TRUE STORIES 
 OF CRIME 
 
 FROM THE DISTRICT ATTORNEY'S 
 OFFICE 
 
 t 
 
 BY 
 
 ARTHUR TRAIN 
 
 AUTHOR OF "THE PRISONER AT THE BAR 1 
 11 MCALLISTER AND HIS DOUBLE," 
 
 "MORTMAIN," ETC. 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 NEW YORK :: :: :: :: :: 1912 
 
COPYRIGHT, 1908, BY 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
 Published May, 1908 
 
PREFACE 
 
 THE narratives composing this book are lit- 
 erally true stories of crime. In a majoiity of 
 the cases the author conducted the prosecutions 
 himself, and therefore may claim to have a 
 personal knowledge of that whereof he speaks. 
 While no confidence has been abused, no essential 
 facts have been omitted, distorted, or colored, 
 and the accounts themselves, being all matters of 
 public record, may be easily verified. 
 
 The scenes recorded here are not literature but 
 history, and the characters who figure in them are 
 not puppets of the imagination, but men and 
 women who lived and schemed, laughed, sinned 
 and suffered, and paid the price when the time 
 came, most of them, without flinching. A few of 
 those who read these pages may profit perhaps by 
 their example; others may gain somewhat in 
 their knowledge of life and human nature; but 
 
 256003 
 
all will agree that there are Dooks in the running 
 brooks, even if the streams be turbid, and sermons 
 in stones, though these be the hearts of men. If 
 in some instances the narratives savor in treat- 
 ment more of fiction than of fact, the writer 
 must plead guilty to having fallen under the spell 
 of the romance of his subject, and he proffers the 
 excuse that, whereas such tales have lost nothing 
 in accuracy, they may have gained in the truth of 
 their final impression. 
 
 ARTHUR TRAIN. 
 
 CRIMINAL COURTS BUILDING* 
 NEW YORK CITY, 
 April 20, 1908. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 - 
 
 I. THE WOMAN IN THE CASE 3 
 
 II. FIVE HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS ... 37 
 
 III. THE LOST STRADIVARIUS 73 
 
 IV. THE LAST OF THE WIRE-TAPPERS . . . .103 
 V. CONFIDENCE MEN ABROAD 125 
 
 VI. THE FRANKLIN SYNDICATE 157 
 
 VII. A STUDY IN FINANCE 189 
 
 VIII. THE "Due DE NEVERS" 223 . 
 
 IX. A FINDER OF MISSING HEIRS 255 
 
 X. A MURDER CONSPIRACY 281 
 
 XI. THE DOWNFALL OF A CRIMINAL LAWYER .315 
 
 XII. A FLIGHT INTO TEXAS . ., 341 
 
 XIII. A CASE OF CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE . .375 
 
THE WOMAN IN THE CASE 
 
The Woman in the Case 
 
 ON a sultry August afternoon in 1903, a 
 dapper, if somewhat anaemic, young man 
 entered the Broadway store of Rogers, Peet & 
 Company, in New York City, and asked to be al- 
 lowed to look at a suit of clothes. Having selected 
 one to his fancy and arranged for some alterations, 
 he produced from his wallet a check for $280, drawn 
 to the order of George B.Lang, and signed E.Bier- 
 stadt, and remarked to the attentive salesman: 
 
 " I haven't got quite enough cash with me to pay 
 tor these, but I have been intending to cash this 
 check all the afternoon. Of course, you don't know 
 me or even that my name is Lang, but if you will 
 forward the check to the bank they will certify it, 
 and to-morrow I will send for the suit and the 
 balance of the money." 
 
 "Certainly, Mr. Lang," replied the salesman. 
 " I will hold the suit and the money to await your 
 orders." 
 
 The customer thanked him and took his depart- 
 3 
 
, Stories of Crime 
 
 ure. The check was sent to the bank, the bank 
 certified it, then cancelled its certification and re- 
 turned the check to Rogers, Peet & Company, and 
 the store detectives, having communicated with 
 Police Headquarters, anxiously awaited the arri- 
 val of Mr. Lang's messenger. 
 
 Their efforts were rewarded a couple of days 
 later by the appearance at the store of a lad who 
 
 FlG. i. Envelope on the back of which Parker's 
 forged order was written. 
 
 presented a written order (Fig. i and Fig. 2) in- 
 scribed upon the back of an envelope bearing a 
 cancelled stamp and addressed to Geo. B. Lang, 
 No. 13 West Twenty-sixth Street, New York 
 City, which read as follows : 
 
 ROGERS, PEET & Co. 
 
 Please give to bearer the clothes I purchased on Tues- 
 day suit pants S. coat, and also kindly put change 
 in envelope in inside coat pocket. 
 
 4 
 
The Woman in the Case 
 
 Trusting the alterations are satisfactory, and thanking 
 you in advance for the favor and for past courtesies, I am, 
 
 Resp. yours, 
 
 GEO. B. LANG. 
 
 The boy was immediately placed under arrest, 
 
 ( 
 
 FIG. 2. Parker's order on Rogers, Peet & 
 Company, in the name of Lang. 
 
 and after proclaiming his own innocence and vo- 
 ciferating that he was only doing an errand for a 
 "gent," who was waiting close by, was directed to 
 return with his bundle as if nothing had occurred. 
 
 5 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 This he did, and Mr. George B. Lang was soon in 
 the clutches of the law. 
 
 Interrogated by his captors, the supposed Lang 
 admitted that his real name was James Parker, 
 that he lived at no West Thirty-eighth Street, and 
 only requested that his wife be immediately noti- 
 fied of what had happened. At Headquarters the 
 prisoner was identified as a gentleman who had 
 been very actively engaged during the preceding 
 Months in passing bad checks throughout the city, 
 his more recent operations having consisted in 
 cashing a check on the Lincoln National Bank for 
 $160 on July aoth, one for $2<)O.on the same bank 
 on July 3Oth, still another for $510.50 on August 
 4th, and one for $440.50 on the National Shoe and 
 Leather Bank, "to bearer," on August 8th. This 
 last, in some inexplicable way, had been cashed at 
 the very bank itself. 
 
 Believing that the forger had at last been caught, 
 the precinct detectives later on, during the even- 
 ing of Parker's arrest, visited no West Thirty- 
 eighth Street, and on inquiring for "Mrs. Parker," 
 were introduced to a young girl of attractive ap- 
 pearance to whom they delivered their unwelcome 
 message. Mrs. Parker seemed overwhelmed at the 
 news and strongly asserted her confidence in her 
 husband's innocence of any wrong-doing. Having 
 performed their errand the officers departed. 
 
 6 
 
The Woman in the Case 
 
 A certain ineradicable jealousy has always ex- 
 isted between the plain-clothes men of the various 
 precincts and the sleuths attached to the Central 
 Office, and in this instance the precinct men, hav- 
 ing gained the credit for the arrest, it did not occur 
 to them as necessary to communicate the knowl- 
 edge of their acquaintance with Mrs. Parker to 
 Detective Sergeants Peabody and Clark, originally 
 assigned at Headquarters to investigate the case. 
 
 It seemed, however, to Peabody very unlikely 
 that Parker had conducted his operations alone, 
 and he therefore at once inquired at the Tombs 
 what character of visitors came to see the prisoner. 
 The gateman replied that as yet none had arrived. 
 At that very instant a young girl stepped to the 
 wicket and asked if she could be allowed to see Mr. 
 James Parker. It took the detective but a moment 
 to run across to the Criminal Courts Building and 
 to telephone the warden to detain her temporarily 
 and then to refuse her request. Five minutes later 
 the girl emerged disconsolately from the Tombs 
 and boarded a car going uptown. Peabody fol- 
 lowed her to no West Thirty-eighth Street, not 
 for an instant supposing that the girl herself could 
 be the forger, but believing that possibly through 
 her he might learn of other members of the gang 
 and secure additional evidence against Parker 
 himself. 
 
 7 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 Of course, no intelligent person to-day supposes 
 that, outside of Sir Conan Doyle's interesting nov- 
 els, detectives seek the baffling criminal by means 
 of analyzing cigar butts, magnifying thumb marks 
 or specializing in the various perfumes in favor 
 among the fair sex, or by any of those complicated, 
 brain fatiguing processes of ratiocination indulged 
 in by our old friend, Mr. Sherlock Holmes. There 
 are still, however, genuine detectives, and some of 
 them are to be found upon the New York police 
 force. The magnifying glass is not one of the ordi- 
 nary tools of the professional sleuth, and if he car- 
 ries a pistol at all it is because the police rules 
 require it, while those cases may be numbered 
 upon the fingers of two hands where his own hair 
 and whiskers are not entirely sufficient for his 
 purposes in the course of his professional career. 
 
 The next morning Peabody donned the most 
 disreputable suit in his wardrobe, neglected his 
 ordinary visit to the barber, and called at no 
 West Thirty-eighth Street, being, of course, at this 
 time entirely unaware of the fact that the girl was 
 Parker's wife. He found her sitting in a rocking 
 chair in a comfortable, well-furnished room, and 
 reading a magazine. Assuming an expression of 
 sheepish inanity he informed her that he was an 
 old pal of "Jim's" who had been so unfortunate 
 as to be locked up in the same cell with him at 
 
 8 
 
The Woman in the Case 
 
 Headquarters, and that the latter was in desperate 
 need of morphine. That Parker was an habitual 
 user of the drug could be easily seen from the most 
 casual inspection, but that it would prove an open 
 sesame to the girl's confidence was, as the detec- 
 tive afterward testified, "a hundred-to-one shot." 
 
 "Poor Jim!" exclaimed the girl. "Couldn't 
 you smuggle some into the Tombs for him ? " 
 
 Peabody took the hint. Of course he could. 
 It would be a hard job those turnkeys were so 
 suspicious. But he could do it for her if anybody 
 could. He rambled on, telling his experiences with 
 Parker in the past, how he had been in Elmira 
 Reformatory and elsewhere with him, and gaining 
 each moment valuable information from the girl's 
 exclamations, questions, and expression. He soon 
 learned that she was Parker's wife, that they were 
 living in comparative comfort, and that she was 
 an exceedingly clever and well-educated woman, 
 but she said nothing during the conversation which 
 would indicate that she knew anything of her 
 husband's offenses or of any persons connected 
 with them. 
 
 After a few moments the girl slipped on her coat 
 and hat and the two started down to the Tombs, 
 where, by prearrangement with the officials, the 
 detective succeeded in convincing her that he had 
 been able to send in to her husband a small hypo- 
 
 9 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 dermic syringe (commonly called "the needles") 
 which she had purchased at a neighboring drug 
 store. 
 
 The apparent success of this undertaking put 
 Mrs. Parker in excellent humor and she invited the 
 supposed crook to breakfast with her at the Broad- 
 way Central Hotel. So far, it will be observed, 
 Peabody had accomplished practically nothing. 
 At breakfast the girl inquired of her companion 
 what his particular "graft" was, to which he re- 
 plied that he was an expert "second story man," 
 and then proceeded to indulge his imagination in 
 accounts of bold robberies in the brown stone dis- 
 tricts and clever " tricks " in other cities, which left 
 Mrs. Parker in no doubt but that her companion 
 was an expert " gun " of long experience. 
 
 Then he took, as he expressed it, "another 
 chance." 
 
 "Jim wanted me to tell you to put the gang 
 'wise,'" said he. 
 
 The girl looked at him sharply and contracted 
 her brows. 
 
 "Gang?" she exclaimed. "What gang? Oh, 
 perhaps he meant 'Dutch' and * Sweeney."' 
 
 Peabody bit his lip. He had had a close call. 
 
 "Don't know," he replied, "he didn't say who 
 they were just to put them 'wise.'" 
 
 A second time the detective had made a lucky 
 * 10 
 
The Woman in the Case 
 
 hit, for Mrs. Parker suddenly laid aside all pre- 
 tense and asked: 
 
 " Do you want to make a lot of money ? " 
 
 Peabody allowed that he did. 
 
 " Do you know what they have got Jim for ? " 
 asked the girl. 
 
 "'Phoney* paper, wasn't it?" 
 
 "Yes," said Mrs. Parker, "but Jim didn't write 
 those checks. I wrote them myself. If you want 
 to go in with me, we can earn enough money to get 
 Jim out and you can do a good turn for yourself 
 besides." 
 
 The detective's blood leaped in his veins but he 
 held himself under control as well as he could and 
 answered indifferently. 
 
 "I guess not. I never met a woman that was 
 very good at that sort of game." 
 
 "Oh, you don't know me," she persisted. 
 "Why, I can copy anything in a few moments 
 really I can." 
 
 "Too dangerous," remarked Peabody. "I 
 might get settled for ten years." 
 
 "No, you wouldn't," she continued. "It's the 
 easiest thing in the world. All you have to do is to 
 pick the mail out of some box on a corner. I can 
 show you how with a copper wire and a little piece 
 of wax and you are sure to find among the letters 
 somebody's check in payment of a bill. There at 
 
 ii 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 once you have the bank, and the signature. Then 
 all you have to do is to write a letter to the bank 
 asking for a new check book, saying yours is used 
 up, and sign the name that appears on the check. 
 If you can fool the cashier into giving your messen- 
 ger a check book you can gamble pretty safely on 
 his paying a check signed with the same name. In 
 that way, you see, you can get all the blank checks 
 you need and test the cashier's watchfulness at the 
 same time. It's too easy. The only thing you 
 have to look out for is not to overdraw the ac- 
 count. Still, you find so many checks in the mail 
 that you can usually choose somebody's account 
 that will stand the strain. Do you know, I have 
 made hundreds of checks and the banks have certi- 
 fied every single one!" 
 
 Peabody laughed good naturedly. Things were 
 looking up a bit. 
 
 "What do you think I am, anyhow?" he asked. 
 "I must look like a ' come-on. " ; 
 
 " Pm giving it to you straight," she said simply. 
 "After you have made out a good fat check, then 
 you go to a store, buy something, tell them to for- 
 ward the check to the bank for certification, and 
 that you'll send for the goods and the change the 
 next day. The bank ^always certifies the check, 
 and you get the money." 
 
 "Not always," saidJPeabody with a grin. 
 
The Woman in the Case 
 
 "No, not always," acquiesced Mrs. Parker. 
 " But Jim and I have been averaging over a hun- 
 dred dollars a day for months/' 
 
 "Good graft, all right," assented the detective. 
 "But how does the one who lays down the check 
 identify himself? For instance, suppose I go into 
 Tiffany's and pick out a diamond, and say I'm 
 Mr. John Smith, of 100 West One Hundredth 
 Street, and the floorwalker says, 'Sorry, Mr. 
 Smith, but we don't know you,' what then ?" 
 
 "Just flash a few letters on him," said the girl. 
 "Letters and envelopes." 
 
 "Where do you get 'em ?" asked Peabody. 
 
 " Just write them, silly, and send them to your- 
 self through the mail." 
 
 "That's all right," retorted the "second story 
 man." "But how can I mail myself a letter to 100 
 West One Hundredth Street when I don't live 
 there?" 
 
 Mrs. Parker smiled in a superior manner. 
 
 "I'm glad I can put you wise to a new game. 
 I invented it myself. You want letters of identifi- 
 cation ? In different names and addresses on differ- 
 ent days ? Very good. Buy a bundle of stamped 
 envelopes and write your own name and address 
 on them in pencil, When they arrive rub off the 
 pencil address. Then if you want to be John 
 Smith of 100 West One Hundredth Street, or any- 
 
 13 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 body else, just address the cancelled envelope in 
 ink. 9 ' 
 
 "Mabel," said Peabody with admiration, 
 "you've got the 'gray matter' all right. You can 
 have me, if you can deliver the rest of the goods." 
 
 "There's still another little frill," she contin- 
 
 FIG. 3. A letter-head frill of Mabel Parker's. 
 
 ued, pleased at his compliment, "if you want to do 
 the thing in style. Maybe you will find a letter or 
 bill head in the mail at the same time that you get 
 your sample check. If you do, you can have it 
 copied and write your request for the check book 
 
The Woman in the Case 
 
 and your order for the goods on paper printed ex- 
 actly like it. That gives a sort of final touch, you 
 know. I remember we did that with a dentist 
 named Budd, at 137 West Twenty-second Street." 
 
 (Fig- 3-) 
 
 "You've got all the rest whipped to a stand- 
 still," cried Peabody. 
 
 "Well, just come over to the room and I'll show 
 you something worth while/' exclaimed the girl, 
 getting up and paying their bill. 
 
 "Now," said she, when they were safely at no 
 West Thirty-eighth Street, and she had closed the 
 door of the room and drawn Peabody to a desk in 
 the bay window. "Here's my regular hand- 
 writing." 
 
 She pulled towards her a pad which lay open 
 upon the desk and wrote in a fair, round hand: 
 
 "Mrs. James D.Singley." (Fig. 4.) 
 
 "This," she continued, changing her slant and 
 dashing off a queer feminine scrawl, " is the sig- 
 nature we fooled the Lincoln National Bank 
 with Miss Kauser's, you know. And this," she 
 added a moment later, adopting a stiff, shaky, 
 hump-backed orthography, "is the signature that 
 got poor Jim into all this trouble," and she in- 
 scribed twice upon the paper the name "E. Bier- 
 stadt." "Poor Jim!" she added to herself. 
 
 "By George, Mabel," remarked the detective, 
 15 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 "you're a wonder! See if you can copy my name." 
 And Peabody wrote the assumed name of William 
 Hickey, first with a stub and then with a fine point, 
 both of which signatures she copied like a flash, in 
 each case, however, being guilty of the lapse of 
 spelling the word William " Williarc." 
 
 The pad now contained more than enough evi- 
 dence to convict twenty women, and Peabody, 
 with the remark, "You don't want to leave this 
 kind of thing lying around, Mabel/' pretended to 
 tear the page up, but substituted a blank sheet in 
 its place and smuggled the precious bit of paper 
 into his pocket. 
 
 "Yes, I'll go into business with you, sure I 
 will!" said Peabody. 
 
 "And we'll get enough money to set Jim free!" 
 exclaimed the girl. 
 
 They were now fast friends, and it was agreed 
 that "Hickey" should go and make himself pre- 
 sentable, after which they would dine at some res- 
 taurant and then sample a convenient mail box. 
 Meantime Peabody telephoned to Headquarters, 
 and when the two set out for dinner at six o'clock 
 the supposed "Hickey" was stopped on Broad- 
 way by Detective Sergeant Clark. 
 
 "What are you doing here in New York ?" de- 
 manded Clark. "Didn't I give you six hours to 
 fly the coop ? And who's this woman ?" 
 
 16 
 
The Woman in the Case 
 
 "I was going, Clark, honest I was," whined 
 "Hickey," "and this lady's all right she hasn't 
 done a thing." 
 
 "Well, I guess I'll have to lock you up at Head- 
 quarters for the night," said Clark roughly. "The 
 girl can go." 
 
 "Oh, Mr. Clark, do come and have dinner with 
 us first!" exclaimed Mrs. Parker. "Mr. Hickey 
 has been very good to me, and he hasn't had any- 
 thing to eat for ever so long." 
 
 "Don't care if I do," said Clark. "I guess I 
 can put up with the company if the board is 
 good." 
 
 The three entered the Raleigh Hotel and ordered 
 a substantial meal. With the arrival of dessert, 
 however, the girl became uneasy, and apparently 
 fearing arrest herself, slipped a roll of bills under 
 the table to "Hickey" and whispered to him to 
 keep it for her. The detective, thinking that the 
 farce had gone far enough, threw the money on the 
 table and asked Clark to count it, at the same time 
 telling Mrs. Parker that she was in custody. The 
 girl turned white, uttered a little scream, and then, 
 regaining her self-possession, remarked as non- 
 chalently as you please : 
 
 "Well, clever as you think you are, you have 
 destroyed the only evidence against me my 
 handwriting." 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 "Not much," remarked Peabody, producing the 
 sheet of paper. 
 
 The girl saw that the game was up and made a 
 mock bow to the two detectives. 
 
 "I take off my hat to the New York police," 
 said she. 
 
 At this time, apparently, no thought of denying 
 her guilt had entered her mind, and at the station 
 house she talked freely to the sergeant, the matron 
 and the various newspaper men who were present, 
 even drawing pictures of herself upon loose sheets 
 of paper and signing her name, apparently rather 
 enjoying the notoriety which her arrest had occa- 
 sioned. A thorough search of her apartment was 
 now made with the result that several sheets of 
 paper were found there bearing what were evi- 
 dently practice signatures of the name of Alice 
 Kauser. (Fig. 5.) Evidence was also obtained 
 showing that, on the day following her husband's 
 arrest, she had destroyed large quantities of blank 
 check books and blank checks. 
 
 Upon the trial of Mrs. Parker the hand-writing 
 experts testified that the Bierstadt and Kauser sig- 
 natures were so perfect that it would be difficult 
 to state that they were not originals. The Parker 
 woman was what is sometimes known as a "free 
 hand" forger; she never traced anything, and as 
 her forgeries were written by a muscular imitation 
 
 18 ' 
 
The Woman in the Case 
 
 of the pen movement of the writer of the genuine 
 signature they were almost impossible of detec- 
 tion. When Albert T. Patrick forged the signa- 
 ture of old Mr. Rice to the spurious will of 1900 
 
 
 
 FIG. 5. Practice signatures of the name of 
 Alice Kauser. 
 
 and to the checks for $25,000, $65,000 and $135,- 
 ooo upon Swenson's bank and the Fifth Avenue 
 Trust Co., the forgeries were easily detected from the 
 fact that as Patrick had traced them they were all 
 
 19 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 almost exactly alike and practically could be super- 
 imposed one upon another, line for line, dot for dot.* 
 
 Mabel Parker's early history is shrouded in a 
 certain amount of obscurity, but there is reason to 
 believe that she was the offspring of respectable 
 laboring people who turned her over, while she 
 was still an infant, to a Mr. and Mrs. Prentice, 
 instructors in physical culture in the public schools, 
 first of St. Louis and later of St. Paul, Minnesota. 
 As a child, and afterwards as a young girl, she ex- 
 hibited great precocity and a considerable amount 
 of real ability in drawing and in English composi- 
 tion, but her very cleverness and versatility were 
 the means of her becoming much more sophisti- 
 cated than most young women of her age, with the 
 result that while still in her teens she gave her 
 adopted parents ground for considerable uneasi- 
 ness. Accordingly they decided to place her for 
 the next few years in a convent near New York. 
 By this time she had attained a high degree of 
 proficiency in writing short stories and miscel- 
 laneous articles, which she illustrated herself, for 
 the papers and inferior magazines. Convent life 
 proved very dull for this young lady, and accord- 
 ingly one dark evening, she made her exit from the 
 cloister by means of a conveniently located window. 
 
 Waiting for her in the grounds below was James 
 
 * See Infra, p. 304. 
 
 20 
 
The Woman in the Case 
 
 Parker, twenty-seven years old, already of a large 
 criminal experience, although never yet convicted 
 of crime. The two made their way to New York, 
 were married, and the girl entered upon her career. 
 Her husband, whose real name was James D. Sing- 
 ley, was a professional Tenderloin crook, ready to 
 turn his hand to any sort of cheap crime to satisfy 
 his appetites and support life; the money easily 
 secured was easily spent, and Singley, at the time 
 of his marriage, was addicted to most of the vices 
 common to the habitues of the under world. His 
 worst enemy was the morphine habit and from her 
 husband Mrs. Singley speedily learned the use of 
 the drug. At this time Mabel Prentice-Parker- 
 Singley was about five feet two inches in height, 
 weighing not more than 105 or no pounds, slender 
 to girlishness and showing no maturity save in her 
 face, which, with its high color, brilliant blue eyes, 
 and her yellow hair, often led those who glanced 
 at her casually to think her good looking. Further 
 inspection, however, revealed a fox-like expression, 
 an irregularity in the position of the eyes, a hard- 
 ness in the lines of the mouth and a flatness of the 
 nose which belied the first impression. This was 
 particularly true when, after being deprived of 
 morphine in the Tombs, her ordinary high color 
 gave way at her second trial to a waxy paleness of 
 complexion. But the story of her career in the 
 
 21 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 Tenderloin would prove neither profitable nor 
 attractive. 
 
 The subsequent history of the Parker case is a 
 startling example of the credulity of the ordinary 
 jury. The evidence secured was absolutely conclu- 
 sive, but unfortunately juries are generally unwill- 
 ing to take the uncorroborated word of a policeman 
 against that of a defendant particularly if the 
 defendant be a young and pretty woman. Here at 
 
 FIG. 6. The check on which the indictment for forgery was brought. 
 
 the very outset was a complete confession on the 
 part of Mrs. Parker, supplemented by illustrations 
 from her own pen of what she could do. Com- 
 parison showed that the signatures she had written 
 without a model upon the Peabody sheet were 
 identical with those upon the forged checks (Fig. 
 6) and with Mr. Bierstadt's and Miss Kauser's 
 handwriting. When Mrs. Parker's case, therefore, 
 came on for pleading, her counsel, probably be- 
 
 22 
 

 The Woman in the Case 
 
 cause they could think of nothing else to do, entered 
 a plea of insanity. It was also intimated that the 
 young woman would probably plead guilty, and 
 the case was therefore placed upon the calendar 
 and moved for trial without much preparation 
 on the part of the prosecution. Instead of this 
 young person confessing her guilt, however, she 
 amused herself by ogling the jury and drawing 
 pictures of the Court, the District Attorney and the 
 various witnesses. 
 
 Probably no more extraordinary scene was ever 
 beheld in a court of law than that exhibited by 
 Part II of the General Sessions upon Mabel 
 Parker's first trial for forgery. Attired in a sky 
 blue dress and picture hat, with new white gloves, 
 she sat jauntily by the side of her counsel through- 
 out the proceedings toying with her pen and pencil 
 and in the very presence of the jury copying hand- 
 writing which was given her for that purpose by 
 various members of the yellow press who crowded 
 close behind the rail. From time to time she 
 would dash off an aphorism or a paragraph in re- 
 gard to the trial which she handed to a reporter. 
 If satisfactory this was elaborated and sometimes 
 even illustrated by her for the evening edition of his 
 paper. 
 
 The Assistant District Attorney complained that 
 this was clearly a contempt of court, particularly as 
 
 23 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 the defendant had drawn a picture not only of him- 
 self, but of the presiding justice and a witness, which 
 had appeared in one of the evening papers. The 
 Court, however, did not see that anything could be 
 done about it and the girl openly continued her lit- 
 erary and artistic recreation. The Court itself was 
 not a little amused at the actions of the defendant, 
 and when Detective Peabody was called to the 
 stand the general hilarity had reached such a 
 pitch that he was unable to give his testimony 
 without smiling. The natural result, therefore, at 
 the first trial, was that the detective succeeded in 
 giving the unqualified impression that he was 
 drawing the long bow in a most preposterous 
 fashion. 
 
 At the conclusion of the People's case the 
 evidence that Mrs. Parker had forged the checks 
 amounted simply to this: That an officer who 
 was greatly interested in her conviction had 
 sworn to a most astonishing series of facts from 
 which the jury must infer that this exceedingly 
 astute young person had not only been entirely 
 and completely deceived by a detective, but also 
 that at almost their first meeting she had con- 
 fessed to him in detail the history of her crimes. 
 Practically the only other evidence tending to cor- 
 roborate his story were a few admissions of a simi- 
 lar character made by her to newspaper men, ma- 
 
 24 
 
The Woman in the Case 
 
 trons and officers at the police station. Unless the 
 jury were to believe that Mrs. Parker had actually 
 written the signatures on "the Peabody sheet" 
 there was no evidence that she was the actual for- 
 ger; hence upon Peabody' s word alone depended 
 the verdict of the jury. The trouble with the case 
 was that it was too strong, too good, to be entirely 
 credible, and had there been no defense it is ex- 
 ceedingly probable that the trial would have re- 
 sulted in an acquittal, since the prosecution had 
 elected to go to the jury upon the question of 
 whether or not the defendant had actually signed 
 the checks herself. 
 
 Mrs. Parker, however, had withdrawn her plea 
 of insanity and determined to put in a defense, 
 which proved in its turn to be even more extraor- 
 dinary than the case against her. This, in brief, 
 was to the effect that she had known Peabody to be 
 a police officer all along, but that it had occurred 
 to her that if she could deceive him into believing 
 that it was she herself who had committed the for- 
 geries her husband might get off, and that later she 
 might in turn establish her own innocence. She 
 had therefore hastily scratched her name on the 
 top of a sheet already containing her husband's 
 handwriting and had told Peabody that the signa- 
 tures had been written by herself. That the sheet 
 had been written in the officer's presence she 
 
 25 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 declared to be a pure invention on his part u> 
 secure her conviction. She told her extremely 
 illogical story with a certain winsome naivete 
 which carried an air of semi-probability with it. 
 From her deportment on the stand one would 
 have taken her for a boarding school miss who in 
 some inconsequent fashion had got mixed up in 
 a frolic for which no really logical explanation 
 could be given. 
 
 Then the door in the back of the court room 
 opened and James Parker was led to the bar, 
 where in the presence of the jury he pleaded 
 guilty to the forgery of the very signature for 
 which his wife was standing trial. (Kauser check, 
 Fig. 6.) He was then sworn as a witness, took 
 the stand and testified that he had written all the 
 forged signatures to the checks, including the 
 signatures upon "the Peabody sheet." 
 
 The District Attorney found himself in an em-' 
 barrassing position. If Parker was the forger, 
 why not challenge him to write the forged signa- 
 tures upon the witness stand and thus to prove his 
 alleged capacity for so doing ? The obvious objec- 
 tion to this was that Parker, in anticipation of this 
 test, had probably been practicing the signature in 
 the Tombs for months. On the other hand if the 
 District Attorney did not challenge him to write 
 the signatures, the defense would argue that he was 
 
 26 
 
The Woman in the Case 
 
 afraid to do so, and that as Parker had sworn him- 
 self to be the forger it was not incumbent upon the 
 defense to prove it further that that was a matter 
 for cross examination. 
 
 With considerable hesitation the prosecuting 
 attorney asked Parker to write the Kauser signa- 
 ture, which was the one set forth in the indictment, 
 charging the forgery, and after much backing and 
 filling on the part of the witness, who ingeniously 
 complained that he was in a bad nervous condi- 
 tion owing to lack of morphine, in consequence of 
 which his hand trembled and he was in no condi- 
 tion to write forgeries, the latter took his pen and 
 managed to make a very fair copy of the Kauser 
 signature from memory, good enough in fact to 
 warrant a jury in forming the conclusion that he 
 was in fact the forger. (Fig. 7.) This closed the 
 case. 
 
 The defense claimed that it was clear that James 
 Parker was the forger, since he had admitted it in 
 open court, pleaded guilty to the indictment and 
 proved that he had the capacity. The prosecu- 
 tion, upon the other hand, argued that the evi- 
 dence was conclusive that the defendant herself 
 was the writer of the check. The whole thing 
 boiled down to whether or not the jury was going 
 to believe that Mrs. Parker had written "the Pea- 
 body sheet" in the presence of the detective, when 
 
 27 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 her husband claimed that, with the exception of 
 Mabel's signature, he had done it himself and 
 carelessly left the paper in his desk in the room. 
 
 The prosecuting attorney was at his wits' end 
 for an argument to meet the fact that Parker had 
 written a sample forgery of the Kauser signature 
 before the very eyes of the jury. He found it at 
 
 
 FIG. 7. Parker's copy of the signature of Alice Kauser, 
 made in court in an attempt to shield his wife. 
 
 last in an offer on his own part in open court during 
 his "summing up" to write for the jury from 
 memory a better forgery of the Kauser signature 
 than that written by Parker himself, and thus to 
 show how simple a matter it was to learn to do so. 
 He had taken up his pen and was about to give 
 a sample of his handiwork in this respect when 
 
 28 
 
The Woman in the Case 
 
 the defendant grasped her counsel's arm and 
 whispered: "For God's sake, don't let him do 
 it!" whereupon the lawyer arose and objected, 
 saying that such evidence was improper, as the 
 case was closed. As might have been expected 
 under the circumstances, considering the blunders 
 of the prosecution and the ingenuous appearance 
 of the defendant, the trial ended in a disagree- 
 ment, the jury standing eight to four for acquittal. 
 The District Attorney's office now took up a 
 thorough investigation of the case, with the result 
 that on a second prosecution Mrs. Parker was 
 confronted with a mass of evidence which it was 
 impossible for her to refute. A boy named Wallace 
 Sweeney, sentenced to the Elmira Reformatory, 
 was found to have been an active accomplice of 
 the Parkers for several years, and he was accord- 
 ingly brought down to New York, where he gave 
 a complete history of his relations with them. His 
 story proved beyond any doubt that Mrs. Parker 
 was the forger of the checks in the possession of 
 the District Attorney, and of many others beside, 
 some of them for very large amounts. The evi- 
 dence of Sweeney was of itself quite sufficient to 
 warrant a conviction. To make assurance doubly 
 sure, however, the District Attorney upon the 
 second trial moved a new indictment, setting forth 
 as the forgery a check signed "E. Bierstadt," so 
 
 29 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 that when Parker took the stand, as he had done 
 in the former trial and testified that he was the 
 forger, he found himself unable to write this 
 new signature, and hence his testimony went for 
 nothing. 
 
 But even the testimony of Sweeney was that of 
 an accomplice, requiring corroboration, while that 
 of Peabody remained the evidence of "a mere po- 
 liceman/' eager to convict the defendant and 
 "add another scalp to his official belt." With an 
 extraordinary accumulation of evidence the case 
 hinged on the veracity of these two men, to which 
 was opposed the denial of the defendant and her 
 husband. It is an interesting fact that in the final 
 analysis of the case the jury were compelled to de- 
 termine the issue by evidence entirely documentary 
 in character. It is also an illustration of what tiny 
 facts stamp whole masses of testimony as true or 
 false. 
 
 On her examination Mrs. Parker had sworn 
 among other things: (i) That she had no knowl- 
 edge of the envelope, the back of which had been 
 used by Parker for the purpose of directing Rogers, 
 Peet & Co. to deliver the clothes and money to 
 his messenger and, of course, that the words 
 "Mr. Geo. B. Lang" were not in her hand- 
 writing. This was one of the envelopes claimed by 
 the prosecution to have been originally addressed 
 
 30 
 
The Woman in the Case 
 
 in pencil and sent to themselves by the Parkers 
 through the mail for this precise purpose. (2) 
 That she had never seen the ' Kauser practice 
 sheets," and that the words "Alice Kauser," re- 
 peated hundreds of times thereon, were not in her 
 handwriting. For some reason unknown to the 
 District Attorney, however, she admitted having 
 written the words "I am upstairs in the bath- 
 room" upon a similar sheet, but claimed that at 
 the time this was done the reverse of the paper 
 was entirely blank. 
 
 Microscopic examination showed that among 
 the words "Alice" and "Kauser" on the practice 
 sheets some one had written a capital " M." One 
 of the legs of the "M" crossed and was superim- 
 posed upon a letter in the word "Alice." Hence, 
 whoever wrote the "M" knew what was on the 
 practice sheet. An enlargement of this " M" and 
 a comparison of it with the "M" in the defend- 
 ant's signature to her formal examination in the 
 police court, with the "M" in "Mr." in the ad- 
 dress on the envelope and with that in the " Mrs." 
 on the " Peabody sheet," rendered it obvious that 
 they were all written by one and the same hand. 
 Therefore it was clear that the defendant was 
 familiar with the contents of the practice sheets 
 (Fig. 8.), even if she had not written them herself 
 and had not told the truth in this regard. 
 
 3 1 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 Moreover, it was fairly easy to see that the same 
 hand that had written the words " I am upstairs in 
 the bath-room" upon the second practice sheet 
 had at the same time and with the same pen writ- 
 ten the rest of the sheet. This was clearly per- 
 ceptible on examining the "e's" and "a's." 
 
 A comparison of the address "Mr. Geo. B. 
 Lang" (on Fig. i) with the name Mrs. James D. 
 Singley (on Fig. 4) also shows clearly that one and 
 the same person wrote them both. And to the 
 accuracy of all these self-evident propositions a 
 leading handwriting expert in New York added 
 his unqualified opinion. 
 
 Thus, but for a little carelessness in failing to 
 destroy odd scraps of paper and to disguise her 
 penmanship which it seemed to her quite unneces- 
 sary to do, as in the address of the "Lang" en- 
 velope), Mrs. Parker might well have gone free- 
 after all. 
 
 It is impossible to describe all the varied dra- 
 matic features of this interesting case. No one 
 who was present is likely to forget the impression 
 made by the defendant at her second trial, when in 
 defiance of overwhelming proof she still struggled 
 to vindicate herself. 
 
 Her counsel contended throughout the trial that 
 she was a hitherto innocent young woman led astray 
 and started upon a criminal career by a rascally 
 
 32 
 
The Woman in the Case 
 
 husband, whom she still loved devotedly and for 
 whose sake she had prepared to confess herself a 
 criminal. That James Parker introduced his wife 
 to a life of crime there can be no doubt, but that she 
 had a natural predilection for it must be equally 
 obvious. It is probably true that Mabel Parker's 
 affection for her convict husband was unfeigned 
 and deep. The natural repugnance of the Ameri- 
 can jury for convicting a woman was shown when 
 in spite of the overwhelming proof upon the 
 Parker woman's second trial the jury remained 
 out eight hours and then found her guilty of "ut- 
 tering only," with a strong recommendation for 
 mercy. She was sentenced to the Bedford 
 Reformatory. 
 
 33 
 
FIVE HUNDRED MILLION 
 DOLLARS 
 
II 
 Five Hundred Million Dollars 
 
 THIS story, which ends in New York, begins 
 in the Department of the Gironde at the 
 town of Monsegur, seventy-five kilometers from 
 Bordeaux, in the little vineyard of Monsieur 
 Emile Lapierre "landowner." In 1901 Lapierre 
 was a happy and contented man, making a good 
 living out of his modest farm. To-day he is 
 well, if you understand the language of the Gi- 
 ronde, he will tell you with a shrug of his broad 
 shoulders that he might have been a Monte Cristo 
 had not le loon Dieu willed it otherwise. For did 
 he not almost have five hundred million dollars- 
 two and a half milliards of francs in his very 
 hands ? Hein? But he did! Does M'sieu' have 
 doubts ? Nevertheless it is all true. C'est trop 
 vrai! Is M'sieu' tired ? And would he care to 
 hear the story ? There is a comfortable chair sous 
 le grand arbre in front of the veranda, and Madame 
 will give M'sieu' a glass of wine from the presses 
 
 37 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 across the road. Yes, it is good wine, but there is 
 little profit in it, when one thinks in milliards. 
 
 The landowner lights his pipe and seats himself 
 cross-legged against the trunk of the big chestnut. 
 Back of the house the vineyard slopes away toward 
 the distant woods in straight, green, trellised al- 
 leys. A dim haze hangs over the landscape sleep- 
 ing so quietly in the midsummer afternoon. Down 
 the road comes heavily, creaking and swaying, a 
 wain loaded with a huge tower of empty casks and 
 drawn by two oxen, their heads swinging to the 
 dust. Yes, it is hard to comprendre twenty-five 
 hundred million francs. 
 
 It was this way. Madame Lapierre was a Tes- 
 sier of Bordeaux an ancient bourgeois family, and 
 very proud indeed of being bourgeois. You can 
 see her passing and repassing the window if you 
 watch carefully the kitchen, where she is super- 
 intending dinner. The Tessiers have always 
 lived in Bordeaux and they are connected by mar- 
 riage with everybody from the blacksmith up to 
 the Mayor's notary. Once a Tessier was Mayor 
 himself. Years and years ago Madame's great- 
 uncle Jean had emigrated to America, and from 
 time to time vague rumors of the wealth he had 
 achieved in the new country reached the ears of 
 his relatives but no direct word ever came. 
 
 Then one hot day like this appeared M. le 
 
 38 
 
Five Hundred Million Dollars 
 
 General. He came walking down the road in the 
 dust from the gare, in his tall silk hat and frock 
 coat and gold-headed cane, and stopped before 
 the house to ask if one of the descendants of a cer- 
 tain Jean Tessier did not live hereabouts. He was 
 fat and red-faced, and he perspired, but Dieu ! 
 he was distingue, and he had an order in his but- 
 tonhole. Madame Lapierre, who came out to 
 answer his question, knew at once that he was an 
 aristocrat. 
 
 Ah! was she herself the grandniece of Jean 
 Tessier? Then, Heaven be thanked! the Gen- 
 eral's toilsome journey was ended. He had much 
 to tell them when he should be rested. He re- 
 moved the silk hat and mopped his shining fore- 
 head. He must introduce himself that he might 
 have credit with Madame, else she might hardly 
 listen to his story, for there had never been a tale 
 like it before since the world was. Let him present 
 himself M. le General Pedro Suarez de Moreno, 
 Count de Tinoco and Marquis de la d'Essa. Al- 
 though one was fatigued it refreshed one to be the 
 bearer of good news, and such was his mission. 
 Let Madame prepare herself to hear. Yes, it 
 would be proper for her to call M'sieu', her hus- 
 band, that he might participate. 
 
 Over a draft of this same' vintage M. le General 
 imparted to* them the secret. Lapierre laughs 
 
 39 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 and shrugs his shoulders as he recalls the scene 
 the apoplectic General, with the glass of wine 
 in one hand, waving the other grandiloquently 
 as he described the wealth about to descend upon 
 them. 
 
 Yes, the General must begin at the beginning, 
 for it was a long story. First, as to himself and 
 how he came to know of the affair. It had been 
 on his return from the Philippines after the sur- 
 render of Manila, where he had been in command 
 of the armies of Spain, that he had paused for re- 
 pose in New York and had first? learned of the 
 Tessier inheritance. The precise manner of his 
 discovery was left somewhat indefinite, but the 
 Lapierres were not particular. So many distin- 
 guished persons had played a part in the drama 
 that the recital left but a vague impression as to 
 individuals. A certain Madame Luchia, widow 
 of one Roquefailaire, whom he had accidentally 
 met, had apparently been the instrument of Provi- 
 dence in disclosing the history of Jean Tessier to 
 the General. She herself had been wronged by 
 the villains and knew all the secrets of the con- 
 spirators. But she had waited for a suitable op- 
 portunity to speak. Jean Tessier had died pos- 
 sessed of properties which to-day, seventy years 
 after, were worth in the neighborhood of five hun- 
 dred million dollars! The General paused for the 
 
 40 
 
Five Hundred Million Dollars 
 
 effect, solemnly nodding his head at his astounded 
 auditors in affirmance. Yes, it was even so! 
 
 Five hundred million dollars! No more and no 
 less! Then he once more took up the thread of his 
 narrative. 
 
 Tessier's lands, originally farms, were to-day 
 occupied by huge magasins, government buildings, 
 palaces and hotels. He had been a frugal, hard- 
 working, far-seeing man of affairs whose money had 
 doubled itself year by year. Then had appeared 
 one Emmeric Lespinasse, a Frenchman, also from 
 Bordeaux, who had plotted to rob him of his estate, 
 and the better to accomplish his purpose had en- 
 tered the millionaire's employ. When Tessier died, 
 in 1884, Lespinasse had seized his papers and the 
 property, destroyed his will, dispersed the clerks, 
 secretaries, "notaries" and accountants of the de- 
 ceased, and quietly got rid of such persons as stood 
 actively in his way. The great wealth thus ac- 
 quired had enabled him to defy those who knew 
 that he was not entitled to the fortune, and that 
 the real heirs were in far-away France. 
 
 He had prospered like the bay tree. His daugh- 
 ter, Marie Louise, had married a distinguished 
 English nobleman, and his sons were now the 
 richest men in America. Yet they lived with the 
 sword of Damocles over their heads, suspended by 
 a single thread, and the General had the knife 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 wherewith to cut it. Lespinasse, among other 
 things, had caused the murder of the husband of 
 Madame Luchia, and she was in possession of 
 conclusive proofs which, at the proper moment, 
 could be produced to convict him of his many 
 crimes, or at least to oust his sons and daughter 
 from the stolen inheritance. 
 
 It was a weird, bizarre nightmare, no more as- 
 tonishing than the novels the Lapierres had read. 
 America, they understood, was a land where the 
 rivers were full of gold a country of bronzed and 
 handsome savages, of birds of paradise and ruined 
 Aztec temples, of vast tobacco fields and planta- 
 tions of thousands of acres of cotton cultivated by 
 naked slaves, while one lay in a hammock fanned 
 by a "petite negre" and languidly sipped eau 
 sucree. The General had made it all seem very, 
 very real. At the weak spots he had gesticulated 
 convincingly and digressed upon his health. Then, 
 while the narrative was fresh and he might have 
 had to answer questions about it had he given his 
 listeners opportunity to ask them, he had hastily 
 told of a visit to Tunis. There he had by chance 
 encountered Marie Louise, the daughter of Lespi- 
 nasse, living with her noble husband in a " hand- 
 some Oriental palacc,"had been invited to dine with 
 them and had afterward seized the occasion while 
 "walking in the garden" with the lady to disclose 
 
 42 
 
Five Hundred Million Dollars 
 
 the fact that he knew all, and had it in his power 
 to ruin them as impostors. Marie Louise had been 
 frightfully angry, but afterward her better nature 
 had suggested the return of the inheritance, or at 
 least a hundfed millions or so, to the rightful heirs. 
 The General had left the palace believing all would 
 be well, and had retired to Paris to await letters 
 and further developments, but these had never 
 come, and he had discovered that he had been de- 
 ceived. It had been merely a ruse on the part of 
 the woman and her husband to gain time, and 
 now every step that he took was dogged by spies 
 in the pay of the Lespinasses, who followed him 
 everywhere. But the right would triumph! He 
 had sworn to run the conspiracy to earth! 
 
 Many hours were consumed in the telling of the 
 story. The Lapierres were enchanted. More 
 than that, they were convinced persuaded that 
 they were heirs to the richest inheritance in the 
 world, which comprised most of the great Ameri- 
 can city of New York. 
 
 Persons who were going tb participate in twenty- 
 five hundred millions of francs could afford to be 
 hospitable. M. le General stayed to dinner. A 
 list of the heirs living in or near Bordeaux was 
 made out with the share of each in the inheritance 
 carefully computed. Madame Lapierre's was 
 only fifty million dollars but still that was almost 
 
 43 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 enough to buy up Bordeaux. And they could 
 purchase Monsegur as a country place. The 
 General spoke of a stable of automobiles by 
 means of which the journey from Bordeaux to 
 the farm could be accomplished in the space of 
 an hour. 
 
 That night the good man and his wife scarcely 
 closed their eyes, and the next day, accompanied 
 by the General, they visited Bordeaux and the 
 neighboring towns and broke the news gently to 
 the other heirs. There was M. Petti t, the veter- 
 inary at Mormand; Tessier, the blacksmith in 
 Bordeaux; M. Pelegue and his wife, M. Rozier, 
 M. Cazenava and his son, and others. One branch 
 of the family lived in Brazil the Joubin Freres 
 and one Tessier of "Saint Bezeille." These last 
 had to be reached by post, a most annoyingly 
 slow means of communicaiton mats que voulez- 
 vous? 
 
 Those were busy days in and around Bordeaux, 
 and the General was the centre of attraction. What 
 a splendid figure he cut in his tall silk hat and gold- 
 headed cane! But they were all very careful to let 
 no inkling of their good fortune leak out, for it 
 might spoil everything give some opportunity to 
 the spies of the impostor Lespinasse to fabricate 
 new chains of title or to prepare for a defense of the 
 fortune. The little blacksmith, being addicted to 
 
 44 
 
Five Hundred Million Dollars 
 
 white wine, was the only one who did not keep his 
 head. But even he managed to hold his mouth 
 sufficiently shut. A family council was held; M. 
 le General was given full power of attorney to act 
 for all the heirs; and each having contributed an 
 insignificant sum toward his necessary expenses, 
 they waved him a tremulous good-by as he stood 
 on the upper deck of the steamer, his silk hat 
 in one hand and his gold-headed cane in the 
 other. 
 
 "He will get it, if any one can!" cried the black- 
 smith enthusiastically. 
 
 "It is as good as ours already!" echoed Rozier. 
 
 "My friends," Madame Lapierre assured them, 
 "a General of the armies of Spain and a Chevalier 
 of the Order of Jiminez would die rather than fail 
 in his mission. Besides," she added, her French 
 blood asserting itself, "he is to get nineteen per 
 cent, of the inheritance!" 
 
 As long as the steamer remained in sight the 
 General waved encouragingly, his hat raised 
 toward Heaven. 
 
 "Mfl/j-," says Lapierre, with another shrug as 
 he lights his pipe, "even you would have believed 
 him. V raiment I He would have deceived the 
 devil himself!" 
 
 Up the road the wain comes creaking back 
 again. A crow flaps across the vineyard, laugh- 
 
 45 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 ing scornfully at good M. Lapierre, and you your- 
 self wonder if such a thing could have been possible. 
 
 On a rainy afternoon in March, 1905, there en- 
 tered the writer's office in the Criminal Courts 
 Building, New York City, a ruddy, stoutly-built 
 man, dressed in homespun garments, accompanied 
 by an attractive and vivacious little woman, who, 
 while unable to speak a single word of English, 
 had no difficulty in making it obvious that she had 
 a story to tell of the most vital importance. An 
 interpreter was soon found and the names of the 
 visitors disclosed. The lady, who did the talking 
 for both of them, introduced herself as Madame 
 Valoie Reddon, of Bordeaux, and her companion 
 as M. Emile Lapierre, landowner, of Monsegur, 
 They had come, she explained, from France to 
 take possession of the inheritance Tessier. She 
 was a personal friend of Madame Lapierre, and as 
 the Tessiers had exhausted all their money in pay- 
 ing the expenses connected with securing the for- 
 tune, she, being a well-to-do gentlewoman, had 
 come to their assistance, and for ' the last few 
 months had been financing the enterprise on a fif- 
 teen per cent, basis. If Madame Lapierre was to 
 receive ten million dollars, then, to be sure, Ma- 
 dame Reddon would have one million five hundred 
 thousand dollars; but, of course, it was not for the 
 
 46 
 
Five Hundred Million Dollars 
 
 money, but on account of friendship, that she was 
 aiding them. I would understand that three years 
 had elapsed since a certain distinguished General 
 Pedro Suarez de Moreno had disclosed to the La- 
 pierres the fact that Madame was the heiress to 
 the greatest estate in America. M. Lapierre sol- 
 emnly nodded confirmation as the lady proceeded. 
 It was the one subject talked about in the Gironde 
 and Bordeaux that is, among those who had been 
 fortunate enough to learn anything about it. And 
 for three years the Tessiers, their wives, their sons' 
 wives, and their connections, had been waiting to 
 receive the glad tidings that the conspirators had 
 been put to rout and the rightful heirs reinstated. 
 It was some time before the good lady suc- 
 ceeded in convincing her auditor that such a ri- 
 diculous fraud as she described had actually been 
 perpetrated. But there was M. Lapierre and there 
 was Madame Valoie Reddon sitting in the office as 
 living witnesses to the fact. What wonderful per- 
 son could this General Moreno be, who could hyp- 
 notize a hard-headed, thrifty farmer from the 
 Gironde and' a clever little French woman from 
 Bordeaux into believing that five hundred million 
 dollars was waiting for them on the other side of 
 the Atlantic! I expressed my surprise. Madame 
 Reddon shrugged her sloping shoulders. Well, 
 perhaps it was hard for M'sieu' to believe, but 
 
 47 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 then there were the proofs, the documents, the 
 dossier, and, most of all, there was the General 
 himself. Oh* if M'sieu' could see the General in 
 his tall silk hat and gold-headed cane! 
 
 I asked for the documents. Madame Reddon 
 opened her bag and produced a package of nearly 
 one hundred letters, written in a fine Spanish 
 hand. Oh ! he had been a wonderful writer, this 
 gorgeous Count de Tinoco and Marquis de la 
 d'Essa. She had met him herself when he had 
 been in Bordeaux. Madame Lapierre had intro- 
 duced him to her, and she had heard him talk. 
 How beautifully he talked ! The stories of his ex- 
 periences as General of the armies of Spain under 
 Don Carlos and as Brigadier-General in the Phil- 
 ippines were as fascinating as a romance. But it 
 was his letters which had really led her to take a 
 personal interest in the undertaking. With a sigh 
 Madame Valoie untied the little blue ribbon which 
 bound up the pitiful little history. If M'sieu' 
 would be good enough to grant the time she would 
 begin at the beginning. Here was his first letter 
 written after the General's return to America: 
 
 June 25, *02. 
 MY DEAR M. LAPIERRE: 
 
 We have had a terrible voyage. A horrible storm 
 broke loose in mid-ocean, endangering all our lives. . . . 
 The waves, like mountains, threatened every instant to 
 
 48 
 
Five Hundred Million Dollars 
 
 swallow us all; the spectacle was terrifying. I fell from 
 the top of the stairs 'way down into the hole (sic), hurting 
 my right leg in the centre of the tibia bone. The ship's 
 doctor, who is nothing but a stupid fool, left me helpless 
 almost the entire day. ... If ever I should have dreamt 
 what would occur to me in this trip, not for all the gold 
 in the world would I have embarked. But, now that I 
 am here, I shall not retreat before any obstacle, in order 
 to arrive at the fulfillment of my enterprise, and no mat- 
 ter at what cost, even at that of my life. It is necessary 
 that I succeed my pride demands it. Those who are in 
 the right shall triumph, that is sure. ... In the mean 
 time, will you kindly give my regards to Madame and 
 your son, and all of your relatives, not forgetting your 
 good old servant. Squeezing your hand cordially, I bid 
 you adieu. 
 
 Your devoted, 
 
 PEDRO S. DE MORENO. 
 
 "Can you not see the waves, and observe him 
 falling down the hole?" asks Madame Reddon. 
 "Mais, void une autre." 
 
 July n, 1902. 
 M. JEAN LAPIERRE. 
 
 My dear M. Lapierre: As soon as I could walk a little 
 I began my research for the impostors of the inheritance 
 Tessier. Without a doubt some person who is interested 
 in the case has already advised them of my arrival in 
 New York, and to take the necessary precautions to lead 
 me astray in my researches. 
 
 Already I have discovered almost everything. I know 
 even the house in which resided the deceased before his 
 death. It is a house of twenty-five stories high, which 
 resembles the Church of Saint Magdalene in Paris. To- 
 
 49 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 day it is the biggest bank in New York. I have visited it 
 from top to bottom, ascending and descending in steel 
 elevators. This is a marvelous palace; it is worth more 
 than five million dollars. The house itself has the num- 
 bers 100, 102, 104, 106, 108, 1 10, 112, 114, 116 and 118. 
 In other words, it covers the ground of ten other houses 
 made into one. 
 
 I haVe also visited six houses belonging to him, which 
 are worth millions and are located around Central 
 Park. . . . 
 
 As soon as the brothers Lespinasse knew that I had 
 arrived in New York they immediately took their de- 
 parture, one for Paris to find his father, Emmeric Lespi- 
 nasse, the other to the city of Tuxpan, in Mexico, to visit 
 the properties stolen from the heirs. I have come to an 
 understanding' with the Reverend Father Van Rensse- 
 laer, Father Superior of the Jesuits, and have offered him 
 two millions for his poor, in recompense for his aid to 
 recover and to enter into possession of the inheritance. 
 He takes great pains, and is my veritable guide and con- 
 fidant. . . . 
 
 I have visited Central Park, also a property of the de- 
 ceased; this property alone is worth more than twenty 
 million dollars. ... I have great confidence in my suc- 
 cess, and I am almost sure to reach the goal, if you are 
 the heirs, for here there is a mix-up by all the devils. . . . 
 
 The wound of my leg has much improved, the conse- 
 quences which I feared have disappeared, and I expect 
 soon my complete convalescence, but the devil has be- 
 stowed upon me a toothache, which makes me almost 
 crazy with pain. I shall leave, nevertheless, to begin my 
 campaign. 
 
 Will you be kind enough to give my regards to your 
 wife and son, and to our old friend, etc., etc. 
 
 PEDRO S. DE MORENO. 
 50 
 
Five Hundred Million Dollars 
 
 "May the devil bestow upon him five hundred 
 million toothaches!" exclaims Lapierre, for the 
 first time showing any sign of animation. 
 
 The other letters were read in their order, inter- 
 spersed with Madame Reddon's explanations of 
 their effect upon the heirs in France. His descrip- 
 tion of the elevators of steel and of the house that 
 covered an entire block had caused a veritable 
 sensation. Alas! those wonders are still wonders 
 to them, and they still, I fancy, more than half 
 believe in them. The letters are lying before me 
 now, astonishing emanations, totally ridiculous to 
 a prosaic American, but calculated to convince 
 and stimulate the imagination of a petit bour- 
 geois. 
 
