the English papers printing the full testimony, the lawyers' pleas, and judge's charge. The gist of the defence was that in the four hours and twenty-four minutes between his arrival at Eastwood and his departure on the day of the murder, Birchall could not have walked four miles to the Blenheim Swamp, shot a man, and walked four miles to the station. The verdict was inevitable guilty. The evidence simply was overwhelming. Birchall was sentenced to be hanged on November I4th. " During his imprisonment in Woodstock gaol, Birchall was REGINALD BIRCHALL, MURDERER 307 the recipient of much attention from some people. There were people in Woodstock who bared their flower gardens to send him nosegays every day. Silly girls wrote silly letters to him. He sent me word on various occasions that he wished to sec me. Indeed he became quite offended if I went to Woodstock and did not call and take him for a walk in the gaol yard. " ' I found you always a gentleman,' were his last words to me ; ' and you did your duty, and I have no hard feelings against you.' " During his last months of life he wrote an autobiography, in which he omitted many salient facts of his career, and in which he did not confess the crime. However, I may say that, while Birchall went to his death without a public con- fession, the last possibility for doubt of his guilt was swept away before he was executed. " He was hanged on November I4th a cold, grey morn- ing. He went to his death ghastly white, but without a tremor. He walked out in the prison yard in his own funeral procession, unsupported, and mounted the scaffold with a steady step. ' Good-bye, Flo dear ; be brave,' was his fare- well to his wife. The Doniine aim veneris judicare. noli nos condemnare ' O Lord, when Thou shalt come to judge, do not Thou condemn me' was uttered by the Rev. W. H. Wade, of Old St. Paul's. The Lord's Prayer was said. And then a crash, a creak, and a lifeless body dangled where a man had stood. It swayed gently to and fro in the chill November wind. So ended the Birchall case as it had begun with a death. " Pelly returned to England after the trial. He had desired to go home after the preliminary hearing, but the Government decided he should remain, and he stayed with me until after the trial. He arrived at Saffron Walden at seven o'clock in the evening of October 2/th. An English newspaper, telling of his home-coming said : '"The knowledge of the arrival had become known, and the result was that a crowd of some thousands had assembled in the vicinity of the railway station in order to give a welcome to the returned voyager. The arrival of the train was 308 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE signalled by a feu dejoie. Mrs. Felly, with Miss Geraldine and Miss Daisy Pelly, were on the platform when the vicar stepped out with his son, and the greetings between mother and son, sisters and brother, were very warm. These over, a move was made for the carriage in waiting, and as soon as Mr. Douglas Pelly appeared on the outside of the station he was received with prolonged and deafening cheers. The horses were unharnessed, and the car was drawn to Walden Place by willing hands, preceded by the Excelsior Band, playing " Rolling Home to Dear Old England," and men carrying lighted torches. In addition to the large following, crowds had assembled all along the line of route, and as the carriages passed along, the occupants were repeatedly cheered. Flags were hung from various private houses, and the residence of Mrs. Bellingham was illuminated with coloured lights. At the entrance to Walden Place a triumphal arch had been erected, having on the front the words " Welcome Home." ' " Pelly was drawn home by a rope in many willing hands ; Birchall was drawn home by a rope in hands he did not know and never saw." Chapter LII THE FOOTMARK BY LANGFORD'S BED OLD Dick Langford was a miser, and the pride of his life was a fine bay horse with a white spot on his nose. Old Dick was eighty years old and the horse was eight. They lived on Old Dick's farm in the county of Carleton, six miles from the town of Carp, ten miles from Stittsville, and thirty miles from Ottawa. Many a time the shrivelled old man and the spirited bay horse had done the distance to Ottawa in less than four hours. Old Dick's wife had left him twenty years before he got the bay horse. She had said Old Dick was a skinflint and a torturer, and she would not live in the same county with him. He chuckled and showed his solitary front tooth, and transferred his farm so that she could not claim a part of it. After his wife was gone, Old Dick tried THE FOOTMARK BY LANGFORD'S BED 309 to regain title to his farm, but the man to whom he had transferred it disappeared, so Old Dick bought the farm near Carp and settled down alone, with his bay horse with the white spot on his nose, and a few farm horses, cows, chickens, dogs, and four books. " Old Dick's bay horse was stolen in 1889," says Murray, " and the old man raised a tremendous hullabaloo. About three months later the horse was recovered in Ottawa and Old Dick was happy. In the fall of 1890 the horse was stolen again. Old Dick declared he knew the thief, and the adjoining counties were placarded with the following : 'STOP HORSE THIEF! 'Stolen from Richard Langford, Lot 13, Concession 8, Township of Huntley, County Carleton, on Friday night, October 3rd, 1890, A DARK BROWN HORSE; age 8; height 16 to 17 hands; weight about 14 cwt. ; black points, except white spot on nose and white hind feet. May have traded since. Arrest 'GEORGE GOODWIN, ' alias St. George, alias Brennan ; height, about 5 feet 8 or 9 inches ; age, about 24 ; fair complexion, small sandy moustache, sandy hair, slim build and sharp features ; grey clothes, and wore a cap when last seen. Take charge of any horse he may have and wire 'R. MCGREGOR, 'County Constable, 'Almonte, Ont.' " Old Dick spent his time driving about with other horses searching for his bay horse, and declaring that the thief would go to prison this time. In December Old Dick ceased driving about and locked himself up in his house and devoted himself anew to his library of four books. The favourite was a ' History of the Siege of Londonderry and Defence of Inniskillen.' The other books were 'Meditations and Con- templations,' by the Rev. James Hervey ; < A Short Defence of Old Religion against Certain Novelties, Recommended to the People of Ireland'; and a big family Bible. Old Dick would open the ' History of the Siege,' and lay it on the table. 310 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE Then he would shout passages from it at the top of his voice and toddle up and down the room in the throes of great excitement over the deeds of the lads of Londonderry. " On Saturday afternoon, December 6th, 1890, three weeks after Birchall was hanged, neighbours passing to and from the town of Carp could hear Old Dick, the miser, roaring away over the ' Siege of Londonderry.' His door was locked and his windows were barred, but his voice could be heard while he thumped with his cane and trod the kitchen floor, as if leading a gallant charge. Robert Clark, a neighbour, whose house was in plain sight of the home of Old Dick, saw a light in the house in the early evening and at nine o'clock, when he looked out, Old Dick's house was dark, the light was out and the old miser, as was his custom, was supposed by Clark to have gone to bed. About half-past ten that night, as Clark was locking up for the night, he looked out and saw Old Dick's house brightly lighted, something Old Dick never did, because he deemed it extravagance. It was so unusual, that Clark was on the verge of going over to see if all was well with the old man ; but it was snowing and blowing, so he concluded to wait until the next morning. On Sunday Clark went over to Old Dick's. The house was locked. It was blowing heavily. Clark beat on the door, and when no answer came he went to the barn. Lying on the floor of the barn was Old Dick, sprawled out senseless, his head a mass of frozen blood. Clark shouted over to his own house and his family came and they bore the old miser to his house, forced in the door and endeavoured to revive him. The doctors were called and they worked over Old Dick, but he died, declaiming a passage from the ' History of the Siege of Londonderry,' and speaking no word as to the identity of his murderer. " I arrived before the old man breathed his last. His head had been beaten by a blunt, heavy instrument. I searched the barn and found an iron pin, thirty-seven inches long and weighing ten pounds. Old Dick had used it as a pin to fasten the barn door, but white hairs and blood on it showed the murderer had used it as a club to beat Old Dick's head almost to a pulp. The doctors, who examined the wounds on THE FOOTMARK BY LANGFORD'S BED 311 Sunday, said that Old Dick had been beaten on Saturday, and had lain all night in the barn. I searched the house. I found the ' Siege of Londonderry ' open on the table, as the old man had left it. I found his bed had been disturbed and that some one had slept in it ; a man, judging from the footmark, which was not Old Dick's. The footmark showed no shoe, but seemingly a thick, wet sock. The murderer, whoever he was, called Old Dick out from his house to the barn on Saturday evening, either by hailing him or threatening to steal a horse, and as Old Dick entered the barn the murderer smote him with the iron pin and left him for dead, then quietly went to the house and lighted the light seen at half-past ten by Clark, who had thought at once that something was wrong, or Old Dick would not waste candles or oil. After warming himself at the fire, the murderer calmly went to rest in Old Dick's bed, and slept serenely while Old Dick lay dying in the barn with his wounds freezing. On Sunday morning the murderer had gone his way in the blinding snowstorm that covered his tracks. " I began the usual house-to-house questioning of everybody in that part of the county, and at the very outset I was reminded of Old Dick's stolen horse and his belief that he knew the thief. At every house I asked if they had seen George Goodwin recently. Goodwin was known in that locality as a loose character. He chopped wood and did odd jobs for farmers. I found a farmer who had seen him early on Saturday evening about a mile from Old Dick's. Goodwin at that time was walking toward the Langford farm. I found another farmer who saw him still nearer Old Dick's house. Later I found another who saw him on Sunday bound in the opposite direction, away from Old Dick's. I got a good description of Goodwin. He was twenty-four years old, five feet eight inches tall, weighed one hundred and forty-five pounds, and had sandy hair and a light sandy moustache. He was bow-legged, had watery eyes, was near-sighted, and a silent fellow, who seldom spoke unless spoken to. But what satisfied me was the description of his clothing given by the farmers who saw him. He wore a blue suit, a short, striped overcoat, an imitation 312 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE of lambskin cap, and beef-skin moccasins. The moccasins settled it. They accounted for the footmark in Old Dick's bedroom as of a thick, wet, stained sock. I billed Goodwin for Old Dick's murder. He was known also as Brennan, St. George, Wilkins, and used still other names. He had relatives living near Ottawa, and I expected him to go to them before jumping to the United States. He had not robbed Old Dick, for I found his money. " Goodwin did precisely as I expected. He sent to his relatives for money, while he hid near Ottawa. I had hunted him through December 1890, and January and February 1891, and in March I located him near Ottawa. His trial was set for the Spring Assizes. His relatives retained Dalton McCarthy to defend him. Justice McMahon presided, and the trial was postponed until the Fall Assizes at the request of the defence. In the interval, Goodwin got out on bail. He skipped the country and never came back. It was good riddance of bad rubbish. " I wondered often whether the murderer enjoyed pleasant dreams when he lay down and slept in his victim's bed. The prosecution's theory was, that Goodwin had killed Old Dick, not for robbery necessarily, but because Goodwin had stolen Old Dick's horse and Old Dick knew he did it, and was waiting to locate him in order to have him arrested and sent to prison. If our theory as to the murderer had been wrong, Goodwin would not have been apt to run away. " I had good luck in the Goodwin case, as indeed I have had in almost all cases. But about this same time I had a case where luck seemed wholly against me in fact, I laid it away as a hard luck case. It was toward the close of 1890. John Brothers was the man in the case. He manufactured agricultural implements in the town of Milton, in the county of Halton, about twenty miles west of Toronto. He took farmers' notes in part payment for implements. He became hard up, placed his genuine notes in the bank and added some forged notes to them. In due time the manager of the bank told him to take up the notes. Brothers went to his brother-in-law, Amos Darling, an honest farmer who had a nice home earned by hard work. He dumped the notes THE LADY OF PIERCING BLACK EYKS 313 on to Darling, telling him they were a good thing, paying seven and eight per cent, interest. Darling went to the bank and took up the notes, giving the bank his own note for $5,000, or almost the value of his farm. Brothers promptly dis- appeared, and the bank induced Darling to exchange his note for a mortgage on his farm, and in the end he lost his farm. I billed Brothers all over the country. " Through a letter he wrote from San Francisco, I located him there. He was working as a moulder in the Risdon foundry. I prepared extradition papers and started for San Francisco. While I was on my way west and before I arrived there, a friend of Brothers in Canada notified him of extradition papers having been issued, and Brothers disappeared the day before I alighted from a train in Frisco. I notified the police all over the country, and after waiting some days and hearing nothing, I returned to Toronto. My train was several hours late. I learned that Brothers had been arrested by the chief of police at El Paso, Texas, on the Mexican border. The chief had wired me to Toronto and the telegram had been repeated to San Francisco and I was on my way back, so it missed me. I telegraphed immediately to El Paso, and the chief replied he had held Brothers as long as he could and had been compelled to release him a few hours before my telegram arrived, and Brothers had just left the town. If my train had not been late I could have reached the chief in El Paso in time. But luck was against me clear through in this case. " Brothers crossed into Mexico and stayed there. I have heard he is dead. I felt very sorry for his brother-in-law, Amos Darling, whose home paid the forgeries of Brothers. Such Brothers as this one are not desirable even as brothers- in-law." Chapter LIII THE LADY OF THE PIERCING BLACK EYES THE lady of the piercing black eyes crossed Murray's path in 1891. She was an amazon, and Murray avers she was a virago as well. Her maiden name was Nettie Slack, and her 314 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE cradle was rocked in the county of Perth. As a young girl she was famed for her jet-black eyes and raven-black hair, the eyes as shiny as the hair was glossy. " She grew to superb womanhood," says Murray. " She was very tall, very muscular, with big, broad shoulders and swinging tread, and the mien of a powerful man. Her piercing black eyes were wicked looking, and there were few men in the county of Perth who ventured to cross humours with Nettie Slack. She was rather a good-looking woman. Her eyes enhanced her attractiveness and yet seemed to mar her beauty. This may seem a paradox, yet in the case of Nettie Slack it was perfectly true. She was one of those big, sturdy, almost burly, women who remind you of re- incarnated creatures of ancient times, as if some of the white statues had turned to flesh and blood, with jet black tresses and adornings. As I looked at her the first time, I thought, ' What a ploughman you would make ! What a woodman you would be ! ' " She married. Her husband was her cousin, Thomas Blake Carruthers, a quiet, inoffensive young man, a prosperous farmer, who lived near St. Mary's, in the county of Perth. Nettie Slack was not exactly quiet, and in other ways she differed from her husband. They had two children, and Tom Carruthers was a good father. He managed his stalwart wife, too, and all seemed serene on the Carruthers' farm. One day old Grandpa Fotheringham, who was rich and lived in the township of Blanchard, county of Perth, died and left a goodly sum to his grandson, young Fotheringham, who knew Nettie Slack, and had gazed into her piercing black eyes. Young Fotheringham called on Nettie Slack after her marriage, and, of course, the gossips had their busy buzzings over the woman with the piercing black eyes and the man with his grandfather's money. I could have pictured Nettie Slack, if she had heard this gossip, sallying forth with a flail and belabouring the backs of all the busybodies. The reports of alleged improprieties between Nettie Slack and young Fotheringham continued, and finally Tom Carruthers was said to have twitted his wife about it, while she flamed in fury, with her jet-black eyes ablaze. THE LADY OF PIERCING BLACK EYES 315 " Young Fotheringham took his money and went up on the Rainy River, in the wilds of the western part of this Province, and started a saw-mill. Then he returned to the county of Perth and saw Tom Blake Carruthcrs and told him that on the Rainy River was the place to live, with the money flowing in. Fotheringham induced Carruthers to sell his farm and move out to the Rainy River and build a house and work in the saw-mill. Nettie Slack Carruthers and the two little children, one four and the other two years old, accompanied Tom. They built a house near the mill and Carruthers worked in the mill. Nettie Slack kept house for Tom, and assisted a Mrs. Walt in the care of Fotheringham's home. Mrs. Walt said Nettie Slack was more like a visitor than a housekeeper. Fotheringham was unmarried. These conditions continued until January 1891. On the morning of January 3rd two shots resounded, and Nettie Slack rushed out of her house, shouting : ' Tom is dead ! Tom is dead ! ' She wrung her hands, and told those who came running to the house that she was down at the river after a pail of water when she heard the shots and ran up and found her husband dead on the floor. She had left him writing at a table. She was the principal witness at the inquest, and the coroner's jury brought in an open verdict. " It was over two hundred miles to civilisation. There were no roads ; only a clog trail in winter. But after the inquest Nettie Slack took her two children and started out with the mail carrier to get away from Rainy River. She slept out four nights in the snowbanks, and finally arrived at Rat Portage, where she took the train for her old home near St. Mary's, in the county of Perth. After navigation opened in the spring, people in the Rainy River district began to talk, and in July 1891 I went up to Rainy River. I had the body of Tom Carruthers exhumed and a post mortem made, and had the head cut off. The moment I saw where the two bullets entered the skull I knew it was not suicide but murder. One had entered well around at the back of the head, behind the right car. The other entered the left temple. The doctor showed that either would have caused death as it crashed into the brain, and I saw clearly that Tom Carruthers never shot 316 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE himself in the back of the head, behind the right ear, and also in the left temple. " Nettie Slack had said her husband had written a note of farewell as he sat at the table while she was out after a pail of water. I obtained this note. It read : " ' I was heartbroken and tired of life and decided to end the awful conflict. Good-bye. ' TOM.' " I obtained specimens of Nettie Slack's handwriting. It was just as I suspected. The farewell note was a clumsy forgery written by her. I had this note photographed. I got the 38 calibre revolver. Tom was supposed to have written the farewell and then to have shot himself twice in the head and to have fallen dead on the floor beside the table. He fell dead, but the shots were fired by another. I returned to Rat Portage and laid an information against Nettie Slack Carruthers, and obtained a warrant for her arrest. I was on my way to St. Mary's when I learned she was in Toronto, and I arrested Nettie Slack Carruthers at the house of a Mrs. Walsh, and took her back to Rat Portage and locked her up. Her brothers were well-to-do, and they went to Rat Portage and saw her, and then engaged B. B. Osier, the foremost counsel in Canada, to defend her. The preliminary examination extended over a week, and Mrs. Carruthers was committed to the Port Arthur gaol for trial. All concerned knew a big legal battle would folk w. " I talked with the five-year-old child. " ' Popy shot himself; Popy shot himself,' the tot would repeat over and over. " ' Who told you to say that ? ' I asked. "' Mammy,' said the child, and it began afresh, ' Popy shot himself; Popy shot himself.' "Justice Armour presided at the trial. R. C. Clute prose- cuted, and B. B. Osier defended. The trial did not come on until June 1892. In the meantime, Nettie Slack's sister, a nice-looking girl, had gone to Port Arthur and stayed at the house of a merchant. Nettie Slack, in her girlhood, had played the organ in the country church near St. Mary's, and THE LADY OF PIERCING BLACK EYES 317 her sister had an organ sent to the gaol and Nettie Slack played sacred music and sang hymns day after day. The men for jurors were selected by the sheriff and through some mistake the merchant, at whose house Nettie Slack's sister stayed, was drawn as a juror along with others inclined to be friendly to the prisoner. " I had handwriting experts to prove the farewell note a forgery. The wily Osier admitted the letter was a forgery, and turning to the jury he exclaimed : ' What would a poor woman do in a strange country but look for an excuse to defend herself from an unjust accusation that might be made ? ' He was a great lawyer and a resourceful advocate, was Osier. I produced the skull and showed to the jury how impossible it was for Carruthers to have shot himself where the two bullets entered the head. Dr. Macdonnell had the skull in charge and it slipped and fell on the table and rolled to the floor. Nettie Slack laughed. Osier saw her, and quick as a flash he opened out his long gown like a curtain and stood so that the jury could not see her. Then he walked back to the box with his gown open and said : " ' You villain ! It's crying you should be instead of laughing ! You deserve to be hung ! ' " I heard him. Straightway Nettie Slack wept. " ' That's better,' said Osier, and he drew in his gown. " Osier and I often talked of this afterwards. " One of the witnesses was a woodman, named Cameron. He stumbled and mumbled and hesitated in his testimony, evidently having a wholesome regard for Nettie Slack's powerful physique. The virago eyed him. Mr. Clute asked Cameron if Mrs. Carruthers had shown any signs of grief over her dead husband. " ' I I well,' mumbled the reluctant Cameron, ' I don't think so.' Up spoke the woman. " ' Say yes, Cameron,' she said. ' You know you saw me kissing the body.' " I proved where a spot of blood, some distance from the table and the body, had been washed up, but not sufficiently to obliterate the traces of it. I showed the woman was a 318 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE clever shot with the pistol. I showed that Fotheringham was not near the house at the time, and that no one but Tom and the woman and the two tots were there. Tom and the tots could not have done the shooting. The charge of Justice Armour emphasised this and clearly indicated who was guilty. The jury had a hard tussle, but the friends stood fast. Mrs. Carruthers was acquitted on Saturday, June nth, 1892. She came down from Port Arthur on the same boat I did. She spied me on deck and came over to me. " ' Well, Murray, you didn't hang me after all,' she said. " ' I don't hang anybody,' said I. " She looked at me and smiled. " ' You were pretty decent,' she said, ' but that old rowdedow of a judge tried to put the black cap on me right in court." " After the verdict Justice Armour had said to the jurors that their verdict was not consistent with the evidence, and had said to the woman : ' Prisoner, you are acquitted ; I hope your conscience is acquitted.' The woman sneered. " ' Murray, life's sweet, but it isn't worth much without liberty,' she said, as she sniffed the air aboard boat, after almost a year in gaol. " I watched her as she stood there, her eyes flashing, her bosom heaving, a towering creature stirred by a sight of water, land, and sky. " ' Murray,' she said, suddenly, tensely, ' it was worth it.' " ' What was worth what ? ' I said. " She laughed ; then her face, for once, seemed to become almost sad. " ' I mean the year in gaol,' she said. ' A whole year out of my life.' " She looked full at me, then walked away. It was my last glimpse of the lady with the piercing black eyes." Chapter LIV AN ESCAPER OF GENIUS A MAN of many disguises appeared in Canada in 1890. He had wigs and beards and moustaches of varying sizes, shades, and shapes. He had a walk and talk, and complete change AN ESCAPER OF GENIUS 319 of clothes to match every alteration of hair and face. Some- times he was a French tourist, again a patriarchal clergyman, again a gruff, bluff Englishman, then a keen Yankee trader, next a quiet country gentleman, then a prosperous American banker, next an innocent old farmer, until he seemed to have stepped out of the pages of fiction, a remarkable character who would flit around a corner and, presto ! he was a different man. " His first appearance was in Halifax, Nova Scotia," says Murray. " He purported to be a yachtsman, and put up at the best hotel, registering as Mr. Thompson. He stayed a few days, getting acquainted quickly, and saying he expected his yacht to arrive shortly, and he had come on from Boston by rail. He looked the typical gentleman yachtsman. Finally he went to a wholesale liquor and supply house and bought $500 worth of wines and groceries for his yacht, to be delivered aboard on the yacht's arrival. He presented a Boston draft for $2,000, and they accommodatingly gave him $1,500 cash. He skipped. His next stop was at Moncton, one hundred and fifty miles north of Halifax, where he appeared as a gay young sport, expecting some horses to arrive. He finally got into the hotel for $500 on a bogus draft, and then flitted to the eastern townships of the Province of Quebec, where he did a land office business in drafts, and where he posed as a minister, a doctor, and a German globe- trotter. He seemed to have some hypnotic power over the hotel people 'and tradesmen. They cashed his bogus drafts without suspicion. From Quebec he jumped to Belleville, Ontario, where he bought a suit of clothes from a merchant tailor about noon on a Saturday, shortly before the banks closed. He gave the tailor a draft for $500, the tailor endorsed it, the bank cashed it, and away went the stranger. He skipped Toronto, and alighted in Listowell. There he pretended to be buying horses, and he did buy a horse. A man named Laurie met him there. " There was a private banker in Listowell named John Scott, who was very rich and very close. He had a fine fancy team. The stranger offered to buy the team from Scott. They had two or three dickers over it. In the course of one of 320 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE these horse talks the horse-buyer asked Scott what discount he charged on American drafts. Scott named a rate. The stranger said it was too much. " ' I don't want to pay that much,' he said. ' I've got them cashed at so-and-so, and so-and-so, and so-and-so, for less/ he added, naming a number of places and banks and bankers. "At length he made an arrangement with Scott to cash a draft on the First National Bank of Mahanoy City, Pennsylvania, William L. Yoder, cashier, for $1,000. He got the money and skipped out. Scott was furious. " The next place this draftsman turned up was in Winnipeg. It was here he showed his first sign of drink. He had gone through Canada from the Atlantic Ocean on the east, cashing bogus drafts totalling high up in the thousands, without a slip-up, and he was well on his way toward the Pacific Ocean, when he stopped in Winnipeg and got a jag. He went to a bank to get a draft for $1,000 cashed on a Louisiana bank. Like all his drafts the handiwork was perfect. But his leering manner aroused the suspicions of the manager of the bank, who told him to leave the draft ' until the manager comes in,' and to return in three hours, and see the manager, who would cash it for him. The manager played it well, although if the stranger had not been drinking he would not have returned. The manager telegraphed to the Louisiana bank, and the answer came that the draft was bogus. The stranger, who was going under the name of Hale in Winnipeg, called again at the bank after three hours, was arrested, con- victed of attempting to pass bogus drafts, and sent to gaol for one year as Edward Hale. " I got after him in 1892. Some of those he fleeced held back for months before they notified any one of it. I started after him on the Scott case, and all the while he was in gaol in Winnipeg. I finally located him there. He heard I was after him, and he became very religious in the gaol, and at length he preached there to his fellow prisoners, exhorting them to reform and forsake evil ways. Crossley and Hunter, the evangelists, went to see him, and heard him preach, and thought he was reformed. The Rev. Mr. Crossley wrote to the Attorney-General and to me about him. I read the AN ESCAPKR OF GENIUS 321 letter, and laid it away. I was biding rny time, waiting for the expiration of Male's time in Winnipeg. The day he walked out of gaol I intended to take him to Ontario to answer for the Listowel draft. " Hale sent for Fighting MacKen/.ie, who had acted as attorney for Dobbin on one of my visits to Winnipeg. " There is $1,000,000 in it if I can get out,' said Hale. ' I was full when I did this, and I never did it before. If I can get free it means millions.' " Hale then told of a patent he had for ' manufacturing mosaic embroidery.' He sent for his wife, who came from the States, bringing a working model of this patent. Hale produced also forged patent rights for the United States and Canada, such clever forgeries that the lawyer did not detect them. " ' I'll give you half the patent rights if you give me $1,500,' said Hale. ' It is worth $200,000 to anybody, but I want to get out. If I was out I would not take $200,000 for a quarter interest in it.' " The turnkey was called in. He agreed to give $500 for half the Canada patent rights. The attorney was to give $1,000 for half the United States patent rights. The $1,500 was paid to Hale, who gave it to his wife, and she went away, taking the cash with her. The patent papers were executed. Consul Taylor was called in and witnessed the transaction. " Then came the question of Hale's release. He explained that he must have his liberty to realise on the patents. In telling later of what happened he said the turnkey took a saw to his cell. " ' Saw the bars and get out, so I may keep my skirts clear,' he said. " Hale went down with the saw and returned almost immediately. " ' That won't saw hard butter,' said Hale, and he threw down the saw in disgust. " That night he was let out into the open yard. He returned to the window and hailed the turnkey. " ' How do I get over the wall ? ' asked Hale. " ' There is a loose board walk a foot wide,' said the turnkey ' Put it over the wall and slide down.' 21 322 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE " This is Hale's story. He did as he said the turnkey told him. He left a note stating nobody was to blame, and telling how he was supposed to have escaped. The escape was reported, and I set out to get Hale. With his disguises off he was a little, smooth-shaven, sandy-haired fellow, with false front teeth. I had his photograph, which had been taken as he was, without make-up or disguise, when he was locked up in Winnipeg. I knew he was a clever man. His work proved him to be as shrewd as any crook on the continent. I went to New York and saw Byrnes, and some of his officers remembered him. He had hung out in Brooklyn, and was known as Ed. Hayes. Those who knew him said he was as slick in his line as any man in America. I went to Winni- peg, and learned there that when the model of the supposed patented machine had arrived in Winnipeg with Hale's wife, it had been shipped by express from St. Paul, Minnesota. I had learned in New York that Hale's name was Ed. Failing. I prepared extradition papers, and went to Minneapolis, arriving there on Wednesday, April nth, 1892. I conferred with my old friend, Jim Hankinson, for thirty years a detec- tive. We began a hunt for people of the name of Failing, and we found the superintendent of the cattle yards near New Brighton was named Failing, and was a prominent and influential man. From neighbours of his we learned he had a brother, Ed. Failing. A liveryman at New Brighton, who was a friend of Hankinson, knew Ed., and said he was living in a secluded, lonely place some miles out of New Brighton, ivith his wife and two children. The liveryman said he came in for his mail about three times a week at eight o'clock in the morning. We waited, and on the second day he drove up to the post office. I arrested him. " He became greatly excited, shouted that it was an out- rage, and declared I had the wrong man, and that he was an honest farmer. He ranted while I snapped the handcuffs on him, and then he quieted down, still protesting it was a mistake, and asked to be permitted to go out to his home and say good-bye to his folks. I consented, and we drove out to his home. His wife greeted us at the door a red-haired, pretty young woman of twenty-five. She nodded indoors, AN ESCAPER OF GENIUS 323 and an older, grey-haired woman appeared. Failing said she was his mother. When Failing told them of his arrest and how I had consented to let him say good-bye to them, one of them fell on my neck to embrace me. I pretended not to feel her hand slip into my pockets hunting for the key to the the handcuffs, but I stepped back so quickly that her hand caught. I extricated it, and apologised for the clumsiness of my pocket and its rudeness in holding her hand. " Failing started to walk through the house. He explained that he wanted to bid the old place good-bye. I bade him keep in my sight and not far from me. " ' I don't intend to have you mistaking me for the old place, and bidding us both good-bye,' said I. " He appeared much hurt, and said I spoke harshly to one who was an innocent farmer. We drove to St. Paul, leaving his family weeping in the doorway until they thought we were out of sight, but a bend in the road showed them without trace of tears. Failing fought extradition. He denied being in Canada, and he called several witnesses to prove an alibi. I had gone east and arranged for my wit- nesses from Canada. On my trip east, I met my old friend Chief Cusack, of Buffalo, on the train, and we had a pleasant ride together, and exchanged some photographs of crooks, and among those he gave me was the picture of a fellow who, with Shell Hamilton, had been arrested some time before in Buffalo for attempting a sneak on Mrs. Dickinson's jewellery stoie. I had seen the pair at the Buffalo police headquarters, and had looked them over. I had the photographs with me when I returned to St. Paul for the extradition proceedings. " One of the witnesses called by Failing to prove an alibi was a young man named Collins. He was the last called, following the wife, the mother, and a tailor and other friends, who swore Failing was in Minneapolis the day he foisted the bogus draft on Banker Scott at Listowel, in Canada. Collins swore he was with Failing in Minneapolis all that day, and that he (Collins) was connected with a Turkish bath in the West House. I pulled a photograph out of my pocket, and handed it to my attorney, Markham. " ' Were your ever in Buffalo, New York, Collins ? ' 324 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE " ' No,' said he. " ' Ever know Shell Hamilton ? ' " ' No/ said he. "'Is that your photograph?' and Markham handed him the picture Cusack had given to me. " Collins wavered, but blurted out : ' No.' " I took the stand, and told of seeing Collins in a cell in Buffalo, and I showed the commissioner the police photo- graph. That settled the alibi. I had Bob Wood, a liveryman of Listowel, who identified Failing positively, and I had VV. L. Yoder, cashier of the Mahanoy City bank, who swore the draft was a forgery. Commissioner Spencer committed Failing for extradition, and on May i6th I started for Listowel with the prisoner. He protested it was an outrage, and he was not the Failing I was after. Up to Stratford he denied his identity. " ' Well,' he said, as the train left Stratford. ' Listowel is next. I give up the ghost. I'll put you to no more trouble.' " ' I don't care a cuss whether you do or not,' I answered, tartly ; for he had done all he could to block me, and ever was on the alert for an opportunity to escape. " Then he told me all about the Winnipeg business, and the fake patent, and the getting out of gaol. Banker Scott was at Listowel when we arrived. When Failing saw him he walked up and seized the hand of the astonished Mr. Scott, and shook it heartily before the banker could draw it away. " ' Well, well ! How are you, Mr. Scott ? How de do ? ' said Failing cordially. " Banker Scott crimsoned with wrath, and snatched his hand free. '"Dang scoundrel! Rascallion ! Villain! Blackguard!' sputtered Banker Scott. ' How dare you shake hands with me ?' " ' Between two gentlemen,' responded Failing airily. " He was committed for trial, and I took him to Stratford gaol, and warned the gaoler that he was a slippery fellow. The gaoler was an old soldier, who grew indignant over the re- minder. Failing greeted him suavely, and bade him not be PENNYFEATHER OF THE BANK 325 wrathful at me, as I meant well. I laughed to myself. Failing was to be tried at the Fall Assizes. A few days before the Assizes were to begin I received a letter from him saying he would plead guilty, and he hoped I would put in a good word for him. The next day he escaped from Stratford gaol. As in Winnipeg, he left a note saying no one was to blame. He also left a wooden key he had made from a round of a chair. The key was nicely made, but I had my doubts about his unlocking four doors with that key. I received telegrams from the authorities about his escape, but I never made much of an effort to get him. I heard of him frequently thereafter for several years. He passed cheques in Salt Lake City, and escaped. He worked off some drafts in Ogdcn and escaped. I heard he beat gaol five times thereafter. He turned up in Carson City, Nevada, then in California, and later in Colorado. He was a clever one with the blarney, and was a great ' con ' man. " Professionals considered him one of the cleverest in the business. He was a bird, but not a gaol-bird if he could help it, and he usually managed to help it. I suppose there are gaolers in both the United States and Canada who hold him in tender remembrance." Chapter LV PENNYFATHER OF THE BANK PENNYFEATHER'S life was one long series of additions and sub- tractions. Pennyfeather was an accountant in the Chatham branch of the Standard Bank. He was a faithful fello\v, and if $9,000 had not vanished from the Chatham branch, Penny- feather to this day might have been adding columns of figures and peering at depositors through the cross\vork of his cage in the bank. "There was a township fair near Chatham on October ist, 1892," says Murray. "The day after the fair it was found that $9,000 in bills had disappeared from the bank. The Department was notified immediately, and I went to Chatham. 326 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE I found the bank's safe untouched. It had not been forced, and there had been no tampering with its locks. I examined Manager Rogers. He knew nothing about it. The cash that had vanished was in charge of Cashier Brown. I called in Cashier Brown, and questioned him. He said he had put the $9,000 in a tin box, and during business hours of the bank on October 1st the tin box was out of the vault, as was customary with a cashbox, and was in its usual place in the cage. Cashier Brown said that, owing to his desire to get away to the fair, he had closed the vault hurriedly and forgot to put the cashbox in the vault. In fact, he had supposed it had been put in the vault before he closed it. " I went out and talked to the people across the street from the bank, and asked them particularly about whether they had seen any person in or around the bank after the bank closed. Cashier Brown's statement had satisfied me that no burglars had done the job, but some one aware of the fact that the tin box full of cash had been left out of the vault must have had a hand in it, if he was not the sole perpetrator of the crime. A person to have this knowledge of the tin box must have been in the bank when Cashier Brown closed the vault, or must have gone into the bank after it had been locked up for the day. No locks had been forced on any of the doors of the building. The people across the street had seen no strange persons in or around the bank after the usual time for closing the vault. " I returned to the bank. Pennyfeather, the accountant, who had been out at luncheon, had returned, and I called him in. Pennyfeather came into the private room very slowly. He walked with a mincing tread, as if to avoid stepping on eggs. He had just been married. In fact, he had violated a rule of the bank, which forbade an employee getting married unless he was in receipt of a certain amount of salary from the bank. The object of this rule was to compel employees to incur no incumbrances beyond their resources, and a wife was regarded as an incumbrance ; and in his efforts to provide properly for her, the young husband, who married on insufficient income, might be tempted to borrow from the bank's funds. I have heard a variety of opinions expressed about this rule. Thirty PENNYFEATHER OF THE BANK 327 years ago I knew folks who married on fifty cents and a horse and waggon, and some had nothing but hope and faith. They got along well, but of course they were not employed in a bank. It may be a wise rule, but when two young folks, with their full share of ' gumption/ decide that in the course of human events it was intended they should get married, all the banks in Christendom are not apt to avail. Marriages are made in heaven, not in banks, we are told. The compound interest of happiness or misery resulting from them may cause us to wonder if, after all, banking rules may not govern the transaction. " Pennyfeather had broken the rules of the bank. He had married on a salary below the minimum fixed for wedding wages. He was to be discharged. He knew it some days before the tin box vanished. He knew that if he married he would lose his job with the bank. He knew also that it might be many a day in the bank before he could expect to reach the marriage sum in the salary line. So he decided to marry anyhow, on the theory that even if he did not work in a bank he would not have to get off the earth. Then he married, and then the $9,000 cash in the tin box disappeared. I looked at Pennyfeather, the happy young husband, and I smiled. Pennyfeather smiled a wan smile. " "Tis a pleasant day, Mr. Pennyfeather,' said I. 'Be seated.' " Pennyfeather sat down. Instantly he arose. " ' Excuse me a moment, please,' said he. ' I feel ill. I will return.' " ' Thereupon Pennyfeather hastened to the toilet-room, and presently I heard a noise as of a man in the throes of retching. In a few minutes Pennyfeather returned, pale and faint, and sank into a chair. I had been in the toilet-room a few minutes before, to wash the grime from my hands after poking around in the vault. I knew there was no way of escape from it, for as I lathered my hands with a big cake of soap I had looked for outlets from the room. " ' Now please tell me, Mr. Pennyfeather, the last you saw of this tin box and its contents,' said I. " Pennyfeather gulped and gasped. 328 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE " ' Excuse me again, please,' said he, and he made a second hurried exit to the toilet-room, and once more I heard the noise of belching ; and presently in came Pennyfeather, pallid and feeble, with his voice quite weak. " Pennyfeather dropped into the chair, and gazed at me with sunken eyes, and on his lips were little flecks of foam. "'Have you ever had fits, Mr. Pennyfeather?' I asked politely. ' I mean, to the best of your knowledge or recol- lection have you ever had fits ? ' " Pennyfeather closed his eyes and breathed heavily. I waited. Finally he opened them a wee bit and looked at me. " ' You were about to say where you last saw the tin box and its contents,' I resumed. " Up rose Pennyfeather again. " ' Excuse me,' said he, ' I am seized again.' " Away he went to the toilet-room. I noticed that he went with celerity, but returned with difficulty. I heard again the rumblings of a human volcano in a state of eruption. I waited, and at length Pennyfeather tottered in and collapsed in a chair. He was breathing like a fish out of water, and his lips were frothy. " ' My dear Mr. Pennyfeather,' I began. ' Let us forget the interruptions, and begin anew with your last sight of the contents of the tin box.' " But Pennyfeather staggered to the toilet, and when he reappeared he was ghastly white and deathly sick, judging from appearances. " ' I must go home,' he whispered. ' I am purging and retching myself away. I feel death in me. I will see you when I recover, if I ever do recover.' " I bowed, and Pennyfeather was escorted to his home, and two doctors were called in to attend him. After he had gone an idea struck me. I went to the toilet-room to wash my hands. I picked up the soap, and lo ! instead of the big cake I had used before Pennyfeather came in, there was a mere remnant of what once had been the cake. " ' Has some one eaten it ? ' I exclaimed to myself. " That night I called at Pennyfeather's house with Presi- dent Cowan of the Standard Bank. Pennyfeather seemingly 329 was very ill, moaning faintly, and looking very white. His wife was there. President Cowan got Dr. Brown the next morning, and the physician examined Penny feather. All the doctors said he had typhoid fever. " ' Can he be suffering from soapus typhus ? ' was my question. "'Might I ask what soapus typhus is?' asked one of the doctors. '"A state of collapse superinduced by over-indulgence in toilet soap,' I said. " They held it was typhoid fever. I said that if he had typhoid it would be weeks before he was able to be out. I went away. When Pennyfeather got up from his sick bed, he was arrested by Officer McGee, of Windsor. He was tried and acquitted while I was out of the country. Of course he no longer worked for the bank. He became a tavern keeper. " I never had any positive proof that Pennyfeather ate soap. I recall Clutch Donohue, in Kingston, who ate soap to break his health, and thereby gain a pardon. He ate too much, and after he got out he died in a hotel outside the penitentiary walls before he could get home." Chapter LVI THE TOUR OF CHARLES HILTON DAVIDSON WHILE Pennyfeather was suffering, the choir of the Methodist Church in Burlington, nine miles east of Hamilton, was pre- paring for a rehearsal. The organist of the church was Charles Hilton Davidson, a prominent nurseryman, of the firm of John Davidson & Son. He was about forty years old, an accomplished musician, a pious man, and popular throughout the country roundabout, where he was held in high esteem as an upright churchman and a conscientious Christian gentleman. He had proposed a song recital by the choir. Plans were under way for the entertainment when the pious organist disappeared. " Davidson had put forged notes in the Bank of Hamilton, 330 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE some of them the notes of fictitious persons, and others the alleged notes of farmers who never signed them," says Murray. " Before the forgeries were discovered Davidson vanished. His firm failed for $40,000 or more, and on October I5th, 1892, I called on Manager James Turnbull, of the Bank of Hamilton, and went over the matter with him. The bank was anxious to deter forgeries in the future by having Davidson located and brought back and punished, even if it cost thousands of dollars and meant tens of thousands of miles of travel. Before we were through it did cost thousands of dollars, and I travelled over 20,000 miles. My first move was to locate Davidson. His wife was making ready to leave Canada. I intercepted a letter to her showing he was in Mexico. Thereupon I prepared extradition papers and started, following his wife's route. I departed on Novem- ber 8th, and was joined in Chicago by Mr. Bartlett, an accountant of the Bank of Hamilton, who knew Davidson personally, and who accompanied me to El Paso, Texas, on the border of Mexico. I arrived at El Paso on November i6th, and called on my friend Manager Davis, of the Wells-Fargo Express Company. He gave me letters to several persons he knew in Mexico, among them being Superintendent Comfort, of the Mexican Central Railroad. I had known Comfort years before, and I called on him at Ciudad Juarez. I had located Davidson, under the name of Graham, down along the line of the road, checking cars for the railroad company. The intercepted letter had aided me in doing this. " Mr. Comfort telegraphed to Davidson, or Graham, to come to Ciudad Juarez. He also sent for the mayor of the city, a polite, over-bowing Mexican gentleman, to whom I explained my desire to have Davidson taken into custody. The mayor bowed and smiled, and bowed and said he would have officers there to arrest Davidson when he arrived. Mr. Comfort said Davidson would be there in about four hours. The mayor bowed and withdrew. " Four hours later we heard the tread of marching feet and the rattle of arms as the marchers came to a halt. We looked out, and there were the mayor and the intendente and sixty TOUR OF CHARLES HILTON DAVIDSON 331 men in full uniform and armed with carbines. I was astonished. "' I only want one man,' I said. " The mayor and the intendcntc drew themselves up haughtily. " ' Sir,' said the mayor, in Spanish, with a profound bow, 1 permit me to inform you that dignity and ceremony make even arrests impressive in this country. Besides,' and he bowed again, ' the prisoner may be desperate.' " I bowed profoundly, and said no more. The mayor bowed profoundly, and all was serene again. " Ten minutes later Davidson appeared. I pointed him out to the mayor, who whispered excitedly to the intendente. The intendente gave a stern, sharp command, and the sixty soldiers swooped down upon Davidson, formed a hollow square around him with their carbines levelled at him, and marched him to the calaboose. Never will I forget the expression on Davidson's face as the soldiers pounced upon him. " ' Beautiful ! ' exclaimed the mayor, as the sixty arrested the one. ' Such courage ! Such precision ! Bravo ! Beautiful ! ' " I bowed profoundly. Words failed me. " Davidson, in the calaboose, denied his identity. I told him I had a man from the bank waiting across the river. " ' Oh, if that's the case, I'm Davidson,' he said, and signed a paper to that effect. " The next morning I had Bartlett come over and identify him. Bartlett then returned to Canada by rail. Davidson employed Mexican counsel. I told him frankly that the Bank of Hamilton intended to have him punished as a warning to others, and to put a stop to the forgeries which had been practised in the past. The Mexican attorney said he would have Davidson discharged, and he mentioned the precedent case of Chanler, the Detroit agent for the Michigan Central Railroad, who got away to Mexico, where Detroit officers apprehended him, and he fought extradition, and after five months was discharged. Davidson also was relying on my having to take him back to Canada through the United States ; and the moment I took a prisoner, extradited from 332 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE Mexico, into any other than English territory, he could demand and receive his release, and the chase and extradition would have to begin all over again. " I went to Chihuahua and conferred with Miguel Ahumada, governor of Chihuahua. I became quite well acquainted with his secretary, Antonio R. Urrea, to whom I had a letter. Governor Ahumada gave me a letter to the Mexican judge in Ciudad Juarez. He also ordered a double guard to be placed on Davidson, and arranged that there should be no mysterious escape or release of the prisoner. I then went to the city of Mexico and conferred with Sir Spencer St. John, the British Minister. For four weeks the case was pending, and then Davidson was handed over to me. It was impossible to take Davidson back to Canada through the United States, as he would have claimed his liberty the moment we crossed the Mexican border. I decided to go to Vera Cruz, and embark on a steamer going to Jamaica or some other English port. In the city of Mexico I learned that there were no steamers running from 'Vera Cruz either to England or Jamaica. Arthur Chapman, British Consul at Vera Cruz, finally learned of a direct cargo boat from Vera Cruz to Santiago de Cuba, sailing the last week in December or early in January. " While in the city of Mexico I met the Hon. H. A. Cox, now of Claremont, Jamaica, one of the wealthiest men on the island. We were going in the same direction, and we travelled as far as Jamaica together. There he had bought a large estate, called The Brambles, near Claremont. He built a fine mansion, and has several hundred natives working for him. He is raising tea, and is making a perfect success of it. I visited him a few winters ago, and spent some time as his guest. He is one of the most interesting gentlemen I ever met. When we sailed from Vera Cruz I had a letter from the British Ambassador in Mexico to Senor Golerando, governor of Cuba, then under Spanish rule, requesting him to give me assistance and protection while in his domain. The governor was a brother-in-law of the British Consul, Ransom, at Santiago de Cuba, both of whom entertained me and showed me every courtesy, so Davidson was in no position to make trouble there. It was a rough trip on the freight boat TOUR OF CHARLES HILTON DAVIDSON 333 from Vera Cruz to Santiago. We sailed on the steamer, the Earndiff, on January 3rd, 1893, an< -l arrived in Santiago seven days later, on January loth. For several days I waited in Santiago, endeavouring to find a steamer to Jamaica ; but there seemed to be no communication of any kind between these two countries. Although the nearest points between these two countries are only 150 miles apart, a letter posted at either point had to go by way of New York to reach its destination. I finally offered the owner of a tug $300 to land me, with Davidson, on the island of Jamaica. He declined to do so for less than $500. So I sat down and waited for a Spanish steamer which called at Santiago once a month on its way to Port au Prince, Hayti. I knew that a steamer sailed monthly from Port au Prince to Jamaica. I cabled to Arthur Tweedie, British consul-general at Port au Prince, to learn what my chance was to keep possession of my prisoner there. He replied he could give no assurance, but would do everything in his power. I decided to chance it, and obtained passports for Davidson and myself. " I sailed on the Spanish steamer Manilla, taking Davidson with me, and arrived in Port au Prince on January i/th. I went ashore, leaving Davidson aboard the steamer under guard of the only English-speaking passenger aboard, a German professor in a college at Frankfort-on-the-Main, who was travelling in the West Indies preparing a paper on social and political conditions. Consul-General Tweedie called on President Hippolyte, who issued a special order to the authorities to see Davidson did not escape, and I then landed my prisoner with the understanding that I should supply the guards and pay liberally for all services rendered. A revolution had been in full blast in Hayti just before I arrived. " One Sunday morning, \vhilc Hippolyte was at church, twenty young men went to his house in the big square, a large mansion, with a high stone wall topped with iron spikes. They passed the sentry at the gate as members of the National Guard and entered the house. There were a great many generals in the house in fact, every tenth man in Hayti seemed to be a general. They had more generals 334 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE in Hayti than they have colonels in Kentucky. These young men had swords under their capes, and when they got inside they cut off a general's head, and the row began. Hippolyte heard of it, hastened out of church, rallied his men and they began to shoot, shoot, shoot, until there were four hundred lying dead in Port au Prince. The revolutionists meanwhile had gone to the gaol and released all prisoners. They had a company two hundred strong. Hippolyte pursued them. They fled to the mountains and then many refugees made a dash for the British Consul's house in the hills and demanded protection of Tweedie. Tweedie told them he could not protect them, as his flag was down town. While they were pleading, up came Hippolyte's army, commanded by his son, who died of apoplexy before I left Hayti. The army demanded the refugees. Tweedie would not deliver them up, and said that if Hippolyte's army touched them he would get a man-of-war from Port Royal and blow Port au Prince into South America, if necessary. The army that had marched up the hill saluted and marched down again. Tweedie fed the refugees on biscuits and they snapped them up like hungry dogs. " The Government did not feed prisoners in gaol in those times. If friends did not feed them or give them money, or if it was not for a charity fund, they would get no food. The gaol was awful. But there was no other place for Davidson. I stopped at the Central Union Hotel in Port au Prince. Newspaper correspondents were there, recently arrived from the scene of fighting in the insurrection. I met Dick Grain there. He is a brother of T. C. T. Grain, formerly City Chamberlain of New York. He went there to build a belt line around the city, and had started a livery stable with New York carriages and native horses and made a fortune out of his ventures. Dick drove us all around that part of Hayti. " I remember on one of our drives out into the country it was wash-day. The natives go naked in parts of Hayti. We were driving across a bridge over a broad stream when we happened to look down and there were at least two hundred and fifty females washing clothes. We were the TOUR OF CHARLES HILTON DAVIDSON 335 curiosity, for we had clothes on. We stopped on the bridge and threw silver coins into the water. The females with one accord abandoned their washing and began diving for the coins. They reminded me of a school of porpoises. " Harry Coon, a negro who worked for Grain and who had been in the States, took quite a liking to me and was eager to be of service. He knew of my prisoner and my anxiety that he should not escape. One evening Harry Coon brought up one of the coon guard at the gaol to see me. He called me out mysteriously and led me aside. " ' Yo' know yo' man Davidson ? ' said Harry Coon. " ' Yes, has he escaped ? ' I asked anxiously. " ' No, but I tell yo', Mr. Murray, if this fellow of yours is much of a bother this yere man is a paticklar friend of mine and he'll shoot him for a couple of dollars,' said Harry Coon. " ' Oh, my God, no ! ' said I. ' You'll all get hung.' " Harry Coon repeated this to his coon soldier friend. "'I'll shoot him for $1.50,' said the coon soldier, with a generous smile. " I shook my head. Harry and the darky guard conferred. "'He says because you are my friend and because him and me like you, we'll jes' do the job fo' fifty cents,' said Harry. "'But I don't want it done at all,' said I, and I empha- sised it. " The two darkies conferred again. Then the : coon soldier walked away crestfallen. Harry shook his head sadly as he went. "' 'Deed, Mistah Murray, yo' won't get it done no cheaper, an' mo'over, my paticklar friend is the paticklarest best shot in the army,' said Harry. ' His bullets don't mulitate. Dey jes' kills.' " I had to remain in Port au Prince two weeks, waiting for a steamer to Jamaica. At length the Atlas liner, Ardine, arrived, bound for Jamaica, and on January 2Qth I sailed on her, Davidson rejoicing to be out of the Port au Prince gaol. The Ardine called at Gonavis. Sharks swarmed in the bay. The ship's mate and I amused ourselves harpooning 336 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE them. He got one of the largest specimens ever seen in the bay. They swam close around the steamer, snapping voraciously at any scraps thrown overboard. The Ardine stopped also at Jaremia for a coffee cargo, and at the Island of Niassa for mails from the New York steamers. It reminded me of the West Indies sailings of my youth. We arrived at Jamaica early in February, and I placed Davidson at last in a gaol, from which I had an all-British route back to Canada by way of England. I did not dare to take the prisoner over the shorter route by way of New York, for if he set foot in the United States I would lose him on his demand to be released, because he had not been extradited from that country. The Royal Mail steamer sailed for Southampton on February 8th, and when she cast clear of Jamaica, Davidson and I were aboard, bound for England. We arrived at Southampton on February 23rd, and I went direct to London with my prisoner. " Two Scotland Yard officers met me at Waterloo Station, London. Superintendent John Schore was head of Scotland Yard at that time. " ' Have you papers to hold your prisoner in England, Murray ? ' he asked. " I produced the Warrant of Recipias, signed by the Governor-General of Canada. " ' They won't keep your prisoner on that here,' said Schore. " We went to the Home Office and saw the Secretary. He told us we could not hold the prisoner longer than one night. The next day we went to the Colonial Office, and after a lot of red tape I saw the Colonial Secretary. He told us the same thing, that we could hold the prisoner one night and no longer. We went to see Sir John Bridge, Chief Magistrate of London, in regard to the possibility of a writ of habeas corpus. He said the law would be different for a prisoner extradited from one British Colony to another, but when extradited from another country to an English colony, a prisoner could be held in England only one night. We went to see Colonel Lemont, Governor of Holywell ; he took a similar view. There was only one thing left. I applied to Sir Charles Tupper, High Commissioner of Canada. TOUR OF CHARLES HILTON DAVIDSON 337 I had argued against the Home Secretary, the Colonial Secretary, the Chief Magistrate, and the Governor of the prison. I was prepared to argue it out with Sir Charles Tupper. When I stated my case to Sir Charles Tupper, he said I was right, and he called for his carriage and we drove to the Home Office. He argued the matter with the Home Secretary and with the Colonial Secretary. Both decided against him. There was no steamer to Canada for a week. " As we drove away from the Colonial Office, Sir Charles Tupper sat back in the carriage in silence. At length he looked at me and smiled. " ' There is not a prison in England that will refuse to keep your prisoner one night,' said Sir Charles. ' You might tramp with him from prison to prison, and there are plenty of prisons to last until the next steamer sails from Liverpool. But I would advise you to go to Liverpool with your prisoner, You might say the gaol was very dirty and that you were reluctant to have him undergo the hardships of incarceration in it, and that you preferred, for his sake, to keep him outside the gaol. Then hire a man to guard him outside the gaol. I think the prisoner will be pleased.' " Sir Charles Tupper had solved the dilemma. Schore telegraphed to Liverpool and Chief Inspector McConkey met me. The objection raised in London was not raised in Liverpool. I had Davidson in good hands in Liverpool. I cabled home from Liverpool for 100. They cabled it to the Bank of Scotland. I received the advice but not the cheque. It seems that a superannuated detective, John Murray, who had bought a home in the country, received a cheque for 100 from the Dominion of Canada through the Bank of Scotland and was delighted over his good fortune, although at a loss to know what he ever had done for the Dominion of Canada that it should send him $500. One of the inspectors took me to the bank and they drew another cheque and stopped payment on the first cheque. The superannuated detective said he knew it was too good to be true when he first saw the 100 cheque. " I sailed from Liverpool with Davidson on the Sarnia on March 2nd. Aboard ship Davidson gave a number of 22 338 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE musical entertainments, All was going well, and I was congratulating myself that at last all was smooth sailing with my prisoner, when, on March nth, the Sarnie? s after crank shaft in the bearings broke just abaft the engine. We drifted for days. The delay was prolonged by the great difficulty in getting the couplings connected in order to change the forward crank to the place of the after crank shaft. When the repairs were finished the Sarnia was about sixty miles from St. Pierre. On March i6th, the fifth day after the accident, we struck a terrific hurricane, the wind blowing eighty-five miles an hour and the sea running mighty high. It was the severest storm I ever had seen, and in my youth I had known some sturdy ones. Luckily the Sarnia 's break had been repaired, and instead of lying helpless in the trough of the sea for the hurricane to send us to Davy Jones's Locker, we jogged along about eight miles an hour. The coal tank steamer America and the Mauranda, of Pictou, bound for Halifax, spoke us and stood by for some time, but we made our repairs and declined assistance. The musical treats by Davidson were a godsend during these days of drifting. "On March iQth, at half-past ten in the evening, we saw the lights of Halifax. Three days later, on March 22nd, 1893, I handed Davidson over to the authorities in Milton gaol. He received a speedy trial before Judge Snyder, now judge in Hamilton. W. Laidlaw prosecuted and Davidson was defended by Wallace Nesbitt, now one of the judges of the Supreme Court. He was sent to Kingston Penitentiary for five years. "I had set out on November 8th, 1892, and I returned with my man on March 22nd, 1893. ^ was over four months and I travelled over 20,000 miles. But Davidson was brought back and was punished, and the case of this organist and nurseryman who turned forger, then fugitive, all in vain, served as a valuable deterrent and a conspicuous example. Davidson is one of those temperate zone folk who abhor the gaols of the tropics and call them hell-holes. Apart from the gaols he was seasick all the time." OVER THE ANDES FOR AITKEN 339 Chapter LVII OVER THE ANDES FOR AITKEN LONG as Was the journey after Davidson, a still longer chase was in store for Murray. The man sought was a festive pianist instead of a pious organist. His name was Henry Charles Aitken. He was a private banker in Tottenham, Ontario, until he disappeared, having cleaned out his vaults and placed $90,000 or more of worthless paper in the Bank of Hamilton. Murray's chase led him past Mexico, across the Isthmus of Panama, down the west coast of South America, through Ecuador, Bolivia, Peru, and Chili, across the Andes Mountains on mule-back, through the Argentine Republic, down the Rio Plata to Montevideo, and thence past the harbour of Rio Janeiro, Brazil, thence to Germany, back to New York, and home to Canada. " Aitken came of good family," says Murray. " His father was a well-known Hamilton physician years ago. He trained his son for a banker. Aitken was employed for some years in the head office of the Bank of Hamilton, and later was appointed manager of the branch at Tottenham. When this branch bank closed, Aitken took over the business and opened a private bank, notes discounted by him being rediscounted by the Bank of Hamilton. He built up a thriving business. He was a bachelor, somewhat reserved, but quite popular. He was an accomplished pianist and was reputed to be an impromptu composer. Much of his leisure he spent at the piano. Like many other business men in Canada, he was tempted to dabble in Chicago stocks, and when the market went against him he endeavoured to retrieve his losses by further investments, and when these also proved a loss, he used the funds of depositors and finally resorted to forgery. He disappeared on August 2nd, 1892. " The Bank of Hamilton sent an inspector to Tottenham to examine Aitken's books. Aitken had done what he could to save the examiner trouble. The night before he disappeared he had gone over the books thoroughly. Opposite every genuine note he had marked the word ' good.' Thus the 340 total of the forgeries was shown at once. The vaults of his private bank had been emptied. Depositors lost every dollar they had entrusted to him. The Bank of Hamilton lost over $90,000. Naturally, following so closely on the Davidson losses, the Bank of Hamilton was determined to run Aitken to earth, if the chase led thrice around the world. The Department was notified and I took up the case. A rumour had been set afloat that Aitken had been seen at Burlington Beach on the night of his disappearance. Some of his friends attempted to establish the common report that he had- committed suicide, and that his body sometime would be found floating in the water. I did not believe this talk. When I started after Davidson, in November 1892, I determined to keep a lookout for trace of Aitken. While in Mexico, I met several men travelling through South America and I told them of Aitken. I also issued this circular : ' H. C. AITKEN Age, about 38 years ; height, about 5 feet 9 inches; weight, about 155 or i6olb. ; hair, darkish brown, turning slightly grey ; wore hair pompadour style ; mous- tache would be lighter colour than hair, also turning grey, usually kept trimmed ; blue eyes, full face, straight nose, in cold weather inclined to be red ; fair complexion ; laughs in a low key ; very prominent dimple on chin, which may be covered with whiskers ; while in conversation strokes his chin ; sometimes wears full beard or goatee ; when standing at desk or counter goes through motions as if jerking or pulling himself together, crowding his elbows gently to his side for a moment, then slightly throwing up his head, while at the same time biting or attempting to bite corners of his moustache with his lower lip, without any aid from his hands ; neat figure ; slightly knock-kneed ; walks with toes turned out ; when walking strikes back part of heel first; quiet manner, very reserved and very musical; will play piano for long periods, composing as he goes along ; walks with hands in pants pockets ; dresses neatly ; usually wears sack coat and stiff hat ; does clay moulding. Cut is a fairly good likeness ; cut of signature is a fac-simile of his original writing.' " A commercial traveller, fresh from the land of the Incas had told me in Mexico that Aitken was at Lima, Peru. When OVER THE ANDES FOR AITKEN 341 I returned from Mexico I took up Aitken's case again. I pre- pared extradition papers and the Department of Justice com- municated with the Rosebery Government in England to use its good offices to assist me in my hunt. Later I saw cable- grams from Rosebery to British Ministers all over South America in reference to me. I was aware that Aitken might leave Lima long before I could arrive there. He might come north along the west coast of South America, or he might head for the east coast if he did not go inland among the mountains. But wherever he went I was to find him. " Accordingly, Thomas W. Wilson, an English gentleman, travelling on the Western Hemisphere, sailed from New York on the City of Para on Saturday, September 3Oth, 1893. It was not the first time in my life I had travelled as Wilson. I arrived in Colon, Columbia, on Saturday, October 7th, one week after leaving New York. The canal a-building, the house of De Lesseps, and other sights were interesting. From Colon I took a train to Panama, crossing from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean. At Panama I made inquiries concerning Aitken. No one knew of him. I had to wait five days for a steamer south. I remember there a man named Felix Hermann. He was the American Consul, a steamship agent, and a banker. Daily I endeavoured to buy a ticket from him. But he was of the race known by their names and he declined to sell me a ticket until the day the steamer came in, saying I should wait and see what solos, as he called the money, were worth. I suspected that on steamer days solos advanced in value, but there was nothing to do except wait. On October I2th the steamer arrived. " She was the Spanish steamer Alaipo. Felix Hermann had charged me $16 too much for my ticket, and had given me a letter to the captain of the steamer, introducing Mr. Thomas W. Wilson. The captain took the letter, glanced at it and then at me. "'Wilson? Wilson?' said he. ' Get out, Murray ! Don't you know me ? ' and he took off his cap. " I recognised him instantly as Louis Salmers, a Dane from Copenhagen, who had been a quartermaster in the United States Navy, and had served with me during part of the war. 342 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE I knew I could trust him absolutely, and I told him of Aitken He had heard nothing of him. I sat on the captain's left at table thereafter on the trip. I was not wine-bibbing in that climate, and an old Spanish lady, who sat opposite me, noting the absence of wine from my meal, was distressed greatly. " ' Unhappy man ! ' she lamented, in Spanish. ' To think he is so poor he cannot afford wine! How very poor he must be!' " It never occurred to the gentle old lady that any one willingly would forego wine at meals. She fretted and fumed meal after meal and, finally, with a brave muster of courage, she filled a glass and held it toward me. " ' Poco vino, sefior ! ' she said, beaming and nodding for me to take it. " It touched her heart to think any one should be so poor as to have to do without wine. When I declined with thanks, she was amazed and then flew into a great rage and cuffed the waiter and boxed her maid's ears and finally wept. Later she approached me on deck with a gauzy wrap about her. She smiled seductively, and suddenly drew from beneath the folds of her wrap a glass of wine. " ' Poco vino, senor ! ' she pleaded. " Thereafter at every meal she offered me wine, with a plaintive ' Poco vino, senor ! ' and when I declined she in- variably boxed her maid's ears. She could drink like a hart panting after a water brook. " The Maipo arrived at Guayaquil, in Ecuador, on Monday, October i6th, and lay there a day for cargo. Yellow fever was raging. I went ashore and saw Captain Chambers, the British consul, but found no trace of Aitken. People swarmed to the water-front to get out of the city. A theatrical troupe was there, and some of them jumped into the water and tried to swim to the outer side of the Maipo to get aboard ahead of the drove of folk eager to jump the town. On October i8th, we touched at Payta, where I saw the British consul, and left him circulars of Aitken. I also left a circular at Passamayo, in Ecuador. There were no docks in Passamayo or north of Valparaiso, and we anchored off shore, while the steamer was surrounded with swarms of small boats whose owners charged pirate rates to take you ashore. We touched OVER THE ANDES EOR AITKEN 343 at Satarvary, Peru, on October iQth, and at Callao on October 2oth. There was no trace of Aitken at either place. Among our passengers for Callao was a Mrs. Burk, with her two children, from Chicago. On the way down she told me she had been born in Lima, her father being an American, who had married a Spanish lady. She left Lima when she was six years old, leaving her mother and going to the United States to be educated. She had stayed in the United States, had married ; her husband died, and she was on her way back to the home of her childhood, and was about to see her mother again, for the first time since she left Lima, a child six years old. I saw the meeting. The mother could not speak English, the daughter could not speak Spanish. Mother and daughter could not talk to each other, but they could hug and caress each other and cry over each other in sheer joy. They met on the dock at Callao, and those of the ship's passengers who did not cry, cheered. " I arrived in Lima on Saturday, October 2ist, and went to the Hotel de Fran^ais Ingleterra. I called on Sir Charles Mansfield, the British Minister, who had received notice from Lord Rosebery concerning the case. Sir Charles communi- cated at once with the Peruvian Secretary for Foreign Affairs, and as a result I was put in communication with Colonel Muniz, Prefect of Lima. On advice of Sir Charles Mansfield I went to Callao and arranged for Vice-consul Wilson to accompany me to Lima and act as interpreter. The out- come of my interview of the Peruvian officials was the issuance of an order by the Peruvian Department of State commanding any or all officials in the Republic of Peru to arrest Aitken. I then called on Manager Holcomb at the South American branch of the New York house of William R. Grace. He promised to assist me in every way possible. When he saw Aitken's photograph he said : ' Your man is here. I have seen him several times in the street, and he called here looking for a position.' Holcomb then gave me several letters, including one to President Dawkins, of the Peruvian Incorporated Company, Limited, an Englishman whose company had assumed the war debt of the Govern- ment and had taken mines, railroads, and lands as security. 