 The General in glowing terms paints his efforts 
 to run down the Lespinasse conspirators. Al- 
 though suffering horribly from his fractured tibia 
 (when he fell into the "hole"), and from other dire 
 ills, he has " not taken the slightest rest." He has 
 been everywhere "New Orleans, Florida, to the 
 city of Coney Island " to corner the villains, who 
 "flee in all directions." The daughter, Marie 
 Louise, through whom the General expects to se- 
 cure a compromise, has left for New Orleans. 
 "Wonderful coincidence," he writes, "they were 
 all living quietly and I believe had no intention 
 whatever to travel, and two days after my arrival 
 
 5 1 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 in New York they all disappeared. The most sus- 
 picious of it all is that the banker, his wife and chil- 
 dren had left for Coney Island for the summer and 
 to spend their holidays, and certainly they disap- 
 peared without saying good-by to their intimate 
 friends. ... I have the whole history of Tessier's 
 life and how he made his fortune. There is a fam- 
 ily for the use of whom we must give at least a 
 million, for the fortune of Tessier was not his 
 alone. He had a companion who shared his 
 troubles and his work. According to the will they 
 were to inherit one from the other; the companion 
 died, and Tessier inherited everything. I do not 
 see the necessity of your trip to New York; that 
 might make noise and perhaps delay my negotia- 
 tions." Then follows the list of properties em- 
 braced in the inheritance: 
 
 PROPERTY AND PERSONAL ESTATE OF 
 THE HEIRS 
 
 The land of Central Park ceded to the 
 
 city of New York, of the value of $5,000,000.00 
 
 He had at the National Bank United 
 
 States Bank deposited in gold 
 
 twenty to thirty million dollars. He 
 
 never withdrew anything; on the 
 
 contrary, he always deposited his in- 
 come there 25,000,000.00 
 
 The big house on Broadway, Nos. 100 
 
 to 118, of twenty-five stories, to-day 
 
 the largest bank in New York. . . 5,000,000.00 
 
 52 
 
Five Hundred Million Dollars 
 
 4 The house on Fifth Avenue, No. 765, 
 
 facing Central Park, to-day one of 
 the first hotels of New York Hotel 
 Savoy $8,000,000.00 
 
 5 House on Fifth Avenue, No. 767, fac- 
 
 ing Central Park, to-day the biggest 
 and most handsomest of American 
 hotels, where the greatest people and 
 millionaires stop Hotel Nether- 
 land 20,000,000.00 
 
 6 Two coal mines at Folkustung in Texas 9,000,000.00 
 
 7 A petroleum mine in Pennsylvania 
 
 (Mexican frontier) 6,000,000.00 
 
 8 Shares of silver mine at Tuxpan, 
 
 Mexico 10,000,000.00 
 
 9 The house at Tuxpan and its grounds, 
 
 Mexico 15,000.00 
 
 10 The pleasure home and grounds in 
 
 Florida (New Orleans) in the city of 
 
 Coney Island ........ 500,000.00 
 
 1 1 The house which covers all the Esquare 
 
 Plaza (no number because it is all 
 alone). It is an immense palace, 
 with a park and gardens, and waters 
 forming cascades and labyrinths, 
 facing Central Park 12,000,000.00 
 
 12 The block of houses on Fifth and Sixth 
 
 Avenues, facing on this same Central 
 Park, which, as all these grounds be- 
 long to him, he had put up. They 
 are a hundred houses, that is called 
 here a block 30,000,000.00 
 
 13 He is the owner of two railroads and 
 
 owns shares of others in Pennsyl- 
 vania and Canada . . . . . . 40,000,000.00 
 
 14 A line of steam and sail boats Atlan- 
 
 tic. The Pennsylvania and the Tes- 
 
 sier and other names 100,000,000.00 
 
 53 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 15 A dock and a quay of eight hundred 
 
 meters on the Brooklyn River for 
 
 his ships $120,000,000.00 
 
 1 6 Several values and debts owed him and 
 
 which at his death had not been col- 
 lected 40,000.00 
 
 Which is in francs . . 1,952,775,000 
 Plus 5 per cent. . . 976,388 
 
 Total in francs . . i,953>75i>388 
 
 "Do you blame us ?" asks Madame Valoie, as I 
 listen as politely as possible to this Arabian Nights' 
 dream of riches. 
 
 The letters continue: The General is sur- 
 rounded by enemies, of which the worst are French, 
 and he is forced continually to change his residence 
 in order to escape their machinations. But all this 
 takes money. How can he go to Tuxpan or to the 
 city of Coney Island? "You cannot know nor 
 imagine the expense which I have had to discover 
 that which I have discovered. I cannot live here 
 like a miser, for the part I represent demands much 
 of me. Every moment I change my residence, and 
 that costs money." He adds a little touch of detail. 
 "I must always be dressed properly, and laundry 
 is very dear here a shirt costs twenty-five cents 
 to wash, and there are other necessary expenses. 
 . . . You have forgotten to tell me if you have 
 received the album of views of New York in which 
 
 54 
 
Five Hundred Million Dollars 
 
 I have indicated the properties of the deceased. 
 I squeeze your hand." 
 
 "Yes, and our purses too," adds Madame 
 Valoie. "Would M'sieu' care to see the album of 
 the Tessier properties ? Yes ? M'sieu' Lapierre, 
 kindly show the gentleman." 
 
 Lapierre unbuttons his homespun coat and pro- 
 duces a cheap paper-covered blank book in which 
 are pasted small photographs and woodcuts of 
 various well-known New York buildings. It is 
 hard not to smile. 
 
 "M'sieu* will see," continues Madame Valoie, 
 "that the dream had something substantial about 
 it. When we saw these pictures in Bordeaux we 
 were on the point of giving up in despair, but the 
 pictures convinced us that it was all true. More- 
 over, just at that time the General intimated that 
 unless he had more money he might yield to the 
 efforts of the Lespinasse family to buy him off." 
 
 Madame Valoie points vindictively to a certain 
 paragraph in one of the letters : " Of course they 
 are convinced that I am not for sale, not for any- 
 thing. . . . To my regret, my very great regret, I 
 shall be forced to capitulate if you do not come to 
 my aid and that quickly, for I repeat to you that 
 my funds are all gone." 
 
 "And here is his bill," continues Madame Va- 
 loie, producing a folded document composed of 
 
 55 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 countless sheets of very thin paper, bound together 
 
 at the edges by strips of heavier material. This, 
 
 when unfolded, stretches entirely across the room 
 
 and is seen to be composed of hundreds of type- 
 written items, of which the following may serve as 
 illustrations: 
 
 EXPENSES IN NEW YORK 
 
 July 12, Train to New Orleans $25.50 
 
 " 16, Train to Florida 2.50 
 
 " " Dinner on train 2.00 
 
 " 17, Hotel in Florida 2.00 
 
 " 18, Trip to Coney Island 50 
 
 " 19, Return to Florida .50 
 
 " 21, Return from Florida to New Orleans ... 2.50 
 
 " " Laundry 1.15 
 
 Dec. 3, Return to New York . : 6.50 
 
 " 24, Train to Vera Cruz 57-5 
 
 Jan. 4, Trip to Tuxpan 2.50 
 
 " 5, Return to Vera Cruz 2.50 
 
 " 6, Sudden night trip to Halifax, Nova Scotia, via 
 
 Buffalo and Niagara Falls 50 .50 
 
 " 18, Laundry for three months 5.00 
 
 Etc., etc. 
 
 EXTRAORDINARY EXPENSES 
 
 To Agent Pushyt John, a meerschaum and amber cigar- 
 holder and pipe . $7.00 
 
 Tobacco jar of shell and silver 4.00 
 
 To Indian Peter South-Go, a watch, a suit and a pair of 
 
 shoes 16.50 
 
 To my general agent of confidential reports for his 
 
 daughter, a gold ring and a feather fan ... 7.00 
 
 A necktie for himself and scarf-pin in gold and with stone 
 
 for the necktie 8.60 
 
 56 
 
Five Hundred Million Dollars 
 
 To the letter-carrier to bring me my correspondence and 
 not give it to any one else when I should change 
 address $4.00 
 
 Invitation to the Consul and his two agents in Washing- 
 ton hotel 12. oo 
 
 Several invitations to cafe's and saloons to the Police 
 
 Agents 2.00 
 
 Invitations to old employees of Jean Tessier, to tear from 
 
 them the declarations 1.50 
 
 Barber expenses 11.50 
 
 Tobacco and matches, July to December, three pack- 
 ages each week, ten cents each . ...... 7.80 
 
 Changing hotels to lead astray the agents of the impos- 
 tors 9.50 
 
 Etc., etc. 
 
 "To obtain a collossal fortune as yours will be, 
 it is necessary to spend money unstintingly and to 
 have lots of patience. Court proceedings will be 
 useless, as trickery and lies are necessary to get the 
 best of the scoundrels. It is necessary also to be 
 a scoundrel." 
 
 "That he might well say/' interpolates Lapierre. 
 "He succeed, cest sure'' 
 
 I rapidly glanced over the remaining letters. 
 The General seems always to be upon the verge 
 of compelling a compromise. "I have already 
 prepared my net and the meshes are tightly drawn 
 so that the fish will not be able to escape. . . . For 
 an office like this one needs money money to go 
 quickly from one place to another, prosecute the 
 usurpers, not allow them an instant's rest. If 
 
 57 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 they go to some city run after them at once, tire 
 them with my presence and constantly harass 
 them, and by this means compel them to hasten 
 a compromise " 
 
 The General is meeting with superhuman 
 obstacles. In addition to his enemies he suffers all 
 sorts of terrible bodily afflictions. Whenever the 
 remittances from the Lapierres do not arrive the 
 difficulties and diseases increase. 
 
 At last, however, after an interval of two years, 
 things took a turn for the better. A "confidential 
 representative" of the conspirators one "Mr. 
 Benedict-Smith" arrived to make a bona fide 
 offer of one hundred and fifty million dollars in 
 settlement of the case. The General writes at 
 great length as to exactly in what proportion the 
 money should be divided among the heirs. The 
 thing is so near a culmination that he is greatly 
 exercised over his shabby appearance. 
 
 I am without a sou and too badly dressed to go before 
 the banker in the very likely case of his arrival here. Send 
 me my baggage at once with the first steamer, and mark 
 each piece "fragile." This is all. My regards to Ma- 
 dame Lapierre and your son. I am cordially yours, 
 squeezing your hand. 
 
 PEDRO S. DE MORENO. 
 
 But the Lapierres and Tessiers, while not for an 
 instant distrusting the honesty of the General, had 
 
 58 
 
Five Hundred Million Dollars 
 
 become extremely weary of sending him money. 
 Each heir felt that he had contributed enough 
 toward the General's "expenses and invitations." 
 Even the one hundred and fifty millions within 
 easy reach did not prompt immediate response. 
 
 About the same time an extraordinary messen- 
 ger arrived at the Lapierre farm, purporting to 
 come from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and 
 instructing Lapierre to repair immediately to Paris. 
 The messenger explained that the presence of La- 
 pierre was desired at the Ministry in connection 
 with some investigation then in progress into the 
 affairs of one Jean Tessier. Then the messenger 
 departed as mysteriously as he had arrived. 
 
 Good M. Lapierre was highly excited. Here was 
 indubitable evidence of the truth of the General's 
 assertions. But, just as the latter had intended, 
 perhaps, the worthy farmer jumped to the con- 
 clusion that probably the messenger from Paris 
 had been sent by the conspirators. 
 
 "At the last moment," wrote Lapierre to Mo- 
 reno, "I received from Paris a letter commanding 
 me to go to the Ministry, and at the same time a 
 telegram recommending that I leave at once. I 
 shall write you from Paris all that I learn to your 
 interest. If this letter should not reach you sealed 
 in red wax, with small indentations made with a 
 sewing thimble and my initials, which I always 
 
 59 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 sign, it is that our correspondence is seized and 
 read." 
 
 Events followed in rapid succession. Lapierre, 
 the Tessiers, including the little blacksmith, be- 
 came almost hysterical with excitement. A gen- 
 tleman, by name "Mr. Francis Delas," called upon 
 Lapierre and offered him twenty-five million dol- 
 lars spot cash for his wife's share in the Tessier 
 inheritance. This person also claimed that he had 
 a power of attorney from all the other heirs, with 
 the exception of Pettit and Rozier, and asserted 
 that he was on the point of embarking for New 
 York in their interest. He urged Lapierre to sub- 
 stitute him for Moreno. But Lapierre, now con- 
 vinced that everything was as the General had 
 claimed it to be, indignantly rejected any such 
 proposition aimed at his old friend, and sent Mr. 
 Francis Delas packing about his business. 
 
 "This is what my answer has been to him: 'Sir, we 
 have already an agent with whom we can only have cause 
 to be satisfied, so that your services are not acceptable or 
 needed.' He left me most dissatisfied and scolding.'* 
 
 The sending of this confederate on the part of 
 the wily General had precisely the effect hoped for. 
 Lapierre and his friends were now convinced that 
 the inheritance Tessier was a reality, and that pow- 
 erful personages were not only exerting their in- 
 
 60 
 
Five Hundred Million Dollars 
 
 fluence to prevent the rightful heirs from obtain- 
 ing their property, but had also in some way 
 secured the cooperation of government officials. 
 It was agreed, on all hands, that the worthy land- 
 owner, accompanied by Madame Reddon, had 
 better proceed at once to the scene of operations 
 and unite with the General in their common pur- 
 pose. Once on the ground Lapierre could assume 
 direction of his own campaign. 
 
 Lapierre and Madame Reddon accordingly 
 sailed for America and arrived in New York on 
 the fourth of December, 1904, where they were 
 met on the dock by the General, who, freshly bar- 
 bered, and with a rose in his buttonhole, invited 
 them, as soon as they had recovered from the fa- 
 tigue of landing, to make a personal inspection of 
 their properties. 
 
 These heirs to hundreds of millions of dollars 
 were conducted by the "Marquis de la d'Essa and 
 Count de Tinoco" to the Battery, where he gal- 
 lantly seated them in an electric surface car, and 
 proceeded to show them the inheritance. He 
 pointed out successively Number 100 Broadway, 
 the "Flatiron" Building, the Fifth Avenue Hotel 
 and the Holland House, the Waldorf-Astoria, the 
 Vanderbilt mansion at Fifty-seventh Street and 
 Fifth Avenue, the Hotel Savoy and the Hotel Neth- 
 erland, incidentally taking a cross-town trip to the 
 
 61 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 ferry station at East Twenty-third Street, and to 
 Bellevue Hospital. A public omnibus conveyed 
 them around Central Park also their own. And, 
 in spite of the cold weather, the General insisted 
 on showing them the "Tessier mansion and estate 
 at Fort George" visible from the Washington 
 Bridge " a beautiful property in the centre of a 
 wood." Returning, he took them to the Museum 
 of Natural History and to the Metropolitan Mu- 
 seum of Art, which contained "Tessier's collec- 
 
 tions." 
 
 Having thus given them a bird's-eye view of the 
 promised land, the General escorted them to his 
 apartments and allowed them to see the Ark of the 
 Covenant in the shape of a somewhat dilapidated 
 leather trunk, which contained a paper alleged to 
 be the will of Jean Tessier, made in Bellevue Hos- 
 pital (one of his possessions), and unlawfully seized 
 by the Lespinasse family. It was only, Moreno 
 alleged, through the powerful influence of the Jes- 
 uits that he had been able to secure and keep a 
 copy of this will. 
 
 Although the Marquis de la d'Essa must have 
 known that his days were numbered, he was as gay 
 and as entertaining as ever. Then, suddenly, the 
 scales began to fall from Madame Reddon's eyes. 
 The promised meeting with Marie Louise Lespi- 
 nasse and her mysterious representative, "Mr. 
 
 62 
 
Five Hundred Million Dollars 
 
 Benedict-Smith," was constantly adjourned; the 
 " police agents," whom it had been so necessary to 
 entertain and invite to saloons and cafes, were 
 strangely absent, and so were the counsellors, Jes- 
 uit Fathers, bankers, and others who had crowded 
 the General's antechambers. A slatternly Hiber- 
 nian woman appeared, claiming the hero as her 
 husband; his landlady caused him to be evicted 
 from her premises; and his trunk containing the 
 famous "dossier" was thrown into the street, where 
 it lay until the General himself, placing it upon his 
 princely shoulders, bore it to a fifteen-cent lodg- 
 ing-house. 
 
 "And now, M'sieu'," said little Madame Red- 
 don, raising her hands and clasping them entreat- 
 ingly before her, " we have come to seek vengeance 
 upon this miserable! This villain msieu! He 
 has taken our money and made fools of us. Surely 
 you will give us justice!" 
 
 "Yes," echoed Lapierre stubbornly, "and the 
 money was my own money, which I had made 
 from the products of my farming." 
 
 A month later Don Pedro Suarez de Moreno, 
 Count de Tinoco, Marquis de la d'Essa, and Brig- 
 adier-General of the Royal Armies of the Philip- 
 pines and of Spain, sat at the bar of the General 
 Sessions, twirling his mustache and uttering loud 
 snorts of contempt while Lapierre and Madame 
 
 63 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 Reddon told their story to an almost incredulous 
 yet sympathetic jury. 
 
 But the real trial began only when he arose to 
 take the witness chair in his own behalf. Appar- 
 ently racked with pain, and laboring under the 
 most frightful physical infirmities, the General, 
 through an interpreter, introduced himself to the 
 jury by all his titles, asserting that he had inher- 
 ited his patents of nobility from the "Prince of 
 Arras," from whom he was descended, and that he 
 was in very truth "General-in-Chief of the Ar- 
 mies of the King of Spain, General Secretary of 
 War, and Custodian of the Royal Seal." He ad- 
 mitted telling the Lapierres that they were the 
 heirs of five hundred million dollars, but he had 
 himself honestly believed it. When he and the 
 rest of them had discovered their common error 
 they had turned upon him and were now hounding 
 him out of revenge. The courtly General was as 
 distingue as ever as he addressed the hard-headed 
 jury of tradesmen before him. As what canaille 
 he must have regarded them! What a position 
 for the "Count de Tinoco"! 
 
 Then two officers entered the courtroom bearing 
 the famous trunk of the General between them. 
 The top tray proved to contain thousands of rail- 
 road tickets. The prosecutor requested the de- 
 fendant to explain their possession. 
 
 64 
 
Five Hundred Million Dollars 
 
 "Ah!" exclaimed Moreno, twirling his mus- 
 taches, "when I was General under my King Don 
 Carlos, in the Seven Years' War of '75 and also in 
 Catalonia in '80, I issued these tickets to wounded 
 soldiers for their return home. At the boundaries 
 the Spanish tickets were exchanged for French 
 tickets." He looked as if he really meant it. 
 
 Then the prosecutor called his attention to the 
 fact that most of them bore the date of 1891 and 
 were printed in French not in Spanish. The 
 prisoner seemed greatly surprised and muttered 
 under his breath vaguely about "plots" and 
 "conspiracies." Then he suddenly remembered 
 that the tickets were a "collection," made by his 
 little son. 
 
 Beneath the tickets were found sheaves of blank 
 orders of nobility and blank commissions in the 
 army of Spain, bearing what appeared to be the 
 royal seal. These the General asserted that he 
 had the right to confer, by proxy, for his "King 
 Don Carlos." Hundreds of other documents 
 bearing various arms and crests lay interspersed 
 among them. The prisoner drew himself up mag- 
 nificently. 
 
 "I was the General Secretary of War of my 
 King," said he. "When I had to give orders to the 
 generals under me, of whom I was the chief, I had 
 the right to put thereon the royal imprint of Don 
 
 65 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 Carlos. I was given all the papers incident to the 
 granting of orders and grades in the army, and I 
 had the seal of the King the seal of the Royal 
 King." 
 
 But, unfortunately for the prisoner, the seals 
 upon the papers turned out to be the legitimate 
 arms of Spain and not those of Don Carlos, and as 
 a finale he ingenuously identified the seal of the 
 Mayor of Madrid as that of his " Royal King." 
 
 Next came a selection of letters of nobility, 
 sealed and signed in the name of Pope Leo the 
 Thirteenth. These, he asserted, must have been 
 placed there by his enemies. " I am a soldier and 
 a general of honor, and I never did any such traf- 
 ficking," he cried grandly, when charged with sell- 
 ing bogus patents of nobility. 
 
 He explained some of his correspondence with 
 the Lapierres and his famous bill for twelve thou- 
 sand dollars by saying that when he found out that 
 the inheritance Tessier did not exist he had con- 
 ceived the idea of making a novel of the story a 
 "fantastic history" to be published "in four lan- 
 guages simultaneously," and asserted solemnly 
 that he had intended printing the whole sixteen 
 feet of bill as part of the romance. 
 
 Then, to the undisguised horror of the unfortu- 
 nate General, at a summons from the prosecutor 
 an elderly French woman arose in the audience 
 
 66 
 
Five Hundred Million Dollars 
 
 and came to the bar. The General turned first 
 pale, then purple. He hotly denied that he had 
 married this lady in France twenty-three years ago. 
 
 "Name of a name! He had known her! Yes 
 certainly ! But she was no wife of his she had been 
 only his servant. The other lady the Hibernian 
 was his only wife." But the chickens had begun 
 to come home to roost. The pointed mustaches 
 drooped with an unmistakable look of dejection, 
 and as he marched back to his seat his shoulders 
 no longer had the air of military distinction that 
 one would expect in a general of a " Royal King." 
 His head sank on his chest as his deserted wife 
 took the stand against him the wife whom, he had 
 imagined, he would never see again. 
 
 Any one could have seen that Elizabeth de Mo- 
 reno was a good woman. Her father's name, she 
 said, was Nichaud, and she had first met the pris- 
 oner twenty-three years ago in the village of Dalk, 
 in the Department of the Tarne, where, in 1883, 
 he had been convicted and sentenced for stealing 
 bed linen from the Hotel Kassam. She had re- 
 mained faithful to him in spite of his disgrace, and 
 had visited him daily in prison, bringing him milk 
 and tobacco. On his liberation she had married him 
 and they had gone to live in Bordeaux. For years 
 they had lived in comfort, and she had borne him 
 eight children. He had never been to any war 
 
 6? 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 and was neither a general nor, so far as she had 
 known, a friend of Don Carlos. She had supposed 
 that her husband held some position in connection 
 with the inspection of railroads, but, in 1902, it had 
 come out that he was in the business of selling 
 counterfeit railroad tickets, and had employed a 
 printer named Paul Casignol to print great num- 
 bers of third-class tickets for the purpose of selling 
 them to ignorant soldiers and artisans. Moreno 
 had fled to America. She had then discovered that 
 he had also made a practice of checking worthless 
 baggage, stealing it himself and then presenting 
 claims therefor against the railroad companies. 
 She had been left without a sou, and the rascal 
 had taken everything she had away with him, in- 
 cluding even the locket containing the hair of her 
 children. By the time she had finished her story 
 Moreno's courage had deserted him, the jury with- 
 out hesitation returned a verdict of guilty, and the 
 judge then and there sentenced the prisoner to a 
 term at hard labor in State's prison. 
 
 "Mais oui," grunts Lapierre, as the crow, with 
 a final caw of contempt, alights in a poplar farther 
 down the road, " I don't blame the bird for laugh- 
 ing at me. But, after all, there is nothing to be 
 ashamed of. Is one to be blamed that one is 
 fooled ? Hein! We are all made fools of once and 
 
 68 
 
Five Hundred Million Dollars 
 
 again, and, as I said before, he would have deceived 
 the devil himself. But perhaps things are better 
 as they are. Money is the root of all evil. If I had 
 an automobile I should probably be thrown out 
 and have my neck broken. But if M'sieu' intends 
 to take the next train for Bordeaux it is as well 
 that he should be starting." 
 
 69 
 
THE LOST STRADIVARIUS 
 
Ill 
 The Lost Stradivarius 
 
 Fthe year 1885 Jean Bott, a native of Hesse 
 Cassel, Germany, emigrated with his wife 
 Matilda to this country, bringing with him a cele- 
 brated violin known as "The Duke of Cambridge 
 Stradivarius," which he had purchased in 1873 
 for about three thousand thalers a sum repre- 
 senting practically the savings of a lifetime. Bott 
 had been leader of a small orchestra in Saxe Mein- 
 ingen as early as 1860, and was well advanced in 
 years before he determined to seek his fortune in 
 America. His wife was an elderly woman and 
 they had no offspring. 
 
 "This violin, my husband and myself made up 
 the family 1 loved it like a child," she testified at 
 the trial. 
 
 So also did Bott, the old musician, love his in- 
 strument, and no hand but his own was ever per- 
 mitted to lift it from its case or dust its darkly- 
 glowing surface. 
 
 73 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 Whatever may have been its owner's genius, he 
 prospered little in the new world, and, although he 
 labored conscientiously at his profession, the year 
 1894 found him still giving lessons upon the violin 
 to only half a dozen pupils, and living in two 
 rooms at 355 West Thirty-first Street. But Bott, 
 having the soul of a true musician, cared but little 
 for money and was happy enough so long as he 
 could smoke his old meerschaum pipe and draw 
 the bow across the cherished violin held lovingly 
 to his cheek. Then hard times came a-knocking 
 at the door. The meagre account in the savings- 
 bank grew smaller and smaller. The landlord, the 
 doctor and the grocer had to be paid. One night 
 Bott laid down his pipe and, taking his wife's 
 wrinkled hand in his, said gently: 
 
 "Matilda, there is nothing else we must sell 
 our violin!" 
 
 "Even so!" she answered, turning away her face 
 that her husband might not see the tears. "As 
 God wills." 
 
 The next day "The Duke of Cambridge Stradi- 
 varius" was offered for sale by Victor S. Flechter, 
 a friend of Bott's, who was a dealer in musical in- 
 struments at 23 Union Square. It so happened 
 that Nicolini, the husband of Adelina Patti, was 
 ambitious to own a genuine Stradivarius, and had 
 been looking for one for a long time, and, although 
 
 74 
 
The Lost Stradivarius 
 
 he was but an indifferent player, he had, in default 
 of skill to perform, the money to buy. The matter 
 was easily adjusted by Flechter, and Nicolini drew 
 his check for the sum specified, which, properly 
 certified, was tendered to Bott. But Bott had 
 never seen a certified check and was unaccustomed 
 to the ways of business. 
 
 "If I part with my violin I must have real money 
 money that I can feel money that I can count. 
 It was that kind of money that I paid for my vio- 
 lin," said he doggedly. 
 
 Nicolini, in a rage, believing himself insulted, 
 tore the check to bits and declared the transaction 
 at an end. 
 
 Now the price agreed upon for the violin had 
 been forty-five hundred dollars, of which Flechter 
 was to receive five hundred dollars as his commis- 
 sion, and when, through old Professor Bott's stub- 
 bornness, the sale fell through, the dealer was 
 naturally very angry. Out of this incident grew 
 the case against Flechter. 
 
 The old musician was accustomed to leave 
 his treasured instrument in the lowest drawer 
 of his bureau at the boarding-house. He al- 
 ways removed it before his pupils arrived and 
 never put it back until their departure, thus in- 
 suring the secrecy of its hiding-place, and only 
 his wife, his sister-in-law, Mollenhauer, a friend, 
 
 75 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 and Klopton, a prospective purchaser, knew 
 where it lay. 
 
 On the morning of March 31, 1894, not long 
 after the Nicolini incident, Bott gave a single lesson 
 to a pupil at the boarding-house, and after his 
 midday meal set out with his wife for Hoboken to 
 visit a friend. The violin was left in its custom- 
 ary place. It was dark when they returned, and 
 after throwing off his coat and lighting the gas 
 the old man hastened to make sure that his 
 precious violin was safe. When he pulled out 
 the drawer it was empty. The Stradivarius was 
 gone, with its leather case, its two bows and its 
 wooden box. 
 
 Half distracted the musician and his wife 
 searched everywhere in the room, in closets, under 
 beds, even behind the curtains, before they could 
 bring themselves to admit that the violin had in 
 fact disappeared. Frantically Bott called for Ellen, 
 the servant girl. Yes, there had been a caller a 
 young man with dark hair and a small, dark mus- 
 tache at about five o'clock. He had waited about 
 half an hour and then had said that he guessed he 
 would go. She had not noticed that he took any- 
 thing away with him. In his despair the old man 
 turned to his old friend Flechter, and the next day 
 the dealer came to express his sympathy. He 
 urged Bott to notify the police of the theft, but the 
 
The Lost Stradivarius 
 
 old man was prostrated with grief, and it was the 
 wife who, with Ellen Clancy, finally accompanied 
 Flechter to Police Headquarters. The police 
 had no idea who had taken the old fellow's fiddle, 
 and did not particularly care anyway. Later they 
 cared a good deal. 
 
 Bott now began an endless and almost hopeless 
 search for his beloved instrument, visiting every 
 place where violins were sold, every pawnshop and 
 second-hand store again and again until the pro- 
 prietors began to think the old man must be crazy. 
 Sometimes Flechter went with him. Once, the 
 two travelled all the way over to New Jersey, but 
 the scent proved to be a false one. Bott grew 
 thinner and older week by week, almost day by 
 day. When the professor did not feel equal to go- 
 ing outdoors Mrs. Bott went for him, and on these 
 occasions often called at Flechter's store to report 
 progress, ask his advice and secure his encourage- 
 ment. 
 
 One day during one of these visits in the July 
 following the loss of the violin Flechter handed 
 Mrs. Bott a sheet of paper, saying: 
 
 " I have written something down here. If you 
 have that printed and put a reward to it you will 
 get your violin back." 
 
 The wording, partly printed and partly written 
 in script, ran as follows: 
 
 77 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 VIOLIN LOST. #500 REWARD. 
 
 No questions asked for return of instrument taken from 
 residence of Jean Bott March 31, 1894, 355 W. 3ist St. 
 Absolute safety and secrecy guaranteed. Victor S. 
 Flechter, No. 21 Union Square, violin maker and dealer. 
 
 Mrs. Bott thanked him and took the notice 
 away with her, but its publication had no result. 
 The old professor began to fail, he no longer had 
 an instrument upon which to teach his pupils, and 
 those he could avail himself of seemed harsh and 
 discordant. He had no appetite, and even found 
 no solace in his pipe. Almost penniless they were 
 forced to give up their lodgings and move to Ho- 
 boken. Mrs. Bott still kept up the search, but the 
 professor could no longer tramp the streets looking 
 for his violin. He sat silent in his room, slowly, 
 surely, dying of a broken heart. 
 
 In course of time some one advised Mrs. Bott to 
 lay her case before the District Attorney, and ac- 
 cordingly, during the summer, she visited the 
 Criminal Courts Building and told her story to 
 Colonel Allen, one of the assistants, who became 
 greatly interested. The overwrought old woman 
 had begun to suspect everybody, and even to accuse 
 her husband's friend, Flechter, of a lack of any real 
 interest. She thought he ought to be able to find 
 the violin if he really made the effort. Allen began 
 
 78 
 
The Lost Stradivarius 
 
 to take notice. The sleuth in him pricked up its 
 ears. Why, sure, certainly, Flechter was the one 
 man who knew what Bott's violin was really worth 
 the one man who could sell it to advantage and 
 he had been done out of five hundred dollars by the 
 old musician's stupidity. Allen thought he'd take 
 a look into the thing. Now, there lived in the 
 same boarding-house with Allen a friend of his 
 named Harry P. Durden, and to Durden Allen 
 recounted the story of the lost violin and voiced 
 his suspicions of Flechter. Durden entered enthu- 
 siastically into the case, volunteering to play the 
 part of an amateur detective. Accordingly Dur- 
 den, accompanied by a Central Office man named 
 Baird, visited Flechter's place of business and the 
 two represented themselves as connoisseurs in vio- 
 lins and anxious to procure a genuine Strad. for a 
 certain Mr. Wright in St. Paul. Flechter expressed 
 entire confidence in his ability to procure one, 
 and did almost succeed in purchasing for them the 
 so-called "Jupiter Strad." 
 
 All this took time, and at last, on April 28th, 1895, 
 poor old Bott died in his boarding-house in Ho- 
 boken. After the funeral the widow settled up her 
 affairs, changing her boarding place temporarily, 
 and, having no ties in this country, determined to 
 return to end her days in the Fatherland. On May 
 2 1st she wrote to Flechter, who had lost all track of 
 
 79 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 her, that her husband had died, that she had 
 moved to 306 River Street, Hoboken, and that she 
 thought seriously of going back to Germany. Two 
 days later Flechter wrote the following letter to the 
 Central Office man, who had given his name as 
 Southan, an employe of the alleged Mr. Wright: 
 
 MR. SOUTHAN, care of H. P. Durden. 
 
 Dear Sir: Write to inform you that I have a genuine 
 Strad. to offer you and would like to see you at your 
 earliest convenience. 
 
 Very respectfully yours, 
 
 VICTOR S. FLECHTER. 
 
 When Allen saw this letter it seemed to him 
 absolutely to confirm his suspicions. Now that 
 the only person in the world who had been author- 
 itatively able to identify the "Duke of Cambridge" 
 Stradivarius was dead Flechter was offering one 
 for sale. 
 
 Then occurred the strangest thing of all. On 
 May 28th, five days after Flechter' s letter to Sou- 
 than, Mrs. Bott received the following extraordi- 
 nary epistle. Like the notice given her by Flechter 
 in his office, it was partly written in printed cap- 
 itals and partly in script. 
 
 May 28, 1895. 
 To MRS. BOTT, 306 River Street, Hoboken, N. J. 
 
 Dear Madam: I wish to inform you that the violin 
 taken from your house some time ago will be returned 
 
 80 
 
The Lost Stradivarius 
 
 if you are willing to abide by agreements that will be 
 made between you and I later on. It was my intention 
 first to dispose of it, but on account of its great value and 
 the danger it would place me in by offering for sale being 
 a violin maker and dealer and not being able to sell with 
 safety for such a large sum of money I concluded to 
 wait. I have now thought the matter over and come to 
 the conclusion that a little money is better than none and 
 if you are anxious for the return of the violin and willing 
 to pay a sum of money, small compared with the value 
 of the violin, I think we can make a deal. You can put 
 a personal in the New York Sun saying I am willing to 
 give a sum of money for the return of the violin. No 
 questions asked. Mrs. J. Bott. When I see your per- 
 sonal in the Sun I will let you know how the exchange 
 can be made. CAVE DWELLER. 
 
 This letter appeared to be written in a somewhat 
 similar hand to that which penned the offer of the 
 reward, which, according to Mrs. Bott, was 
 Flechter's. By this time the widow and Allen 
 were in close communication. The "Cave Dwell- 
 er" letter, could it be shown to be in Flechter's 
 penmanship, seemed to fix the crime on the violin 
 dealer. 
 
 Flechter's store is two flights up and looks out 
 into Union Square. Before the window hangs a 
 large gilded fiddle and the walls are decorated 
 with pictures of famous musicians. In the rear is 
 a safe where the more valuable instruments are 
 kept; in the front sits Flechter himself, a stoutish 
 
 81 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 man of middle height, with white hair and mus- 
 tache. But on June 23, 1895, Flechter was out 
 when Durden and Baird called, and only his clerk 
 and office-boy were on hand. Durden wished, he 
 said, to see the genuine Strad. about which Mr. 
 Flechter had written him. The boy went to the 
 safe and brought back a violin in a red silk bag. 
 Inside was inscribed: 
 
 "Antonius Stradivarius Cremonis fecit Anno 
 Domini 1725." 
 
 The figures 17 were printed and the 25 written 
 in ink. Durden examined it for some fifteen min- 
 utes and noted certain markings upon it. 
 
 On June 26th they called again, found Flechter 
 in and asked to see the violin. This time the dealer 
 took it himself from the safe, and, at their request, 
 carried it to 22 Gramercy Park, where Durden 
 said he desired some experts to pass upon its gen- 
 uineness. On the way over Flechter guaranteed 
 it to be a genuine Strad., and said it belonged to a 
 retired merchant named Rossman, who would 
 expect to get four thousand dollars for it. He him- 
 self would want five hundred dollars, and Durden 
 should have five hundred dollars, so that they 
 must not take less than five thousand dollars. 
 
 Once at Allen's boarding-house Flechter played 
 upon the violin for Durden and the supposed 
 Southan, and then the former asked to be allowed 
 
 82 
 
The Lost Stradivarius 
 
 to take the instrument to a rear room and show it to 
 a friend. Here Mrs. Bott, positively identified the 
 violin as that of her husband, clasping it to her 
 bosom like a long-lost child. This was enough for 
 Durden, who gave the instrument back to Flechter 
 and caused his arrest as he was passing out of the 
 front gate. The insulted dealer stormed and raged, 
 but the Car of Juggernaut had started upon its 
 course, and that night Flechter was lodged in the 
 city prison. Next morning he was brought before 
 Magistrate Flammer in the Jefferson Market Po- 
 lice Court and the violin was taken out of its case, 
 which the police had sealed. At this, the first 
 hearing in this extraordinary case, Mrs. Bott, of 
 course, identified the violin positively as "The 
 Duke of Cambridge," and several other persons 
 testified that, in substance, it was Bott's celebrated 
 violin. But for the defendant a number of violin 
 makers swore that it was not the Bott violin at 
 all, and more that it was not even a Stradivarius. 
 One of them, John J. Eller, to whom it will be 
 necessary to revert later, made oath that the violin 
 was his, stolen from him and brought to Flechter 
 by the thief. On this testimony the magistrate natu- 
 rally decided that the identity of the instrument 
 had not been established and ordered that Flechter 
 be discharged and the violin returned to him. 
 Ordinarily that would have been the end of the 
 
 83 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 case, but Allen had his own private views as to 
 the guilt of the dealer and on August a8th the 
 Grand Jury filed an indictment against Flechter 
 accusing him of feloniously receiving stolen prop- 
 erty the violin knowing it to have been stolen. 
 Great was Flechter's anger and chagrin, but he 
 promptly gave bail and employed the ablest coun- 
 sel he could afford. 
 
 Now began the second act of this tragedy of er- 
 rors. The case was called for trial with the Peo- 
 ple's interests in the hands of James W. Osborne, 
 just advancing into the limelight as a resourceful 
 and relentless prosecutor. I say the People's case 
 but perhaps Allen s case would be a more fitting title. 
 For the defense Arthur W. Palmer held the fort, 
 directing his fire upon Osborne and losing no ad- 
 vantage inadvertently given him. The noise of the 
 conflict filled the court house and drowned the up- 
 roar on Broadway. Nightly and each morning the 
 daily press gave columns to the proceedings. 
 Every time the judge coughed the important fact 
 was given due prominence. And every gibe of 
 counsel carried behind it its insignia of recogni- 
 tion " [Laughter.]" It was one of those first great 
 battles in which the professional value of com- 
 pressed air as an explosive force and small pica 
 type as projectiles was demonstrated. It was a 
 combat of wind and lead an endurance contest 
 
 84 
 
The Lost Stradivarius 
 
 during which the jury slept fitfully for three long 
 weeks. 
 
 Two things, the prosecution claimed, proved 
 Flechter's guilt: first, the fact that the violin found 
 in his possession was "The Duke of Cambridge"; 
 second, that the " Cave-Dweller " letter was in the 
 same handwriting as Flechter's notice of reward. 
 
 Of course the latter proposition carried with it 
 the necessity of proving in the first place that the 
 notice itself was in Flechter's penmanship. Flech- 
 ter through his counsel said it wasn't, and that he 
 had never told Mrs Bott that it was. He claimed 
 that his brother-in-law, John D. Abraham, had 
 written it. Mrs. Bott, he alleged, was an old lady 
 and was mistaken in her testimony when she swore 
 that he had said, "I have written down some- 
 thing/' He had not said so. Mr. Abraham cor- 
 roborated him. He had written it himself sitting 
 in an armchair, all but the words "355 West 
 Thirty-first Street," which had been put in by a 
 certain Mr. Jopling who had been present. Mr. 
 Jopling swore that that was so, too. But, on 
 cross-examination, it developed that Mr. Abraham 
 had been practicing making copies of the notice 
 at the suggestion of the lawyer for the defense, 
 and, when Mr. Jopling took the stand, he was 
 called upon to explain an affidavit made by 
 him for Assistant District Attorney Allen, in which 
 
 85 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 he affirmed that he did not know who wrote the 
 words "355 West Thirty-first Street/' His ex- 
 planation did not explain, and, anyhow, there did 
 not seem to be any particular reason why Abra- 
 ham and Jopling should have written Flechter's 
 notice for him. Besides, even if Flechter did not 
 write it and Abraham did, it would still remain 
 almost as bad for Flechter if it was shown that 
 "Cave Dweller" was his own brother-in-law. 
 
 But Mrs. Bott was a woman who appealed 
 strongly to a jury's sympathies, and she was clear 
 that Flechter had said that he had written the 
 notice. Moreover, she recalled that the date had 
 first been written May and that Flechter had 
 erased it and inserted March in its place. A 
 microscopic examination revealed the fact that 
 such an erasure had been made. When the 
 smoke cleared the credibility of the defense ap- 
 peared badly damaged. But the precise point was 
 of little importance, after all. The great question 
 was: the identity of 'CAVE DWELLER.' On this 
 point a number of witnesses testified from a gen- 
 eral knowledge of Flechter's handwriting that the 
 "Cave Dweller" letter was his, and three well- 
 known handwriting "experts" (Dr. Persifor Fra- 
 zer, Mr. Daniel T. Ames and Mr. David Carvalho) 
 swore that, in their opinion, the same hand had 
 written it that had penned the notice. 
 
 86 
 
The Lost Stradivarius 
 
 It is not unlikely that Flechter's fear of a con- 
 viction led him to invite testimony in his behalf 
 which would not bear the test of careful scrutiny. 
 Many an innocent man has paid the penalty 
 for uncommitted crime because he has sought to 
 bolster up his defense with doubtful evidence 
 without the incubus of which he would have been 
 acquitted. 
 
 Naturally the chief point against Flechter, if it 
 could be established, was his actual possession of 
 the Bott Stradivarius when he was arrested. Upon 
 this proposition Mrs. Bott was absolutely positive 
 beyond the possibility of error. So were eight 
 other witnesses for the prosecution. Then the de- 
 fense produced a violin alleged to be the same 
 one exhibited in the police court and brought 
 by Flechter to Durden's house, and asked Mrs. 
 Bott and her witnesses what they thought of 
 it. Mrs. Bott could not identify it, but she swore 
 no less positively that it was an entirely different 
 violin from the one which she had seen before the 
 magistrate. Then Osborne hurled his bomb over 
 his enemy's parapet and cried loudly that a mon- 
 strous wicked fraud had been perpetrated to 
 thwart Justice that the defense had " faked " an- 
 other violin and were now trying to foist the bogus 
 thing in evidence to deceive the Court. Ten wit- 
 nesses for the prosecution now swore that the violin 
 
 8? 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 so produced was not the one which Flechter had 
 tried to sell Durden. Of course it would have been 
 comparatively easy to "fake" a violin, just as Os- 
 borne claimed, and the case sheds some light upon 
 the possibilities of the "old violin" industry. 
 
 The star witness for the prosecution to prove 
 that the instrument produced in the police court 
 was the Bott violin was August M. Gemunder, 
 and his testimony upon the trial before Recorder 
 Goff is worthy of careful examination, since the 
 jury considered it of great importance in reaching 
 a verdict, even requesting that it should be re-read 
 to them some hours after retiring to deliberate. 
 Gemunder testified, in substance, that he belonged 
 to a family which had been making violins for 
 three generations and had himself been making 
 them for twenty years, that he was familiar with 
 Bott's Stradivarius, having seen it three times, and 
 that he firmly believed a large part of the violin 
 produced before the magistrate was the missing 
 Bott certainly the back and scroll. Moreover, he 
 was able to describe the markings of the Bott violin 
 even to the label inside it. It should be mentioned, 
 however, that in the magistrate's court he had been 
 called only to describe the Bott violin and not to 
 identify the one produced as the Bott itself. He 
 further swore that the violin now offered by the de- 
 fense on the trial was not the one in evidence be- 
 
 88 
 
The Lost Stradivarius 
 
 fore the magistrate, but was one which he had 
 sold some years before to one Charles Palm. 
 
 The defense, on the other hand, called among its 
 witnesses John P. Frederick, a violin maker, who 
 testified that he was familiar with the Bott Strad. 
 and had seen it in 1873 at Bott's house, Grenecher 
 Castle, in Germany; that he had repaired it in this 
 country in 1885; that the instrument in court was 
 not a Strad. nor even a good imitation of one, and, 
 of course, was not the " Duke of Cambridge," but 
 that it was the identical instrument produced be- 
 fore the magistrate, and one which he recognized 
 as having been sent him for repair by Charles 
 Palm in 1885. 
 
 Thus both sides agreed that the fiddle now of- 
 fered in evidence was a bogus Strad. once belong- 
 ing to a man named Palm, the only element of con- 
 flict being as to whether or not the violin which 
 Flechter had offered for sale was the Palm in- 
 strument, or, in fact, Bott's famous "Duke of 
 Cambridge." 
 
 All this technical testimony about violins and 
 violin structure naturally bored the jury almost to 
 extinction, and even the bitter personal encounters 
 of counsel did not serve to relieve the dreariness of 
 the trial. One oasis of humor in this desert of dry 
 evidence gave them passing refreshment, when a 
 picturesque witness for the defense, an instrument 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 maker named Franz Bruckner, from South Ger- 
 many, having been asked if the violin shown 
 him was a Strad., replied, with a grunt of 
 disgust: "Ach Himmel, nein!" Being then in- 
 vited to describe all the characteristics of genuine 
 Stradivarius workmanship, he tore his hair and, 
 with an expression of utter hopelessness upon 
 his wrinkled face, exclaimed despairingly to the 
 interpreter: 
 
 " Doctor, if I gave you lessons in this every day 
 for three weeks you would know no more than you 
 do now!" an answer which was probably true, 
 and equally so of the jury who were shouldered with 
 the almost impossible task of determining from 
 this mass of conflicting opinion just where the 
 truth really lay. 
 
 The chief witness for the defense was John J. 
 Eller, who testified that he had been a musician 
 for thirty years and a collector of violins; that the 
 violin in court was the same one produced before 
 the magistrate, and was not Bott's, but his own; 
 that he had first seen it in the possession of Charles 
 Palm in 1886 in his house in Eighth Street and St. 
 Mark's Place, New York City, had borrowed it 
 from Palm and played on it for two months in Sea- 
 bright, and had finally purchased it from Palm in 
 1891, and continued to play in concerts upon it, 
 until having been loaned by him to a music teacher 
 
 90 
 
The Lost Stradivarius 
 
 named Perotti, in Twenty-third Street, it was stolen 
 by the latter and sold to Flechter. 
 
 It appeared that Eller had at once brought suit 
 against Flechter for the possession of the instru- 
 ment, which suit, he asserted, he was still pressing 
 in the courts, and he now declared that the violin 
 was in exactly the same condition in every respect 
 as when produced in the police court, although it 
 had been changed in some respects since it had been 
 stolen. It had originally been made of baked wood 
 by oneDedier Nicholas (an instrument maker of the 
 first half of the nineteenth century), and stamped 
 with the maker's name, but this inscription was now 
 covered by a Stradivarius label. Eller scornfully 
 pointed out that no Strad. had ever been made of 
 baked wood, and showed the jury certain pegs 
 used by no other maker than Nicholas, and certain 
 marks worn upon the instrument by his, the wit- 
 ness', own playing. He also exhibited the check 
 with which he had paid for it. 
 
 In support of this evidence Charles Palm himself 
 was called by the defense and identified the violin 
 as one which he had bought some twelve years 
 before for fifteen or twenty dollars and later sold 
 to Eller. Upon the question of the identity of the 
 instrument then lying before the jury this evidence 
 was conclusive, but, of course, it did not satisfy the 
 jury as to whether Flechter had tried to sell the 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 Palm violin or Bott's violin to Durden. Unfortu- 
 nately Eller's evidence threw a side light on the 
 defence without which the trial might well have 
 resulted in an acquittal. 
 
 Eller had sworn that he was still vigorously en- 
 deavoring to get the Palm violin back from Flech- 
 ter. As contradicting him in this respect, and as 
 tending to show that the suit had not only been 
 compromised but that he and Flechter were en- 
 gaged in trying to put off the Palm violin as a 
 genuine Stradivarius and share the profit of the 
 fraud, the prosecution introduced the following 
 letter from the witness to his lawyer: 
 
 CLIFTON HOUSE, CHICAGO, ILLINOIS. 
 
 March 23, 1896. 
 
 Dear Counsellor: Received your letter just now. I 
 have been expecting Mr. Flechter's lawyer would settle 
 with you; he got nine hundred dollars for the violin and 
 Mr. Meyer arranged with myself for the half, four hun- 
 dred and fifty dollars, which he proposed himself and 
 have been expecting a settlement on their part long ago. 
 I have assisted Mr. Palmer, his able lawyer, with the 
 best of my ability, and have covered Mr. Flechter *s short- 
 comings of faking the violin to a Strad. 
 
 Yours most sincerely, 
 
 JOHN ELLER, 
 Metropolitan Opera Co., Chicago, 111. 
 
 From this letter it was fairly inferable that al- 
 though the defendant might be innocent of the 
 
 92 
 
The Lost Stradivarius 
 
 precise crime with which he was charged, he was, 
 nevertheless, upon his own evidence, guilty of 
 having "faked" a cheap Nicholas violin into a 
 Strad., and of having offered it for sale for the ex- 
 orbitant price of five thousand dollars. This luck- 
 less piece of evidence undoubtedly influenced the 
 jury to convict him. 
 
 It will be recalled that ten witnesses for the pros- 
 ecution had sworn that the violin offered in evi- 
 dence at the trial was not the one produced in the 
 police court, as against the defendant's five who 
 asserted that it was. 
 
 The testimony was all highly technical and con- 
 fusing, and the jury probably relied more upon 
 their general impressions of the credibility of the 
 witnesses than upon anything else. It is likely that 
 most of the testimony, on both sides, in regard to 
 the identity of the violin was honestly given, for 
 the question was one upon which a genuine diver- 
 gence of opinion was easily possible. 
 
 Filer's letter from Chicago so affected the jury 
 that they disregarded his testimony and reverted 
 to that of August Gemunder, to whose evidence 
 attention has already been called, and who swore 
 that it was "The Duke of Cambridge" which 
 Flechter had tried to sell to Durden. Alas for the 
 fallibility of even the most honest of witnesses ! 
 
 The case was ably argued by both sides, and 
 93 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 every phase of this curious tangle of evidence 
 given its due consideration. The defense very 
 properly laid stress upon the fact that it would 
 have been a ridiculous performance for Flechter 
 to write the " Cave Dweller" letter and state therein 
 that he was " a violin dealer or maker/* thus point- 
 ing, unmistakably, to himself, and to further state 
 that for one in his position to dispose of it would 
 be difficult and dangerous. The only explanation 
 for the "Cave Dweller" letter which they could 
 offer, however, was that some one interested in 
 procuring Flechter's downfall had caused it to 
 be sent for that purpose. This might either be 
 a business rival or some one connected with the 
 prosecution. 
 
 While Palmer was summing up for the defense 
 he noticed Assistant District Attorney Allen smil- 
 ing and dramatically turning upon him, he shouted: 
 "This is no laughing matter, Colonel Allen. It is 
 a very serious matter whether this man is to be al- 
 lowed to-night to go home and kiss his little ones, 
 or whether he is to be cast into jail because you 
 used your brains to concoct a theory against him." 
 
 Another consideration, which seemed deserv- 
 ing of weight, was that if Flechter did steal "The 
 Duke of Cambridge" it would have been a piece 
 of incredible folly and carelessness upon his part 
 to leave it in such an exposed place as the safe of 
 
 94 
 
The Lost Stradivarius 
 
 his store, where it could be found by the police or 
 shown by the office-boy to any one who called. 
 
 Yet the positive identification of August Ge- 
 munder and the fatal disclosures of Eller, coupled 
 with the vehement insistence of the prosecution, 
 led the jury to resolve what doubt they had in the 
 case against the prisoner, and, after deliberating 
 eight or ten hours and being out all night, they re- 
 turned a verdict of guilty. Flechter broke down 
 and declared bitterly that he was the victim of a 
 conspiracy upon the part of his enemies, assisted 
 by a too credulous prosecuting attorney. Every- 
 body admitted that it was an extraordinary case, 
 but the press was consistent in its clamor against 
 Flechter, and opinion generally was that he had 
 been rightly convicted. On May 22nd he was sen- 
 tenced to the penitentiary for twelve months, but, 
 after being incarcerated in the Tombs for three 
 weeks, he secured a certificate of reasonable doubt 
 and a stay until his conviction could be reviewed 
 on appeal. Then he gave bail and was released. 
 But he had been in jail! Flechter will never forget 
 that! And, for the time being at least, his repu- 
 tation was gone, his family disgraced, and his 
 business ruined. 
 
 A calm reading of the record of the trial suggests 
 that the case abounded in doubts more or less rea- 
 sonable, and that the Court might well have taken 
 
 95 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 it from the jury on that account. But a printed 
 page of questions and answers carries with it no 
 more than a suggestion of the value of testimony 
 the real significance of which lies in the manner in 
 which it is given, the tone of the voice and the 
 flash of the eye. 
 
 Once again Flechter sat at his desk in the win- 
 dow behind the great gilded fiddle. To him, as to 
 its owner, the great Stradivarius had brought only 
 sorrow. But for him the world had no pity. 
 Surely the strains of this wonderful instrument 
 must have had a "dying fall" even when played 
 by the loving hand of old Jean Bott. 
 
 At last, after several years, in 1899, the case 
 came up in the Appellate Division of the Supreme 
 Court. Flechter had been led to believe that his 
 conviction would undoubtedly be reversed and a 
 new trial ordered, which would be tantamount to 
 an acquittal, for it was hardly likely in such an 
 event that a second trial would be considered ad- 
 visable upon the same evidence. But to his great 
 disappointment his conviction was sustained by a 
 divided court, in which only two of the five justices 
 voted for a new trial. Again Fortune had averted 
 her face. If only one more judge had thought the 
 evidence insufficient! The great gilded fiddle 
 seemed to Flechter an omen of misfortune. Once 
 more he gave bail, this time in five thousand dollars, 
 
The Lost Stradivarius 
 
 and was set at liberty pending his appeal to the 
 highest court in the State. Once more he took his 
 seat in his office and tried to carry on his business. 
 
 But time had dragged on. People had forgotten 
 all about Flechter and the lost Stradivarius, and 
 when his conviction was affirmed little notice was 
 taken of the fact. It was generally assumed that 
 having been sentenced he was in jail. 
 
 Then something happened which once more 
 dragged Flechter into the limelight. Editors 
 rushed to their files and dusted the cobwebs off the 
 issues containing the accounts of the trial. The 
 sign of the gilded fiddle became the daily centre of 
 a throng of excited musicians, lawyers and report- 
 ers. The lost Stradivarius the great "Duke of 
 Cambridge" the nemesis of Bott and of Flechter 
 was found by Flechter himself, as he claimed, 
 on August 17, 1900. According to the dealer 
 and his witnesses the amazing discovery occurred 
 in this wise. A violin maker named Joseph Farr, 
 who at one time had worked for Flechter and 
 had testified in his behalf at the trial (to the effect 
 that the instrument produced in the police court 
 was not Bott's Stradivarius) saw by chance a very 
 fine violin in the possession of a family named 
 Springer in Brooklyn, and notified Flechter of the 
 fact. The latter, who was always ready to purchase 
 choice violins, after vainly trying for a long time 
 
 97 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 to induce the Springers to bring it to New York, 
 called with Farr upon Mrs. Springer and asked to 
 examine it. To his utter astonishment she pro- 
 duced for his inspection Bott's long-lost Stradi- 
 varius. Hardiy able to control his excitement 
 Flechter immediately returned to New York and 
 reported the discovery to the police, who instantly 
 began a thorough examination of the circumstances 
 surrounding its discovery. 
 
 The District Attorney's office and the Detective 
 Bureau were at first highly suspicious of this op- 
 portune discovery on the part of a convicted felon 
 of the precise evidence necessary to clear him, but 
 it was soon demonstrated to their pretty general 
 satisfaction that the famous Stradivarius had in 
 fact been pawned in the shop of one Benjamin Fox 
 on the very day and within an hour of the theft, 
 together with its case and two bows, for the insig- 
 nificant sum of four dollars. After the legal period 
 of redemption had expired it had been put up at 
 auction and bid in by the pawnbroker for a small 
 advance over the sum for which it had been pawned. 
 It lay exposed for purchase on Fox's shelf for some 
 months, until, in December, 1895, a tailor named 
 James Dooly visited the shop to redeem a silver 
 watch. Being, at the same time, in funds, and 
 able to satisfy his taste as a virtuoso, he felt the 
 need of and bought a violin for ten dollars, but, 
 
The Lost Stradivarius 
 
 Fox urging upon him the desirability of getting a 
 good one while he was about it, was finally per- 
 suaded to purchase the Bott violin for twenty dol- 
 lars in its stead. Dooly took it home, played upon 
 it as the spirit moved, and whenever in need of 
 ready money brought it back to Fox as security, 
 always redeeming it in time to prevent its sale. 
 One day, being at Mrs. Springer's, where he was 
 accustomed to purchase tailor trimmings, he of- 
 fered it to her for sale, and, as her son was taking 
 violin lessons, induced her to buy it for thirty dol- 
 lars. And in the house of the Springers it had 
 quietly remained ever since, while lawyers and 
 prosecutors wrangled and thundered and witnesses 
 swore positively to the truth, the whole truth and 
 nothing but the truth, to prove that Flechter stole 
 the violin and tried to sell it to Durden. 
 
 On these facts, which did not seem to admit of 
 contradiction, Recorder Goff ordered an oral ex- 
 amination of all the witnesses, the hearing of which, 
 sandwiched in between the current trials in his 
 court, dragged along for months, but which finally 
 resulted in establishing to the Court's satisfaction 
 that the violin discovered in the possession of the 
 Springers was the genuine "Duke of Cambridge," 
 and that it could not have been in Flechter's pos- 
 session at the time he was arrested. 
 
 On July 7, 1902, eight years after Bott's death 
 99 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 and the arrest and indictment of Flechter for the 
 theft of the violin, a picturesque group assembled 
 in the General Sessions. There was Flechter and 
 his lawyer, Mrs. Springer and her son, the attor- 
 neys for the prosecution, and lastly old Mrs. Bott. 
 The seals of the case were broken and the violin 
 identified by the widow as that of her husband. 
 The Springers waived all claim to the violin, and 
 the Court dismissed the indictment against the de- 
 fendant and ordered the Stradivarius to be deliv- 
 ered to Mrs. Bott, with these words: 
 
 " Mrs. Bott, it affords very great pleasure to the 
 Court to give the violin to you. You have suffered 
 many years of sorrow and trouble in regard to it." 
 
 " Eight years," sighed the old lady, clasping the 
 violin in her arms. 
 
 " I wish you a great deal of pleasure in its pos- 
 session," continued the Recorder. 
 
 Thus ended, as a matter of record, the case of 
 The People against Flechter. For eight years the 
 violin dealer and his family had endured the agony 
 of disgrace, he had spent a fortune in his defense, 
 and had nevertheless been convicted of a crime of 
 which he was at last proved innocent. 
 
 Yet, there are those who, when the case is men- 
 tioned, shake their heads wisely, as if to say that 
 the whole story of the lost Stradivarius has never 
 been told. 
 
 100 
 
THE LAST OF THE WIRE- 
 TAPPERS 
 
IV 
 
 The Last of the Wire -Tappers 
 
 "Sir," replied the knave unabashed, "I am one of those who 
 do make a living by their wits." 
 
 TOHN FELIX, a dealer in automatic musical 
 J instruments in New York City, was swindled 
 out of $50,000 on February ad, 1905, by what is 
 commonly known as the "wire-tapping" game. 
 During the previous August a man calling himself 
 by the name of Nelson had hired Room 46, in a 
 building at 27 East Twenty-second Street, as a 
 school for "wireless telegraphy/' Later on he had 
 installed over a dozen deal tables, each fitted with 
 a complete set of ordinary telegraph instruments 
 and connected with wires which, while apparently 
 passing out of the windows, in reality plunged be- 
 hind a desk into a small "dry" battery. Each ta- 
 ble was fitted with a shaded electric drop-light, and 
 the room was furnished with the ordinary para- 
 phernalia of a telegraph office. The janitor never 
 observed any activity in the "school." There 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 seemed to be no pupils, and no one haunted the 
 place except a short, ill-favored person who ap- 
 peared monthly and paid the rent. 
 