344 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE " Armed with these letters and aided by Colonel Muniz, I set out to find Aitken. President Dawkins told me he knew Aitken, and had travelled on the steamer with him on one occasion from Callao to Mollando. He sent for Superinten- dent Aikman, of the Peruvian railroads, who recognised Aitken from his photograph, and said he had seen him fre- quently. All of the officials of the railroads were called in the next day, and when they saw the photograph several at once recognised it. Manager E. J. Prew, of the silver mines at Challapa, told me that Aitken had been up to the mines in the Andes, one hundred miles from Lima. Mr. Evans, a street broker in Lima, told me Aitken had called on him day after day in reference to starting an English school. At length Aitken had told Evans he had not met with much success, and intended to go to Valparaiso. I found where Aitken had boarded. He was gone ; the bird had flown. " While in Lima on Wednesday, November 1st, I went to see the natives decorate the graves of their dead. It was a national holiday. The cemetery was one of the most beautiful I ever have seen. It was laid out like a city. The dead were buried in vaults built above ground. The cemetery rose in terraces, ten, fifteen, and twenty feet high. There were fine marble fronts and less pretentious stone fronts. There were aristocratic avenues in this city of the dead, and there were modest side streets. In some of the houses of silence generations lay asleep, with the names of the occupants carved in the marble of the front door. Each body lay in a niche, with the coffin sealed. " The next day I walked out of the hotel to go to the offices of the Graces. I noticed the shutters were closed on all places of business and residences, that the streets were deserted, and a strange stillness pervaded the city. At Grace's I found the big iron gates shut. Manager Holcomb saw me, and had the gates opened for me. '" Why, Mr. Murray, are you out to-day ? ' he said. "' Yes, it looks like another holiday,' said I. " ' We are on the eve of an insurrection,' said he. " I started immediately for my hotel. The streets were absolutely deserted not a soul in sight, not a living thing to OVER THE ANDES FOR AITKEN 345 be seen. I had gone but a couple of blocks when the roar of cannon shook the city ; then came the rattle of rifle-fire and the sound of galloping horses. I ran for the plaza, the shortest route to the hotel. The streets were barricaded. It reminded me of what I had read of the French Revolution. Behind me came the galloping soldiery. Firing was going on all around me. Bullets went whining by. I dodged into a doorway to escape the charge of the mounted police. The mob sallied forth, and the contending forces met in the street in front of the doorway where I stood. It was a bloody battle. The police fought with sabres and carbines. The mob fought with revolvers, knives, clubs, and stones. The police rode through them, cutting off groups, surrounding them, and dragging them away. One of the groups was surrounded and ran to cover in my doorway. The police yanked us all out. I saw that those who resisted fell dead or wounded, so I stepped out obediently, and was being dragged along with a bunch of rioters, when fortunately Colonel Muniz, the prefect, spied me, and bade two of his men rescue me and escort me to my hotel. I thanked him, and he waved gaily to me as he charged the mob. I trotted along on foot between two officers through the streets of Lima, in a roundabout way to the hotel. The gates of the hotel were locked, and the windows and doors were barred. I shouted to open and let me in. They gave no heed, Suddenly both the officers roared forth a command to open in the name of some high official of Peru. The doors flew open like magic, the gates swung wide, and I walked in, taking my escort with me. They drank my health, then returned to the scene of conflict, where the guns were belching and the fight was raging amid cheers and groans. I sat all day listening to it, and rubbing a pink spot where the flat side of a sabre had smitten me. The real cause of the rumpus, I understood, was the refusal of some office-holders, voted out by Congress, to surrender the offices. After a couple of days of fighting the offices were given up peaceably. It was said they picked up over two hundred dead in the streets after the fighting. " When the fighting ceased I endeavoured to get trace of 346 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE Aitken. I learned from a steamship official that he had embarked for Valparaiso, with stop-over privilege at Iquique. He had sailed from Lima before I had arrived. I determined to stop in all the intermediate ports, and make sure he had not disembarked in one of them. On Sunday, November 5th, I sailed for Valparaiso on the steamer Pizarro. I bore letters from the Graces' house in Lima to its Iquique house. I called at Pisco, Mollando, Arica, and Pisaque. Aitken had not been in any of them. On arrival at Iquique I called on the British Consul. I learned that Aitken, in company with another Englishman supposed to be a defaulter, had stopped in Iquique while his steamer was changing cargo, and had sailed for Valparaiso. I left Iquique on the next steamer for Val- paraiso, sailing on Monday, November I3th, on the Imperial. I called at Cobiga, Bolivia, Autofagasta, Caldera, and Coquimbo ; but Aitken had not appeared in any of them. I arrived at Valparaiso on Saturday, November i8th, and conferred with the British Consul and the Valparaiso house of Grace Brothers. The Grace house detailed one of its best posted clerks to assist me. On the fourth day I got track of Aitken by discovering, in an English cafe, a waiter and another person who recognised his photograph, and said he had taken his meals there for a time, and until shortly before my arrival. " I took train to Santiago, two hundred miles inland from Valparaiso, on November 23rd, and conferred with John Gordon Kennedy, the British Minister ; and, through him, with the Minister of Foreign Relations, who directed me to his deputy, Seftor Bacanaun After a lengthy conference, Senor Bacanaun stated that his Government would not surrender the fugitive, as there was no treaty between England and Chili. While willing to reciprocate and give man for man, they could not hand over a fugitive without a quid pro quo. A man presently would be in London, he said, whom the Chilian Government wanted. If the British authorities sur- rendered this man, the Chilian Government might surrender Aitken. I cited the case of Hanson, alias Bushnell, who fleeced the insurance companies in New York and Chicago out of several hundred thousand dollars, and was handed OVER THE ANDES FOR AITKEN 347 over to the United States authorities, subsequently escaping from the officer in whose custody he was at Iquique. Senor Bacanaun replied that it was the Supreme Court, not the Department of Foreign Relations, that had handed over Hanson, and, he added, it cost the United States authorities $25,000 and eight months' work to secure his extradition, as he had made many friends during his residence there. The Deputy-Minister of Foreign Relations further informed me that he thought it would cost the Bank of Hamilton fully $12,000 in gold to secure the return of Aitken. I listened gravely, and at the close of the interview I enlisted the services of Marcial Martnax, a great authority on inter- national law in Chili, and I made up my mind to extradite Aitken if I could find him. After my interview I knew how to go about it. On December ist I returned to Valparaiso. From Santiago I learned Aitken had been there for four days, and then had returned to Valparaiso. Among those I met in Santiago was Ernest Carnot, a son of the President of France. Back in Valparaiso I learned Aitken had been stopping at Villa del Mare (village by the sea), a watering- place six miles from the city. An interpreter had seen him, and guided me to his boarding-place. The landlord recog- nised the picture. Aitken had left suddenly, without taking all his effects. 1 looked at some of the effects. I thought they might belong to Aitken. He had left Valparaiso before 1 arrived there. " Where had he gone ? I learned that the same afternoon he left Villa del Mare so suddenly he was seen by an employee of a big South American house at the office of the Pacific Navigation Company, and a steamer had sailed that after- noon for Buenos Ayres, Argentine Republic. It took this steamer fifteen days to go by the Straits of Magellan to Buenos Ayres. If Aitken had sailed on this steamer he was due in Buenos Ayres in a few days. I could not hope to overtake him by boat, but there was one way left. In a week or less I could get to Buenos Ayres by going over the_Andes Mountains, the Cordilleras. If his steamer were a day or two late I could be on the dock to meet him. If he had not taken the steamer, but had tried to cross the mountains, I 348 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE might overtake him. I decided to try to cross the Andes Mountains. I left Valparaiso on Wednesday, December I3th, bound from the Pacific to the Atlantic, from the west coast to the east coast of South America. I set out alone. " I took train at 7.40 in the morning, bound mountain- ward, and arrived at Los Andes at twelve noon. There was not a soul there. I had a letter from the agent of the Compania Nacional de Transportes Expreso Villalonga viaje de Europa al Pacifico, via Cordillera, meaning the agent of a mule concern to supply you with a mount over the mountains. At length a ragged, lazy fellow appeared, and gazed at me and my baggage. " ' I see you all right,' he said. " It must have been his one bit of English, for he repeated it a score of times, and no matter what I said he answered invariably : ' I see you all right.' " He certainly saw me all right, all right. He went away, and returned with a carriage, and drove me to an hotel, and left me there after collecting a fat fee. I sat there for an hour and no one appeared. Then I got a hackman, and had my luggage taken back to the station. At the station I found some men making up a little train a pony engine and dinky cars. I asked if it went up in the mountains. No one answered. Suddenly my ragged friend appeared as if from nowhere. " ' They see you all right,' he said, and fled. " I boarded this train, and rode up to Salto de Soldado, a couple of hours from Los Andes. There I alighted, and the first man I saw was Ernest Carnot, son of President Carnot of France, and whom I had met in Santiago. Young Carnot was a civil engineer, and a sturdy, frank fellow, whom I liked instantly. " ' Glad to see you again,' he said, shaking hands. " ' Not half so glad as I am to see you,' said I. " Carnot introduced his friend, Maurice de Jouliatt, from Paris. They were bound over the mountains. So was I. We would go together ? Gladly ! " A delegation of Frenchmen had met Carnot and escorted him to the end of the road. Carnot knew how to handle the pesky muleteers, and the guides jumped to obey him. We OVER THE ANDES EOR AITKEN 349 left Salto del Soldado at four o'clock that afternoon on mule- back. My mule was a drowsy little fellow with tremendous ears, and the tip of the left ear was missing. We rode to Posada Juncal, where we had dinner at eight o'clock in the evening, and spent the night. As I was looking at the time my watch fell, and the left hind foot of my lop-eared mule smashed it to bits. Chilian currency was no good beyond Posada Juncal, and we exchanged some of our money at the hotel, where they charged a quadruple compound rate of exchange. We arose at two o'clock in the morning. It was pitch dark. " ' The guides say we arc to muffle up well as we may meet a snowstorm/ said Carnot. " We started. I could not see my hand in front of my face. And the road ! There was no road ! The mules travelled single file. We went up, up, up, and then down, down, down, and then up, up, up, and then down, down, and then up, up, up, up, until one moment I felt above the clouds and another moment in the bowels of the earth. Carnot shouted that the guides said the mules were bred from Spanish jacks and English blooded mares, and could be relied on implicitly. "'My guide says we will bleed from the nose and mouth, and so will the mules, but not to mind it ! ' gasped Carnot. " The evening before, the guides had explained we must start early to get beyond a point known as Cumbre, where the wind, after a certain hour, blew a gale. Dawn came with us plodding up, up, up. Then down, down, down we went, winding in and out, around corners, over narrow paths. The mules galloped where they could. Going down was the hardest. It was severe on the legs. Moreover, as you looked down, far down, where great objects you had passed appeared as mere specks, it scared you. We passed Cumbre at half-past nine in the morning, after almost eight hours in the saddle. The wind was howling, and it tore at us until we clutched our saddles and finally flung our arms around the necks of our mules. Carnot was bleeding. My head was dizzy, and I could hardly breathe. We were 27,000 feet UD, said the guides. The mules were bleeding. 350 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE" " ' When he stop, no touch him,' gasped the guide. ' He go on when he can.' " We were almost smothered. Yard by yard we plodded on. We passed Cumbre after a stern battle, the mules pausing, then moving on, low bent, straining, striving valiantly. None of us tried to talk. We simply hung on. At two o'clock in the afternoon we came to Los Cuevas Posada. It simply was a stone house, but it seemed like paradise. We breakfasted, and I was about to proffer gold in payment when Carnot said ' Do not show gold,' and he paid the bills, we settling later with him. Never will I forget this day, Thursday, December I4th. We were in the saddle all day, riding amid the mountains, with death awaiting a mule's misstep, until eight o'clock in the evening, when we arrived at Punta de Vacas, and stayed there Thursday night. An Argentine customs officer examined our baggage there. I failed to tip him promptly, and he threw every stitch of my luggage out on the ground, scattering it right and left. It taught me a lesson. We slept on beds on the floor at Punta de Vacas, and left at eight o'clock on Friday morning. " We rode for three hours, and at half-past eleven reached Rio Blanca, where we breakfasted, and then went through in seven hours to Rio Mendoza, where I had the last of my Chilian money changed at 40 per cent, discount. Everything is high in the Andes. " At Mendoza I met an American named Schister. He came from Ohio, and was a contractor, and lived in Buenos Ayres, having married a Spanish lady. Every one knew him, and he knew all the foreigners, particularly those speaking English, who had been in Buenos Ayres in twenty years. So few foreigners, comparatively, get there, that a stranger is not there a day until he is spotted. Schister thought I might be a refugee, and delicately intimated as much. I did not undeceive him. " We left Mendoza at half-past nine that night, three hours after arriving. All day Saturday we were aboard train. It grew insufferably hot. In the coach the thermometer passed 116 degrees. I longed for a gust from the gale that swept around Cumbre. We arrived in Buenos Ayres at nine o'clock OVP:R THE ANDES EOR AITKEN 35 r on Sunday morning, December i/th. I went to the Hotel de la Paise, and early the next morning I called on Mr. Packcnham, the British Minister. I learned that an extradi- tion treaty was pending between the English Government and the Argentine Government, but as yet it had not been signed by the President of Argentina. Inspector Freest, of Scotland Yard, was there after Jabez Spencer Balfour, M.P., the president of the famous 'Liberator Company,' of England, who fled after involving his friends for many millions. A flourishing colony of refugees had sprung up in Buenos Ayres. Pending the ratification of the treaty a number of English refugees jumped the country, as the English Government desired to have a clause in the treaty making it retrospective to .cover the case of Balfour ; and other refugees feared they might be included. It was not made retrospective, yet they landed Balfour on a petition to the Courts, based on the comity of nations, and the courts ordered his arrest, and he was taken aboard an English ship. " One of the colony of refugees met me on the street and shook hands with me heartily. "'Well, Jim Thurber ! ' he exclaimed. 'When did you get in ? ' "'You're mistaken, sir,' said I. "'It's all right Jim,' said he. 'We know all about your Boston job. You needn't deny it. You're all safe here. As for not being Thurber, you know me, and I've known you since boyhood.' " I could not dissuade him. He was positive I was James Thurber, the Boston defaulter. He took me around to the other members of the colony. They told me Aitken had arrived there, and had been stopping with a Mrs. McGraw Among others I saw was a Canadian, who was known as Senor Don Enrique M. Read, who was none other than A. M. Macrae, a fugitive from St. Catharine's, Ontario. He was in the American Criterion. I also met Doc Minchcn, of the United States, and Tom O'Brien, both of whom I knew. They also were refugees from justice. " Soon after I saw Senor Don Enrique M. Read, he was on his way out of Buenos Ayres, thinking I was after him, and 352 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE I was on my way to Mrs. McGraw's boarding-house after Aitken. I showed Aitken's photograph to her. '"He had no whuskers,' said Mrs. McGraw. 'But that's the laddybuck, the same musical laddybuck, with his pompy- doory hair and his everlasting thumping on the piano.' " ' Where is he now ? ' I asked. " ' He sailed on the Margarita for Rio Janeiro,' said Mrs. McGraw. " It was true. Aitken had come and gone ahead of me, doubtless hearing of the pending treaty, and fearing it might be made retrospective. I knew he had not gone to the United States, for there was no line from Buenos Ayres to the United States, and no tramp steamer had left for the States since his arrival. It was Rio Janeiro or Europe for him. " I looked up Macrae, but could not touch him at that time, as there was no treaty and was not likely to be one, made retrospective, for some time to come, if at all. Macrae had been secretary and treasurer of the Security Loan and Savings Company of St. Catharine's, Ontario. In September 1891 he disappeared with about $30,000 of the company's money. I had billed him as a defaulter and absconder as follows : ' A. M. MACRAE, defaulter and absconder. Description Age, about 35 ; height, about 5 feet 7 inches ; has a striding walk and swings his right arm when walking ; light moustache and small side-whiskers ; quite bald-headed, especially en top and behind ; is rather short-sighted ; has a fashion in addressing a person of throwing his head rather backward and contracting his eyebrows when wearing eyeglasses. "His complexion is fair, clear, and rather ruddy, his accent is decidedly English, and is that of an educated and refined person. When he left St. Catharine's he wore light coloured clothes and stiff felt hat ; he wore a high all- around collar.' " In 1894 after I left Buenos Ayres, Macrae came north to the United States under the name of Gourley. I heard of him several years later from a druggist in Binghamton, New York, who formerly lived in Canada. As Gourley he went to work for The Trotter and Pacer, a periodical relating to horses. I located him in 1897, living in Mount Kisco, near OVER THE ANDES FOR AITKEN 353 New York, and he was arrested there and was taken before United States Commissioner Shields, was extradited, and was brought 'back to St. Catharine's, where he pleaded guilty on August 30th, 1897 ; and Judge Collier sent him to Kingston Penitentiary for four years. "'It might have been worse,' said Macrae, 'but oh! four years is such a long time in that place.' " I thought of him as the gay and festive Don Enrique M. Read in the Criterion Garden in Buenos Ayres, back in December 1893, when I was looking for a ship to Rio Janeiro, Brazil. " A rebellion was raging in Brazil at that time. The port of Rio Janeiro was closed. Mr. Packenham, the British Minister at Buenos Ayres, hearing of my efforts to get a boat to take me into Rio Janeiro, advised me strongly against it. He said it was inadvisable for me to try to enter the port, as a state of war existed, it was the hot time of year there, the British Minister had departed, and not only was there a blockade, but the yellow fever had broken out and many were dying daily. A report came out of Rio Janeiro that Aitken had died there of yellow fever. I hesitated to believe it. On January ist, 1894, the German steamer MuncJien sailed from Buenos Ayres for Germany and, if feasible, would stop at Rio Janeiro, It was my opportunity. I sailed on the Munchen. We called at Montevideo, Uruguay, and thence sailed for Rio Janeiro, but men-of-war blockaded the port, the war was on and the yellow fever flag was flying, so the MuncJien steamed on, and as as we sailed away I gazed off toward the port to where my quarry had fled, and where he was said to be lying dead of yellow fever. It was hard to let go of the chase, so near and yet so far. " The MuncJien arrived at Cape de Verde Islands after fourteen days and coaled. We crossed the equator at 12.40 on the morning of Saturday, January I3th. It was a beautiful night. I brushed up on my earlier know- ledge of navigation and kept the runs and took the latitude and longitude daily. There were only four passengers aboard, t\vo doctors (one a Spaniard, one an Italian), and a gentleman from Russia,^and myself. W T e played dominoes and muggins 23 354 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE together and the four of us, Italian, Spanish, Russian, and English walked the deck arm in arm, all four talking, each in his own language and none understanding a word that another was saying. I taught them to bow profoundly and say : " ' Good morning, Carrie ! ' " I taught them also to place one hand on their heart and exclaim pathetically : '"Have a nip?' " There was great satisfaction in talking to them. It did not matter what I said. They would listen very gravely and reply solemnly, ' Good morning, Carrie,' or ' Have a nip ? ' The chief engineer of the MuncJien, Mr. Schulta, and I became good friends. We touched at Madeira, and on Thursday, January 25th, entered the English Channel. We passed Flushing two days later, and went up the River Schelde to Antwerp, arriving on Saturday evening, January 2/th, after grounding in the river. I left Antwerp three days later for Bremerhaven, the port of Bremen, Germany, and sailed for New York on the steamship La/m, of the North German Lloyd Line, on Tuesday, February 6th. We passed Southampton on Wednesday, and one week later took on a pilot on the American side of the Atlantic. I landed in New York on Thursday, February 1 5th, and arrived in Toronto on Saturday, February I7th, 1894, at 7.15 in the evening. 1 had left Toronto on September 2Oth, 1893. I was absent three days short of five months. " I heard no more of Aitken. When I think of him I think also of the yellow fever port of Rio Janeiro. Was fate waving me away or beckoning me in ? Of course there are many cases of mistaken identity, but if I was mistaken in Aitken I was far from being the only one." Chapter LVIII THE CASE OF PERRY WEINBERG PERRY WEINBERG was a jeweller and a Hebrew. His shop was in King Street, Toronto. He was thrifty, even for a child of Israel. He dealt not only with the Gentile ; his THE CASE OF PERRY WEINBERG 355 specialty was to barter with the Jew. He would buy or sell anything. During the months Murray was globe-trotting after Aitken, the wily Weinberg was gathering in shekels from confiding Hebrews, acting as a private banker for some, as a borrower from others, and as a plain petty larceny thief from, some of the least suspicious. " It was a case of anything to get the money with Weinberg," says Murray. " When he had raked and scraped together all that he could save, borrow, or steal, he vamoosed. I had returned from South America some months before, and the case was reported to the Department. Weinberg's mother lived in New York and thither he had fled. He was located there, and before extraditiOnti papers had been prepared he was arrested and locked up. I received a telegram announc- ing the arrest, and a police friend informed me, in a confidential message, that Weinberg's attorneys probably would ask the next morning that the prisoner be admitted to bail, in which case I could prepare to bid farewell to Weinberg, as he probably would skip to the Old World and disappear in some out-of-the-way place over there where Hebrews were plentiful and information would be scarce. " I took the next train for Buffalo and caught the New York express. I had to be in New York before court opened in the morning or I would lose my man. " The train was on time, and I walked into the District Attorney's office in New York an hour before court opened. I had a friend in the office. I had no extradition papers, for I had no time to prepare them before rushing to catch the train from Toronto. I knew that, under the law of the State of New York at that time, the District Attorney had forty- eight hours in which to examine and approve the bail bonds. My friend was aware of this. " When court opened Weinberg was represented by five attorneys. He was arraigned before a Justice of the Supreme Court of the State, and bail was offered. The sureties were the prisoner's mother, who offered property in excess of $50,000, and a friend of the mother, who offered property in excess of $100,000. Bail was fixed at $1,000. The District Attorney's representative took the sureties to examine them. 356 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE Weinberg went back to the gaol expecting to appear the next day and be released. His liberty was worth far more than $i,OOO to him. " I immediately went before a United States Commissioner and swore out a new warrant, and it was placed in the hands of a marshal. The next day Weinberg was released on bail by the State Court, and as he walked out he was arrested on the new warrant and taken before the United States Com- misioner and remanded. He was the most surprised Hebrew I ever saw when the marshal took him. In the meantime my papers arrived, and the fight for Weinberg's extradition began. He was wrathful over his second arrest. " ' Now I know for why they have so many courts,' he angrily exclaimed to me. ' It is so that when I get out of one I get into another.' " ' Sure,' said I. ' If you get out of this one I have several more courts ready for you.' " ' To think ! ' said Weinberg. ' Yust to think ! And I have all that lovely, beautiful bail, yet I stay in the lockup yust the same.' " His five lawyers made an able fight. But Weinberg was so guilty that there was no defence. On August 22nd he was committed for extradition. Some of his counsel im- mediately went to Washington, where a transcript of the proceedings had been sent preliminary to the transmission of the warrant of surrender by the Department of State. One of them sought to have Representative Tim Campbell endeavour to persuade the State Department to refuse the warrant of surrender, on the ground that Weinberg never before had been charged with crime, and that the com- plainant I named in the proceedings, a Mrs. Stein, was unworthy of belief. Both the Secretary of State and Sir Julian Pauncefote, the British Minister, were absent from Washington at the time. The matter was pending for some time, during which the Canadian Government communicated with Sir Julian Pauncefote, relative to the issuance of the warrant of surrender, on the ground that the forms of the extradition treaty had been complied with, and the man properly committed for extradition. FOUR BARN BURNINGS OF CHATHAM 357 " ' We'll spend $50,0x30 rather than see Weinberg taken back to Canada,' one of his friends informed me. " Precisely one month after Weinberg had been committed for extradition I landed him in Toronto, with Detective Billy Black, who had accompanied me to New York. The State Department at Washington was uninfluenced by the efforts of his friends, and the warrant of surrender was issued as if no such efforts had been made. Weinberg got three years in prison. He deserved it." Chapter LIX THE FOUR BARN BURNINGS OF CHATHAM FOUR thrifty farmers lived on four adjoining farms with four big barns all on the same side of the Chatham Road, in the township of Chatham, in the county of Kent. Beyond them lived a settlement of negroes who lolled and laughed through life, with occasional. days of labour as hired hands on the farms roundabout. On the night of October I5th, 1894, the four barns were burned to the ground. " The County Attorney, Douglas, immediately called my attention to it, and I went to investigate," says Murray. " Many of the country folk were satisfied the four fires were accidental. I drove from farm to farm and learned that the four fires had occurred about the same hour, two o'clock in the morning. This coincidence settled in my mind the belief that the fires were of incendiary origin. I inspected the premises closely, and found fastened to the gatepost of each barnyard fence a notice, roughly scrawled in lead pencil, on slips of paper about the size of pages from a small memorandum book. They were identical in writing and read : ' We will burn you out from the Arthur Road to the Chatham Road for insults you white trash gave our coloured folks.' " I carefully preserved these notices. It seemed strange to me that if negroes had fired the barns they would have left such deliberately made traces of their identity. Such action simply would have provoked further insults. The notices 358 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE looked like a blind to me, a false clue to cast suspicion on the negroes. There had been one or two little incidents of friction between whites and blacks, but there was no bad blood and no feeling to incite arson so far as I could learn. " Beginning at the first of the four scenes of the fire, I went over the ground methodically, foot by foot, within a radius of five hundred feet of the fire. Leading into what had been the door of the first barn I found footprints in the earth of the barnyard. I measured them carefully, and covered them up and marked them so that none would molest them. Then I drove to the second barn and went over the ground carefully, and there also I found footprints leading to the barn. I measured them, and they tallied to a dot with the footprints at the first barn. I drove to the third barn, and after a long search I found, near a corner of the barn where the fire had started, footprints identical with those at the other two barns. Then I drove to the fourth barn, and to my surprise I found many such footprints around the barn. I marked the tracks carefully and arranged to have plaster casts made of them. I was confident they were the footprints of the incendiary and that one man alone fired the four barns. This strengthened me in my belief that the notices indicating negroes had fired the barns were a blind. " Nevertheless, 1 visited the darkey settlement and, armed with the accurate measurements of the tracks, I investigated the size of the feet and shoes of the darkies. Not a single foot or boot or shoe or slipper did I find to match the footprints. " I went again from farm to farm, beginning at the one where the first fire broke out. Each farmer talked freely, answering all questions, telling of waking up to find night turned into day with four monster fires blazing and throwing showers of sparks skyward, while the country for miles around was illuminated. The fourth farmer, Edward Kehoe, dwelt on the splendour of the scene. When I began to question him as to his idea of the origin of the fires he began to curse the darkies. I stood listening and thinking of the notices found on the gateposts. " ' Was your barn insured ? ' I asked casually. FOUR BARN BURNINGS OF CHATHAM 359 " ' You're not the insurance agent, too, are you ? ' ho answered. " The tone of his voice caused me to glance quickly at him. In so doing my eyes fell upon a pair of old ragged boots he was wearing. The footprints had been made with com- paratively new boots or newly soled boots. "' Where are the boots you wore this morning ? ' I asked. " Kehoe started as if I had stuck a pin in him. " ' These are the boots,' he said shakily. " ' Where are the boots you wore yesterday ? ' I asked. " ' They were burned in the barn/ said he. " I told him the first farmer wished to see him about a clue. He started off. When he was out of sight I entered his house and began a search for the boots. I could not find them. As I rummaged in out-of-the-way nooks and corners, 1 came upon a small memorandum book, a milkman's book. I opened it, and instantly the pages reminded me of the notices found on the gateposts. There was writing on some of the pages. I took out the notices and compared them. The hand that wrote in the book also wrote the notices. Page by page I turned the book from cover to cover. Pages were missing. I inserted the four notices. They fitted, even to the irregularities in the edges. They had been torn out of the book. " I hunted anew for the boots. I could find no trace of them. An idea came to me. I went out and looked at a field where wheat had been sown. A farmer near by told me Kehoe had sown it. I went down to the field. There were the tracks of the sower marked in the soil. I measured them. They matched the footprints leading into Marshall's barn, one of the four that had been fired. They were the footprints of Kehoe. My case was complete. " I started down the road, driving. I met Kehoe coming back afoot. He was passing me by without speaking. "'Hold on!' I called. " ' What do you want ? ' he growled. " ' Whose field is that? ' I asked. "'Mine?' said he. " ' Who sowed it ? ' " ' I did, every foot of it,' said he. " ' Thank you,' said T. ' Now if you will get in I will drive you to Chatham gaol and lock you up.' " He quailed, but laughed and told me not to crack any more jokes like that. " ' I mean every word of it,' said I sternly. ' Come here and get in.' " He obeyed, and I took him to Chatham and locked him up. I spent days hunting for those boots. I never found them. Kehoe must have buried them. He was tried for arson, and was convicted and sent to Kingston Penitentiary for seven years. He had insured his barn heavily and I guess he needed the money. He claimed falsely that thirty-five acres of his farm had been planted with peas. I rooted for the boots, but they seemed to have walked off the earth. If Kehoe burned them he must have thrown them into his own burning barn and then walked barefooted on the air to leave no tracks. But if he buried them may their soles rest in peace." Chapter LX ALMEDA CHATTELLE, THE HAIRY MAN CHUNKS of a human body were found in a clump of woods near Listowel, in the county of Perth, on Friday, October ipth, 1894. They were fitted together and proved to be about two-thirds of the remains of a beautiful young girl. They had been found by searchers hunting for trace of Jessie Keith, the fourteen-year-old daughter of respectable country folk living three miles out of Listowel. Jessie had started in the morning for Listowel to get some groceries. " Hours passed and she did not return," says Murray. " Her parents investigated and learned she had not arrived at the grocery. Searching parties were organised and they divided the country into sections. The party hunting beyond the Keith home came upon the pieces of a body lying in the woods. Newly turned earth showed them where parts had been buried. Other portions were spread out ALMEDA CHATTELLE, THE HAIRY MAN 361 while others had been tossed into the brush. Tightly wrapped around the neck was a white petticoat, soaked crimson. The head was uncovered and the pretty face of Jessie Keith was revealed. The girl had been disembowelled and carved into pieces. The Department was notified instantly and I hastened to Listowel. I found the folk greatly excited. " Bands of men were scouring the country calling upon every man they met to give an account of himself and prove he was not near Elm Bush, the dense woods where the body had been found. One of the searching parties met a man beyond Listowel, and as he was a stranger to them they led him back and sternly bade him tell whence he came and by what road. The fellow answered frankly that he had been working near Ailsa Craig and was on his way to another job. They had been ready to deal severely with him but when he told his straightforward story they felt that they had wronged him and they took up a collection for him, and released him to go his way. I heard of this and started immediately to get the fellow and have a talk with him, but he was gone. I telegraphed all over the country to keep a lookout for him and striking his trail on the road he had taken, I drove night and day for two days to overtake him. He went through Wallace township, then north to Palmerston, stole a ride on a freight train, was seen the next morning at six o'clock in Peel township, county of Wellington, twenty-six miles from Listowel. He was travelling afoot on the gravel road from Guelph to Port Elgin, where Charles Quinn gave him breakfast. From Guelph he went to Erin, known also as Cataract Station, forty-four miles from Listowel. My telegram had preceded him. He was heading for the United States when he was arrested and taken to Stratford gaol. "When I looked at him he reminded me of a gorilla. He was as hairy as Esau. As I studied him he seemed to look less like a gorilla and more like a donkey. He had huge ears and his face actually resembled the features of a jackass. He was very dark. He was not tall, but was broad and powerful, being under medium height, yet weighing one 362 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE hundred and ninety pounds. He wore a woman's knitted jacket that had been stretched to bursting to cover his bulging muscles. On the back of his head was tilted a Glengarry cap. He walked with the peculiar swaying motion of a baboon when it rises on its hind legs and toddles across its cage. In fact, if the wild man of Borneo had been clipped close as to his hair, he would have been mistaken for this fellow's twin brother. He had a knife. I looked at it. There were stains on it blood stains. He tallied exactly to the description given by Robert Morris, a neighbour of the Keiths, of a man he saw on the morning of the butchery walking toward the scene of the crime and within a mile of the bush. The man seen by Morris had carried a little valise. A small satchel had been found hid in the bush, near the pieces of the body. " ' What is your name ? ' I asked this hairy man. " ' Almeda Chattelle,' said he. " His voice was soft and low and sweet, a gentle voice. I was astonished. He spoke as a gentleman. " ' Be seated,' said I. " We sat down. " ' Where is your home ? ' I asked. "' In Lower Canada,' said he. ' That is, I was born there. The world is my home. But I spent my boyhood near St. Hyacinthe, in the Province of Quebec. I have travelled some. I sailed out of Boston, and I know the West Indies well.' " He spoke almost sorrowfully. He hesitated, looked up half timidly and smiled. " ' I was in a lunatic asylum in Massachusetts for a time, he said. ' They sent me there from Boston. I thought there was no need to do it. After they had me there for some time they said I was all right and they let me go. I agreed with them, and I think I am all right now.' " I then went over his movements step by step before and after the crime. "'Chattelle,' I repeated, 'you were walking near Listowel on Friday and you met a little girl.' " The hairy man looked at me wistfully. ALMEDA CHATTELLE, THE HAIRY MAN 363 " ' Yes, mister, I did," he answered as simply as a little child. " ' What did you do ? ' " ' I grabbed her around the waist and carried her to the woods,' he answered, all the while looking at me as a dog would look at a man it liked. ' She screamed and dug her heels into the ground, so I tied a white skirt around her neck. She still struggled, so I took out my knife and I cut her across this way and then down this way, and I threw away the parts of her I did not wish, and the parts I liked I treated considerately, and later I buried them under a tree. I was not unkind to the parts I liked.' " The hairy man told this horrible tale of butchery in a gentle, tender voice, illustrating on his own body how he had carved and hacked the body of the young girl. " ' You see,' he continued, ' I had stopped at a house farther back on the road and a red-haired girl gave me a handout. i was all right until I met the red-haired girl. I looked at her red hair and then I went away, and when I met the pretty little girl it all came over me like a flash and I just grabbed her and carried her across the fields to the woods and cut her up. I do not think I was right just then, although I was all right before it, and I am all right now, and I remember all that I did.' " The hairy man paused and his eyes sought mine. " ' 1 am very sorry,' he said softly. ' I know it is too late to be sorry, but I am very sorry. I got sorry at once, and I was trying to get to the other side. I was starting for Niagara Falls when they caught me and took me back ; but they accused me of it, so I lied to them and they believed me and gave me money and let me go.' " I looked at Almeda Chattelle, the hairy man. I looked at the big, gentle eyes, at the huge hands that had torn the child to pieces. He waited patiently for me to speak. I stepped to the door and sent for the County Attorney, who came in, and to him Chattelle repeated his confession. His memory was perfect as to every detail. " I set out to prove the crime against him precisely as if he never had confessed. I took the woman's knitted jacket 364 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE that he wore and the white skirt found wrapped around the young girl's neck and the valise found hid in the bush, and I undertook to find their owner or owners. I knew the house of Donald McLeod at Ailsa Craig had been robbed on Tuesday, October 2nd. A valise and other property had been taken. I telegraphed for Mrs. McLeod and she came to the gaol. She looked at Almeda Chattelle and said at once that she had seen him before, that he had dug a cellar for a new house near Ailsa Craig. I showed to her the valise, the jacket, and the skirt. She identified them all as property stolen from her home. She pointed out also the Glengarry cap that the hairy man wore and said it, too, had been stolen from her house. " ' Yes, I stole the valise and what was in it,' said the hairy man to me. " Robert Morris and others proved Almeda Chattelle was going to the bush and later was coming from the bush where the crime was committed. "I took Almeda Chattelle to Listowel on October 25th, and he was held for trial. Stones were pelted through the windows of the place where I had him. One of the stones struck the hairy man. " ' If they are going to hang me, why do they not hang me now?' he said. ' I'd rather be hanged to death than stoned to death ! ' " I knew that some of the enraged people were aroused and that a crowd might try to lynch Almeda Chattelle. Sure enough, a crowd began to gather in the evening. They had a rope. A train left for Stratford at 10.25 that night. I had a carriage drive to the door just before train time and I jumped into it with the hairy man, and we were off at a gallop for the station. I had him out of the carriage and into the rear car before the crowd could get at him. Some of them sprang up to uncouple the car. I told the hairy man to get down between the seats if there was trouble, and then I stepped out on the car platform and faced the crowd. It was a delicate situation, but the train pulled out a moment later and the hairy man was saved from a premature hanging. THE GANGS OF BURTCH AND RUTLEDGE 365 "Almeda Chattclle was hanged in Stratford in the spring of 1895. H C raised no question as to his sanity, and his plea at his preliminary examination had been ' Guilty.' All he said was : ' I am sorry.' From the moment I was satisfied that he was aware of what he was doing, at the time he did it and thereafter, no doubt of his full responsibility for his crime presented itself to me. He, indeed, was horrible, hairy, human, with hands like the paws of a bear. Yet his voice was as gentle as his crime was brutal." Chapter LXI THE GANGS OF BURTCH AND RUTLEDGE THE mysteries of the codes of communication among inmates of penitentiaries are regarded by some as past finding out. To others they constitute simply a series of coughs, taps, footscrapes, and occasional whispers, all significant with some meaning or message understood by the other convicts who hear them. But the bulk of tangible communication is done by whispers, and the taps or coughs are chiefly the signals of the whereabouts of guards or keepers. Telegraphers who have served time have been known to have secret cipher codes, and in the night they chatted by gentle tapping or subdued coughing, each tap and cough equivalent to the tick of a telegraph instrument. Two telegraphers who worked in a stone yard, and later in a shop in a penitentiary talked all day long, the taps of their hammers answering for the click of the telegraph. " In the latter part of 1894 a series of burglaries occurred in various parts of the Province, and from the outset I was satisfied the jobs were the work of professionals, and daring, desperate professionals, too,'' says Murray. " I was making my best endeavour to capture them, and early in the chase I learned that there were two gangs at work, and that both of them had been organised in Kingston before their members had finished the sentences they then were serving. There was not much difference in the dates of their discharge, and 3 66 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE they took in some pals from outside when they began to work. Some of the early burglaries supplied witnesses, who gave me good descriptions of strangers seen near the places robbed shortly before the jobs were done. I thus was able to figure out the make-up of the two gangs. " In one gang were Frank Rutledge, a highwayman and burglar ; Billy Black, a safe breaker ; Walter Irvine, a burglar ; and Lew Lawrence, an all-round man. In the second gang were old Jimmy Stull, a former telegrapher ; Howard Burtch, who already had done several years in Illinois, apart from his Canada time ; and Frank Jackson, a Cleveland crook, who was wanted in the States for murder, and who had served time after I had sent his father down for counterfeiting. They were a fine collection of clever, desperate crooks. Several of them had done murder in their time, and they cared little for human life. They had set out, evidently, to clean up a fortune by burglary in Canada. Job after job was pulled off. Sometimes there were two jobs in one night, both gangs being busy. I was able, by descriptions after the robberies, to trace each gang. I determined to break them up if I had to stay awake nights for a year. I sent out, very carefully, descriptions of the gangs to trusted friends in the States and in Canada. I also set a watch on the home of Rutledge. His father lived in Streetsville, Ontario. "On November 2nd, 1894, I was informed that Rutledge's gang had arrived in Streetsville. I took Detectives Davis, Cuddy, and others, and went to Streetsville, arriving later that evening. We prepared for a stiff fight. We surrounded the Rutledge house, creeping up to it quietly. Then we burst in the doors and entered. The birds had flown. They had slipped out not a minute too soon. The table was spread, the coffee on it was still warm. We found Rutledge's father and mother. They, of course, said they knew nothing of the visit of their son and his gang. Yet they were unable to explain why the table was set for six, with food and coffee for six. We went to a second house, where a man named Bill Ward lived. Ward was a friend of the Rutledges, and also had done time. We cracked it open, but the gang had gone. I was chagrined considerably, as I had hoped to bag THE GANGS OF BURTCH AND RUTLEDGK 367 the Rutledge bunch, and I knew it would be many a day before they would turn up in Streetsvillc again after such a close call. " A few nights later the banking house of Hartman & Wilgress, in Clarksburg, near Thorn bury, in the county of Grey, was burglarised. The thieves made an effort to get into the safe, but they were foiled by circumstances, and succeeded in getting into the outer vault only. In this outer vault, however, was a large quantity of valuable silver ware, wedding presents to Mr. and Mrs. Wilgress, also a number of exceedingly rare and high-priced coins owned by Mr. Hartman. The burglars stole all this silver ware and all the coins. I went to Thornbury the next day, and the descrip- tions of strangers seen near the town a few hours before the burglary showed that it was another job by my old friends, Irvine, Rutledge, and Black. I returned to Toronto, and laid plans to trace the silver ware. " In due time Irvine walked into the back office of a jeweller in Toronto with a bar of silver and sold it. This bar had been made by melting the Wilgress wedding presents. Irvine also visited the Gladstone House in Toronto, and showed a rare Chinese coin to the bar-tender, and later gave the coin to him. We got Irvine in Toronto, and the jeweller and bar-tender identified him, and Mr. Hartman identified the coin. I took Irvine to Owen Sound, where he was convicted on Thursday, December I3th, 1894, and was sent to Kingston for five years. He was the first. Bud Kinney had been with Irvine and the gang in several of their jobs. Bud was shot dead at Port Dalhousie in a robbery attempted there. Black I got in Hamilton, caught red-handed. He got five years. " Rutledge jumped the country. He crossed to the United States, and turned up in Greely County, Colorado, where he was arrested for stealing a bicycle. In his pocket they found clippings about Irvine and Black, and a slip with my name on it. The sheriff telegraphed to me, and I sent him Rutledge's history. At the trial of Rutledge, in Colorado, my letter to the sheriff was read. Rutledge was convicted and sent down for six years. 368 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE " ' When I get out I am going back to Canada and kill that Murray ! ' Rutledge declared. " In 1901 he reappeared in Canada at the head of another gang, and due notice came to me that Rutledge intended to kill me. His particular pal was a crook named Rice. They had a third bird with them. They were trailed on one of their first jobs, and were followed to Chicago, caught there, extradited and tried for the Markham burglary. They were being taken in a carriage from the court house to the Toronto gaol, when some one threw a package into the carnage. Constables Steward and Boyd were in the carriage with the prisoners. The package contained loaded revolvers. The prisoners grabbed the revolvers, and one of them shot and killed Boyd, who was a good officer. After the shooting die prisoners jumped out of the carriage, ran to a street cai^ and tried to take possession of the car. Constable Steward followed, and in the shooting one of the burglars was killed. Rutledge and Rice were re-captured, and were taken to gaol. Rutledge ran up to the third corridor of the gaol, leaped over the railing, turned a complete somersault, and landed on the stone floor beneath. He was killed by the fall, a case of suicide. Rice was hanged. " Lew Lawrence was caught in 1894, and tried in Berlin for a burglary at Gait, where his identification was perfect. He was convicted, and went back to Kingston for seven years. So ended the first gang Rutledge dead, Kinney dead, Irvine, Black, and Lawrence back in Kingston. " The second gang was led by Howard Burtch. He was a desperate burglar. He had served three years here, then had gone to Chicago, where he shot and killed a policeman while committing a burglary. He was sent to Joliet Penitentiary in Illinois for twenty years, but later his lawyers enabled him to get out. He came back here, and after a series of burglaries I got a perfect case against him in St. Catharine's. Burtch skipped to the States, and I got him in Buffalo in 1896. He had been sent down for larceny there, and as he came out of the penitentiary I took him. He fought extradi- tion, but I brought him back, and he got ten years. He is in Kingston Penitentiary now. THE MIDDLfcMARCH MYSTKRY 369 "Old Jimmy Stull, one of Burtch's pals, was a funny little fellow. Jimmy was past fifty, although he always was sensi- tive on the subject of his age. He had been a telegraph operator in earlier years, and never failed to give his occupa- tion as ' a member of the profession of telegraphy.' When Jimmy was broke he would go to the nearest telegraph office, and tap with his finger a request for a loan. He usually got it, too. Jimmy was slippery, and it was not until 1897 that I arrested him. I got him in June of that year. He made a wry face, and said he had hoped he never would set eyes on me in either this world or the next. The burglary for which he was tried was the robbery of James H. Goring's store in Wellandport. Jimmy was convicted at St. Catharine's, and went to Kingston for five years. " Frank Jackson got away to the States. He bothered us no more over here. So ended the second gang. It took three years or more to tuck them all away, but in the end they were broken up. Out of the eight men, two were dead, five were back in prison, and one was in exile. '" The exile is the worst off of all of us,' said old Jimmy Stull." Chapter LXII THE MIDDLEMARCH MYSTERY A CLUMP of timber near Middlemarch, three miles from St. Thomas, in the county of Elgin, became known throughout all Canada in 1895. For years it had stood on the county maps as Wardell's woods. It was good for squirrels and firewood and that was about all. But in the closing days of 1894 came a tragedy that caused people to travel for miles simply to tramp through this fragment of a forest and gape at the scene of blood. The crime has passed into the records as the Middlemarch mystery, although its mystery long since was solved. " William Henry Hendershott, a name which its owner always wrote or pronounced in full, as if he were proud of its 24 370 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE extent and its euphony, was a young man, unmarried, well known among his neighbours, and a skilled hand about a farm," says Murray. " He boarded with his uncle, John Hendershott, a farmer. A fellow-boarder was young William David Welter, who was engaged to Mary Hendershott, the pretty daughter of John Hendershott. On the morning of Friday, December I4th, 1894, John Hendershott and his daughter Mary drove away to Eden, forty miles from home, leaving his nephew and Welter on the farm. About three o'clock that afternoon Welter went to the house of his cousin, Charles Welter, who lived near the Hendershotts, and told his cousin that a tree had fallen on William Henry Hendershott, while they were chopping in Wardell's woods and had killed him. The uncle was notified by telegraph at Eden, and the next day he drove home, and after a post- mortem, the body of William Henry Hendershott was buried on Monday, December i/th. Welter told at the inquest how the tree had fallen and crushed his companion to death. I was telegraphed for the next day and I arrived on Tuesday night. " I got Drs. Gustin, Lawrence, Fulton, McCarty, and Wilson, and drove to Fingal cemetery and exhumed the body of William Henry Hendershott and looked at the wounds. The only marks were on the head. There was not a scratch on the remainder of the body. Clearly, if a tree fell on him it must have fallen on the head alone. Moreover there were various wounds on the head. Instead of a complete crushing it showed numerous contusions, so that the tree would have to bounce up and down on the head to make them. They looked to me as if they had been made by many heavy blows instead of by the single smash of a falling tree. I had the head taken off and requested the doctors to preserve it. " We then drove to the scene of the tragedy in Wardell's woods. I had a constable bring Welter to the place. Welter came striding through the woods, a massive fellow, over six feet tall, deep-chested, broad-shouldered, powerful. We were waiting for him by the fallen tree. " ' Welter,' said I, 'show me the exact spot where William THE MIDDLEMARCH MYSTERY 371 Henry Hendershott stood, and where you stood, and show me precisely where you were when the tree fell.' " Welter walked over by the stump of the tree. " ' I stood here,' he said. ' Hendershott had left his vest with his watch in it over there on the .ground, and when he saw the tree falling that way he ran to get the vest out of the way, and the tree killed him.' " ' Show me where the vest lay/ said I. " Welter walked out along the fallen tree to a spot about forty feet from the stump. " ' Here it was, and here he was killed,' said Welter. " At this point on the tree trunk was a large knot, the shape of a cocoanut and bigger than a half-bushel basket. When the tree fell this knot had been buried in the springy soil. The buoyancy of the limbs had raised it up, leaving a hole in the ground beneath the knot. " ' I found Hendershott lying dead in the ground beneath this knot/ said Welter. " ' Get down on the ground and place yourself exactly as he was lying when you found him/ said I, " Welter demurred, but finally sprawled flat, face down, his head in the hole beneath the knot. " ' Stay there now/ I said. " I called the doctors to take careful notice. I had Welter, lying on the ground, explain it all again. Then I bade Welter step back. " ' Would there not be a smashed head and a great deal of blood/ I asked the doctors. " ' There certainly would/ they said. " The doctors examined the soil, a rich loam. There was no blood. One by one the doctors made sure of this. I then took samples of the earth. Blood was on the knot. But it had been smeared on and had not splattered at all. The doctors examined it and said it had been rubbed on the knot. On the top of the tree as it lay, I found a large quantity of blood. " ' How do you account for that ? ' I asked Welter. " ' I don't know/ he said. " I began to circle the tree in ever widening circles, and 372 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE one hundred and ninety feet from the stump I came upon a little pool of water. Around it were spots of blood, and a zigzag trail of blood drips led to a place fifty feet from the stump, and there I found a lot of blood. Hendershott had been killed there, then put under the top of the tree, and then removed to where the knot was. The murderer had washed his hands, and perchance his weapon, in the little pool. Thus I accounted for the various crimson stains. I believed the weapon used was the axe that chopped the tree. I searched the woods thrice and could not find it, but at last it was revealed. It had been shoved in between the bark and the log of an old tree trunk. It never would have been dis- covered if one of the searchers had not stumbled on the log and smashed the bark off so that the axe fell out. It had been partially washed, but there were tell-tale traces on it. John Hendershott had given me previously an old axe, saying it was the one used to chop the tree. It was not. " When I again came to the woods I found a lot more blood splattered about in confusing quantities. I investigated and found an old dead horse in a field near by. During the night some of Welter's friends had drawn blood from this carcass and sprinkled it around in Wardell's woods. They were too late. I already had taken my samples of the stained soil. " I learned that Welter and John Hendershott had ne- gotiated $11,000 insurance on the life of the dead man. Several months before, they had taken out two policies, one for $6,000 in a Galesburg (Illinois) Company, and one for $5,000 in the Mutual Reserve of New York. Both policies were in the name of John Hendershott as the beneficiary. I knew many of the people in that part of Canada, as it was my old headquarters when I was at St. Thomas with the rail- road. Among my acquaintances was a worthless fellow named Patrick Fitzpatrick, who was known as Paddy the Diver. He was the St. Thomas town drunkard. Paddy the Diver told me Welter and John Hendershott had spoken to him about insuring his life. I investigated among the insurance companies and found the two men had tried to insure Paddy the Diver, but the applications had been refused. Then they had taken Paddy the Diver to Aylmer before another THE MIDDLEMARCH MYSTERY 373 doctor, and had changed his name slightly, and he passed the examination and the application was approved, but when it reached the insurance company's head office the trick was discovered, owing to the failure to make a greater change in the name, and the policy was cancelled. So they then effected the $i 1,000 insurance on Hendershott's nephew. This was done several months before the murder. "These circumstances left no doubt in my mind that John Hendershott, the uncle, was a party to the crime. I went to Eden, where John Hendershott had driven, with his pretty daughter, on the morning of the murder, and where he had stayed all night. I saw those who were with him when he heard of his nephew's death. " ' It's just like that fool to leave his watch some place, and in going to get it he might get hurt,' said John Hendershott when the telegram came stating his nephew was dead. " This settled it. Welter had told us of the watch and had stated on the day of the murder the same version of how young Hendershott met his death. But how did John Hendershott, forty miles away, happen to give the same version as Welter, although John Hendershott knew nothing of how it had occurred ? They had fixed up the story before- hand. John Hendershott, in Eden, also showed the insurance policies to friends. He had taken the policies with him when he drove away to Eden. Why ? When he heard his nephew was dead he produced the policies from his coat pocket. " ' Will got killed, but I am not so badly off,' he told his friends. " I re-opened the inquest. I arrested Welter and John Hendershott on December 2ist, 1894. They were tried before Chief Justice Meredith. B. B. Osier prosecuted, ably assisted by D. J. Donahue ; and Norman Macdonald and John A. Robinson defended. Mr, Macdonald made a good fight in behalf of his clients. It was a long-drawn-out trial. We swore eighty-five or more witnesses for the Crown. On Friday, March I5th, 1895, botn Welter and John Hendershott were convicted. They were hanged on June iSth at St. Thomas. Welter was a heavy man on the gallows." 374 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE Chapter LXIII THE GRADED GRAYS DAVID SCOLLIE was an old man with a long white beard, and Tommie Gray was a tow-headed boy. David Scollie was six times as old as Tommie Gray, and Tommie was eleven years old. David Scollie lived alone on a little farm, in the township of Otonabee, in the county of Peterboro. Tommie Gray lived across the road with his parents. Thomas Gray, the father of Tommie Gray, was a farm labourer, with a wife and six children, the oldest being a girl of twelve. Thomas Gray worked for various farmers, chiefly for John Graham Weir. Tommie Gray spent most of his time with his friend David Scollie in fact, Tommie and David spent most of their days together. " Scollie was so old that he got Mrs. Gray to do baking and occasionally set his house in order for him," says Murray. " He was very fond of young Tommie Gray. Finally Tommie's father struck up a bargain with old Scollie. They agreed that if he gave them his farm they would keep him and care for him as long as he lived. To Scollie it meant an end of worry over housekeeping, and above all, life with Tommie would be unbroken. The old man went to Peter- boro and had the papers drawn up transferring his farm to the Grays. The deed was executed and the Grays moved to Scollie's house. Early on the morning of February 23rd, 1894, the house was destroyed by fire. Gray had gone to Maydock, forty miles away, on the previous day to see his brother, and was absent when the fire occurred. Mrs. Gray, Tommie Gray, and the other children escaped and were cared for by neighbours. Old David Scollie was found in the ruins dead. He was buried and soon thereafter the Grays sold his farm to Michael Fitzgerald for $1,000, squan- dered the money, and disappeared with all the children. "Months passed. Over a year later, in May 1895, W. J. McGregor, a brother-in-law of Thomas Gray, told of a talk between Mrs. Gray and Mrs. McGregor shortly before the fire. THE GRADED GRAYS 375 "' If something isn't done with that old divvle of a Scollie he is as likely to live as long as I will,' Mrs. Gray said to Mrs. McGregor. " ' I suppose he will live as long as God will let him,' replied her sister. "'No. I'll be - - if he will; I won't let him,' said Mrs. Gray. "' Be very careful or the law will get you,' said her sister, Mrs. McGregor. "Then had come the fire, with old Scollie's body found in the ruins. " Almost sixteen months later the matter was reported and the Government sent me to Otonabee to investigate. I looked over the case. I took doctors and went to Petcrboro, and had the body exhumed. I found the head completely severed or burned from the body. I was surprised to find so few traces of burns on the remainder of the body. A head cannot well be burned from a body without the trunk showing evidences of the intense heat. However, the body had been buried so long that it was very hard to make a satisfactory post-mortem. I learned also that the body had been found in the cellar after the fire in an opposite corner from that beneath Scollie's own room. He could not very well have fallen from overhead .to the spot where he was found, with his head severed. Ho\v had he come there ? " It was decided to locate the Grays and bring them back. A letter had been received from them by one of their old-time neighbours, saying they were living near Ocala, Florida. I prepared extradition papers and went to Florida. I found them living in great poverty and squalor. Their house was a shanty, some of the children were running around practically naked. I looked at the six little ones, dirty, clothesless, and hungry. I could not take the parents and leave the six children alone in this shanty. They would have starved to death or perished of neglect. So I took the entire family to Ocala and registered them at the gaol. The sheriff and his wife and townsfolk washed the children and made up a purse and bought them clothes. Tommie Gray invested five cents, given to him by a lady, in candy known 376 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE to Tommie as Red Dave's jawbone. Tommie would begin to suck on a jawbone after breakfast, and along toward sundown it would melt away. " I can see my party now as it looked when we started north. I was the tallest, then came Thomas Gray, then Mrs. Gray, and then six little Grays. We made a human stairway, with my head the top landing and a Gray baby no taller than my knee the bottom step. Tommie Gray, his pockets bulging with all-day suckers, alias Red Dave's jawbones, was the fourth step from the top and the fourth step from the bottom. Despite all my efforts to form them in column of two, the Grays persisted in walking Indian file, the tallest first, the smallest last. I led this parade of graduated pro- geny through the streets of Ocala with a horde of shouting pickaninnies trailing in the wake of the procession. Tommie Gray sang at the top of his voice all the way to the station. " On the train I found the Grays still bound to arrange themselves according to age and size. The moment the train started Mrs. Gray began to boohoo, and the six little Grays burst forth into a chorus of caterwauling, and Thomas Gray blubbered, while Tommie Gray opened wide his cave of the winds and poured forth frantic howls. Of course this was not pleasant for the other passengers, and several men promptly left the car after glaring at me. A gentle old lady arose and crossed to the seat of the wailing Tommie. " ' Poor little mannie,' she said tenderly. " ' G'way, darn you ! ' howled Tommie. ' Don't you dare to try kiss me ! ' "'What ails the mannie? What's the matter?' said the old lady soothingly. " ' Can't you see I'm crying, you old fool ? ' howled Tommie. " For answer, the sweet old lady suddenly reached down and seized the weeping Tommie, and, despite his kicks and struggles, lifted him up and laid him across her knees and spanked him soundly. To my utter astonishment and the amazement of the Grays, Tommie suddenly ceased his howling and looked up and smiled. "'That's better,' said the old lady, and Tommie Gray grinned as he rubbed his tingling seat of chastisement. THE GRADED GRAYS 377 " At sight of Tommie grinning, all the other Grays promptly stopped howling. The old lady returned to her seat, while the eight Grays eyed her. Suddenly a long loud wail broke forth. It was Tommie Gray. " ' She bruk me jawbones ! ' he howled. ' She bruk me jawbones ! ' " The other Grays took up the wailing. They shrieked and bellowed. Over all could be heard Tommie Gray, howling : " ' She bruk me jawbones ! She bruk me jawbones ! ' " The old lady paled, then flushed. At length she arose and came over to me. "'Sir,' she said, ' I trust you do not think I injured him. I did not strike him on his face, so his jawbone is unhurt. I struck him not on the face, but on his on the on the appropriate place provided therefor, sir, and it was I it was with my open hand.' " ' Oh, it's all right,' I answered. ' I can have his jaw set when I get him home.' " Tommie meanwhile had produced one of the broken jawbones and was sucking it contentedly. One by one the tribe of Grays fell asleep. The old lady dozed in her seat. I looked at my eight slumbering charges. I had travelled many miles with many prisoners, but never did I have such a cargo and such a trip. It was a long series of snorings and shriekings. When they were awake they howled, and when they were asleep they snored, and Tommie Gray kicked in his sleep and had dreams that called for wild acrobatic feats. It was stifling hot weather, too, and the pre- sence of the Grays could be detected, even by a blind man, if his olfactory organ did even half its duty. "I landed them in Peterboro on Friday, July 5th, 1895. Mrs. Gray was tried at the Fall Assizes. A seventh Gray child was expected soon after the trial. Tommie Gray went on the stand, and his testimony saved the day for his mother. Tommie testified her right out of it. Mrs. McGregor's state- ment of Mrs. Gray's talk with her duly appeared. All things being considered, including the expected seventh Gray, the verdict of acquittal perturbed no one. Thomas Gray left his 378 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE wife after the case was over and went his way alone. Mrs. McGregor's cow was poisoned by an unconvicted hand. What became of Tommie Gray, the guardian angel of freckle- faced, tow-headed jawbone-suckers only knows." Chapter LXIV GEORGE ALGER'S GRAVEYARD POLICY GRAVEYARD insurance is as old as the insurance of life itself. On a small scale it is practised year after year with varying degrees of success. Occasionally a big raid is planned on the insurance companies ; but the larger the amount involved, the less apt the plan is to work out. In Canada, however, in the year 1895, a scheme to mulct the insurance companies out of many thousands of dollars was engineered and was begin- ning to materialise, when it was detected and broken up. A number of persons doomed to die were insured by fraud and misrepresentation, through a conspiracy involving agents of some companies. " The case that brought the whole conspiracy to collapse was located in the township of Pickering, in the county of Ontario, ten miles from Whitby, the county seat," says Murray. " A farmer, named George Alger, and his wife lived there on a fine, big farm. Mrs. Alger was a delicate woman. In the same neighbourhood lived Dr. Charles Henry Francey, who was medical examiner for a number of insurance companies, one of them being the Equitable. In 1894 Alger and Dr. Francey effected an insurance on the life of Mrs. Alger in the Equitable for $7,000, and on July nth of the next year application was made for $5,000 in the Home Life. The application was approved, as it was regular and favourable, owing to the conspiracy. Before the policy could arrive Mrs. Alger was dead. She died on August I3th, 1895, and, while she lay in her coffin in the parlour, the $5,000 policy on her life came to her husband. " Alger set out to collect the insurance. An action was begun, and finally came to trial in Toronto. In the mean- GEORGE ALGER'S GRAVEYARD POLICY 379 time the Home Life policy, so closely connected with her death, led to an investigation. I had the body of Mrs. Alger exhumed in Brougham cemetery, and had it examined by Dr. Ferguson and Dr. Bingham. They found death had been due to consumption. She had been ill for several years I learned from others. Alger went on the stand in the trial in Toronto, and gave evidence clearly contrary to the facts. I was satisfied there was a conspiracy afoot. I arrested him and took him to Whitby, where he was committed for trial for conspiracy. Dr. Francey, who had acted in the dual capacity of medical examiner for the insurance companies and Alger's physician, had left the country. He went to Buffalo. After staying there some time I located him and saw him, and he was persuaded to return and give evidence under the protection of the Crown. When this had been accomplished, it simplified the whole matter. We needed Francey to prove other cases. " We showed at the trial of Alger that Dr. Eastwood, in 1888, had examined Mrs. Alger, and had told Alger that his wife had consumption and would die in a few years, if she did not have a change of climate. The years passed. Mrs. Alger grew worse. Her husband sat by as she coughed her life away, and as the end drew near took out insurance by fraud and then waited for her to die. It must have been a pleasant household where this weak woman sat suffocating day after day, each day being harder than the day before, while the man with the big farm and perfect health sat quietly by, waiting for her to smother to death so that he could grow richer by her dying ! His so-called friend came and went, but the woman was left to die. Instead of sending her to the mountains or to California to live, as he could have done, he speculated on her death, cheating her in her life and en- deavouring to cheat the companies by her death. But, by the irony of fate, after lingering so many suffering years, she died too soon. She was very patient and brave during her agony and endeavoured to make her husband as little trouble as possible. She never knew of his villainy. "Alger was tried in March 1896, and was convicted and sent to Kingston for seven years. Dr. Francey not only 380 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE testified against Alger and revealed the entire dastardly plot, but admitted his own part in it and acknowledged he was a rascal. He confessed also that he had acted with equal dishonesty in a number of other instances. There was considerable excitement over the revelations. " The result was a wholesale overhauling of a number of policies. The Equitable cancelled two policies on the life of A. E. Thornton of Whitevale ; a policy on the life of Donald Beaton, a policy on the life of J. H. Besse, and a policy on the life of James Sadler, of Greenwood. Other companies cancelled other policies and the conspiracy collapsed. " Nicholas L. Brown, an Ontario agent of the Home Life, came to me and told me how he got into it. He got off. Joseph Hortop, agent for the Ontario Mutual Association, also got off. In the trial of the case, Crown Attorney Farewell prosecuted, while Alger was represented by G. Smith Mac- donald, T. Herbert Lennox, C. Russell Fitch, and S. Alfred Jones. The case marked the end in any concerted efforts in the Province to mulct the insurance ' companies on an extensive scale. Alger's seven years stands as a powerful deterrent to others. Dr. Francey left the Province. He went up into the North-West, and later I heard he was practising medicine in the western part of the United States. "Mrs. Alger developed consumption in 1888 and died in 1895. That was