 On the afternoon of February ist, 1905, Mr. Felix 
 was called to the telephone of his store and asked 
 to make an appointment later in the afternoon, 
 with a gentleman named Nelson who desired to 
 submit to him a business proposition. Fifteen 
 minutes afterward Mr. Nelson arrived in person 
 and introduced himself as having met Felix at 
 "Lou" Ludlam's gambling house. He then pro- 
 duced a copy of the Evening Telegram which con- 
 tained an article to the effect that the Western 
 Union Telegraph Company was about to resume 
 its "pool-room service," that is to say, to supply 
 the pool rooms with the telegraphic returns of the 
 various horse-races being run in different parts of 
 the United States. The paper also contained, in 
 connection with this item of news, a photograph 
 which might, by a stretch of the imagination, have 
 been taken to resemble Nelson himself. 
 
 Mr. Felix, who was a German gentleman of 
 French sympathies, married to an American lady, 
 had recently returned to America after a ten years* 
 sojourn in Europe. He had had an extensive com- 
 mercial career, was possessed of a considerable 
 fortune, and had at length determined to settle in 
 New York, where he could invest his money to 
 
 104 
 
The Last of the Wire-Tappers 
 
 advantage and at the same time conduct a con- 
 servative and harmonious business in musical 
 instruments. Like the Teutons of old, dwelling 
 among the forests of the Elbe, Mr. Felix knew the 
 fascination of games of chance and he had heard 
 the merry song of the wheel at both Hambourg 
 and Monte Carlo. In Europe the pleasures of the 
 gaming table had been comparatively inexpensive, 
 but in New York for some unknown reason the 
 fickle goddess had not favored him and he had lost 
 upward of $51,000. "Zu viel!" as he himself ex- 
 pressed it. Being of a philosophic disposition, 
 however, he had pocketed his losses and contented 
 himself with the consoling thought that, whereas he 
 might have lost all, he had in fact lost only a part. 
 It might well have been that had not The Tempter 
 appeared in the person of his afternoon visitor, he 
 would have remained in statu quo for the rest of his 
 natural life. In the sunny window of his musical 
 store, surrounded by zitherns, auto-harps, dulci- 
 mers, psalteries, sackbuts, and other instruments 
 of melody, the advent of Nelson produced the effect 
 of a sudden and unexpected discord. Felix dis- 
 trusted him from the very first. 
 
 The "proposition" was simplicity itself. It ap- 
 peared that Mr. Nelson was in the employ of the 
 Western Union Telegraph Company, which had 
 just opened a branch office for racing news at 27 
 
 105 
 
 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 East Twenty-second Street. This branch was 
 under the superintendence of an old associate and 
 intimate friend of Nelson's by the name of McPher- 
 son. Assuming that they could find some one with 
 the requisite amount of cash, they could all make 
 their everlasting fortunes by simply having Mc- 
 Pherson withhold the news of some race from the 
 pool rooms long enough to allow one of the others 
 to place a large bet upon some horse which had in 
 fact already won and was resting comfortably in the 
 stable. Felix grasped the idea instantly. At the 
 same time he had his suspicions of his visitor. It 
 seemed peculiar that he, an inconspicuous citizen 
 who had already lost $50,000 in gambling houses, 
 should be selected as the recipient of such a mo- 
 mentous opportunity. Moreover, he knew very 
 well that gentlemen in gambling houses were 
 never introduced at all. He thought he detected 
 the odor of a rodent. He naively inquired why, 
 if all these things were so, Nelson and his friend 
 were not already yet millionaires two or three 
 times ? The answer was at once forthcoming 
 that they had been, but also had been robbed 
 unmercifully robbed, by one in whom they had 
 had confidence and to whom they had entrusted 
 their money. 
 
 "And now we are poor, penniless clerks!" 
 sighed Nelson, " and if we should offer to make a 
 
 106 
 
The Last of the Wire-Tappers 
 
 big bet ourselves, the gamblers would be suspi- 
 cious and probably refuse to place it." 
 
 "I think this looks like a schvindling game," 
 said Felix shrewdly. So it did; so it was. 
 
 By and by Felix put on his hat and, escorted by 
 Nelson, paid a visit to the "branch office" at 27 
 East Twenty-second Street. Where once solitude 
 had reigned supreme and the spider had spun his 
 web amid the fast-gathering dust, all was now 
 tumultuous activity. Fifteen busy operators in 
 eye shades and shirt sleeves took the news hot 
 from the humming wires and clicked it off to the 
 waiting pool rooms. 
 
 "Scarecrow wins by a neck!" cried one, " Black- 
 bird second!" 
 
 "Make the odds 5 to 3," shouted a short, ill- 
 favored man, who sat at a desk puffing a large 
 black cigar. The place buzzed like a beehive and 
 ticked like a clockmaker's. It had an atmosphere 
 of breathless excitement all its own. Felix watched 
 and marvelled, wondering if dreams came true. 
 
 The short, ill-favored man strolled over and con- 
 descended to make Mr. Felix's acquaintance. An 
 hour later the three of them were closeted among 
 the zitherns. At the same moment the fifteen 
 operators were ranged in a line in front of a neigh- 
 boring bar, their elbows simultaneously elevated 
 at an angle of forty-five degrees. 
 
 107 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 
 
 Felix still had lingering doubts. Hadn't Mr. 
 McPherson some little paper a letter, a bill, a re- 
 ceipt or a check, to show that he was really in the 
 employ of the Western Union ? No, said "Mac," 
 but he had something better the badge which he 
 had received as the fastest operator among the 
 company's employees. Felix wanted to see it, but 
 "Mac" explained that it was locked up in the 
 vault at the Farmers' Loan and Trust Co. To 
 Felix this had a safe sound "Farmers' Trust 
 Co." Then matters began to move rapidly. It 
 was arranged that Felix should go down in the 
 morning and get $50,000 from his bankers, Selig- 
 man and Meyer. After that he was to meet Nelson 
 at the store and go with him to the pool room where 
 the big financiers played their money. McPherson 
 was to remain at the "office" and telephone them 
 the results of the races in advance. By nightfall 
 they would be worth half a million. 
 
 "I hope you have a good large safe," re- 
 marked Nelson, tentatively. The three conspira- 
 tors parted with mutual expressions of confidence 
 and esteem. 
 
 Next morning Mr. Felix went to his bankers and 
 procured $50,000 in five ten-thousand-dollar bills. 
 The day passed very slowly. There was not even 
 a flurry in zitherns. He waited impatiently for 
 Nelson who was to come at five o'clock. At last 
 
 1 08 
 
The Last of the Wire-Tappers 
 
 Nelson arrived and they hurried to the Fifth 
 Avenue Hotel where the coup was to take place. 
 
 And now another marvel. Wassermann Broth- 
 ers' stock-brokering office, which closes at three 
 hummed just as the "office" had done the evening 
 before and with the very same bees, although 
 Felix did not recognize them. It was crowded 
 with men who struggled violently with one another 
 in their eagerness to force their bets into the hands 
 of a benevolent-looking person, who, Felix was 
 informed, was the "trusted cashier" of the estab- 
 lishment. And the sums were so large that even 
 Felix gasped. 
 
 "Make that $40,000 on Coco!" cried a bald- 
 headed "capper." 
 
 "Mr. Gates wants to double his bet on Jack- 
 stone, make it $80,000!" shrieked another. 
 
 " Gentlemen ! Gentlemen ! " begged the " trusted 
 cashier," "not quite so fast, if you please. One at 
 
 a time." 
 
 "Sixty thousand on Hesper for a place!" 
 bawled one addressed as "Mr. Keene," while 
 Messrs. "Ryan," "Whitney," "Belmont," "Sulli- 
 van," "McCarren," and "Murphy" all made 
 handsome wagers. 
 
 From time to time a sporty-looking man stand- 
 ing beside a ticker, shouted the odds and read off 
 the returns. Felix heard with straining ears: 
 
 109 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 "They're off!* 1 
 
 " Baby leads at the quarter." 
 
 "Susan is gaining!" 
 
 "They're on the stretch!" 
 
 "Satan wins by a nose Peter second." 
 
 There was a deafening uproar, hats were tossed 
 ceilingward, and great wads of money were 
 passed out by the "trusted cashier" to indifferent 
 millionaires. Felix wanted to rush in and bet at 
 once on something if he waited it might be too 
 late. Was it necessary to be introduced to the 
 cashier ? No ? Would he take the bet ? All right, 
 but 
 
 At that moment a page elbowed his way among 
 the money calling plaintively for "Felix! Mr. 
 Felix." Shrinking at the thought of such publicity 
 in such distinguished company, Felix caught the 
 boy's arm and learned that he was wanted at the 
 telephone booth in the hotel. 
 
 "It must be 'Mac/ said Nelson. "Now don't 
 make any mistake!" Felix promised to use the 
 utmost care. 
 
 It was "Mac." 
 
 "Is this Mr. Felix ? Yes ? Well, be very care- 
 ful now. I am going to give you the result of the 
 third race which has already been run. I will hold 
 back the news three minutes. This is merely to see 
 if everything is working right. Don't make any 
 
 no 
 
The Last of the Wire-Tappers 
 
 bet. If I give you the winners correctly, you can 
 put your money on the fourth race. The horse 
 that won the last is Col. Starbottle Don Juan is 
 second. Now just step back and see if I am right." 
 
 Felix rushed back to the pool room. As he en- 
 tered the man at the tape was calling out that 
 "they" were off. In due course "they" reached 
 the quarter and then the half. A terrific struggle 
 was in progress between Col. Starbottle and Don 
 Juan. First one was ahead and then the other. 
 Finally they came thundering down to the stretch, 
 Col. Starbottle winning by a neck. "Gates" won 
 $90,000, and several others pocketed wads run- 
 ning anywhere from $20,000 to $60,000. 
 
 Felix hurried back to the telephone. "Mac" 
 was at the other end. 
 
 "Now write this down," admonished McPher- 
 son; "we can't afford to have any mistake. Old 
 Stone has just won the fourth race, with Cal- 
 vert second. Play Old Stone to win at 5 to I. 
 We shall make $250,000 and Old Stone is 
 safe in the stable all the time and his jockey is 
 smoking a cigarette on the club house veranda. 
 Good luck, old man." 
 
 Felix had some difficulty in getting near the 
 "trusted cashier" so many financiers were betting 
 on Calvert. Felix smiled to himself. He'd show 
 them a thing or two. 
 
 in 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 Finally he managed to push his envelope con- 
 taining the five ten-thousand-dollar bills into the 
 "trusted cashier's" hand. The latter marked it 
 "Old Stone, 5 to I to win!" and thrust it into his 
 pocket. Then "Whitney" or somebody bet 
 $70,000 on Calvert. 
 
 "They're off!" shouted the man at the tape. 
 
 How he lived while they tore around the 
 course Felix never knew. Neck and neck Old 
 Stone and Calvert passed the quarter, the half, 
 and the three-quarter post, and with the crowd 
 yelling like demons came hurtling down the 
 stretch. 
 
 "Old Stone wins!" cried the "booster" at the 
 tape in a voice husky with excitement. " Calvert 
 a close second!" Felix nearly fainted. His head 
 swam. He had won a quarter of a million. Then 
 the voice of the "booster" made itself audible 
 above the confusion. 
 
 "What! A mistake? Not possible! Yes. Ow- 
 ing to some confusion at the finish, both jockies 
 wearing the same colors, the official returns now 
 read Calvert first; Old Stone second." 
 
 Among the zitherns Felix sat and wondered if 
 he had been schvindled. He had not returned to 
 Wassermann Brothers. Had he done so he would 
 have found it empty five minutes after he had lost 
 
 112 
 
The Last of the Wire-Tappers 
 
 his money. The millionaires were already stream- 
 ing hilariously into Sharkey's. "Gates "-pledged 
 "Belmont" and "Keene" pledged "Whitney." 
 Each had earned five dollars by the sweat of his 
 brow. The glorious army of wire-tappers had won 
 another victory and their generals had consum- 
 mated a campaign of months. Expenses (roughly), 
 $600. Receipts, $50,000. Net profits, $48,400. 
 Share of each, $16,133. 
 
 A day or two later Felix wandered down to 
 Police Headquarters, and in the Rogue's Gallery 
 identified the photograph of Nelson, whom he then 
 discovered to be none other than William Crane, 
 alias John Lawson, alias John Larsen, a well- 
 known "wire-tapper," arrested some dozen times 
 within a year or two for similar offences. McPher- 
 son turned out to be Christopher Tracy, alias 
 Charles J. Tracy, alias Charles Tompkins, alias 
 Topping, alias Toppin, etc., etc., arrested some 
 eight or ten times for "wire-tapping." The 
 "trusted cashier" materialized in the form of one 
 Wyatt, alias Fred Williams, etc., a "wire-tapper" 
 and pal of "Chappie" Moran and "Larry" Sum- 
 merfield. Detective Sergeants Fogarty and Mundy 
 were at once detailed upon the case and arrested 
 within a short time both Nelson and McPherson. 
 The "trusted cashier" who had pocketed Felix's 
 $50,000 has never been caught. It is said that he 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 is running a first-class hostelry in a Western city. 
 But that is another story. 
 
 When acting Inspector O'Brien ordered McPher- 
 son brought into his private room, the latter un- 
 hesitatingly admitted that the three of them had 
 "trimmed" Felix of his $50,000, exactly as the 
 latter had alleged. He stated that Wyatt (alias 
 Williams) was the one who had taken in the money, 
 that it was still in his possession, and still intact in 
 its original form. He denied, however, any knowl- 
 edge of Wyatt's whereabouts. 
 
 The reason for this indifference became appar- 
 ent when the two prisoners were arraigned in the 
 magistrate's court, and their counsel demanded 
 their instant discharge on the ground that they 
 had committed no crime for which they could be 
 prosecuted. He cited an old New York case, 
 McCord vs. The People,* which seemed in a 
 general way to sustain his contention, and which 
 had been followed by another and much more 
 recent decision. The People vs. Livings ton. f 
 The first of these cases had gone to the Court 
 of Appeals, and the general doctrine had been 
 annunciated that where a person parts with his 
 money for an unlawful or dishonest purpose, 
 even though he is tricked into so doing by false 
 
 * 46 New York 470. 
 1 47 App. Div. 283. 
 
 114 
 
The Last of the Wire-Tappers 
 
 pretences, a prosecution for the crime of larceny 
 cannot be maintained. 
 
 In the McCord case, the defendant had falsely 
 pretended to the complainant, a man named 
 Miller, that he was a police officer and held a war- 
 rant for his arrest. By these means he had induced 
 Miller to give him a gold watch and a diamond 
 ring as the price of his liberty. The conviction in 
 this case was reversed on the ground that Miller 
 parted with his property for an unlawful purpose; 
 but there was a very strong dissenting opinion from 
 Mr. Justice Peckham, now a member of the bench 
 of the Supreme Court of the United States. 
 
 In the second case, that of Livingston, the com- 
 plainant had been defrauded out of $500 by means 
 of the "green goods" game; but this conviction was 
 reversed by the Appellate Division of the Second 
 Department on the authority of the McCord case. 
 The opinion in this case was written by Mr. Jus- 
 tice Cullen, now Chief Judge of the New York 
 Court of Appeals, who says in conclusion: 
 
 "We very much regret being compelled to re- 
 verse this conviction. Even if the prosecutor in- 
 tended to deal in counterfeit money, that is no rea- 
 son why the appellant should go unwhipped of 
 justice. We venture to suggest that it might be 
 well for the Legislature to alter the rule laid down 
 in McCord vs. People." 
 
 "5 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 Well might the judges regret being compelled to 
 set a rogue at liberty simply because he had been 
 ingenious enough to invent a fraud (very likely 
 with the assistance of a shyster lawyer) which in- 
 volved the additional turpitude of seducing an- 
 other into a criminal conspiracy. Livingston was 
 turned loose upon the community in spite of the 
 fact that he had swindled a man out of $500 be- 
 cause he had incidentally led the latter to believe 
 that in return he was to receive counterfeit money 
 or "green goods," which might be put into circu- 
 lation. Yet, because some years before, the Judges 
 of the Court of Appeals had, in the McCord mat- 
 ter, adopted the rule followed in civil cases, to wit 
 that as the complaining witness was himself in 
 fault and did not come into court with clean hands 
 he could have no standing before them, the Appel- 
 late Division in the next case felt obliged to follow 
 them and to rule tantamount to saying that two 
 wrongs could make a right and two knaves one 
 honest man. It may seem a trifle unfair to put it 
 in just this way, but when one realizes the iniquity 
 of such a doctrine as applied to criminal cases, it 
 is hard to speak softly. Thus the broad and gen- 
 eral doctrine seemed to be established that so long 
 as a thief could induce his victim to believe that it 
 was to his advantage to enter into a dishonest 
 transaction, he might defraud him to any extent in 
 
 116 
 
The Last of the Wire-Tappers 
 
 his power. Immediately there sprang into being 
 hordes of swindlers, who, aided by adroit shyster 
 lawyers, invented all sorts of schemes which in- 
 volved some sort cf dishonesty upon the part of 
 the person to be defrauded. The "wire-tappers," 
 of whom "Larry" Summerfield was the Napo- 
 leon, the "gold-brick" and "green-goods" men, 
 and the "sick engineers" flocked to New York, 
 which, under the unwitting protection of the Court 
 of Appeals, became a veritable Mecca for persons 
 of their ilk. 
 
 To readers unfamiliar with the cast of mind of 
 professional criminals it will be almost impossible 
 to appreciate with what bold insouciance these 
 vultures now hovered over the metropolitan barn- 
 yard. Had not the Court of Appeals itself recog- 
 nized their profession ? They had nothing to fear. 
 The law was on their side. They walked the 
 streets flaunting their immunity in the very face of 
 the police. "Wire-tapping" became an industry, 
 a legalized industry with which the authorities 
 might interfere at their peril. Indeed, there is one 
 instance in which a "wire-tapper" successfully 
 prosecuted his victim (after he had trimmed him) 
 upon a charge of grand larceny arising out of the 
 same transaction. One crook bred another every 
 time he made a victim, and the disease of crime, 
 the most infectious of all distempers, ate its way 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 unchecked into the body politic. Broadway was 
 thronged by a prosperous gentry, the aristocracy 
 and elite of knavery, who dressed resplendently, 
 flourished like the green bay-tree, and spent their 
 (or rather their victims') money with the lavish 
 hand of one of Dumas's gentlemen. 
 
 But the evil did not stop there. Seeing that 
 their brothers prospered in New York, and neither 
 being learned in the law nor gifted with the power 
 of nice discrimination between rogueries, all the 
 other knaves in the country took it for granted that 
 they had at last found the Elysian fields and came 
 trooping here by hundreds to ply their various 
 trades. The McCord case stood out like a caba- 
 listic sign upon a gate-post telling all the rascals 
 who passed that way that the city was full of hon- 
 est folk waiting to be turned into rogues and 
 "trimmed." 
 
 " And presently we did pass a narrow lane, and at the 
 mouth espied a written stone, telling beggars by a word 
 like a wee pitchfork to go that way." 
 
 The tip went abroad that the city was "good 
 graft" for everybody, and in the train of the "wire- 
 tappers" thronged the "flimflammer," "confi- 
 dence man," "booster," "capper" and every sort 
 of affiliated crook, recalling Charles Reade's ac- 
 
 118 
 
The Last of the Wire-Tappers 
 
 count in "The Cloister and the Hearth" of Gerard 
 in Lorraine among their kin of another period : 
 
 With them and all they had, 'twas lightly come and 
 lightly go; and when we left them my master said to me, 
 "This is thy first lesson, but to-night we shall be at 
 Hansburgh. Come with me to the 'rotboss' there, and 
 I'll show thee all our folk and their lays, and especially 
 'the lossners/ 'the dutzers,' 'the schleppers/ 'the gic- 
 kisses/ 'the schwanfelders/ whom in England we call 
 'shivering Jemmies/ 'the siintregers,' 'the schwiegers,' 
 'the joners,' 'the sessel-degers,' 'the gennscherers,' in 
 France 'marcandiers a rifodes,' 'the veranerins/ 'the 
 stabulers," with a few foreigners like ourselves, such as 
 'pietres/ 'francmitoux/ 'polissons,' 'malingreux/ 'trat- 
 ers,' 'rufHers/ 'whipjacks,' 'dommerars,' 'glymmerars/ 
 'jarkmen,' 'patricos,' 'swadders/ 'autem morts/ 'walk- 
 ing morts/ " "Enow!" cried I, stopping him, "art as 
 gleesome as the evil one a counting of his imps. I'll jot 
 down in my tablet all these caitiffs and their accursed 
 names: for knowledge is knowledge. But go among 
 them alive or dead, that will I not with my good will." 
 
 And a large part of it was due simply to the fact 
 that seven learned men upon seven comfortable 
 chairs in the city of Albany had said, many years 
 ago, that "neither the law or public policy designs 
 the protection of rogues in their dealings with each 
 other, or to insure fair dealing and truthfulness as 
 between each other, in their dishonest practices. 5 * 
 
 The reason that the "wire-tapping" game was 
 supposed to come within the scope of the McCord 
 
 119 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 case was this : it deluded the victim into the belief 
 that he was going to cheat the pool room by placing 
 a bet upon a "sure thing." Secondarily it in- 
 volved, as the dupe supposed, the theft or disclos- 
 ure of messages which were being transmitted 
 over the lines of a telegraph company a misde- 
 meanor. Hence, it was argued, the victim was as 
 much a thief as the proposer of the scheme, had 
 parted with his money for a dishonest purpose, did 
 not come into court with "clean hands," and no 
 prosecution could be sustained, no matter whether 
 he had been led to give up his money by means of 
 false pretences or not. 
 
 While "wire-tapping" differed technically from 
 the precise frauds committed by McCord and Liv- 
 ingston, it nevertheless closely resembled those 
 swindlers in general character and came clearly 
 within the doctrine that the law was not designed 
 to protect "rogues in their dealings with each 
 other." 
 
 No genuine attempt had ever been made to 
 prosecute one of these gentry until the catastrophe 
 which deprived Felix of his $50,000. The "wire- 
 tappers" rolled in money. Indeed, the fraternity 
 were so liberal with their "rolls" that they became 
 friendly with certain police officials and intimately 
 affiliated with various politicians of influence, a 
 friend of one of whom went onSummerfield's bond, 
 
 120 
 
The Last of the Wire-Tappers 
 
 when the latter was being prosecuted for the 
 "sick-engineer" frauds to the extent of $30,000. 
 They regularly went to Europe in the summer 
 season and could be seen at all the race-courses 
 and gambling resorts of the Continent. It is amus- 
 ing to chronicle in this connection that just prior to 
 McPherson's arrest that is to say during the 
 summer vacation of 1904 he crossed the Atlantic 
 on the same steamer with an assistant district at- 
 torney of New York county, who failed to recog- 
 nize his ship companion and found him an 
 entertaining and agreeable comrade. 
 
 The trial came on before Judge Warren W. Fos- 
 ter in Part 3 of the General Sessions on February 
 27th, 1906. A special panel quickly supplied a jury, 
 which, after hearing the evidence, returned in short 
 order a verdict of guilty. As Judge Foster believed 
 the McCord case to be still the law of the State, he, 
 of his own motion, and with commendable inde- 
 pendence, immediately arrested judgment. The 
 People thereupon appealed, the Court of Appeals 
 sustained Judge Foster, and the defendant was dis- 
 charged. It is, however, satisfactory to record that 
 the Legislature at its next session amended the 
 penal code in such a way as to entirely deprive the 
 wire-tappers and their kind of the erstwhile pro- 
 tection which they had enjoyed under the law. 
 
 121 
 
CONFIDENCE MEN ABROAD 
 
Confidence Men Abroad 
 
 ONCE in a generation, sometimes oftener, a 
 picturesque outlaw may by his audacity, 
 his ingenuity or his wit awaken a throb of sym- 
 pathy or of good-will in the hearts of even the 
 sternest censors of private morals. From the days 
 of Robin Hood there has usually been some nim- 
 ble-witted adventurer on hand ready to challenge 
 the public attention by his daring and tickle its 
 sense of humor by his escapades. The type has 
 become permanent in fiction, and our children are 
 being brought up, in spite of us, upon the exciting 
 experiences of all kinds of outrageous desperadoes 
 who invariably at bottom have most of the warm- 
 blooded virtues. At the end of the novel these 
 heroes are usually brought to see the error of their 
 ways and retire into innocuous desuetude to fa- 
 miliarize themselves with the Westminster Cate- 
 chism and the Book of Common Prayer. In real 
 life the outlaw, however generous and well-mean- 
 ing he may be at heart, usually pays the penalty 
 
 125 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 of his lawlessness in the work-house, even if he be 
 fortunate enough to escape State's prison. 
 
 This memoir is an appendix or supplementary 
 chapter to the familiar adventures of a group of 
 men who, under the pseudonym of "wire-tappers," 
 for many months occupied the police columns of 
 the daily press. In particular it relates to the cap- 
 tain of the band a man qualified by his natural 
 gifts to play a leading part in any drama of life in 
 which it might have pleased Fate to cast him. 
 Discretion, good taste, and also, it must be con- 
 fessed, a personal promise not to do so, prevents 
 the writer from disclosing his name or that of his 
 trusty lieutenant by whom the incident was related; 
 let it be enough to state that the "Jerry" of the 
 present narrative is the prince of confidence men 
 as good-natured and generous a crook as ever 
 tossed off a high-ball or handed a "yellowback" to 
 a comrade on his uppers, a criminal who became a 
 criminal because in these prosaic days his thirst 
 for adventurous excitement could only be gratified 
 through " living by his wits," and who to-day hon- 
 estly believes that he has never committed an 
 offence forbidden by law or cheated any man that 
 did not deserve to be robbed. 
 
 After this modern Little John had been con- 
 victed and sentenced to six years in State's prison 
 and had been released on bail on a certificate of 
 
 126 
 
Confidence Men Abroad 
 
 reasonable doubt pending his appeal, he promptly 
 worked the same old game on an unsuspecting 
 Southern colonel and was rearrested. His bail 
 was this time increased to thirty thousand dollars. 
 During his temporary release " Jerry" started 
 over to Pontin's restaurant for lunch and sat down 
 at a table occupied by the Assistant District Attor- 
 ney who had prosecuted him. 
 
 "How are you, Mr. ?" inquired he. 
 
 "Oh, hallo, 'Jerry,'" returned the prosecutor. 
 "How's business?" 
 
 "Pretty good," replied "Jerry"; "you know 
 there's a sucker born every minute." 
 
 "I should think that after your conviction you'd 
 have sense enough to keep out of swindling for a 
 while," continued the Assistant. 
 
 " Jerry" looked indignantly at him. "Swind- 
 lin'!" he exclaimed; "swindlin' nothin'! My law- 
 yer says I didn't commit any crime. Didn't a 
 Supreme Court Justice say there was a reasonable 
 doubt in my case ? Well, I've just given myself 
 the benefit of it, that's all." 
 
 The Assistant was and is now unable to stifle a 
 feeling approaching regard for this frank and 
 good-natured rascal. 
 
 "Jerry" and his crew worked the States north 
 and south; they knew the patrons and cuisine of 
 every fashionable hotel upon the seaboard; and 
 
 127 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 they were ready at a moment's notice to hand the 
 "come-on" any kind of a "con" or trim him in 
 any one of a hundred ways, from three-card 
 monte down to the "lemon" or the "sick-engi- 
 neer" game. 
 
 It was in the latter enterprise that they met their 
 Waterloo. For those of my readers who are un- 
 familiar with this simple device let it be explained 
 that at least three persons are essential to its ac- 
 complishment. A mining office with appropriate 
 paraphernalia is secured, which one of the con- 
 spirators, arrayed in purple and fine linen, occu- 
 pies daily as " president of the company." Maps 
 and diagrams upon the walls exhibit the location 
 of the mine and its various stages of development. 
 A "sure thing" advertisement is inserted in the 
 personal column of some newspaper, inviting any 
 one who wants to double his money to communi- 
 cate by letter with A. B. When such a letter is 
 received another of the gang visits the victim and 
 tactfully informs him that he has a brother who is 
 employed as overseer at the "So-and-So" mine, 
 and that the latter has notified him confidentially 
 that the stock has greatly increased in value owing 
 to a recent rich strike, of which no one is aware 
 except the officers of the company and himself. 
 The visitor then states that he knows of an ex- 
 engineer of the mine who is " sick," usually with 
 
 128 
 
Confidence Men Abroad 
 
 sciatica, at a hotel in the city, and who, ignorant 
 of what has happened, may perhaps be persuaded 
 to sell his stock (received for services at the mine) 
 for a small part of its present actual value. The 
 victim thinks, quite wisely, that he would like 
 to see how much the officers of the company will 
 agree to pay for the stock before he tries to buy it. 
 He is encouraged to do so and goes down to the 
 office. There the "president" offers to buy all the 
 shares he will bring in at ten dollars each. The 
 victim hurries to the hotel, finds the sick man, and 
 persuades him to sell about a thousand shares of 
 stock in valueless certificates for five thousand dol- 
 lars. When he hastens back to reap his ill-gotten 
 harvest the mining office is permanently closed. 
 
 As "Jerry" and "Jim" said, "The sucker de- 
 served to be stung." Well, perhaps he did, but, 
 by the same token, "Jerry" and "Jim" and their 
 pals deserved to be in jail where they all went. 
 The gang lived on the fat of the land and "earned" 
 in this simple way about twenty-five thousand 
 dollars in five or six weeks. Then they were all 
 arrested, save "Jim," and including "Jerry." 
 Pending their trials, and while they were out on 
 bail, these light-hearted pirates had the audacity 
 to go to Paris to enjoy the spoils of their campaign, 
 and to get more money in the same fashion to fight 
 their prosecutions. 
 
 129 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 Here they met their most celebrated victim, Mr. 
 Charles P. Buchanan. Ignatius L. Qualey, later 
 sent to the penitentiary, remained to manage the 
 New York end of the business. Frank S. Weller, 
 who has but recently been discharged from Sing 
 Sing, stayed to assist him and look after the pending 
 cases. "Jim" was already abroad "making book" 
 at Goodwood, whence he crossed to Paris to join 
 "Jerry," "Baker Tom," Putnam, Carbonel and 
 "Colonel Colmy" on the Continent. 
 
 At Longchamps "Colonel Colmy" met Mr. Bu- 
 chanan, and introduced "Jim" to him as a young 
 millionaire mine-owner who just had money to 
 burn. Then "Jerry," ostensibly a total stranger 
 to all parties, turned up and told Buchanan how 
 he had a brother, etc., etc.; that the millionaire 
 had a lot of "Horseshoe Gold Mining" stock 
 which would bring under present conditions 
 twenty dollars per share, and that perhaps he could 
 be induced, if properly "worked" to sell for five 
 dollars. Buchanan thought he saw a good thing, 
 and cabled to New York to see what the company 
 would pay. Qualey and Weller, in the World 
 Building, offered him fifteen dollars per share for 
 not less than eight thousand shares. "Jim" had 
 just that amount of stock, but he frankly told 
 Buchanan that he thought it was a poor invest- 
 ment. But Buchanan knew better and guessed 
 
 130 
 
Confidence Men Abroad 
 
 he'd risk it, and he insisted on giving "Jim" two 
 hundred thousand francs and taking the certifi- 
 cates. Even before the steamer, which took him 
 back to New York, had docked he began to sus- 
 pect that he had been duped. The mining office 
 was closed. Qualey and Weller had vanished. 
 But Buchanan was game and he cabled back to 
 France, and had everybody tracked down, arrested 
 and brought to Paris. They were tried, defended 
 by Maltre Labori, and acquitted. Then they all re- 
 turned to America to stand trial in New York, and, 
 much to their astonishment, were convicted for their 
 offences here. Qualey, Weller, Putnam, Carbonel, 
 "Colonel Colmy," "Jim" and "Jerry" all went 
 to prison, served their time and were discharged. 
 Five years elapsed and "Jim" was picked up on an 
 old warrant on Broadway. The case against him 
 had died of old age, and the writer, after a week or 
 so, had him brought into court and moved for his 
 discharge, which was granted after an admonitory 
 lecture from the Court. 
 
 "Come up to my office, Jim," said I; "I want 
 to know how you managed to beat it over in 
 Paris." 
 
 "Sure thing," answered Jim. "You've done 
 me a good turn and I'll tell you everything I 
 know." 
 
 So the cigars were brought out the "good" 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 ones a stenographer was called in, and Jim 
 lea'ned back and sailed ahead. 
 
 " I know you're on the level," he began, lighting 
 a Carolina Invincible and running the fingers of 
 his left hand through his rather sparse grayish- 
 black hair, " and that there won't be no come-back. 
 I'm a free man, ain't I ? We're quits, now, and 
 I'm on the right side of the law. And Jerry's out 
 the finest feller God ever made you take that 
 from me straight. The best friend I ever had. 
 Don't use our names and I'll tell you a true story 
 that beats 'Innocents Abroad,' and that's fair to 
 good, as you know. It was after we had trimmed 
 Buchanan." He took a pull on his cigar. 
 
 " Well," he continued, " there we was after havin' 
 pulled ofF the slickest 'con' game on record, with 
 two hundred thousand francs in our jeans, all 
 ready to cultivate the delights of Paris, and 
 obliged to scoot for the tall grass. We was settin' 
 at one of them little iron tables out in front of the 
 Hotel Continental, thinkin' it over, when the por- 
 ter, the swell guy in the blue uniform and gold lace 
 that stands on the front stoop he was a particular 
 friend of mine, by reason of a little side tip I had 
 gave him on a horse that was going to be pulled 
 the week before comes up and says: 'M'sieu* 
 Chames, there is gendarmes looking for you in the 
 foyer of the hotel. It is some mistake, of course, 
 
Confidence Men Abroad 
 
 but' and he stuck out his hands palms up as if 
 he was tryin' to tell whether it was rainin'. I seen 
 he was giving me the ' office ' (which is what we call 
 the signal to beat it), and without more adoo me 
 and Jerry slips around the back way, jumps in 
 a voytoore and slides down to an American bar run 
 by McCafferty, a friend of mine, on the Roo 
 Antoine. 
 
 "We was both feelin' pretty cocky, because we 
 knew we hadn't done nothin', and had dough 
 enough besides to square any court in Paris, and 
 it was this feelin' too good that made us so much 
 trouble, for I told my friend, the bar-keep, to send 
 up to the Hotel Continental after we was gone and 
 look out for my trunk, as I had a particular fine 
 pair of field-glasses, some pearl shirt-studs and 
 lingerie in that trunk that I didn't want to lose. 
 So we took a drink, and I says to Jerry: 
 
 " ' What are we going to do ? ' Jerry thought 
 a while, as he always does before he expresses an 
 opinion on anything important, which is why he 
 never goes wrong, and says: 
 
 "'We must fly the coop, temporary, for a more 
 salubrious clime,' he says. ' I don't want to go 
 far,' he says, ' but I think one of them little mud 
 baths where the professors go would be about our 
 size.' 
 
 '"You're on!' I says; 'when shall we start?' 
 133 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 "As soon as I can get my trunk/ he says. 
 
 "'Sure thing,' I says, for I knew that Jerry had 
 just blown in fourteen hundred francs the day be- 
 fore on the finest line of silk pajamas and under- 
 garments you ever seen pink and blue and other 
 colors, good enough for anybody. And he had 
 just got in from his tailor nine suits of clothes and 
 about twenty pairs of little pointed French boots, 
 that if it wasn't for his black hair would make him 
 look for all the world like Count Boni de Castel- 
 lane. Well, we went around to Jerry's place and 
 got his trunk and took it down to the Gare Laza- 
 rus, and hired a first-class compartment all to our- 
 selves for Spa, where we arrived in due course and 
 put up at a little hotel with fretsaw work all around 
 the verandas. The board was all right, too, but 
 what pained us was the fact that there wasn't a 
 thing to do in the place. It was a little bit of a 
 hole down among some mountains, and hot as 
 Forty-second Street and Broadway on the Fourth 
 of July, and the town was all full of German doc- 
 tors and queer-lookin' Hey Rubes who had come 
 there for their health. There wasn't a card-game 
 or wheel turnin' in town, and no one in the place 
 knew a hoss from a hand fire-engine. 
 
 "Jerry thought we ought to have somethin' 
 for a disguise, but it was so hot I hated to put on 
 any false hair around my face, and the only thing 
 
Confidence Men Abroad 
 
 left was to pretend we was two Dutch professors 
 which we did the best we was able. 
 
 " Have you ever been to a mud bath ? Well, say, 
 it has got the Great Salt Lake whipped to a frazzle. 
 At the lake you can sit in the water all right and 
 float around like you was in an easy-chair. But in 
 the mud bath it is like a lot of turtles. You sail 
 around with your head stickin' out, and if you 
 want a high-ball or a glass of Budweiser they shove 
 it out to you on a saucer, so that the whole place 
 looks as if each Dutchman had hatched out his 
 own particular litter of china ducks. We used to 
 sit in that place two or three hours a day, and it 
 was enough to make you split your sides laughin' 
 to hear Jerry guy the old roosters in there. He 
 would call 'em all kinds of names, which they 
 couldn't understand, but would know they was be- 
 in' insulted. Yet they couldn't do nothin' about 
 it. And it made 'em mad to see us drinkin' high- 
 balls and crackin' jokes at their expense, when 
 they had to sit there to get cured of the rheuma- 
 tism. 
 
 " Then we would come out and listen to the band 
 play in the park, and have lunch, and after that 
 there was nothin' to do but to go up to the room 
 and throw cold hands till dinner-time. It was 
 pretty slow, but it was better than bein' locked 
 up in some French jail, and although we was 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 gettin' pretty bored we could have stood it a while 
 longer. 
 
 "Well, one day when we was floatin' around in 
 the mud bath as usual the door opened and the 
 porter came rushing in, followed by about five hun- 
 dred gendarmes. Gee! you would have thought it 
 was a military parade. The porter pointed to 
 where we was floatin' around readin' La Fie 
 Parisienne, and the commandant of the gendarmes 
 yelled to us to come out. We pretended not to 
 hear, and they stood jabberin' at one another, 
 wonderin' how to get us out without spoilin' their 
 uniforms. But Jerry kept right on readin' and 
 smokin' a cigarette and made out he thought they 
 wanted to arrest an old German professor on the 
 other side of the bath. The upshot of it was that 
 I saw they would take it out of us hard if we didn't 
 come ashore, so after about half an hour we sur- 
 rendered, and they locked us up in a guard-house 
 overnight. 
 
 " Now who should turn out to be at the bottom of 
 it but Charlie Buchanan's cousin a no-good sort 
 of a fellow called Willie. After dinner, which so 
 far as we was concerned had been nothin' at all, in 
 comes this Willie in the guard-house smokin' a large 
 cigar, and settin' down at a safe distance begins to 
 give us the 'con' of how sorry he was to see two 
 respectable citizens in such an awkward position. 
 
 136 
 
Confidence Men Abroad 
 
 "'Well/ I says, 'our positions ain't one-three- 
 six to what yours would be if we was outside this 
 guard-house, and you was anywheres but on the 
 top of the tallest tree in the place/ 
 
 "Well, he says, there was no use gettin' irritated 
 about it; that we was up against it, but that his 
 cousin was inclined to be merciful, and that he was 
 all sorts of a good fellow himself, and that if we 
 would slip him what was left of the two hundred 
 thousand francs he would fix it so that we could 
 sleep at the hotel and go on our way rejoicin'. I 
 s'pose all is fair in love and law. 
 
 " Jerry give him one look as if to ask what kind 
 of a pair of 'come-ons* he thought we was, and 
 when the feller began to put on a little more side 
 I made a move as if I was goin' to throw him out 
 of the window. That was enough for Willie. 
 
 "Well, we had a bad night of it, for they 
 shackled us up with our ankles and hands to- 
 gether, and from that time on we never made a 
 move except in these double chains. 
 
 " Next morning they had a sort of an informal 
 hearing, where Willie appeared against us, and 
 Jerry threw a great chest about being an Ameri- 
 can citizen, and how the outrages committed upon 
 us would result in international complications, and 
 so forth and so on; so that you would have thought 
 that he was nothin' less than John D. Rockefeller, 
 
 1 37 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 to say the least. But it didn't do any good, and 
 they shipped us off to a little place called Verviers, 
 where there is a military prison, and locked us up. 
 
 "As soon as the gendarmes discovered that we 
 had our rolls with us they became very friendly, 
 and as long as we had the price we had all the 
 comforts of home. From there we was sent to a 
 place called Laige. Here they brought us before 
 the Supreme Court, or whatever it is, for extradi- 
 tion back to Paris. Now, as I said before, so long 
 as you have cash in France you are all right, and 
 we had what was left of the two hundred thou- 
 sand francs, which was the best part of it, for 
 there wasn't much to spend money on at a mud 
 bath. 
 
 "Well, it cost each of us fourteen dollars for 
 every day we was in prison at Verviers and Laige. 
 We had four meals a day, and a seven-course din- 
 ner in the evening which would have made a 
 twenty-dollar blow-out at Rector's look like thirty 
 cents; and then about eleven or twelve at night 
 again we had a light supper and all the Havana 
 cigars we wanted at sixty cents apiece. 
 
 "Whenever we travelled we went with what 
 they call a convoy extraordinary. It was ' extraor- 
 dinary,' all right. They had eight or ten gen- 
 darmes for fear we should climb out of the win- 
 dows while the train was goin' at sixty miles an 
 
 138 
 
Confidence Men Abroad 
 
 hour. And we had to pay the convoy's fare as 
 well as our own, and for all their meals, and if 
 they didn't get all the wines and cigars that was 
 comin' to 'em they wanted to know the reason 
 why. Some of those fellers could be very particu- 
 lar. Well, they had the drop on us, and while we 
 had plenty of money we didn't mind such an 
 awful lot. Whenever we needed it I had the money 
 telegraphed on to us through my Paris lawyer, 
 Maitre Labori, who, I may say, on passong, is the 
 best and cheapest lawyer I ever had anywhere. 
 
 "Well, it was necessary to get local counsel, so 
 at Verviers I retained a Belgian named Alphonse 
 Hannotte. He looked like a perfessor and talked 
 like a water bottler in a restaurant. But the thing 
 he was strong on was the price. If he walked the 
 length of the room it was a hundred francs, and if 
 he walked back again it was a hundred francs 
 more. In the end it would have been a great deal 
 cheaper to give all the money to the captain of 
 the gendarmes, because as it was as soon as it got 
 dark he used to take off our chains and let us go 
 out, and all it cost us was fifty francs a day. 
 
 "After a while they shipped us from Laige to 
 Brussels, where the extradition proceedings was 
 to be held. We had come on in the usual way with 
 our convoy extraordinary, and as soon as we ar- 
 rived we was taken to the Palais de Justice. Now, 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 after we had left Laige brother Hannotte had gone 
 back to Verviers with the understanding that he 
 should appear for us in Brussels. Maitre Labori 
 had been working on the case all the time down in 
 Paris, and he had fixed it up so that the Minister 
 of Justice should order us sent on at once with an- 
 other convoy extraordinary to France otherwise 
 it would have taken us about two years to get 
 away, which is the ordinary time to secure extra- 
 dition between two Continental countries. 
 
 "Well, Hannotte had all our papers which we 
 had had sent him from America to prove our good 
 citizenship, and how respectable we was, and what 
 hard-working men, and members of the church, 
 and so on and so forth, and you would have thought 
 we was a pair of deacons at a Friday evening 
 prayer meetin'. But inasmuch as he had gone 
 back to Verviers he was not on to the fact that the 
 day before we started for Brussels, at the instruc- 
 tion of Maitre Labori, we had waived extradition 
 at Laige. 
 
 " When we got into the Palais de Justice we was 
 stood up before the judges, which was seven in all, 
 dressed in black gowns. We had hired a school- 
 master to interpret the language to us, and tell us 
 what was goin' on, and this schoolmaster was al- 
 ways sayin' how the official interpreter was tellin' 
 everythin' wrong; and then we would object, and 
 
 140 , 
 
Confidence Men Abroad 
 
 the Court would want to find out what we were 
 objectin' about, which all took a long time. Finally 
 it was all cleared up, and we said we was willin* to 
 waive extradition and go back voluntary to stand 
 our trials. Then the Chief Judge signed his name 
 to the papers and they were all goin' out to get a 
 drink, when all of a sudden brother Hannotte 
 rides up on a bicycle, dressed in knickerbockers 
 and golf stockings, with a long black gown floatin' 
 out behind and a square cap with a tassel on it, 
 and rushin' into the tribunal of justice just as they 
 were goin' to adjourn, jumped up behind the bar 
 and commenced to harangue the Court to beat the 
 band. If we had not been chained up we would 
 have made some sort of move to stop him; and 
 the schoolmaster got very much excited and told 
 us that Hannotte had got everything mixed up, 
 and said we would die rather than go back to 
 France. Then the schoolmaster butted in and told 
 the Court that Hannotte was all wrong, and Han- 
 notte got very angry and wanted to know who in 
 hell the schoolmaster was. And it looked like it 
 was going to be a cat fight. Then it came out that 
 Hannotte had ridden on his bicycle all the way 
 from Verviers to Brussels in order to save carfare, 
 with his robes tied on to the bicycle, and with his 
 little college cap on the back of his head. And 
 being as the judges all had some sense of humor, 
 
 141 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 they began to laugh, and the Chief Judge, after he 
 had straightened out his face, said: 
 
 "Mr. Hannotte, these gentlemen have volun- 
 tarily offered to return to France and have waived 
 their extradition rights.' 
 
 "Then Hannotte got very much excited, and 
 said, 'Oui, out,' that it was news to him. And all 
 of a sudden the court was adjourned. 
 
 "Well, Hannotte was mad and hot and reck- 
 oned he would ride back with us on the train, but 
 Jerry thought he had had about enough of him, and 
 told him he guessed he could go back the way he 
 came on his bicycle. Hannotte was very much 
 offended and said that he had been insulted, and 
 that if we were not miserable convicts he would 
 demand satisfaction. Then Jerry said it was 
 lucky for him all right that we were chained up, 
 and for him please to give us back our private pa- 
 pers which belonged to us. But the perfessor said 
 that he had a lien on 'em for twenty-five thousand 
 francs which we still owed him; that we had never 
 paid him anything, and that his services were 
 really worth fifty thousand. 
 
 "Gee! When he said that I thought Jerry 
 would go wild; for the perfessor had been chargin' 
 us about five hundred francs a minute and wanted 
 cash for everythin', and we had never got any re- 
 ceipt from him. Well, when Jerry gets his dan- 
 
 142 
 
Confidence Men Abroad 
 
 der up you want to stand from under, and in about 
 twenty minutes he had scared to a pulp Counsellor 
 Hannotte and had threatened to impeach him and 
 have him disbarred, and arrested for larceny, and 
 had hired another lawyer. The upshot of it was that 
 Hannotte was glad enough to get on his bicycle and 
 ride back home again. 
 
 "Well, in a few days word came to send us im- 
 mediately with a convoy extraordinary on a special 
 train into France. Labori telegraphed us on the 
 money, and at six o'clock in the morning the next 
 day they put on our chains and walked us over to 
 our special train, consisting of an engine and two 
 cars, which we had paid for in order to go forty 
 miles to the nearest town across the border. We 
 were so dangerous that in spite of our chains we had 
 to take twelve gendarmes with us and feed 'em 
 besides, including beer. And the way those fellows 
 ate is worth a trip to Coney Island. 
 
 "At about twelve o'clock we arrived at a place 
 called Givet, and being it was the anniversary of the 
 Fall of the Bastille, which is the Fourth of July in 
 France, the whole town was closed up, and there 
 was no one there to take charge of us. The con- 
 voy extraordinary telephoned and telegraphed all 
 over, but the telephone girls had gone off to Sulz- 
 berger's annual picnic, and the Telegraphers' 
 Union was on a trip to Dreamland. 
 
 H3 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 "After a while the convoy got tired of seein' us 
 round, and anyhow they wanted to go back to 
 Brussels, so they chucked Jerry's trunk on the 
 platform and told us to pick it up. Now Jerry 
 had been 'specially particular about havin' that 
 trunk go everywhere with us- because he didn't 
 want to lose his silk lingerie, yet he hadn't figured 
 on bein' a 'ham fattener.' But the gendarmes 
 were gettin' ugly, and one of them stuck Jerry in 
 the leg with his bayonet, so we had to pick the 
 trunk up and start down the road a mile to the 
 banks of the River Meuse, where there was a road- 
 house and summer garden. They drove us around 
 back of the barn to a hen-house, and told us to get 
 inside of it. 
 
 "It was two o'clock in the afternoon and the 
 hottest day I can remember, and because it was a 
 holiday, I guess, all the hens had gone inside the 
 house and were settin' on poles under the roof. 
 Well, we had to sit under the hens from two until 
 four while the convoy extraordinary got drunk on 
 our money. By and by they came back to the 
 hen-house and called us out and began to have fun 
 beatin' us. They thought it was the greatest joke 
 you ever seen to stick us in the leg with a three- 
 cornered bayonet. 
 
 "A little after four, while we were dancin* 
 around like Apache prisoners, four gendarmes 
 
 144 
 
Confidence Men Abroad 
 
 from the little village called Femme appeared and 
 gave a receipt for us. Femme was only six miles 
 away, and Jerry and I picked up the trunk and 
 started off again. 
 
 "Now, mind, my right ankle was chained to 
 Jerry's right ankle, and my left ankle to his left 
 ankle, and in addition to that we was chained to 
 the trunk, which weighed about two hundred 
 pounds. When I saw we had got to lug that Sara- 
 toga six miles I suggested to Jerry to take out 
 some of his shoes, but he seemed to think that in- 
 asmuch as we had lugged them a mile already and 
 they had cost so much, we might as well carry 
 them a little farther. So we pounded along and at 
 about 6:30 in the evening arrived at our destination. 
 
 " It was a big fete day and the whole town and all 
 the people was as drunk as lords, including the 
 high military mug of the place who was known as 
 the Commissioner-at-Large. Well, he was 'at 
 large' all right when we got there, and, what was 
 more, he could speak English. He was just in the 
 state to work a ' con ' game on, and Jerry started 
 in right off to tell the old Commissioner how we 
 were victims of a horrible mistake. He took the 
 old chap aside and explained to him that I was a 
 millionaire worth between eighty and ninety mil- 
 lion dollars, and how there would probably be a 
 war between the United States and France, because 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 I had been arrested at all. But the most particular 
 grievance he had at the moment was that we had 
 not been sent right through to Paris on a ' special/ 
 
 "Well, the Commissioner took it all in, and said 
 it was an outrage, and at once hurried off to the 
 telegraph station to order a special train for us. 
 Just then one of the gendarmes butted in and said 
 that we had only sixty-five francs between us. But 
 Jerry perked right up and said that all the Com- 
 missioner need do would be to telegraph to our 
 banker Monseer McCafferte, in Paris, and he 
 would send us all the money we needed. So the 
 Commissioner went off and paid for the telegram 
 and then ordered a banquet served in the court- 
 yard of the gendarmerie. It was the finest thing 
 you ever seen in your life. All the officers were 
 invited and we had twelve quarts of wine, besides 
 ten courses to eat. We offered to pay for it, but 
 the Commissioner would not hear of it. 
 
 "' Gentlemen,' says he, drinking off a big 
 bumper of fizz, 'you are the guests of France to- 
 day; you are the guests of the Army of France 
 votre sante'.' 
 
 "Well, we were not going to be backward in 
 coming forward, so we asked all the soldiers in 
 and ordered two more cases of wine for them, and 
 because we were feeling pretty good we gave 
 the sixty-five francs to a gendarme, and sent him 
 
Confidence Men Abroad 
 
 out to buy some fireworks. Then we told the 
 gendarmes to go and get their children, and by 
 nine o'clock the place was so full of kids you 
 couldn't step without treading on two or three 
 of 'em. 
 
 "Well, the Commissioner thought sure we was 
 millionaires when he seen the pin wheels and Ro- 
 man candles, and he and his officers sat at a table 
 while Jerry and I went a couple of hundred feet 
 off and began to do the Keralfrey act. The chil- 
 dren thought we was the greatest things they ever 
 seen, and for about thirty minutes we forgot where 
 we was and how we come there, lookin' at the kids 
 watch the pin wheels. Jerry was standin' with a 
 little pin-wheel about the size of a rosette they stick 
 in a horse's ear, and havin' as much fun with it all 
 by himself as if he was drivin' a sixty-horse-power 
 motor-car, and I was shootin' off a candle when the 
 next thing I knew somebody hit me in the back of 
 the neck with the butt of a rifle and picked me up 
 and lugged me off about fifty feet to where there 
 was a little round iron door in the stone wall, like 
 the door of a furnace, and threw me in like a 
 shovelful of coal. 
 
 "Well, I landed about two feet below the level 
 of the ground on top of Jerry, and my hands and 
 feet went into muck that must have been three 
 inches deep. It was pitch black in there, and when 
 
 147 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 Jerry started to groan I thought sure everything 
 was up, but finally we got on our feet and found 
 we had no bones broken, but we couldn't make 
 out what was the matter. 
 
 "Well, about an hour later, a gendarme un- 
 bolted the furnace door and said ' VoilaJ and 
 poked in a telegram. Jerry lit a match and read it: 
 
 Johnny at the races. Frank paralyzed. Rest of the 
 boys out driving. Have got no money belonging to you. 
 
 McCAFFERTY. 
 
 "That was the dispatch. 
 :< What does this mean ?' I says. 
 
 " Jerry was cursin' around all to himself, but he 
 stopped long enough to say, 'Why, it means just 
 this, that as no money has come the old chap thinks 
 we've been buncoin' him all the afternoon, and he 
 is simply gettin' even/ 
 
 "We stood up there all night with the muck up 
 to our ankles, and about four o'clock in the morn- 
 in' they opened the door again and pulled us out. 
 They wouldn't even give us a chance to wash. If 
 you could have seen Jerry's face, you would have 
 had to laugh, for it was all covered with green 
 muck, and so were his clothes. It was all over mine 
 too. They chained us up to the trunk again and 
 started us off before daylight. 
 
 "When the sun came up I saw that we were 
 148 
 
Confidence Men Abroad 
 
 climbing straight up a mountain. The gendarmes 
 said that we were on the way to the town of Fen- 
 veul and that it would take us all day to walk there, 
 for although it was only five miles it was straight 
 up and down, so that if you looked back you 
 would fall into another department. 
 
 "France is all cut up into little checker-board 
 squares called departments, and every department 
 is like a police precinct in New York City, with its 
 own captain and officers, and they pass you along 
 from one department to another. 
 
 "Well, I thought I should have died climbing 
 up that hill carryin' Jerry's trunk full of silk 
 underwear. Every time we sat down the gen- 
 darmes would prod us with their bayonets and 
 make us get up again, and if either of us cracked 
 a joke it was a breach of discipline, and they would 
 give us a clip with their muskets. I never spent 
 such a day in my life as luggin' that trunk up the 
 side of that mountain. Say, did you ever see the 
 'Ham Tree?' Well, it was just like that play. 
 There is a place in the ' Ham Tree ' where two nig- 
 gers come on the stage carryin' a trunk, and one 
 nigger says to the other nigger, 'I wish I was in 
 that place again, I would never go back again.' 
 Well, Jerry got thinkin' of the ' Ham Tree/ and 
 about once every hundred yards he would get off 
 this joke about the niggers and the trunk. And 
 
 149 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 although I was near dead I got to laughing so I 
 could hardly walk. 
 
 "That night we reached the top of the moun- 
 tain, and we didn't suffer much from sleeplessness, 
 I can tell you. 
 
 " Next morning they changed our guard to a 
 mountain convoy and started us on up another 
 mountain. We did that for five days, and Jerry's 
 trunk got a hundred pounds heavier each day. 
 
 " By the end of the week we had climbed to a 
 tiny little town on the top of a mountain, that has 
 a moat running all around it, which is an old re- 
 ceiving prison called Roc Roy. It is a great old 
 place, and if it could be shipped down to Coney, 
 or some fellow could imitate it, it would be a great 
 card as a mediaeval restaurant. You have got to 
 drop a drawbridge down to go across the moat, 
 and when once you get inside there's no way to get 
 out. 
 
 " The first thing I saw when we went in the gate 
 was a great big letter addressed to us sticking in a 
 crack over where the soldier stands at the door, 
 and we knew at once that it was the letter and the 
 money which ought to have been sent to the Com- 
 missioner-at-Large, at Femme, but which could 
 not be because the boys were out driving. Well, 
 it was full of all kinds of apologies, and told how 
 sorry McCafFerty was that he couldn't raise the 
 
Confidence Men Abroad 
 
 money we wanted, being as it was the day of the 
 Fall of the Bastille, but sayin' that he guessed 
 everythin' would be all right, anyway. Well, I 
 wish McCafferty had been carryin' that trunk the 
 way we had for five days and he would have seen 
 how much good apologies could do. 
 
 " That night we were stuck in a dormitory with 
 about four hundred prisoners, and although the 
 town was about five thousand feet up that dormi- 
 tory was the hottest place I ever got into. We 
 were so tired we couldn't sleep, and we kept all 
 the other prisoners awake talkin*. Finally, they 
 gave up tryin' to sleep, and got to talkin' them- 
 selves. One of them told how he was a robber. 
 
 c ' What kind of a robber ? ' I says. ' How much 
 of a sentence did you get ? ' I says. 
 
 ' ' Eight months/ he says. 
 
 "What kind of a sentence is that for rob- 
 bery ?' I says. 'What did you do ?' 
 
 "I stole a ride on a freight train,' he says. 
 
 "Another fellow said he was a smuggler, and he 
 had eight months. He had been caught with two 
 little packages of tobacco walking across from 
 Belgium. 
 
 "The fellow on the opposite side of the dormi- 
 tory allowed he was a thief. He had been caught 
 in a turnip-field eating a turnip. Well, we had to 
 laugh. 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 "Next day Jerry and I was put in a workshop 
 and taught how to make shoes. It takes about 
 three days to make a pair of shoes, and the shoes 
 are sold for five sous a pair. The authorities don't 
 allow the prisoners any coffee unless they pay for 
 it, and the coffee costs one sou a day each, so that 
 between us we could just about earn coffee money, 
 and Jerry got so mad at the old shoes he could 
 hardly see. When he sassed the head keeper they 
 yanked him out into the court-yard, where there 
 was a big stream of water falling down, about four 
 or five inches through, and stuck him under it, and 
 in about ten minutes he was begging to be allowed 
 to go to work again. 
 
 "Well, at the end of two weeks an order came 
 from the Minister of Justice to the Procurator- 
 General of the City of Roc Roy, directing him to 
 forward us along with another special convoy at 
 our own expense, and a couple of days later we 
 landed in Paris. 
 
 11 You know all about the trial already, and how 
 the Judge said we hadn't committed any crime, 
 and ordered our immediate discharge. But I'll 
 tell you one thing, I wouldn't carry that trunk 
 again half a mile if you would give me two hun- 
 dred thousand francs." 
 
 He smiled and dusted off his hat. 
 
 "What are you going to do for a living, now ?" 
 152 
 
Confidence Men Abroad 
 
 I inquired, feeling somehow that, after all these 
 adventures, life in New York must seem very tame 
 to him. 
 
 "Why," he exclaimed, a smile of childish inno- 
 cence lighting up his face," I've got the greatest 
 thing you ever seen a sure winner! It's an oil 
 well that spouts six hundred gallons an hour. 
 We're goin' to pay a twenty-five per cent, divi- 
 dend next month. Say, I'll let you in on the 
 ground floor! You can double your money 
 in " 
 
 "No, thank you, Jim," I answered, closing my 
 desk and holding out my hand. " I have got to go 
 out to lunch." 
 
 153 
 
THE FRANKLIN SYNDICATE 
 
 155 
 
VI 
 
 The Franklin Syndicate 
 
 WHEN Robert A. Ammon, a member of the 
 New York bar, was convicted, after a 
 long trial, on the lyth of June, 1903, of receiving 
 stolen goods, he had, in the parlance of his class, 
 been " due " for a long time. The stolen property 
 in question was the sum of thirty thousand five 
 hundred dollars in greenbacks, part of the loot of 
 the notorious "Franklin Syndicate," devised and 
 engineered by William F. Miller, who later be- 
 came the catspaw of his legal adviser, the subject 
 of this history. 
 
 Ammon stood at the bar and listened compla- 
 cently to his sentence of not less than four years at 
 hard labor in Sing Sing. A sneer curved his lips 
 as, after nodding curtly to his lawyer, he turned to 
 be led away by the court attendant. The fortune 
 snatched from his client had procured for him the 
 most adroit of counsel, the most exhaustive of 
 trials. He knew that nothing had been left un- 
 
 157 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 done to enable him to evade the consequences of 
 his crime, and he was cynically content. 
 
 For years " Bob " Ammon had been a familiar 
 figure in the Wall Street district of New York. 
 Although the legal adviser of swindlers and con- 
 fidence men, he was a type of American whose en- 
 ergies, if turned in a less dubious direction, might 
 well have brought him honorable distinction. 
 Tall, strong as a bull, bluff, good-natured, reckless 
 and of iron nerve, he would have given good ac- 
 count of himself as an Indian fighter or frontiers- 
 man. His fine presence, his great vitality, his 
 coarse humor, his confidence and bravado, had 
 won for him many friends of a certain kind and 
 engendered a feeling among the public that some- 
 how, although the associate and adviser of crimi- 
 nals, he was outside the law, to the circumventing 
 of which his energies were directed. Unfortu- 
 nately his experiences with the law had bred in 
 him a contempt for it which ultimately caused his 
 downfall. 
 
 " The reporters are bothering you, are they ? " 
 he had said to Miller in his office. "Hang them! 
 Send them to me. I'll talk to them!" 
 
 And talk to them he did. He could talk a police 
 inspector or a city magistrate into a state of vacu- 
 ous credulity, and needless to say he was to his 
 clients as a god knowing both good and evil, as 
 
 .58 
 
The Franklin Syndicate 
 
 well as how to eschew the one and avoid the other. 
 Miller hated, loathed and feared him, yet freely 
 entrusted his liberty, and all he had risked his lib- 
 erty to gain, to this strange and powerful person- 
 ality which held him enthralled by the mere exer- 
 cise of a physical superiority. 
 
 The "Franklin Syndicate" had collapsed amid 
 the astonished outcries of its thousands of victims, 
 on November 24th, 1899, when, under the advice 
 and with the assistance of Ammon, its organizer, 
 "520 per cent. Miller," had fled to Canada. It 
 was nearly four years later, in June, 1903, that 
 Ammon, arraigned at the bar of justice as a crimi- 
 nal, heard Assistant District Attorney Nott call 
 William F. Miller, convict, to the stand to testify 
 against him. A curious contrast they presented as 
 they faced one another; the emaciated youth of 
 twenty-five, the hand of Death already tightly fas- 
 tened upon his meagre frame, coughing, hollow- 
 cheeked, insignificant, flat-nosed, almost repul- 
 sive, who dragged himself to the witness chair, 
 and the swaggering athlete who glared at him 
 from the bar surrounded by his cordon of able 
 counsel. As Ammon fixed his penetrating gaze 
 upon his former client, Miller turned pale and 
 dropped his eyes. Then the prosecutor, realizing 
 the danger of letting the old hypnotic power return, 
 even for an instant, quickly stepped between them. 
 
 159 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 Miller raised his eyes and smiled, and those who 
 heard knew that this miserable creature had been 
 through the fire and come forth to speak true 
 things. 
 
 The trial of Ammon involved practically the re- 
 proving of the case against Miller, for which the 
 latter had been convicted and sentenced to ten 
 years in State's prison, whence he now issued like 
 one from the tomb to point the skeleton, incrimin- 
 ating finger at his betrayer. But the case began 
 by the convict-witness testifying that the whole 
 business was a miserable fraud from start to fin- 
 ish, carried on and guided by the advice of the de- 
 fendant. He told how he, a mere boy of twenty- 
 one, burdened with a sick wife and baby, unfitted 
 by training or ability for any sort of lucrative em- 
 ployment, a hanger-on of bucket shops and, in his 
 palmiest days, a speculator in tiny lots of feebly 
 margined stocks, finding himself without means 
 of support, conceived the alluring idea of soliciting 
 funds for investment, promising enormous inter- 
 est, and paying this interest out of the principal 
 intrusted to him. For a time he preyed only 
 upon his friends, claiming "inside information" 
 of large "deals" and paying ten per cent, per 
 week on the money received out of his latest 
 deposits. 
 
 Surely the history of civilization is a history of 
 1 60 
 
The Franklin Syndicate 
 
 credulity. Miller prospered. His earlier friend- 
 customers who had hesitatingly taken his receipt 
 for ten dollars, and thereafter had received one 
 dollar every Monday morning, repeated the opera- 
 tion and returned in ever-increasing numbers. 
 From having his office "in his hat," he took an 
 upper room in a small two-story house at 144 
 Floyd Street, Brooklyn an humble tenement, 
 destined to be the scene of one of the most extraor- 
 dinary exhibitions of man's cupidity and foolish- 
 ness in modern times. At first he had tramped 
 round, like a pedler, delivering the dividends him- 
 self and soliciting more, but soon he hired a boy. 
 This was in February, 1899. Business increased. 
 The golden flood began to appear in an atten- 
 uated but constant rivulet. He hired four more 
 employees and the whole top floor of the house. 
 The golden rivulet became a steady stream. 
 From a "panhandler" he rolled in ready thousands. 
 The future opened into magnificent auriferous 
 distances. He began to call himself "The Frank- 
 lin Syndicate," and to advertise that "the way 
 to wealth is as plain as the road to the market." 
 He copied the real brokers and scattered cir- 
 culars and "weekly letters" over the country, 
 exciting the rural mind in distant Manitoba and 
 Louisiana. 
 
 There was an instantaneous response. His mail 
 161 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 required the exclusive attention of several clerks. 
 The stream of gold became a rushing torrent. 
 Every Monday morning the Floyd Street house 
 was crowded with depositors who drew their inter- 
 est, added to it, deposited it again, and went upon 
 their way rejoicing. Nobody was going to have to 
 
 ( 
 at amp tine, cfau&nck to 6c fiatd ttiee&fy in 6umA 
 
 One of Miller's Franklin Syndicate Receipts. 
 
 work any more. The out-of-town customers re- 
 ceived checks for their interest drawn upon "The 
 Franklin Syndicate," together with printed re- 
 ceipts for their deposits, all signed "William F. 
 Miller," by means of a rubber stamp. No human 
 hand could have signed them all without writer's 
 
 162 
 
The Franklin Syndicate 
 
 cramp. The rubber stamp was Miller's official 
 signature. Then with a mighty roar the torrent 
 burst into a deluge. The Floyd Street quarters 
 were besieged by a clamoring multitude fighting 
 to see which of them could give up his money first, 
 and there had to be a special delivery for Miller's 
 mail. He rented the whole house and hired fifty 
 clerks. You could deposit your money almost 
 anywhere, from the parlor to the pantry, the clothes 
 closet or the bath-room. Fridays the public 
 stormed the house en masse, since the money must 
 be deposited on that day to draw interest for the 
 following week. The crush was so enormous that 
 the stoop broke down. Imagine it! In quiet 
 Brooklyn! People struggling to get up the steps 
 to cram their money into Miller's pockets! There 
 he sat, behind a desk, at the top of the stoop, sol- 
 emnly taking the money thrown down before him 
 and handing out little pink and green stamped 
 receipts in exchange. There was no place to put 
 the money, so it was shoved on to the floor behind 
 him. Friday afternoons Miller and his clerks 
 waded through it, knee high. There was no pre- 
 tense of bookkeeping. Simply in self-defense 
 Miller issued in October a pronunciamento that 
 he could not in justice to his business, consent to 
 receive less than fifty dollars at one time. Theo- 
 retically, there was no reason why the thing should 
 
 163 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 not have gone on practically forever, Miller and 
 everybody else becoming richer and richer. So 
 long as the golden stream swelled five times each 
 year everybody would be happy. How could any- 
 body fail to be happy who saw so much money 
 lying around loose everywhere ? 
 
 But the business had increased to such an extent 
 that Miller began to distrust his own capacity to 
 handle it. He therefore secured a partner in the 
 person of one Edward Schlessinger, and with him 
 went to Charlestown, Mass., for the purpose of 
 opening another office, in charge of which they 
 placed a man named Louis Powers. History re- 
 peated itself. Powers shipped the deposits to 
 Miller every day or two by express. Was there 
 ever such a plethora of easy money ? 
 
 But Schlessinger was no Miller. He decided 
 that he must have a third of the profits (Heaven 
 knows how they computed them !) and have them, 
 moreover, each day in cash. Hence there was a 
 daily accounting, part of the receipts being laid 
 aside to pay off interest checks and interest, and 
 the balance divided. Schlessinger carried his off 
 in a bag; Miller took the rest, cash, money 
 orders and checks, and deposited it in a real 
 bank. How the money poured in may be re- 
 alized from the fact that the excess of receipts 
 over disbursements for the month ending No- 
 
 164 
 
The Franklin Syndicate 
 
 vember i6th was four hundred and thirty thou- 
 sand dollars. 
 
 Hitherto Miller had been the central figure. 
 Col. Robert A. Ammon now became the deus ex 
 machina. Miller's advertising had become so 
 extensive that he had been forced to retain a pro- 
 fessional agent, one Rudolph Guenther, to super- 
 vise it, and when the newspapers began to make 
 unpleasant comments, Guenther took Miller to 
 Ammon's office in the Bennett Building in Nassau 
 Street. Ammon accepted a hundred dollars from 
 Miller, listened to his account of the business and 
 examined copies of the circulars. When he was 
 handed one of the printed receipts he said they 
 were "incriminating/' Miller must try to get 
 them back. He advised (as many another learned 
 counsellor has done) incorporating the business, 
 since by this means stock could be sold and ex- 
 changed for the incriminating receipts. He ex- 
 plained the mistakes of the "Dean crowd," but 
 showed how he had been able to safeguard them in 
 spite of the fact that they had foolishly insisted on 
 holding the stock in their company themselves in- 
 stead of making their customers the stockholders. 
 Nevertheless "you do not see any of the Dean 
 people in jail," boasted Ammon. From now on 
 Miller and he were in frequent consultation, and 
 Ammon took steps to incorporate, procuring for 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 that purpose from Wells, Fargo & Co. a certificate 
 of deposit for one hundred thousand dollars. Oc- 
 casionally he would visit Floyd Street to see how 
 things were going. Miller became a mere puppet; 
 Ammon twitched the wire. 
 
 It was now well on in November, and the press 
 of both Boston and New York was filled with 
 scathing attacks upon the Syndicate. The re- 
 porters became so inquisitive as to be annoying to 
 the peaceful Miller. "Send the reporters over to 
 me!" directed Ammon. 
 
 The Post (of Boston) said the whole thing was 
 a miserable swindle. Ammon, accompanied by 
 Miller, carrying a satchel which contained fifty 
 thousand dollars in greenbacks, went to Boston, 
 visited the offices of the Post, and pitched into the 
 editor. 
 
 "The business is all right; you must give us a 
 fair deal!" 
 
 The pair also visited Watts, the chief of police. 
 
 "You keep your mouth shut/' said Ammon to 
 Miller. " I'll do all the talking." He showed Watts 
 the bag of money, and demanded what he had 
 meant by calling the enterprise a "green goods 
 business." If the thing wasn't all right, did 
 Watts suppose that he, Col. Robert A. Ammon, 
 would be connected wi'h it ? The chief backed 
 down, and explained that he had jokingly referred 
 
 1 66 
 
The Franklin Syndicate 
 
 to the color of one of the receipts which hap- 
 pened to be green. 
 
 In spite of Ammon's confidence, however, there 
 was an uneasy feeling in the air, and it was decided 
 to put an advertisement in the Post offering to 
 allow any customer who so desired to withdraw his 
 deposit, without notice, upon the following Satur- 
 day. This announcement did not have precisely 
 the anticipated effect, and Saturday saw a large 
 crowd of victims eager to withdraw their money 
 from the Boston office of the Fanklin Syndicate. 
 Powers paid the "Pauls " of Boston, out of the 
 bag brought on by Miller containing the deposits 
 of the "Peters" of Brooklyn. Meantime, Am- 
 mon addressed the throng, incidentally black- 
 guarding a Post reporter before the crowd, telling 
 them that his paper was a "yellow paper, had 
 never amounted to anything, and never would." 
 Some timid souls took courage and redeposited 
 their money. The run continued one day and 
 cost Ammon and Miller about twenty -eight 
 thousand dollars. Ammon took five thousand 
 dollars cash as a fee out of the bag, and the pair 
 returned to New York. But confidence had been 
 temporarily restored. 
 
 The beginning of the end, however, was now in 
 sight at least for the keen vision of Bob Ammon. 
 He advised stimulating deposits and laying hands 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 on all the money possible before the crash came. 
 Accordingly Miller sent a telegram (collect) to all 
 depositors : 
 
 We have inside information of a big transaction, to 
 begin Saturday or Monday morning. Big profits. Re- 
 mit at once so as to receive the profits. 
 
 WILLIAM F. MILLER, 
 
 Franklin Syndicate. 
 
 A thousand or so were returned, the depositors 
 having refused to pay the charges. The rest of the 
 customers in large measure responded. But the 
 game was nearly up. There were scare-heads in 
 the papers. Miller saw detectives on every corner, 
 and, like a rat leaving a sinking ship, Schlessinger 
 scuttled away for the last time with a bag of 
 money on the evening of Tuesday, November 2ist, 
 1899. The rest of the deposits were crammed into 
 Miller's desk and left there over night. 
 
 The next morning Miller returned to Floyd 
 Street and spent that day in the usual routine, and 
 also on Thursday remained until about twelve 
 o'clock noon, when he placed thirty thousand five 
 hundred dollars in bills in a satchel and started for 
 Ammon's office, where he found Schlessinger 
 likewise with a satchel. 
 
 "The jig's up," announced Schlessinger. 
 
 "Billy, I think you'll have to make a run for 
 168 
 
The Franklin Syndicate 
 
 it," said Ammon. "The best thing for you is to 
 go to Canada." 
 
 It still remained to secure the money, which 
 Miller had deposited in the banks, in such a way 
 that the customers could not get hold of it. Am- 
 mon explained how that could easily be done. 
 
 Ammon's deposit slips and a receipt signed by Mrs. Ammon. 
 
 The money should be all turned over to him, and 
 none of the creditors would ever see it again. He 
 did not deem it necessary to suggest that neither 
 would Miller. Accordingly the two, the lawyer 
 and the client, went to the office of Wells, Fargo 
 & Co., Ammon obligingly carrying the satchel con- 
 
 169 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 taining the thirty thousand five hundred dollars. 
 Here Ammon deposited the contents to his own 
 account, as well as the certificate of deposit for one 
 hundred thousand dollars previously mentioned, 
 and a check for ten thousand dollars, representing 
 the balance of Miller's loot. In addition to this he 
 received an order for forty thousand dollars United 
 States Government bonds, which were on deposit 
 with Wells, Fargo & Co., and later, through Mil- 
 ler's father, sixty-five thousand dollars in bonds of 
 the New York Central Railroad and the United 
 States Government. Thus Ammon secured from 
 his dupe the sum of two hundred and forty- 
 five thousand five hundred dollars, the actual 
 market value of the securities bringing the amount 
 up to two hundred and fifty thousand five hundred 
 dollars, besides whatever sums he had been paid 
 by Miller for legal services, which could not have 
 been less than ten or fifteen thousand dollars. The 
 character of the gentleman is well illustrated 
 by the fact that later when paying Mrs. Miller 
 her miserable pittance of five dollars per week, 
 he explained to her that "he was giving her that 
 out of his own money, and that her husband owed 
 him." 
 
 There still remained, however, the chance of 
 getting a few dollars more and Ammon advised 
 Miller "to try to get Friday's receipts, which were 
 
 170 
 
The Franklin Syndicate 
 
 the heaviest day's business." Acting on this sug- 
 gestion, Miller returned to Floyd Street the next 
 morning at about half past nine, finding a great 
 crowd of people waiting outside. About one 
 o'clock he started to go home, but discovering that 
 he was being followed by a man whom he took to 
 be a detective, he boarded a street car, dodged 
 through a drug store and a Chinese laundry, finally 
 made the elevated railroad, with his pursuer at his 
 heels, and eventually reached the lawyer's office 
 about two o'clock in the afternoon. Word was re- 
 ceived almost immediately over the telephone that 
 Miller had been indicted in Kings County for con- 
 spiracy to defraud, and Ammon stated that the one 
 thing for Miller to do was to go away. Miller re- 
 plied that he did not want to go unless he could 
 take his wife and baby with him, but Ammon 
 assured him that he would send them to Canada 
 later in charge of his own wife. Under this prom- 
 ise Miller agreed to go, and Ammon procured a 
 man named Enright to take Miller to Canada, say- 
 ing that " he was an ex-detective and could get him 
 out of the way." Ammon further promised to 
 forward to Miller whatever money he might need 
 to retain lawyers for him in Montreal. Thereupon 
 Miller exchanged hats with some one in Ammon's 
 office and started for Canada in the custody of the 
 lawyer's representative. 
 
 171 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 How the wily colonel must have chuckled as 
 poor Miller trotted down the stairs like a sheep 
 leaving his fleece behind him. A golden fleece in- 
 deed! Did ever a lawyer have such a piece of 
 luck ? Here was a little fellow who had invented 
 a brilliant scheme to get away with other people's 
 money and had carried it through successfully 
 more than successfully, beyond the dreams of even 
 the most avaricious criminal, and then, richer than 
 Midas, had handed over the whole jolly fortune to 
 another for the other's asking, without even taking 
 a scrap of paper to show for it. More than that, he 
 had then voluntarily extinguished himself. Had 
 Ammon not chuckled he would not have been 
 Bob Ammon. The money was stolen, to be sure, 
 but Ammon's skirts were clear. There was noth- 
 ing to show that the two hundred and forty-five 
 thousand dollars he had received was stolen money. 
 There was only one man a discredited felon, who 
 could hint that the money was even "tainted," 
 and be was safely over the border, in a foreign 
 jurisdiction, not in the custody of the police, but of 
 Ammon himself, to be kept there (as Mr. Robert 
 C. Taylor so aptly phrased it in arguing Ammon's 
 case on appeal) "on waiting orders. Ammon had 
 Miller on a string, and as soon as Ammon (for his 
 own sake) was compelled either to produce Miller 
 or to run the risk of indictment, he pulled the 
 
 172 
 
The Franklin Syndicate 
 
 string and brought Miller back into the juris- 
 diction." 
 
 Needless to say great was the ado made over the 
 disappearance of the promoter of the Franklin 
 Syndicate, and the authorities of King's County 
 speedily let it become known that justice required 
 that some one should be punished for the colossal 
 fraud which had been perpetrated. The grand 
 jury of the county started a general investigation. 
 Public indignation was stirred to the point of 
 ebullition. In the midst of the rumpus, there came 
 a knock on the office door of the Hon. John F. 
 Clark, District Attorney of King's County, and 
 Col. Robert A. Ammon announced himself. The 
 two men were entire strangers to each other but 
 this did not prevent Ammon, with his inimitable 
 assurance, from addressing the District Attorney 
 by his first name. 
 
 "How are you, John?" he inquired noncha- 
 lantly, " what can I do for you ? " 
 
 Mr. Clark repressed his natural inclination to 
 kick the insolent fellow forcibly out of his office, 
 invited him to be seated and rang for a stenog- 
 rapher. Ammon asserted his anxiety to assist the 
 District Attorney by every means in his power, 
 but denied knowing the whereabouts of Miller, 
 alleging that he was simply acting as his counsel. 
 Mr. Clark replied that in Miller's absence the 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 grand jury might take the view that Ammon him- 
 self was the principal. At this Ammon calmly 
 assured his host that as far as he was concerned 
 he was ready to go before the grand jury at any 
 time. 
 
 "That is just what I want," returned Mr. 
 Clark, " the grand jury is in session. Come over." 
 
 Ammon arose with a smile and accompanied the 
 District Attorney towards the door of the grand 
 jury room. Just outside he suddenly placed his 
 hand to his head as if recollecting something. 
 
 "One moment," he exclaimed. "I forgot that 
 I have an engagement. I will come over to- 
 
 morrow." 
 
 "Ah!" retorted Mr. Clark, "I do not think you 
 will be here to-morrow." 
 
 Two weeks later Miller was safely ensconced 
 without bail in Raymond Street Jail. 
 
 Schlessinger, who got away with one hundred 
 and seventy-five thousand dollars in cash, fled to 
 Europe where he lived high, frequenting the race 
 tracks and gaming tables until he was called to his 
 final account a year or two ago. The money 
 which he took has never been traced. Miller was 
 tried, convicted and sent to Sing Sing. The Ap- 
 pellate Division of the Supreme Court then 
 reversed his conviction, but later, on appeal to the 
 Court of Appeals, it was sustained. 
 
 174 
 
The Franklin Syndicate 
 
 Of the enormous sums turned over to Ammon 
 Miller received nothing save the money necessary 
 for his support in Montreal, for the lawyers who de- 
 fended him, and five dollars per week for his wife 
 and child up to the time he turned State's evidence. 
 It is interesting to note that among the counsel 
 representing Miller upon his trial was Ammon 
 himself. Miller's wife and child were not sent to 
 Montreal by Ammon, nor did the latter secure bail 
 for his client at any time during his different peri- 
 ods of incarceration. The colonel knew very well 
 that it was a choice between himself and Miller 
 and took no steps which might necessitate the 
 election falling upon himself. 
 
 The conviction of Miller, with his sentence to 
 ten years in State's prison did not, however, pre- r 
 vent the indictment of Ammon for receiving stolen 
 money in New York County, although the chance 
 that he would ever have to suffer for his crime 
 seemed small indeed. The reader must bear in 
 mind that up to the time of Ammon's trial Miller 
 had never admitted his guilt; that he was still ab- 
 solutely, and apparently irrevocably, under Am- 
 mon's sinister influence, keeping in constant com- 
 munication with him and implicitly obeying his 
 instructions while in prison; and that Miller's wife 
 and child were dependent upon Ammon for their 
 daily bread. No wonder Ammon strode the streets 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 confident that his creature would never betray 
 him. 
 
 "Now, Billy, you don't want to be shooting off 
 your mouth up here," was his parting injunction 
 to his dupe on his final visit to Sing Sing before he 
 became a guest there himself at the expense of the 
 People. 
 
 Miller followed his orders to the letter, and the 
 stipend was increased to the munificent sum of 
 forty dollars per month. 
 
 Meantime the case against Ammon languished 
 and the District Attorney of New York County 
 was at his wits' end to devise a means to procure 
 the evidence to convict him. To do this it would 
 be necessary to establish affirmatively that the 
 thirty thousand five hundred dollars received by 
 Ammon from Miller and deposited with Wells, 
 Fargo & Co. was the identical money stolen by 
 Miller from the victims of the Franklin Syndicate. 
 It was easy enough to prove that Miller stole hun- 
 dreds of thousands of dollars, that Ammon re- 
 ceived hundreds of thousands, but you had to 
 prove that the same money stolen by Miller passed 
 to the hands of Ammon. Only one man in the 
 world, as Ammon had foreseen, could supply this 
 last necessary link in the chain of evidence and he 
 was a convict and mute. 
 
 It now became the task of the District Attorney 
 176 
 
The Franklin Syndicate 
 
 to induce Miller to confess the truth and take the 
 stand against Ammon. He had been in prison a 
 considerable time and his health was such as to 
 necessitate his being transferred to the hosptial 
 ward. Several of the District Attorney's assistants 
 visited him at various times at Sing Sing in the 
 hope of being able to persuade him to turn State's 
 evidence, but all their efforts were in vain. Miller 
 refused absolutely to say anything that would tend 
 to implicate Ammon. 
 
 At last the District Attorney himself, accom- 
 panied by Mr. Nott, who later prosecuted Ammon, 
 made a special trip to Sing Sing to see what could 
 be done. They found Miller lying upon his prison 
 pallet, his harsh cough and blazing eyes speaking 
 only too patently of his condition. At first Mr. 
 Nott tried to engage him in conversation while the 
 District Attorney occupied himself with other 
 business in another part of the ward, but it was 
 easily apparent that Miller would say nothing. 
 The District Attorney then approached the bed 
 where Miller was lying and inquired if it were true 
 that he declined to say anything which might tend 
 to incriminate Ammon. After some hesitation 
 Miller replied that, even if he should testify against 
 his old accomplice, there was nothing to show that 
 he would be pardoned, and that he would not talk 
 unless he had actually in his hands some paper or 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 writing which would guarantee that if he did so he 
 would be set free. 
 
 The spectacle of a convicted felon haggling 
 "with an officer of the law over the terms upon 
 which he would consent to avail himself of an op- 
 portunity to make the only reparation still possible 
 angered the District Attorney, and, turning fiercely 
 upon the prisoner, he arraigned him in scathing 
 terms, stating that he was a miserable swindler and 
 thief, who had robbed thousands of poor people of 
 all the money they had in the world, that he showed 
 himself devoid of every spark of decency or repen- 
 tance by refusing to assist the law in punishing his 
 confederate and assisting his victims in getting 
 back what was left of the money, and that he, the 
 District Attorney, felt himself humiliated in having 
 consented to come there to visit and talk with such 
 a heartless and depraved specimen of humanity. 
 The District Attorney then turned his back upon 
 Miller, whose eyes filled with tears, but who made 
 no response. 
 
 A few moments later the convict asked permis- 
 sion to speak to the District Attorney alone. With 
 some reluctance the latter granted the request and 
 the others drew away. 
 
 " Mr. District Attorney," said the wretched man 
 in a trembling voice, with the tears still suffusing 
 his eyes, "I am a thief; I did rob all those poor 
 
 178 
 
The Franklin Syndicate 
 
 people, and I am heartily sorry for it. I would 
 gladly die, if by doing so I could pay them back. 
 But I haven't a single cent of all the money that 
 I stole and the only thing that stands between my 
 wife and baby and starvation is my keeping silence. 
 If I did what you ask, the only money they have to 
 live on would be stopped. I can't see them starve, 
 glad as I would be to do what I can now to make 
 up for the wrong I have done." 
 
 The District Attorney's own eyes were not en- 
 tirely dry as he held out his hand to Miller. 
 
 " Miller," he replied, " I have done you a great 
 injustice. I honor you for the position you have 
 taken. Were I in your place I should probably act 
 exactly as you are doing. I cannot promise you a 
 pardon if you testify against Ammon. I cannot 
 even promise that your wife will receive forty dol- 
 lars a month, for the money in my charge cannot 
 be used for such a purpose; all I can assure you of 
 is that, should you decide to help me, a full and 
 fair statement of all you may have done will be 
 sent to the Governor with a request that he act fa- 
 vorably upon any application for a pardon which 
 you may make. The choice must be your own. 
 Whatever you decide to do, you have my respect 
 and sympathy. Think well over the matter. Do 
 not decide at once; wait for a day or two, and I will 
 return to New York and you can send me word." 
 
 179 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 The next day Miller sent word that he had de- 
 termined to tell the truth and take the stand, 
 whatever the consequences to himself and his 
 family might be. He was immediately trans- 
 ferred to the Tombs Prison in New York City, 
 where he made a complete and full confession, 
 not only assisting in every way in securing evidence 
 for the prosecution of Ammon, but aiding his 
 trustee in bankruptcy to determine the where- 
 abouts of some sixty thousand dollars of the stolen 
 money, which but for him would never have 
 been recovered. At the same time Ammon was 
 re-arrested upon a bench warrant, and his bail 
 sufficiently increased to render his appearance 
 for trial probable. As Miller had foreseen, the 
 monthly payment to his wife instantly stopped. 
 
 The usual effect produced upon a jury by the 
 testimony of a convict accomplice is one of distrust 
 or open incredulity. Every word of Miller's story, 
 however, carried with it the impression of absolute 
 truth. As he proceeded, in spite of the sneers of 
 the defence, an extraordinary wave of sympathy 
 for the man swept over the court-room, and the 
 jury listened with close attention to his graphic 
 account of the rise and fall of the outrageous con- 
 spiracy which had attempted to shield its alluring 
 offer of instant wealth behind the name of Ameri- 
 ca's most practical philosopher, whose only receipt 
 
 1 80 
 
The Franklin Syndicate 
 
 for the same end had been frugality and industry. 
 Supported as Miller was by the corroborative tes- 
 timony of other witnesses and by the certificates of 
 deposit which Ammon had, with his customary 
 bravado, made out in his own handwriting, no 
 room was left for even the slightest doubt, not only 
 that the money had been stolen but that Ammon 
 had received it. Indeed so plain was the proposi- 
 tion that the defence never for an instant contem- 
 plated the possibility of putting Ammon upon the 
 stand in his own behalf. It was in truth an ex- 
 traordinary case, for the principal element in the 
 proof was made out by the evidence of the thief 
 himself that he was a thief. Miller had been tried 
 and convicted of the very larceny to which he now 
 testified, and, although in the eyes of the law no 
 principle of res adjudicata could apply in Am- 
 mon's case, it was a logical conclusion that if the 
 evidence upon the first trial was repeated, the 
 necessary element of larceny would be effectu- 
 ally established. Hence, in point of fact, Miller's 
 testimony upon the question of whether the 
 money had been stolen was entirely unnecessary, 
 and the efforts of the defence were directed 
 simply to making out Miller such a miscreant 
 upon his own testimony that perforce the jury 
 could not accept his evidence when it reached 
 the point of implicating Ammon. All their at- 
 
 181 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 tempts in this direction, however, only roused in- 
 creased sympathy for the witness and hostility 
 toward their own client, and made the jury the 
 more ready to believe that Ammon had been the 
 only one in the end to profit by the transaction. 
 Briefly, the two points urged by the defence were : 
 
 (1) That Ammon was acting only as Miller's 
 counsel, and hence was immune, and, 
 
 (2) That there was no adequate legal evidence 
 that the thirty thousand five hundred dollars which 
 Ammon had deposited, as shown by the deposit 
 slip, was the identical money stolen from the vic- 
 tims of the Franklin syndicate. As bearing upon 
 this they urged that the stolen money had in fact 
 been deposited by Miller himself, and so had lost 
 the character of stolen money before it was turned 
 over to the defendant, and that Miller's story being 
 that of an accomplice required absolute corrobora- 
 tion in every detail. 
 
 The point that Ammon was acting only as a law- 
 yer was quickly disposed of by Judge Newburger. 
 
 "Something has been said by counsel," he re- 
 marked in his charge to the jury, "to the effect 
 that the defendant, as a lawyer, had a perfect right 
 to advise Miller, but I know of no rule of law that 
 will permit counsel to advise how a crime can be 
 committed." 
 
 As to the identity of the money, the Court 
 182 
 
The Franklin Syndicate 
 
 charged that it made no difference which person 
 performed the physical act of placing the cash in 
 the hands of the receiving teller of the bank, so 
 long as it was deposited to Ammon's credit. 
 
 On the question of what corroboration of Mil- 
 ler's story was necessary, Judge Ingraham, in the 
 Appellate Division, expressed great doubt as to 
 whether in the eyes of the law Miller, the thief, 
 could be regarded as an accomplice of Ammon in 
 receiving the stolen money at all, and stated that 
 even if he could be so regarded, there was more 
 than abundant corroboration of his testimony. 
 
 Ammon's conviction was affirmed throughout 
 the courts, including the Court of Appeals, and the 
 defendant himself is now engaged in serving out 
 his necessarily inadequate sentence necessarily 
 inadequate, since under the laws of the State of 
 New York, the receiver of stolen goods, however 
 great his moral obliquity may be, and however 
 great the amount stolen, can only receive half the 
 punishment which may be meted out to the thief 
 himself, "receiving" being punishable by only five 
 years or less in State's prison, while grand larceny 
 is punishable by ten years. 
 
 Yet who was the greater criminal the weak, 
 ignorant, poverty-stricken clerk, or the shrewd, ex- 
 perienced lawyer who preyed upon his client and 
 through him upon the community at large ? 
 
 183 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 The confession of Miller, in the face of what the 
 consequences of his course might mean to his wife 
 and child, was an act of moral courage. The price 
 he had to pay is known to himself alone. But the 
 horrors of life in prison for the "squealer" were 
 thoroughly familiar to him when he elected to do 
 what he could to atone for his crime. In fact 
 Ammon had not neglected to picture them vividly 
 to him and to stigmatize an erstwhile client of 
 his. 
 
 " Everything looks good," he wrote to Miller in 
 Sing Sing, in reporting the affirmance of Goslin's 
 conviction, " especially since the squealer is getting 
 his just deserts." 
 
 With no certain knowledge of a future pardon 
 Miller went back to prison cheerfully to face all 
 the nameless tortures inflicted upon those who 
 help the State the absolute black silence of con- 
 vict excommunication, the blows and kicks inflicted 
 without opportunity for retaliation or complaint, 
 the hostility of guards and keepers, the suffering of 
 abject poverty, keener in a prison house than on 
 any other foot of earth. 
 
 It is interesting to observe that Miller's original- 
 purpose had been to secure money to speculate 
 with for he had been bitten deep by the tarantula 
 of Wall Street, and his early experiences had led 
 him to believe that he could beat the market if 
 
 184 
 
The Franklin Syndicate 
 
 only he had sufficient margin. This margin he set 
 out to secure. Then when he saw how easy it was 
 to get money for the asking, he dropped the idea of 
 speculation and simply became a banker. He did 
 make one bona-fide attempt, but the stock went 
 down, he sold out and netted a small loss. Had 
 Miller actually continued to speculate it is doubtful 
 whether he could have been convicted for any 
 crime, since it was for that purpose that the money 
 was entrusted to him. He might have lost it all in 
 the Street and gone scot free. As it was, in failing 
 to gamble with it, he became guilty of embezzle- 
 ment. 
 
 Ammon arrived in Sing Sing with a degree of 
 eclat. He found numerous old friends and clients 
 among the inmates. He brought a social position 
 which had its value. Money, too, is no less desir- 
 able there than elsewhere, and Ammon had plenty 
 of it. 
 
 In due course, but not until he had served more 
 than half his sentence (less commutation), Miller 
 a broken man, received his pardon, and went back 
 to his wife and child. When Governor Higgins 
 performed this act of executive clemency, many 
 honest folk in Brooklyn and elsewhere loudly 
 expressed their indignation. District Attorney 
 Jerome did not escape their blame. Was this 
 contemptible thief, this meanest of all mean swin- 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 dlers, who had stolen hundreds of thousands to be 
 turned loose on the community before he had 
 served half his sentence? It was an outrage! A 
 disgrace to civilization ! Reader, how say you ? 
 
 186 
 
A STUDY IN FINANCE 
 
 187 
 
VII 
 
 A Study in Finance 
 
 " He that maketh haste to be rich shall not be innocent." 
 
 PROVERBS 28 : 20. 
 
 THE victim of moral overstrain is the central 
 figure in many novels and countless maga- 
 zine stories. In most of them he finally repents 
 him fully of his sins past and returns to his former 
 or to some equally desirable position, to lead a new 
 and better life. The dangers and temptations of the 
 "Street" are, however, too real and terrible to be 
 studied other than in actuality, and the fall of 
 hundreds of previously honest young men owing 
 to easily remedied conditions should teach its 
 lesson, not only to their comrades, but to their 
 employers as well. The ball and chain, quite as 
 often as repentance and forgiveness, ends their 
 experience. 
 
 No young man takes a position in a banking- 
 house with the deliberate intention of becoming an 
 embezzler. He knows precisely, as well as does the 
 reader, that if he listens to the whisper of tempta- 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 tion he is lost and so does his employer. Yet the 
 employer, who would hold himself remiss if he 
 allowed his little boy to have the run of the jam- 
 closet and then discovered that the latter' s lips 
 bore evidence of petty larceny, or would regard 
 himself as almost criminally negligent if he placed 
 a priceless pearl necklace where an ignorant chim- 
 ney-sweep might fall under the hypnotism of its 
 shimmer, will calmly allow a condition of things in 
 his own brokerage or banking office where a fifteen- 
 dollars-a-week clerk may have free access to a 
 million dollars' worth of negotiable securities, and 
 even encourage the latter by occasional "sure" 
 tips to take a flyer in the market. 
 
 It is a deplorable fact that the officers of certain 
 companies occasionally "unload" undesirable se- 
 curities upon their employees, and, in order to boom 
 or create a "movement" in a certain stock, will 
 induce the persons under their control to purchase 
 it. It would be a rare case in which a clerk who 
 valued his situation would refuse to take a few 
 shares in an enterprise which the head of the firm 
 was fathering. Of course, such occurrences are 
 the exceptions, but there are plenty of houses not 
 far from Wall Street where the partners know that 
 their clerks and messengers are "playing the 
 market," and exert not the slightest influence to 
 stop them. When these men find that they and 
 
 190 
 
A Study in Finance 
 
 their customers, and not the clerks and messen- 
 gers, are paying the loss accounts of the latter, they 
 are very much distressed, and tell the District 
 Attorney, with regret, that only by sending such 
 wicked and treacherous persons to State's prison 
 can similar dishonesty be prevented. 
 
 Not long ago the writer became acquainted with 
 a young man who, as loan clerk in a trust com- 
 pany, had misappropriated a large amount of se- 
 curities and had pleaded guilty to the crime of 
 grand larceny in the first degree. He was awaiting 
 sentence, and in connection therewith it became 
 necessary to examine into the conditions prevail- 
 ing generally in the financial district. His story is 
 already public property, for the case attracted 
 wide attention in the daily press; but, inasmuch 
 as the writer's object is to point a moral rather 
 than adorn a tale, the culprit's name and the name 
 of the company with which he was connected need 
 not be given. 
 
 He is now serving a term in State's prison and is, 
 the writer believes, sincerely repentant and deter- 
 mined to make a man of himself upon his release. 
 For present purposes let him be called John Smith. 
 He was born in New York City, in surroundings 
 rather better than the average. His family were 
 persons of good education and his home was a com- 
 fortable and happy one. From childhood he re- 
 
 191 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 ceived thorough religious instruction and was al- 
 ways a straightforward, honest and obedient boy. 
 His father, having concluded from observation 
 that the shortest route to success lay in financial 
 enterprise, secured a place in a broker's office for 
 his son after the latter's graduation from the high 
 school. John began at the bottom and gradually 
 worked up to the position of assistant loan clerk in 
 a big trust company. This took fifteen years of 
 hard work. 
 
 From the day that he started in filling inkwells 
 and cleaning out ticker baskets, he saw fortunes 
 made and lost in a twinkling. He learned that 
 the chief business of a broker is acting as go- 
 between for persons who are trying to sell what 
 they do not own to others who have not the money 
 to pay for what they buy. And he saw hundreds of 
 such persons grow rich on these fictitious transac- 
 tions. He also saw others "wiped out," but they 
 cheerfully went through bankruptcy and began 
 again, many of them achieving wealth on their 
 second or third attempt. He was earning five dol- 
 lars a week and getting his lunch at a " vegetarian 
 health restaurant" for fifteen cents. The broker, 
 for whom he ran errands, gave away thirty-five- 
 cent cigars to his customers and had an elaborate 
 luncheon served in the office daily to a dozen or 
 more of the elect. John knew one boy of about his 
 
 192 
 
A Study in Finance 
 
 own age, who, having made a successful turn, be- 
 gan as a trader and cleaned up a hundred thousand 
 dollars in a rising market the first year. That was 
 better than the cleaning up John was used to. 
 But he was a sensible boy and had made up his 
 mind to succeed in a legitimate fashion. Gradu- 
 ally he saved a few hundred dollars and, acting on 
 the knowledge he had gained in his business, 
 bought two or three shares in a security which 
 quickly advanced in value and almost doubled his 
 money. The next time as well fortune favored 
 him, and he soon had a comfortable nest-egg- 
 enough to warrant his feeling reasonably secure 
 in the event of accident or sickness. 
 
 He had worked faithfully, had given great satis- 
 faction to his employers, and presently had a cleri- 
 cal position in a prominent trust company offered 
 to him. It seemed an advance. The salary was 
 larger, even if absurdly small, and he gladly ac- 
 cepted the place. 
 
 Shortly after this he had his first experience in 
 real finance. The president of the company sent 
 for him the reader will remember that this is a 
 true story and the boy entered his private office 
 and came into the august presence of the magnate. 
 This man is to-day what is commonly known as a 
 "power" in Wall Street. 
 
 "My boy," said the president, "you have been 
 193 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 doing very well. I have noticed the excellence of 
 your work. I want to commend you." 
 
 "Thank you, sir," said John modestly, expect- 
 ing to hear that his salary was to be raised. 
 
 "Yes," continued the great man. "And I want 
 you to have an interest in the business." 
 
 The blood rushed to John's head and face. 
 
 "Thank you very much," he gasped. 
 
 " I have allotted you five shares in the trust com- 
 pany," said the president. "If you take them up 
 and carry them you will feel that you have a real 
 connection with the house and it will net you a 
 handsome return. Have you any money ?" 
 
 It so happened that at this time John's savings 
 were invested in a few bonds of an old and con- 
 servatively managed railroad. His heart fell. He 
 didn't want to buy any bank stock. 
 
 "No," he answered. "My salary is small 
 enough and I need it all. I don't save any money." 
 
 "Oh, well," said the magnate, "I will try and 
 fix it up for you. I will arrange for a loan with the 
 
 Bank on the stock. Remember, I'm doing 
 
 this to help you. That is all. You may go back 
 to your books." 
 
 Next day John was informed that he had bought 
 
 five shares of Trust Company stock in the 
 
 neighborhood of three hundred, and he signed a 
 note for one thousand four hundred and twenty- 
 
 194 
 
A Study in Finance 
 
 five dollars, and indorsed the stock over to the 
 bank from which the money had been borrowed 
 for him. The stock almost immediately dropped 
 over fifty points. John paid the interest on the 
 note out of his salary, and the dividends, as fast 
 as they were declared, went to extinguish the body 
 of the loan. Some time afterward he learned that 
 he had bought the stock from the magnate him- 
 self. He never received any benefit from it, for 
 the stock was sold to cover the note, and John was 
 obliged to make up the difference. He also dis- 
 covered that ten or fifteen other employees had 
 been given a similar opportunity by their gener- 
 ous employer at about the same time. John, in 
 prison, says it was a scheme to keep fifty or a hun- 
 dred shares where it could easily be controlled by 
 the president, without risk to himself, in case of 
 need. Of course, he may be wrong. At any rate, 
 he feels bitterly now toward the big men who are 
 at large while he is in jail. 
 
 John continued to keep up with the acquaint- 
 ances formed during his years in the broker's 
 office, many of whom had started littfe businesses 
 of their own and had done well. Part of their 
 stock-in-trade was to appear prosperous and they 
 took John out to lunch, and told him what a fine 
 fellow he was, and gave him sure tips. But John 
 had grown "wise." He had had all the chances 
 
 195 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 of that sort he wanted, and from a bigger man 
 than any of them. He ate their lunches and in- 
 vited them in return. Then he economized for a 
 day or two to even up. He was not prosperous 
 himself, but he did not accept favors without re- 
 paying them. 
 
 One thing he observed and noted carefully 
 every man he knew who had begun a brokerage 
 business and kept sober, who attended to business 
 and did not speculate, made money and plenty of it. 
 He knew one young firm which cleared up fifteen 
 thousand in commissions at the end of the second 
 year. That looked good to him, and he knew, 
 besides, that he was sober and attended to busi- 
 ness. He made inquiries and learned that one 
 could start in, if one were modest in one's preten- 
 sions, for two thousand five hundred dollars. 
 That would pay office rent and keep things going 
 until the commissions began to come in. He 
 started to look around for some other young man 
 who could put up the money in consideration of 
 John's contributing the experience. But all the 
 men he knew had experience without money. 
 
 Then by chance he met a young fellow of bright 
 and agreeable personality whom we shall call 
 Prescott. The latter was five or six years older 
 than John, had had a large experience in broker- 
 age houses in another city, and had come to New 
 
 196 
 
A Study in Finance 
 
 York to promote the interests of a certain copper 
 company. John had progressed and was now 
 assistant loan clerk of one of the biggest trust com- 
 panies in the city, which also happened to be trans- 
 fer agent for the copper company. Thus John 
 had constantly to handle its certificates. Prescott 
 said it was a wonderful thing that some of the 
 keenest men in the Street were in it, and, although 
 it was a curb stock, strongly advised his new friend 
 to buy all he could of it. He assured John that, 
 although he was admittedly interested in booming 
 the stock, he was confident that before long it 
 would sell at four times its present quotation. 
 
 Meantime the stock, which had been listed at 
 2j, began to go rapidly up. Word went around 
 the trust company that it was a great purchase 
 anywhere below 10, and John, as well as the 
 other boys employed in the company, got together 
 what money he could and began to buy it. It con- 
 tinued to go up they had unconsciously assisted 
 it in its ascent and they bought more. John 
 purchased seventy-five shares all the way up to 
 8 and 9. One of his friends took eight hundred. 
 Then it dropped out of sight. They hadn't time to 
 get out, and John, in prison, has his yet. But he 
 still had faith in Prescott, for he liked him and be- 
 lieved in his business capacity. 
 
 The stock "operation" over, Prescott began to 
 197 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 prospect for something new, and suggested to 
 John that they form a brokerage house under the 
 latter's name. John was to be president at "a 
 fixed salary." It sounded very grand. His duties 
 at the trust company began to seem picayune. 
 Moreover, his loss in copper had depressed him 
 and he wanted to recoup, if he could. But how to 
 get the two thousand five hundred dollars neces- 
 sary to start in business ? Prescott pleaded pov- 
 erty, yet talked constantly of the ease with which 
 a fortune might be made if they could only once 
 "get in right." It was a period of increased divi- 
 dends, of stock-jobbing operations of enormous 
 magnitude, of " fifty-point movements," when the 
 lucky purchaser of only a hundred shares of some 
 inconspicuous railroad sometimes found that he 
 could sell out next week with five thousand dollars' 
 profit. The air seemed full of money. It ap- 
 peared to rain banknotes and stock certificates. 
 
 In the "loan cage" at the trust company John 
 handled daily millions in securities, a great part of 
 which were negotiable. When almost everybody 
 was so rich he wondered why any one remained 
 poor. Two or three men of his own age gave up 
 their jobs in other concerns and became traders, 
 while another opened an office of his own. John 
 was told that they had acted on "good informa- 
 tion," had bought a few hundred shares of Union 
 
 198 
 
A Study in Finance 
 
 Pacific, and were now comfortably fixed. He 
 would have been glad to buy, but copper had left 
 him without anything to buy with. 
 
 One day Prescott took him out to lunch and 
 confided to him that one of the big speculators had 
 tipped him off to buy cotton, since there was going 
 to be a failure in the crop. It was practically a 
 sure thing. Two thousand dollars' margin would 
 buy enough cotton to start them in business, even 
 if the rise was only a very small one. 
 
 "Why don't you borrow a couple of bonds?" 
 asked Prescott. 
 
 "Borrow from whom ?" inquired John. 
 
 "Why, from some customer of the trust com- 
 pany." 
 
 "No one would lend them to me," answered 
 John. 
 
 "Well, borrow them, anyhow. They would 
 never know about it, and you could put them back 
 as soon as we closed the account," suggested 
 Prescott. 
 
 John was shocked, and said so. 
 
 "You are easy," said his comrade. "Don't you 
 know that the trust companies do it themselves all 
 the time ? The presidents of the railroads use 
 the holdings of their companies as collateral. 
 Even the banks use their deposits for trading. 
 
 Didn't old dump a lot of rotten stuff on you ? 
 
 199 
 
True Stones of Crime 
 
 Why don't you get even ? Let me tell you some- 
 thing. Fully one-half of the men who are now 
 successful financiers got their start by putting up 
 as margin securities deposited with them. No one 
 ever knew the difference, and now they are on 
 their feet. If you took two bonds overnight you 
 might put them back in the morning. Every one 
 does it. It's part of the game." 
 
 "But suppose we lost?" asked John. 
 
 "You can't," said Prescott. "Cotton is sure to 
 go up. It's throwing away the chance of your 
 life." 
 
 John said he couldn't do such a thing, but when 
 he returned to the office the cashier told him that 
 a merger had been planned between their company 
 and another a larger one. John knew what that 
 meant well enough half the clerks would lose 
 their positions. He was getting thirty-five dollars 
 a week, had married a young wife, and, as he had 
 told the magnate, he "needed it all." That night 
 as he put the securities from the "loan cage" back 
 in the vault the bonds burned his fingers. They 
 were lying around loose, no good to anybody, and 
 only two of them, overnight maybe, would make 
 him independent of salaries and mergers a free 
 man and his own master. 
 
 The vault was in the basement just below the 
 loan cage. It was some twenty feet long and ten 
 
 200 
 
A Study in Finance 
 
 wide. There were three tiers of boxes with double 
 combination doors. In the extreme left-hand 
 corner was the "loan box." Near it were two 
 other boxes in which the securities of certain cus- 
 tomers on deposit were kept. John had individual 
 access to the loan box and the two others one of 
 which contained the collateral which secured loans 
 that were practically permanent. He thus had 
 within his control negotiable bonds of over a mil- 
 lion dollars in value. The securities were in piles, 
 strapped with rubber bands, and bore slips on 
 which were written the names of the owners. 
 Every morning John carried up all these piles to 
 the loan cage except the securities on deposit. 
 At the end of the day he carried all back himself 
 and tossed them into the boxes. When the interest 
 coupons on the deposited bonds had to be cut he 
 carried these, also, upstairs. At night the vault 
 was secured by two doors, one with a combination 
 lock and the other with a time lock. It was as safe 
 as human ingenuity could make it. By day it had 
 only a steel-wire gate which could be opened with 
 a key. No attendant was stationed at the door. 
 If John wanted to get in, all he had to do was to 
 ask the person who had the key to open it. The 
 reason John had the combination to these different 
 boxes was in order to save the loan clerk the trouble 
 of going downstairs to get the collateral himself. 
 
 201 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 Next day when John went out to lunch he put 
 two bonds belonging to a -customer in his pocket. 
 He did not intend to steal them or even to borrow 
 them. It was done almost automatically. His will 
 seemed subjugated to the idea that they were to 
 all intents and purposes his bonds to do as he liked 
 with. He wanted the feeling of bonds-in-his- 
 pocket. As he walked along the street to the res- 
 taurant, it seemed quite natural that they should be 
 there. They were nearly as safe with him as lying 
 around loose in the cage or chucked into a box in 
 the vault. Prescott joined him, full of his new 
 idea that cotton was going to jump overnight. 
 
 "If you only had a couple of bonds," he sighed. 
 
 Then somehow John's legs and arms grew weak. 
 He seemed to disintegrate internally. He tried to 
 pull himself together, but he had lost control of his 
 muscles. He became a dual personality. His own 
 John heard Prescott's John say quite naturally: 
 
 " I can let you have two bonds, but mind we get 
 them back to-morrow, or anyhow the day after." 
 
 John's John felt the other John slip the two 
 American Navigation 45 under the table and Pres- 
 cott's fingers close upon them. Then came a 
 period of hypnotic paralysis. The flywheel of his 
 will-power hung on a dead centre. Almost in- 
 stantly he became himself again. 
 
 "Give 'em back," he whispered hoarsely. "I 
 
 202 
 
A Study in Finance 
 
 didn't mean you should keep them," and he 
 reached anxiously across the table. But Prescott 
 was on his feet, half-way toward the door. 
 
 "Don't be a fool, Smith," he laughed. "What's 
 the matter with you ? It's a cinch. Go back and 
 forget it." He shot out of the door and down the 
 street. 
 
 John followed, dazed and trembling with horror 
 at what he had done. He went back to the cage 
 and remained the rest of the day in terror lest the 
 broker who owned the two bonds should pay off 
 his loan. But at the same time he had quickly 
 made up his mind what he should do in that event. 
 There was more than one loan secured by American 
 Navigation 45. He loosened a couple in one of the 
 other piles. If the first broker came in he would 
 take two bonds from one of these. But the broker 
 did not come in. 
 
 That night John wandered the streets till nearly 
 daylight. He saw himself arrested, ruined, in 
 prison. Utterly fagged next morning, he called up 
 Prescott on the telephone and begged him to re- 
 turn the bonds. Prescott laughed at his fears and 
 assured him that everything was all right. Cotton 
 was sure to go up. An hour later the broker who 
 owned the bonds came in and took up his loan, and 
 John removed two American Navigation 45 from 
 another bundle and handed them to the loan clerk. 
 
 203 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 Of course, the numbers on the bonds were not the 
 same, but few persons would notice a little thing 
 like that, even if they kept a record of it. They 
 had the bonds that was the main thing. 
 
 Once more John rushed to the 'phone, told 
 Prescott what had occurred and besought him for 
 the bonds. 
 
 "It's too late now," growled Prescott. "Cotton 
 has gone down. I could only get one back at the 
 most. We had better stand pat and get out on the 
 next bulge." 
 
 John was by this time almost hysterical. The 
 perspiration broke out on his forehead every now 
 and then, and he shuddered as he counted his se- 
 curities and entered up his figures. If cotton 
 should go down some more! That was the hide- 
 ous possibility. They would have to put up more 
 margin, and then ! 
 
 Down in the vault where the depositors' bonds 
 were kept were two piles of Overland 45. One 
 contained about two hundred and the other nearly 
 six hundred bonds. The par value of these nego- 
 tiable securities alone was nearly eight hundred 
 thousand dollars. Twice a year John cut the cou- 
 pons off of them. Each pile was marked with the 
 owner's name. They were never called for, and it 
 appeared that these customers intended to keep 
 them there permanently. John, realizing that the 
 
 204 
 
A Study in Finance 
 
 chances of detection were smaller, removed two 
 bonds from the pile of two hundred Overlands and 
 substituted them with Prescott for the two Navi- 
 gation 45. 
 
 Then cotton went down with a slump. Pres- 
 cott did not wait even to telephone. He came him- 
 self to the trust company and told John that they 
 needed two more bonds for additional margin to 
 protect their loan. But he said it was merely tem- 
 porary, and that they had better even up by buy- 
 ing some more cotton. John went down into the 
 vault and came back with four more Overland 45 
 bonds under his coat. He was in for it now and 
 might as well be hung for a sheep as for a lamb. 
 He was beginning to get used to the idea of being 
 a thief. He was, to be sure, wretchedly unhappy, 
 but he was experiencing the excitement of trying 
 to dodge Fate until Fortune looked his way. Cot- 
 ton still went down. It never occurred to him 
 that Prescott perhaps had not bought all the cot- 
 ton. Now that he is in prison he thinks maybe 
 Prescott didn't. But he kept going down into the 
 vault and bringing up more bonds, and, getting 
 reckless, bought more cotton quantities of it. In 
 a month sixty bonds were gone from the pile of 
 two hundred. John, a nervous wreck, almost 
 laughed, grimly, at the joke of his being short 
 sixty bonds! 
 
 205 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 At home they thought he was getting run down. 
 
 His wife ! He was so kind and thoughtful 
 
 that she had never been so happy. It made her 
 fearful that he had some fatal disease and knew he 
 was going to die. Up at the bank John made a 
 separate bundle of sixty bonds out of the pile of 
 six hundred so that he could substitute them for 
 those first taken if the owner called for them. It 
 was not likely that both owners would call for 
 their bonds on the same day, so that he was prac- 
 tically safe until one or the other had withdrawn 
 his deposit. 
 
 About this time the special accountants came 
 around to make their annual investigation. It was 
 apparently done in the regular and usual way. One 
 examiner stood inside the vault and another out- 
 side, surrounded by four or five assistants. They 
 "investigated" the loans. John brought them out 
 in armfuls and the accountants checked them off 
 and sent them back. When John brought out the 
 one hundred and forty bonds left in the bundle of 
 two hundred Overland 45 he placed on top of 
 them the pile of sixty bonds taken from the other 
 bundle of six hundred. Then he took them 
 back, shifted over the sixty and brought out the 
 bundle of six hundred Overland 45 made up in 
 part of the same bonds. It was the easiest thing 
 going. The experts simply counted the sixty 
 
 206 
 
 

 A Study in Finance 
 
 bonds twice and John had the sixty bonds (or 
 Prescott had them) down the street. Later the 
 same firm of "experts" certified to the presence of 
 three hundred thousand dollars of missing bonds, 
 counting the same bundle, not only twice, but 
 five and six times! You see, Prescott's John had 
 grown wise in his generation. 
 