seven years of suffering. Alger went to the penitentiary for the same length of time seven years." Chapter LXV THE KILLING OF JAMES AGNEW " WHEN I die I intend to die on my own land ; I frown on trespassing and I am agin trespassing corpses most of all." James Agnew preached this text in his life and practised it in his death. He was a retired fanner, an estimable old man, who lived with his wife on the outskirts of the town of Lindsay, in the county of Victoria, sixty miles east of THE KILLING OF JAMES AGNEW 381 Toronto. He kept a horse and a cow, and delighted to potter around the stable and the garden as a reminder of his many active years on a farm. " I want no lingering and I want no trespassing when I die," he declared. On the night of March nth, 1896, the old man stepped out of his house to go to the stable, as was his custom, to make sure his horse and cow were comfortable and secure. It was eleven o'clock, pitch dark, and blowing and snowing. He left his wife knitting by the kitchen fire. He stumbled through the storm to the stable door and opened it. As he fumbled with the latch, death stalked through the snow, a crouching, wary figure. It stole close up to the old man and raised a hand as if pointing a finger at his white hair. There was a flash, a report, muffled in the gale ; the old man tumbled forward and fell. The figure stooped over him, rolled him over and silently vanished across the field and down the road. The wife knitted placidly by the kitchen fire. The minutes passed. She paused in her knitting, glanced uneasily at the clock, listened, then resumed her knitting, with an eye still on the clock, and finally arose, threw open the kitchen door, and called : " James ! " There was no answer. She called thrice, and then, in alarm, ran out through the storm to the stable, and tripped over her husband's body in the doorway. With a shriek she fled to the nearest neighbour, Shannon by name, and the Shannons returned with her and found the old man dead, with a bullet hole behind the ear. " The murder was shrouded in mystery," says Murray. " I was at Whitby at the time, in the Alger insurance conspiracy case, and I started immediately for Lindsay. The railroads were blocked with snow. I road and drove and walked and finally arrived. I examined the premises and came upon a peculiar track in the snow. The same track was observed by a neighbour on the night of the shooting. It was the track of an old rubber which had something fastened on the sole that made a mark in the snow like a small, rectangular hole. This track led from the door of the stable 382 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE It was lost at times beneath the marks of other feet, but I found it farther away from the stable and followed it. The trail led to the house of Henry Logic, and on Logic's premises it was imprinted clearly in the snow. I talked with Mr. Logic. He had no such boot or shoe or rubber. But he had a young fellow working for him named John Carney, a big, overgrown boy of eighteen. His effects at Logic's were searched and an old rubber was found with a strap attached. I took this rubber or overshoe and strapped it on, so that the buckle of the strap was on the sole, and I stepped into the snow. The imprint was a duplicate of the imprint at Agnew's and of the track leading from the scene of the tragedy to Logic's. " The house of Carney's father was searched, and old man Agnew's watch was found in the cellar. The watch and a few dollars had been taken from the body when the old man was murdered. All his pockets had been rifled and his papers and his empty purse were found lying on the floor of the stable. In addition to the watch a revolver was found, in Carney's house, of the calibre of the bullet that had crashed into Agnew's head. The trigger of this revolver was missing. Miss Marron found the trigger at Logic's, where she lived, and it was among young Carney's effects. " I talked with everybody around the place, and I learned from several persons that they had seen young Carney down town in Lindsay about ten o'clock that night. I ascertained he was with his brother, Patrick Carney, and later with two young men named Harry Bush and Edward Roach. In fact these young men were together on the road leading past Agnew's. I found a man named Edward Burke, who had passed the Agnew house and who heard a shot ring out just after he passed. Roach testified at the inquiry that Carney had fired two shots in the air from his revolver near the Agnevvs, and that, after they were fired, Roach and Bush went home, leaving Carney in the road near the Agnew house. " John Carney and his brother Patrick were arrested, and on Tuesday, March 3ist, were committed for trial. The trial occurred at the Spring Assizes. Justice Street presided. THE KILLING OF JAMES AGNEW 383 The defence was conducted ably by John Barren, Q.C., now County Judge of Perth. John King, Q.C., prosecuted. Pat Carney proved an alibi. John Carney was convicted and was sentenced to be hanged. The sentence later was commuted to imprisonment for life. "When I finished with the Carney murder I went abroad for a yachting trip with friends. I sailed on the City of Rome on Saturday, June 6th, 1896, for Glasgow. It was my first real holiday in twenty years and I was as tickled as a schoolboy. I landed in Glasgow on June i6th and went to Edinburgh, where I spent a few days with relatives and old friends. On June 2Oth I sailed on the yacht Norway from Leith with a party of old-time friends. We cruised along the north coast of Scotland to Aberdeen and thence over the German Ocean to Norway, and went up north as far as the Lofoden Islands. On the trip back we visited various places along the coast of Norway and Sweden. We stopped in Copenhagen on June 2/th, and there I met a brother of Captain Salmers of the steamer Maipo, whom I met in the Aitken case in South America. On June 28th we sailed for Kiel, and on July ist we arrived in Hamburg. " From Germany I went to London and visited friends at Scotland Yard and elsewhere. On July 6th I went to France with another party of friends, and on July 8th, I called on Ernest Carnot, son of President Carnot, and Maurice de Jouliatt, my companions in the trip across the Andes Mountains in South America. I met also high officials in the French detective service, and I am frank to say that, of all the detective systems in the world with which I am familiar, I believe the system in vogue in Paris to be the most efficient, the ablest in conception, and the most effective in execution. I speak not of the public idea of what this system is, but of the secret workings of it, the years of training, the culling of men from all walks of life for the detective service, and the consequent ability to reach any line of life, any stratum of society, through agents familiar with all its phases. I had a royal good time in Paris. Paris is an inspiration to mellow memories. It is the capital of the world. I left it on July loth, amid many adieus, and 384 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE returned to London, where I spent several days, and on July I4th went to Liverpool, where I had a pleasant visit with Chief Inspector McConkey. He and I laughed over Parisian ways and I found that I had received a thorough introduction to life as it is lived in the city of splendid pleasures. "I went to Ireland on July I5th. I spent several days in Dublin, and thence went to Sligo, where I had an enjoyable time and owed much of my pleasure to the brother of Lord Dunraven, of yachting fame on this side of the Atlantic. From Sligo I went to Derry, and after further jaunts in Ireland I sailed on July 24th, on the steamer Vancouver, for Montreal. I arrived in Quebec on August ist, 1896, in Montreal on August 2nd, and in Toronto on August 3rd. " The world is full of surprises. I was walking in Paris when I came face to face with one of my acquaintances in the Buenos Ayres colony of fugitives. He greeted me effusively, and said he was on his way to Russia. He gave me the latest news of the hunted ones in South America, and all the gossip of the tropics of interest to pursuers and pursued. He had his own establishment in Paris and looked like a fashionable clubman. In response to his cordial invitation to visit him I extended an equally cordial invitation to him to stay out of Canada. He thanked me heartily and said he never had been there and never expected to be. He inquired about several crooks. " ' Registered at the Hotel Kingston,' was his phrase for their abiding place. " I was with a French detective official at the time I met this laugher-at-law and, as we walked on, the official, in casual conversation, went over the entire career of this man and remarked that he was expected to leave Paris the next day. He left. " I had an opportunity in Paris to observe the careful training given to detectives there. They are taken as young men and from various walks of life, from good families, and are placed with older, experienced men, and for months they go about, learning the faces and ways and lives of crooks of all kinds, lofty and low, convicted and unconvicted. They THE VOICE OF THE HAUNTED HOUSE 385 are educated, drilled, schooled for their work. They serve an apprenticeship as for a trade, they study as for a profession. This is as it should be. The failures are weeded out, the fittest survive. As the world grows and the throngs of humanity increase, the detection of crime will demand trained detectives, equipped for their career as men arc equipped for other occupations and professions. Educated men, of trained intellect, will be needed as well as men whose instinctive bent is for the detective business regardless of any general knowledge of life at large. France is on the right road in this respect. I saw the Parisian detectives at work. They are clever men. They know their city like the alphabet. What a city it is ! Trivialities and tragedies, with even the tragedies ofttimes ignored as trivial." Chapter LXVI THE VOICE OF THE HAUNTED HOUSE IT is a far cry from Paris, in France, to Hagersville, in Canada, but soon after Murray's return from abroad a telegram called him to the little town in the county of Brant. The people were talking of a tragedy. There had been a funeral, and they believed the closed coffin hid the evidence of a murder. They had gathered at the house on the day of the burial, but few, if any, saw the face of the dead. The women spoke in whispers, and some vowed there was no body in the coffin. Others thought the body might be there, but in pieces. A few were in favour of lifting the lid boldly, but others shuddered and shook their heads. Among them were those who said the coffin held the dead intact, and not in pieces. But as to the manner of death they were mute. It was a gruesome mystery. " The dead was a woman," says Murray. " I went to Hagersville on receipt of the telegram to the Department. I had the body exhumed and a post-mortem made. She was a young woman, but was so emaciated that she seemed to have been simply a yellow parchment drawn tight over a 25 386 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE skeleton to masquerade as a human being. The body had not begun to disintegrate, and there were traces of a bygone beauty. I marvelled at the emaciation. It reminded me vividly of the pictures of the starved of India, found dead during the famines, with their bones almost protruding through their skin. The woman seemed literally to have wasted away to skin and bones. The body bore marks of brutal treatment. There was a gash in the abdomen, and a broad path across it showed where a hobnailed boot had torn its way. The bosom was bruised as if it had been beaten with a hammer. On the temples were black and blue marks. Drs. Jones, McDonald, and Jarvis noted these wounds. To make sure no poison had been administered I had the viscera examined by Professor Ellis, in Toronto. " The body was that of Lillian Carpenter, a bride of six months. She was married to James Carpenter, who had a farm in the township of Tuscarora, near Hagersville. I looked up Carpenter. He was a bad lot. His neighbours had no liking for him, and those who knew him best distrusted him most. " There had been several incendiary fires in that section of the country. Farmers had lost cattle, and flocks of sheep had been broken up in the night and driven to the woods, and many stolen or killed. A midnight marauder seemed to be living a high-handed life in the county. There was an Indian reserve near Carpenter's farm. " I called on Carpenter. He was a low-browed, sullen- faced, surly bully. " ' How did your wife die ? ' I asked. "' None of your business,' said he. " It was a real pleasure to set to work on the case with renewed zeal and determination. " ' Did you see her die, Carpenter ? ' I asked. " ' Naw, why should I ? ' he growled. ' She ought to have been good and glad of a chance to die. She was no good, anyhow.' " I learned from friends of the dead woman that she was an epileptic. Then I understood why the burly Carpenter regarded her as worthless or worse than worthless. THE VOICE OF THE HAUNTED HOUSE 387 " It was a difficult case in which to get specific evidence. Carpenter's neighbours were not given to visiting frequently at his house. They told me much about cruel treatment, but I wanted eye-witnesses. At length I went among the Indians on the reserve, and I met an old Indian whom I had known for some years, and he led me aside into the woods, and sat down with me on a log, and, under pledge of secrecy, told me of a haunted house where, in the night, screams had resounded. Some of the Indians had come to look upon the house as under a spell, and were in the habit of going to it under cover of darkness, and sitting in the shadow, waiting to hear the spirit wail. "'It wails like a woman/ he told me. 'It cries out in long, loud, shrill cries.' " ' Has no one ever seen it ? ' "'Oh yes,' said he. ' It takes the shape of a woman. It has been seen various times. My son has seen it rush out of the house all in white, with its long hair streaming down its back, and its feet bare. It ran through the woods, shrieking as it ran, and waving its arms. The man of the haunted house pursued it, beating it, and knocking it down. It begged for mercy, and would clasp the man's legs, and kiss his hand and his feet like a dog. Then it would fall over, and the spirit would work upon it, making it writhe, and jerking its face all out of shape, trying to turn it into a clog or a cow, or a wild beast. For hours in the night it would lie out in the woods, and twice it had not even the white robe on it. Then it would creep back into the house after the man who had kicked it, when it fell over, and had left it lying in the woods.' " ' When was the spirit seen last ? ' " ' Not for two weeks,' said the old fellow. ' They tell me it is buried away, and that the voice sounds out no more in the haunted house.' " ' Where is the house ? ' I asked. " ' I will show you myself to-night,' he said. "That night the old Indian led me in a roundabout way to the house of James Carpenter. I saw some shadowy figures squatting near by. 388 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE " ' Our people ; they are listening for it,' said the old fellow. " ' It will not come again ; it is gone for ever/ I said. " ' Not the voice, 1 said the old fellow. ' Voices never die.' "' But what is the voice without the spirit? ' I asked him. " ' The voice is the spirit,' he answered. " I kept all this a profound secret as I had promised. But I set to work among the more civilised of the Indians to obtain competent evidence of Carpenter's beating his wife, and driving her out of the house. Meanwhile Carpenter was locked up in gaol. After his arrest a woman in Petrolea wrote a letter saying she was the lawful wife of Carpenter, and that they had one child, then with her. She added that Carpenter nearly starved her to death, and that she still bore upon her body the marks of his brutality, and that she would carry them with her to the grave. She gave the year of their wedding as 1888, and the place as Waterford. "Carpenter was tried in Brantford on December loth, 1896, for murder. He was defended by Lewis Hyde, who made a strong fight to save him. But the evidence could not be upset as to his brutality. My search among the intelligent Indians was not fruitless. Carpenter was found guilty of manslaughter, and was sent to Kingston Penitentiary for a long term of years. The Indians listened in vain thereafter for the voice of the wailing spirit of the haunted house." Chapter LXVII OLIVE ADELE SEVENPIPER STERNAMAN OLIVE ADELE SEVENPIPER was tall for her years, even as a child. Her childhood was spent in the township of Rain- ham, county of Haldimand, her family living near the Sternaman family. " I was born in Canada," she said, in telling in 1896 the story of her life, " near the home of the Sternamans not far from Rainham Centre. I moved to Buffalo, New York, with my parents when twelve years old. That was in 1879, as I was born in 1867 and am now twenty-nine years old. A OLIVE ADELE SEVENPIPER STERNAMAN 3*9 few years after settling in Buffalo I went to do general house- work for a Mr. Simpson on Lafayette Avenue. I worked there three years and there I met Ezra E. Chipman, who was a carpenter and had come from Canada. He courted me while I worked for Mr. Simpson, and February 3rd, 1886, we were married, and went to live on Hampshire Street, in Buffalo. Two children were born, one in 1887 and one in 1889. Both are living." Chipman was a prudent man. His life was insured, he took home his earnings, and all went well. George II. Sternaman, a son of the Sternamans who lived near the childhood home of Olive Adele Sevenpiper Chipman, had grown up in Rainham while Miss Sevenpiper w r as growing up in Buffalo. He became a carpenter, and in 1892 he went to Buffalo to work, being able to obtain better wages there than in the county of Haldimand. " Sternaman secured board at the home of Olive Adele Sevenpiper Chipman," says Murray. " He and Ezra became fast friends. Both were carpenters and at times they worked together. On January 2Oth, 1895, Ezra died. George mourned for his friend and continued to board with the widow. On February 3rd, 1896, a little over a year after Ezra died, George married the widow, who became Olive Adele Seven- piper Chipman Sternaman. On August I4th, 1896, George died. He had suffered, and finally had insisted on being taken home to his mother in the township of Rainham, and there he died. The mother, turning from her dead son to the widow, said that it was peculiar her two husbands should die within two years and from the same cause paralysis. " ' Why, mother, do you mean to insinuate that I had anything to do with their deaths ? ' said the widow. " ' Yes,' retorted the mother. ' I blame you for poisoning them, blame you until you prove yourself innocent.' " The mother's tongue started the talk. It spread. Indue time the matter was brought to the attention of the Depart- ment, and in October 1896 I went to Cayuga to make inquiries concerning Sternaman's death. I had the body exhumed and the viscera sent to Professor Ellis, in Toronto. 390 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE He found arsenical poisoning. I went to Buffalo and saw Dr. Rich and Dr. Parmenter, who had attended Ezra Chipman. Dr. Rich later testified that in Chipman's last illness his symptoms were gastritic vomiting, intense thirst, and later numbness and paralysis, and it might have been caused by arsenic or any other irritant poison. Dr. Parmenter, who also attended Chipman in his last illness, found him suffering from paralysis, and thought his death might possibly have been caused by poison. William Martin, of the Buffalo Carpenters' Union, and William Trandall, of Buffalo, told me and later testified as to Chipman eating his lunch, which was supposed to have contained poison. Chipman, soon after eating, complained of a burning sensa- tion in the stomach, and ceased work and went home, never to return to work. I found Martin and Trandall in my search for men who had worked with Chipman and Sternaman. " I called on Dr. Frost, Dr. Phelps, and Dr. Saltsman in Buffalo, who had attended Sternaman in his illness. Dr. Frost later testified that in July he suspected arsenical poisoning. The doctor had informed the deceased in the presence of Mrs. Sternaman that there were suspicious symptons of arsenical poisoning and proposed to have him taken to a hospital. He finally agreed to go, but Mrs. Sternaman objected strongly. " ' I mentioned to her,' testified Dr. Frost later, ' that she had one husband die under suspicious circumstances, and asked her how she would like to have another die under suspicious circumstances. It would be better for her own protection that he should go, and she replied : " Doctor, if he dies I will have an autopsy and that will clear me." The patient grew worse.' " Dr. Frost called in Dr. Phelps, who told him to look for arsenic. " ' On being told that the patient would get better if he got no more arsenic, she replied that he would get no more,' said Dr. Frost. " Dr. Frost then was dismissed from treating the patient and Dr. Saltsman was called in. Dr. Phelps corroborated Dr. Frost and said he had administered arsenic to patients OLIVE ADELK SEVENPIPER STERNAMAX 391 and that Sternaman's case was identical, only much worse. After Dr. Erost was dismissed Stcrnaman wanted to go home to Canada. His mother went over to see him and finally he was taken home to Rainham in August. Dr. Clark, of Rainham, attended him at his mother's home and he gave it as his opinion that death was due to poison. Dr. Park, of Selkirk, also attended him before his death in Rainham. He found the patient partially paralysed and totally helpless. The day before he died he vomited. " ' He was suffering from multiple neuritis, brought on from arsenical poisoning,' testified Dr. Park. " Dr. Harrison, of Selkirk, who saw Sternaman with Dr. Park, testified : ' I am sure he was poisoned by arsenic.' " I learned that Sternaman's life was insured for $200 in the Carpenters' Union, for $770 in the Hancock Mutual Insurance Company, and for $1,000 in the Metropolitan, this last policy being dated a few months before he died. J. E. Dewey, of Buffalo, a Hancock insurance agent, told me and testified later that he met the widow on Dearborn Street, in Buffalo, and asked her about her husband's death. She asked him not to say anything about the policy on Sterna- man's life, as her relatives would get it from her if they knew of it. She received the $770 from the Hancock Company. " I learned also that the widow had a letter or statement to whom it might concern, signed by her husband and dated June loth, 1896, over two months before he died, in which he said he hoped that the statement would 'convince all that they may not think that my wife had anything to do with such an uncommon death.' " Mrs. Sternaman had left Canada and returned to Buffalo. I had her arrested and remanded in October 1896, and prepared extradition papers. She was arraigned before Commissioner Fairchild, in Buffalo. Thayer and Duckwitz appeared for her. She fought extradition. I had the evi- dence in shape, including the testimony of the undertaker who conducted the preparation of Sternaman's body for burial, John Snyder, of Rainham. Undertaker Snyder made a written statement, in which he positively swore that he did 392 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE not embalm the body. From the outset the defence fell back on a claim that the body had been embalmed, and that the embalming fluid was responsible for the result of the analysis, of the viscera. This was the bone of contention throughout the entire case. The woman's counsel carried the case to Judge Coxe, of the United States Court, and then to New York on appeal, but they failed in their fight to prevent her extradition. In summing up the case for her, Attorney Thayer concluded with the assertion that : ' They not only have failed to prove the defendant's connection with Sterna- man's death, but have failed to prove that it was caused by arsenical poisoning, owing to the shattered testimony of Undertaker Snyder, who does not know whether he em- balmed the body or not.' Commissioner Fairchild deemed the evidence sufficient to sustain the charges and Judge Coxe upheld him and was himself upheld on appeal, and after a long fight, in August 1897, a year after Sternaman's death, I took Mrs. Sternaman to Canada and handed her over to the Cayuga authorities, where she was placed in gaol. She was arraigned before a magistrate and committed in Sep- tember. The grand jury indicted her for murder, and in November 1897 her trial occurred at Cayuga. Chief Justice Armour presided. B. B. Osier prosecuted, and W. M. German defended, assisted by Wallace Thayer, of Buffalo. " The evidence, as I have indicated it, was presented. There was a big legal battle. The fact that a woman was on trial for her life gave the trial wide interest and caused excitement as to the outcome. The defence swore a number of witnesses to the effect that, in their opinion, death was not due to arsenic. The Crown's case, however, convinced the jury, and on November I9th Mrs. Olive Adele Sevenpiper Sternaman was found guilty of murder, and was sentenced to be hanged on Thursday, January 2Oth, 1898. " ' And may God have mercy on your soul,' said Chief Justice Armour. " ' Oh, Judge ! Is there no mercy in this country ? ' gasped the woman, grey-faced, black-gowned, dry-eyed. " She was led out to her cell. " Her counsel applied for a reserve case on the ground of SIMPERING JIM ALLISON 393 the irrelevancy of the Chipman evidence. The woman's friends rallied to her support. Many people were opposed to the hanging of a woman. The Rev. J. D. Edgar and other ministers befriended her. The case was carried to Ottawa. An affidavit of Ur. Thompson, that embalming fluid was found in the body, was presented, with petition.^ to the authorities at Ottawa. Strenuous efforts were made to obtain a second trial. " Meanwhile the scaffold was a-building in the gaolyard at Cayuga. The sound of the hammers could be heard by the woman in her cell. She made ready to die. The last week began. No word came from Ottawa. Monday passed ; Thursday she was to die. Her friends and their sympathisers rallied for a final effort. Tuesday came and went. Late on Tuesday night a telegram from Ottawa announced that after a long discussion by the Dominion Cabinet it had been decided to grant a new trial. "The second trial occurred in the spring of 1898, before Chancellor Boyd of Cayuga. B. B. Osier prosecuted. At this trial the undertaker swore he had embalming fluid and needle with him when he prepared the body. It was a long trial. The jury found a verdict of not guilty. Mrs. Olive Adele Sevenpiper Chipman Sternaman went free." Chapter LXVIII SIMPERING JIM ALLISON OVER the hill from Gait, in the county of Waterloo, lies North Dumfries. The road that climbs the hill sweeps round in a big curve on the other side, as it enters the valley. Up a lane, leading from this valley road, stood a little white farmhouse, with a big, unpainted barn near by. It was screened from the main road by a clump of trees, although the house stood in open ground with its door fronting on an orchard, its kitchen window opening on a cornfield. The woodpile loomed up at the end of the house nearest the barn. Rain-barrels stooc] in a row against the house. Milking pans 394 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE shone in the sunlight. A dog dozed in the lane. Chickens scratched and pecked, and lazily fluffed their feathers and settled in the dust. It was a hot morning August 9th, 1897. Out of the house stepped a woman. She was a beauty. The freshness of girlhood had been supplanted by the charm of full womanhood. Her complexion was pale pink and white. Her big eyes were laughing and merry. A tot toddled after her, yawning drowsily, then turned back indoors. The woman shaded her eyes and looked toward the barn. The shrill squeals of an angry pig rang out A man's gruff voice sounded, and then around the corner of the barn came Anthony Orr, the farmer, with a big sow in his waggon. " Going, Tony ? " called the woman. " Yep ! " shouted Tony Orr. " Back in a couple of hours." He drove away with his nine-year-old son, Norman. A moment later the hired boy, Jim Allison, appeared with two cows, and started them down the lane. They were to go to the Barrie farm near by. The woman watched her husband until the bend in the road hid him from view. She saw the Allison boy in the lane with the cows. She began to sing softly, so as not to disturb her two children Maggie, aged ten, and a-year-old baby, still asleep upstairs. Half an hour passed. Two days before, a buggy, with an easy-going horse, had come up the lane. A stout, jolly-faced man had alighted, and had hitched his horse and had sat chatting and laughing with the handsome woman. They seemed to know and understand one another well. The man had entered his buggy and gone away, as he had come, alone. He was nowhere in sight on this morning, although he was half expected. The woman had been sitting with dreamy eyes and gentle smile, her hands clasped and lying idly in her lap. She was a pretty picture in the sunlight. Tony Orr had reason to be proud of his wife. There had been gossip of her fondness for travel and for clever companions. There even had been a tale of an elopement and a penitent return to Tony's arms and forgiveness. Neighbours had known of men callers at the white farmhouse. But Tony said all was SIMPERING JIM ALLISON 395 well, and on the Orr farm that meant all was well. The woman sat still in the sunlight. Two hours later Tony Orr returned. The farm boy, Jim Allison, was standing at the side gate of the house fence, laughing. " What's the matter ? " asked Orr. " Oh, nothing," said Allison, laughing all the louder. " What's the matter ? " demanded Orr. " Oh, nothing," laughed Allison. " What's up ? " roared Orr. " Your wife's gone," said Allison. The baby was lying on the front step?. The little girl, Maggie, was sitting on the porch. Orr hurried to the kitchen. The breakfast dishes had not been touched. Orr ran out of the house, and saw Harry Blair, an agricultural implement dealer from Gait, just getting out of his buggy. Harry Blair was stout and jolly faced. " My wife's gone ! " shouted Orr. "Gone ! Gone where?" exclaimed the disappointed Blair. Orr and Blair searched for her, and then got into Blair's buggy and drove to Gait, thinking she might have gone with Weldon Sidney Trevelyan, a medical student who was spend- ing the summer in Gait, and who had been calling on her. They found Trevelyan, and he knew nothing of the woman. Orr returned home, and organised a search for his wife. The authorities were notified. " Many believed there had been an elopement," says Murray. " Mrs. Orr was good-looking, a great favourite with men, but had a reputation. Her maiden name was Emma Borland. Her parents were well-to-do and lived at Bright. She was thirty-seven years old, and was born in Innerkip. She was first married to John Arnott, of Innerkip, who died when she was twenty-two, and three years later she married Anthony Orr, to whom she bore three children. To her children she was a loving, careful mother. To her husband she was said to be an indifferent wife. About two years previous to this she had run away with a hired man named Mulholland, but her husband caught her and her two children at Niagara Falls, and took them home again. Tony Orr was a nervous, 396 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE excitable man, who had trouble with other men on account of their frequent calls on his wife. A week passed, with no trace of the wife's whereabouts. " At first, before traces of blood were found, the elopement theory vied with the suicide theory. On the day before Mrs. Orr disappeared, Tony Orr's father was buried. Mrs. Orr attendee! the funeral, and some of the Orr family treated her coldly. The Orrs w r ere an old family of good standing. On the way home from the funeral Mrs. Orr remarked that ' she was no use and guessed she'd get out of here." This remark was the basis for the suicide talk. " I went to the Orr farm. The boy Allison and the medical student Trevelyan had been held in Gait, and Harry Blair, the agricultural implement agent, was under surveillance. I looked the house over, a one and a half story white brick house with a frame kitchen. It was situated in a tract of country that, owing to the swamps and marshes in which it abounds, is most desolate. About two hundred yards from the house was a swamp or marsh of about one hundred acres, and above the wet and rank grass and weeds and thick soil grew almost impenetrable shrubs and trees. In this swamp was an excavation eighteen inches wide and six feet long and eighteen inches deep. It was newly dug, and clearly was an unfinished grave. I visited it in the night, and carefully took from the upturned surface the print of a man's foot, a precise clue to the digger of the grave. In order to get this, I turned back the overturned earth after digging under it so as not to break its surface and destroy the footprint I knew must be there. I took this to my hotel in Gait, unknown to anyone in the affair. " I returned to the Orr house. A picket fence separated the patch of garden from the corn patch adjoining the house. One of the pickets of this fence was gone. The paling mark was not of long exposure. I saw this was on a line between the house and the swamp, with the corn patch lying between. One of the furrows in this corn patch was raised slightly. John Orr, Tony's brother, poked it with his stick. Six inches beneath the surface lay Mrs. Orr, face down, buried amid the corn within thirty feet of her house. That put an end to SIMPERING JIM ALLISON 397 elopement or suicide theories. When I saw the half-dug grave in the swamp I knew there had been murder. The grave in the corn patch was but temporary. The murderer intended to hide the body for ever in the swamp. " Back to Gait I went. Trcvelyan proved an absolute alibi. Harry Blair, agitated over the whole affair, was not at the farmhouse when the deed was done, and had nothing to do with it. Tony Orr was five miles away at a neighbour's, with his son and the sow. Allison I went to see this boy. I had his old shoe, and it fitted the footprint by the grave in the swamp. He looked almost a freak. He was about seven- teen years old, big for his age, and tremendously stocky in his build. His bow legs were big and muscular. His hands and feet were enormous. His shoulders were broad, his neck was thick, his arms were long and powerful. His features reminded me of the features of a frog. The forehead was low and retreating, and the face was very full at the sides. The hair was brown, cut close, and the eyes were a greenish brown large, watery eyes, une^iy, shifting, catlike. The mouth was very large, and the lips were full and seemed to simper, giving the face a cat's expression. He walked with a peculiar, rolling motion, as if he would have preferred to be on all fours. He wore heavy, clod shoes, blue jeans, a calico shirt, and a faded, slouch hat pulled well over his eyes. " I sat down and faced this boy. " ' What do you know of this murder? ' I said. "' Nothing,' he answered, with a grin. " 'Tell me where you were on that morning,' said I. " ' I left Orr's, with two cows, about 7.20,' he said. ' I got to Barrie's farm about eight o'clock, and I left there about 8.50 and got back to Orr's about 9.40. When I got back Mrs. Orr was gone.' " ' How did you know she was gone ? ' " ' She was not anywhere around,' said the boy. " ' Where is your shot gun ? ' I asked. " ' Just before I left with the cows, Mrs. Orr asked me to show her the gun, and she asked me how it was used, and I explained it, and then put it back and went on with the cows/ he lied glibly. 