 After that he felt reasonably secure. It did 
 seem almost unbelievable that such a situation 
 could exist, but it was, nevertheless, a fact that it 
 did. He expected momentarily that his theft 
 would be detected and that he would be thrown 
 into prison, and the fear of the actual arrest, the 
 moment of public ignominy, the shock and agony 
 of his wife and family, were what drove him sleep- 
 less into the streets, and every evening to the 
 theatres to try to forget what must inevitably come; 
 but the fact that he had "gone wrong," that he 
 was a thief, that he had betrayed his trust, had 
 lost its edge. He now thought no more of shoving 
 a package of bonds into his overcoat pocket than 
 he did of taking that garment down from its peg 
 behind the door. He knew from inquiry that men 
 who stole a few hundred dollars, and were caught, 
 usually got as long a term as those who stole thou- 
 sands. If he stole one bond he was just as likely 
 to get ten years in State's prison as if he stole 
 fifty so he stole fifty, and when they were wiped 
 
 207 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 out he stole fifty more and, well, if the reader is 
 interested he will learn before the end of the story 
 just what John did steal. 
 
 Somehow, Prescott' s speculations never suc- 
 ceeded. Occasionally they would make a good 
 turn and get a few bonds back, but the next week 
 there would be a new fiasco, and John would have 
 to visit the Overland 45 again. That performance 
 of the accountants had given him a huge contempt 
 for bankers and banking. He knew that if he 
 wanted to he could grab up a million any day and 
 walk off with it, but he didn't want to. All he de- 
 sired now was to get back to where he was before. 
 All the speculation was in the hands of Prescott, 
 and Prescott never seemed worried in the least. 
 He called on John almost daily for what extra 
 bonds were needed as additional collateral, and 
 John took his word absolutely as to the result of 
 the transactions. He could not do otherwise, for 
 one word from Prescott would have ruined him. 
 
 Before long the pile of two hundred Overland 
 45 was gone. So was a large quantity of other se- 
 curities, for John and Prescott had dropped cot- 
 ton and gone plunging into the stock market. 
 Here, however, they had no better success than 
 before. Of course, a difficulty arose when the 
 interest on the Overland 45 came due. The 
 coupons had to be cut by some one in the bank, 
 
 208 
 

 A Study in Finance 
 
 and although John usually cut them he did not 
 always do so. Sometimes the loan clerk himself 
 would take a hand, and call for a particular lot of 
 bonds. John, however, was now fertile in de- 
 vices. The owner of the larger pile of six hundred 
 bonds usually wrote to have his coupons cut about 
 the twenty-seventh of April. John would make up 
 a collection of six hundred bonds of the same sort, 
 carry them up and cut the coupons in the loan 
 cage. The other man generally sent in a draft for 
 his interest on the second or third of May. But 
 now the bonds were away, scattered all over the 
 Street. So John started a new operation to get the 
 bonds back and straighten out the coupon tangle. 
 He substituted with the brokers an equal number 
 of bonds of other companies, the interest upon 
 which was not yet due. There was a large block 
 of Electric 55 and Cumberland 45 which served his 
 purpose admirably, and thus he kept up with the 
 game. When the coupons became due on the 
 latter he carried back the first. It kept him and 
 Prescott busy most of the time juggling securities 
 at least John knew he was kept busy, and Pres- 
 cott claimed to be equally so. 
 
 There were many loans of brokers and others 
 all secured by the same sort of collateral. Most of 
 these John appropriated. When it was necessary 
 to check off the loans, John, having retained 
 
 209 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 enough of the same kind of bonds to cover the 
 largest loan, would bring up the same bundle time 
 after time with a different name upon it. If one 
 of the customers wanted to pay off a loan and his 
 bonds were gone he would be given some one 
 else's collateral. Apparently the only thing that 
 was necessary was to have enough of each kind of 
 security on hand to cover the largest loan on the 
 books at any given time. 
 
 Once, when the examiners were at work on the 
 vault, John had to make up one hundred thousand 
 dollars in Overland 45 or 55 from the different small 
 loans in the loan vault and put them in a package 
 in the deposit vault in order to make it appear that 
 certain depositors' bonds were all there. 
 
 The most extraordinary performance of all was 
 when, upon one of the annual examinations, John 
 covered the absence of over fifty bonds in the col- 
 lateral covering a certain loan by merely shoving 
 the balance of the securities into the back of the 
 vault, so that it was not examined at all. He had 
 taken these bonds to substitute for others in dif- 
 ferent brokers' offices, and it so happened that there 
 were no similar securities in the building; thus the 
 deficiency could not be covered up even by John's 
 expert sleight of hand. Of course, if there had 
 been other bonds of the same kind in another vault 
 it would have been a simple matter to substitute 
 
 210 
 
A Study in Finance 
 
 them. But there were not. So John pushed the 
 remaining one hundred and fifty bonds into a dark 
 corner of the vault and awaited the discovery with 
 throbbing pulses. Yet, strange to relate, these 
 watchdogs of finance, did not see the bonds which 
 John had hidden, and did not discover that any- 
 thing was wrong, since, for purposes of its own, 
 the bank had neglected to make any record of the 
 loan in question. It would really have been safer 
 for John if he had taken the whole pile, but then 
 he did not know that the accountants were going 
 to do their business in any such crazy fashion. 
 The whole thing came to seem a sort of joke to 
 John. He never took any bonds for his own per- 
 sonal use. He gave everything to Prescott, and 
 he rarely, if ever, saw Prescott except to hand him 
 securities. 
 
 One day Prescott walked right into the bank 
 itself and John gave him one hundred and sixty- 
 five bonds, which he stuffed under his overcoat 
 and carried away. Remember that this is a fact. 
 
 The thing, which began in August, 1905, dragged 
 over through the following year and on into 1907. 
 John weathered two examinations by the ac- 
 countants, the last being in October, 1906, when 
 they certified that the company was absolutely 
 "O. K." and everything intact. On that par- 
 ticular day John had over three hundred thousand 
 
 211 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 dollars in Overland 45 and $s scattered over the 
 Street. 
 
 In the first six months they lost one hundred 
 thousand dollars in cotton. Then they played 
 both sides of the market in stocks and got badly 
 bitten as bears in the temporary bull market in 
 the autumn of 1906, selling Union Pacific at 165, 
 which afterward went to 190, Northern Pacific at 
 185, which went to 200, etc., etc. Then they shifted 
 their position, became bulls and went long of stock 
 just at the beginning of the present slump. They 
 bought Reading at n 8, American Smelters at 126, 
 Pennsylvania at 130, Union at 145, and Northern 
 Pacific at 180. At one time John had five hundred 
 and fifty thousand dollars in bonds out of the 
 vaults. 
 
 The thing might have been going on still had it 
 not been for the fact that the anticipated merger 
 between John's company and another was put 
 through and a new vault in a new building pre- 
 pared to receive the securities. Of course, on such 
 an occasion a complete examination would be made 
 of all the securities and there would be practically 
 no chance to deceive the accountants. Moreover, 
 a part of the securities had actually been moved 
 when the worst slump came and they needed more. 
 It was obvious that the jig was up. A few more 
 days and John knew that the gyves would be upon 
 
 212 
 

 A Study in Finance 
 
 his wrists. Prescott and he took an account of the 
 stock they had lost and went into committee on 
 ways and means. Neither had any desire to run 
 away. Wall Street was the breath of life to them. 
 Prescott said that the best thing to do was to take 
 enough more to "stand off" the company. He 
 cited a case in Boston, where a clerk who was 
 badly "in" was advised by his lawyer to take a 
 hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars more. 
 Then the lawyer dickered with the bank and 
 brought it to terms. The lawyer got twenty-five 
 thousand dollars, the bank got the rest, and the 
 thief was let go. Prescott said they ought to get 
 away with enough more to make the bank's loss a 
 million. He thought that would make them see 
 what was the wise thing to do. Prescott also said 
 he would try to get a lawyer who could bring some 
 pressure to bear on the officials of the company. 
 It would be a rather unpleasant situation to have 
 brought to the attention of the State Superintend- 
 ent of Banking. John agreed to get the additional 
 securities and turn them over to Prescott. Un- 
 fortunately, almost everything had by this time 
 been moved into the new vault, and all John could 
 get was a stock certificate for fifteen hundred rail- 
 road shares, standing in his own name, and seven- 
 ty-five thousand dollars in notes. These he gave 
 to Prescott, thus increasing the amount stolen from 
 
 213 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 the bank without discovery to between six and 
 seven hundred thousand dollars. This was on the 
 day before the actuaries were to make their inves- 
 tigation. Knowing that his arrest was now only a 
 question of time, John, about eleven o'clock on the 
 following morning, left the trust company for the 
 last time. He was in telephonic communication 
 with Prescott, who, in turn, was in touch with 
 their lawyer. Unfortunately, the president of the 
 company had gone out of town over Sunday, so 
 that again their plans went awry. 
 
 For nearly two years John had not known an 
 hour devoid of haunting fear. From a cheerful 
 and contented youth he had become despondent, 
 taciturn and nervous. He was the same affection- 
 ate husband and attentive son as before, and his 
 general characteristics remained precisely the 
 same. He was scrupulous to a penny in every 
 other department of his life, and undoubtedly 
 would have felt the same pricks of conscience had 
 he been guilty of any other act of dishonesty. The 
 affair at the bank was a thing apart. The embez- 
 zler of six hundred thousand dollars was not John 
 at all, but a separate personality wearing John's 
 clothes and bearing his name. He perceived 
 clearly the enormity of his offense, but, because he 
 was the same John in every other respect, he had 
 a feeling that somehow the fact that he had done 
 
 214 
 
A Study in Finance 
 
 the thing was purely fortuitous in other words, 
 that the bonds had to be taken, were going to be 
 taken anyway, and that -Fate had simply elected 
 him to take them. Surely he had not wanted the 
 bonds had had no intention of stealing half a 
 million dollars, and, in short, was not the kind of 
 a man who would steal half a million dollars. 
 Each night he tossed, sleepless, till the light stole 
 in through the shutters. At every corner on his 
 way uptown he glanced over his shoulder behind 
 him. The front doorbell never rang that his mus- 
 cles did not become rigid and his heart almost stop 
 beating. If he went to a theatre or upon an excur- 
 sion he passed the time wondering if the next day 
 he would still be a free man. In short, he paid in 
 full in physical misery and mental anxiety and 
 wretchedness for the real moral obliquity of his 
 crime. The knowledge of this maddened him for 
 what was coming. Yet he realized that he had 
 stolen half a million dollars, and that justice de- 
 manded that he should be punished for it. 
 
 After leaving the bank John called up Prescott 
 and learned that the plan to adjust matters with 
 the president had miscarried by reason of the lat- 
 ter's absence. The two then met in a saloon, and 
 here it was arranged that John should call up the 
 loan clerk and tell him that something would be 
 found to be wrong at the bank, but that nothing 
 
 215 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 had better be said about it until the following 
 Monday morning, when the president would re- 
 turn. The loan clerk, however, refused to talk 
 with him and hung up the receiver. John had no- 
 where to go, for he dared not return home, and 
 spent the afternoon until six o'clock riding in 
 street cars and sitting in saloons. At that hour he 
 again communicated with Prescott, who said that 
 he had secured rooms for him and his wife at a 
 certain hotel, where they might stay until matters 
 could be fixed up. John arranged to meet his wife 
 at Forty-second Street with Prescott and conduct 
 her to the hotel. As Fate decreed, the loan clerk 
 came out of the subway at precisely the same time, 
 saw them together and followed them. Meantime 
 a hurry call had been sent for the president, who 
 had returned to the city. John, fully aware that 
 the end had come, went to bed at the hotel, and, 
 for the first time since the day he had taken the 
 bonds two years before, slept soundly. At three 
 the next morning there came a knock at the door. 
 His wife awakened him and John opened it. As 
 he did so a policeman forced his way in, and the 
 loan clerk, who stood in the corridor just behind 
 him, exclaimed theatrically, "Officer, there is 
 your man!" 
 
 John is now in prison, serving out the sentence 
 which the court believed it necessary to inflict 
 
 216 
 
A Study in Finance 
 
 upon him as a warning to others. Prescott is also 
 serving a term at hard labor a sentence somewhat 
 longer than John's. The trust company took up 
 their accounts, 'paid the losses of the luckless pair, 
 and, owing to a rise in prices which came too late 
 to benefit the latter, escaped with the compara- 
 tively trifling loss of a little over one hundred 
 thousand dollars. At once every banking house 
 and trust company upon the Street looked to its 
 system of checks upon the honesty of its employ- 
 ees, and took precautions which should have been 
 taken long before. The story was a nine days' 
 wonder. Then Union Pacific dropped twenty 
 points more, the tide of finance closed over the 
 heads of John and Prescott, and they were for- 
 gotten. 
 
 Had the company, instead of putting itself at 
 the mercy of a thirty-five-dollar-a-week clerk, 
 placed double combinations on the loan and de- 
 posit vaults, and employed two men, one to act as 
 a check upon the other, to handle its securities, or 
 had it merely adopted the even simpler expedient 
 of requiring an officer of the company to be present 
 when any securities were to be removed from the 
 vaults, John would probably not now be in jail. 
 It would seem that it would not be a difficult or 
 complicated matter to employ a doorkeeper, who 
 did not have access himself, to stand at the door 
 
 217 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 of the vault and check off all securities removed 
 therefrom or returned thereto. An officer of the 
 bank should personally see that the loans carried 
 up to the cage in the morning were properly re- 
 turned to the vaults at night and secured with a 
 time lock. Such a precaution would not cost the 
 stockholders a tenth of one per cent, in dividends. 
 
 It is a trite saying that an ounce of prevention 
 is worth a pound of cure. But this is as true, in 
 the case of financial institutions at least, from the 
 point of view of the employe as of the company. 
 It is an ingenious expedient to insure one's self with 
 a " fidelity corporation " against the possible defal- 
 cations of one's servants, and doubtless certain 
 risks can only be covered in some such fashion. 
 These methods are eminently proper so far as they 
 go, but they, unfortunately, do not serve the public 
 purpose of protecting the weak from undue and 
 unnecessary temptation. Banks and trust com- 
 panies are prone to rely on the fact that most pecu- 
 lations are easily detected and severely punished, 
 but the public interest demands that all business, 
 State, municipal and private, should be so con- 
 ducted that dishonesty may not only be punished, 
 but prevented. 
 
 A builder who "took a chance" on the strength 
 of a girder would have small credit in his profes- 
 sion. A good bridge is one which will bear the 
 
 218 
 
A Study in Finance 
 
 strain not only of the pedestrian, but of the ele- 
 phant. A deluge or an earthquake may occur and 
 the bridge may tumble, but next time it is built 
 stronger and better. Thus science progresses and 
 the public interest is subserved. A driver who 
 overloads his beast is regarded as a fool or a brute. 
 Perhaps such names are too harsh for those who 
 overload the moral backbone of an inexperienced 
 subordinate. Surely the fault is not all on one 
 side. While there are no formulas to calculate the 
 resiliency of human character, we may demand the 
 same prudence on the part of the officers of finan- 
 cial institutions as we do from nursemaids, lum- 
 bermen and manufacturers of explosives. Though 
 we may have confidence in the rectitude of our 
 fellows, we have no right to ignore the limitations 
 and weaknesses of mankind. It would not out- 
 rage the principles of justice if one who placed 
 needless and disproportionate strain upon the 
 morals of another were himself regarded as an 
 accessory to the crime. 
 
 219 
 
THE "DUG DE NEVERS" 
 

o 
 
 VIII 
 
 The 'Due de Nevers" 
 
 "And God gives to every man 
 The virtue, temper, understanding, taste, 
 That lifts him into life, and lets him fall 
 Just in the niche he was ordained to fill." 
 
 "The Task" COWPER. 
 
 NE morning there lay on my desk a note 
 finely written in pencil and dated: 
 
 TOMBS PRISON. 
 MONSIEUR: 
 
 Will you be so gracious as to extend to the undersigned 
 the courtesy of a private interview in your office ? I 
 have a communication of the highest importance to make 
 to you. 
 
 Respectfully, 
 CHARLES JULIUS FRANCIS DE NEVERS. 
 
 Across the street in the courtyard the prisoners 
 were taking their daily exercise. Two by two they 
 marched slowly around the enclosure in the centre 
 of which a small bed of geraniums struggled 
 bravely in mortal combat with the dust and grime 
 
 223 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 of Centre Street. Some of the prisoners walked 
 with heads erect and shoulders thrown back, others 
 slouched along with their arms dangling and their 
 chins resting upon their chests. When one of them 
 failed to -keep up with the rest, a keeper, who stood 
 in the shade by a bit of ivy in a corner of the 
 wall, got after him. Somehow the note on the desk 
 did not seem to fit any one of the gentry whom I 
 could see so distinctly from my window. The 
 name, too, did not have the customary Tombs 
 sound De Nevers ? De Nevalre I repeated it 
 slowly to myself with varying accent. It seemed 
 as though I had known the name before. It 
 carried with it a suggestion of the novels of Stan- 
 ley J. Weyman, of books on old towns and the 
 chateaux and cathedrals of France. I wondered 
 who the devil Charles Julius Francis de Nevers 
 could be. 
 
 Of course, if one answered all the letters one 
 gets from the Tombs it would keep a secretary 
 busy most of the working hours of the day, and 
 if one acceded to all the various requests the pris- 
 oners make to interview them personally or to 
 see their fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, sweet- 
 hearts and wives, a prosecutor might as well 
 run an intelligence office and be done with it. 
 But as I re-read the note I began to have a sneak- 
 ing feeling of curiosity to see what Charles Julius 
 
 224 
 
The "Due de Nevers " 
 
 Francis de Nevers looked like, so I departed 
 from the usual rule of my office, rang for a mes- 
 senger and directed him to ascertain the full 
 name of the prisoner from whom the note had 
 come, the crime with which he was charged, and 
 the date of his incarceration, also to supply me at 
 once with copies of the indictment and the com- 
 plaint; then I instructed him to have De Nevers 
 brought over as soon as he could be got into shape. 
 
 I had almost forgotten that I was expecting a 
 visitor when, a couple of hours later, an undersized 
 deputy-sheriff entered my office and reported that 
 he had a prisoner in his custody for whom I had 
 sent to the Tombs. Glancing up from my desk I 
 saw standing behind his keeper a tall and distin- 
 guished-looking man in fashionably cut garments, 
 whose well shaped head and narrow face, thin 
 aquiline nose, and carefully trimmed pointed beard 
 seemed to bespeak somewhat different antece- 
 dents from those of the ordinary occupant of a cell 
 in the City Prison. I should have instinctively 
 risen from my chair and offered my aristocratic 
 looking visitor a chair had not the keeper uncon- 
 sciously brought me to a realization of my true 
 position by remarking: 
 
 "Say, Counsellor, I guess while you're talking 
 to his nibs I'll step out into the hall and take a 
 smoke." 
 
 225 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 "Certainly," said I, glad to be rid of him, "I 
 will be responsible for the er prisoner." 
 
 Then, as the keeper hesitated in putting his 
 suggestion into execution, I reached into the upper 
 right-hand drawer of my desk, produced two of 
 what are commonly known in the parlance of the 
 Criminal Courts Building as "cigars" and handed 
 them to him. 
 
 "Well," said I, after the keeper had departed 
 closing the door behind him and leaving the vis- 
 itor standing in the middle of the office, " I have 
 sent for you as you requested and shall be glad to 
 hear anything you have to say. Of course any 
 communication which you may see fit to make 
 to me is voluntary and, in the event for your 
 trial for er any crime with which you may be 
 charged, may be used against you." I had a 
 certain feeling of embarrassment in making this 
 customary declaration since the whole idea of this 
 person being a criminal was so incongruous as to 
 put a heavy strain on one's credulity. However, 
 I recalled that a certain distinguished Englishman 
 of letters has declared " that there is no essential 
 incongruity between crime and culture." He ac- 
 knowledged my remark with a slight smile of half- 
 amused deprecation and with a courteous bow 
 took the seat to which I motioned him. 
 
 "I wish to thank you," he said in excellent Eng- 
 226 
 
The 'Due de Nevers" 
 
 lish marked by the slightest possible suggestion 
 of a foreign accent, " for your exceeding courtesy 
 in responding so quickly to my request. I am 
 aware," he added, "that it is unusual for prisoners 
 to seek interviews with the what shall I say 
 juge d* instruction, as we call him, but," he added 
 with a smile, "I think you will find that mine is 
 an unusual affair." 
 
 I had already begun to think so, and reaching 
 to the upper drawer on the left-hand side of my 
 desk, I produced from the box reserved for judges, 
 prominent members of the bar, borough presi- 
 dents, commissioners of departments and distin- 
 guished foreigners, a Havana of the variety known 
 in our purlieus as a "good cigar," and tendered 
 the same to him. 
 
 "Ah," he said, "many thanks, merely non, I do 
 not smoke the cigar. M'sieu' perhaps has a 
 cigarette ? M'sieu' will pardon me if I say that 
 this is the first act of kindness which has been ac- 
 corded to me since my incarceration three weeks 
 ago." 
 
 Somewhere I found a box of cigarettes, one of 
 which he removed, gracefully holding it between 
 fingers which I noticed were singularly white and 
 delicate, and lighting it with the air of a diplomat 
 at an international conference. 
 
 (t You can hardly appreciate," he ventured, "the 
 227 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 humiliation to which I, an officer and a gentleman 
 of France, have been subjected." 
 
 I lighted the cigar which he had declined and 
 with mingled feelings of embarrassment, distrust 
 and curiosity inquired if his name Was Charles 
 Julius Francis de Nevers. I wish it were possible 
 to describe the precise look which flashed across 
 his face as he answered my question. 
 
 "That is my name," he said, "or at least rather, 
 I am Charles Julius Francis, and I am of Nevers. 
 May I speak confidentially ? Were my family to 
 be aware of my present situation they would never 
 recover from the humiliation and disgrace con- 
 nected with it." 
 
 "Certainly," said I, "anything which you may 
 tell me which you wish to be kept confidential I 
 will treat as such, provided, of course, that what 
 you tell me is the truth." 
 
 "You shall hear nothing else," he replied. 
 Then leaning back in his chair he said simply 
 and with great dignity, "I am by direct inheri- 
 tance today the Due de Nevers, my father, the 
 last duke, having died in the month of February, 
 
 1905." 
 
 Any such announcement would ordinarily have 
 filled me with amusement, but that the gentleman 
 sitting before me should declare himself to be a 
 duke or even a prince seemed entirely natural. 
 
 228 
 

 The ' * Due de Nevers " 
 
 "Indeed!" said I, unable to think of any more 
 appropriate remark. 
 
 "Yes," said De Nevers, "and M'sieu' is natu- 
 rally surprised that one of my distinguished posi- 
 tion should be now a tenant of an American jail. 
 But if M'sieu' will do me the honor of listening for 
 a few moments I will explain my present extraor- 
 dinary predicament. I am Charles Julius Francois, 
 eldest son of the late Oscar Odon, Due de Nevers, 
 Grand Commander of the Legion of Honor, and 
 Knight of the Garter. I was born in Paris in the 
 year 1860 at 148 Rue Champs Elysee; my mother, 
 the dowager duchess, is now residing at the Cha- 
 teau de Nevers in the Province of Nievre in 
 France. My sister Jeanne married Prince Henry 
 of. Aremberg, and now lives in Brussells at the 
 Palais d'Aremberg, situated at the corner of the 
 Rue de Regence near the Palais de Justice. My 
 sister Louise, the Countess of Kilkenny, is living in 
 Ireland. My sister Camille married the Marquis 
 of Londonderry and is residing in London at the 
 present time. My sister Evelyn married the Earl 
 of Dudley and is living in Dublin. I have one 
 other sister, Marie, who is with my mother. My 
 brother, Count Andre de Nevers is at present Na- 
 val Attache at Berlin. My brother Fernand is 
 an officer of artillery stationed in Madagascar, 
 and my youngest brother Marcel is also an offi- 
 
 229 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 cer of artillery attached to the 8th Regiment in 
 Nancy. I make this statement by way of intro- 
 duction in order that you may understand fully 
 my situation. During my childhood I had an 
 English tutor in Paris, and when I reached the 
 age of ten years I was sent by my father to the 
 College Louis le Grand where I took the course of 
 Science and Letters and graduated from the Lycee 
 with the degree of Bachelor on the 5th of August, 
 1877. Having passed my examination for the 
 Polytechnic I remained there two years, and on 
 my graduation received a commission as Sous- 
 Lieutenant of Engineers, and immediately entered 
 the Application School at Fontainebleau, where I 
 was graduated in 1881 as Lieutenant of Engineers 
 and assigned to the First Regiment of Engineers 
 at Versailles " 
 
 De Nevers paused and exhaled the cigarette 
 smoke. 
 
 "M'sieu' will pardon me if I go into detail for 
 only in that way will he be convinced of the accu- 
 racy of what I am telling him." 
 
 " Pray, go on,"said I. " If what you tell me is 
 true your case is extraordinary indeed." 
 
 " My first act of service," continued De Nevers, 
 "was on the loth of August when I was sent to 
 Tonkin. I will not trouble you with the details of 
 my voyage on the transport to China, but will sim- 
 
 230 
 
The " Due de Nevers ' 3 
 
 piy state that I was wounded in the engagement 
 at Yung Chuang on the yth of November of the 
 same year and had the distinction of receiving the 
 Cross of the Legion of Honor therefor. I was im- 
 mediately furloughed back to France, where I 
 entered the Superior School of War and took my 
 Staff Major brevet. At the same time I seized the 
 opportunity to follow the course of the Sorbonne 
 and secured the additional degree of Doctor of 
 Science. I had received an excellent education in 
 my youth and always had a taste for study, which 
 I have taken pains to pursue in whatever part of 
 the world I happened to be stationed. As a result 
 I am able to converse with considerable fluency in 
 English, as perhaps you have already observed, as 
 well as in Spanish, Italian, German, Russian, 
 Arabic, and, to a considerable extent, in Japanese. 
 "In 1883 I was sent to Berlin as Military At- 
 tache, but was subsequently recalled because I had 
 violated the rules of international etiquette by 
 fighting three duels with German officers. The 
 Ambassador at this time was Charles de Courcel. 
 You will understand that there was no disgrace 
 connected with my recall, but the necessity of de- 
 fending my honor was incompatible with the rules 
 of the service, and after fifteen months in Berlin I 
 was remanded to Versailles with the rank of First 
 Lieutenant, under Colonel Quinivet. Here I pur- 
 
 231 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 sued my studies and was then ordered to the Sou- 
 dan, whence, after being wounded, I was sent to 
 Senegal. Here I acted as Governor of the City of 
 St. Louis. As you are doubtless aware, the climate 
 of Senegal is exceedingly unhealthy. I fell ill with 
 a fever and was obliged to return to France where 
 I was assigned to the office of the General Staff 
 Major in Paris. At the opening of the war with 
 Dahomey in 1892, I was sent in command of the 
 Engineers of the Corps Expeditional, and on the 
 1 7th of November of that year was severely 
 wounded at Dakar in Dahomey, having received 
 a spear cut through the lungs. On this occasion I 
 had the distinction of being promoted as Major of 
 Engineers and was created an Officer of the Legion 
 of Honor on the battle field. The wound in my 
 lungs was of such a serious character that Colonel 
 Dodds sent me back once more to France on fur- 
 lough, and President Carnot was kind enough to 
 give me his personal commendation for my ser- 
 vices. 
 
 " I was now thirty-three years old and had 
 already attained high rank in my profession. I 
 had had opportunity to pursue studies in chemis- 
 try, medicine and science, and my only interest 
 was in 'the service of my country and in qualifying 
 myself for my future duties. My life up to that 
 time had been uniformly happy; I was the eldest 
 
 232 
 
The " Due de Nevers ' : 
 
 son and beloved both of my father and mother. 
 My social position gave me the entree to the best 
 of society wherever I happened to be. As yet, 
 however, I had never been in love. At this time 
 occurred the affair which in a measure changed 
 my career. The wound in my lungs was slow in 
 healing, and at the earnest invitation of my sister, 
 Lady Londonderry, I went to London. At that 
 time she was living in Belgravia Square. It was 
 here I met my first wife." 
 
 De Nevers paused. The cigarette had gone 
 out. For the first time he seemed to lose perfect 
 control of himself. I busied myself with some 
 papers until he should have regained his self pos- 
 session. 
 
 "You will understand," he said in a few moments, 
 " these things are not governed by law and statute. 
 The woman with whom I fell in love and who was 
 in every respect the equal in intellectual attain- 
 ments, beauty and charm of manner of my own 
 people, was the nursery governess in my sister's 
 household. She returned my affection and agreed 
 to marry me. The proposed marriage excited the 
 utmost antipathy on the part of my family; my 
 fiancee was dismissed from my sister's household, 
 and I returned to Paris with the intention of en- 
 deavoring by every means in my power to induce 
 my father to permit me to wed the woman I loved. 
 
 233 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 It is doubtless difficult for M'sieu' to appreciate 
 the position of a French officer. In America Ah 
 America is free, one can marry the woman one 
 loves, but in France no officer can marry without 
 the consent of the Minister of War and of the 
 President of the Republic; and more than that he 
 cannot marry unless his intended wife possesses a 
 dowry of at least fifty thousand francs which must 
 be deposited with the Minister of War for invest- 
 
 ment." 
 
 " In spite of the fact that I enjoyed the confi- 
 dence and friendship of President Carnot the lat- 
 ter, at my father's request, refused me permission 
 to marry. There was no choice left for me but to 
 resign my commission, and this I did. I returned 
 to England and was married at St. Thomas's 
 Church, London, on the 2ist of June, 1893. 
 
 " My education as an engineer had been of the 
 most highly technical and thorough character, and 
 I had every reason to believe that in America I 
 could earn a comfortable living. My wife and I, 
 therefore, sailed for America immediately after 
 our marriage. I first secured a position in some 
 iron works in South Boston, and for a time lived 
 happily. A boy, Oscar, named after my father, 
 was born to us while we were living in the town of 
 Winchester near Boston. Another son was born 
 a year later in the same place, and still a third in 
 
 234 
 
The 6t Due de Nevers " 
 
 Pittsburgh, where I had gone to assume the posi- 
 tion of general foreman of the Homestead Steel 
 Works and assistant master mechanic of the Car- 
 negie Steel Company. I rapidly secured the con- 
 fidence of my employers and was sent upon sev- 
 eral occasions to study new processes in different 
 parts of the country. During one of my vacations 
 we returned to England and visited my wife's peo- 
 ple, who lived in Manchester; here she died on 
 the iyth of June, 1901." 
 
 De Nevers paused again and it was some mo- 
 ments before he continued. 
 
 " After the death of my wife my father expressed 
 himself as ready for a reconciliation, but although 
 this took place I had not the heart to remain in 
 France. I liked America and had attained dis- 
 tinction in my profession. I therefore expressed 
 my intention of returning to continue my career as 
 an engineer, but at the earnest solicitation of my 
 father, left my three children with my parents. 
 They are now living at the chateau of my mother 
 at Nievre. 
 
 " I was sent to Chicago to study a new blast fur- 
 nace, and two years later, when Mr. Schwab organ- 
 ized the Russo-American Company at Mariopool, 
 South Siberia, he offered me the position of general 
 manager, which I accepted. Here I remained 
 until November, 1904, when all the American en- 
 
 235 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 gineers were arrested and imprisoned on the order 
 of General Kozoubsky of the Russian Engineers, 
 who at the same time shot and murdered my as- 
 sistant, Thomas D. McDonald, for refusing to 
 allow him to remove pig iron from the storehouse 
 without giving a receipt for it. Ambassador 
 McCormick secured our immediate release, and 
 we returned to the States. M'sieu' has no idea of 
 the power of these Russian officers. The murder 
 of my assistant was of the most brutal character. 
 Kozoubsky came to my office and demanded the 
 iron, but having secured it, refused to sign the re- 
 ceipt which McDonald presented to him. McDon- 
 ald said: 'You shall not remove the iron if you 
 do not sign the receipt.' As he spoke the words the 
 General drew his revolver and shot him down like 
 a dog. 
 
 "I returned to America in January, 1905, and 
 have since then been doing work as a consulting 
 engineer. Last January I visited my parents in 
 Paris at their home at 148 Champs Elysee. You 
 have doubtless seen the mansion with its two gates 
 and black railing of decorative iron. I had no 
 sooner returned to America than I received a cable 
 announcing the death of my father." 
 
 De Nevers removed from his breast pocket a 
 bundle of carefully folded papers from which he 
 produced a sheet of heavy stationery with a deep 
 
 236 
 
The "Due de Nevers' 5 
 
 border of mourning and a large black cross at the 
 top, of which the following is a copy: 
 
 MM. Her Grace the Duchess Dowager of Nevers; his 
 Grace the Duke Charles J. F. of Nevers and his children 
 Oscar, Hilda and John; their Highnesses the Prince and 
 Princess Henry of Aremberg; Captain the Count Andre 
 of Nevers; Captain the Count Fernand of Nevers; the 
 Earl and Countess of Kilkenny; the Marquis and Mar- 
 chioness of Londonderry; the Earl and Countess of 
 Dudley; the Countess Marie of Nevers; Lieutenant the 
 Count Marcel of Nevers have the sorrow to announce the 
 subite death at the family seat at Nevers (France), of His 
 Grace Oscar Odon, Duke of Nevers, Grand Commander 
 of the Legion of Honor, Knight of the Garter. Their 
 husband, father, grandfather and uncle beloved. 
 
 Masonic burial shall take place at Nevers on Tues- 
 day, February 21, 1905. 
 
 New York, February 20, 1905. 
 
 U. S. A. 
 
 The announcement was carefully engraved and 
 was of an expensive character, and I read it with 
 considerable interest. 
 
 "Does M'sieu* care to see the photographs of 
 my family ? Here," producing a photograph of a 
 gentleman and lady and a group of children, "is 
 my wife with the three children, taken in London 
 just before she died." 
 
 Another group, bearing the trade-mark of a Pa- 
 risian photographer, exhibited a distinguished 
 looking man surrounded by a group of many chil- 
 dren of varying ages, 
 
 237 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 "These," said De Nevers, "are my father and 
 my brothers and sisters." 
 
 Then came photographs of Lady Londonderry 
 and the Earl and Countess of Dudley. My inter- 
 est in my visitor's story had for the moment com- 
 pletely driven from my mind the real object of the 
 interview, which, ostensibly, was to explain the rea- 
 son for his incarceration. His straightforward nar- 
 rative carried absolute conviction with it; that he 
 was the legitimate Due de Nevers I accepted with- 
 out hesitation; that he was a man of education, cult- 
 ure and many accomplishments, was self evident. 
 
 "You have had an extraordinary career," I 
 ventured. 
 
 c< Yes," he replied, " it has been a life of action 
 and I may say of suffering. Permit me to show 
 you the certificate of my general that what I have 
 told you is accurate." 
 
 And De Nevers unfolded from his pocket a docu- 
 ment, bearing a seal of the French Ministry of War, 
 which read as follows: 
 
 REPUBLIQUE FRANCAISE 
 MINISTERS DE LA GUERRE 
 CABINET DU MINISTERS 
 
 No. 195 PARIS, October 24, 1901. 
 
 To Whom It May Concern: 
 
 I, George Andre, General of Division of Engineers, 
 Minister of War of the French Republic, certify that 
 
 238 
 
The " Due de Nevers " 
 
 the Lieutenant Colonel Charles Jules Comte Francois de 
 Nevers, is connected with the French Army, since 
 the loth day of September, 1877, and that the following 
 is a true copy of his record : 
 
 Born in Paris the loth of June, 1859. 
 
 Graduated, Bachelor of Sciences and of Letters, from 
 the Lycee, Louis le Grand, the 5th of August, 1877. 
 
 Received first as Chief of Promotion of the National 
 Polytechnic School of France, the loth of September, 
 
 1877. 
 
 Graduated with the greatest distinction from the above 
 school the ist of September, 1879. 
 
 Entered at the Application School of Military Engi- 
 neers at Fontainebleau as Second Lieutenant, Chief of 
 Promotion the I5th of September, 1879. 
 
 Graduated as Lieutenant of Engineers with great dis- 
 tinction, the ist of August, 1881, and sent to the Frist 
 Regiment of Engineers at Versailles. 
 
 Sent to Tonkin the ist day of August, 1881. 
 
 Wounded at Yung Chuang (Tonkin) the 7th of Nov- 
 ember, 1881. 
 
 Inscribed on the Golden Book of the French Army the 
 loth of November, 1881. 
 
 Made Knight of the Legion of Honor the loth of No- 
 vember, 1 88 1. 
 
 Wounded at Suai Sing the 4th of January, 1882. 
 
 Sent to Switzerland in Mission where he was gradu- 
 ated at the Zurich Polytechnic University as Mechanical 
 Engineer, 1884. 
 
 Sent the 2nd of January, 1885, to Soudan. 
 
 Wounded there twice. 
 
 Made Captain of Engineers the 3rd of June, 1885. 
 
 Called back to France the 6th of September, 1885, 
 sent in Mission in Belgium, where he was graduated as 
 
 239 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 Electrical Engineer from the Montefiore University at 
 Liege. Made officer of Academy. 
 
 Sent in Gabon, the and of May, 1887. Wounded 
 twice. Constructed there the Military Railroad. 
 
 Sent to Senegal as Commander the 6th of July, 1888, 
 to organize administration. Wounded once. 
 
 Called back and sent to Germany the 7th of Decem- 
 ber, 1889. 
 
 Called back from Germany and assigned to the Creu- 
 sot as Assistant Chief Engineer. 
 
 Sent to Dahomey, the ist of January, 1891. Wounded 
 the I9th of November, 1892, at Dahomey. Made Major 
 of Engineers on the battle field. Made Officer of the 
 Legion of Honor, on the battle field. 
 
 By special decision of the Senate and the Chamber of 
 Representatives the name of Commandant Charles Jules 
 Comte Francois de Nevers is embroidered the 2ist of 
 November, on the flag of the Regiment of Engineers. 
 
 Called back and sent to Algeria, the 3rd of January, 
 
 Made Ordinance of the President Carnot, the 5th of 
 February, 1893. 
 
 Sent to the Creusot the ist of July, 1893, as director. 
 
 Sent to Madagascar the 2nd of April, 1894, in com- 
 mand of the Engineers. 
 
 Wounded the I2th of July, 1894, at Majungua. 
 
 Made Lieutenant Colonel of Engineers the I2th of 
 July, 1894, on the battle field. 
 
 Proposed as Commander of the Legion of Honor on 
 the same date. 
 
 Called back and sent as Ordinance Officer of the Gen- 
 eral in Chief in Command in Algeria, the 4th of March, 
 1896. 
 
 Sent to America in special mission to the Klondike the 
 7th of July, 1897. 
 
 240 
 

 The "Due de Nevers" 
 
 Put on disponsibility Hors Cadre on his demand the 
 1st of November, 1897. 
 
 Made Honorary Member of the National Defences. 
 Commissioned the 28th of January, 1898. 
 
 Made Honorary Member of the Commission on Rail- 
 roads, Canals, and Harbors, the yth of July, 1899. 
 
 Made Honorary Member of the Commission on Bridges 
 and Highways the I4th of July, 1900. 
 
 Made Corresponding Member of the Academy of Sci- 
 ences, the I4th of July, 1901. 
 
 Made Commander of the Legion of Honor the 22nd of 
 October, 1901. 
 
 I will say further that the Lieutenant Colonel Charles 
 Jules Comte Francois de Nevers, is regarded as one 
 of our best and most loyal officers, that he has the good 
 will and best wishes of the government and of all his 
 fellow officers, and is considered by everybody as a great 
 worker and a thoroughly honest man. I personally will 
 be pleased to do anything in my power to help him in 
 any business he may undertake, and can recommend 
 him to everybody as a responsible and trustworthy En- 
 gineer, knowing him for the last twenty-four years. 
 
 GEO. ANDRE', 
 
 ro ., Minister of War. 
 
 [Seal] 
 
 The document seemed in substance merely a 
 repetition of what De Nevers had already told 
 me, and I handed it back to him satisfied of its 
 correctness. But public business is public busi- 
 ness, and if the Due de Nevers had anything 
 to communicate to me in my official character it 
 was time for him to do so. 
 
 "Well, Duke/' said I, not knowing very well 
 241 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 how otherwise to address him, "do you desire to 
 communicate anything to me in connection with 
 your present detention in the Tombs ?" 
 
 "Ah," he said with a gesture of deprecation, "I 
 can hardly understand that myself. Perhaps M'sieu' 
 has the papers ? Ah, yes, I see they are on his desk. 
 M'sieu' will observe that I am accused of the crime 
 of what is it called in English ? Ah, yes, perjury, 
 but I assure M'sieu' that it is entirely a mistake." 
 
 I picked up. the indictment and found that the 
 Grand Jury of the County of New York accused 
 one Charles de Nevers of the crime of perjury 
 committed as follows: 
 
 That one William Douglas having been arrested by 
 William W. Crawford, a member of the Police force of 
 the City of New York, upon the charge of having violated 
 the motor vehicle law of the State of New York [ordinance 
 against speeding] he, the said Charles de Nevers, had 
 then and there offered himself to go bail for the said 
 Douglas, and did sign a certain written undertaking 
 called a bond for the appearance of the said Douglas be- 
 fore the Magistrate, wherein he swore that he owned a 
 certain house and lot situate at 122 West nyth Street, in 
 the County of New York, which was free and clear of all 
 incumbrances and of the value of not less than twenty 
 thousand dollars, 
 
 WHEREAS in truth and in fact he the said Charles de 
 Nevers did not own the said house and lot which did not 
 then and there stand in the name of him the said Charles 
 de Nevers, but was the property of one Helen M. Bent, 
 and so recorded in the Registry of Deeds. 
 
 242 
 

 The "Due de Nevers ' ! 
 
 Which, said the grand jury, Charles de Nevers 
 then and there well knew. And so they accused 
 him of feloniously, knowingly, wilfully, corruptly, 
 and falsely committing the crime of perjury against 
 the form of the statute in such cases made and 
 provided, and against the peace of the People of 
 the State of New York and their dignity. 
 
 And this they did over the signature of William 
 Travers Jerome, District Attorney. 
 
 "How did this happen ?" I inquired, hardly be- 
 lieving my senses. "Was it a fact that you made 
 this false statement to the Police for the purpose 
 of securing bail for Mr. Douglas ? " 
 
 De Nevers leaned forward and was about to 
 answer when a messenger entered the room and 
 stated that I was wanted in the court. 
 
 "Another time, if M'sieu' will permit me," said 
 he. "I have much to thank you for. If M'sieu* 
 will give me another hearing it shall be my pleas- 
 ure to explain fully." 
 
 I rose and summoned the keeper. De Nevers 
 bowed and offered his hand, which I took. 
 
 "I have much to thank you for!" he repeated. 
 
 As I hurried out of the room I encountered the 
 keeper outside the door. 
 
 "Say, Counsellor, what sort of a 'con' was he 
 throwin' into you ? " he inquired with a wink. 
 
 De Nevers was well inside my office, looking 
 243 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 drearily" out of my window towards the courtyard 
 in the Tombs where his fellows were still pursuing 
 their weary march. 
 
 "What do you mean ?" I asked. 
 
 "Why, who did his nibs tell you he was ?" 
 
 "The Due de Nevers," I replied. 
 
 "Say," said O'Toole, "you don't mean you 
 swallowed that, do you ? Do you know what the 
 feller did ? Why, one afternoon when a swell guy 
 and his girl were out in their gas wagon a mounted 
 cop in the park pulls them in and takes them over 
 to the 57th Street Court. Well, just as me friend 
 is taking them into the house along walks this 
 Charley Nevers wid his tall silk hat and pearl 
 handle cane, wid a flower in his buttonhole, and 
 his black coat tails dangling around his heels, just 
 like Boni de Castellane, and says he, 'Officer,' 
 says he, 'may I inquire what for you're appre- 
 hending this gentleman and lady ?' says he. With 
 that me friend hands him out some strong lan- 
 guage for buttin* in, and Charley is so much 
 shocked at the insult to himself and the lady that 
 he steps in before the Sergeant and offers to go 
 bond for Douglas, just to go the cop one better, 
 givin' the Sergeant the same line of drip that he has 
 been handin' out to us in the Tombs, about his 
 bein' the son of Oscar, the Due de Nevers, and 
 related to all the crowned heads in Europe. Then 
 
 244 
 
The "Due de Nevers" 
 
 he ups and signs the bail bond for a house and lot 
 that he has never seen in his life. And here he is up 
 agin it. An' it's a good stiff one His Honor will be 
 handin' out to him to my way of thinkin', for these 
 high fallutin' foreigners has got to be put a stop to, 
 and Charley Nevers is a good one to begin on." 
 
 " I think you're wrong, OToole," said I. " But 
 we can tell better later on." 
 
 All that day my thoughts kept reverting to the 
 Due de Nevers. One thing was more than cer- 
 tain and that was that of all the various personages 
 whom I had met during my journey through the 
 world none was more fitted to be a duke than he. 
 I was obliged to confess that during my hour's 
 interview I had felt myself to be in the company of 
 a superior toeing, one of different clay from that of 
 which I was composed, a man of better brain, and 
 better education, vastly more rounded and experi- 
 enced, a cultivated citizen of the world, who would 
 be at home in any company no matter how distin- 
 guished and who would rise to any emergency. 
 As I ate my dinner at the club the name De Nevers 
 played mistily in the recesses of my memory. De 
 Nevers! Surely there was something historic 
 about it, some flavor of the days of kings and cour- 
 tiers. Smoking my cigar in the library I fell 
 into a reverie in which the Tombs, with its towers 
 and grated windows, figured as a gray chateau of 
 
 245 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 old Tourraine, and Charles Julius Francis in 
 hunting costume as a mediaeval monseigneur with a 
 hooded falcon on his wrist. I awoke to find directly 
 in my line of vision upon the shelf of the alcove 
 in front of me the solid phalanx of the ten vol- 
 umes of Larousse's "Grand Dictionaire Uni- 
 verse, du XIX Siecle," and I reached forward and 
 pulled down the letter "N." "Nevers" there it 
 was "Capitpl of the Department of Nievre. 
 Ducal palace built in 1475. Charles III de Gon- 
 zagne, petit-fils de Charles II," had sold the duchy 
 of Nevers and his other domains in France to Car- 
 dinal Mazarin "par acte du Jul. II, 1659." So 
 far so good. The cardinal had left the duchy by 
 will to Philippe Jules Francois Mancini, his 
 nephew, who had died May 8, 1707. Ah! Julius 
 Francis! It was like meeting an old friend. Phil- 
 ippe Jules Franois Mancini. Mazarin had ob- 
 tained letters confirming him in the possession of 
 the Duchy of Nivernais and Donzois in 1720. 
 Then he had died in 1768, leaving the duchy to 
 Louis Jules Barbon Mancini-Mozarini. This son 
 who was the last Due of Nivernais, had died in 
 1798! "He was the last of the name," said Larousse. 
 I rubbed my eyes. It was there fast enough " last 
 of the name." Something was wrong. Without 
 getting up I rang for a copy of " Burke* s Peerage." 
 "Londonderry, Marquess of, married Oct. 2nd, 
 246 
 
The "Due de Nevers" 
 
 1875, Lady Theresa Susey Helen, Lady of Grace 
 of St. John of Jerusalem, eldest daughter of the 
 igth Earl of Shrewsbury." Dear me! "Dudley, 
 Earl of, married September 14, 1891, Rachael, 
 Lady of Grace of the Order of St. John of Jeru- 
 salem, youngest daughter of Charles Henry Gur- 
 ney." I closed the book and began to think, and 
 the more I thought the more I wondered. There 
 really didn't seem particular need of going further. 
 If the fellow was a fraud, he was a fraud, that was 
 all. But how in Heaven's name could a man make 
 up a story like that! That night I dreamed once 
 more of the ducal palace of Nivernais, only its 
 courtyard resembled that of the Tombs and many 
 couples walked in a straggling line beneath its 
 walls. 
 
 A day or two passed and I had heard no more 
 of the Due Charles Julius when one afternoon a 
 lady called at my office and sent in her name as 
 Mrs. de Nevers. She proved to be an attractive 
 young woman a little over twenty, dressed in black, 
 whose face showed that she had suffered more 
 than a little. She explained that her husband was 
 confined in the Tombs on a charge of perjury. 
 But that was not all he was worse than a per- 
 jurer. He was an impostor a bigamist. He had 
 another wife living somewhere in England in 
 Manchester, she thought. Oh, it was too terrible. 
 
 247 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 He had told her that he was the Count Charles de 
 Nevers, eldest son of the Due de Nevers in 
 France, you know. And she had believed him. 
 He had had letters to everybody in Montreal, her 
 home, and plenty of money and beautiful clothes. 
 He had dazzled her completely. The wedding 
 had been quite an affair and presents had come 
 from the Duke and Duchess of Nevers, from the 
 Marchioness of Londonderry and from the Count- 
 ess of Dudley. There were also letters from the 
 Prince and Princess of Aremberg (in Belgium) 
 and the Counts Andre and Fernand of Nevers. 
 It had all been so wonderful and romantic! Then 
 they had gone on their wedding journey and had 
 been ecstatically happy. In Chicago, they had 
 been received with open arms. That was before 
 the death of the Duke yes, her mourning was 
 for the Duke. She smiled sadly. I think she still 
 more than half believed that she was a duchess 
 and she deserved to be if ever any girl did. Then 
 all of a sudden their money had given out and the 
 Duke had been arrested for not paying their hotel 
 bill. Perhaps I would like to see a newspaper clip- 
 ping? It was dreadful! She was ashamed to be 
 seen anywhere after that. She had even been 
 obliged to pawn his cross of the Legion of Honor, 
 the Leopold Cross of Belgium, and another beau- 
 tiful decoration which he had been accustomed to 
 
 248 
 
The "Due de Nevers" 
 
 wear when they went out to dinner. This was the 
 clipping: 
 
 CHICAGO SOCIETY THE DUPE OF BOGUS 
 
 COUNT 
 
 HOTEL AND SEVERAL WHILOM FRIENDS FILLED WITH 
 REGRET THE "COUNT" ARRESTED 
 
 Chicago, Jan. 29. "Count Charles Julius Franfois de 
 Nevers" was in the Police court to-day for defrauding the 
 Auditorium Annex of a board bill. The Count came to 
 the French Consul, M. Henri Meron, amply supplied 
 with credentials. He posed as Consulting Engineer of 
 the United States Steel Corporation. He was introduced 
 into all the clubs, including the Alliance Franfaise, 
 where he was entertained and spoke on literature. 
 
 He was accompanied by a charming young "Countess," 
 and the honors showered upon them and the adulation 
 paid by society tuft-hunters was something they will 
 never forget. 
 
 They returned the entertainments. The Count bor- 
 rowed several thousand dollars. 
 
 President Furber, of the Olympic Games, said to-day 
 of the "Count:" 
 
 "This man confided to me that he had invented a 
 machine for perpetual motion, the chief difficulty of 
 which was that it accumulated energy so fast that it could 
 not be controlled. He asked me to invest in some of his 
 schemes, which I refused to do." 
 
 The fate of the Count is still pending and he was led 
 back to a cell. * He has been a week behind the bars. 
 The "Countess" is in tears. 
 
 "THe Countess is me," she explained. 
 "Was he sent to prison ?" I asked. 
 249 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 "Oh, no," she answered. "You see they really 
 couldn't tell whether he was a Count or not, so 
 they had to let him go." 
 
 "He ought to be hung!" I cried. 
 
 " I really think he ought," she answered. " You 
 see it is quite embarrassing, because legally I have 
 never been married at all, have I ?" 
 
 " I don't know," I answered, lying like a gentle- 
 man. "Time enough to look that up later." 
 
 " I found out afterwards," she said, apparently 
 somewhat encouraged, "that his first wife was a 
 nurse maid in London." 
 
 "Yes," said I, "he told me so himself." 
 
 Just then there came a knock at my door and 
 O'Toole appeared. 
 
 " How are you, Counsellor," he said with a grin. 
 " You know Charley Nevers, well, av all the pious 
 frauds! Say, Counsellor, ain't he the cute feller! 
 What do you suppose, now? I got his record 
 to-day. Cast yer eye over it." 
 
 I did. This is it: 
 
 No. 98 
 
 The Central Office, 
 
 Bureau of Detectives, 
 
 Police Department of the City of New York, 
 
 300 Mulberry Street. 
 Name ........................ Charles Francois 
 
 Alias ......................... Count de Nevers 
 
 250 
 
The "Due de Nevers" 
 
 Date of Arrest 1903 
 
 Place of Arrest London, England 
 
 Cause of Arrest False Pretenses 
 
 Name of Court Sessions 
 
 To what Prison Penal Servitude 
 
 Term of Imprisonment Eighteen months. 
 
 REMARKS: Fraudulently obtained motor-car in London 
 under pretense that he was Charles Duke de Nevers, son 
 of Oscar, Prince de Nevers." 
 
 "So he's an ex-convict!" I exclaimed. 
 
 "He's more than that!" cried O'Toole. "He's 
 a bir-rd!" 
 
 I turned to Mrs. de Nevers or whoever she 
 legally was. 
 
 " How did he come to do such a foolish thing as 
 to offer to go on the bail bond of a perfect stran- 
 ger ? What good could it do him ? He was sure 
 to be caught." 
 
 "I don't know," said she. "He was always 
 doing things like that. He wanted to seem fine 
 and grand, I guess. We always travelled m style. 
 Why, the afternoon he signed the bond he came 
 home and told me how the police had been troub- 
 ling a gentleman who had a lady with him in an 
 automobile and how he was able to settle the whole 
 affair without the slightest difficulty and send them 
 on their way. He was quite pleased about it." 
 
 " But why do you suppose he did it ?" 
 
 "He just thought he'd do 'em a favor," sug- 
 251 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 gested O'Toole, "and in that way get in wid 'em 
 an' take their money later, mebbe!" 
 
 "Who is he ? Do you know ?" I asked the girl. 
 
 "I haven't the vaguest idea!" she sighed. 
 
 A week later Charles Julius Francis stood at the 
 bar of justice convicted of perjury. His degrada- 
 tion had wrought no change in the dignity of his 
 bearing or the impassiveness of his general ap- 
 pearance, and he received the sentence of the 
 Court without a tremor, and with shoulders thrown 
 back and head erect as befitted a scion of a noble 
 house. 
 
 "There's just one thing for me to do with you, 
 Charles Francis," said the Judge rudely, "And 
 that is to send you to State Prison for a term of 
 five years at hard labor." 
 
 Francis made no sign. 
 
 " There is one other thing I should like to know, 
 however," continued His Honor, "And that is who 
 you really are." 
 
 The prisoner bowed slightly. 
 
 "I am Charles Julius Francis," he replied 
 quietly, " Due de Nevers, and Commander of the 
 Legion of Honor." 
 
 252 
 
A FINDER OF MISSING HEIRS 
 
IX 
 
 A Finder of Missing Heirs 
 
 THE professional prosecutor is continually 
 surprised at the insignificant amount of 
 crime existing in comparison with the extraordinary 
 scope of criminal opportunity. To be sure, the 
 number of crimes actually detected is infinitesimal 
 as contrasted with those committed, but even so 
 the conviction constantly grows that the world is 
 astonishingly honest when one considers the un- 
 likelihood that any specific prospective offence will 
 be discovered. How few dishonest servants there 
 are, for example, out of the million or so compos- 
 ing that class of persons who have an unlimited 
 opportunity to snap up not only unconsidered 
 trifles, but personal property of great value. The 
 actual honesty of the servants is probably greater 
 than that of the masters in the final analysis. 
 
 Men are not only "presumed to be innocent" in 
 the eyes of the law, but are found to be so, as a 
 matter of daily experience, so far as honesty in the 
 ordinary affairs of life is concerned, and the fact 
 
 255 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 that we rely so implicitly upon the truthfulness 
 and integrity of our fellows is the principal reason 
 why violations of this imperative social law should 
 be severely dealt with. If it were possible ade- 
 quately to determine or deal with any such issue 
 mere lying should be made a crime. 
 
 It is matter of constant wonder that shrewd 
 business men will put through all sorts of deals, 
 when thousands of dollars are at stake, relying 
 entirely upon the word of some single person, whom 
 they do not in fact know. John Smith is looking 
 for a house. He finds one he likes with an old 
 lady, who says her name is Sarah Jones, living in 
 it, and offers her forty thousand dollars for her 
 real estate. She accepts. His lawyer searches the 
 title and finds that Sarah Jones is the owner of 
 record. The old lady is invited to the lawyer's 
 office, executes a warranty deed, and goes off with 
 the forty thousand dollars. Now in a great num- 
 ber of instances no one really knows whether the 
 aged dame is Sarah Jones or not; and she perhaps 
 may be, and sometimes is, only the caretaker's 
 second cousin, who is looking after the house in 
 the latter' s absence. 
 
 There are thousands of acres of land and hun- 
 dreds of millions of money waiting at compound 
 interest to be claimed by unknown heirs or next of 
 kin. Even if the real ones cannot be found one 
 
 256 
 
A Finder of Missing Heirs 
 
 vvould think that this defect could be easily sup- 
 plied by some properly ingenious person. 
 
 " My Uncle Bill went to sea in '45 and was never 
 heard from again. Will you find out if he left any 
 money ? " wrote a client to the author. Careful 
 search failed to reveal any money. But if the 
 money had been found first how easy it would have 
 been to turn up a nephew! Yet the industry of 
 producing properly authenticated nephews, heirs, 
 legatees, next of kin and claimants of all sorts has 
 never been adequately developed. There are 
 plenty of "agents" who for a moderate fee will in- 
 form you whether or not there is a fortune waiting 
 for you, but there is no agency within the writer's 
 knowledge which will supply an heir for every 
 fortune. From a business point of view the idea 
 seems to have possibilities. 
 
 Some few years after the Civil War a Swede 
 named Ebbe Petersen emigrated to this country to 
 better his condition. Fortune smiled upon him 
 and he amassed a modest bank account, which, 
 with considerable foresight, he invested in a large 
 tract of unimproved land in the region known 
 as "The Bronx," New York City. 
 
 In the summer of 1888 Petersen determined to 
 take a vacation and revisit Sweden, and accord- 
 ingly deeded all his real estate to his wife. Just 
 before starting he decided to take his wife and 
 
 257 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 only child, a little girl of ten or twelve, with 
 him. Accordingly they set sail from Hoboken 
 Saturday, August n, upon the steamer Geiser, of 
 the Thingvalla Line, bound for Copenhagen. At 
 four o'clock Tuesday morning, at a point thirty 
 miles south of Sable Island and two hundred miles 
 out of Halifax, the Geiser, in the midst of a thick 
 fog, crashed suddenly into a sister ship, the 
 Thingvalla, of the same line, and sank. The 
 Thingvalla was herself badly crippled, but, after 
 picking up thirty-one survivors, managed to limp 
 into Halifax, from which port the rescued were 
 brought to New York. Only fourteen of the 
 Geiser j passengers had been saved and the Peter- 
 sens were not among them. They were never 
 heard of again, and no relatives came forward to 
 claim their property, which, happening to be in 
 the direct line of the city's development, was in 
 course of time mapped out into streets and house 
 lots and became exceedingly valuable. Gradually 
 houses were built upon it, various people bought it 
 for investment, and it took on the look of other 
 semi-developed suburban property. 
 
 In the month of December, 1905, over seven- 
 teen years after the sinking of the Geiser, a lawyer 
 named H. Huffman Browne, offered to sell " at a 
 bargain" to a young architect named Benjamin 
 Levitan two house lots adjacent to the southwest 
 
 258 
 
A Finder of Missing Heirs 
 
 corner of One Hundred and Seventy-fourth Street 
 and Monroe Avenue, New York City. It so hap- 
 pened that Browne had, not long before, induced 
 Levitan to go into another real-estate deal, in 
 which the architect's suspicions had been aroused 
 by finding that the property alleged by the lawyer 
 to be "improved" was, in fact, unbuilt upon. He 
 had lost no money in the original transaction, but 
 he determined that no such mistake should occur 
 a second time, and he accordingly visited the prop- 
 erty, and also had a search made of the title, which 
 revealed the fact that Browne was not the record 
 owner, as he had stated, but that, on the contrary, 
 the land stood in the name of "William R. Hu- 
 bert." 
 
 It should be borne in mind that both the parties 
 to this proposed transaction were men well known 
 in their own professions. Browne, particularly, 
 was a real-estate lawyer of some distinction, and 
 an editor of what were known as the old "New 
 York Civil Procedure Reports." He was a middle- 
 aged man, careful in his dress, particular in his 
 speech, modest and quiet in his demeanor, by repu- 
 tation a gentleman and a scholar, and had practised 
 at the New York bar some twenty-five years. 
 
 But Levitan, who had seen many wolves in 
 sheep's clothing, and had something of the Sher- 
 lock Holmes in his composition, determined to seek 
 
 259 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 the advice of the District Attorney, and having 
 done so, received instructions to go ahead and 
 consummate the purchase of the property. He, 
 therefore, informed Browne that he had learned 
 that the latter was not the owner of record, to 
 which Browne replied that that was true, but 
 that the property really did belong to him in 
 fact, being recorded in Hubert's name merely as a 
 matter of convenience (because Hubert was un- 
 married), and that, moreover, he, Browne, had an 
 unrecorded deed from Hubert to himself, which 
 he would produce, or would introduce Hubert to 
 Levitan and let him execute a deed direct. Levitan 
 assented to the latter proposition, and the four- 
 teenth of December, 1905, was fixed as the date 
 for the delivery of the deeds and the payment for 
 the property. 
 
 At two o'clock in the afternoon of that day 
 Browne appeared at Levitan's office (where a de- 
 tective was already in attendance) and stated that 
 he had been unable to procure Mr. Hubert's per- 
 sonal presence, but had received from him deeds, 
 duly executed, to the property. These he offered 
 to Levitan. At this moment the detective stepped 
 forward, took possession of the papers, and invited 
 the lawyer to accompany him to the District Attor- 
 ney's office. To this Browne offered no opposi- 
 tion, and the party adjourned to the Criminal 
 
 260 
 
A Finder of Missing Heirs 
 
 Courts Building, where Mr. John W. Hart, an 
 Assistant District Attorney, accused him of having 
 obtained money from Levitan by means of false 
 pretences as to the ownership of the property, and 
 requested from him an explanation. Browne re- 
 plied without hesitation that he could not under- 
 stand why this charge should be made against him; 
 that he had, in fact, received the deeds from Mr. 
 Hubert only a short time before he had delivered 
 them to Levitan; that Mr. Hubert was in New 
 York; that he was the owner of the property, and 
 that no fraud of any sort had been attempted or 
 intended. 
 
 Mr. Hart now examined the supposed deeds and 
 found that the signatures to them, as well as the 
 signatures to a certain affidavit of title, which set 
 forth that William R. Hubert was a person of 
 substance, had all been executed before a notary, 
 Ella F. Braman, on that very day. He therefore 
 sent at once for Mrs. Braman who, upon her 
 arrival, immediately and without hesitation, posi- 
 tively identified the defendant, H. Huffman 
 Browne, as the person who had executed the pa- 
 pers before her an hour or so before. The case on 
 its face seemed clear enough. Browne had appar- 
 ently deliberately forged William R. Hubert's 
 name, and it did not even seem necessary that 
 Mr. Hubert should be summoned as a witness, 
 
 261 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 since the property was recorded in his name, and 
 Browne himself had stated that Hubert was then 
 actually in New York. 
 
 But Browne indignantly protested his innocence. 
 It was clear, he insisted, that Mrs. Braman was 
 mistaken, for why, in the name of common-sense, 
 should he, a lawyer of standing, desire to forge 
 Hubert's name, particularly when he himself held 
 an unrecorded deed of the "same property, and 
 could have executed a good conveyance to Levitan 
 had the latter so desired. Such a performance 
 would have been utterly without an object. But 
 the lawyer was nervous, and his description of Hu- 
 bert as " a wealthy mine owner from the West, who 
 owned a great deal of property in New York, and 
 had an office in the Flatiron Building," did not 
 ring convincingly in Mr. Hart's ears. The Assist- 
 ant District Attorney called up the janitor of the 
 building in question on the telephone. But no 
 such person had an office there. Browne, much 
 flustered, said the janitor was either a fool or a 
 liar. He had been at Hubert's office that very 
 morning. He offered to go and find him in twenty 
 minutes. But Mr. Hart thought that the lawyer 
 had better make his explanation before a magis- 
 trate, and caused his arrest and commitment on a 
 charge of forgery. Little did he suspect what an 
 ingenious fraud was about to be unearthed. 
 
 262 
 
A Finder of Missing Heirs 
 
 The days went by and Browne stayed in the 
 Tombs, unable to raise the heavy bail demanded, 
 but no Hubert appeared. Meantime the writer, 
 to whom the case had been sent for trial, ordered 
 a complete search of the title to the property, and 
 in a week or so became possessed, to his amaze- 
 ment, of a most extraordinary and complicated 
 collection of facts. 
 
 He discovered that the lot of land offered by 
 Browne to Levitan, and standing in Hubert's 
 name, was originally part of the property owned 
 by Ebbe Petersen, the unfortunate Swede who, 
 with his family, had perished in the Geiser off 
 Cape Sable in 1888. 
 
 The title search showed that practically all of 
 the Petersen property had been conveyed by 
 Mary A. Petersen to a person named Ignatius F. 
 X. O'Rourke, by a deed, which purported to have 
 been executed on June 27, 1888, about two weeks 
 before the Petersens sailed for Copenhagen, and 
 which was signed with Mrs. Petersen's mark, but 
 that this deed had not been recorded until July 3, 
 1899, eleven years after the loss of the Geiser. 
 
 The writer busied himself with finding some one 
 who had known Mrs. Petersen, and by an odd co- 
 incidence discovered a woman living in the Bronx 
 who had been an intimate friend and playmate of 
 the little Petersen girl. This witness, who was but 
 
 263 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 a child when the incident had occurred, clearly 
 recalled the fact that Ebbe Petersen had not de- 
 cided to take his wife and daughter with him on the 
 voyage until a few days before they sailed. They 
 had then invited her, the witness now a Mrs. 
 Cantwell to go with them, but her mother had 
 declined to allow her to do so. Mrs. Petersen, 
 moreover, according to Mrs. Cantwell, was a wom- 
 an of education, who wrote a particularly fine 
 hand. Other papers were discovered executed at 
 about the same time, signed by Mrs. Petersen with 
 her full name. It seemed inconceivable that she 
 should have signed any deed, much less one of so 
 much importance, with her mark, and, moreover, 
 that she should have executed any such deed at all 
 when her husband was on the spot to convey his 
 own property. 
 
 But the strangest fact of all was that the attest- 
 ing witness to this extraordinary instrument was 
 H. Huffman Browne! It also appeared to have 
 been recorded at his Instance eleven years after its 
 execution. 
 
 In the meantime, however, that is to say, be- 
 tween the sinking of the Geiser in '88 and the 
 recording of Mary Petersen's supposed deed in 
 '99, another equally mysterious deed to the same 
 property had been filed. This document, executed 
 and recorded in 1896, purported to convey part of 
 
 264 
 
 rKr 
 
A Finder of Missing Heirs 
 
 the Petersen property to a man named John J. 
 Keilly, and was signed by a person calling himself 
 Charles A. Clark. By a later deed, executed and 
 signed a few days later, John J. Keilly appeared 
 to have conveyed the same property to Ignatius F. 
 X. O'Rourke, the very person to whom Mrs. Peter- 
 sen had apparently executed her deed in 1888. 
 And H. Huffman Browne was the attesting wit- 
 ness to both these deeds! 
 
 A glance at the following diagram will serve to 
 clear up any confusion which may exist in the 
 mind of the reader: 
 
 1888 MARY A. PETERSEN 1896 CHARLES A. CLARK 
 
 Recorded ^7 her (X) deed conveys same property 
 
 until 1899) conveys to to 
 
 I. F. X. O'ROURKE JOHN J. KEILLY. 
 
 1896 JOHN J. KEILLY 
 conveys to 
 
 I. F. X. O'ROURKE 
 
 O'ROURKE thus holds land 
 through two sources. 
 
 Browne was the witness to both these parallel 
 transactions! Of course it was simple enough to 
 see what had occurred. In 1896 a mysterious man, 
 named Clark, without vestige of right or title, so 
 far as the records showed, had conveyed Ebbe 
 Petersen's property to a man named Keilly, 
 
 265 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 equally unsubstantial, who had passed it over to 
 one O'Rourke. Then Browne had suddenly re- 
 corded Mrs. Petersen's deed giving O'Rourke the 
 very same property. Thus this O'Rourke, who- 
 ever he may have been, held all the Petersen prop- 
 erty by two chains of title, one through Clark and 
 Keilly, and the other through Mrs. Petersen. 
 Then he had gone ahead and deeded it all away 
 to various persons, through one of whom William 
 R. Hubert had secured his title. But every deed 
 on record which purported to pass any fraction of 
 the Petersen property was witnessed by H. Huff- 
 man Browne! And Browne was the attesting 
 witness to the deed under which Hubert purported 
 to hold. Thus the chain of title, at the end of 
 which Levitan found himself, ran back to Mary 
 Petersen, with H. Huffman Browne peering be- 
 hind the arras of every signature. 
 
 MARY PETERSEN ( CLARK 
 to \ to 
 O'ROURKE ' KEILLY 
 
 BROWNE, 
 attesting witness. 
 
 
 ( KEILLY 
 ) t0 
 
 ( O'ROURKE 
 
 1 
 
 BROWNE, 
 
 attesting witness. 
 
 ( O'ROURKE 
 
 ^ to 
 
 ( WILLIAM P. COLLITON 
 266 
 
 BROWNE, 
 attesting witness. 
 
A Finder of Missing Heirs 
 
 I WILLIAM P. COLUTON BROWNE> 
 
 attesting witness. 
 
 (JOHN GARRETSON BROWNE> 
 
 (HERMAN BOLTE attesting witness 
 
 f HERMAN BOLTE BRQWNE> 
 
 \ BENJ FREEMAN attesting witness 
 ,BENJ O FREEMAN BEDWNE> 
 
 WILLIAM R. HUBERT attesting witness ' 
 
 The Assistant District Attorney rubbed his fore- 
 head and wondered who in thunder all these peo- 
 ple were. Who, for example, to begin at the be- 
 ginning, was Charles A. Clark, and why should he 
 be deeding away Ebbe Petersen's property ? And 
 who were Keilly and O'Rourke, and all the rest 
 Colliton, Garretson, Bolte and Freeman ? And 
 who, for that matter, was Hubert ? 
 
 A score of detectives were sent out to hunt up 
 these elusive persons, but, although the directories 
 of twenty years were searched, no Charles A. 
 Clark, John J. Keilly or I. F. X. O'Rourke could 
 be discovered. Nor could any one named Col- 
 liton, Freeman or Hubert be found. The only 
 persons who did appear to exist were Garretson 
 and Bolte. 
 
 Quite by chance the Assistant District Attorney 
 located the former of these, who proved to be one 
 
 267 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 of Browne's clients, and who stated that he ha 
 taken title to the property at the lawyer's request 
 and as a favor to him, did not remember from whom 
 he had received it, had paid nothing for it, re- 
 ceived nothing for it, and had finally deeded it to 
 Herman Bolte at the direction of Browne. Her- 
 man Bolte, an ex-judge of the Municipal Court, 
 who had been removed for misconduct in office, 
 admitted grumblingly that, while at one time he 
 had considered purchasing the property in ques- 
 tion, he had never actually done so, that the deed 
 from Garretson to himself had been recorded 
 without his knowledge or his authority, that he 
 had paid nothing for the property and had re- 
 ceived nothing for it, and had, at the instruction of 
 Browne, conveyed it to Benjamin Freeman. Gar- 
 retson apparently had never seen Bolte, and Bolte 
 had never seen Freeman, while William R. Hu- 
 bert, the person to whom the record showed Free- 
 man had transferred the property, remained an 
 invisible figure, impossible to reduce to tangi- 
 bility. 
 
 Just what Browne had attempted to do had 
 done was obvious. In some way, being a real- 
 estate lawyer, he had stumbled upon the fact that 
 this valuable tract of land lay unclaimed. Ac- 
 cordingly, he had set about the easiest way to 
 reduce it to possession. To make assurance 
 
 268 
 
A Finder of Missing Heirs 
 
 doubly sure he had forged two chains of title, one 
 through an assumed heir and the other through 
 the owner herself. Then he had juggled the title 
 through a dozen or so grantees, and stood ready 
 to dispose of the property to the highest bidder. 
 
 There he stayed in the Tombs, demanding a 
 trial and protesting his innocence, and asserting 
 that if the District Attorney would only look long 
 enough he would find William R. Hubert. But an 
 interesting question of law had cropped up to delay 
 matters. 
 
 Of course, if there was anybody by the name of 
 Hubert who actually owned the porperty, and 
 Browne had signed his name, conveying the same, 
 to a deed to Levitan, Browne was guilty of forgery 
 in the first degree. But the evidence in the case 
 pointed toward the conclusion that Browne him- 
 self was Hubert. If this was so, how could Browne 
 be said to have forged the name of Hubert, when 
 he had a perfect legal right to take the property 
 under any name he chose to assume ? This was 
 incontestable. If your name be Richard Roe you 
 may purchase land and receive title thereto under 
 the name of John Doe, and convey it under that 
 name without violating the law. This as a general 
 proposition is true so long as the taking of a ficti- 
 tious name is for an honest purpose and not tainted 
 with fraud. The Assistant District Attorney felt 
 
 269 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 that the very strength of his case created, as it 
 were, a sort of "legal weakness," for the more 
 evidence he should put in against Browne, the 
 clearer it would become that Hubert was merely 
 Browne himself, and this would necessitate addi- 
 tional proof that Browne had taken the property 
 in the name of Hubert for purposes of fraud, 
 which could only be established by going into the 
 whole history of the property. Of course, if 
 Browne were so foolish as to put in the defence 
 that Hubert really existed, the case would be plain 
 sailing. If, however, Browne was as astute as the 
 District Attorney believed him to be, he might 
 boldly admit that there was no Hubert except him- 
 self, and that in taking title to the property and 
 disposing thereof under that name, he was com- 
 mitting no violation of law for which he could be 
 prosecuted. 
 
 The case was moved for trial on the twelfth of 
 March, 1906, before Judge Warren W. Foster, in 
 Part Three of the Court of General Sessions in 
 New York. The defendant was arraigned at the 
 bar without counsel, owing to the absence of his 
 lawyer through sickness, and Mr. Lewis Stuyve- 
 sant Chanler, the later Lieutenant-Governor of 
 the State, was assigned to defend him. At this 
 juncture Browne arose and addressed the Court. 
 In the most deferential and conciliatory manner he 
 
 270 
 
A Finder of Missing Heirs 
 
 urged that he was entitled to an adjournment until 
 such time as he could produce William R. Hubert 
 as a witness; stating that, although the latter had 
 been in town on December I4th,and had personally 
 given him the deeds in question, which he had 
 handed to Levitan, Hubert's interests in the West 
 had immediately called him from the city, and 
 that he was then in Goldfields, Nevada; that 
 since he had been in the Tombs he, Browne, had 
 been in correspondence with a gentleman by the 
 name of Alfred S keels, of the Teller House, Cen- 
 tral City, Colorado, from whom he had received a 
 letter within the week to the effect that Hubert had 
 arranged to start immediately for New York, for 
 the purpose of testifying as a witness for the de- 
 fence. The prosecutor thereupon demanded the 
 production of this letter from the alleged Skeels, 
 and Browne was compelled to state that he had 
 immediately destroyed it on its receipt. The prose- 
 cutor then argued that under those circumstances, 
 and in view of the fact that the People's evidence 
 showed conclusively that no such person as Hu- 
 bert existed, there was no reason why the trial 
 should not proceed then and there. The Court 
 thereupon ruled that the case should go on. 
 
 A jury was procured after some difficulty, and 
 the evidence of Mr. Levitan received, showing that 
 Browne had represented Hubert to be a man of 
 
 271 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 substance, and had produced an affidavit, pur- 
 ported to be sworn to by Hubert, to the same effect, 
 with deeds alleged to have been signed by him. 
 Mrs. Braman then swore that upon the same day 
 Browne had himself acknowledged these very 
 deeds and had sworn to the affidavit before her as 
 a notary, under the name of William R. Hubert. 
 
 Taken with the fact that Browne had in open 
 court stated that Hubert was a living man, this 
 made out a prima facie case. But, of course, the 
 District Attorney was unable to determine whether 
 or not Browne would take the stand in his own 
 behalf, or what his defence would be, and, in order 
 to make assurance doubly sure, offered in evidence 
 all the deeds to the property in question, thereby 
 establishing the fact that it was originally part of 
 the Petersen estate, and disclosing the means 
 whereby it had eventually been recorded in the 
 name of Hubert. 
 
 The prosecution then rested its case, and the 
 burden shifted to the defence to explain how all 
 these deeds, attested by Browne, came to be exe- 
 cuted and recorded. It was indeed a difficult, if 
 not impossible, task which the accused lawyer 
 undertook when he went upon the stand. He 
 again positively and vehemently denied that he 
 had signed the name of Hubert to the deed 
 which he had offered to Levitan, and persisted in 
 
 272 
 
A Finder of Missing Heirs 
 
 the contention that Hubert was a real man, who 
 sooner or later would turn up. He admitted know- 
 ing the Petersen family in a casual way, and said 
 he had done some business for them, but stated 
 that he had not heard of their tragic death until 
 some years after the sinking of the Gelser. He had 
 then ascertained that no one had appeared to lay 
 claim to Mrs. Petersen's estate, and he had ac- 
 cordingly taken it upon himself to adveritse for 
 heirs. In due course Charles A. Clark had ap- 
 peared and had deeded the property to Keilly, who 
 in turn had conveyed it to O'Rourke. Just who 
 this mysterious O'Rourke was he could not ex- 
 plain, nor could he account in any satisfactory 
 manner for the recording in 1899 of the deed 
 signed with Mary Petersen's mark. He said that 
 it had "turned up" in O'Rourke's hands after 
 O'Rourke had become possessed of the property 
 through the action of the heirs, and that he had no 
 recollection of ever having seen it before or having 
 witnessed it. In the latter transactions, by which 
 the property had been split up, he claimed to have 
 acted only as attorney for the different grantors. 
 He was unable to give the address or business of 
 O'Rourke, Clark, Keilly or Freeman, and ad- 
 mitted that he had never seen any of them save at 
 his own office. He was equally vague as to Hu- 
 bert, whose New York residence he gave as in 
 
 273 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 Fifth Avenue. No such person, however, had ever 
 been known at that address. 
 
 Browne gave his testimony in the same dry, 
 polite and careful manner in which he had always 
 been accustomed to discuss his cases and deliver his 
 arguments. It seemed wholly impossible to believe 
 that this respectable-looking person could be a 
 dangerous character, yet the nature of his offence 
 and the consequences of it were apparent when the 
 State called to the stand an old broom-maker, who 
 had bought from Browne one of the lots belonging 
 to the Petersen estate. Holding up three stumps 
 where fingers should have been, he cried out, chok- 
 ing with tears : 
 
 " My vriends, for vifteen years I vorked at mak- 
 ing brooms me und my vife from fife in the 
 morning until six at night, und I loose mine fingern 
 trying to save enough money to puy a house that 
 we could call our own. Then when we saved eight 
 hundred dollars this man come to us und sold us 
 a lot. We were very happy. Yesterday anoder 
 man served me mit a paper that we must leave our 
 house, because we did not own the land! We must 
 go away! Where? We haf no place to go. Our 
 home is being taken from us, und that man [point- 
 ing his stumps at Browne] that man has stolen it 
 from us!" 
 
 He stopped, unable to speak. The defendant's 
 274 
 
A Finder of Missing Heirs 
 
 lawyer properly objected, but, with this piece of 
 testimony ringing in their ears, it is hardly surpris- 
 ing that the jury took but five minutes to convict 
 Browne of forgery in the first degree. 
 
 A few days later the judge sentenced him to 
 twenty years in State's prison. 
 
 Then other people began to wake up. The 
 Attorney-General guessed that the Petersen prop- 
 erty had all escheated to the State, the Swedish 
 Government sent a deputy to make inquiries, the 
 Norwegian Government was sure that he was a 
 Norwegian, and the Danish that he was a Dane. 
 No one knows yet who is the real owner, and there 
 are half a dozen heirs squatting on every corner of it. 
 Things are much worse than before Browne tried 
 to sell the ill-fated lot to Levitan, but a great many 
 people who were careless before are careful now. 
 
 It soon developed, however, that lawyer Browne's 
 industiy and ingenuity had not been confined to 
 the exploitation of the estate of Ebbe Petersen. 
 Before the trial was well under way the City 
 Chamberlain of New York notified the District 
 Attorney that a peculiar incident had occurred at 
 his office, in which not only the defendant figured, 
 but William R. Hubert, his familiar, as well. In 
 the year 1904 a judgment had been entered in the 
 Supreme Court, which adjudged that a certain 
 George Wilson was entitled to a one-sixth interest 
 
 275 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 in the estate of Jane Elizabeth Barker, recently 
 deceased. George Wilson had last been heard of, 
 twenty years before, as a farmhand, in Illinois, and 
 his whereabouts were at this time unknown. Sud- 
 denly, however, he had appeared. That is to say, 
 H. Huffman Browne had appeared as his attorney, 
 and demanded his share of the property which had 
 been deposited to his credit with the City Cham- 
 berlain and amounted to seventy-five hundred 
 dollars. The lawyer had presented a petition 
 signed apparently by Wilson and a bond also sub- 
 scribed by him, to which had been appended the 
 names of certain sureties. One of these was a 
 William R. Hubert the same William R. Hubert 
 who had mysteriously disappeared when his pres- 
 ence was so vital to the happiness and liberty of his 
 creator. But the City Chamberlain had not been 
 on his guard, and had paid over the seventy-five 
 hundred dollars to Browne without ever having 
 seen the claimant or suspecting for an instant that 
 all was not right. 
 
 It was further discovered at the same time that 
 Browne had made several other attempts to secure 
 legacies remaining uncalled for in the city's treas- 
 ury. In how many cases he had been successful 
 will probably never be known, but it is unlikely 
 that his criminal career dated only from the filing 
 of the forged Petersen deed in 1896. 
 
 276 
 
A Finder of Missing Heirs 
 
 Browne made an heroic and picturesque fight to 
 secure a reversal of his conviction through all the 
 State courts, and his briefs and arguments are 
 monuments to his ingenuity and knowledge of the 
 law. He alleged that his conviction was entirely 
 due to a misguided enthusiasm on the part of the 
 prosecutor, the present writer, whom he character- 
 ized as a "novelist" and dreamer. The whole 
 case, he alleged, was constructed out of the latter' s 
 fanciful imagination, a cobweb of suspicion, accu- 
 sation and falsehood. Some day his friend Hu- 
 bert would come out of the West, into which he had 
 so unfortunately disappeared, and release an inno- 
 cent man, sentenced, practically to death, because 
 the case had fallen into the hands of one w r hose 
 sense of the dramatic was greater than his logic. 
 
 Perchance he will. Mayhap, when H. Huffman 
 Browne is the oldest inmate of Sing Sing, or even 
 sooner, some gray-haired figure will appear at the 
 State Capitol, and knock tremblingly at the door 
 of the Executive, asking for a pardon or a rehear- 
 ing of the case, and claiming to be the only origi- 
 nal, genuine William R. Hubert such a denoue- 
 ment would not be beyond the realms of possi- 
 bility, but more likely the request will come in the 
 form of a petition, duly attested and authenticated 
 before some notary in the West, protesting against 
 Browne's conviction and incarceration, and bear- 
 
 277 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 ing the flowing signature of William R. Hubert 
 the same signature that appears on Browne's 
 deeds to Levitan the same that is affixed to the 
 bond of George Wilson, the vanished farmhand, 
 claimant to the estate of Jane Elizabeth Barker. 
 
A MURDER CONSPIRACY 
 
X 
 
 A Murder Conspiracy* 
 
 WILLIAM M. RICE, eighty-four years of 
 age, died at the Berkshire Apartments at 
 500 Madison Avenue, New York City, at about half 
 after seven o'clock on the evening of Sunday, Sep- 
 tember 23, 1900. He had been ill for some time, 
 but it was expected that he would recover. On or 
 about the moment of his death, two elderly ladies, 
 friends of the old gentleman, had called at the house 
 with cakes and wine, to see him. The elevator man 
 rang the bell of Mr. Rice's apartment again and 
 again, but could elicit no response, and the ladies, 
 much disappointed, went away. While the bell 
 was ringing Charles F. Jones, the confidential 
 valet of the aged man, was waiting, he says, in an 
 
 *In 1906 the Governor of New York commuted the death 
 sentence of Albert T. Patrick to life imprisonment, and the most 
 extraordinary struggle in the legal history of the State on the part 
 of a convicted murderer for his own life came to an end. The 
 defendant in the "Death House" at Sing Sing had invoked every 
 expedient to escape punishment, and by the use of his knowledge 
 had even saved a fellow prisoner, "Mike" Brush, from the electric 
 chair. 
 
 281 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 adjoining room until a cone saturated with chloro- 
 form, which he had placed over the face of his sleep- 
 ing master, should effect his death. 
 
 Did Jones murder Rice ? If so, was it, as he 
 claims, at the instigation of Albert T. Patrick ? 
 
 These two questions, now settled in the affirma- 
 tive forever, so far as criminal and civil litigation 
 are concerned, have been the subject of private 
 study and public argument for more than seven 
 years. 
 
 Mr. Rice was a childless widower, living the life 
 of a recluse, attended only by Jones, who was at 
 once his secretary, valet and general servant. No 
 other person lived in the apartment, and few vis- 
 itors ever called there. Patrick was a New York 
 lawyer with little practice who had never met Mr. 
 Rice, was employed as counsel in litigation hostile 
 to him, yet in whose favor a will purporting to be 
 signed by Rice, June 30, 1900, turned up after the 
 latter' s death, by the terms of which Patrick came 
 into the property, amounting to over seven million 
 dollars, in place of a charitable institution named 
 in an earlier will of 1896. It is now universally 
 admitted that the alleged will of 1900 was a for- 
 gery, as well as four checks drawn to Patrick's 
 order (two for $25,000 each, one for $65,000, and 
 one for $135,000, which represented practically all 
 of Rice's bank accounts), an order giving him con- 
 
 282 
 
A Murder Conspiracy 
 
 trol of the contents of Rice's safe deposit vaults (in 
 which were more than $2,500,000 in securities), 
 and also a general assignment by which he became 
 the owner of Rice's entire estate. Thus upon 
 Rice's death Patrick had every possible variety of 
 document necessary to possess himself of the prop- 
 erty. Jones took nothing under any of these 
 fraudulent instruments. Hence Patrick's motive 
 in desiring the death of Rice is the foundation 
 stone of the case against him. But that Patrick 
 desired and would profit by Rice's death in no 
 way tends to establish that Rice did not die a nat- 
 ural death. Patrick would profit equally whether 
 Rice died by foul means or natural, and the ques- 
 tion as to whether murder was 'done must be de- 
 termined from other evidence. This is only to be 
 found in the confession of the valet Jones and in 
 the testimony of the medical experts who per- 
 formed the autopsy. Jones, a self-confessed mur- 
 derer, swears that upon the advice and under the 
 direction of Patrick (though in the latter's absence) 
 he killed his master by administering chloroform. 
 There is no direct corroborative evidence save that 
 of the experts. Upon Jones's testimony depended 
 the question of Patrick's conviction or acquittal, 
 and of itself this was not sufficient, for being that 
 of an accomplice it must, under the New York 
 law, be corroborated. 
 
 283 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 In the confession of Jones the State had suffi- 
 cient direct evidence of the crime and of Patrick's 
 connection with it, providing there was other evi- 
 dence tending to connect Patrick with its commis- 
 sion. This corroborative evidence is largely sup- 
 plied by the facts which show that for a long time 
 Patrick conspired with Jones to steal the bulk of 
 Mr. Rice's estate at his death. This evidence not 
 only shows Patrick's possible motive for planning 
 Mr. Rice's murder, but also tends to corroborate 
 Jones's whole story of the conspiracy. 
 
 Rice did not know Patrick even by sight. He 
 had heard of him only as a person retained by an- 
 other lawyer (Holt) to do "the dirty work" in an 
 action brought by Rice against Holt, as executor, 
 to set aside Mrs. Rice's will, in which she assumed, 
 under the "Community Law" of Texas, where 
 Rice had formerly resided, to dispose of some 
 $2,500,000 of Rice's property. If Rice was a resi- 
 dent of Texas she had the legal right to do this, 
 otherwise not. Holt employed Patrick to get evi- 
 dence that Rice still was such a resident. Rice 
 knew of this and hated Patrick. 
 
 Patrick's connection with the Rice litigation had 
 begun four years before the murder, which was 
 not planned until August, 1900. His first visit to 
 Rice's apartment was made under the assumed 
 name of Smith for the purpose of discovering 
 
 284 
 
A Murder Conspiracy 
 
 whether the valet could be corrupted into furnish- 
 ing fictitious proof of Rice's intent to reside in 
 Texas. He flattered Jones; told him he was under- 
 paid and not appreciated, and, after a second visit, 
 at which he disclosed his right name, persuaded 
 him to typewrite a letter on Rice's stationery ad- 
 dressed to Baker, Botts, Baker & Lovett (Rice's 
 attorneys), in which he should be made to say 
 that he had lost hope of winning the suit against 
 Holt, was really a citizen of Texas, and wanted 
 to settle the litigation. Patrick said that he could 
 arrange for the signing of such a letter and was 
 willing to pay Jones $250 for his help. Jones 
 agreed. 
 
 Patrick now learned that Mr. Rice was living 
 with no companion except Jones; that he held little 
 communication with the outside world; that the 
 valet was in his confidence and thoroughly familiar 
 with his papers, and that the will made in 1896 
 disinherited natural heirs in favor of an educational 
 institution which he had founded in Texas. He 
 also learned that while Mr. Rice was 84 years of 
 age he was in possession of all his faculties, con- 
 ducted his own business, and might live for years. 
 Possessed of these facts Patrick's evil mind soon 
 developed a conspiracy with Jones to secure the 
 whole estate. 
 
 Mr. Rice's pet chanty was the William M. Rice 
 
 285 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 Institute " for the advance of science, art and liter- 
 ature," of Texas, which he had founded in 1891. 
 He had donated to it more than a million and a 
 half dollars. By the will of 1896 only small lega- 
 cies were bequeathed to relatives, while the bulk of 
 his fortune was left to the Institute. 
 
 About a month after Patrick's first visit to the 
 Berkshire Apartments, that is, in December, 1899, 
 while he and Jones were examining Rice's private 
 papers, they stumbled upon the will. Patrick saw 
 his opportunity. By the forgery of a new will 
 which would increase the legacies of those men- 
 tioned in the will of 1896 and leave legacies to 
 every person who might have any claim upon the 
 estate, it would be for the interest of those persons 
 to sustain and carry into effect the forgery. The 
 whole scheme was based upon the belief that 
 " every man has his price." He told Jones that he 
 thought the will unjust; that he did not think it 
 right to leave so little to relatives, and later he 
 brought to Jones a rough draft of a will which 
 could be substituted for the genuine one. Patrick 
 was to get half the estate, the relatives were to re- 
 ceive double or three times the amount provided 
 in the 1896 will, and what was left was to be given 
 to the Rice Institute. He proposed that Jones 
 should typewrite this will, and guaranteed to ar- 
 range for the witnessing and signing of it, and 
 
 286 
 
A Murder Conspiracy 
 
 promised that Jones should get whatever he 
 wanted. Jones at first objected, but was finally 
 won over. Rewritten many times to include new 
 ideas of the conspirators, the document finally 
 reached the form of the will of June 30, 1900, in 
 which Patrick substituted himself for the Rice 
 Institute and made himself one of the executors. 
 
 An ingenious part of the conspiracy was the de- 
 cision to leave the 1896 will in existence. If Pat- 
 rick had destroyed it and the relatives had suc- 
 ceeded in overthrowing the will of 1900, the estate 
 would have been left without testamentary dispo- 
 sition and the relatives would have got more than 
 was provided by either will. With the will of 1896 
 in existence, however, the relatives would get less 
 if they overthrew the forgery. By retaining it, 
 therefore, Patrick figured that the relatives would 
 have selfish reasons for accepting the forgery as 
 genuine. ^ 
 
 The preparation of this bogus will occupied 
 about a month, and the next question was the pro- 
 curement of witnesses. It was desirable to get the 
 same persons who witnessed the former will. 
 These were Walter H. Wetherbee and W. F. Har- 
 mon, clerks for many years at Swenson's banking 
 house. On the assumption that Wetherbee had 
 been injured by Rice and was therefore hostile to 
 him, Jones practically unfolded the scheme. He 
 
 287 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 told Wetherbee that one of Mr. Rice's bonds had 
 disappeared and that Rice had accused Wetherbee 
 of stealing it. He wound up with the suggestion, 
 "I will get one witness and you can get another, 
 and the thing is done." But Wetherbee indig- 
 nantly declined to join in the conspiracy. 
 
 Morris Meyers, who had been employed in Pat- 
 rick's office, and David L. Short, a friend of both, 
 were the false witnesses finally selected. 
 
 They were clothed with the appearance of hon- 
 esty and were brought into contact with Rice by 
 Jones at various times : Meyers as a notary public, 
 and Short as commissioner of deeds for the State 
 of Texas, an appointment procured for him by 
 Patrick probably for this specific purpose. 
 
 The date of the forged will, June 30, 1900, was 
 selected to correspond with the date of three gen- 
 uine papers which Rice acknowledged before 
 Short on that date. 
 
 The next step was to obviate the absurdity of 
 Patrick's being selected as the residuary legatee at 
 a time when he was engaged in bitter litigation 
 against Rice. The best way out was for Patrick 
 to pose as a lawyer who had brought about a set- 
 tlement of this expensive litigation and thus won 
 Rice's regard. Patrick first tried to accomplish 
 this by getting friends to visit Rice and urge a set- 
 tlement. But Rice rebuffed them all. Accord- 
 
 288 
 
A Murder Conspiracy 
 
 ingly, Patrick again resorted to forgery, and in 
 August, 1900, manufactured an instrument of 
 settlement, dated March 6, 1900. 
 
 But such an agreement would not explain the 
 paradox of a man whom Rice hated and despised 
 and did not know by sight turning up as the prin- 
 cipal beneficiary under his will. It was necessary 
 to manufacture evidence to be used after Rice's 
 death in support of his claim of close relations. 
 The idea of a personal meeting with Rice had 
 been abandoned on Jones's advice, and Patrick 
 therefore caused the valet to prepare twenty-five 
 or thirty forged letters addressed to him and pur- 
 porting to come from Rice. These referred to cur- 
 rent business matters and conveyed the impression 
 that it was Rice's custom to seek the lawyer's 
 advice. One instructed Patrick as to the terms of 
 the will of 1900. Carbon copies were made for 
 filing in Rice's letter book after his death. 
 
 To make assurance doubly sure and to secure 
 immediate possession of Rice's securities a general 
 assignment to Patrick of all Rice's estate was 
 forged, and an order giving him access to and pos- 
 session of the securities on deposit in Rice's safety 
 vault. 
 
 But Patrick did not stop here. He procured 
 from Jones three checks signed by Mr. Rice in the 
 regular course of business, one payable to Jones 
 
 289 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 for his July salary and the other two for the July 
 and August salary of an employee of Rice's in 
 Texas named Cohn. These three checks Patrick 
 kept as models, forwarding to Cohn two forged 
 checks filled out by Jones upon which Rice's sig- 
 nature had been traced, and returning to Jones a 
 substitute check with Rice's signature traced upon 
 it. All three checks passed through the banks un- 
 suspected. Traced signatures were also substituted 
 for genuine ones upon letters dictated by Rice to 
 his Texas correspondents. Thus Patrick secured 
 the circulation of five copies of Rice's signature 
 which, if occasion demanded, he could produce as 
 standards of comparison to correspond with his 
 other forgeries. The principal preparations were 
 complete. But title under the will might long be 
 delayed and perhaps even eventually fail. Patrick 
 was poor and in no condition to conduct adequately 
 a serious litigation. The moment Mr. Rice died 
 a large amount of cash would be necessary. For 
 the procurement of this Patrick and Jones looked 
 to the current balance of Rice's bank account, 
 which amounted to some two hundred and fifty 
 thousand dollars on deposit at Swenson's private 
 bank and at the Fifth Avenue Trust Company. 
 With this they felt reasonably secure of success. 
 For even if the will should be set aside as fraudu- 
 lent they had a second line of defense in the gen- 
 
 290 
 
A Murder Conspiracy 
 
 eral assignment of the estate and the orders to 
 Rice's two million five hundred thousand dollars 
 of securities. 
 
 While the evidence affords a motive for Patrick 
 to desire the death of Mr. Rice, it does not of it- 
 self, up to this point, indicate the slightest intention 
 on the part of Patrick to do away with the old gen- 
 tleman. It was therefore conceded by the prose- 
 cution that, upon Jones's own testimony, the con- 
 spiracy to murder was not formed until about 
 seven weeks before the event. The first evidence 
 which points to an intent to murder is the famous 
 "cremation letter," dated August 3d. 
 
 The cremation letter from Mr. Rice, authoriz- 
 ing Patrick to cremate his body, shows that Patrick 
 intended to do away with Rice in such a way that 
 an autopsy must, if possible, be prevented and the 
 evidence of murder destroyed. That Patrick 
 forged such a letter was evidence that his connec- 
 tion with the murder was premeditated and de- 
 liberate. To cremate the body before an autopsy 
 it was necessary to procure a physician's certificate 
 that Rice had died from natural causes. He there- 
 fore made preparation to secure such a certificate, 
 and then upon the strength of the cremation letter 
 to give directions for the immediate destruction of 
 the body. 
 
 Patrick, with the view of having at hand a physi- 
 291 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 cian who would be unsuspicious, and who would 
 issue a certificate of death from natural causes, in- 
 duced Jones to send for Dr. Curry, his own friend 
 and physician, on an occasion when the valet was 
 ill. This was in March, 1900. Dr. Curry came, 
 and Jones, acting under Patrick's advice, cau- 
 tioned him not to mention the lawyer's name to 
 Rice. In course of time he saw Rice, gained his 
 good opinion and became his attending physician. 
 But Rice did not die, and curiously enough it was 
 he himself who suggested to Jones the instrumen- 
 tality of death which was finally employed, for he 
 read an article dealing with the dangers of chloro- 
 form as an anaesthetic, and discussed it with the 
 valet. This suggestion was conveyed to Patrick, 
 who asked Dr. Curry whether chloroform left any 
 traces discoverable upon an autopsy. Dr. Curry 
 rather carelessly replied that it left but slight 
 traces if administered only in the quantities which 
 would be fatal to a man with a weak heart. Pat- 
 rick told Jones, so Jones alleges, to procure some 
 chloroform and this he did, sending to Texas for 
 two bottles of two ounces each. From Dr. Curry's 
 remarks it was manifest that a weakened condition 
 of the patient was an important element, and as 
 Jones was taking some mercury pills (prescribed 
 for him by Dr. Curry), the valet induced his mas- 
 ter to take some of them. The old gentleman was 
 
 293 
 
A Murder Conspiracy 
 
 benefited, however, rather than weakened. This 
 was before the forgery of the cremation letter. It 
 was clear that larger doses of mercury would be 
 necessary, and accordingly Patrick furnished 
 Jones with pellets containing the drug in such 
 quantities that Jones, experimenting with one of 
 them, became ill. 
 
 They had now the means to effect gradual 
 death, but as mercury leaves traces discernible at 
 an autopsy, it was decided that the body must be 
 cremated promptly. Hence the cremation letter. 
 It was hoped that Rice might drop off at any 
 moment, owing to his weakened condition, and in 
 anticipation of death Patrick discontinued his vis- 
 its to the apartment in order to establish a satis- 
 factory alibi. Jones also frequently absented him- 
 self from the apartment in the evenings after the 
 old man had fallen asleep. 
 
 On September i6th Rice had an attack of acute 
 indigestion, which might have resulted seriously 
 had it not been for the mercurial pills which 
 promptly relieved him. The reader should ob- 
 serve that practically all of this testimony comes 
 from Jones. There is no extraneous evidence that 
 Patrick induced the giving of the mercury. Pat- 
 rick, however, spread false rumors as to Rice's 
 general health and also as to his financial condi- 
 tion and intentions, namely, that Rice was only 
 
 293 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 worth seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars, 
 and that those who expected he was going to leave 
 his money to the Institute were doomed to disap- 
 pointment. But neither his statements about 
 Rice's condition nor his remarks as to the disposi- 
 tion and extent of his property are inconsistent 
 with a mere hope that he would die and thus leave 
 Patrick free to enjoy the fruits of his forgeries. 
 
 There now occurred, however, an event which 
 may well have played a part in inducing Patrick 
 to supplement forgery by murder. On Sunday, 
 September i6th, the plant of the Merchants' and 
 Planters' Oil Company of Houston, Texas, of which 
 Rice owned seventy-five per cent, of the capital 
 stock, was destroyed by fire. The company being 
 without funds to rebuild, its directors telegraphed to 
 Rice requesting him to advance the money. The 
 amount needed was two hundred and fifty thou- 
 sand dollars and if Rice consented, all the avail- 
 able funds on deposit in the New York banks, 
 upon which the conspirators relied to accomplish 
 their object, would be exhausted. Jones endeav- 
 ored to dissuade the old man from advancing the 
 money, but without effect, and Rice sent a letter 
 to Houston agreeing to supply one hundred and 
 fifty thousand dollars and more in instalments of 
 twenty-five thousand dollars each. This was on 
 September l8th, after he had wired to the same 
 
 294 
 
A Murder Conspiracy 
 
 effect on September I7th. Patrick and Jones sup- 
 pressed a telegram that Rice would advance two 
 hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and on Sep- 
 tember I Qth the old man received word that the 
 first draft in conformity with his telegram of Sep- 
 tember 1 7th had been drawn and would arrive in 
 New York on the 22d. Jones says that on showing 
 this to Patrick the latter announced that Rice must 
 be put out of the way as soon as possible. Accord- 
 ingly, on September 2Oth and 2ist, Jones admin- 
 istered larger doses of mercury than usual, which, 
 while weakening and depressing him, failed to 
 cause his end. Saturday, September 22d, the 
 draft was presented at Rice's apartment. The 
 old man was not confined to his bed, but Jones 
 told the bank messenger, after pretending to con- 
 sult him, that Rice was too ill to attend to business 
 that day and to return on Monday. That night 
 Jones and Patrick met, and it was agreed (accord- 
 ing to Jones) that Rice must not be allowed to 
 survive until Monday. They still hoped that he 
 might die without any further act upon their part, 
 but Jones was informed by Dr. Curry that, al- 
 though the old man seemed weak and under a 
 great mental strain, he nevertheless thought that 
 he would recover. This Curry also told to Patrick, 
 the latter calling at the doctor's house about five 
 o'clock in the afternoon. 
 
 295 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 "You think Mr. Rice will be able to go down 
 Monday morning?" Patrick asked. 
 
 "You had better wait until Monday morning 
 comes," replied Dr. Curry. 
 
 " Do you think he will be able to go down town 
 next week ?" persisted the lawyer. 
 
 The doctor answered in the affirmative. 
 
 That night Mr. Rice slept quietly until eight 
 o'clock Sunday morning. Dr. Curry called and 
 found him in excellent condition, having eaten a 
 hearty breakfast. His heart was a trifle weak, 
 but it was sound. His organs were all working 
 normally; he felt no pain. The doctor left with- 
 out prescribing any medicine, stating that he 
 would not return unless called, and expressing 
 his opinion that the padent would recover. This 
 was about eleven o'clock, and Jones immediately 
 hastened to Patrick's house and reported the con- 
 versation. 
 
 It was clear that Rice's death would not occur 
 before Monday morning. He might live to pay 
 over the two hundred and fifty thousand dollars; 
 long enough to give further testimony in the Holt 
 litigation, and thus expose the whole fraudulent 
 scheme of pretended settlement and of friendly 
 relations with the lawyer, and finally, perhaps, 
 even to make a new will. The success of the con- 
 spiracy demanded that Rice should die that night. 
 
 296 
 
A Murder Conspiracy 
 
 Did he die naturally ? Was his death caused by any 
 further act of the conspirators ? Did Jones kill 
 him by means of chloroform ? 
 
 Jones's story is that Patrick supplied him with 
 some oxalic acid which was to be mixed with pow- 
 dered ammonia and diluted in water, on the the- 
 ory that it was preferable to chloroform since it 
 would not require Jones's presence in the room at 
 the moment of death. Jones said that he endeav- 
 ored to administer the mixture to the old man, but 
 that he refused to take it. Jones had already pro- 
 cured the chloroform from Texas, as has been 
 stated, and had turned it over to Patrick. He says 
 that that afternoon he procured this from Patrick, 
 who told him how to administer it. This was a 
 few moments after six o'clock. Rice was sleeping 
 soundly. The colored woman who did the house- 
 work was absent for the day and the rooms were 
 deserted. He saturated a sponge with chloroform, 
 constructed a cone out of a towel, placed the sponge 
 in the cone, put the cone over the sleeping man's 
 face and ran out of the room and waited thirty 
 minutes for the chloroform to complete the work. 
 Waiting in the next room he heard the door bell 
 ring, and ring again, but he paid no attention to 
 the summons. In point of fact he was never quite 
 sure himself whether the bell was not the creation 
 of his own overwrought brain. At the end of half 
 
 297 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 
 an hour he returned to the bedroom, removed the 
 cone from Rice's face and saw that he was dead, 
 then after burning the sponge and the towel in the 
 kitchen range he opened the windows, straightened 
 the rooms out, called the elevator man, asked him 
 to send for Dr. Curry, and telephoned to Patrick 
 that Rice was dead. 
 
 Jones had no sooner telephoned Patrick that 
 Rice was dead than the lawyer hastened to Dr. 
 Curry's, and within forty minutes appeared with 
 him in Rice's apartments, assuming complete 
 charge. Summoning an undertaker and having 
 the cremation letter at hand, he gave orders for 
 speedy cremation. But he now discovered the 
 principal mistake in his calculations. He had 
 omitted to investigate the length of time required 
 to heat the crematory. This he now discovered to 
 his horror to be twenty-four hours. But the body 
 must be destroyed. The undertaker suggested 
 that the body might be embalmed while the crem- 
 atory was being heated, and Patrick at once seized 
 upon the suggestion and gave orders to that effect, 
 although the cremation letter sets forth specifically 
 that one of the reasons why Rice desired cremation 
 was his horror of being embalmed. The body 
 was embalmed at the apartments that night, Dr. 
 Curry innocently supplying the certificate of death 
 from "old age and weak heart," and "as imme- 
 
 208 
 
A Murder Conspiracy 
 
 diate cause, indigestion followed by collocratal 
 diarrhoea with mental worry.'* 
 
 Having arranged for the cremation at the earliest 
 possible moment, Jones and Patrick rifled the trunk 
 in which Rice kept his papers, and stuffed them in 
 a satchel which Patrick bore away with him. 
 
 The funeral was to be held early Tuesday morn- 
 ing and the ashes conveyed by Jones to Milwaukee, 
 to be interred near the body of Rice's wife, while 
 the relatives should not be notified until it should 
 be too late for them to reach New York. 
 
 The next step was to secure the two hundred 
 and fifty thousand dollars which Rice had on de- 
 posit. Patrick had already forged Rice's name to 
 blank checks on Swenson and the Fifth Avenue 
 Trust Company. Early Monday morning Jones, 
 with Patrick looking over his shoulder and direct- 
 ing him, filled out the body of the checks, which 
 covered all but ten thousand dollars of Rice's de- 
 posits. These consisted of one for twenty-five 
 thousand dollars and one for sixty-five thousand 
 dollars on Swenson, one for twenty-five thousand 
 dollars and another for one hundred and thirty- 
 five thousand dollars on the Trust Company. 
 They were all made payable to the order of Patrick 
 and dated September 22d, the day before Rice's 
 death. One of the drafts on the Fifth Avenue 
 Trust Company was cashed for him by a friend 
 
 299 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 named Potts early Monday morning, and was paid 
 without suspicion. 
 
 But now came the second error, which resulted 
 in the exposure of the conspiracy and conviction 
 for murder. Jones, in filling out the twenty-five 
 thousand dollar check on Swenson, had in his ner- 
 vousness omitted the "1" from Patrick's Christian 
 name, so that the check read "Abert T. Patrick," 
 and Patrick in his excitement had failed to notice 
 the omission or attempt to obviate it by extra in- 
 dorsement. This twenty-five thousand dollar 
 Swenson check was intrusted to David L. Short 
 for presentation to Swenson & Sons for certifica- 
 tion. When he presented it, Wallace, the clerk, 
 recognized Jones's handwriting in the body of it, 
 and thought the signature looked unnatural. He 
 took it to a rear office, where he showed it to Weth- 
 erbee, who was the person whom Jones had ap- 
 proached nine months before with a request that 
 he join the conspiracy to manufacture a bogus will. 
 Wetherbee compared the signature on the check 
 with genuine signatures in the bank, and returned 
 it to Short without any intimation that he regarded 
 it as irregular, but assigning as the reason the defect 
 in the indorsement. Short thereupon returned the 
 check to Patrick, who supplied the necessary sup- 
 plementary indorsement and telephoned to Jones 
 what had occurred, instructing him to say that the 
 
 300 
 
A Murder Conspiracy 
 
 check was all right in case the Swensons should 
 inquire. 
 
 Half an hour later Short returned to Swenson's, 
 where the check was examined by one of the firm. 
 Rice's apartments were then called up, and Jones 
 said that the checks were all right. But this did not 
 satisfy Mr. Swenson, so he instructed Wallace to 
 call up the apartment again and insist on talking 
 to Mr. Rice. Jones delayed replying to Wallace 
 and in the afternoon called up Patrick on the tele- 
 phone, inquiring what he should say. Patrick re- 
 plied that he would have to say that Rice was dead. 
 And in accordance with this Jones informed Swen- 
 son that Rice had died at eight o'clock the previous 
 evening. It was thus clear to Swenson that although 
 the maker of the check was dead, Patrick, a law- 
 yer, cognizant of that fact, was seeking to secure 
 payment upon it. For Jones had told Swenson 
 that he had reported Rice's death to the doctor 
 and to Rice's lawyer, Patrick. 
 
 Patrick, accompanied by Potts, went immediate- 
 ly to the bank, where Swenson informed him that 
 the check could be paid only to the administrator. 
 Patrick replied that there would be no administra- 
 tor; that Rice had left no property in this State, and 
 informed Swenson that he had an assignment by 
 Rice to himself of all Rice's securities with Swen- 
 son. He also invited Swenson to the funeral, 
 
 301 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 Later in the day Patrick attempted to obtain 
 possession of Rice's securities in the Safety De- 
 posit Company and in the Fifth Avenue Trust 
 Company, by presenting forged instruments of 
 transfer and the orders heretofore referred to; but 
 after some delay the trust companies declined him 
 access. The conspiracy had begun to go to pieces. 
 The two mistakes and the failure to secure funds 
 placed Patrick in a dangerous position. 
 
 Two o'clock on Monday afternoon, eighteen 
 hours after the death, Jones, at Patrick's direction, 
 began to notify the relatives that Rice had died the 
 evening before, and that the funeral would take 
 place the following morning. The telegrams to 
 Baker and to Rice, Jr., in Texas, were in the fol- 
 lowing extraordinary form : 
 
 Mr. Rice died eight o'clock last night under care of 
 physicians. Death certificate, "old age, weak heart, de- 
 lirium." Left instructions to be interred in Milwaukee 
 with wife. Funeral 10 A. M. to-morrow at 500 Madison 
 Avenue. 
 
 It is significant that care was used to convey the 
 information that the death was a natural one with 
 a physician in attendance; that the body was to be 
 interred in Milwaukee, without reference to the 
 cremation. This may well have been so that if any 
 suspicions of foul play should arise, the recipients, 
 
 302 
 
A Murder Conspiracy 
 
 realizing that they could not reach New York in 
 time to arrest matters there, might hasten to Mil- 
 waukee to intercept the body, where they could be 
 met by Jones with the cremation letter in his pock- 
 et and his urn of ashes under his arm. 
 
 But the telegram did arouse suspicion, and Baker 
 and Rice immedately wired Jones as follows : 
 
 Please make no disposition of Rice's remains until we 
 arrive. We leave to-night, arrive New York Thursday 
 morning. 
 
 Baker also instructed N. A. Meldrum, a Texan 
 then in New York, to co-operate with Jones in pre- 
 serving everything intact. 
 
 In the meantime, however, Swenson had noti- 
 fied his attorneys, who in turn had informed the 
 police and the District Attorney's office, and that 
 evening at about eleven o'clock James W. Gerard, 
 accompanied by a detective, who posed as the law- 
 yer's clerk, interviewed Patrick at his home. Pat- 
 rick informed Gerard that he had an assignment of 
 all Rice's property and also a will of Rice's of which 
 he was executor. This was the first reference to the 
 will of 1900. He also informed Gerard that he 
 would not receive a cent under its provision. To 
 have explained the real terms of the will would, 
 under the circumstances, have excited too much 
 suspicion. Yet he was eager to let the Swensons 
 
 33 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 know that as executor he was in a position to con- 
 trol the profitable banking business that would 
 arise from the settlement of the estate. In the 
 meantime four Headquarters' detectives, repre- 
 senting themselves as lawyers, visited the apart- 
 ments. 
 
 Patrick hurried to 500 Madison Avenue, where 
 he learned of Meldrum's presence in town. Things 
 were turning out far from the way in which he had 
 expected. He then hastened to his office down- 
 town, which he reached about half-past one in the 
 morning, and, alone, destroyed great quantities of 
 paper, attempting to dispose of them through the 
 toilet bowl, which was so clogged that the water 
 flowed out upon the floor, necessitating an apology 
 to the janitor. In the silence of the night misgiv- 
 ings came upon him. He lost his nerve, and at two 
 o'clock in the morning called up the undertaker 
 and revoked the signed order for cremation which 
 he had given. Leaving the office at about five in 
 the morning he first visited Meyers, thence pro- 
 ceeded to his own boarding-house, and from there 
 went to the apartments, which he reached at eight 
 o'clock. Here he found the detectives who had 
 been on guard since early morning to forestall any 
 attempt to remove the body. 
 
 At the funeral itself he attempted to conciliate 
 adverse interests and to win witnesses for his pur- 
 
 34 
 
A Murder Conspiracy 
 
 pose. He had begun to do this the very night that 
 Rice had died, when he told the elevator man that 
 he was remembered in Rice's will. He had also 
 informed Wetherbee that he had a five thousand 
 dollars' legacy. At the funeral were Blynn, one of 
 Rice's nephews, who had come on from Massa- 
 chusetts, and two ladies, to each of whom he stated 
 that they had legacies which would soon be avail- 
 able provided there was no contest of the will. 
 
 The detectives now informed Patrick that he 
 was wanted at Headquarters, and Patrick invited 
 Potts to accompany him, informing the latter that 
 the police suspected that there was something un- 
 natural in the cause of death, but that he could ex- 
 plain satisfactorily. As a matter of fact no such 
 intimation had been made to him by the police or 
 anyone else. At Police Headquarters after an in- 
 terview with Inspector McClusky he was permitted 
 to go his way. 
 
 Patrick returned to Rice's apartments, sent for 
 Short and Meyers, and conferred with them there. 
 He took this occasion to tell Maria Scott, the col- 
 ored woman who worked in the apartment, that 
 she was suspected of having poisoned Rice, and 
 that she had better say nothing about his death. 
 Jones told her that she was remembered in the will 
 and that it would be worth her while to stand by 
 himself and Patrick, who would see that she was 
 
 305 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 taken cafe of. Meanwhile the coroner had sent 
 the body to the morgue for autopsy. 
 