398 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE " His gun, which always was kept in the house, was found hidden in the hay-mow in the barn. It had been discharged. There were blood-stains on it. " ' Allison,' I said slowly, ' you killed Mrs. Orr.' " He started up, white as flour, shaking like a man with ague. I waited for his confession. He mumbled, hesitated, and sat down and grinned. For four hours I worked with him. He grinned and lied. " An idea previously had occurred to me. Allison's father, Alex Allison, was city scavenger of Gait. The father had seen the boy alone. That night the father was followed. It was before the finding of the body was generally known. The father had gone to the swamp to finish, for his son, the half-dug grave. The boy had told him of it. " ' Allison,' I said to the boy, ' your father says you dropped your knife at the grave in the swamp.' '"No I didn't, for I left it when I went " He stopped. It was on the tip of his tongue trembling, quivering, almost out. " ' That's enough,' I said. " Some newspapers declaimed against my examination of this boy, and talked of a sweat-box system, and asserted the boy's innocence. In due time their mistake was revealed. " The evidence was overwhelming when it all was collected, There was no need to use the footprint by the grave. Allison was proved by neighbours and folk on the road to have the exclusive opportunity to do the deed. His blood-stained gun had been fired, and the empty cartridge found in it was one he had taken from a box in the house. John Orr and his family on the next farm had heard a gunshot after Tony left with the sow. Allison had called out Mrs. Orr from the house, shot at her, clubbed her to death, then buried her temporarily in the corn-field, and at night dug the grave in the swamp. He had importuned her, and she refused him, and the murder followed. " The grand jury found a true bill on November 29th, and Allison's trial followed at once. Chief Justice Meredith pre- sided. H. P. O'Connor, K.C., prosecuted, and J. R. Blake and J. J. H. Weir defended. On Friday, December 3rd, 1897, THE TURNIP PIT TRAGEDY 399 this seventeen-year-old murderer was found guilty, and was sentenced to be hanged in Berlin gaolyard on Friday, February 4th, 1898. His father fell in an epileptic fit when he heard the verdict. " Smiling serenely, Jim Allison went up to his death. He mounted the scaffold unaided at eight o'clock on a raw, snowy morning. He shook hands politely with the guards, the hangman, and the minister, waited quietly while the black cap and noose were adjusted, stepped on to the trap at 8. i, and dropped into eternity. " Allison had learned to read and write a little in his six months in a cell, and he had scrawled laboriously the following on a piece of paper : " ' I am sorry for my crime. I did it out of ill-will. I hope those whom I wronged will forgive me, and that no one will turn this up to my people. My sentence is just, and I hope God will have mercy on me.' " He signed this, and read it to them when they came to take him out and hang him." Chapter LXIX THE TURNIP PIT TRAGEDY BOYS were the bane of Ephraim Convay's life. He detested them as a nuisance, a pest, a plague. He had a long nose, and when he passed a boy he turned up this great nose, wrinkled his forehead, and made a wry face, as if he had been taking castor oil. The boys for miles around knew of his dislike, and they seized every opportunity to torment him. Naturally this increased his ire against all youth. He owned two big farms near Princeton, in the county of Oxford, within a few miles of the Blenheim Swamp, where Birchall murdered Benwell. Ephraim warned all boys to keep off his land. He vowed that any boy caught trespassing would be dragged to one of his barns and chastised until he tingled. " This amounted to nothing more or less than a challenge to all the boys around to make life miserable for old Ephraim," 400 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE says Murray. " They teased him in a thousand ways. At night, when he was asleep, a fiery face suddenly would loom up at his bedroom window a face with eyes like balls of fire, and a voracious mouth extending from ear to ear, and grinning hideously. A gentle tapping would begin on the window, made by clackers, otherwise a bunch of nails tied to a nail previously driven in the window-frame, and swayed to and fro by means of a long string. Ephraim would rise up in wrath or terror and gaze on this ghastly face. He would make for his gun and blaze away at the apparition, only to discover it was a jack-o'-lantern perched on a tall bean-pole. At other times his door would refuse to open, and he would find it nailed shut. His chimney would refuse to draw, and would smoke him out of his house, investigation revealing a bag of wheat stuck in the flue. One evening, when he went home, he found his house dark and his doors fastened. He climbed in through a window, and found himself in pitch darkness, with myriad screeching, scratching figures that darted about and leaped over chairs and tables in wild flight, and dealt him stinging blows. He lighted a candle, and found the room filled with cats collected from the entire countryside. When he got into bed he alighted on something cold and clammy. It was a turtle lying in state amid a nest of eggs. " In the early evenings resounding knocks would thunder on Ephraim's front door. At length he began to hide inside the door with a long club, waiting to hear the knockers approach, when he planned to leap out and belabour them. They heard him in the hall, and withdrew to deliberate. In the meantime a frail and very respectable friend, going to call on Ephraim, walked up to the door and knocked. The door flew open ; out sprang Ephraim, and began to smite the knocker with the club. It was so dark Ephraim could not see who his captive was, and the old man went to work as if with a flail. There were shouts and shrieks of ' Murder ! ' and ' Help ! ' The victim rolled over on the ground, beseech- ing Ephraim for mercy. " ' I'll show you ! ' roared the excited Ephraim. ' I'll teach you ever to dare to pester me again ! ' " The friend thought Ephraim had gone crazy. When the THE TURNIP PIT TRAGEDY 401 old man finally paused, exhausted, and discovered the identity of his visitor, he was beside himself with shame, and grief, and anger. He vowed deep vengeance on his tormentors. "'Hi, Ephraim ! ' they would yell. 'You were a boy yourself once, weren't you ? ' "'If I was, I've spent over half a century trying to live it down and atone for it !' roared Ephraim. ' No one ought to be born into this world under thirty. So long as the Lord could fix it for us to be born at all, He might as well have made the minimum entry age at least twenty-five. I'd rather have erysipelas all my life than have a boy around for half a day. You know where to look for St. Anthony's fire, but a boy is nowhere when you want him, and every where when you don't want him.' " ' How about girls ? ' " ' They are what boys might have been,' said the old man, with a soft smile. ' My mother was a girl once.' " ' Wasn't your father a boy ? ' " ' Yes ; but he got over it as quick as he could,' snapped Ephraim. " Ephraim's big farm was worked on shares by Russell Grover. Ephraim and Grover did not get along well. Grover had a young fellow working for him named George Frost. Like others, Frost teased Ephraim. On the afternoon of March 26th, 1897, the boy was found dead on the barn floor, with a bullet hole in his body. The Department was notified and I went to the farm. Ephraim had denied any knowledge of the shooting. So did Grover. Ephraim said he was not about when it happened and threw suspicion on Grover. Grover said he was away at the time and he threw suspicion on Ephraim. I learned from others that Grover was not near the barn on that afternoon. There was a turnip pit beneath the barn. To get to it several boards in the barn floor had to be raised. This trap had been moved recently and not replaced evenly. I raised it and went down into the pit. I saw the turnips, and we rolled them back from one corner and there discovered recently turned earth. We dug it up and there lay a revolver. It was a new one. I went to Princeton and to Woodstock, and finally found in Woodstock 26 402 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE the store where Ephraim had bought it. I learned from some of his neighbours that he had said he bought it for Grover, and to William Kip he had said : ' There will be murder down at the farm before April ist.' I learned also that Ephraim had told Harvey Grover, Russell Grover's brother, that ' Frost and I have had a little fracas, and he has fainted on the barn floor.' " I went to Ephraim again, and this time he confessed. He said he had gone down into his turnip pit to shovel up some turnips. He noticed that as fast as he shovelled them up and turned for another shovelful the turnips rolled back into the pit from the floor of the barn. Then he heard a spitting noise, as if a cat was facing a dog. He looked up and saw the boy Frost on his hands and knees peering into the pit and spitting at him and rolling the turnips back on him. Ephraim said he grabbed his shovel by the handle end, and gave Frost a pat with it. His story was that Frost then seized a plank and shoved it down into the pit at him, and seemed to be preparing to send another after it when Ephraim whipped out the revolver, fired, and Frost fell. At first the old man thought to bury him in the turnip pit, but the barn floor already was dyed crimson, so he left the body to lie where it fell. ' Before he fell he staggered over by the door,' said Ephraim. ' I stuck my head out of the pit, and he turned and looked at me looked, looked, looked at me, and then he fell. I dodged back into the pit, and then crept out and stepped over the body, and later went to Harvey Grover and told him I thought Frost must have fainted. I felt very sorry as I sat in the pit and thought of the boy lying on the barn floor.' "Ephraim was tried at Woodstock in September 1897. He insisted on taking the stand and he fretted and fumed until his counsel, Wallace Nesbit and A. S. Ball, called him to testify. He began slowly and calmly, but when he came to the story of the tragedy he grew very much excited and gasped for breath, swayed to and fro, thumped on the floor with his foot, got down on his hands, and graphically por- trayed the scene in the turnip pit, and finally wept frenziedly. The defence showed that a brother of the prisoner had been FRANK OSIER AND WISE SAM LINDSAY 403 in an insane asylum at Toronto, and swore witnesses to prove another brother was light-headed. The jury found Ephraim guilty of manslaughter, and Justice Meredith sent him to Kingston Penitentiary for seven years. '" I hope there are no boys there,' said Ephraim. ' I'd be tempted to try to escape on the way if there were.' " I advised him not to try it, and told him of what happened to Frank Osier a month before." Chapter LXX FOOLISH FRANK OSIER AND WISE SAM LINDSAY FRANK OSIER at one time lived in Rodney, in the county of Elgin. He courted Martha McCartney, the buxom daughter of William McCartney, a tailor. The tailor frowned on his suit, but the daughter beamed on Osier and ignored her father's warning. Osier pressed his suit in the hope of winning the tailor's approval, but McCartney shook his head. The upshot of the affair was the marriage of Osier and Martha McCartney. " He has too many trades," said William McCartney to his daughter. " He is a travelling barber, a sewing machine repairer, a clock maker, and several other things. If he does all these by day, how do you know that he may not have a lot more trades that he practises by night burglary, for instance?" The daughter tossed her pretty head, and was married just the same. A few years later she was dead. " Her death occurred on August 2nd, 1897," says Murray. " Her father, William McCartney, the tailor, immediately suspected foul play, and he demanded an inquest and com- municated with the Department in an urgent request for an investigation. I went to Rodney. Dr. Van Buskirk made a post-mortem examination and stated that, to the best of his knowledge, death was caused solely by an operation, per- formed under circumstances unknown, and the coroner's jury 404 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE found a verdict accordingly. Mr. McCartney insisted that Osier had killed his wife. " Osier had disappeared from Rodney after his wife's death. There had been several burglaries before his departure. The stores of Mistele Brothers and of Martins Brothers and others had been robbed. William McCartney, on the morn- ing after the Mistele burglary, had visited the store and said Osier had a hand in the deed, and asserted that his unwelcome son-in-law was in league with a gang of burglars, and travelled from place to place, sojourning in each town long enough to get acquainted and lay the 'plans to burglarise the richest people or stores in the vicinity. There was no evidence at the time, and the matter drifted along until the tailor's daughter died and Osier went away. He skipped for the United States and crossed to Marine City, where United States Customs' officers spotted him, and suspected him of smuggling and arrested him. He gave a fictitious name and was sent to gaol, as a quantity of cloth and other stolen stuff was recovered when he was taken. A search of his clothes brought to light an undertaker's receipt for funeral preliminaries for Martha McCartney Osier. This receipt revealed Osier's real name, and I was informed of his arrest. I went to Detroit and had Canada owners identify their stolen property. I began extradition proceedings, and on July 25th, 1898, Osier was turned over to me " ' I'd prefer to walk to the station, if it's all the same to you, Mr. Murray,' said Osier. " ' Certainly,' said I, and we started. " He had smiled when I agreed to walk and it put me on my guard. We were walking below the Russell House, when Osier made a break for liberty. He sidled off toward the curb and suddenly darted across the street. He had been shifting and side-stepping for five minutes before he dashed away, so I was forewarned, and, as he started, I put out my foot. He tripped and fell headlong, but jumped up and started again. I grabbed him, he struck at me, and down we went and had it out. A policeman came along and shoved the crowd back, and the policeman and I picked Osier up and carried him to the curb. When he opened his eyes FRANK OSIER AND WISE SAM LINDSAY 405 he kicked out again. We had it out right there on the side- walk in Detroit for the second time. The policeman called the patrol waggon. " ' I'll never go to Canada alive ! ' shouted Osier. " ' You certainly won't if you keep this up much longer,' I informed him. " Osier looked at me. " ' Well, I'll do my best,' he said, and he did. So did I. " When it was over we picked Osier up and laid him in the patrol waggon and drove to the station and carried him on to the train, and when he really roused himself we were in Canada and nearing St. Thomas. He said he felt consider- ably shaken up, and he looked it. He was tried in September, and on Wednesday, September 2ist, 1898, was convicted and sent to Kingston Penitentiary for four and a-half years for burglary. " During the past few years they have been trying the ticket-of-leave business to some extent at Kingston. Osier thus got out before his time expired, his liberty being de- pendent on his good behaviour. He married another wife. It was the intention of the Crown to have Osier answer McCartney's charge of killing his daughter, but owing to the diversity of opinion among the medical men who made the post-mortem it was considered difficult, if not futile, to under- take to obtain a conviction on the evidence available at that time. " About this same time I had Sam Lindsay on my hands, too. Sam was an expert bank-breaker. He had a criminal record extending over a score of years. He had been con- victed of burglary at Simcoe, and served a term in the common gaol, from which he promptly escaped. He was captured and served a term in Kingston. He bobbed up in 1882, and burglarised Flamboro Post Office, and again was sentenced to Kingston. On the way to the Penitentiary he broke away from Sheriff Gibson and disappeared. A few months later he was caught in a burglary near Windsor, Vermont, and was sentenced to fourteen years in the Vermont penitentiary under the name of R. R. Ferguson. Between the time of his escape from Sheriff Gibson and his arrest in 406 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DP:TECTIVE Vermont he had quarrelled with a man in a resort on St. Justin Street, Montreal, and had shot the man in the neck. He was arrested then under the name of Knox, and was held, but the wounded man recovered and disappeared, and Sam got away. After he was released in Vermont he turned up again in Montreal, and was recognised and taken for the escape from Sheriff Gibson. Sam was suspected also of being concerned in two robberies shortly before his arrest in Mon- treal. One was the Anderson's Bank robbery in Oakville, and the other was the Hunt's Bank robbery in Bracebridge. Sam was slippery and he had a good alibi for these two charges. So I took him to Hamilton to stand trial on the charge of escaping from custody in 1882. " Sam immediately began to talk mysteriously of buried treasure. It did not work. I reminded him that when he was in Kingston years before he had professed sudden piety, and in evidence of his reformation had told the warden that he knew a place near Hagersville, where a great quantity of counterfeit plates, genuine bonds, and other stolen pro- perty had been buried, and he had promised to reveal the place if taken there. I had no faith in this story, but Sam was taken to the spot of which he told. He looked around and finally said that the mark had been removed and he could not locate the booty. About that time I had given Sam my opinion of such monkey-business. Sam coolly answered : " ' I was taking my chance for liberty. How could I tell who would come with me ? ' " I refreshed Sam's memory in Hamilton of this episode years before, and told him it would not work a second time. '"If you were in my place, Murray, you would forget that first time,' said Sam. "Sam made a legal fight, and the Minister of Justice decided that Sam had to be apprehended within three years after the date of his escape, so he went free. " Sam smiled. He had a sense of humour, and some of his burglaries he regarded as jokes. When he escaped the joke was on the other fellow ; when he was caught the joke was on him. Whichever way it went Sam smiled." EDDIE ELLIOTT, BOY MURDERER 407 Chapter LXXI EDDIE ELLIOTT, BOY MURDERER A FEW years after Eddie Elliott was big enough to walk, many of the cats on the outskirts of Beavcrton, in the county of Ontario, became sightless. They groped about with empty sockets, from which the eyeballs appeared to have been plucked. Many of the dogs lost their tails and their cars. At night three or four dogs would rush yelping across the country, terrified by tin cans or agonised by turpentine. Eddie meanwhile went fishing, with cats' eyeballs for bait, and collected tin cans and stole turpentine and continued his torture of beasts and all animate things on which he dared lay his hands. lie grew to be fifteen, and if he had lived a few centuries earlier he probably would have gone gallivant- ing forth as a red knight with a dripping sword above an eyeless head for his coat of arms. " As it was, he went to work for old William Murray, a retired farmer, who had turned four score years," says Murray. " Eddie did chores for old William, who lived alone in a little house of a single room, twenty by sixteen feet, standing back from the Beaverlon Road. He had the lad come occasionally and do odd bits of work about the place. William's bosom friend was John McHattie, another old chap, who would sit the day through with his crony while they talked of what occurred fifty years and more ago. John Me Flattie could recite the descriptions of many farms in the counties round- about, and relate in detail the course of their titles from the day an axe first felled a tree upon them. Old William was full of the events of threescore years ago. He would sit in a big chair and rock to and fro while John McHattie told again of the clearing of some one's farm two generations earlier. "On Tuesday, November I5th, 1898, old William was found dead in his house. The Department was notified and I went to the place immediately. The old man had been found lying in a pool of blood. Near by lay an iron poker, with blood and hair on it, and in poking about we found a 408 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE cordvvood stick, about four feet long, with traces of the tragedy staining it. Old John McHattie was grieving for his dead crony. McHattie and I sat down together, and he told me that the last time he saw William alive was on the preceding Saturday. McHattie had called about half-past three in the afternoon. Eddie Elliott was there at the time. William gave $i to McHattie to get some provisions. McHattie went away and got them and returned, giving to William seventy cents change, as the provisions had cost thirty cents. McHattie saw William take out his pocket-book, put the seventy cents in it, and put it in his pocket. " ' We talked of old times when the world was not getting so crowded and then I went away,' said McHattie. ' I left William sitting in his chair with Eddie Elliott sitting near by.' " ' What was Elliott doing?' " ' Nothing just sitting there, idly swinging a poker,' said McHattie. " McHattie said that the next day, Sunday, he called, as was his custom, but found the house locked. This was unusual, as he and William usually talked on Sundays of sermons of years before and of big crops. " 'Crops and sermons, sermons and crops, were our Sunday talking, and they made most congenial conversation,' said old John McHattie. " Sorely disappointed to find the house locked, McHattie went home and moped all day Sunday, and bright and early on Monday went again to see his friend William. The house still was locked, and no one answered the knock. On Tuesday McHattie went again to see William. He knew William had not gone on a jaunt, for he was lame and feeble, and spent his days chiefly in his chair. For William to go on a journey without telling McHattie and discussing it solemnly with him, would have been as unlikely as for McHattie to go to heaven without dying something that has not occurred since the days of the prophets. McHattie, with other neighbours, thumped on William's door, and watched the chimney for sign of smoke, and listened at the door and window for sound of William. Then, seeing no smoke, hearing no sound, the EDDIE ELLIOTT, BOY MURDERER 409 door was broken in, and William was found dead, with his head beaten in. " I looked for the pocket-book ; it was gone. I looked for tracks ; there were none. I searched for a place where the murderer washed his hands ; I found none. I hunted for the key to the door ; it could not be found. Common sense pointed the finger of suspicion at Eddie Elliott. I made full inquiries concerning him, and learnt of his plucking the eyes out of cats and using them for fish-bait, and of his torturing dumb animals, of his abusing horses, of his seeming delight in cruelties and brutalities. The crime, of course, had aroused the people. Many believed it impossible for a fifteen-year-old boy to have done the deed, and they scouted the idea that Eddie Elliott was the murderer. They asserted that a robber had done the murder, sneaking in upon the old man at night and escaping, with many miles between him and his victim, before the crime was discovered. I talked with the neighbours and with others, hearing what they had to offer, and all the while mindful of Eddie Elliott. I learned from little Beatrice Gardner, living near by, that she had seen Elliott leave Murray's house on Saturday afternoon, some time after John McHattie had gone. The boy was her chum. She saw blood on his hand when he stopped to chat with her. " ' What's the matter ? ' she asked. " ' I fell on the ice and cut it,' said Eddie Elliott. " David McFee later saw Elliott with the old man's pocket- book. McFee knew old William and young Eddie well. Shortly before old William was killed, Eddie Elliott had stolen a horse from Reeve McMillan, of Bcaverton. He was overtaken before he sold it, and his explanation was he simply had borrowed it. " I went to see Eddie Elliott. I walked in and stopped short, for I seemed to see Jim Allison, the seventeen-year-old murderer of Mrs. Orr, near Gait. Jim Allison had been hanged, yet here stood Jim Allison or his double. " ' What is your name ? ' I asked. " ' Eddie Elliott,' he answered. "The voice was Jim Allison's voice. The head was Jim Allison's head, with the low brow and the frog-like face. The 410 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE eyes were Jim Allison's eyes ; the hair was Jim Allison's hair. I had not thought there was another boy in the province like Allison, yet here stood simpering Jim Allison's duplicate, so like him as to seem as if Jim had arisen from the dead. Mentally he was Allison's duplicate, as well as physically. He was strong, like Jim. " ' How old are you ? ' I asked. " ' A couple of months short of sixteen,' he answered. " I looked at him, feeling as if I were talking to Jim Allison again. " ' You have blood on your hands,' I said abruptly. " He paled. He was guilty as if the whole world had seen him club the old man to death, as William sat in his chair, and then steal the seventy cents and whatever else was valuable. " Constable Smith took him to find the missing key of William's door. The boy had hid a key under the sidewalk ; it was the wrong key. The right key was found at the boy's home. We took the youth to Whitby gaol to await trial. His father called to see him. " ' Eddie, did you kill poor old Murray ? ' asked his father. '"Yes I did,' said Eddie bluntly. " ' Who was with you ? ' " ' I was all alone ; I did not want anybody with me,' said this murderer, who was not sixteen years old. " The father made a deposition setting forth that his son had confessed himself a murderer. He cried bitterly as he signed the affidavit. " Eddie Elliott was tried at Whitby, and was convicted of murder on May 23rd, 1899. Justice McMahon presided, and the boy was sentenced to be hanged on August i/th. He took it philosophically. His parents strove to save his life ; he was only fifteen, they pleaded. Others assisted them in their efforts. Instead of being hanged and buried in an unmarked grave in a prison-yard, like Jim Allison, this boy murderer, Eddie Elliott, was buried alive. His sentence was commuted to imprisonment for life. If he lives to the age of his victim, he will serve sixty-four years inside four grey walls." DEMURE KATE FENDER OF EMSDALE 411 Chapter LXXII DEMURE KATE FENDER OF EMSDALE MANY a country town in Canada boasts, among the other triumphs of its civilisation, an elaborate millinery store. The village of Emsdale, near Parry Sound, was no exception. The village milliner was Kate Pender, demure, yet vivacious. Her life was spotless, blameless, flawless, so far as the villagers knew. She went to church, lived quietly, had a kindly word and a cheery smile for old and young, and was regarded as one of those for whom already a crown of gold was set aside in the radiant hereafter. She would have made a charming angel, with her pink cheeks and sunny smile and sparkling eyes. The sunlight on her hair made it golden, and there were those who said celestial music murmured in her voice. Like other country milliners, she made occasional trips to the centres of fashion, there to note the latest styles in hats, and later improve upon the novelties she had seen. Thus from Paris to Emsdale travelled the triumphant bewilderments of bonnets, the route being by way of Toronto and other intermediate points. " But we often cannot judge by appearances," says Murray. " To all appearances Kate Pcndcr was a model of all the angelic virtues. Oliver Campbell Fish would have averred it on a stack of Bibles as high as the pyramids of Egypt. Fish managed a general store at Emsdale for his brother, R. Y. Fish. He and Kate Tender became acquaintances, then friends, and finally they disappeared. " R. Y. Fish complained to the Department that his brother had appropriated goods to the amount of $6,OOO, together with sums of money taken at various times and unaccounted for. He accused the fair Kate Pender of taking quantities of dress goods from his establishment. He said he had searched for the missing pair in vain. I set out to find them. I went to Emsdale, and looked over the remaining effects of Oliver Campbell Fish and Kate Pender. I found nothing that would give any clue in Fish's effects. Among the articles left behind by Kate Pender was a bustle. From what I could learn in the village, Kate Pender had no occasion to wear a bustle, and, in fact, bustles had been out of style for some time, and Kate Fender was not given to wearing things that were out of fashion. I came to the conclusion, therefore, that the bustle did not necessarily belong to the fair Kate Fender. " I picked it up curiously and turned it over, and, to my surprise, a railway map fluttered to the floor. I dropped the bustle and picked up the folder. I glanced at it casually, and was about to toss it aside, when I noticed a pencil line drawn on the railroad map in the State of Iowa. I examined it minutely then, and on a list of trains I found a similar pencil mark drawn. The mark on the map stopped at Ackley, Iowa. The scratch on the list of trains stopped at Dubuque, Iowa. Ackley was not far from Dubuque. I took this for a possible clue, and looked up, on the railroads, any possible trace of the baggage of the missing pair. This line of research was not particularly fruitful, so I decided to go to Ackley and look around for the vanished couple. I arrived in Ackley in April 1899. The fair Kate Fender was out for a promenade, and I saw her on the street. " Back to Dubuque I went, executed the necessary papers, and returned to Ackley. There I met the fair Kate Fender and Oliver Campbell Fish, and invited them to attend a legal function at Parry Sound as the guests of the Government. They thought it over and accepted, waiving the forms of extradition. I brought them back on April 29th, 1899, and took them to Parry Sound to await the action of the authorities there on this case. " R. Y. Fish, who had complained to the Department that his brother had stolen practically enough to stock a store, seemed to relent after a talk with his brother and the fair Kate Fender. I understood the matter was settled by the brothers, and after the settlement Oliver Campbell Fish went away, taking Kate Fender with him. " I burned the bustle. After I saw the fair Kate Fender I knew she had no use for it, and, moreover, it probably never had been worn by her at all Yet, as I remarked at the outset of this case, we cannot always judge by appearances. " It was the only case in my career in which I found a clue in a bustle." WHY HUMPHREY WENT BACK TO PRISON 413 Chapter LXXIII WHY HUMPHREY WENT BACK TO PRISON IN the parlance of rogues, a fence is a person or place where disposition may be made of stolen goods with no questions asked. Fences usually are in cities, although occasionally in the country there are receivers of stolen property, who, in turn, transmit it at a profit to city buyers. In the end, stuff stolen in the country finds its market in the city. Most of the fences are known to detectives, and some of them occasionally are sources of valuable information. In Canada there are comparatively few fences. Property stolen in Canada by professional crooks usually is smuggled into the United States and disposed of in the larger cities of the Continent. " But there was one crook who beat the world in his method of disposing of stolen stuff," says Murray. " It puzzled me for quite a while. The robberies began in Sep- tember 1899. Various burglaries were committed in the counties of Dufferin, Halton, and Grey. Horses were stolen, a buggy was stolen, a load of sheep was stolen, hogs were stolen, household utensils were stolen, and to cap the climax came highway robbery and attempted murder. Then came burglaries in Georgetown, Cooksville, and other towns. " Early in September a minister in Whitby tied his horse in front of a house, and when he came out horse and buggy were gone. Shortly thereafter a team of horses and waggon, stand- ing in Orangeville, eighty miles from the scene of the stealing of the minister's horse and buggy, were stolen, and vanished as if driven up into the clouds. Then three cows were stolen out of a field and driven across fields and into the woods, and there they vanished. A farmer driving along with a load of hogs stopped his team by the roadside to go up a lane and talk with a neighbour. When he returned his hogs were gone as if they had melted away, without leaving a grease-spot to tell what became of them. "A Catholic church at Dixie was entered in the night and the chalice and other valuables were stolen by this mysterious hand, and were powdered up before being taken out of the 414 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE church. A farmer named Brunskill was driving to Toronto, with his boy, to see the Exposition. At half-past four in the morning, at a lonely spot on the road, two men jumped out and hoarsely ordered him to halt. The farmer whipped up his horses. One of the men grabbed the horses by their heads as they sprang into a gallop, clung to them and brought them to a standstill, while the other man leaped into the waggon and struck the farmer over the head with a sandbag. The boy had jumped out and fled. The highwayman was rifling the pockets of the farmer, and was preparing to beat him into utter unconsciousness, when two men with a team drove along. The two robbers fled. The timely arrival of the team saved the farmer's life, for the highwaymen were wrathful over his whipping up his horses to escape. "What was puzzling me most of all was how the robbers were secreting their plunder. They must have a hiding-place somewhere, for it was impossible to smuggle horses, waggons, buggies, hogs, and other bulky things away and out of the country without some trace of them appearing. Finally a farmer lost a load of sheep, and soon thereafter some sheep were sold by a stranger to a butcher in Barrie. From this butcher I obtained a description of the stranger, and I knew him at once for Charles Humphrey, a desperate crook, who had got out of Kingston the day before the first robbery occurred. He had stolen the minister's horse and buggy, and had driven on from Whitby to the county of DufTerin. After the assault on the farmer on the road to Toronto, Humphrey appeared with the minister's horse and buggy, and tried to sell them, three counties away from where they were stolen. I had arranged for prompt notification if any strangers appeared with any horses, buggies, waggons, hogs, sheep, or household utensils to sell, and when I received word of this offer I immediately started to run down the mystery of the hiding- place of all this booty. " I traced the stranger along the roads he had taken, and up in the mountains of the county of Dufferin I came upon a farm, an isolated, lonely place. It had been rented by a stranger, and it was none other than the rendezvous of Charles Humphrey. He would sally forth from it into LAING OF LAWRASON'S, THRIFTY THIEF 415 adjacent counties and steal right and left, from sneak thieving to bold burglaries or desperate hold-ups on the highway. Then back he would travel, under cover of darkness, and hide his plunder. He was stocking the farm by stealing. "' I was going to land a threshing machine next week,' he said to me after his arrest, and when he was about to return to Kingston. " ' It would have left its tracks in the road,' said I. " ' Oh no,' said he. ' I had that fixed.' " So he had. After selecting the machine he intended to steal, he had measured its wheels and prepared big leather casings to which he had fastened tyres the width of ordinary tyres. He intended to fit these casings over the wheels, and thus leave only a waggon track in the road. " Humphrey went back to Kingston Penitentiary for robbery. His pal disappeared, and was none other than his brother. When Humphrey got out recently I had him tried for robbing the church, and he is back in Kingston Penitentiary again, with seven years to serve. When he gets out he can answer for one of the other crimes and go back again. He is too hopelessly clever and irresponsible to be at large." Chapter LXXIV LAING OF LAWRASON'S, THRIFTY THIEF FEW thieves are thrifty. Most crooks are improvident. Many of them, after realising on their plunder, by its sale at a fence or by the division of stolen money, make a bee line for a gambling house, or fritter it away on wine and women, or spend it in high living on a tour around the country. There are some who save the revenue from their booty, regarding the proceeds of their crimes as their income, and living not only within their means, but putting by a great part of it for a rainy day or old age. Not one in ten thousand, however, gets rich at the business. They earn a living at it, and their earnings go far easier than they come. 416 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE " A crook, as a rule, has as little sense in the way he gets rid of his money as he has in the way he gets hold of it," says Murray. " There are crooks who make a living by fleecing crooks ; they steal the stealings of other crooks, and they say frankly that a crook is the easiest lamb in the human flock to shear, if you know how to go about it Occasionally, however, you meet a thrifty thief, who is a miser with his stolen money, and who hoards it, and puts it out to enrich him by legitimate return from honest investment. "J. P. Lawrason was a private banker in the town of St. George, in the county of Brant. In the first days of 1900 Mr. Lawrason came to Toronto, and called at the Department. He said there was a shortage of $8,000 or more in the funds of his bank. He did a large business, and was desirous of having the matter cleared up. I went to St. George, and looked at the ledgers, and suspicion pointed straight at Arthur E. Laing. Laing was a young man of thirty. He was a prominent church member, was married, had a happy home, and two little children, and was held in high esteem in the community. He had worked for Banker Lawrason for about seven years as accountant, and then went into business for himself. " ' What did you pay this man Laing ? ' I asked Banker Lawrason. "'I paid him $35 a month.' " ' Your business is large ? ' " ' About $1,000,000 a year,' said the banker. " It was the same old story. Some banking institutions put a premium on crime by not paying employees enough to live on. A salary of $420 a year is not princely, and does not leave a surplus when a man tries to raise a family on it. Yet Laing had been raising a family and prospering. He could not do it on $420 a year. In looking over the ledger I found forty-six pages burned and mutilated beyond legibility These pages had contained various accounts. I went to see Laing. " ' Mr. Laing, who mutilated the Lawrason ledger ? ' I asked. " ' A lamp,' answered Laing, who was pale and trembling. " ' How did a lamp do it ? V LAING OF LAWRASON'S, THRIFTY THIEF 417 " ' The lamp was on the wall, and it happened to fall and set fire to the book,' said Laing. "' But the lamp was not lighted, was it ? ' " ' Oh yes, it was dark,' said Laing. " ' How came you in the bank after dark ? ' I asked. "'I I was doing some left-over work,' said Laing. " I learned, in talk with townspeople of St. George, that Laing was in the habit, for several years, of making frequent trips to Hamilton. I went to Hamilton, and learned from people who knew him that he usually called at the Bank of Montreal when he was in Hamilton. I found Laing had kept a running account at the Hamilton branch of the Bank of Montreal for several years. This $35 a month man had been making deposits regularly of sums vastly in excess of his salary. The books showed, for instance : "In 1893, September, 9th, $185.50; October 26th, $300; November pth, $175 ; December I4th, $130; December i6th, $150. "The year 1894 ran the same way, the deposits varying from $85 to $400. On May 2nd, 1895, he had drawn out $2,693, ar >d later deposited $2,400 more, and in December 1896 withdrew $3,020. These represented money stolen from Banker Lawrason. Laing was saving his stealings. He went about it quite deliberately. To have stolen $20,000, or $50,000, or $100000 at one grab would have meant instant discovery, and would have necessitated immediate flight, and a life in exile, or a surrender and long term of years in the penitentiary. He set out to steal gradually, bit by bit, the largest amounts possible, and still escape detection. He spread his stealings out over a number of years, and when suspicion seemed imminent he burned the pages in the ledger that would have made it difficult for him to assert his innocence. He did not squander his stolen money. He salted it away, put it out at interest, invested it. He robbed Banker Lawrason of about $8,000 in this way. '"Mr. Laing,' I said, 'you made your $35 a month go a long way in bank deposits.' " He went to pieces. It was a total loss of self-control. He ranted at himself for being a fool. Then he abused 27 418 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE banks. He said they paid their men meagre wages, and left them to handle thousands when they were in actual need of single dollars. There was quite a painful scene with his wife and children. I arrested him on January 24th, and Magistrate Powell remanded him to Brantford gaol. He practically admitted his guilt. When he came up for trial he was sent to the penitentiary for three years. " ' When your family is dependent on you, and a cold winter is staring you in the face, and you are getting only $35 a month, and have nothing for a rainy day, the sight of thousands of dollars lying around loose is a great inducement,' said Laing. "So it is, so it is, a powerful inducement although I suppose nothing should induce an honest man to steal." Chapter LXXV LEE CLUEY OF CATHAY LEE CLUEY was a Chinese laundry man. He had a little shop in the village of Norwich, in the county of Oxford. His eyes were like beads set in almonds, and his skin was the colour of a brass kettle. He kept a big black cat, with a little silver bell tied round its neck with yellow ribbon. For a time he also had a green poll-parrot, with a yellow head. He loved yellow, did Lee Cluey. His long pipe of seven puffs had yellow bands round it. He wore a yellow stone in a yellow ring. On his left arm he wore a big yellow bracelet. In fact, if ever there was a yellow fellow it was this amber-handed, saffron-faced son of Cathay. "His face was like the front of a yellow house," says Murray. " When you looked at him down went the blinds he closed his eyes lest you should see inside. He had pros- pered in his little shop in Norwich, where he had been living for three years. He was fond of working by the open door and passers-by could hear the thump of his iron as he sang in a high falsetto, his finest arias being a scries of jerky squeaks, LEE CLUEY OF CATHAY 419 as if a rat with a very bad cold were shouting for the police to rescue it from the clutches of Trap, the strangler. The poll-parrot was a finicky creature, for it would ruffle up when Lee Cluey sang. "' Chokee off, Cluey ! Chokec off! ' it would squawk. " Few people knew that Lee Cluey had this parrot, as he kept it in a back room, and, truth to tell, its squawkings were much like Cluey's singing, particularly the high notes. The parrot, however, came to know some of Cluey's customers by sight, as it peered out of the gloom of the back room, and it muttered comments on callers incessantly. " Cluey was quick to learn that his best customers were among the churchpeople. So Cluey went to church. He would sally forth out of his little shop with clasped hands and waddle solemnly to worship, sitting stoically from beginning to end of the service. Then back to his shop he toddled, his duty done. In 1899 a series of small thefts annoyed residents of the village. Lee Cluey heard the talk, but sang on during week days and went to church on Sundays. Some hinted that Cluey might know something of the thefts, but others indignantly denied it, and said they had seen Cluey at church regularly for many Sundays. One Sunday in November Lee Cluey went to church as usual and trotted home briskly. He entered his shop, poked up the fire, took his pipe of seven puffs and was about to settle down in comfort, when he sprang up with a long, loud squawk. He rushed out into the November night and trotted through the streets. " ' Thievee ! Thievee ! ' he repeated, over and over. " Then the mayor sent a complaint to the Department and I went to investigate. Cluey said that while he was at church a back window of his shop had been forced and a small metal trunk, in which his most precious possessions were stored, had been stolen. He mourned particularly the loss of money. He said he had a cigar-box full of it in the trunk. " I examined the premises and could find no clue to the identity of the thieves. Cluey followed me about and the cat rubbed up against me while the parrot turned away in disgust. 420 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE " ' Get out, Healy, get out,' it muttered at me, so naturally that I laughed. " The parrot fluffed up. " ' Getee hellee outee ! ' it squawked. " I nosed around the village and found no tangible traces o o of the thieves and then I walked back to Cluey's shop and looked in the window the thieves had forced. " ' Get out, Healy, get out ! ' said the parrot vehemently. " I walked away. " ' Do you know anyone named Healy ? ' I asked an acquaintance. " ' There's a young fellow named Louis Healy,' he answered. " ' Who are his friends, his favourite associates ? ' "' Fred Rawlings and William Poldon,' was the reply. " I went after Healy. He was not pleased to see me. " ' A witness saw you at Lee Cluey's window,' said I. " Healy gasped. He and Rawlings and Poldon were questioned separately by me. Under examination they con- fessed the crime. They produced the cigar box and turned over $45, which they said was all it contained. The metal trunk was recovered. They had hid it on the bank of a creek. Lee Cluey fell on his knees beside it when he saw it. " ' You getec $91 1 ? ' he asked. " ' No, only $45,' said I. " Lee Cluey was loud in his lamentations. I questioned Healy, Rawlings, and Poldon again. They vowed that $45 was all the money they had found in the trunk and that they had turned over all that they had stolen. Of course, although a liar is not always a thief, a thief invariably is a liar as well. But the three young fellows stuck earnestly to their story. I went back to Lee Ciucy's shop. " ' You getee my fifteen hundred dollees ? ' asked Lee Cluey. " I stared at him. Fifteen hundred ! His loss had grown since I last saw him. He had declared first it was $911. Back I went to the three prisoners. They stoutly averred that $45 was the total of the money in the trunk. I returned to Cluey's. " ' You getee my two thousand dollees ? ' said Cluey. MELVIN HALL, FREEBOOTER 421 " He never smiled. I suppose he would have raised it to $5,000 if I had made two or three more trips to and fro. " ' Gluey,' I said, 'you have jumped from $900 to $2,000.' '"Two thousand five hundred dollees,' interrupted Lcc Cluey shrilly. " ' Chokee off, Cluey ! Chokce off ! ' squawked the parrot. " I began to laugh and walked out, leaving Lee Cluey jargoning and lashing his queue at the parrot. The three thieves went to prison." Chapter LXXVI MELVIN HALL, FREEBOOTER BURLY, brutal, and origandish, Melvin Hall spread terror and ruled as a despot in a section of Canada for many years. He was like a border robber of old Scottish days, or a freebooter of the lawless times of early England. He plundered the countryside, he preyed on the farmers, he had an organised band of ruffians and villains and desperadoes, he played fast and loose with the law, he cared not for life or property. His name was a token of trouble, and sight of him was regarded as an ill omen. He dared anything, he feared nothing. " Massive and powerful, a giant even among big men, he towered six feet four inches and weighed two hundred and forty pounds, with a neck like a bull's, a head like a bulldog's, a chest like a baboon's, and a tread like a panther's," says Murray. " He was forty years old. He rode roughshod through the counties of Stormont, Dundas, and Glengarry, and spread fear along both sides of the St. Lawrence River. One night he would make a raid in the United States and escape in boats across the river. The next night he would sally forth into one of the Canada counties, pillage a farm, and ride away to a hiding-place with his plunder. Wherever he went a part of his gang always was within hail. He warned the country folk that those who sought to bring the law upon him would find their barns burned to the ground, their houses tumbled upon their heads, their crops destroyed, 422 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE and their cattle killed. He had his headquarters on a lonely tract of land near Morrisburg. Here he planned his crimes. " Among the members of his gang were his nephew, Luther Hall, a medium-sized, stout young fellow of twenty-five ; John Stevens, a swarthy-skinned, black-haired, powerful Scotchman, about thirty-seven years old and fairly well educated ; Clarence Benstead, a bullet-headed, square- shouldered, lithe fellow, twenty-seven years old, a great runner and walker ; and William Markie, a sullen, blunt, gruff man of few words and great daring. Big Melvin was absolutely master of his men. He ruled like an ancient feudal lord. He held trials, meted out punishments, rewarded friends and persecuted foes. What he wanted he took. A Frenchman named Jenack had a beautiful wife. They lived, with their two little children, on a farm. Big Melvin, driving through the country, saw the handsome Frenchwoman with a party of friends. He sent John Stevens to learn her name and where she lived. Three nights later Big Melvin drove up to the house in a sleigh. He sprang out and kicked the door. Jenack opened it. " ' Where is your wife ? ' demanded Big Melvin. " The woman appeared in the background. " ' Get your things and come with me,' said Big Melvin. " Jenack remonstrated. Big Melvin threw him aside. " ' Have I got to go ? ' said the woman. " In answer, Big Melvin picked her up and strode out to the sleigh. The two children ran after their mother, barefoot in the snow, and clung to the runners of the sleigh, crying for her not to leave them. Big Melvin lashed his horses and as they galloped away he reached over, tore the sobbing children loose and flung them into a snowdrift, whence their father rescued them. The woman lived with Big Melvin thereafter at his rendezvous near Morrisburg. " The people feared to incur Big Melvin's enmity. So he went his lawless way. Dwellings were robbed, cellars and granaries were looted, folk were held up on the highways. Finally Clarence Benstead stole some harness and was caught. The Hall gang warned the countryfolk not to testify against Benstead or any of the gang. But among the MELVIN HALL, FRKKBOOTKR 423 witnesses subpoenaed were John McPhce and his wife. McPhee was a farmer and a man of courage. He and his wife went to court to appear against the member of the gang. Melvin Hall was there. He never deserted his men, and the clan always turned out in large numbers with an alibi for the accused. Big Melvin accosted McPhce. "' McPhee,' said Big Melvin, 'if you give evidence against Bcnstcad, we'll blow you off the earth.' " ' I've stood it long enough, and dangcd if I don't tell the truth,' said McPhce. ' I might as well be blown off it as buried into it.' "This was in March 1900. McPhee testified against Bcnstead and drove home with Mrs. McPhee, arriving between eight and nine o'clock that night. They had supper, McPhee cared for his horses, and he and his wife sat chatting with their daughter, son-in-law, and grandchild, who had come to spend the night with them. About eleven o'clock, as they were going to bed, the daughter looked out of the window. She saw two shadowy figures approaching the house. One of the two was like a phantom giant. " ' Mother, here come two men,' called the daughter. " Mrs. McPhee looked out of her window. "'It's Melvin Hall,' said Mrs. McPhee. " John McPhee sprang for the door, but before he could open it there was an explosion that rocked the house, smashed the windows, shattered the foundations, knocked the inmates heels over head, and stunned the child lying in bed. It was a dynamite cartridge placed to blow up the McPhees in their room, but luckily they were just retiring at the time and had gone to look out of the window where the daughter had seen the two men. " All was still for an hour after the explosion. McPhee had crawled to his hands and knees and was sitting by one of the smashed windows. He saw the t\vo figures step out of the gloom and approach the house again. One ran to the door of the house and held it while the other entered the milkhouse. McPhee staggered to his feet, seized an axe, smashed his own door, and sprang out into the night, axe in hand, prepared to battle to the death. Big Melvin came out of 424 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE the milkhouse, his arms full of plunder. Evidently he thought the McPhees were dead or unconscious, for at sight of McPhee, a ghostly figure swinging an axe, Big Melvin sprang to his horses and away he sped, with his companion, in the night. " ' I know you ! I know you ! ' shouted McPhee, resting on his axe as they disappeared. " Big Melvin answered with oaths, and galloped on. A young man named Link, who was out late that night, heard galloping horses and heavy curses. He surmised it was Big Melvin, and he darted off the road and concealed himself. Presently Big Melvin and Lu Hall went by, full tilt. Link recognised both of them in the bright moonlight. Big Melvin was swearing. Link hastened on to the farm where he worked, and told his employer that the Hall gang was riding the country again. Link's employer was a fearless man He wakened his son, and they started after the two Halls. They came upon them at the place of a Mr. Emphey, and caught the Halls in the act of stealing and loading grain into a waggon. Big Melvin sprang at them. Father and son were armed with bludgeons. Big Melvin struck the father a heavy blow over the head and down he went. But as he fell, the son, who had put Luther Hall to flight with the stolen grain, turned on Big Melvin and smashed him full on the head with the bludgeon. The giant staggered, swayed, grabbed the son, and hurled him ten feet away, then fell. The son scrambled back, his father revived, and they aroused Mr. Emphey, and dragged Big Melvin into the house, where they dressed his wounds. Big Melvin opened his eyes. '"I advise you not to try to hold me,' he said. 'I will settle for the grain.' " The father and son favoured holding him, but Emphey had a plan he deemed better. " ' When will you settle for the grain ? ' he asked. '" I will go and get the money, and return here with it,' said Big Melvin. ' I keep my word.' " Emphey said he would be satisfied, if Hall would bring him the money for the grain. Big Melvin strode out. The moment he was gone Emphey arranged to have three MELVIN HALL, FREEBOOTER 425 constables notified. The three constables hastened to Emphcy's house and secreted themselves. At the appointed time Big Melvin returned. He had kept his word. As he faced Emphey the three constables stepped out. " ' You are under arrest,' said one of them. " ' All right/ said Big Melvin, quietly. ' I'll go.' " He had thrown off his overcoat when he entered. He finished his business with Emphey, then turned to the constables. '" I'll be ready in a moment,' he said, and reached for his overcoat. The constables saw him edging over toward a window with the coat in his arms. They moved forward toward him to put on the handcuffs. With a sudden, mighty swoop of his huge arms, Big Melvin gathered the three of them into a bunch, threw his overcoat over their heads, gave them a tremendous shove, then leaped through the window, sash and all, alighted, with the swarthy John Stevens to aid him, and, with a loud guffaw, sped away. " The people of the township petitioned the Department for protection. I took up the case immediately. I found Big Melvin gone, Luther Hall gone, John Stevens gone, and the whole gang out of the way or under cover. Big Melvin had a brother back in Iroquois. I set a watch on the brother. He secretly sent a letter from Iroquois to be mailed at Wad- dington. I intercepted the letter, and thereby learned Big Melvin was hiding over in the United States. He had been staying on a farm near Watertown, in Northern New York. He was a saving thief, and had plenty of money. I prepared extradition papers, and crossed the river to New York. I found Big Melvin on the farm, and he made a great fuss, denying his identity, and fighting extradition. I learned he had been stealing in New York as he had done in Canada. His fight was futile. He was handed over to me for trial in Canada. He raged and swore when he learned he had to go back. " I took Big Melvin back across the river to stand trial. I have seen crowded court-houses in my day, but the court- house at the trial of Big Melvin was packed to its utmost capacity. The country folk attended from all around. The 426 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE evidence was overwhelming. Big Melvin was convicted, and he went to Kingston Penitentiary for ten years. "John Stevens, or Stevenson, was caught, convicted, and got seven years. Luther Hall slipped over from the United States on a visit, and we got him. At his trial in October, 1901, he had about fifteen choice witnesses to swear to an alibi. I showed where every one of this choice collection had been charged or convicted of crime at some time. One of them, thirty-four years before, had stolen a bee-hive. There was nothing the Hall gang would not steal. When Clarence Benstead skipped over the river, he stole from a farmer in New York. He sneaked back into Canada, and hid about twenty miles from Ottawa. During the trials of the Halls I got track of him, and communicated with Sheriff Harder across the river. Benstead was taken before Judge McTavish, of Ottawa, and sent to New York, where he got six years. Bill Markie was caught near Morrisburg, and joined Big Melvin, Luther, and John Stevens in Kingston Penitentiary. Big Melvin, in prison garb, saw his men one by one join the marching lines inside the Kingston walls. " ' They follow their leader,' he said grimly." Chapter LXXVII THE MURDER OF JOSEPH SIFTON EVERYBODY in Canada who knew Joseph Sifton well called him Old Joe. He was only fifty-eight, but he was fond of folk younger than himself, and for a number of years he had been known as Old Joe. Some said that when he was only forty they had heard people speaking of him in this way. He was rich, as riches go in the farming section where he lived. His home was in the township of London, a few miles from the city of London, Ontario. He owned three or four farms. His wife was dead, and he had one child, a son, named Gerald Sifton, who was thirty years old and lived with his wife on one of the farms. THE MURDER OF JOSEPH SIETON 427 " For some time Old Joe lived with Gerald, but could not get along with Gerald's wife," says Murray. " So lie went to keep bachelor's hall on one of his other farms. At Gerald's lived a good - looking hired girl named Mary McFarlane, whose mother lived in the same township. Mary was an intelligent, bright girl, and Old Joe, unknown to Gerald or Gerald's wife, began to court Mary. It developed later that Mary expected to become a mother, and Old Joe was going to marry her before this would come to pass. In fact, they had set the day, without telling the Siftons or the McFarlanes. It was to be July ist, 1900. On the morning of June 3Oth, Old Joe was found, with bleeding head, lying on the ground in front of his barn, as if he had fallen out of the hay mow. He died that afternoon. The Attorney- General happened to be in London a few days later, and County Attorney McGee spoke to him about Old Joe's death, as there was a lot of talk. I went to investigate. " I began the usual round of inquiry among the family and neighbours. I learned that the day before Old Joe's death Gerald Sifton, the son, had been to London, and did not return until nine o'clock in the evening. Old Joe had bought a wedding ring, and while Gerald was away he took Mary McFarlane in a buggy to see her mother and obtain her consent to their marriage. Mrs. McFarlane refused to sanction the match, saying Joe was too old for Mary. Then Mary told her mother that she had to get married, and she and Old Joe drove away. In the meantime Mary's brother, driving home, met a neighbour named John Sinker. " 'Congratulations !' said John Sinker to young McFarlane. 1 I hear that Old Joe is going to marry your sister.' " Young McFarlane turned around, and drove back to Gerald Sifton's. His sister Mary was there, having returned from her mother's. Mary denied it. Her brother hunted up John Sinker, and told him not to spread such stories about his sister. Sinker replied that all he knew about it was that Old Joe had been to him to borrow his best buggy, saying he intended to marry Mary Mcfarlane. Back to Gerald Sifton's went young McFarlane and saw his sister again, and Mary acknowledged it. Mrs. Gerald Sifton heard 428 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE the talk, and when her husband returned from London she told him that Old Joe and Mary were about to be married. Gerald Sifton started off on his wheel. He rode to the house of James Morden, a neighbour. "'There is the devil to pay over at our place/ James Morden stated Gerald said to him. ' The old man is going to marry Mary McFarlane. I'll see he never marries her. If you lend me a hand and help me to kill the old - I'll give you $1000.' "'Oh no/ said Jim Morden. 'I'll do nothing of that kind.' " Gerald argued with Jim, but it was useless, so Gerald rode on to the house of Edgar Morden, Jim's cousin, and made the same proposition. Edgar refused. Gerald then asked him where Martin Morden lived in London. Martin was Edgar's cousin, and was engaged to Mary McFarlane, who was about to marry Old Joe. Edgar told Gerald he did not know Martin's address. So Gerald rode back to Jim Morden and got the address, and started for London After he had gone, Edgar Morden went to look for Old Joe to warn him to look out. The old man was not at home. Edgar started for Gerald's, thinking Old Joe might be there. It was very dark, and as he ncared the house he came upon Old Joe and Mary McFarlane sitting in a buggy under a tree. He told them what Gerald was doing. " ' You had better come to my place/ said Edgar. " Old Joe and Mary accompanied Edgar to his home, and while there Old Joe drew up a will. They sat up at Edgar Morden's talking until almost dawn, when Old Joe drove to his own house, taking Mary with him. They arrived there shortly after five o'clock. " Gerald Sifton, meanwhile, had gone to London. He arrived there about one o'clock in the morning. He met Policeman Robinson, and asked him to show him the way to Martin Morden's boarding-house. Robinson did so, and Gerald went in and found Martin. He told Martin that Mary had betrayed him, and while engaged to him was planning to marry Old Joe. Martin stated later that Gerald then offered him $1,000 to kill the old man. THE MURDER OF JOSEPH SIFTON 429 "'So long as Mary is doing that, I want nothing to do with her, and I will kill no man,' said Martin. " Gerald was familiar with medicines and drugs, as he had studied for a horse-doctor. He pulled out a phial before Martin. "'I'll see he never gets married,' Martin stated Gerald said. ' You know what that is ? ' " ' Yes, strychnine ? ' " ' That's it,' said Gerald. " Martin could not be persuaded. Gerald left him, and at dawn was back home. He had a hired man working for him, a big overgrown boy, twenty years old. Walter Herbert was his name. Gerald called Walter aside, and offered him $1,000 to go over and finish the old man. " ' We'll say he fell out of the barn,' said Gerald to Walter Herbert. " Herbert refused. Gerald finally agreed to accompany him. About seven o'clock that morning Gerald and Herbert arrived at Old Joe's house. Old Joe and Mary were there, having driven over from Edgar Morden's. Gerald shouted for Old Joe. " ' Come out and show where you want this hay fork put ? ' he called. " Mary McFarlane cautioned Old Joe not to go out " ' He's come to kill you,' said Mary. " Old Joe laughed. He was a husky old fellow, and could have walloped his son with ease in a fair fight. So Old Joe went out. When he appeared, Gerald and Walter Herbert went up into the barn. It was a bank barn next the house. There was a ladder leading up through a little trap into the mow. "Walter Herbert later told what happened then. He said he and Gerald climbed up into the mow. Gerald handed him the axe and said : "' \Vhen he puts his head up give it to him.' "They waited, this son and his hired man, for the old father to climb up to his death. They heard him enter the barn, they heard him start up the ladder, climbing rung after rung. The grey head appeared. Walter raised the axe. 430 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE " ' I struck him once, then my heart failed me and I dropped the axe and reached down and grabbed him,' he said. ' Gerald, who had been standing back, came and seized the axe and struck his father several hard blows on the head. He fell down. We pulled him up into the hay mow and cracked him again, and then pitched him out of the mow down on to bricks on the ground outside. A couple of boards had been knocked off the side of the barn, and we threw him out through there head first.' " Gerald then told Herbert to go and tell the neighbours of Old Joe's fall. " Mary McFarlane came out of the house. She saw Old Joe lying bleeding. Gerald and Herbert were there. " ' Oh, you done it ! ' cried Mary. "' Don't say that,' answered Herbert. "The doctor came. Gerald urged that Old Joe be kept from suffering, and told the doctor he had strychnine. The doctor shook his head. "'Would money be any consideration?' said this dutiful son. " Old Joe died that afternoon, and some days later the matter came to the attention of the Department. No inquest had been held, and Old Joe was underground. But Walter Herbert confessed, and repeated his confession to his uncle and to a constable. On July 26th, 1900, I arrested Gerald Sifton and Walter Herbert, charged with murdering Gerald's father. They were held for trial. Gerald had one set of counsel and Walter Herbert had another set of counsel. When they were brought in for trial, Herbert, to the conster- nation of Gerald, pleaded guilty. After this pica the counsel for Gerald got a postponement of the trial. In fact they obtained two postponements. "Finally, in September 1901, over a year after the crime, Gerald Sifton's trial began. The evidence as I have indi- cated it was presented. Walter Herbert took the stand, and told the whole story of the black deed. Justice McMahon presided at the trial, and the late Judge William Lount prosecuted. I had been away from January to April of 1901, travelling in the West Indies and visiting friends in Jamaica, THE THREE DYNAMITARDS 431 the Barbadocs, and England, but I was home in ample time for the trial, even if it had come in the Spring instead of the Fall Assizes. To the amazement of those familiar with the case the jury disagreed. It stood ten for conviction and two for acquittal. " Over a year passed before the second trial began. In November 1902 the second jury came in. Justice B. B Britton presided at the trial, and R. C. Clute prosecuted. The defence sought to discredit the Crown's witnesses, the defence also produced two witnesses who swore they saw Old Joe going to the barn with an axe to put up a hay fork, the defence also alleged Herbert was not telling the truth. Two of the Mordens, James and Martin, had left the country. I saw them in Davenport, Iowa. The jury brought in a verdict of not guilty. Gerald Sifton walked out a free man so far as the law was concerned. There was indignation over the result. The next grand jury condemned the trial. " I say now that it was a miscarriage of justice and a disgrace to the country." Chapter LXXVIII THE THREE DYNAMITARDS KINGSTON PENITENTIARY, where the desperate criminals and all long-term convicts of the Province are confined, looms a huge mass of grey stone on the shore of the St. Lawrence River. One side of the grim, high walls fronts on the water's edge. When night falls over Kingston and the long lines of convicts have gone to their cells with bolts and locks all fastened and secure, three men sit alone in three widely separate cells. Along the silent corridors go the velvet- slippered guards, their footfalls noiseless in their steady patrol. Occasionally a watchman stops and peers in. All is quiet ; the three men seemingly arc asleep. When morning comes they are up with the sun and through the dull day they go their dreary way, to the stone pile where the hammers rise and fall, or to the workshop where mutely they toil. 432 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE Each is known by a number. Their sentence is for life. The great grey prison is the receiving vault to their eternal tomb. They are buried alive. Life is over for them. The future is a blank existence, bounded by four grim, grey walls. Friends, family, loved ones, home, happiness, all are bygone. Their companions now and through the future years are criminals who shuffle speechlessly, ceaselessly, on their weary road of punishment. The one glimpse of the world comes to them through the window of memory in visions of the vanished years. It is a living death and, saving one ever-cherished hope, the only change that will come will be a closing of the eyes, a stilling of the pulse, and then a creaking of the prison gates to let a hearse go by bearing them to smaller, darker cells. The ever-cherished hope ! When years have softened the hearts of men and mercy moves them to generous forgiveness, it is the convict's endless yearning that a bit of paper may arrive to open his cell and let the punished man go free. It is the hope of pardon shining brightly into desolate lives and none ever can tell what the far future years may bring forth. " The crime for which these three men went to Kingston," says Murray, " occurred at Thorold, at seven o'clock on the evening of Saturday, April 2ist, 1900. It resounded in two thunderous explosions that tore up solid rocks, tossed sky- ward spouts of water, shook houses and shattered windows, while the earth trembled. For miles around people paused, terrified, amazed, or dumbfounded. They waited, as if for the aftermath, for a descent of death and destruction, for the swoop of a calamity that would wipe them and their homes from the face of the earth. It did not come. But by how small a chance it failed, is something that to this day sends shuddering those who saw the dreadful crime. "Thorold is a Canadian hamlet. It nestles along the waterway of the Welland Canal, the Dominion's channel of commerce between Lakes Erie and Ontario. It is within easy walking distance of the frontier at Niagara Falls and is in the general vicinity of the border towns from St. Catherine's to Clifton on the Niagara River by the Falls. THE THREE DYNAMITARDS 433 Lock No. 24 of the Welland Canal is at Thorold. Above it, in the canal, is a level about one mile long, forty feet wide and twenty feet deep, with a second level, No. 25, beyond it. There is a drop of sixteen feet in the lock, and from it on to Lake Ontario, there is a scries of drops, each level being lower like a scries of steps, down which the waters made their way. The gates of the Thorold lock hold in placid check twelve million cubic feet of water, and the sudden smashing of the gates would have released this miniature sea and transformed it from an unruffled expanse of still water to a rushing, roaring, seething, furious torrent, surging in a deadly deluge over the lock, over the lower levels, obliterating their gate, freeing their floods of waters ; raging over the Grand Trunk Railroad tracks and spreading out in angry, awful flood into the valley of Ten Mile Creek ; wiping out homes and houses, ruining lands, devastating property, and, worst of all, ghast- liest of all, drowning hundreds of innocent people and obliterating the town of Merritton. It would have paralysed Canada's great waterway, prostrating her water trade from the great lakes. " Eyewitnesses saw the explosion. Miss Euphemia Constable, a pretty sixteen-year-old girl, who lived with her parents about three hundred yards from the lock No. 24, was going to sec a friend across the canal about 6. 20. Near the bridge, which is by the lock, she saw two men. One was going down by the tool-house to the other end of the lock. The other was standing at the end of the bridge and then walked to the swing bridge. He laid down a valise or brown telescope he was carrying and got off the bridge. She passed him within five feet. He had one hand on the valise and the other at his face, but he moved the hand at his face and she saw his face clearly. He stepped through the side of the bridge and off the bridge from the middle, and took the valise to the end of the lock. Thus at each end of the lock stood one of the men and each had a valise. Miss Constable saw the man at the other end of the lock take a rope and tie it to the end of his valise. 28 434 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE " ' I walked on,' said Miss Constable later, ' and then I heard the man farthest away cry : " Hurry on, Jack, or it'll go off ! " and he ran down the road leading to the Falls. I turned and saw the second man had not tied the rope to his valise yet. He finally tied it on, dropped the valise into the lock, sprang up on to the bridge, and ran after the first man on the road to the Falls.' " Then came the explosions. After the first explosion the girl lost consciousness and knew nothing of the second explosion. The explosion was of dynamite contained in the valises dangled into the lock. They were not quite simultaneous. They were fired by fuzes. They broke the castings on the head gate, tore up the banks on both sides of the lock, knocked people over who were sufficiently near and smashed windows and shook the country roundabout. Water rose skyward, but the gates held. The dynamiters had blundered by lowering the dynamite into the gate pits instead of into the chain holes. Experts later showed that there was not sufficient resistance to the explosive matter and that this fact alone prevented the dire disaster that would have followed, if the dynamite had done the work planned for it and had smashed the gates. " After lowering the satchels into the lock, the two men ran and were about twelve hundred feet from the lock when the first explosion occurred and the other immediately followed. They reached the Stone Road, or public high- way, leading to Niagara Falls and hurried along it toward the border. The Mayor of Thorold and others, after the first terror and excitement had passed, followed in buggies along the Stone Road, other citizens taking other roads. The Mayor of Thorold passed the two men on the Stone Road, and arrived at the Falls ahead of them. The two, men arrived at the Falls on the Canada side about 8.45 p.m., and were pointed out by the Thorold people and were arrested. A third man, who had been seen around with them before the explosion, and who was at the Rosli House at the Falls, also was arrested. The two men gave their names as John Nolin and John Walsh. The third man gave his name as Karl Dallman. The three men were locked THE THREE DYNAMITARDS 435 up. Intense excitement followed. Wild rumours were spread abroad. The soldiery were called out. The three prisoners were taken to Welland gaol and guarded by soldiers, while other soldiers patrolled the canal. There were tales of midnight prowlers, of shots in the dark, of mysterious phantoms. There were various theories as to the crime. The excitement along the border grew. " I found Dallman a stout, grey-haired, full-faced, smooth- shaven man of about fifty. Nolin was short and brown moustached, and looked a prosperous mechanic. Walsh was tall, red faced, smooth shaven and watery eyed. I had them photographed in Welland gaol. Dallman smashed the camera and made a break for liberty. I pulled my revolver and we had quite a tussle. Dallman strove to dash through the door. I halted him and forced him back and then locked him in a cell. He was a desperate man. Nolin and Walsh stood together as if Dallman were a stranger to them. Dallman said he was fifty years old, born in England, a clerk, married, a Methodist, and Buffalo the last place of residence. He said he knew nothing of any dynamite explosion or any plot to do harm. " ' I went on a spree/ he said. ' I did no harm. I knew nothing of any plot to do harm, and I never knew Walsh or Nolin until I met them while on a spree at Niagara Falls.' " The evidence at the magistrate's hearing and at the trial was voluminous. Charles Lindenfield, of the Stafford House, in Buffalo, told of Dallman arriving there in March, going away, returning again on March 22nd, and again on April nth, and again on April 1 4th, registering as Karl Dallman, of Trenton, New Jersey. On April I5th he was joined at the Stafford House, in Buffalo, by Nolin and Walsh, under the names of Smith and Moore. Lindenfield told of their meeting. Sergeant Maloney, of the Niagara Falls, New York Police, told of seeing Dallman, Nolin, and Walsh together in a trolley car at the Falls at ten o'clock on Thursday night, April iQth. Charles E. Lewis, a United States Secret Service man at the Falls, noticed the men together by reason of their frequent crossing of the cantilever bridge to Canada. He tracked Nolin, Walsh, and' Dallman 436 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE together to a room in the Dolphin House the day before the explosion. On the day of the explosion he saw Dallman and Nolin together with a package. On the night of the explosion he searched the room in the Dolphin House, and found two coils of fuse and a dynamite rubber pouch. Customs Officer W. F. Latta saw Nolin and Dallman with a package the day before the explosion, and saw Walsh carry the satchels across the bridge into Canada, one on Friday with Nolin, and one on Saturday. Joe Spencer, a cabman, identified Dallman, Nolin, and Walsh, as three men who hired him to drive them from the upper to the lower steel arch bridge a day or two before the explosion, Dallman paying for the cab. On Thursday, t\vo days before the explosion, Spencer drove Nolin and Walsh to Thorold, where they took a walk. While returning to Thorold they passed Dallman driving on the road leading past lock No. 24. Owen Riley, of St. Catha- rine's, on a train from Merriton to Thorold, sa\v and talked with Dallman two days before the explosion. Dallman got off at Thorold, and Riley showed him where to hire a buggy George Thomas, a clerk in Taylor's store at the Falls, told of selling to Walsh, while Nolin waited outside, the rope used to lower the satchels into the lock. The rope was bought about 8 p.m. on the day of the explosion. George Walters corroborated George Thomas. Miss Alma Cleveland of Thorold, saw Walsh and Nolin get off the train at Thorold with the satchels and the parcel containing the rope on the evening of the explosion. Mrs. Slingerland, of Catharine Street, Thorold, saw them as they walked from the train. William Chapel saw them pass his house within sight of the lock. Miss Euphemia Constable told of seeing them lower the satchels into the lock. Her mother told of seeing Dallman, Nolin, and Walsh at the lock on the Monday before the explosion. They were looking it over. Dan Parr, a watchman at the lock, heard a splash, and saw the men leaving, and then was knocked down by the explosion. Miss Mary Gregory and Mrs. Rebecca Gregory, her mother, passed the men on the Falls road after the explosion. William Pierce, a working man, fell in with them on the road to the Falls, and walked as far as Stamford, they saying nothing of THE THREE DYNAMITARDS 437 the explosion. George Black saw them on the road, and followed them in his buggy. The Mayor of Thorold told of following and passing them. Alfred Burrows, of the Rosli House, told of Karl Dallman registering at his hotel from Washington, D.C., on April I2th and on -April i6th, and of John Walsh, of Washington, D.C., being there on April iQth. Dr. Houseberger told of dressing three burns on Walsh's hand after his arrest. Officer Mains told of the actions of Dallman, Nolin, and Walsh together at the Falls on days before the explosion, and of their arrest after the explosion. Fred Latta, on the day before the explosion, walked up the street at the Falls behind Dallman and Walsh for two blocks. He was about four feet behind them. He heard Dallman say to Walsh : " ' Do you know where Jack is ? ' "' I suppose he is getting drunk/ replied Walsh. "' If we don't keep that sober we will never be able to pull off that job,' was Dallman's answer. "' How are we going to keep him sober ? ' said Walsh. " ' If we can't do it any other way we will have to lock him in a room.' " They passed on, and later met Nolin, who was carrying a parcel, which he handed to Dallman, and later took it back. All the witnesses identified the men positively. The Crown showed by Edward Walker, an expert on dynamite, that the failure of the explosion to accomplish its object probably was due to lack of sufficient resistance against the explosive. Two engineers testified as to the death and destruction that would have followed the deluge of 12,000,000 feet of water if the explosion had resulted as planned. " Dallman made a defence ; Nolin and Walsh made none. Dallman tried to prove an alibi by Charles Kinney, a cab- man, attempting to show he had not been at the lock with Nolin and Walsh a few days .before the explosion. His alibi was a failure as Kinney became tangled up, and finally Chancellor Boyd remarked that he had made a mess of his evidence. None of the three prisoners went on the stand. "Their trial began before Chancellor Boyd at Welland on May 25th, 1900. The jury filed out as the clock struck six 438 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE on the evening of May 26th. They filed in at 6.4. They were out just four minutes. " ' Guilty,' said the foreman. ' ' All three ? ' asked Chancellor Boyd. " ' Yes,' said the- foreman ; ' all three.' " The three prisoners arose and faced the court. They had been found guilty, after a fair and careful investigation, of a crime against the State and Crown, said Chancellor Boyd. It was a novel experiment in Canada, he continued, to use explosives to damage a public work. The motive had not been disclosed, and was unknown. In the case of Nolin and Walsh, said the court, it probably was one of hire and for gain. As to Dallman, said his lordship, he was the master spirit, more guilty than the others, and the motive was of hate and a blow against the State and civilisation. It was committed with illegal intent ; it had been long and deliberately planned. "' I see no reason for altering the penalty of the indictment, and I sentence all three to imprisonment for life,' concluded the court. " The three prisoners were put into irons, and marched out and taken to Kingston Penitentiary. " When it came to ascertaining the details of the past life of the three men, I found a task involving much labour. I communicated with Scotland Yard, and sent them descriptions and photographs ; for Nolin and Walsh seemed unmistakably to be from across the sea, and Walsh particularly had the manner and speech of a man recently over. I went to New York and saw friends there, both in and out of the police business. I went also to Philadelphia, Washington, Virginia, and elsewhere. "I learned that in Dublin, Ireland, in 1894 were three young men who set sail for America. They were John Nolin, a young machinist; John. Rowan, a mechanic; and John Merna, a mechanic. They arrived in New York, and drifted about the metropolis until, on May i/th, 1894, Merna declared his intention to become a citizen of the United States, took out his first papers, and gave his residence as No. 41, Peck Slip, New York. Nolin went to Philadelphia, and obtained THE THREE DYNAMITARDS 439 employment in the Baldwin Locomotive Works. In 1895 all three Nolin, Mcrna, and Rowan returned to Ireland. Mcrna got a job on the Dublin Independent, and Nolin went to work as a machinist in a Dublin printing-office, and for a time also worked at Manchester, England, and other points, and then returned to Dublin. In November 1899 f ur mcn started from Dublin for America. They sailed from Liverpool, on a Red Star steamship of the American line, for Philadelphia. The steamer had a hard trip, and was given up for lost, but finally arrived in Philadelphia after nineteen days at sea. The four men from Dublin \vere four Johns, with Walsh the new one. Of the four men, Nolin and Walsh were reputed to be men of exceptional courage. Of Nolin it had been said, ' He would not fear to go aboard a boat with a belt of dynamite, and blow the boat to the bottom of the sea.' Of Walsh it was said, ' He feared not another man, even with a naked knife.' Walsh left behind him a wife and four children, living at No. 16, St. Michael's Hill, Dublin. He had worked the previous year as a horse tender for the Dublin Electric Tramway Company, W. M. H. Murphy being the superintendent. Nolin left a wife, but no children, in Castle Street, Dublin. Merna left a wife at No. 88, Creaghton's Terrace, Dublin, and a sister, Mrs. Mary Tullman, at No. 31, Powers Street, Dublin. No charges of complicity in the explosions in Exchange Court, Dublin, had been made against any of the four men. " The four Johns, after spending a few days in Phila- delphia, in November 1899, went to New York. They stopped at the lodging- or boarding-house of John M. Kerr, at No. 45 Peck Slip, in the shipping district. They hung about New- York until December 1899, when Rowan returned to Ireland, and went to work at his trade, he then being a fitter or first-class machinist in Dublin. In December 1899 Nolin and Walsh applied to the South Brooklyn branch of the Amalgamated Society of Machinists, an old English Society, with offshoots in America, and known in England as the Society of Engineers. Nolin and Walsh applied for donation money, which is $3 per week for those out of work. Nolin got donation money from John A. Shearman, secretary of the 440 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE American Society of Machinists, who worked in the Pioneer Machine Works in Brooklyn, and to whom Nolin sent his card. "In the last part of December 1899 Nolin, Walsh, and Merna went to Washington, D.C. Nolin remained there a short time, and then went on to Richmond, Virginia, where he went to work as a fitter in a foundry. On December 25th, 1899 (Christmas Day), Merna got a job in Washington as bar-tender at No. 212, Ninth Street, N.W., working for Joe McEnerney, a saloon-keeper. On January ist, 1900, Walsh also got a job as bar-tender for McEnerney. Merna and Walsh relieved each other at the bar, and they shared a room together over the saloon. They worked as bar-tenders for McEnerney through January and February 1900 and along into March, while Nolin worked on in the Richmond foundry. Early in March Karl Dallman had registered at the Stafford House, in Buffalo, and then had gone away. "On Monday evening, March I2th, Merna was found dead in his room over the saloon in Washington, where he and Walsh worked. He was found lying on the floor with a bullet in his heart. The marble slab of the bureau was torn partly away. Beneath Merna was found a revolver, a 38-calibre British bulldog. Walsh was questioned, and he said Merna had entered the saloon in the evening in good spirits, laughed, chatted, went upstairs to their room, and fifteen minutes later he was found lying on the floor, dead. Suicide was the coroner's verdict, and Merna was buried in Washington on March I3th. Of the four Johns, two were left in America Walsh in Washington and Nolin in Richmond. "Somewhere about April loth, 1900, Nolin received a com- munication from a lodge to which he belonged. The lodge was known in secret circles as the Nappcr Tandy Club. It was a Clan-na-Gael organisation. It met at Tom Moore's Hall, corner of Third Avenue and Sixteenth Street, in New York. The entrance was at No. 149, East Sixteenth Street. Its president was a well-known bookseller. Nolin and Walsh both were members of this lodge. They were introduced by a man named Jack Hand, a sailor. THE THREE DYNAMITARDS 441 " Nolin's instructions, sent to him in Richmond, were, for him to go to Washington, get John Walsh, and, with Walsh, go tr> Philadelphia, where, at a place specified as the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad Station, and a time fixed in the instructions at 7 p.m., on Saturday, April I4th, the two men, Nolin and Walsh, would meet a third man, who would give them further instructions as to what to do. Additional details, were arranged for. Nolin obeyed the instructions as they reached him. He left Richmond and went to Washington, where he got Walsh. When McEnerney heard Walsh was to leave he remonstrated and offered to raise Walsh's wages $12 per month if he would stay. Nolin and Walsh left Washington and went to the railroad station in Philadelphia specified in the instructions. That was on Saturday, April I4th, and about a quarter past seven in the evening, as they stood in the station, a well-dressed, stout man came up and asked if they were so-and-so. Nolin and Walsh replied satisfactorily, whereupon the stranger said : ' I am the man you want to see,' and the three men then had an earnest conversation, after which the stranger took $100 from his pocket and handed it to Nolin, along with two railroad tickets and two sleeping-car tickets from Philadelphia to Buffalo, over the Lehigh Valley Railroad. The stranger left the two men in the station, and Walsh and Nolin went to the Lehigh Valley train for Buffalo. " Nolin and Walsh arrived in Buffalo at noon on Sunday, April 1 5th, over the Lehigh Valley Railroad. They went direct to the Stafford House and registered, as they had been told to register, as John Smith, of New York, and Thomas Moore, of Washington. They were assigned to room No. 88 and ordered up drinks. While waiting for the drinks there was a knock on the door. They said ' Come in.' The door opened and in stepped Dallman. He introduced himself and a satisfactory understanding of one another was reached. After dinner they took a walk in Buffalo together, going into a certain concert place, among others. They returned to the Stafford House, where Dallman was registered as Karl Dallman, Trenton, New Jersey. Dallman told Nolin 442 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE and Walsh to prepare for an early start in the morning. After breakfast at the Stafford House on Monday morning, April 1 6th, Dallman gave to Nolin and Walsh two canvas grips or telescopes. In each of these grips were about eighty pounds of dynamite, mixed to about the consistency of stiff dough. It was in the form of a cake or loaf. Fuses were with each cake, lying on top, but not connected or attached. Dallman, Nolin, and Walsh left Buffalo together on Monday morning, April i6th, and took a trolley car to Niagara Falls, New York. On arriving at Niagara Falls Nolin and Walsh left Dallman and went to the Imperial Hotel, and registered there as Smith and Moore. In the afternoon Dallman called for them, and said : ' Now we will go across.' Dallman, Walsh, and Nolin took a Grand Trunk train across Suspension Bridge and got off at Merriton, in Canada, and took a street-car at Merriton, and then went to Thorold, where Mrs. Constable saw them near the lock. When Nolin and Walsh and Dallman returned to the Falls that night, Nolin and Walsh, at Dallman's request, arranged to change their lodgings, and the next day, Tuesday, April iyth, they left the Imperial Hotel and went to the Dolphin House. Dallman went to the Rosli House on the Canada side of the Falls. Dallman, Nolin, and Walsh went driving together, and on Thursday afternoon, April iQth, Nolin and Walsh drove to Thorold, meeting Dallman, also driving, on the road near Thorold. The cabman and the liveryman's hired man, who drove Dallman, identified the the three men. The three met on the American side, Dallman calling on them at the Dolphin House and they crossing and seeing Dallman. " Walsh took the dynamite into Canada. He went from the Dolphin House to the Rosli House. At a quarter past three on Friday afternoon, April 2Oth, he carried one of the bags of dynamite over, and at one o'clock on Saturday afternoon, April 2ist, the day of the explosion, he carried the other bag over. The first bag was left with Dallman over-night, and the second bag was taken over and left with it on Saturday afternoon until Nolin and Walsh started for Thorold. Dallman gave Nolin and Walsh money for hotel THE THREE DYNAMITARDS 443 bills and incidental expenses. After the explosion they were to meet at the Falls, or failing there, meet in Buffalo and take late trains away. The explosion, the arrests, the con- victions, and the sentence for life followed. " Karl Dallman clearly was the most interesting figure in the entire affair. I sent his picture and his description to trusted friends in various cities and in due time I learned that Karl Dallman of Trenton, New Jersey, was none other than Luke Dillon, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. At one time he was a member of the executive of the Clan-na-Gael, and defended it and publicly championed its cause, and achieved more than national prominence when, as a member of the executive committee of the Clan-na-Gael, he went to Chicago, at the time of the murder of Dr. Cronin, and denounced Alexander Sullivan, raised funds for the prosecu- tion of those accused of murdering Dr. Cronin ; advocated the throwing off of the oath of secrecy, so far as necessary to run down Cronin's assassins ; went on the witness stand and, by his testimony, revealed the secret of the Triangle, the chief three who had ruled as the executive of the Clan-na- Gael ; made public the charges against Sullivan and fought throughout on the side of the anti-Sullivan wing. The identification was made absolute and final. Men who knew Luke Dillon, who had worked day by day near him, went to sec Karl Dallman and identified him positively as Luke Dillon. But more than all that, the Government knows that Karl Dallman is Luke Dillon as certainly and as surely as it knows that I am John W. Murray. "Dillon was a shoemaker originally. In 1881 he was shoemaking at Xo. 639, Paul Street, Philadelphia. He was married and for five years he lived in Paul Street, making a speciality of slipper-making, and in 1884 he added a small stock of shoes, becoming a shoedealcr as well as a shoemaker. In 1887 he moved into a little brick house at Xo. 920, Passyunk Avenue. He became active and prominent in the Clan-na-Gael. When a split came he espoused the side of the Cronin faction, known as the United Brotherhood, which later merged into the Irish Revolutionary Brotherhood. Dr. Cronin formcrlv lived at St. Catharine's, near Thorold, where 444 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE the explosion occurred. In May 1889 he was murdered in Chicago. About 1891 Dillon abandoned the shoe business, and 1892 found him a teller in the Dime Savings Bank at No. 1429, Chestnut Street, Philadelphia. In 1899 he moved, with his family, to Federal Street, Philadelphia, where he was living in 1900, when he went to Thorold. The bank went into other hands eventually, turning over its deposits and accounts to the Union Surety Guarantee Company, across the street. In March and April he made trips to Buffalo, and on April roth, the day Nolin received the communication to go to Washington and get Walsh, Dillon started for Buffalo, registered as Dallman at the Stafford House the next day, and the day after, on April I2th, went to Canada, in the vicinity of Thorold, and was registered at the Rosli House on the Canada side, where later he stopped, while Walsh and Nolin were at the Dolphin House. This was two days before Walsh and Nolin left Philadelphia. Dillon returned to the United States, and on April I4th again was at the Stafford House to meet Walsh and Nolin, who left Philadelphia that night and arrived the next afternoon. On the following Saturday, after the three men had been together all the week, the explosion occurred. " For two years after the three men went to Kingston for life the general public knew nothing of the identity of Karl Dallman. Then the Buffalo Express made known the fact, telling the story of his life and connection with the Cronin affair. Some of Dillon's friends explained that he had gone to South Africa to fight with the Boers against the British, and may have been killed there. The truth is that Luke Dillon is in Kingston Penitentiary. lie went there as Karl Dallman. From the moment of his entrance he lost all names, real or assumed, and is known only by a number. Inmates are numbered, not named, in Kingston. He is a silent figure, grey-haired, white-faced, prison-garbed. He- works during the day and when night comes, he lets down his shelf or bed of iron from the wall, blankets it and lies down to read. The light overhead goes out. The velvet purr of a cushioned tread hovers a moment by his door and THE TEMPORARY QUIRK MYSTERY 445 dies away. Then all is still and the stillness of the night in Kingston is a silence as grim as the great grey walls that shut out the world." AFTER his long search for all the essential details of the past lives of the three dynamitards, Murray returned to find a series of systematic attempts being made to derail trains on the Canadian Pacific Railroad's lines beyond Fort William. The favourite place for these attempts was about seventy miles west of Fort William. He went to the vicinity, and after patient work and waiting enmeshed one of the ring- leaders, who was convicted, and sent to prison, and the gang was broken up. It was July 1901 when he finally landed his man. In the following session of Parliament an Act was passed investing him with the full powers of a coroner throughout the entire province, with authority to hold inquests and conduct official inquiries into the causes of fires. This investiture occurred on February 8th, 1902. Less than a month thereafter another murder mystery arose. " In the city of Brantford lived James Quirk and John Toole," says Murray. " Quirk was a famed sport and sprinter, and sharper. They kept an hotel called the Com- mercial House in Brantford. Quirk was insured for about $14,000 on his life. He was married, and had two young daughters. The rooms of Quirk, Mrs. Quirk, the daughters and Toole were along the same hall. In fact Mrs. Quirk's room opened into her daughters' room, and her daughters' room opened into Toole's room. "On Sunday, March 6th, 1902, Quirk went out for the evening. About eleven o'clock that night he returned to the hotel. Toole was in the office as was a cook at the hotel named Ryan, who had been out with some friends that evening, and had returned ahead of Quirk, and was somewhat under the influence of liquor. Evidence given later at the inquest showed that Quirk went out toward the bar in the 446 MEMOIRS OF "A GREAT DETECTIVE rear. Toole shortly after followed Quirk out toward the bar, telling a bell-boy named Eddie Kennedy, who was on duty, that he could go to bed. Kennedy went upstairs, leaving Ryan in the office, and Quirk and Toole somewhere back in the rear. A minute or two later, George Rillis, a bar-tender of the Kirby House, walked in, and asked for Quirk. " ' He just stepped into the bar,' said Ryan. Rillis walked out to the cubby-hole, where they passed out drinks from the bar to the front. He knocked and called. There was no response. Rillis walked back to the office. " ' Quirk is not there,' he said. " ' He may have stepped out,' said Ryan. "The bell-boy, Eddie Kennedy, ran downstairs into the office. " ' Something's wrong in the stable ! ' he said excitedly. ' I heard a noise of groaning from my room.' " Ryan and Rillis rose and went out into the stable, going to the harness-room. They found Quirk lying in a pool of blood, .gasping his last breath. He was unable to speak. Ryan ran into the house, and upstairs and rapped at Toole's door. There was no response. Ryan then knocked on Mrs. Quirk's door. The rooms of Toole and Mrs. Quirk opened into the room of Mrs. Quirk's Daughters, which was between. Ryan also roused the people in the house. Mrs. Quirk came out of her room. '"Jim is killed,' she was told. " At first it was thought she really had fainted. Mrs. Quirk later said that she went into Toole's room, and he was sitting in a chair reading a paper, and he jumped up, and came through the daughters' room, and out of her room, and went out to the stable. When Toole was seen by others later he was bloody, and this was explained by the statement that when he entered the stable and saw Quirk lying dead he grabbed him by the head and was spattered with blood. " The theory advanced was that Quirk had been climbing to the loft to look at some game chickens he kept" there, and that he missed his footing, and fell head foremost to the floor, where he lay moaning until Kennedy, the bell-boy heard him. This theory is not tenable, The blood spatters showed a TWO CROOKS IN CLOVER 447 murder, and not an accidental fall. Quirk was struck with an iron bar, or an axe with a blunt head, or a weapon of that kind. It was a murder, not an accident. " The coroner's inquest was prolonged by many postpone- ments for months. No licence for an hotel bar was granted to Mrs. Quirk or to Toolc. The insurance companies refused to pay the policies, amounting to $14,000, on Quirk's life. " Mrs. Quirk and Toole left Brantford, and sojourned for a time in Buffalo, New York. " The case is a mystery that is a mystery only in so far as the formal legal solution of it is concerned. I am in hopes of getting at the bottom of the case eventually, as I am morally certain who the guilty parties are, but there is not sufficient evidence just yet to convict, in case they are arrested. In such cases the desired links in the chain of evidence some- times come quite quickly and very unexpectedly. At other times they come deliberately and after some delay. But this case is one where all the subsequent circumstances tend to indicate that it may be just a matter of delay until what we arc waiting for comes to pass. When it does there will be an arrest, and when there is an arrest I believe certainly there will be a conviction. " I do not think Jimmy Quirk's murderer sleeps any too soundly at night during these days of anxious freedom. In fact I think the murderer is beginning to realise that in the end the full proof of guilt is doomed to come out. The murderer knows the very evidence desired, and it simply is a question of time, when some occurrence may leave the murderer without ability to withhold it any longer." Chapter LXXX TWO CROOKS IN CLOVER AN interruption to the work of drawing out evidence at the Jimmy Quirk inquest in Brantford occurred in July 1902, when Murray obtained a trace of the whereabouts of two crooks who had lived on the fat of the land in the counties of Kent and 448 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE Essex and Elgin the year before, and had skipped out to no one knew where, when the farmers rose up and determined to put an end to their depredations. " They were a pair of gay buckos," says Murray. " They stole right and left. Various daring burglaries were com- mitted in the counties of Kent, Essex, and Elgin. They were not slovenly, ordinary jobs, but were robberies cunningly planned and skilfully executed. They operated in city and country alike, plundering farmhouses and barns, and looting safes and stores. They made some good hauls of jewellery and money in the city of Chatham. The jobs were not the work of novices or of timid crooks. The thieves were men willing to take a chance and run a long risk. " The farmers were up in arms, and arranged for a syste- matic watch for the burglars. In due time they were rewarded, for the robbers were discovered in the act of stealing fifty bushels of clover seed. The thieves had a team, and away they went with the stolen clover seeds, and with the farmers in pursuit. Over the roads they sped pell-mell, lickety-split. One of the thieves was a man past middle age. He scooted on ahead with the booty, while the farmers gave chase to the other crook, and after a mile or more of fast going they got him. He was winded, and they handed him over to a con- stable in Ridgetovvn. No sooner did he regain his wind and get his bearings than he gave the constable the slip and was off like a flash. Pursuit was futile this time, for he was beyond reach, and had disappeared before the chase could be organised. " The trail of the older crook, however, led to a house and barn near Ridgetovvn. When searchers arrived there the pair of thieves had skipped. A hunt for plunder failed to reveal any trace of the whereabouts of the clover seed. It was neither in nor under the house or barn. There was no sign of its having been buried, and it was not secreted in a chimney or in bags tied in the trees. Some birds were noticed flying in and flying out of an opening to an old well. This opening was investigated, and the clover seed was found dumped in the old well. Clover seed was worth over $8 a bushel at that time, and the abandoned well had about $500 worth of seed in it. TWO CROOKS IN CLOVER 449 " From descriptions and other details, it was easy to identify the two crooks as Ben Reilly and John Acker. Reilly was thirty-eight years old, and had lived at Ridgetown, renting the house and barn. Acker was fifty years old. I billed them throughout Canada and the United States. In due time we heard of them, one in Ohio and the other in Indiana. They had separated. I prepared the necessary extradition papers, and went to Fort Wayne, Indiana, and with the assistance of Detective Mahoney in Windsor, arrested Reilly in Conway, Ohio, and Acker in Bluffton, Indiana. When they came before the United States Commissioner, in July 1902, their defence against extradition was an alibi. I had three respectable and responsible witnesses who identified them positively. One of the witnesses was Liveryman Jones, from whom they had hired a team. Another of the witnesses was Blacksmith David Olone, and the third was Constable Mills. " The Gaynor and Green cases had been prominent in Quebec about this time. Gaynor and Green were fugitives from the United States, and were living in Quebec. The United States failed in its efforts to extradite them. Officials in the United States felt they had not been treated fairly in the Gaynor and Green matter, and I do not think they were. When the evidence in the case of Acker and Reilly was all in, the United States Commissioner held it under considera- tion, and finally dismissed the prisoners. "The case clearly was in violation of extradition law. An alibi is for a jury to hear. All that is necessary in either country under the extradition law is to have the prisoners identified. However, a Canada official was not in a position to take any lofty attitude on an extradition case just at that time, for Gaynor and Green were enjoying life in Quebec, and they were fugitives of far more public importance than Acker and Reilly. They were accused of matters involving hundreds of thousands of dollars, which was quite different from a few burglaries and fifty bushels of clover seed hid in an old well. " One of Acker's friends met me as I was leaving the Commissioner's office. " ' I think John ought to write a note to Gaynor thank- ing him for his forethought,' he said. Then he added, 29 450 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE confidentially, ' You know Acker and Gaynor are first-namers alike, both being John, and their ain't so much difference in their ages. One John stays in the States and the other John stays in Canada. I hope the two countries never exchange Johns.' " Chapter LXXXI THE CRIME OF CHARLIE KING IN the county of Elgin, one of the three counties where Acker and Reilly played fast and loose with the farmers, lived Daniel B. Freeman, a well-to-do farmer, whose land was in the township of Oldboro. In 1886 he and his wife adopted a baby boy and raised him as their own and gave him their own name. He turned out to be a good boy, and in 1902, when he was sixteen, he had grown big and strong for his age. The Freemans cherished him as their own child. " His name was Willie B. Freeman," says Murray. " Ten years after he was adopted by the Freemans, Daniel Freeman went to the Fagan Home in Toronto, and got an eighteen- year-old boy to work on his farm. The Fagan Home imports English waifs to Canada and places them in honest lines of work. The boy taken by Daniel Freeman was named Charlie King. He was ten years older than Willie Freeman. Six years passed. Charlie King lived with the Freemans, Willie as their son and Charlie as the hired man. Charlie never drank, never smoked. He indulged in church freely, and was a leader of the Epworth League in the Methodist Church, and acted as librarian. " On the morning of September 6th, 1902, King put up a load of peaches for Daniel Freeman to take to the village in the afternoon. Before Mr. Freeman started, Willie went into the tool-house and was making a pin for a gate on a lathe, when his father drove away. His mother called and he answered her through the window of the drive house. Daniel Freeman had not driven far from his house when he heard the report of a gun. Squirrels were thick THE CRIME OF CHARLIE KING 451 and annoying, and a gun was kept in the tool-house for shooting them. Freeman thought it was King shooting at squirrels, although he had been forbidden to use the gun, and Willie never used it. A few minutes after the gunshot, King entered the house and went to Mrs. Freeman. "'Willie has shot himself," said King. " He's lying dead on the shave horse in the drive house.' " Mrs. Freeman ran out and upstairs in the drive house, and when she saw Willie she fled screaming. Daniel Freeman, on the road to the village, heard his wife scream and turned back. He went up into the drive house with King. Willie was dying from a gunshot wound in the head ' Doctors came, but simply were in time to see him die. King told Mr. Freeman that he heard the gunshot, went upstairs in the drive house and found Willie, shot. The inquest was held and King went on the stand and told his straight story. The boy was buried. Then Daniel Freeman thought it all over and he notified me through the County Attorney. On September nth, 1902, I went to St. Thomas, got Dr. Lawrence and Dr. Duncan, and on September I3th drove to the village of Bismarck and got Dr. Webster, who attended the boy, and then we four drove to the cemetery and had the body exhumed and made a post-mortem. I saw no powder marks on the face. Moreover the shot had scattered over the forehead in a radius of four and a half to five and a half inches. The gun was not fired at close range or the shot would not have scattered. If it was not fired at close range then clearly the boy did not shoot himself. We drove to the Freeman house. I asked for Charlie King. He came out very slowly. " ' I want you to go over the ground with me inch by inch, and tell me just what happened when you found Willie dying,' I said. " ' He he was up he was in the -' began King, who was quite excited, pointing to the drive house. " ' No, come with me,' I said, leading the way to the foot of the stairs in the drive house. ' Now show me where you were standing.' " ' I went upstairs and saw Willie -' began King. 452 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE " ' Go on up ; I will follow,' said I. ' Go up just as you went up when you found Willie.' " We mounted the stairs, King first, I behind. " ' Where was W ; illie ? ' I asked. " ' He was on the lathe,' said King. "'Show me exactly where he was,' said I. 'You get on the shave horse and show me.' " King shivered and then dropped limply across the shave horse, with his head hanging down. "'Keep your head down,' I said. 'Don't move till I tell you.' " I stood for several minutes in silence. I could hear King breathing hard. I saw that the position of the body on the shave horse was quite possible, provided the boy had not shot himself. A man who shoots himself is apt to go toward the shot. If you shoot a man across the road he will fall toward you. " ' Where was the gun ? ' I asked. " ' It was beside him,' said King. " I got a long stick about the length of the gun. " ' Call this the gun,' I said. ' You get on the lathe again and show me how you could shoot yourself with that gun.' " King tried to do so but it was an awkward and unlikely attempt. " ' Was any one about but you ? ' I asked. " ' No one,' said King. " ' Are you sure ? ' I asked. "' Sure,' answered King. ' Mrs. Freeman was in the house and 1 was here.' " I eyed him, eyed him long and steadily, until he flushed and paled and shifted uneasily. We were alone in the loft of the tool-house, he and I. The doctors were waiting outside with the County Attorney. All was still. " ' King,' I said sternly, 'you or Mrs. Freeman shot him.' " ' I didn't ! I didn't ! ' he cried. " ' What did you do with the gun ? ' I asked. ' W r hat did you do with it after you saw Willie on the lathe, dying ? ' THE CRIME OF CHARLIE KING 453 " ' I I took it downstairs,' he said. " ' Why ? ' I demanded. ' Tell me why you took the gun dowstairs and left Willie up here to die ?' " ' So so no blood would get on it,' said King. " He was shaken. He began to quiver and shift. I stood looking at him, waiting in silence. " ' Well ? ' I said. " He started, hesitated, then burst into tears. "'Oh! oh! Will I be hung? Will I be hung?' he moaned. " He writhed as if in physical pain. I called out of the window for Mr. Donohue, the County Attorney, to come up. He came at once. " ' Did you shoot Willie Freeman ? ' I asked King, in his presence. " ' Oh ! oh ! I did ! Oh ! oh ! ' sobbed King. " I had him take the stick for a gun, and show us how he did it. " ' I went halfway up the stairs to the left,' said King, on the stairs. ' I stood here, and I aimed like this for his eye. His head a^as bent over, and he had on an old straw hat. I fired. He fell. Then I went down and told Mrs. Freeman.' " ' What motive had you ? Why did you do it ? ' I asked. " ' They always made too much of him, and I had to do the dirty work, and I thought if I shot him I might get his place,' said King. " I called in the doctors, and made King show them how he killed the boy. I arrested King. He asked if he could go into the house a minute on his way to gaol. I took him in, and he asked the forgiveness of the Freemans. " ' Oh, Charlie, Charlie ! Why did you shoot my Willie ? ' moaned Mrs. Freeman. " ' I thought I'd get his place,' said King. " I took him away to gaol. He was tried in St. Thomas in April 1903, a few months ago. Justice Street presided. King's confession to me as an officer was ruled out of court. The defence, however, admitted King did the shooting, but alleged it was accidental, and claimed that King was not 454 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE competent to understand the nature of the case. He was found guilty of manslaughter on April 23rd, 1903, and at the present time is serving his sentence." Chapter LXXXII IN CONCLUSION " WHEN a man looks back over his life," says Murray, " he smiles at thought of episodes that seemed very solemn and serious in their day. Time mellows his memory. In the recollections of my career as a detective, that I have cited here, I have given simply characteristic cases. I have passed over countless minor cases, and some larger ones that were counterparts of other crimes of which I have spoken. For crime often duplicates itself in monotonous reproduction of details. Death, for instance, comes usually along well-known thoroughfares, in crime. It travels the way of the shot, the knife, the flame, the drowning, the poison, or the strangling. Its means are limited, but the manner of their manifestation is as varied as anything under the sun. There are few criminals of genius, and particularly there are few murderers with a genius for their work. " Few make a success of crime. Crime is a merciless, miserly taskmaster. It exacts all and gives little. It does not pay. It is a calling for fools. Yet men of intellect enter it deliberately, and here and there one of them may seem to succeed. If they devoted half the thought, energy, skill, and daring to any other line of business they would make a far greater success of life and of work. But they seem destined to pool their existence with the lives of the hunted. The criminal class goes its way, distinct and separate in itself. It has its own ideas of life, its own laws for its lawless business. It defies authority, and authority, in turn, pounces upon it and metes out punishment. " I suppose I should take the view that this world is a wicked, dangerous place, infested with masked murderers IN CONCLUSION 455 or desperate workers in the darkness, who rob and slay and well-nigh deprive us of the joy of living. But I hold no such opinion. This world is a grand place, life is a glorious thing. Crime increases, but not out of proportion to the increase in the population of our countries and of the whole world. Where men and women are there will be found good and bad. But the bad are a hopeless minority. Our prisons do not hold the bulk or the majority of our population, and yet a fair share of those who ought to be in prison eventually get there. " As civilisation and science advance, crime also will advance. The detective business of the future will be far ahead of the detective business of the past. I hope that the future will see it raised to the high place of a profession, whose members will have a pride in their calling and a careful preparation for their duties. " As for me, I often think of the bygone cases, of quaint characters, of puzzling mysteries, of the solutions, and of the aftermath. They are the children of my career, and as I look over my large and flourishing family in the mansion of my memory, I sit back luxuriously and remark to myself: " ' Well, Murray, you've done pretty well, after all.' " Printed by Hazell, it r atson & Vincy, Ld., London and Aylesbniy. University of California SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 405 Hilgard Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90024-1388 Return this material to the library from which it was borrowed. UC SOUTHfHN RfGKAAt LI8HAKY I AC* A 001 343 266