 The autopsy was performed on Tuesday, forty- 
 three hours after death occurred, by Dr. Donlin, a 
 coroner's physician, in the presence of Dr. Wil- 
 liams, also a coroner's physician, and of Professor 
 R. A. Witthaus, an expert chemist. The two physi- 
 cians testified at the trial that the organs of the 
 body, except the lungs, were normal in condition, 
 save as affected by the embalming fluid. They 
 and Professor Witthaus agreed in their testimony 
 that the lungs were congested. Dr. Donlin spoke 
 of their being "congested all over"; while Dr. 
 Williams characterized it as " an intense congestion 
 of the lungs coextensive with them." Outside of 
 the lungs they found no evidence of disease to ac- 
 count for death, and beyond the congestion these 
 showed nothing except a small patch of con- 
 solidated tissue about the size of a twenty-five cent 
 piece. They testified, in effect, that nothing save 
 the inhalation of some gaseous irritant could have 
 produced such a general congestion, and that the 
 patch of tissue referred to was insufficient to ac- 
 count for the amount of congestion present. Dr. 
 Donlin could not testify what the proximate cause 
 of death was, but was firm in his opinion that no 
 cause for it was observable in the other vital organs. 
 In this Dr. Williams concurred. He was of the 
 
 306 
 
A Murder Conspiracy 
 
 opinion that chloroform would act as an irritant 
 upon the lungs and cause precisely that general 
 congestion observable in the case of the deceased. 
 Professor Witthaus testified that his analysis re- 
 vealed the presence of mercury, obtained as calo- 
 mel, and while the amount was not sufficient to 
 cause death, its presence indicated that a larger 
 quantity had existed in life. The embalming fluid 
 had contained no mercury, and he and Dr. Donlin 
 agreed that the embalming fluid would have no 
 effect upon the lungs beyond a tendency to bleach 
 them. In other words, the People's evidence was 
 to the effect that no cause of death was observable 
 from a medical examination of the body save the 
 congestion stated to exist in the lungs, and that this 
 might have been caused by chloroform. 
 
 Thursday morning Mr. Baker and F. A. Rice, 
 the brother of the deceased, arrived in New York. 
 Patrick showed them the cremation letter, and, inas- 
 much as they took a neutral position in the matter, 
 ordered the cremation to proceed, and accordingly 
 it took place that very day. He also endeavored to 
 win the confidence of Baker, but succeeded in ac- 
 complishing little. He finally gave the latter a copy 
 of the 1900 will and the original will of 1896. He 
 also informed Baker that he had taken a large 
 number of papers from Rice's apartments, and 
 turned over to him a considerable number of them. 
 
 37 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 He also surrendered on Friday the two Swenson 
 checks. 
 
 After considerable discussion Baker told Patrick 
 flatly that he would never consent to the probate of 
 the 1900 will; that he was satisfied that the '96 will 
 was the last will of Rice, and that he would insist 
 upon its being probated, to which Patrick replied, 
 that so far as he was concerned he did not know 
 but that the probate of the '96 will would suit him 
 just as well as the probate of the 1900 will; that it 
 was a matter of indifference to him, and that so far 
 as the Rice Institute was concerned he was pre- 
 pared to give Baker from three to five million dol- 
 lars for it, or any other sum Baker might name. 
 These negotiations and conferences continued 
 until the fourth of October, Patrick yielding step 
 by step, until he had divested himself of all control 
 of the documents and securities. 
 
 Meantime sufficient evidence having been se- 
 cured, Patrick and Jones were arrested on a charge 
 of forgery and held for the Grand Jury. Bail was 
 fixed at ten thousand dollars each, but was not 
 forthcoming. 
 
 On October 2ist, Mr. House, Patrick's lawyer, 
 visited Patrick and Jones in the Tombs. Jones 
 says that after Patrick had talked to Mr. House 
 the former called Jones to one corner of the room 
 and told him that House insisted on knowing defi- 
 
 308 
 
A Murder Conspiracy 
 
 nitely whether a crime had been committed and 
 directed Jones to tell House that a murder had 
 been committed, but that he (Patrick) was not 
 concerned in it. This Jones declined to do with- 
 out implicating Patrick. The two prisoners then 
 returned to House and Jones says that he informed 
 House that he had killed Rice by chloroform, and 
 gave him the "same story which he told on the 
 witness stand." After this Jones apparently lost 
 his nerve and told Patrick that he intended to 
 commit suicide. This idea Patrick encouraged, 
 agreeing that they should both do it at about the 
 same time. 
 
 On the 26th of October Jones made a statement 
 to Assistant District Attorney Osborne which was 
 in large part false, and in which he endeavored to 
 exonerate himself entirely from complicity in any of 
 the crimes, and in which he charged the actual ad- 
 ministration of the chloroform to Patrick. Four 
 days later Osborne sent for him and told him he 
 had lied, upon which Jones became confused, 
 continued to persist in some of his statements, 
 qualified others and withdrew still others. He was 
 completely unnerved and that night attempted, by 
 means of a knife which Patrick had supplied him, 
 to cut his throat. The attempt was a failure, and 
 he was removed to Bellevue Hospital, where he re- 
 mained until November I2th. He then finally 
 
 309 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 gave the statement which corresponded with his 
 testimony upon the trial and which jibed with all 
 the circumstances and evidence known to the 
 District Attorney. 
 
 Did Patrick conspire with Jones to murder Rice ? 
 What corroboration is there of Jones's story that 
 he killed Rice under Patrick's direction? First: 
 What proof is there that murder was committed ? 
 
 Roughly, that Jones so swore; that Rice died 
 at the time alleged; that he did not die from dis- 
 ease, but that he died from a congestion of the 
 lungs which could have occurred only in the case 
 of a living organism by the administration of some 
 such irritant as chloroform; that some one, there- 
 fore, must have killed him, and that Jones alone 
 had the opportunity. 
 
 Second: What proof is there that Patrick di- 
 rected the murder ? 
 
 Evidence of an elaborate conspiracy, as briefly 
 heretofore set forth, which contemplated the death 
 of Rice. Of course Patrick wanted Rice to die. 
 If Patrick was not implicated in the killing, what 
 motive had Jones to commit the deed ? Why did 
 Rice die at the precise psychological moment which 
 would enable Patrick to prevent two hundred and 
 fifty thousand dollars on deposit being diverted to 
 Texas. And finally, why did Patrick prepare a 
 forged cremation letter for the destruction of the 
 
 310 
 
A Murder Conspiracy 
 
 body ? If the conspiracy contemplated a natural 
 death, nothing could be of greater value to the two 
 parties concerned than the means of proving that 
 the death was not unnatural. 
 
 This, in the most abbreviated form, is the case 
 against Patrick. Space forbids any reference to 
 his elaborate and ingenious defense, which was 
 based entirely on an alleged complete failure of 
 corroboration of Jones's testimony. Starting with 
 the premise that the word of a self-confessed 
 murderer and thrice-perjured scoundrel was value- 
 less as proof, he contended that there was no 
 adequate evidence that Rice's death was felonious, 
 and that the congestion of the lungs could have 
 been and was caused by the embalming fluid and 
 was only attributed to the chloroform after Jones 
 had given his final version of how the murder was 
 accomplished. Technically the case against Patrick 
 was not a strong one. Dramatically it was over- 
 whelming. His own failure to testify and his re- 
 fusal to allow his lawyer, Mr. House, to relate 
 what passed between them in the Tombs, remain 
 significant, although not evidence proper for a jury 
 to consider. Wherever lawyers shall get together, 
 there the Patrick case will be discussed with its 
 strong points and its weak ones, its technicalities 
 and its tactics, and the ethics of the liberation of 
 Jones, the actual murderer, now long since van- 
 
 3" 
 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 ished into the obscurity from which he came. On 
 the one hand stands a public convinced of Pat- 
 rick's guilt, and on the other the convicted "lifer" 
 pointing a lean finger at the valet Jones and stub- 
 bornly repeating, " I am innocent." 
 
 312 
 
THE DOWNFALL OF A 
 CRIMINAL LAWYER 
 
XI 
 
 The Downfall of a Criminal 
 Lawyer 
 
 THE career of Abraham H. Hummel, who, in 
 the language of District Attorney Jerome, 
 was "for twenty years a menace to the commu- 
 nity," ended with his conviction for conspiracy and 
 his imprisonment in the penitentiary on Black- 
 well's Island in 1907. During that period it is safe 
 to say that he and his partner, Howe, under the 
 firm name of Howe & Hummel, were more widely 
 known, both in this country and in England, than 
 any other members of the American bar. Howe, 
 who was a man of slight legal ability but of some 
 natural eloquence, was prominent in the criminal 
 courts when Hummel first entered his employ as 
 an office-boy. Hummers preceptor took a fancy 
 to him from the start, and from that time until his 
 death always called and referred to his diminutive 
 ally as "Little Abey." Three years later was 
 formed the famous partnership, the very mention 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 of whose name speedily became enough to cause a 
 shiver to run down the spine of many of New 
 York's most conspicuous citizens. 
 
 Howe & Hummers office in full action was one 
 of the sights of the city. Situated in an old-fash- 
 ioned, red-brick edifice at the southwest corner of 
 Centre and Leonard Streets, and directly in the 
 shadow of the Tombs, it arrested the glance of all 
 who passed, by a mammoth sign running across 
 the front and side of the building. Its creaking 
 door stood open for all comers, and many there 
 were who passed in thereat. Inside a catacomb of 
 dingy offices hung the webs of these legal spiders 
 whose invisible threads ran into the homes of many 
 of the supposedly good and great. No carpets 
 absorbed the dirt of the floors; the windows were 
 never washed; chairs and tables stood in reckless 
 angularity; law-books lay torn and half opened 
 upon the floors; and a flock of process-servers, 
 clerks, messengers, and all sorts of hangers-on 
 loitered in the outer room and threw terror into 
 the hearts of prospective clients. Outside, the 
 street would be crowded with cabs and* carriages, 
 while the waiting-rooms were filled with actresses, 
 injured husbands, and members of the demi- 
 monde, although the clients of this distinguished 
 firm were by no means all drawn from the lower 
 orders of society. 
 
 316 
 
The Downfall of a Criminal Lawyer 
 
 Amid this clientele Hummel was in his element. 
 There was always some way to beat a case " on the 
 facts " or to make a case. Of law he knew, and 
 knows, nothing. It is his boast that in twenty-five 
 years he has not opened a law-book three times. 
 Yet he and Howe, it is alleged, made and squan- 
 dered millions. 
 
 They kept no books, all payments being re- 
 quired to be made in cash, on the spot, and as fast 
 as the money was handed over they stuffed it in 
 their pockets. At five o'clock daily the firm ad- 
 journed to a near-by saloon, disgorged, and "div- 
 vied." But apart from a handsome weekly stipend 
 to his sister, Hummers money all went into the 
 Tenderloin or the race-track, and to-day he has not 
 a penny in the world. 
 
 Of the two, Howe was the more interesting char- 
 acter, and his loud, pompous voice and his extraor- 
 dinary clothes made him conspicuous in any court. 
 The writer once prosecuted a murder case which 
 Howe was defending. He was arrayed (it was 
 winter) in an outing-costume of light material, 
 with brown checks fully two inches in diameter. 
 He wore no necktie, but in lieu thereof a pin rep- 
 resenting an eagle, and composed of rubies, sap- 
 phires, and pearls. Diamonds sparkled down his 
 shirt-front, and he had rings on his fingers and 
 
 bells no, he only had on yachting shoes and a 
 
 3 1 ? 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 blue cap trimmed with gold braid and brass but- 
 tons. He cross-examined no witnesses, but when- 
 ever one gave a particularly damaging bit of testi- 
 mony against his client he groaned with a mixture 
 of pathos and incredulity. 
 
 " I like diamonds," he used to say. " I love their 
 glitter and sparkle." 
 
 " Little Abey," on the other hand, was modest in 
 his attire; and while, as his friends used to call 
 him, a "neat dresser," he never courted exterior 
 notoriety. Howe wore a gold watch-chain like the 
 main cable of a battle-ship, Hummel a slender 
 thread across his attenuated bosom. 
 
 " Big Bill" Howe has been dead these five years, 
 but his coffin must have been strong indeed to pre- 
 vent his rising up to the defense of his "Little 
 Abey." Had he been alive some things might 
 have happened before his little partner was com- 
 pelled to don the striped overalls which are to-day 
 his severest trial. For Hummel always wore the 
 daintiest of pointed patent-leather shoes and slen- 
 der broadcloth trousers. 
 
 A book, nay, twenty books, could be written of 
 these two men, and would Hummel speak he 
 could a tale unfold whose lightest word would 
 make the quills rise not only on the fretful porcu- 
 pine, but on the heads of several thousand 
 pleasure-loving dames and gentles not half a mile 
 
 318 
 
The Downfall of a Criminal Lawyer 
 
 from Broadway. But enough; this is the story of 
 a single crime. 
 
 The case against Hummel arose in this wise. In 
 the year 1877 Charles Foster Dodge, who later 
 became the central figure in the criminal proceed- 
 ings against the lawyer, married Clemence Chrys- 
 tie Cowles, in San Francisco. Dodge was thirty- 
 two years old, had been engaged in the hotel busi- 
 ness for a number of years, and at the time of his 
 marriage was manager of the Palace Hotel. For 
 the next twelve years the two led a somewhat un- 
 happy life together, and finally separated, Mrs. 
 Dodge to keep a lodging-house in New York, and 
 her husband to return to his semi-nomadic occu- 
 pation of hotel man. Between 1889 and 1897, 
 a period during which his life was not above re- 
 proach, Dodge was successively manager of vari- 
 ous hotels, a conductor on the Southern Railroad, 
 and eventually a part owner of a restaurant in 
 Atlanta. 
 
 In March, 1897, Mrs. Dodge decided to divorce 
 her husband, and employed as her counsel for that 
 purpose William A. Sweetzer, of New York. A 
 referee was appointed to hear the evidence, and 
 before him Sweetzer swore that he had personally 
 served the summons in the action on Dodge, the 
 defendant, at the Everett House, corner of Fourth 
 Avenue and Seventeenth Street, New York, on 
 
 319 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 March 31, 1897. This was the point in denying 
 which Dodge subsequently perjured himself. A 
 lawyer named Ruger appeared for the defendant; 
 but, the evidence of Dodge's infidelity not being 
 controverted, the referee reported in favor of the 
 divorce, and it was granted. By the terms of the 
 decree Clemence Dodge was given the right to 
 marry again. In his report the referee specifically 
 found that "all the jurisdictional facts were prop- 
 erly proved." 
 
 In June, 1901, Mrs. Dodge, never doubting her 
 entire right to do so, and relying implicitly upon 
 the validity and propriety of her divorce, married 
 Charles W. Morse, of New York, a widower with 
 four children, whose first wife had died in 1897. 
 Morse was a busy capitalist interested in various 
 enterprises, and it appeared that he neglected to 
 inform his sister and children, who lived in Maine, 
 of his matrimonial venture until a week before the 
 ceremony took place. 
 
 The question of how far the marriage was actu- 
 ally displeasing to Morse's family is important in 
 determining what hidden motives, if any, lay be- 
 hind the extraordinary legal proceedings which 
 took place later on. At Hummers trial Morse 
 testified under oath that the members of his family 
 were hostile to his marriage and showed their dis- 
 approval in their attitude toward him. "That 
 
 320 
 
The Downfall of a Criminal Lawyer 
 
 manner toward me obtained from the time they 
 first learned that I had married this woman. They 
 never lived where this second wife could act in the 
 relation or capacity of a mother to them." 
 
 But, according to Morse, and even more accord- 
 ing to himself, the relative most actively opposed 
 to the marriage was "Uncle" or "Captain" James 
 T. Morse, of Boston, a retired sea-captain, who 
 was treasurer of several enterprises in which his 
 nephew was interested. Apparently "Uncle Jim" 
 was against the whole thing, for he swore that his 
 one object in life from that time on (he was then 
 only sixty-four) became to break up his nephew's 
 second matrimonial enterprise. Now, why "Uncle 
 Jim" should have been so anxious to unmake this 
 marriage does not appear, and no satisfying reason 
 therefore has ever yet been made public. He was 
 not only on good terms with his forty-nine-year- 
 old nephew, but also more or less dependent on his 
 good will, and so far as can be learned he knew 
 nothing about the second Mrs. Morse to justify his 
 antipathy. Moreover, although he spent an enor- 
 mous sum of money in a fruitless attempt to rid 
 his nephew of the lady, it is said by some who 
 claim to know that his purse was lean and the fist 
 which held it somewhat tight. 
 
 Save as a matter of speculative interest, how- 
 ever, the exact cause of "Captain Jim's" extraor- 
 
 321 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 dinary and somewhat belated antagonism is im- 
 material, and it is sufficient to record that after a 
 period of two years, during which, so far as is 
 known, Mr. and Mrs. Morse lived happily to- 
 gether, "Uncle Jim" suddenly made up his mind 
 to find some flaw in the link which bound his 
 nephdw and the new wife together. 
 
 The worthy sea-captain swore at Hummers trial 
 that it was all his fault, that he had wantonly burst 
 into a silent sea of conjugal felicity, and, in a word, 
 that there was no "nigger in the wood-pile." He 
 alleged that he had "heard rumors" that Mrs. 
 Morse's divorce from Dodge was illegal and irreg- 
 ular why or from whom he did not specify and 
 protested that until he had actually consulted 
 Hummel he had no idea that there was anything 
 wrong so far as the service of the original summons 
 upon Dodge was concerned. 
 
 Be that as it may, we find him in Hummers 
 office in August, 1903, instructing the lawyer to 
 find out if Mrs. Dodge's divorce from her husband 
 could not be set aside, and thus his nephew's 
 marriage to her be invalidated. A few days later 
 Hummel called up "Captain Jim" on the long- 
 distance telephone in Boston and informed the sea- 
 captain that he had looked up the Dodge-Dodge 
 divorce papers, that they were shockingly irregu- 
 lar, and that the best thing "Captain Jim" could 
 
 322 
 
The Downfall of a Criminal Lawyer 
 
 do would be to come right over to New York 
 with fifteen thousand dollars. According to his 
 own story, the Captain rushed at once to the bank, 
 drew out fifteen thousand dollars, and started for 
 New York, where he handed the money to Hum- 
 mel and gave him orders to upset the Morse mar- 
 riage if he could. Then for a time "Uncle Jim" 
 disappeared from the case, and Hummel started 
 in to earn his money. 
 
 On September 3, 1903, Dodge, who was run- 
 ning a restaurant in Atlanta, received a telegram, 
 signed "Edward M. Bracken," inviting him to 
 dine at the Piedmont Hotel on the following even- 
 ing. Dodge went, dined, was handed five hundred 
 dollars, and agreed to go up to New York with 
 Bracken to see Mr. Hummel. 
 
 The next Monday morning he visited the law- 
 yer's den, where Hummel told him that he had 
 sent Bracken down to find him and bring him 
 back. Just then a clerk brought in word that the 
 firm had won a case, and the little lawyer slapped 
 his new friend on the leg and exclaimed, " Dodge, 
 you are a mascot!" The words must have after- 
 ward echoed mockingly in his memory. 
 
 Hummel asked Dodge if he had ever been served 
 with a summons in the divorce proceedings insti- 
 tuted by Mrs. Dodge. Dodge said that he had, 
 at the Everett House, in New York, in March, 
 
 323 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 and that he had retained by letter a lawyer named 
 Ruger to represent him. 
 
 Hummel winked at Dodge and called in a sten- 
 ographer, to whom he dictated a long affidavit 
 which was absolutely false in many of its most 
 important allegations for it contained statements 
 to the effect that Mrs. Dodge had unexpectedly 
 visited him (Dodge) in Atlanta in 1895, and that, 
 so far as the divorce proceedings were concerned, 
 he had never retained Ruger and had never been 
 served with any summons either in New York or 
 anywhere else, although he had deliberately fur- 
 nished evidence to assist Mrs. Dodge in quietly 
 getting a divorce. 
 
 This affidavit Dodge swore to in Hummers 
 office and at Hummers direction on September 
 8, 1903, before a notary, Joseph F. Moss, a present 
 police magistrate, then a member of the firm of 
 Howe & Hummel. 
 
 Two days later Hummel wrote to Charles W. 
 Morse, stating that Dodge had made this affidavit. 
 " It is my duty," he continued, " to advise you that 
 this decree is collusive and irregular, and it may 
 be doubted whether your subsequent marriage is 
 a lawful one, and whether Mr. Dodge could not 
 set aside that decree and claim that your subse- 
 quent marriage to his wife was an alienation of her 
 affections and that her conduct in becoming your 
 
 324 
 
The Downfall of a Criminal Lawyer 
 
 wife entitles him to a decree against her. I have 
 taken the liberty of thoroughly informing you re- 
 garding this matter, so that if you desire you may 
 confer with your counsel before any legal steps are 
 taken." 
 
 This letter was subsequently characterized by 
 the Appellate Division, in its opinion, sustaining 
 Hummel's conviction, as follows: 
 
 " If Hummel was in good faith carrying out the 
 instructions he had received from James T. 
 Morse, the reason for his writing to Charles W. 
 Morse, to call his attention to what he claimed to 
 be an irregularity in the decree of divorce, is not 
 apparent. The defendant had obtained fifteen 
 thousand dollars from James T. Morse to upset 
 the decree. Mr. Charles W. Morse, who had mar- 
 ried Mrs. Dodge, was a gentleman of wealth and 
 position and naturally would most seriously object 
 to any scandal of this kind concerning his wife 
 being made public, and under these circumstances, 
 what the defendant had in view can be readily 
 surmised/' 
 
 According to Morse, the effect of this letter was 
 to lead him to go at once to Hummers office and 
 tell him that the matter was not one for compro- 
 mise, and that if his wife's decree from Dodge was 
 not legal, steps would be taken to make it so. 
 
 Hummel replied in the same tone that his client, 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 Mr. Dodge, wanted the decree set aside, and that 
 he was not willing to compromise. 
 
 Morse now agreed to meet Sweetzer and Hum- 
 mel at the latter's house and talk the matter over. 
 At this interview Sweetzer was insistent that he 
 had properly served Dodge in person with the 
 summons at the Everett House, and that the de- 
 cree was regular in every way. Hummel, on the 
 other hand, alleged that it was collusive and cor- 
 rupt, and that Dodge felt himself outraged. Noth- 
 ing was said about "Uncle Jim." The meeting 
 accomplished nothing, and on October aoth, 1903, 
 Hummel procured an order from the Supreme 
 Court requiring Clemence Dodge (Mrs. Morse) 
 to show cause why her divorce from Charles F. 
 Dodge should not be set aside. 
 
 But a slight inadvertence on Hummers part in 
 procuring the original affidavit from Dodge now 
 necessitated the preparation of a new one, and for 
 this reason. The original affidavit, dictated by 
 Hummel, contained the statement that Dodge had 
 received a copy of the decree through the mails at 
 the Long Beach Hotel in the summer of 1898. 
 This was a damaging admission, for a Court might 
 well have held that if Dodge had notice of the 
 issuance of the decree and took no steps for five 
 years to do anything to set it aside, while other 
 parties, relying on its validity, had undertaken new 
 
 326 
 
The Downfall of a Criminal Lawyer 
 
 marital relations, that constituted such laches upon 
 his part that the decree should be permitted to 
 stand. 
 
 Accordingly, Hummel sent Bracken to Atlanta 
 a second time and agreed to give Dodge five thou- 
 sand dollars for a new affidavit. As a result the 
 hotel man paid another visit to the lawyer's office 
 and cheerfully signed a new deposition drawn by 
 Steinhardt, Hummers partner, which contained 
 no reference to his ever having any knowledge of 
 the procurement of the decree against him by Mrs. 
 Dodge. 
 
 Dodge testified at Hummers trial that he told 
 Steinhardt that he had written several letters to 
 Ruger, authorizing the latter to represent him in 
 the proceedings, and that he inquired what he 
 should say about them. Steinhardt had replied, 
 " Ruger is dead, you will hear nothing from him." 
 
 The new affidavit emphatically stated : 
 
 "I never directly or indirectly retained Mr. 
 Ruger as my lawyer in this action, nor did I ever 
 authorize him to appear. I was never served with 
 a summons or complaint in the divorce action and 
 knew nothing about what was going on in refer- 
 ence to it, and the affidavit of proof of service, that 
 I was, on the 3ist day of March, served with a 
 summons in this action by William A. Sweetzer, is 
 absolutely false. I do not know said William A. 
 
 327 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 Sweetzer. I have never met or seen him. I never 
 knew of the pendency of the action, nor that this 
 suit was to be brought to trial, nor have I at any 
 time ever communicated with said Mortimer A. 
 Ruger, nor have I ever written him, or he me." 
 
 Upon the strength of this affidavit the Supreme 
 Court issued an order appointing a referee to take 
 proof and report why the divorce should not be set 
 aside. Of course Dodge was the most important 
 witness, and Hummel sent Bracken, the reliable, 
 down to Atlanta to get him again. 
 
 Hummel now proceeded to lay one of the clev- 
 erest traps to discredit a witness ever devised by 
 human ingenuity. Upon Sweetzer' s ability to con- 
 tradict Dodge's assertion that he had never been 
 served with a summons in the original action de- 
 pended the sustaining of the Morse marriage. 
 Hummel knew that Sweetzer had seen Dodge but 
 once, and then for a single moment only, six years 
 before. He therefore conceived the idea of sub- 
 stituting a "dummy" for Dodge, before the ref- 
 eree, in the hope that Sweetzer would identify him 
 as the person he had served with the summons; 
 and he accordingly took along with him to the 
 hearing a man by the name of Herpich, who re- 
 sembled Dodge but slightly. Precisely as Hum- 
 mel had planned, Sweetzer walked into the trap 
 and identified Herpich as Dodge, and this error 
 
 3*8 
 
The Downfall of a Criminal Lawyer 
 
 went a long way toward leading the referee to be- 
 lieve Dodge and discredit Sweetzer. 
 
 At the hearing, Sweetzer swore positively that 
 he had personally served the summons upon Dodge 
 and Dodge equally positively denied it, alleging, as 
 he had previously sworn in his affidavit, that he 
 did not know Sweetzer, had never had any cor- 
 respondence with Ruger, and was a conductor on 
 a dining-car which did not run to New York at the 
 time the summons was said to have been served 
 upon him by Sweetzer. His skilful lying and 
 Sweetzer' s blundering identification of Herpich 
 convinced the referee that Dodge, in fact, never 
 had been served, and he so reported to the Court. 
 
 The Dodge-Dodge divorce was accordingly 
 annulled by the Supreme Court on December 3rd, 
 1903, on the ground that the Court had never se- 
 cured jurisdiction over the defendant, Dodge; and 
 on December 22d an interlocutory judgment (to 
 become final at the expiration of three months) was 
 entered, dissolving the Morse-Dodge marriage, 
 but declaring that the marriage between Charles 
 W. Morse and Clemence Dodge, while null and 
 void by virtue of subsequent action of the Court, 
 had been innocent and entered into in good faith. 
 
 Hummel had won; "Uncle Jim" had accom- 
 plished the object which he professed was so dear 
 to his heart; Mrs. Morse was no longer Mrs. 
 
 329 
 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 Morse, but had become Mrs. Dodge again; and 
 Dodge himself was six or seven thousand dollars 
 to the good. 
 
 Then a curious and unexpected thing happened. 
 Lawyer Sweetzer, feeling that he had made rather 
 a fool of himself, decided to do a little investigat- 
 ing on his own account. Accordingly he visited 
 the offices formerly occupied by Mortimer A. Ru- 
 ger on the ninth floor of 45 Broadway, where some 
 of Ruger' s effects still remained. Here he discov- 
 ered, among a mass of papers, two letters from 
 Dodge to Ruger, admitting that he had been served 
 with a summons and authorizing Ruger to appear 
 for him. The first read as follows : 
 
 ATLANTA, GA., May 2, 1897. 
 MORTIMER RUGER, ESQ., 
 
 45 Broadway, N. Y. 
 
 Dear Sir: My wife, Mrs. Clemence Dodge, of 208 W. 
 44th Street, New York, commenced an action for abso- 
 lute divorce against me by service of a summons which 
 I hereby enclose to you. The summons was served upon 
 me at the Everett House in New York city, by Mr. Wil- 
 liam A. Sweetzer, the plaintiff's attorney. I have no 
 personal acquaintance among lawyers in New York city, 
 and your name has been referred to me. I believe my 
 time to answer has expired. However, I would like to 
 have you appear for me in the action. The summons 
 was served alone and written across the face of it was 
 "Action for absolute divorce," and so far as I can see I 
 do not believe I have any defense. Would you be kind 
 enough to appear for me in the matter as my attorney, if 
 
 330 
 
The Downfall of a Criminal Lawyer 
 
 Mr. Sweetzer will accept it without making any move in 
 the court for permission to do so ? I believe the petition 
 will contain a statement complaining of acts of mine in 
 Atlanta, and if so I cannot defend. 
 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 CHARLES F. DODGE. 
 
 The other letter was similar in character. ' Thus, 
 as their genuineness was beyond question, they 
 demonstrated and proved that Dodge had delib- 
 erately perjured himself before the referee, at some 
 one's suggestion and in some one's interest. Sweet- 
 zer said that these letters had been the result of an 
 arrangement between Ruger and himself, since he 
 had intimated to Dodge the advisability of retain- 
 ing Ruger as attorney, for Sweetzer and Ruger at 
 that time had occupied adjacent offices and had 
 been in the Corporation Counsel's office together. 
 The divorce, he explained, was to be procured 
 without expense to Dodge, and Ruger was to re- 
 ceive his fee from Mrs. Dodge. It is probable that 
 the form of the letter was in substance suggested to 
 the hotel man by Sweetzer himself. 
 
 Four days after the discovery of the letters a 
 conference was held at ex- Judge Fursman's office, 
 at 32 Nassau Street, at which Mr. and Mrs. Morse 
 (or Mrs. Dodge, whichever it may then have been), 
 Sweetzer, and Fursman, as Mrs. Morse's attorney, 
 were present. The two letters were there shown to 
 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 Mrs. Morse, but she professed an inability to de- 
 termine whether they were genuine or not. Furs- 
 man assured her that he believed the letters to be 
 authentic, and advised her to permit him to pro- 
 ceed by means of them to have both the original 
 divorce from Dodge and her marriage to Morse 
 reinstated as legal. But, according to Fursman, 
 she would have none of it, and insisted that there 
 was something wrong about the original divorce. 
 She thought they had better begin all over again 
 and institute a new action for divorce against her 
 former husband. 
 
 However, Morse himself decided to take action, 
 and on April 5th, by order of the Supreme Court, 
 the original divorce in Dodge vs. Dodge was "re- 
 stored and reinstated in full force." 
 
 Hummel had appeared in opposition before the 
 referee to whom the matter had been sent, but had 
 offered no great resistance, for Dodge's perjury 
 was too flagrant to be debatable. Mrs. Dodge was 
 now Mrs. Morse again, and "Uncle Jim" had 
 spent his money all for nothing. No, not for noth- 
 ing, for it was a small sum to pay for the privilege 
 of putting Hummel behind prison bars. Perhaps 
 it was unfair to assess the cost entirely upon 
 "Uncle Jim," but then, probably, it served him 
 right. 
 
 Yet, long before the action of the Supreme Court 
 332 
 
The Downfall of a Criminal Lawyer 
 
 in restoring the marriage, District Attorney Je- 
 rome had begun his own method of untangling the 
 matrimonial skein of Charles W. Morse. As soon 
 as the facts were laid before him he placed the 
 matter in the hands of the grand jury, which 
 promptly returned an indictment against Dodge 
 for the crime of perjury. Hummel began to be 
 alarmed. If Dodge should be put through the 
 "third degree" he might squeal; but this seemed 
 impossible. No jury would believe him, anyway, 
 and there was no earthly way, that Hummel could 
 see, to corroborate him. Still the little lawyer was 
 decidedly uneasy. 
 
 Dodge, meanwhile, had been arrested in Atlanta 
 and brought to New York. On February ist, 1904, 
 Hummel called up "Captain Jim" on the long- 
 distance telephone, told him of Dodge's plight, 
 and stated that his bail had been fixed at ten thou- 
 sand dollars. The captain ought to come over, 
 he said, and attend to it. 
 
 Now " Captain Jim " was in no way responsible 
 for what either Hummel or Dodge had done, yet 
 for some unknown reason he took the next train 
 for New York and brought the ten thousand dol- 
 lars in cash to Hummers office. Why ? Hadn't he 
 put up enough already ? What interest had he in 
 this miserable criminal from Atlanta ? " Captain 
 Jim" went back to Boston, and three weeks later 
 
 333 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 received another call by long-distance. This time 
 Hummel wanted only three thousand dollars. 
 Down into his trousers pocket went "Uncle Jim." 
 Surely Hummel had a curious influence over this 
 horny-handed old sailor. But the Captain did not 
 like to travel so far as New York he was getting 
 to be an old man; so thereafter, whenever money 
 was needed, a person named Cohen met him in 
 Stamford for that purpose. It was not so far. The 
 extra hour into New York evidently would have 
 had grave discomforts for poor "Uncle Jim." Be- 
 tween February ist and August, 1904, Captain 
 Morse paid Hummel forty-five thousand dollars in 
 amounts ranging from fifteen hundred to ten 
 thousand, which, added to Hummel's original re- 
 tainer of fifteen thousand dollars, made the Cap- 
 tain's alleged little game of interference cost him 
 exactly sixty thousand dollars. It is needless to 
 say that he never received any of it back, and, so 
 far as can be learned, he had no expectation or 
 desire that it should be returned. He said that he 
 thought it was all most innocent and proper. Of 
 course he did. Did he not swear so upon the 
 sacred book ? 
 
 "I never raised any question about their [the 
 payments] propriety or impropriety. In the 
 treatment that I received at the hands of Mr. Hum- 
 mel I haven't any fault to find. The fact was never 
 
 334 
 
The Downfall of a Criminal Lawyer 
 
 brought home to me in any way that any of the 
 money I paid Mr. Hummel was to be used for the 
 purchase of perjured evidence. I never instructed 
 Mr. Hummel to make use of that kind of testi- 
 mony. ... I believed that Dodge had told the 
 truth. Hummel told me so. I was willing and 
 contented to stand by it. I was willing to stand 
 by him and put up the money for that purpose." 
 
 Speaking of Hummel, the Appellate Division in 
 sustaining the lawyer's conviction said (per Ingra- 
 ham, J.): 
 
 " I can conceive of no explanation of this that is 
 consistent with the defendant's innocence. If 
 Hummel obtained Dodge's presence here and used 
 him for the purpose of upsetting this divorce by 
 inducing him to commit perjury, it is quite appar- 
 ent why Hummel should consider it essential to 
 keep Dodge from being brought here for trial, for 
 Hummel would then be in danger of just what has 
 happened Dodge turning State's evidence in 
 which case Hummel would be in trouble. But I 
 can conceive of no other reason which would in- 
 duce Hummel and Morse to pay forty thousand 
 dollars to protect Dodge from prosecution for the 
 crime of which he was clearly guilty." 
 
 Dodge at once ran away and disappeared, and 
 all the forces of evil which Hummel controlled 
 united in trying to defeat the District Attorney in 
 
 335 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 his attempt to find the perjurer and bring him 
 back. How his return was accomplished is a 
 story in itself, a story beside which the present nar- 
 rative must seem pale indeed. But the long arm 
 of the law snatched Dodge back from the banks 
 of the Rio Grande, whence he had hoped to slip 
 into Mexico, and once safely lodged in the Tombs 
 he lost his nerve and confessed his part of the 
 crime. 
 
 An indictment was found by the grand jury on 
 June ayth, 1905, accusing Charles F. Dodge, Abra- 
 ham H. Hummel, and Benjamin Steinhardt, of 
 conspiracy to obstruct the course of justice and the 
 due administration of the law, and the chief wit- 
 ness whose name appeared upon the back of the 
 indictment was Charles F. Dodge himself. 
 
 People wagered that Hummel would never let 
 himself live to be convicted, and that no district 
 attorney, in view of the subterranean influences 
 controlled by Hummel, would ever succeed in 
 forcing him to trial. But Hummel was beaten on 
 every technicality, and with a fortitude and phil- 
 osophy that were worthy of a better cause, faced 
 his jury on December I3th, 1905. He had chosen 
 De Lancey Nicoll and John B. Stanchfield to rep- 
 resent him, while William H. Rand, Jr., appeared 
 for the People. 
 
 To describe the trial would be but to repeat the 
 
 336 
 
The Downfall of a Criminal Lawyer 
 
 narrative contained in the foregoing pages. The 
 People concluded their case in about five court 
 days, the first witnesses called being Messrs. 
 Kaffenburgh and Cohen, members of Hummel's 
 firm interested in the escape of Dodge, who de- 
 clined to answer any questions put to them by the 
 prosecution on the ground that their answers 
 would tend to degrade and incriminate them. Dodge 
 testified at length and was followed by Charles W. 
 Morse and faithful "Uncle Jim/' The defence 
 rested upon the People's case. The evidence, 
 
 I documentary in character for the most part, could 
 not be controverted, and had Hummel taken the 
 stand to deny his share in the conspiracy the cur- 
 tain which now hangs before the cavern of his past 
 would have been rudely torn aside and the rotting 
 bones of his victims exposed to public view. When 
 both sides went to the jury Dodge stood uncontra- 
 dicted. 
 
 "Poor little Hummel," as Nicoll called him in 
 his address, took his conviction imperturbably. 
 Throughout life he had followed the creed which 
 permits any kind of trickery or deceit when prac- 
 tised upon a victim; which views perjury, bribery, 
 and blackmail with complacency; but which holds 
 that a word pledged to a comrade should be better 
 than a bond, and that if caught a man should take 
 his medicine without shrinking, and which regards 
 
 337 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 the "squealer" as the most despicable of all out- 
 casts. Hummel had lived his miserable little life 
 and had played fast and loose with justice, but 
 he had never broken the word he had given a 
 brother lawyer or the faith he had pledged to a 
 client, and now that the game was going against 
 him he met fate with a smiling face and accepted 
 ruin like the gambler that he was. 
 
 338 
 
A FLIGHT INTO TEXAS 
 
XII 
 
 A Flight Into Texas 
 
 THE flight and extradition of Charles F. 
 Dodge unquestionably involved one of the 
 most extraordinary battles with justice in the his- 
 tory of the criminal law. The funds at the dis- 
 posal of those who were interested in procuring 
 the prisoner's escape were unlimited in extent and 
 the arch conspirator for whose safety Dodge was 
 spirited away was so influential in political and 
 criminal circles that he was all but successful in 
 defying the prosecutor of New York County, even 
 supported as the latter was by the military and 
 judicial arm of the United States Government. 
 For, at the time that Dodge made his escape, a 
 whisper from Hummel was enough to make the 
 dry bones of many a powerful and ostensibly re- 
 spectable official rattle and the tongue cleave to 
 the roof of his mouth in terror. 
 
 Who could accomplish that in which the law 
 was powerless ? Hummel. Who could drive to 
 the uttermost ends of the earth persons against 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 whom not a shadow of suspicion had previously 
 rested ? Hummel. Who dictated to the chiefs of 
 police of foreign cities what they should or should 
 not do in certain cases; and who could, at the 
 beckoning of his little finger, summon to his dun- 
 geon-like offices in the New York Life Building, 
 whither his firm had removed from Centre Street, 
 the most prominent of lawyers, the most eminent 
 of citizens ? Surely none but Hummel. And now 
 Hummel was fighting for his own life. The only 
 man that stood between him and the iron bars of 
 Blackwell's Island was Charles F. Dodge the 
 man whom he had patted on the knee in his office 
 and called a "Mascot," when quite in the nature 
 of business he needed a little perjury to assist a 
 wealthy client. 
 
 Hummel in terror called into play every resource 
 upon which, during forty years of practice, his tiny 
 tentacles had fastened. Who shall say that while 
 he made a show of enjoying himself nightly with 
 his accustomed light-heartedness in the Tender- 
 loin, he did not feel confident that in the end this 
 peril would disappear like the others which had 
 from time to time threatened him during his crimi- 
 nal career ? But Hummel was fully aware of the 
 tenacity of the man who had resolved to rid New 
 York of his malign influence. His Nemesis was 
 following him. In his dreams, if he ever dreamed, 
 
 342 
 
A Flight Into Texas 
 
 it probably took the shape of the square shoul- 
 dered District Attorney in the shadow of whose 
 office building the little shyster practised his pro- 
 fession. Had he been told that this Nemesis was 
 in reality a jovial little man with a round, ruddy face 
 and twinkling blue eyes he would have laughed as 
 heartily as it was in his power to laugh. Yet such 
 was the fact. A little man who looked less like a 
 detective than a commercial traveller selling St. 
 Peter's Oil or some othdr cheerful concoction, 
 with manners as gentle and a voice as soft as a 
 spring zephyr, who always took off his hat when 
 he came into a business office, seemingly bashful 
 to the point of self-effacement, was the one who 
 snatched Charles F. Dodge from the borders of 
 Mexico and held him in an iron grip when every 
 influence upon which Hummel could call for aid, 
 from crooked police officials, corrupt judges and a 
 gang of cutthroats Under the guise of a sheriff's 
 posse, were fighting for his release. 
 
 Jesse Blocher is not employed in New York 
 County, and for business reasons he does not wish 
 his present address known. When he comes to 
 New York he occasionally drops into the writer's 
 office for a cigar and a friendly chat about old 
 times. And as he sits there and talks so modestly 
 and with such quiet humor about his advent- 
 ures with the Texas Rangers among the cactus- 
 
 343 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 studded plains of the Lone Star State, it is hard 
 even for one who knows the truth, to realize that 
 this man is one of the greatest of detectives, or 
 rather one of the most capable, resourceful, adroit 
 and quick-witted knights of adventure who ever 
 set forth upon a seemingly impossible errand. 
 
 It is unnecessary to state just how the District 
 Attorney discovered the existence of "Jesse," as 
 we knew him. It is enough to say that on Satur- 
 day morning, July 23, 1904, he was furnished 
 with the proper credentials and given instructions 
 to proceed at once to New Orleans, Louisiana, 
 and "locate," if it were humanly possible to do so, 
 Charles F. Dodge, under indictment for perjury, and 
 potentially the chief witness against Abraham H. 
 Hummel, on a charge of conspiracy. He was told 
 briefly and to the point that, in spite of the official 
 reports from the police head-quarters of both New 
 York City and New Orleans to the contrary, there 
 was reason to believe that Dodge was living, al- 
 though not registered, as a guest at the St. Charles 
 Hotel in the latter city. A partial and inaccurate 
 description of Dodge was given him and he was 
 warned to use extreme caution to prevent any knowl- 
 edge of his mission from being made known. Once 
 Dodge had been discovered he was to keep him 
 under surveillance and wire New York immediately. 
 
 Accordingly, Jesse left the city upon the same 
 344 
 
A Flight Into Texas 
 
 day at 4.45 p. M. and arrived two days later, at 
 9.15 on Monday morning, at New Orleans, where 
 he went directly to the St. Charles Hotel, regis- 
 tered, and was assigned to room Number 547 on 
 the fifth floor. Somewhere in the hotel Dodge was 
 secreted. The question was how to find him. 
 For an hour Jesse sat in the hotel foyer and medi- 
 tatively watched the visitors come and go, but saw 
 no sign of his quarry. Then he arose, put on his 
 hat and hunted out a stationery store where for 
 two cents he bought a bright-red envelope. He 
 then visited a ticket-scalper's office, secured the 
 owner's business card and wrote a note on its 
 back to Dodge offering him cheap transportation 
 to any point that he might desire. Armed with 
 this he returned to the hotel, walked to the desk, 
 glanced casually over a number of telegrams ex- 
 posed in a rack and, when the clerk turned his 
 back, placed the note, addressed to Charles F. 
 Dodge, unobserved, upon the counter. The office 
 was a busy one, guests were constantly depositing 
 their keys and receiving their mail, and, even as 
 Jesse stood there watching developments, the 
 clerk turned round, found the note and promptly 
 placed it in box Number 420. The very simple 
 scheme had worked, and quite unconsciously the 
 clerk had indicated the number of the room occu- 
 pied by Dodge. 
 
 345 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 Jesse lost no time in ascending to the fourth 
 floor, viewed room Number 420, returned to the 
 desk, told the clerk that he was dissatisfied with 
 the room assigned him, and requested that he be 
 given either room Number 421, 423, or 425, one 
 of which he stated that he had occupied on a pre- 
 vious visit. After some discussion the clerk 
 allotted him room Number 423, which was almost 
 directly opposite that occupied by Dodge, and the 
 detective at once took up his task of watching for 
 the fugitive to appear. 
 
 Within the hour the door opened and Dodge 
 and a companion, who subsequently proved to be 
 E. M. Bracken, alias "Bradley," an agent em- 
 ployed by Howe and Hummel, left the room, went 
 to the elevator and descended to the dining-room 
 upon the second floor. Jesse watched until they 
 were safely ensconced at breakfast and then re- 
 turned to the fourth floor where he tipped the 
 chambermaid, told her that he had left his key 
 at the office and induced her to unlock the door 
 of room Number 420, which she did under the 
 supposition that Jesse was the person who had 
 left the chamber in Dodge's company. The con- 
 tents of the room convinced Jesse that he had 
 found Dodge, for he discovered there two grips 
 bearing Dodge's name as well as several letters 
 on the table addressed to him. The detective 
 
 346 
 
A Flight Into Texas 
 
 returned to the hall and had a little talk with the 
 maid. 
 
 "The old gentleman with you has been quite 
 sick," she said. "How is he to-day ?" 
 
 "He is some better," answered Jesse. 
 
 "Yes, he does look better to-day," she added, 
 " but he sho'ly was powerful sick yesterday. Why, 
 he hasn't been out pf his room befo' fo' five or 
 six days." 
 
 This statement was corroborated by Dodge's 
 physical appearance, for he looked haggard and 
 worn. 
 
 Jesse was now confident that he had found 
 Dodge, in spite of the reports of the New Orleans 
 police to the contrary, and he was also reasonably 
 sure that the fugitive was too sick to leave the 
 hotel immediately. He therefore telegraphed his 
 superiors that he had discovered Dodge and that 
 the latter was ill at the St. Charles Hotel. 
 
 At three o'clock in the afternoon Jesse received 
 a wire from New York as follows : 
 
 New Orleans police department claims party not there. 
 Left for Mexico three weeks ago. Ascertain correct des- 
 tination and wire at once. 
 
 Jesse at once replied : 
 
 No question as to identity and presence here at this 
 time. 
 
 347 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 He now took up the task of keeping his quarry 
 under absolute surveillance day and night, which 
 duty from that moment he continued for a period 
 of nearly ten months. 
 
 During the remainder of the afternoon and 
 throughout the night Dodge and Bracken re- 
 mained in room Number 420, and during the 
 evening were visited by several strangers, includ- 
 ing a plain-clothes officer from the New Orleans 
 Police Head-quarters. Little Hummel, dining in 
 Long Acre Square in the glare of Broadway, was 
 pressing some invisible button that transmitted 
 the power of his influence even to the police gov- 
 ernment of a city two thousand miles away. 
 
 The following day, January 26th, at about 8.40 
 in the morning, Dodge and Bracken descended to 
 the lobby. Bracken departed from the hotel, 
 leaving Dodge to pay the bill at the cashier's win- 
 dow, and Jesse heard him order a cab for the 11.30 
 A. M. Sunset Limited on the Southern Pacific 
 Railroad and direct that his baggage be removed 
 from his room. Jesse did the same. 
 
 In the meantime Bracken returned and promptly 
 at 1 1 A. M. left for the railroad station in a cab with 
 Dodge. Jesse followed in another. As the two 
 passed through the gates the detective caught a 
 glimpse of Dodge's ticket and saw that it had been 
 issued by the Mexican National Railway. Retiring 
 
 348 
 
A Flight Into Texas 
 
 to the telegraph office in the station he wired New 
 York as follows : 
 
 Bird flying. Sunset Limited. Destination not known. 
 I am with him. 
 
 He then hastily purchased a ticket to Houston, 
 Texas, and boarded the train. Dodge's compan- 
 ion had bidden him good-by as the engine started, 
 and Jesse's task now became that of ferreting out 
 Dodge's destination. After some difficulty he 
 managed to get a glimpse of the whole of the fugi- 
 tive's ticket and thus discovered that he was on his 
 way to the City of Mexico, via Eagle Pass, Texas, 
 while from the Pullman conductor he learned that 
 Dodge had secured sleeping-car accommodation 
 as far as San Antonio, Texas, only. 
 
 So far all was well. He knew Dodge but 
 Dodge did not know him, and later on in the 
 afternoon he had the satisfaction of a long talk 
 with his quarry in the observation car where 
 they amiably discussed together current events 
 and argued politics with the same vehemence as 
 if they had been commercial travellers thrown 
 fortuitously into each other's company. Dodge, 
 however, cleverly evaded any reference to his 
 destination. 
 
 When the train reached Morgan City, Louis- 
 349 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 iana, at 3 p. M., which was the first stop, Jesse 
 wired New York as follows : 
 
 On Sunset Limited with friend. He has transporta- 
 tion to the City of Mexico, via Eagle Pass, where I am 
 now journeying with him. Answer to Beaumont, Texas. 
 
 Later in the afternoon he sent an additional 
 message from Lafayette, Louisiana: 
 
 Have seen transportation of friend and am positive of 
 destination. 
 
 Dodge was occupying Section 3 of the sleeping 
 car "Capitola," and, as became an invalid, re- 
 tired early. 
 
 At Beaumont Jesse failed to receive any reply 
 to his various messages, and when the train ar- 
 rived at Houston no word came from New York 
 until it was almost the time of departure. Waiting 
 until practically the last moment Jesse hurried 
 through the gates of the Union Station at Houston 
 and bought a ticket to San Antonio. As he was 
 leaving the ticket window Night Chief of Police 
 John Howard and two officers came hurrying up 
 inquiring anxiously for "Mr. Jesse." The rein- 
 forcements had arrived. 
 
 Outside on the track "The Sunset Limited" 
 was just getting under way. The first frantic 
 
 350 
 
A Flight Into Texas 
 
 puffs were being vomited from the funnel. Inside 
 Dodge was sleeping peacefully in his berth. Jesse, 
 accompanied by Chief Howard, hurried up to the 
 conductor who was about to swing on to the steps 
 of the sleeper, and ordered him to hold the train 
 till the fugitive could be removed. After some ar- 
 gument the conductor grumblingly complied and 
 Dodge was aroused from pleasant dreams of the 
 "Creole Quarter" to the cold reality of being 
 dragged out of bed by a policeman. He was un- 
 ceremoniously hustled out of the sleeping car into 
 a carriage and taken to Head-quarters where he 
 admitted his identity and remarked: 
 
 " I know what I am wanted for, but I will never 
 return to New York." 
 
 In his grip was found the sum of $1,563.15 as 
 well as numerous letters from the law firm of 
 Howe and Hummel and a quantity of newspaper 
 clippings relative to his case. 
 
 Dodge pleaded with Chief Howard not to lock 
 him up, urging that he was a sick man and offer- 
 ing a goodly sum if he might be taken to a hotel 
 and guarded for the remainder of the night. But 
 what "went" in New Orleans, did not "go" in 
 Houston, and the best that Dodge could get for 
 himself was a cot in the "Ladies Detention Room" 
 on the second floor of the jail. . 
 
 Early the following morning Jesse visited Police 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 Head-quarters and for the first time met George 
 Ellis, Chief of Police of Houston, for whom he 
 will always have a feeling of deep gratitude for his 
 enthusiastic cooperation and loyalty in the many 
 stirring events that followed. Dodge now received 
 a telegram from New York, which was submitted 
 to Jesse before reaching the prisoner, to the effect 
 that Howe and Hummel were sending on an attor- 
 ney to aid the fugitive in resisting extradition, and 
 informing him that they had employed Messrs. 
 Hunt and Meyers as attorneys to look out for his 
 welfare. These last immediately jumped in 
 medias res and on the afternoon of the same day 
 secured a writ of habeas corpus from Norman J. 
 Kitrell, District Judge of Harris County, Texas, 
 returnable the following morning. 
 
 The next day, January a8th, Kitrell released 
 Dodge from custody. 
 
 Jesse had anticipated this and immediately 
 swore out another warrant with the result that the 
 prisoner was rearrested before he left the court 
 room. 
 
 Meantime the Dodge interests retained another 
 firm of lawyers, Messrs. Andrews and Ball, who, 
 on the following day, secured a second writ of 
 habeas corpus from Judge Ashe. 
 
 The result of the first engagement thus being 
 a draw, counsel on both sides agreed that this 
 
 352 
 
A Flight Into Texas 
 
 writ should not be returnable for six days. During 
 this period District Attorney Jerome employed 
 Messrs. Baker Botts, Parker and Garwood to rep- 
 resent him and secured from Governor Odell at 
 Albany a requisition on Governor Lanham of 
 Texas for the extradition of the prisoner, which he 
 entrusted to Detective Sergeant Herlihy of the 
 New York Police. Herlihy reached Houston with 
 the papers on the evening of January 3Oth, and on 
 the same train with him came Abraham Kaffen- 
 burgh, a member of the law firm of Howe and 
 Hummel and a nephew of the latter. Likewise 
 also came Bracken, still styling himself "E. M. 
 Bradley/* and from now on Bracken was the in- 
 separable companion, guide, philosopher and 
 friend ( ?) of the unfortunate Dodge whose con- 
 tinued existence upon this earth had become such 
 a menace to the little lawyer in New York. 
 
 Herlihy, accompanied by Judge Garwood, pro- 
 ceeded direct to Austin where they found Dodge 
 already represented by Messrs. Andrews and Ball 
 who, at the hearing before Governor Lanham, 
 made a strong effort to induce that executive to 
 refuse to honor the requisition of the Governor of 
 New York. This effort failed and Governor Lan- 
 ham issued his warrant, but Herlihy had no 
 sooner returned to Houston for the purpose of tak- 
 ing possession of the prisoner than he was served 
 
 353 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 with an injunction enjoining him, together with 
 Chief of Police Ellis, from taking Dodge into 
 custody, pending a hearing upon a new habeas 
 corpus which had been issued by Judge Waller T. 
 Burns of the United States District Court for the 
 Southern District of Texas. This new writ was 
 returnable February Qth. 
 
 After exhaustive but futile argument by the 
 counsel for Dodge, Judge Burns remanded the 
 prisoner to Herlihy's custody to be returned to the 
 State of New York, but this decision had no 
 sooner been rendered than an appeal was taken 
 therefrom by Dodge's lawyers, and the prisoner 
 released upon bail fixed at twenty thousand dollars. 
 
 During this period Dodge was quartered under 
 guard at the Rice Hotel in Houston, and the day 
 following the argument the twenty-thousand-dol- 
 lars bail was put up in cash and Dodge released 
 from custody. 
 
 In the meantime, however, Jesse, knowing that 
 no sum, however large, would deter Hummel from 
 spiriting Dodge out of the country, had made his 
 arrangements to secure a new extradition warrant 
 from the Governor of Texas, so that if the prisoner 
 did succeed in getting beyond the Southern Dis- 
 trict of the Federal Court of Texas, he could be 
 seized and conveyed to New York. 
 
 Of course some one had to keep watch over 
 354 
 
A Flight Into Texas 
 
 Dodge while Jesse hurried to Austin to see the 
 Governor, and it was decided to leave Sergeant 
 Herlihy, reenforced by a number of local detec- 
 tives for that purpose. But while the watchful 
 Jesse was away, Bracken proceeded to get busy 
 in the good old Howe and Hummel fashion. Lots 
 of people that Herlihy had never seen before 
 turned up and protested that he was the finest fel- 
 low they had ever met. And as Herlihy was, in 
 fact, a good fellow, he made them welcome and 
 dined and wined at their expense until he woke up 
 in the Menger Hotel in San Antonio and inquired 
 where he was. 
 
 Jesse meantime had returned from Austin to 
 discover that Dodge with his companions, Kaf- 
 fenburgh and Bracken, had slipped out of Houston 
 early in the morning of February nth, after dis- 
 posing of Herlihy and eluding the watchfulness of 
 Herlihy's assistants. Hummel was leading and by 
 ten o'clock the next morning Dodge and his com- 
 rades were on board an English merchantman 
 lying in the harbor of Galveston. Later in the 
 same day the Hummel interests chartered from 
 the Southern Pacific Railroad for the sum of three 
 thousand dollars the sea-going tug Hughes, to 
 which Dodge was now transferred for the purpose 
 of being conveyed to the port of Tampico in the 
 Republic of Mexico. 
 
 355 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 But here Hummers wires became crossed with 
 Jerome's, and unfortunately for the little lawyer, 
 the persons from whom the tug had been leased 
 turned out to be closely allied with the prosecu- 
 tion's interests, with the result that the captain of 
 the tug was instructed by his superiors under no 
 consideration to put into any Mexican port, but on 
 the contrary, to delay his departure from the har- 
 bor of Galveston for a period of two days and then 
 to proceed only as far as Brownsville, Texas, 
 where he should compel the debarkation of the 
 fugitive. The captain, who was a good sport as 
 well as a good officer, promptly threw himself into 
 the part and told Bracken and Kaffenburgh that it 
 was evident from the barometer that a severe 
 storm was approaching (which must have had a 
 sinister implication to these two unfortunate gen- 
 tlemen), and that he could not think of putting to 
 sea. Once the "storm" had blown over, the tug 
 started out across the blue waters of the Gulf of 
 Mexico. But now Bracken and Kaffenburgh were 
 informed for the first time that it was impossible 
 to consider putting into any port of the Republic 
 of Mexico, since to do so would cause international 
 complications and compel the revocation of the 
 captain's license. In desperation the Hummel 
 interests offered the captain five thousand dollars 
 in cash to disregard his instructions and put into 
 
 356 
 
A Flight Into Texas 
 
 Tampico, but the worthy sea-dog was adamant. 
 It was probably worth five thousand dollars to him 
 to see three gentry of this pattern so much put 
 about. 
 
 While Dodge and his accomplices were dallying 
 in the harbor of Galveston, Jesse was taking ad- 
 vantage of his opportunity to proceed at once by 
 railroad to Alice, Texas, which at that time was 
 the furthermost southern point reached by any 
 railway in the direction of Brownsville. On his 
 arrival, he at once applied to Captain John R. 
 Hughes, commanding Company D of the Texas 
 Rangers, who received him with great joy and 
 ordered a detachment of the Rangers to meet the 
 tug at Point Isabella at the mouth of the Rio 
 Grande River on the border of Mexico. In the 
 meantime, Jesse started on a toilsome stage journey 
 to Brownsville, across one hundred and seventy 
 miles of desert, which occupied two days and 
 nights, and necessitated his going without sleep for 
 that period. During the trip Jesse heard no word 
 of English and had as his associates only Mexican 
 cattlemen. Every fifteen miles a fresh relay of 
 broncos was hitched to the stage and after a few 
 moments' rest the misery began again. 
 
 Jesse had been hurrying toward Brownsville by 
 stage while Dodge, Kaffenburgh and Bracken were 
 landing at Point Isabella, where they were kept 
 
 357 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 under close surveillance by Sergeant Tom Ross of 
 the Rangers. Thence they took the train to 
 Brownsville, registering at the Miller House under 
 the assumed names of C. F. Dougherty, A. Koontz- 
 man and E. M. Barker, all of Oklahoma. But, 
 although they knew it not, Sergeant Tom was at 
 their elbow, and had Dodge attempted to cross the 
 border into Mexico he would instantly have been 
 placed under arrest. 
 
 As Brownsville was within the Southern Dis- 
 trict of the Federal Court of Texas, Jesse decided 
 not to arrest Dodge until he should actually at- 
 tempt flight, and when Dodge and his companions, 
 on the following morning, February I5th, entered 
 the stage (the same upon which Jesse had arrived) 
 and started for Alice, Jesse and Tom Ross pro- 
 cured the best horses they could find and started 
 after them, keeping just in sight of the stage. 
 Dodge's intention in making this move was to take 
 the Mexican International Railway at Alice and 
 cross over to Mexico via Laredo. 
 
 Jesse and Ross covered the seventy-four miles 
 from Brownsville to Santa La Cruz Ranch by four 
 in the afternoon, which was fairly strenuous work 
 for a New York detective, and here found them- 
 selves so sore and exhausted from their ride that 
 they were glad to hire a pair of horses and buggy 
 with which to complete the journey to Alice. 
 
 358 
 
A Flight Into Texas 
 
 Luckily they were able to get into telephonic com- 
 munication with various ranch owners along the 
 road and arrange to have fresh relays of horses 
 supplied to them every twenty miles, and here also 
 Jesse called up Captain Hughes at Alice, and sug- 
 gested that he substitute for the regular night clerk 
 at the City Hotel one of the privates of the Rangers 
 by the name of Harrod. 
 
 Dodge and his companions arrived in Alice on 
 February lyth, and, as Jesse had anticipated, re- 
 paired at once to the City Hotel, where, inasmuch 
 as they were dry from the dust of their trip and 
 depressed by lack of society, they entered at once 
 into an enthusiastic and confidential friendship 
 with the man behind the counter in the hotel office, 
 sublimely ignorant that they were unfolding to a 
 member of the Texas Rangers all their most secret 
 intentions. Harrod was just as glad to see Dodge 
 as Dodge apparently was to see Harrod, and kindly 
 offered to assist the fugitive to get into Mexico in 
 any way that the latter desired. Dodge, for his 
 part, took advantage of his usefulness to the extent 
 of requesting him to purchase them railroad tick- 
 ets, the plan being to leave Alice the following 
 morning for Monterey, Mexico. Three hours after 
 the stage bearing Dodge and his party pulled up 
 at the City Hotel, Tom Ross and Jesse drove in 
 behind a pair of fagged-out broncos at two in the 
 
 359 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 morning. Jesse had had no sleep of any sort and 
 no proper nourishment for five days, and had just 
 strength enough left to drag himself up one flight 
 of stairs and tumble into bed, from which he did 
 not emerge for many hours. 
 
 In the meantime day broke and Dodge, Kaf- 
 fenburgh and Bracken, having breakfasted, drove 
 comfortably down to the International Railway 
 Station and settled themselves in the smoker, but 
 they had no sooner given this direct evidence of 
 their intention before Captain Hughes entered and 
 placed Dodge under arrest. The latter's surprise 
 may be appreciated when it is stated that from the 
 time the three had left Houston, they had no idea 
 that they were being followed and believed that 
 they had completely foiled Jesse and his assistants. 
 
 While Jesse had been chasing Dodge across the 
 desert, his lawyers had not been idle and had se- 
 cured at Austin another extradition warrant from 
 Governor Lanham, who, on receiving news of the 
 arrest, promptly instructed Captain Hughes by 
 wire, to assume charge of the prisoner and to de- 
 liver him into the hands of the New York officer to 
 be conveyed to New York. 
 
 There now began such a legal battle as the State 
 of Texas had never known. Hummel had been 
 forced into his last ditch and was fighting desper- 
 ately for life. Through KafFenburgh he at once 
 
A Flight Into Texas 
 
 applied for a new writ of habeas corpus in Nueces 
 County and engaged counsel at Corpus Christie 
 to assist in fighting for the release of the prisoner. 
 Precisely as Hummel had intended, Chief Wright 
 of Nueces rode into Alice and demanded the pris- 
 oner from Captain Hughes. As Hummel had not 
 intended, Captain Hughes refused to surrender the 
 
 prisoner and told Chief Wright to go to well, 
 
 he told him that he intended to obey his com- 
 mander-in-chief, the Governor of Texas. 
 
 On February 20th, Hummel, through Kaffen- 
 burgh, attempted to get another writ of habeas cor- 
 pus in Bee County, and promptly the Bee chief 
 came buzzing over and demanded Dodge, but to him 
 Hughes replied even as he had spoken to Wright. 
 
 Excitement in Alice had now reached such a 
 pitch that Judge Burns, of the Federal Court, in 
 Houston, ordered United States Marshal John W. 
 Vann, of Alice, to assume charge of the pris- 
 oner. The indomitable Hughes, however, paid 
 no more attention to the United States Marshal 
 than he had to the local chiefs. But the situation 
 was so delicate and the clash of authority might so 
 easily have resulted in bloodshed that it was finally 
 agreed by all parties that the best thing to do was 
 to have the prisoner returned to Houston in the 
 joint custody of Captain Hughes of the Rangers 
 and the United States Marshal. 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 Jesse, through his counsel, in proper course 
 made application to forfeit Dodge's bond and re- 
 mand him to jail, but the Hummel attorneys finally 
 induced the Court, on the plea that to confine 
 Dodge in jail would be detrimental to his already 
 badly impaired health, to permit the prisoner to go 
 free on a greatly increased bond, nevertheless re- 
 stricting his movements to Harris County, Texas. 
 
 While Jesse had fought a winning battle up to 
 this point he was at the end of his resources so far 
 as the extradition of the prisoner was concerned, 
 for Dodge was now at liberty, pending the deci- 
 sions upon the habeas corpus proceedings of the 
 United States Circuit Court of Appeals at Fort 
 Worth, and the United States Supreme Court at 
 Washington. But his orders were to bring Dodge 
 back to New York. Hence, with the aid of some 
 new men sent him from the North, he commenced 
 an even closer surveillance of the prisoner than 
 ever before by both day and night. 
 
 Meantime KafFenburgh departed for New York, 
 fleeing from the wrath of Judge Burns, who had 
 issued a summons for him for contempt of the 
 Federal Court on the ground that he had induced 
 Dodge to attempt to jump his bond. In place of 
 the blustering KafFenburgh was sent another 
 member of the famous law firm of Howe and 
 Hummel, David May, an entirely different type 
 
 362 
 
A Flight Into Texas 
 
 of man. May was as mild as a day in June as 
 urbane as Kaffenburgh had been insolent. He 
 fluttered into Houston like a white dove of peace 
 with the proverbial olive branch in his mouth. 
 From now on the tactics employed by the repre- 
 sentatives of Hummel were conciliatory in the 
 extreme. Mr. May, however, did not long re- 
 main in Houston, as it was apparent that there 
 was nothing to be done by either side pending 
 the action of the courts, and in any event Dodge 
 was abundantly supplied with local counsel. The 
 time had now come when Hummel must have 
 begun to feel that the fates were against him and 
 that a twenty-year term in state prison was a 
 concrete possibility even for him. 
 
 In the meantime, Dodge and Bracken had taken 
 up their headquarters at the Rice Hotel in the 
 most expensive suite of rooms in the house, a new 
 scheme for getting the prisoner beyond the reach 
 of the New York courts apparently having been 
 concocted. Dodge was now indulged in every 
 conceivable luxury and vice. He was plunged into 
 every sort of excess, there was no debauchery 
 which Bracken could supply that was not his and 
 their rapid method of existence was soon the talk 
 of the county and continued to be so for ten long 
 months. There is more than one way to kill a cat 
 and more than one method of wiping out the only 
 
 363 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 existing witness against a desperate man striving 
 to escape the consequences of crime. 
 
 Dodge's daily routine was somewhat as follows: 
 He never slept at his own hotel, but arose in the 
 morning between ten and eleven o'clock, when he 
 was at once visited by Bracken and supplied with 
 numerous drinks in lieu of the breakfast for which 
 he never had any desire. At noon the two would 
 have luncheon with more drinks. In the afternoon 
 they would retire to the pool rooms and play the 
 races, and, when the races were over, they would 
 then visit the faro banks and gamble until mid- 
 night or later. Later on they would proceed to 
 another resort on Louisiana Street where Dodge 
 really lived. Here his day may be said to have 
 begun and here he spent most of his money, fre- 
 quently paying but as much as fifty dollars a night 
 for wine and invariably ending in a beastly state of 
 intoxication. It is quite probable that never in the 
 history of debauchery has any one man ever been 
 so indulged in excesses of every sort for the same 
 period of time as Dodge was during the summer 
 and fall of 1904. The fugitive never placed his 
 foot on mother earth. If they were going only a 
 block, Bracken called for a cab, and the two 
 seemed to take a special delight in making Jesse, as 
 Jerome's representative, spend as much money in 
 cab hire as possible. The Houston jehus never 
 
 364 
 

 A Flight Into Texas 
 
 again experienced so profitable a time as they did 
 during Dodge's wet season; and the life of dissi- 
 pation was continued until, from time to time, the 
 prisoner became so weak from its effects that he 
 was forced to go under the care of a physician. 
 A few days of abstinence always restored his vitality 
 and he would then start out upon another round 
 of pleasure. 
 
 During this period Jesse maintained a close and 
 vigilant personal espionage over the prisoner. For 
 over ten months he slept less than four hours each 
 day, his fatigue being increased by the constant 
 apprehension of treachery among his own men, 
 and the necessity of being ever on the alert to pre- 
 vent some move on the part of the defense to spirit 
 the prisoner away. During the summer attempts 
 were repeatedly made to evade the vigilance of 
 Jesse and his men and several desperate dashes 
 were frustrated by them, including one occasion 
 when Bracken succeeded in rushing Dodge as 
 far as Galveston, where they were forced to 
 abandon their design. 
 
 From time to time Bracken would disappear 
 from Houston for a week or ten days, stating on 
 his return that he had been to New York, after 
 which there was invariably some new move to get 
 the prisoner away. Time and space prevent giving 
 a detailed account of all the marches and counter- 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 marches that took place in this battle of wit against 
 wit. 
 
 In August, 1904, Bracken made one of his peri- 
 odical visits to New York, and when he returned 
 sought out Jesse and said : " Blocher, you might as 
 well be a good fellow and get yours while you can. 
 I mean that Dodge is not going back to New York, 
 even if it cost a million dollars to prevent it." A 
 few days later Bracken sent a gambler named 
 Warner to Jesse, who offered the latter thirty-five 
 hundred dollars to get "lost" long enough for the 
 prisoner to slip over to Mexico. Acting upon the 
 advice of his attorney, Jesse encouraged this at- 
 tempt, under the belief that if he could get the 
 Hummel forces in the position of having attempted 
 to bribe him the prisoner's bail could then be for- 
 feited and Dodge himself taken into custody. 
 Hummel became wary, however, and apparently 
 abandoned for the time the idea of bribery. Later 
 on Bracken again disappeared. On his return a 
 marked change was noticeable in his demeanor 
 and Jesse observed that he was in constant con- 
 sultation with Dodge, from which the detective 
 drew the inference that some last desperate move 
 was to be made towards the escape of the prisoner. 
 
 On one occasion Jesse saw Bracken showing 
 Dodge a map and some drawings on paper, which 
 so excited his suspicions that he followed the two 
 
A Flight Into Texas 
 
 with unremitting assiduity, and within a day or 
 two was rewarded through Bracken's carelessness 
 with an opportunity for going through the latter* s 
 coat pockets in the billiard room. Here he found 
 a complete set of plans worked out in every detail 
 for spiriting the prisoner from San Antonio into 
 Mexico during the State Fair. These plans were 
 very elaborate, every item having been planned 
 out from the purchase of tickets, and passing of 
 baggage through the customs, to hotel accommo- 
 dation in the City of Mexico and Tampico, and 
 steamship tickets from Tampico to Europe. 
 
 The plan had been to secure permission from 
 the Court for Dodge to leave Houston long enough 
 ostensibly to attend the Fair at San Antonio and to 
 "lose" him during the excitement and crowded 
 condition of the city at that time. 
 
 It is, of course, needless to say that these plans 
 were abandoned when Bracken discovered that 
 Jesse had been forewarned. 
 
 Almost immediately thereafter the Circuit Court 
 of Appeals at Fort Worth, Texas, decided one of 
 the habeas corpus cases adversely to Dodge but 
 it still permitted him to retain his liberty pending 
 the final determination of the questions involved 
 by the Supreme Court at Washington. 
 
 The Hummel forces were apparently losing hope, 
 however, for early in October another attempt was 
 
 36? 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 made to bribe Jesse. Bracken entered his room 
 one evening and informed him that he could get 
 his own price if he would only be a good fellow, 
 and even went so far as to exhibit a quantity of 
 money which he stated was twenty-five thousand 
 dollars. The only result of this offer was to lead 
 Jesse to redouble his precautions, for he argued 
 that the situation must indeed be acute when such 
 an offer could be deemed worth while. Thereafter 
 it was obvious that the revelry of Dodge and his 
 companions was on the increase. Accordingly 
 Jesse added to his force of assistants. 
 
 On December 2, 1904, Nathaniel Cohen, another 
 member of the firm of Howe and Hummel, arrived 
 at Houston, and the next day the Supreme Court 
 at Washington decided the appeal in the habeas 
 corpus against the prisoner, who was at once or- 
 dered by Judge Burns into the custody of United 
 States Marshal William M. Hanson. 
 
 Things looked black indeed for Dodge and 
 blacker still for Hummel. How the little attorney, 
 eating his midday lunch four thousand miles away, 
 at Pontin's restaurant on Franklin Street, must 
 have trembled in his patent leather boots! His 
 last emissary, Cohen, at once procured an assistant 
 by the name of Brookman and with him proceeded 
 to Wharton County, Texas, where they secured a 
 new writ of habeas corpus and induced the local 
 
 368 
 
A Flight Into Texas 
 
 sheriff, one Rich, to swear in a posse comitatus of 
 one hundred men for the purpose of coming to 
 Houston to take the prisoner by force of arms out 
 of the hands of the United States Marshal. 
 
 This was one of the most daring and desperate 
 attempts made in recent years to frustrate the law. 
 Jesse believes that the real object of this posse was 
 to precipitate a fight between themselves and the 
 Federal authorities. It is not inconceivable that 
 in such an event Dodge might either have escaped 
 or been killed. The men composing the posse 
 were of the most desperate character, and consisted 
 largely of the so-called "feud factions" of Wharton 
 County, known as "The Wood Peckers" and "The 
 Jay Birds." Jesse has been informed, on what he 
 regards as reliable authority, that this move cost 
 the Hummel forces fifteen thousand dollars and 
 that each member of the posse received one hundred 
 dollars for his contemplated services in the "res- 
 cue" of the prisoner. But civil war, even on a 
 small scale, cannot be indulged in without some 
 inkling of the facts becoming known to the author- 
 ities, and prior to the receipt of the mandate of the 
 Supreme Court, Judge Burns ordered the prisoner 
 removed to Galveston for safe keeping. 
 
 Thus the long, expensive and arduous stiiggle 
 came finally to an end, for Judge Burns in due 
 course, ordered that Charles F. Dodge should be 
 
 369 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 conveyed to New York in the personal custody of 
 the United States Marshal and delivered by him to 
 the New York authorities "within the borders of 
 that State." Such an order was, of course, exceed- 
 ingly unusual, if not almost unheard of, but it was 
 rendered absolutely necessary by the powerful in- 
 fluence and resources, as well as the unscrupulous 
 character, of those interested in securing Dodge's 
 disappearance. 
 
 In order to thwart any plans for releasing the 
 prisoner by violence or otherwise, and to prevent 
 delay through the invoking of legal technicalities, 
 Hansen and Jesse decided to convey Dodge to 
 New York by water, and on the i6th of December, 
 the Marshal and his five deputies boarded a 
 Mallory Line steamer at Galveston and arrived in 
 New York with their prisoner on the evening of 
 December ajd. 
 
 Dodge reached New York a physical wreck. 
 How he was induced to tell the whole truth after 
 he had pleaded guilty to the charge against him is 
 a story in itself. A complete reaction from his 
 dissipation now occurred and for days his life was 
 despaired of. Jesse, too, was, as the expression is, 
 " all in," and the only persons who were still able 
 to appreciate the delights of New York were the 
 stalwart Marshal and his boys, who for some time 
 were objects of interest as they strolled along 
 
A Flight Into Texas 
 
 Broadway and drank "deep and hearty" in the 
 cafes. To the assistants in the District Attorney's 
 office they were heroes and were treated as such. 
 
 How Dodge finally testified against Hummel on 
 the witness stand has already been told. As they 
 say down-town, if Jerome had never done any- 
 thing else, he would have "made good" by locking 
 up Abe Hummel. No one ever believed he would 
 do it. But Jerome never would have locked up 
 Hummel without Jesse. And, as Jesse says with 
 a laugh, leaning back in his chair and taking a 
 long pull on his cigar, "I guess I would not do it 
 again no, I would not do it again for all the 
 money you could give me. The wonder is that 
 I came out of it alive." When the reader comes 
 to think about it he will probably agree with him. 
 
 
 371 
 
A CASE OF CIRCUMSTANTIAL 
 EVIDENCE 
 
XIII 
 
 A Case of Circumstantial 
 Evidence 
 
 TN the town of Culiano, in the province of Sa- 
 JL lano, in Italy, there dwelt a widow by the 
 iame of Torsielli, with her two sons, Vito and 
 Antonio. The boys loved their mother devotedly 
 and were no less fond of each other, the height of 
 their ambition being to earn enough money to 
 support her in comfort without need of working in 
 her old age. As it was, she arose before light, made 
 the fire, cooked their breakfast and labored in and 
 about the house all day until they returned from 
 the fields. But she was getting old and at last be- 
 came bedridden and infirm. She could no longer 
 cook the meals, and the boys had to shift for them- 
 selves. Moreover, instead of finding her standing 
 at the door with a smile on her wrinkled face, wel- 
 coming them to supper on their return, the fire was 
 always out and their mother lay on her couch, no 
 less glad to see them, to be sure, but no longer able 
 to amuse them or minister to their comfort. Then 
 
 375 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 .the taxes were increased and hard times came. 
 By twos and threes the men of the village packed 
 their bundles, bade good-by to their friends and 
 families, and left the town, some to seek work in 
 other parts of Italy, but most of them to take the 
 big iron steamships for America, where work was 
 easy and money plentiful. Sadly the boys watched 
 their comrades depart. They would have liked to 
 go, too, to seek their fortunes in this new land of 
 promise, but they could not leave their mother. 
 The following year some of the men who had gone 
 away to America returned in fine clothes and with 
 full purses to tell of the wonderful country beyond 
 the seas, where one could always earn his ten lire 
 every day and do as he liked. "Viva la liberty!" 
 they cried, pounding the tables in the cafe. 
 "Come, comrades! We have plenty of money. 
 Drink to the great country of America !" 
 
 Vito and Antonio listened with envy. One 
 evening the elder brother asked Antonio to come 
 to walk with him. When they had gone a little 
 way he said suddenly: 
 
 "Toni, I think I shall go to this America. We 
 need more money to make our mother comforta- 
 ble. If we wait until she is dead the money will 
 be of no use. You can stay here, and when I have 
 made a place for you and her, you shall bring her 
 on the ship to the new country." 
 
 37 6 
 
A Case of Circumstantial Evidence 
 
 Vito was five years older than Antonio, and his 
 word had always been law to the younger brother, 
 so although he was sick at heart at the thought of 
 being left behind, he said nothing against the proj- 
 ect, but tried to make it easy for Vito with their 
 mother. The old woman could not bear the 
 thought of her firstborn leaving her, and declared, 
 with the tears running down her face, that she 
 should never see him again, but at last she yielded 
 to their persuasions and gave Vito her blessing. It 
 would be only a little while before she and Toni 
 would join him, and they would be happy ever 
 after. 
 
 Then Toni was left alone with his mother. 
 Every day he arose at the first streak of dawn, pre- 
 pared breakfast, cleaned the house, saw that his 
 mother was comfortable and then started off for 
 the fields. A month went by, two months, three, 
 a year, but no word came from Vito. Toni as- 
 sured the poor old woman that they would cer- 
 tainly hear from him the next week or the next, 
 but cruel fear had taken possession of him. Some- 
 thing had happened to his brother! The years 
 swept on. Their mother became more and more 
 helpless. Antonio was obliged to hire a woman to 
 care for her as nurse for a small sum, but it was 
 just enough to leave only a pittance for them to 
 live on. Toni grew thin and haggard. Where 
 
 377 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 could Vito be ? Was he alive or dead ? Next to 
 his love for Nicoletta Lupero it became the great 
 passion of his life to learn what had become of 
 Vito. 
 
 He had known Nicoletta from a child and their 
 love had followed as naturally as summer follows 
 spring. It had always been "Toni" and "Nico- 
 letta" ever since he could remember. But she was 
 growing up, and from a boy he had become a man. 
 Yet how could he marry when he could hardly 
 earn enough to support his mother and himself? 
 They talked it over time and time again. If Vito 
 would only return or good times come it might be 
 possible. But meantime there was nothing to do 
 but wait. Nicoletta blossomed into womanhood. 
 Had she not been betrothed she would have been 
 called an old maid. Neither she nor Toni took any 
 part in the village merrymakings. Why should 
 they ? He was thirty and she twenty-five. They 
 might have married ten years ago had not the 
 elder brother gone away. Toni secretly feared that 
 the time would never come when they would be 
 man and wife, but he patiently labored on earning 
 his two lire, or at most two lire and a half, a day. 
 
 Then a man returned from America just for the 
 harvest to see his family. He said that Vito was 
 alive. He had not seen him himself, but others 
 had seen him and he was rich. He told of the 
 
 378 
 
A Case of Circumstantial Evidence 
 
 plentifulness of gold in America, where every one 
 was comfortable and could lay up a fortune. He 
 himself had saved over five thousand lire in four 
 years and owned a one-third interest in a fruit 
 store. He was going to take his brother's family 
 back with him all of them. They would be 
 rich, too, in a little while. A man was a fool to 
 stay in Italy. Why did not Toni come back with 
 him ? He would get him a place on the railroad 
 where one of his friends was padrone. 
 
 Toni discussed it all with Nicoletta, and she 
 talked with the man herself. 
 
 "Toni," she said at length, "why do you not 
 go ? Here you are earning nothing. There you 
 could save in a month enough to keep your mother 
 in comfort for a year. You have to pay the nurse, 
 and that takes a great deal. While you are here 
 it would cause talk if I came to live in your home 
 to care for your mother but if you go away I can 
 do so without comment and it will cost nothing. 
 Perhaps you will find Vito. If not you will soon 
 make enough to send for both your mother and 
 
 me." 
 
 " You are a good girl," he answered, kissing her, 
 "but I could not shift the responsibility of my 
 mother to your shoulders. Still, I will talk to 
 Father Giuseppi about it." 
 
 The priest thought well of the plan (he was a 
 379 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 little excited over America himself), and agreed to 
 break the matter to the mother. 
 
 She begged Toni piteously not to go. He was 
 her only surviving son. Vito was dead. Let him 
 but wait a little while and she would not be there 
 to stand in his way. Then the priest added his 
 personal assurance that it would be for the best, 
 and the mother finally gave way. Toni was 
 obliged to tear himself away by force from the 
 arms of the old woman lying upon the bed, and 
 her feeble sobs echoed in his ears as he trudged 
 down the road with the scarf Nicoletta had worked 
 about his neck, and a small bundle of his tools and 
 most precious possessions on his shoulder. A 
 couple of miles farther on came another harrowing 
 parting with his betrothed, and from the top of the 
 next rise beyond he could see Nicoletta still stand- 
 ing at the crossroads gazing pitifully after him. 
 Thus many an Italian, for good or ill, has left the 
 place of his birth for the mysterious land of the 
 Golden West. 
 
 The voyage was for Antonio an unalloyed agony 
 of seasickness and homesickness, and when at last 
 the great vessel steamed slowly up the North 
 River, her band playing and the emigrants crowd- 
 ing eagerly to her sides, he had hardly spirit enough 
 left to raise his eyes to the mountains of huge 
 buildings from whose craters the white smoke 
 
 380 
 
A Case of Circumstantial Evidence 
 
 rose slowly and blew away in great wind-torn 
 clouds. Yet he felt some of the awakening enthu- 
 siasm of his comrades, and when once his feet 
 touched earth again it was not long before he al- 
 most forgot his sufferings upon the ocean in his 
 feverish anxiety to lose no time in beginning to 
 save the money which should reunite him to Nico- 
 letta and his mother. As soon as the vessel had 
 docked a blustering Italian came among the emi- 
 grants and tagged a few dozen of them, including 
 Antonio, with large blue labels, and then led them 
 in a long, straggling line across the gangplank and 
 marched them through the muddy streets to the 
 railroad train. Here they huddled in a dirty car 
 filled with smoke and were whirled with frightful 
 speed for hours through a flat and smiling country. 
 The noise, the smoke and the unaccustomed mo- 
 tion made Antonio ill again, and when the train 
 stopped at Lambertville, New Jersey, the padrone 
 had difficulty in rousing him from the animal-like 
 stupor into which he had fallen. 
 
 The Italians crowded together upon the plat- 
 form, gazing helplessly at one another and at the 
 padrone, who was cursing them for a lot of stupid 
 fools, and bidding them get upon a flat car that 
 stood upon a siding. Antonio had to be pushed 
 upon it by main force, but the journey this time was 
 short, and in half an hour he found himself upon 
 
 381 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 an embankment where hundreds of Italians were 
 laboring with pick and shovel in the broiling sun. 
 Here he also was given a pick and told to go to work. 
 Toni soon became accustomed to his new sur- 
 roundings. Every night he and the rest were car- 
 ried to Lambertville on flat cars and in the morn- 
 ings were brought back to the embankment. The 
 work was no harder than that to which he had been 
 used, and he soon became himself again. More- 
 over, he found many of his old friends from Culiano 
 working there. In the evenings they walked 
 through the streets of the town or sat under the 
 trees playing mora and tocco. His letters home 
 were quite enthusiastic regarding the pleasant 
 character of the life. To be sure he could not 
 write himself, but his old friend Antonio Strollo, 
 who had lived at Valva, only a mile from Culiano, 
 acted as his amanuensis. He was very fond of 
 Strollo, who was a dashing fellow, very merry and 
 quite the beau of the colony, in his wonderful red 
 socks and neckties of many colors. Strollo could 
 read and write, and, besides, he knew Antonio's 
 mother and Nicoletta, and when Toni found him- 
 self unable to express his thoughts Strollo helped 
 him out. When the answers came he read them to 
 Toni and joined in the latter's pleasure. Toni 
 himself soon became a favorite in Lambertville, 
 for he was simple and gentle, and full of good-will 
 
 382 
 
A Case of Circumstantial Evidence 
 
 for everybody. He was very good-looking, too, 
 with his handsome Roman profile, snapping black 
 eyes and black curly locks. Yet he was sad al- 
 ways, especially so as since his arrival in America 
 he had made no progress toward finding Vito. 
 From time to time he met other Italians who had 
 been working elsewhere, who thought they had 
 seen him or some one that looked like him. But 
 inquiry always elicited the fact that their desire to 
 give him encouragement was greater than the ac- 
 curacy of their memories. Of course Antonio 
 Strollo, who had become Toni's inseparable friend, 
 shared all his eagerness to find Vito. In fact, Toni 
 had no thought that he did not confide to his 
 friend, and it was really the latter who composed 
 the love letters to Nicoletta and the affectionate 
 epistles to the mother. 
 
 Every month Toni divided what he earned into 
 three parts. One of them he deposited in the sav- 
 ings-bank, another he invested in a money order 
 which was sent by Strollo to Nicoletta for the 
 mother, and the last he kept for himself. It was 
 astounding how fast one really could make money 
 if one was industrious. Forty dollars a month, 
 sometimes ! That made nearly seventy lire to send 
 to Nicoletta. His bank account grew steadily, and 
 he often saved something out of the money he 
 allowed himself to live upon. 
 
 383 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 Antonio Strollo, on the other hand, was lazy and 
 spent all his wages on chianti, neckties, waistcoats, 
 and gambling. Sometimes he would do nothing 
 for a whole month but loiter around the streets 
 smoking cigars and ogling the village girls. These 
 last were afraid of him and called him "The Dare 
 Devil." 
 
 Toni worked on the embankment for three 
 years, sending his money with a letter to Nicoletta 
 every month. The mother still lived and Nicoletta 
 was giving up her own life to take care of her, but 
 the old woman was very feeble and no longer had 
 any hope of seeing either of her sons again. More- 
 over, she was now so bedridden that it was useless 
 to think of trying to move her, even if Toni had 
 plenty of money. No, as soon as he was satisfied 
 that Vito could not be found and had saved enough 
 money he must return. How she begged him to 
 return! As Strollo read him the girl's letters Toni 
 wept bitter tears and Strollo wept likewise in 
 sympathy. But no word came of Vito. 
 
 Toni, anxious about his mother, despairing of 
 ever finding his brother, pining for Nicoletta and 
 with three hundred dollars lying in the savings- 
 bank, decided to return to Italy. But if only he 
 could find Vito first! Then Antonio Strollo had 
 an idea. Why not advertise, he suggested. He 
 wondered that they had never thought of it before. 
 
 384 
 
A Case of Circumstantial Evidence 
 
 They would put a notice in // Progresso, the Ital- 
 ian paper in New York, and see what would come 
 of it. Toni agreed that the idea was good, so 
 Strollo wrote the notice offering a reward for news 
 of Vito. 
 
 Two months passed, once more Toni gave up 
 hope, and then, O-never-to-be-forgotten day! a 
 letter came from the post-office from Vito! Toni 
 threw his arms about Strollo and kissed him for 
 joy. Vito was found at last! The letter, dated 
 Yonkers, New York, told how Vito had by chance 
 heard of Toni's notice and learned that he was in 
 America. He himself, he said, had prospered and 
 was a padrone, employing many workmen on the 
 water-works. He begged Toni for news of their 
 mother. He confessed himself an ungrateful son 
 never to have written, but he had married and had 
 had children, and he had assumed that she was 
 being cared for by his brother. Toni must forgive 
 him and come to him at once. 
 
 "O Dio!" cried Toni, the tears in his eyes. 
 " Forgive him ? Of course I will forgive him I 
 Come, Antonio, let us write my dear brother a let- 
 ter without delay and tell him that our mother is 
 still alive. How should I like to see his wife and 
 babies!" 
 
 So they prepared a long letter which Strollo took 
 to the post-office himself and mailed. Toni went 
 
 385 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 back to work with joy in his heart and whistled 
 and sang all day long, and, of course, he wrote all 
 about it to Nicoletta. He was only waiting for his 
 month to be up before starting. Then he would 
 go to Yonkers, make Vito a little visit, and return 
 home to Italy. It would be easy enough, after that, 
 for Vito would send them money, if necessary, to 
 live upon. 
 
 Several letters passed between the brothers, and 
 at the end of the month Toni drew out his money 
 from the bank, received his wages in full, and pre- 
 pared to leave Lambertville. Meantime a letter 
 had come from Nicoletta telling of his mother's 
 joy at learning that Vito was still alive. 
 
 As Toni had doubts as to his ability to find his 
 way to Yonkers, Strollo kindly offered to accom- 
 pany him. Toni had made many friends during 
 his three-years' stay in Lambertville, and he prom- 
 ised to write to them and tell them about Vito and 
 his family, so it was agreed that the letter should 
 be sent to Sabbatto Gizzi, in whose house he had 
 lived, and that Gizzi should read it to the others. 
 The address was written carefully on a piece of 
 paper and given to Toni. 
 
 So early in the morning of August i6th, 1903, 
 Toni and Strollo took the train for New York. It 
 was a hot day, and once again the motion and 
 speed made Toni feel ill, but the thought of seeing 
 
 386 
 
A Case of Circumstantial Evidence 
 
 Vito buoyed him up, and by the time they had 
 crossed the ferry and had actually reached New 
 York he was very hungry. In his excitement he 
 had forgotten to eat any breakfast and was now 
 beginning to feel faint. But Strollo said it was a 
 long way to Yonkers and that they must not stop. 
 For many hours they trudged the streets without 
 getting anywhere and then Strollo said it was time 
 to take the cars. Toni was very tired, and he had 
 to climb many flights of stairs to the train. It car- 
 ried them a long distance, past miles of tenement 
 houses and vacant lots, and at last into a sort of 
 country. Strollo said they should get out. It was 
 very hot and Toni was weak from weariness and 
 lack of food, but his heart was light and he followed 
 Strollo steadily down the wilting road. After go- 
 ing about a mile they crossed some fields near 
 where people were playing a game at hitting little 
 balls with sticks. It was astonishing how far they 
 could strike the balls entirely out of sight. 
 
 "Is this Yonkers ?" asked Toni. 
 
 "It is. near here/* answered Strollo. "We are 
 going by a short way." 
 
 They entered some thick woods and came out 
 upon another field. Toni was now so faint that he 
 begged his friend to stop. 
 
 "Can we not get some food ?" he inquired; "I 
 can hardly walk." 
 
 387 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 "There is a man in that field," said Strollo 
 "Go and ask him." 
 
 So Toni plodded over to the man who was dig- 
 ging mushrooms and asked him in broken English 
 where they could get something to eat. The man 
 told him that it was a long way. They would have 
 to take the trolley to Yonkers. There was a res- 
 taurant there called the " Promised Land," where 
 one could get Italian dishes. He seemed to take a 
 kindly intefest in Toni and in Strollo, who had 
 remained some distance behind, and Toni gave 
 him a cigar a "Cremo" the last one he had. 
 Then Strollo led the way back into the woods. 
 
 It was almost sunset, and the long, low beams 
 slanting through the tree trunks made it hard to 
 see. They went deeper and deeper into the woods 
 Presently Strollo, who was leading the way, stopped 
 and said: 
 
 "We are going in the wrong direction. We must 
 turn around and go back." 
 
 Toni turned. As he did so Strollo drew a 
 long knife and plunged it again and again through 
 Toni's body. 
 
 Strollo spent that night, under an assumed name, 
 at the Mills Hotel in Bleecker Street. He had 
 stabbed himself accidentally in the knee and also 
 in the left hand in the fury of his attack, and when 
 
 388 
 
A Case of Circumstantial Evidence 
 
 he arose in the morning the sheets were covered 
 with blood. There was also blood on his shoes, 
 which had been new, but he took his knife and 
 scraped it off. He had experienced a strange sort 
 of terrified exaltation the night before, and in the 
 early light as he crept downstairs and out of the 
 hotel he could not have told whether he were more 
 glad or afraid. For he had three hundred dollars 
 in his pocket, more than he had ever seen at any 
 one time before as much as a man could save in 
 two whole years. He would be a king now for a 
 long time. He need not work. He could eat, 
 drink and play cards and read some books he had 
 heard about. As for finding him out never! The 
 police would not even know who Torsielli was, to 
 say nothing of who had killed him, for he had 
 removed, as he thought, everything in Toni's 
 pockets. There would be a dead man in the 
 morgue, that was all. He could go back to 
 Lambertville and say that he had left Toni with 
 his brother, at Yonkers, and that would be the 
 end of it. First, though, he would buy some new 
 clothes. 
 
 It was very early and the shops were hardly open, 
 but he found one place where he could buy a suit, 
 another some underclothes, and a third a pair of 
 shoes. The shoemaker, who was a thrifty man, 
 sked Strollo what was the matter with the shoes 
 
 389 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 he had on, so Strollo craftily said they hurt his feet. 
 Then he ate a hearty breakfast, and bought a bet- 
 ter cigar than he had ever smoked before. There 
 was a bookstore near by and he purchased some 
 books "Alto Amore" and "Sua Maesta e Sua 
 Moneta" ("The Height of Love" and "His Maj- 
 esty and His Money"). He would read them on 
 the train. He felt warm and comfortable now and 
 not afraid at all. By and by he went back on the 
 train to Lambertville and smoked and read all the 
 way, contented as the tiger is contented which has 
 tracked down and slain a water-buffalo. 
 
 The same afternoon about sunset, in a lonely 
 part of Van Cortlandt Park, the mushroom digger 
 stumbled over Torsielli's body lying face down- 
 ward among the leaves. He recognized it as that 
 of the man who had asked the way to something 
 to eat and given him a cigar. He ran from the 
 sight and, pallid with fear, notified the near- 
 est police officer. Then things took the usual 
 course. The body was removed to the morgue, an 
 autopsy was performed, and "Headquarters" took 
 charge of the case. As the deceased was an Italian, 
 Detective Sergeant Petrosini was called in. Tor- 
 sielli's pockets were empty save for the band of a 
 "Cremo" cigar in one waistcoat pocket and a tiny 
 slip of paper in another, on which was penciled 
 "Sabbatto Gizzi,P.O. Box 239, Lambertville, New 
 
 390 
 
A Case of Circumstantial Evidence 
 
 Jersey." Whether this last was the name of the 
 deceased, the murderer, or some one else, no one 
 knew. Headquarters said it was a blind case, but 
 Petrosini shrugged his shoulders and bought a 
 ticket to Lambertville. 
 
 Here he found Sabbatto Gizzi, who expressed 
 genuine horror at learning of Toni's death and 
 readily accompanied Petrosini to New York, where 
 he identified the body as indeed that of Torsielli. 
 He told Petrosini that Toni had left Lambertville 
 in the company of Strollo on Thursday, August 
 1 6th. This was Saturday, August i8th, and less 
 than thirty-six hours after the murder. Strollo, 
 reading "Alto Amore," and drinking in the saloon, 
 suspected nothing. New York was seventy miles 
 away too far for any harm to come. But Monday 
 morning, walking lazily down the street near the 
 railroad station, Strollo found himself suddenly 
 confronted by a heavily-built man with a round, 
 moon-shaped face thickly covered with pockmarks. 
 Strollo did not like the way the latter's gimlet-like 
 eyes looked him over. There was no time to turn 
 and fly, and, besides, Strollo had no fear. They 
 might come and ask him questions, and he migh.t 
 even admit almost all almost all, and they could 
 do nothing, for no one had seen what he had done 
 to Toni in the wood. So Strollo returned Petro- 
 sini' s gaze unflinchingly. 
 
 39 1 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 "Are you Antonio Strollo?" asked the detec- 
 tive, coming close to the murderer. 
 
 "Yes, certainly, I am Antonio Strollo/' replied 
 the latter. 
 
 "Do you know Antonio Torsielli?" continued 
 Petrosini. 
 
 "To be sure," answered Strollo. "I knew him 
 well/' he added almost insolently. 
 
 "Why did you accompany him to New York ?" 
 inquired Petrosini sharply. Strollo paled. He had 
 not known that the police were aware of the fact. 
 
 "I had errands in the city. I needed clothes/' 
 said Strollo. 
 
 "He has been murdered/' said Petrosini qui- 
 etly. " Will you come to New York to identify the 
 body?" 
 
 Strollo hesitated. 
 
 "Why yes certainly. I will go to New 
 York." Then he added, thinking that his words 
 seemed insufficient, "I am sorry if Torsielli has 
 been murdered, for he was a friend of mine." 
 
 There was a wait of several hours before the 
 train started for New York and Strollo utilized it 
 by giving Petrosini a detailed account of his trip 
 with Torsielli. He took his time about it and 
 thought each statement over very carefully before 
 he made it, for he was a clever fellow, this Strollo. 
 He even went into the family history of Torsielli 
 
 392 
 

 A Case of Circumstantial Evidence 
 
 and explained about the correspondence with the 
 long-lost brother, in which he acted as amanuensis, 
 for he had come to the conclusion that in the long 
 run honesty (up to a certain point) would prove 
 the best policy. Thus he told the detective many 
 things which the latter did not know or even sus- 
 pect. Strollo's account of what had happened 
 was briefly as follows: 
 
 He and Toni had reached New York about 
 twelve o'clock and had spent an hour or so in the 
 neighborhood of Mott Street looking at the parade 
 of "San Rocco." Then they had started for Yon- 
 kers and gone as far as the terminal of the Second 
 Avenue El. It was about five o'clock in the after- 
 noon. They had got out and started to walk. 
 As they proceeded they suddenly had seen a man 
 standing under a tree and Torsielli had said to 
 Strollo: 
 
 "That man standing under that tree looks like 
 my brother." 
 
 Strollo had replied: 
 
 "You know I am not acquainted with your 
 brother." 
 
 As they reached the tree the stranger had stepped 
 forward and said to Torsielli : 
 
 "Who are you?" 
 
 "Who ? Me ? My name is Antonio Torsielli," 
 had been the reply. "Who are you ?" 
 
 393 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 "I am Vito Torsielli," had answered the stran- 
 ger. Then the two had rushed into each other's 
 arms. 
 
 "And what did you do ?" inquired Petrosini, as 
 Strollo naively concluded this extraordinary story. 
 
 "Me?" answered Strollo innocently. "Why, 
 there was nothing for me to do, so I went back to 
 New York." 
 
 Petrosini said nothing, but bided his time. He 
 had now several important bits of evidence. By 
 Strollo's own account he had been with the de- 
 ceased in the general locality of the murder shortly 
 before it occurred; he had given no adequate ex- 
 planation of why he was in New York at all; and 
 he was now fabricating a preposterous falsehood 
 to show that he had left his victim before the homi- 
 cide was committed. On the train Petrosini began 
 to tie up some of the loose ends. He noticed the 
 wound on Strollo's hand and asked where it had 
 been obtained. The suspect replied that he had 
 received it at the hands of a drunken man in Mott 
 Street. He even admitted having stayed at the 
 Mills Hotel the same evening under an assumed 
 name, and gave as an excuse that his own name 
 was difficult for an American to pronounce and 
 write. Later, this information led to the finding 
 of the bloody bedclothes. He denied, however, 
 having changed his clothes or purchased new ones, 
 
 394 
 
A Case of Circumstantial Evidence 
 
 and this the detective was obliged to ferret out for 
 himself, which he did by visiting or causing to be 
 visited almost every Italian shop upon the East 
 Side. Thus the incident of the shoes was brought 
 to light. 
 
 Strollo was at once taken to the morgue on 
 reaching the city, and here for the first time his 
 nerve failed him, for he could not bring himself to 
 inspect the ghastly body of his victim. 
 
 "Look," cried Petrosini; "is that the man ?" 
 
 "Yes, yes," answered the murderer, trembling 
 like a leaf. "That is he." 
 
 "You are not looking at him," said the detect- 
 ive. "Why don't you look at him. Look at the 
 body." 
 
 " I am looking at him," replied Strollo, averting 
 his eyes. "That is he my friend Antonio Tor- 
 sielli." 
 
 The prisoner was now taken to Police Head- 
 quarters and searched. Here a letter was found in 
 his hip pocket in his own handwriting purporting 
 to be from Antonio Torsielli to his brother Vito at 
 Yonkers, but enclosed in an envelope addressed to 
 Antonio at Lambertville. 
 
 This envelope bore a red two-cent stamp and 
 was inscribed: 
 
 ANTONIO TORSIELLI, Box 470, 
 
 Lambertville, New Jersey. 
 395 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 The letter as later translated in court by the in- 
 terpreter read as follows: 
 
 LAMBERTVILLE, July 30, 1905. 
 My dear Brother: 
 
 Upon receipt of your news I feel very happy to feel you 
 are well, and the same I can assure you from me. Dear 
 Brother, you cannot believe the joy I feel after such a 
 long time to know where you are. I have been looking 
 for you for two years, and never had any news from you. 
 I could not, as you wrote to me to, come to you, because 
 I had no money, and then I didn't know where to go be- 
 cause I have been always in the country. Know that 
 what little money I have I sent it to mother, because if I 
 don't help her nobody will, as you never write to her. 
 I believe not to abandon her, because she is our mother, 
 and we don't want her cursed. So then, if you like to see 
 me, you come and take me. You spoke to me about work 
 thither, but I don't understand about that work which 
 you say, and then what will I do because here I have 
 work, therefore, if you think I can come and work with 
 you let me know because I have the address. But if you 
 want to do better you come and take me. Dear Brother, 
 I remind you about our mother, because I don't earn 
 enough money, which she is your mother also. DEAR 
 BROTHER, I hope you did not forget our mother. Dear 
 Brother, let me know the names of your children, and I 
 kiss them. Many regards to your wife and Aunt. I beg 
 you to write to me. Dear regards, your brother, Antonio 
 Torsielli. When you answer send the answer to the ad- 
 dress below, Antonio Strollo. 
 
 Strollo made no attempt to explain the posses- 
 sion of this letter, which, if sent at all would natu- 
 
 396 
 
A Case of Circumstantial Evidence 
 
 rally have come into the possession of the ad- 
 dressee. 
 
 "And what was Vito's address at Yonkers?" 
 inquired Petrosini. 
 
 " 1570 Yonkers," answered Strollo. 
 
 " Is that the street number of a house or a post- 
 office number?" asked the detective. 
 
 "Neither," said Strollo. "Just 1570 Yonkers." 
 
 Thus the infamy of this villain was made mani- 
 fest. He had invented out of his own brain the 
 existence of Vito Torsielli in Yonkers, and had 
 himself written the letters to Antonio which pur- 
 ported to come from him. He had used the simple 
 fellow's love for his long-lost brother as the means 
 to lure him to his destruction, and brutally mur- 
 dered him for the sake of the few dollars which his 
 innocent victim had worked so hard to earn to 
 reunite him to his mother and his betrothed. 
 
 The wounds in Strollo's hand and knee were 
 found to correspond in shape and character with 
 the thirty-six wounds in Torsielli's body, and the 
 mushroom digger unhesitatingly identified him as 
 the man in the company of the deceased upon the 
 afternoon of the murder. 
 
 It almost seemed like the finger of Providence 
 indicating the assassin when the last necessary 
 piece of evidence in this extraordinary case was 
 discovered. Petrosini had hurried to Lambert- 
 
 397 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 ville immediately upon the discovery of the letter 
 and visited the post-office. 
 
 A young lady named Miss Olive Phillips had 
 been employed there as a clerk for twelve years, 
 and had lately had charge of what are known as 
 the "call boxes" that is to say, of boxes to which 
 no keys are issued, but for the contents of which 
 the lessees have to ask at the delivery window. 
 These are very inexpensive and in use generally 
 by the Italian population of Lambertville, who 
 are accustomed to rent them in common one box 
 to three or four families. She had noticed Strollo 
 when he had come for his mail on account of his 
 flashy dress and debonair demeanor. Strollo's 
 box, she said, was No. 420. Petrosini showed her 
 the envelope of the letter found in Strollo's pocket. 
 The stamp indicated that it had been cancelled at 
 Lambertville on July 26. When she saw the en- 
 velope she called Petrosini's attention to the fact 
 that the stamp was a two-cent red stamp, and said, 
 to his surprise, that she was able to identify the let- 
 ter on that account as one mailed by Strollo on July 
 26. As there is no local delivery in the town, she 
 explained, "drop letters," or letters mailed by 
 residents to other residents, may be franked for 
 one cent. Now, in the first place, no Italian in 
 Lambertville, except Strollo, so far as Miss Phillips 
 could remember, had ever mailed a letter to an- 
 
 398 
 
A Case of Circumstantial Evidence 
 
 other Italian in the same town. A frugal Italian, 
 moreover, if he had done so, would have put on 
 only the required amount of postage. On the 
 26th of July, Strollo had come to the post-office 
 and pushed this identical letter through the win- 
 dow, at the same time handing her two cents and 
 asking her to put on a red stamp for him. She 
 had been surprised at this, and had at first thought 
 of calling his attention to the fact that only a one- 
 cent stamp was necessary, but she had refrained 
 and put on the stamp. At the same time she had 
 noticed that it was addressed to "Antonio Tor- 
 sielli, Lambertville, New Jersey." Stroilo had then 
 taken the letter and slipped it into the "drop" 
 and she had cancelled the stamp, taking the oppor- 
 tunity to examine the letter a second time. A 
 stranger coincidence could hardly be imagined, 
 and this observing young lady from the country 
 was thus able to supply the most important link in 
 the chain against the murderer, and to demon- 
 strate conclusively that the wretch had himself 
 been mailing in Lambertville the letters purporting 
 to come from the fictitious brother in Yonkers. 
 
 Strollo was now placed in the House of Deten- 
 tion as a "witness," a course frequently pursued 
 when it is desirable to prevent a suspect from 
 knowing that he is accused. 
 
 The case against him was practically com- 
 399 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 plete, for it did not seem humanly possible, that 
 any jury would hesitate to convict him upon the 
 evidence, but juries are loath to find any one guilty 
 of murder in the first degree upon purely circum- 
 stantial evidence, and this was the first purely cir- 
 cumstantial case in a long time. Inspector Price, 
 therefore, conceived the idea of trapping Strollo 
 into a confession by placing a detective in con- 
 finement with him under the guise of being a fel- 
 low-prisoner. It was, of course, patent that Strollo 
 was but a child mentally, but he was shrewd and 
 sly, and if he denied his guilt, there was still a 
 chance of his escape. Accordingly, a detective 
 named Repetto was assigned to the disagreeable 
 task of taking the part of an accused criminal. 
 He was detailed to the House of Detention and 
 remained there for five days, from September 8 to 
 September 13. Here Repetto became acquainted 
 with Strollo and the other prisoners, giving his name 
 as Silvio del Sordo and his address as 272 Bowery. 
 He played cards with them, read the papers aloud 
 and made himself generally agreeable. During 
 this period he frequently saw the defendant write 
 and familiarized himself with his chirography. 
 
 The scheme worked and Repetto afterward re- 
 ceived five letters from Strollo, sent after the latter 
 had been removed from the House of Detention to 
 the Tombs and indicted for the murder of Tor- 
 
 400 
 
A Case of Circumstantial Evidence 
 
 sielli. The first, dated September 22d, was merely 
 to inform his supposed friend Silvio of the change 
 in his residence and to inquire the whereabouts of 
 another prisoner named Philip. The second would 
 be pathetic were it not written by the defendant in 
 the case. It carries with it the flavor of the Cala- 
 brian hills. 
 
 NEW YORK, October 17, 1905. 
 SIR SILVIO: 
 
 I write and believe not to sicken you with my words, 
 but it is enough that you are well in health. I take the 
 liberty again not having any one else but you, and I be- 
 lieve to find a brother in you, not a friend. I ask you 
 nothing, only if you have time to come and see me as 
 soon as possible. I ask you this as a favor because I 
 know and believe to find a true friend, as I want to ask 
 you a certain thing at the cost of my life. I will not say 
 any more. Bring me five cents of paper and envelopes 
 to write letters and when you come I will give you the 
 money. Nothing else. I am yours ever. Servant and 
 
 Perfect friend, 
 
 A STROLLO. 
 
 The third letter from the perfect friend to his 
 equally perfect friend is an extraordinary com- 
 bination of ingenuity and ignorance. It contains 
 the only suggestion of a defence that of an alibi. 
 
 NEW YORK, October 30, 1905. 
 ESTEEMED FRIEND: 
 
 With retard I answer in receiving yours. I was very, 
 very glad. I believe all you told me and I am grateful, 
 
 401 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 and hope you will not betray me, because you know it 
 will cost the life of a poor unfortunate, so do as you told 
 me, keep things to ourselves, if you wish to help me you 
 will do me a great service, and if God helps me, you can 
 dispose of my life. 
 
 So I will have you called unexpected, saying that I did 
 not know if you remembered. So if you are called the 
 first thing you must do is to make believe to look at me, 
 and then you say you remember of having seen me look- 
 ing at the pictures in front of place where you work, and 
 you asked me if I wanted my pictures taken and I said 
 no. If they ask at what time say 5:20 or 5:30 p. M., and 
 that you spoke with me for quite awhile. If they ask how 
 was he dressed ? The coat was black, the shoes russet the 
 Trousers with white stripes which is the one I am now 
 wearing; what tie, I don't remember, I only know he was 
 well dressed, the hat was brown, if they ask did he have 
 a mark on his hand ? 'Say no, he had a ring with a black 
 stone, how many times did you see him, say that after 
 your work you were going around Mott Street and you 
 saw me again and how it was eight o'clock or past eight 
 and you saw me with a handkerchief around my hand, 
 and you said to me, why I had my hand so. And he an- 
 swered that some one struck him, I asked if it hurt much, 
 he said he did not feel it, did both of you go to drink. 
 No. Where else did Strollo go, Strollo said he was going 
 at the Bleecker Street Hotel to sleep, did you see him 
 again. No. Nothing else, if you want to help me reflect 
 well, but you don't need any more words from me say just 
 what I have said and I hope, with faith of a brother not a 
 friend, I am ever your Friend, 
 
 A. STROLLO. 
 
 It may, and probably will, appear to the reader 
 that a clearer case of guilt could hardly be estab- 
 
 402 
 
A Case of Circumstantial Evidence 
 
 lished, but the action of juries is always problem- 
 atical, and this was a case composed entirely of 
 circumstantial evidence. The jury would be 
 obliged to find that no reasonable hypothesis con- 
 sistent with the innocence of the accused could be 
 formulated upon the evidence. Thus, even in the 
 face of the facts proven against him, some " freak " 
 juryman might still have said, " But, after all, how 
 do you know that Strollo killed him ? Some other 
 fellow might have done it." Even the "faking" 
 of a defence does not prove the defendant guilty, 
 but merely that he fears conviction, and is ready to 
 resort to feigned testimony to secure his freedom. 
 Many innocent men convict themselves in precisely 
 this way. 
 
 Accordingly it was by no means with confidence 
 that the People went to trial, but throughout this 
 remarkable case it seemed as if it must have been 
 preordained that Strollo should not escape pun- 
 ishment for his treacherous crime. No defence 
 was possible, not even the partially prepared alibi 
 was attempted, and the only thing that savored of 
 a defence was the introduction of a letter alleged 
 to have been received by the defendant while in the 
 House of Detention, and which, if genuine, would 
 have apparently established that the crime had 
 been perpetrated by the " Black Hand." 
 
 The offering of this letter was a curious and 
 403 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 fatal blunder, for it was later proven by the People 
 to be in Strollo' s own handwriting. It was his last 
 despairing effort to escape the consequences of his 
 crime. Headed with a cross drawn in blood it 
 ran as follows: 
 
 I swear upon this cross, which is the blood of my 
 veins, Strollo is innocent. I swear upon the cross the re- 
 vengeful Black Hand could save me. New York, Oct. 
 12, 1905. Sir Strollo, knowing you only by name, eight 
 days after that I leave this letter will be sent to you. I 
 leave at seven o'clock with the Steamer Britain the Har- 
 bor. Therefore I leave betraying my oath that I have 
 held for the last three years belonging to the Black Hand. 
 I will leave three letters, one to you, one to the Police Offi- 
 cer Capri, and the other to the law, 300 Mulberry Street. 
 All what I am saying I have sworn to before God. There- 
 fore your innocence will be given you, first by God and 
 then by the law, capturing the true murders. I am sure 
 that they already captured the murderer of Torsielli. 
 Who lured you to come to New York was Giusepp^Rosa, 
 who knew you for nearly two years, and who comes from 
 Lambertville, came among us and played you a trick. 
 He is a Calabrise and has a mighty grudge. He and four 
 others are averse to them. Announce the name of the 
 man who stabbed you with the knife was Antonio Villa. 
 He had to kill you, but you was fortunate. He is in jail 
 for the present time and I don't know for how long, but 
 I know that he was arrested. Nothing else to say. I 
 have done my duty in giving you all the information. 
 407 and St., Jersey. 
 
 It is clear from the letter that Strollo had formed 
 a vague plan for his defence, which should, in part. 
 
 404 
 
A Case of Circumstantial Evidence 
 
 consist of the claim that he, as well as Torsielli, 
 had been marked for death by the Black Hand, 
 and that while both had been induced to come to 
 New York, the plans of the assassins had in his 
 case miscarried. 
 
 The reader has already observed that purely for 
 the purpose of securing his continued interest in 
 the present narrative the writer has, as it were, 
 told his story backward, reserving as long as pos- 
 sible the fact that the finding of the beloved Vito 
 was a pure fiction invented by the murderer. At 
 the trial, however, the jury listened breathlessly 
 while bit by bit the whole pathetic story was 
 painted before them, like a mosaic picture. They 
 heard first the story of the mushroom digger, then 
 of the expedition of Petrosini to Lambertville, of 
 the identification of Torsielli's body, of the elabo- 
 rate fabrications of Strollo, and in due course, of 
 the tell-tale letter in the murderer's pocket. Grad- 
 ually the true character of the defendant's crime 
 came over them and they turned from him in 
 aversion. The natural climax in the evidence was 
 Miss Phillip's extraordinary identification of the 
 defendant sitting at the bar as the man who had 
 mailed upon the 26th of July, at the Lambertville 
 post-office, the envelope purporting to come from 
 Yonkers and containing the forged letter from the 
 imaginary Vito. 
 
 405 
 
True Stories of Crime 
 
 Strollo remained almost to the last confident 
 that he could never be convicted, but when his 
 own letters in prison were introduced in evidence 
 he turned ashen pale and stared fixedly at the 
 judge. The jury deliberated but fifteen minutes, 
 their functions consisting of but a single ballot, 
 followed by a prayer for the wretched murderer's 
 soul. Then they filed slowly back and, in the 
 waning light of the summer afternoon just one 
 year after the murder, and at the precise hour at 
 which Strollo had killed his victim, pronounced 
 him guilty of murder in the first degree. In due 
 course his conviction was sustained by the Court 
 of Appeals, and on March nth, 1908, he paid the 
 penalty for his crime in the electric chair. 
 
 406 
 
DATE 
 
 AN INITIAL FINE OF 25 CENTS 
 
 OVERDUE. 
 
 "SPRT01957 
 
 
VB 07632 
 
 
 IIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY