ni If CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY THIS BOOK IS ONE OF A COLLECTION MADE BY BENNO LOEWY 1854-1519 AND BEQUEATHED TO CORNELL UNIVERSITY CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 3 1924 069 586 091 DATE DUE ^J^\Ji,*m^' - .,0^^!^ GAYLORO miNTCOtNM-S.A. The original of tiiis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924069586091 John Wilson Murray Memoirs of A Great Detective INCIDENTS IN THE LIFE OF JOHN WILSON MURRAY EDITED BY VICTOR SPEER WITH PORTRAIT ^ NEW YORK THE BAKER & TAYLOR CO. 33-37 East Seventeenth Street, Union Sq., North Copyright, 1904, 1905; by VICTOR SPEER and JOHN W. MURRAY A(/'^isf^'j, CONTENTS I. Murray . 9 II. From Babyhood to Battleship . . . -14 III. The First Case : Confederate Cole's Coup . 19 IV. A Word by the Way Z9 v. Knapp : A Weazened Wonder , . • SS VI. The Feminine Firm of Hall and Carroll . . 42 VII. The Episode of Poke Soles .... 47 VIII. How a Feud Almost Burned Erie ... 50 IX. Two Scars, by the Blade of Napper Nichols and the bullet of Whitey Stokes ... 54 X. A King, a Lunatic, and a Burglar — Three in One, and none at all . . . -57 XI. The Box-Car Battle of Sweetman, and the Thrashers with the Wheat . . -63 XII. With the Help of Jessie McLean ... 69 XIII. The Course of a Career . . . • 71 XIV. Sanctimonious Bond 76 XV. When Ralph Findlay Lurched and Fell . .81 XVI. The Tinkling House of Wellmgton Square . 89 XVII. The Driverless Team on Caledonia Road . . 93 XVIII. Apropos of Hunker Chisholm .... 98 XIX. The Whitesides of Ballinafad . . . .101 XX. The Monaghan Murder . . . .104 XXI. The Six -Foot Needhams : Father and Son . . 108 XXII. Pretty Mary Ward of the Government Gardens, . 116 XXIII. The Fatal Robbery of the Dains . . .121 3 CONTENTS XXIV. "Amer! Amer! Amer ! " . XXV. McPherson's Telltale Trousers . XXVI. When Glengarry Wrecked the Circus XXVII. XXVIII. XXIX. XXX. XXXI. The Disappearing Stores Mary Ann Weatherup, Coquette . The Capture of Lochinvar Sproule The Million Dollar Counterfeiting Heney, of the Welted Forehead . XXXII. The Tookes's Revel in Riches XXXIII. Big Mac of Simcoe, Young Smith, and XXXIV. XXXV. Bill Nay John Dobbin, from Beyond the Quicksands 'Luke Phipps, Who Buried Himself Alive XXXVI. The New Year's Murder of Stillwell of XXXVII. Bayham The Winter Road to Manitoulin . XXXVIII. XXXIX. The Long Point Mystery John Stone, Gentleman XL. XLI. Bates of AUanburg's Funeral Pyre . A Spreader of Arsenic XLII. XLIII. For a Mess of Pottage "Shet-Black Herres of the Dmg-Dong Mustachees" .... XLIV. Baldy Drinkwater .... XLV. XLVI. XL VII. XLVIII. Old John Klippert of Waterloo The Returning of Darky George Claxton Two Disappearances .... The Hollowed Chocolate . XLIX. L. LI. The Shanty City of Slabtown Why Tambly Sleeps in Georgian Bay . Reginald Birchall : Occupation, Murderer 134 139 143 151 157 161 167 182 190 19s ZOI 210 2 20 224 2Z8 23s 244 249 252 258 267 273 279 283 289 291 298 301 CONTENTS 5 LII. The Footmark by Langford's Bed • 330 LIII. The Lady of the Piercing Black E >^es . . 335 LIV. An Escaper of Genius • 34« LV. Pennyfeather of the Bank ■ 348 LVI. The Tour of Charles Hilton Davi( ison . . 352 LVII. Over the Andes for Aitken . • 362 LVIII. The Case of Perry Wemberg • 379 LIX. The Four Barn Burnings of Chath am . . 381 LX. Almeda Chattelle, the Hairy Man • . 385 LXI. The Gangs of Burtch and Rutledg e . .390 LXII. The Middlemarch Mystery . • 394 LXIII. The Graded Grays . • 399 LXIV. George Alger's Graveyard Policy - • 403 LXV. The Killing of James Agnew . 406 LXVI. The Voice of the Haunted House . 411 LXVII. Olive Adele Sevenpiper Sternaman • 414 LXVIII. Simpering Jim Allison . • 419 LXIX. The Turnip Pit Tragedy . • 425 LXX. Foolish Frank Osier and Wise San 1 Tiindsay . 429 LXXI. Eddie Elliott, Boy Murderer • 433 LXXII. Demure Kate Pender of Emsdale • 437 LXXIII. Why Humphrey Went Back to Pi -ison . . 440 LXXIV. Tiaing of Lawrason's, Thrifty Thie f . .442 LXXV. Lee Cluey of Cathay . • 445 LXXVI. Melvin Hall, Freebooter . . 448 LXXVII. The Murder of Joseph Sifton • 454 LXXVIII. The Three Dynamitards • 459 LXXIX. The Temporary Quirk Mystery • 473 LXXX. Tvpo Crooks in Clover . 476 LXXXI. The Crime of Charlie King • • 479 LXXXII. In Conclusion . . 483 Introductory The editing of these episodes has been a joyous task, undertaken for an old friend whose eventful life is worthy of an abler appreciation. The narrative bears witness to his steadfast determination that his published Memoirs should be a detailed record of truth. There was no desire to create a fanciful work of fiction out of the facts of an earnest and straightforward life. In the writing of it, one thought was uppermost, a thought of value, perhaps, in the reading of it, that when it was finished, the one who lived it should say, as he has said, " It is true, every word of it." V.S. Memoirs of a Great Detective MURRAY In a tangled swamp on a farm near Gait, in the county of Waterloo, Province of Ontario, Canada, in August, 1897, searchers were hunting for the body of a farmer's wife. She had disappeared, and blood by the wood-pile and near the house told of a crime and the hiding of the body. One of the party beating the swamp came upon a half-dug grave. He kept silence as to his discovery, and, when night fell, he secreted himself in the thick brush near the grave and waited, in the faint hope that the murderer would return and finish his task, perchance bringing the body with him. It was bright moonlight overhead. In the thicket of the swamp all was gloom, save for a broken filtering of pale light where the underbrush and tall briar had been thinned out. It was a lonely, dismal place. An owl's wailing and the swamp-frog's croaking were the only sounds. The hours passed. Midnight came and went. Not even a lizard appeared by the grave. The watcher was about to creep closer and ease his limbs, when a rustle sounded in the brush, a noise like the wind swish- ing a bush. It ceased, then came again, then all was still. Suddenly, on the side of the grave farthest from the watcher, a figure crept swiftly out of the thicket and stood erect. The moon shone full upon him. He was tall and broad-shouldered, with a pose like that in the old-fash- ioned prints of heroic figures of the ancient wars. He wore knee-boots, with a long, loose coat reaching to their lo MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE tops, and buttoned to the chin. A slouch hat, pulled well down on the forehead, shaded his face. In his left hand he held a spade. He paused by the grave, thrust his spade into the earth, and left it upright like a head- stone, then shoved back the hat, and knelt on all fours, with his face close to the ground, for all the world hke a bloodhound sniffing for a scent. On hands and knees he crept around and around the grave. Finally, from a pocket of the long coat, he produced a tiny lamp, and turning its light full upon the ground, he resumed his circling of the grave, his face not five inches from the earth, his eyes searching every foot of ground. For half an hour this creeping around the grave con- tinued. Then the figure squatted by the mound of earth and sat motionless. Suddenly he arose, seized the spade, and swiftly tossed away the mound of earth dug from the grave. All was done so noiselessly, so deftly, that it seemed unreal, phantom-like, the antics of a ghost. As he neared the bottom of the pile of earth his care re- doubled. At length, he began to dig around the remnant of the pile as if making a second grave, beside the first. He had left about four inches of the earth from the first grave lying undisturbed on the site of the second grave. It was thick, sticky soil, that held together firmly, being less watery than elsewhere in the swamp, yet being full of heaviness and moisture. He dug cautiously, sinking the spade about four inches in the soil, then driving it under, as would a man in cut- ting sod. When he thus had cut under the entire rem- nant of earth from the first grave he cleared a space on the ground beside it, and as one would turn a pancake on the griddle, he flipped the earth out and turned it on to the cleared space, so that the remnant of soil from the first grave was underneath. He then painstakingly lifted away the upper layer, and thus exposed to view the soil from the first grave, precisely as it had formed the surface or top of the earth before the digging of the grave began. He knelt over this earth as a mother over her child. He turned the light of the little lamp full upon it. Then he MURRAY II grunted, a subdued, deep, satisfied grunt. With the spade he carefully cut out a piece of the earth about a foot long and half as wide. He produced a measuring rule, and for half an hour worked over the piece of earth. Then he took the earth in his arms as tenderly as if it were a babe, picked up the spade, and vanished in the thicket. Like a flash it dawned on the watcher that this mys- terious figure had been searching for footprints. He had found no clear footprint around the grave. The marks there had been trampled by those of the watcher. But on the surface of the earth, where the grave had been dug, the footprints of the digger were certain to appear. So the figure in the long coat had reclaimed this surface undisturbed, and, judging from the one sound he made, the grunt of joy, he had found what he sought. The watcher trailed after him, ignorant of who he was or whence he came. The grey dawn was creeping into the sky as he entered his hotel at Gait. A sleepy porter was lolling on a table. Footsteps sounded in the hall, and past the office door on his way up-stairs went the figure of the long coat. The coat was in his arms, borne carefully, for it concealed the precious piece of earth, " Who is that ? " asked the watcher. " That ! " said the porter, with a yawn. " That's Old Never-let-go." " Who ? " asked the watcher. " Old Never-let-go," answered the porter. " Murray, John Murray, Old Never-let-go, the greatest genuine de- tective that this here or any other bloomin' country can produce. He's snoopin' around now a gettin' ready to fix a hangin' for whoever killed Mrs. Orr." The figure of the long coat was in his room before the porter finished. He had laid the piece of earth on a table and turned the light full on it. A footprint showed, distinct in every detail of the shoe's outline. He re- measured it carefully, noting the measurements on a slip of paper. When he finished he compared this slip with another slip. Then he went to a closet, and drew forth 12 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE an old shoe, earth-stained and worn. He gently lowered this shoe into the imprint on the piece of earth. It matched. The clue held true. After locking the piece of earth in an iron box, he went straight to the gaol or lockup, where a suspect was under guard. He entered the cell, and slammed the door. An hour later he returned to his room at the hotel, glanced longingly at the bed, then at his watch, shook his head, and five minutes later was in a cold bath. When he appeared in the hotel ofifice shortly after, the newspaper men and others including the watcher in the swamp, crowded around him. " Any news ? " they asked eagerly. " The murderer's locked up," was the reply. " Who is he ? " " Jim Allison, the chore boy. He'll confess before he's hanged." Allison was tried and convicted, and he confessed be- fore he was hanged. At the trial there was no inkling of the all-night labours in the swamp or of the fatal foot- print. The case was complete, without a revelation of the methods of the man who ran down the necessary evi- dence. If it had been necessary, the piece of earth with the tell-tale tread, a plaster cast of it to make it still plainer, would have been in evidence at the trial. It was not needed, and hence it did not appear. In a somewhat similar case a few years before, proof of footprints was needed, and it did appear. " You're sure Allison did it ? " asked the newspaper men at the Gait hotel. " Sure," said Murray, and he went to breakfast. It was the writer's first experience with John Wilson Murray, Chief Inspector of Criminal Investigation of the Department of Justice of the Province of Ontario, with head offices in the Parliament Buildings, Toronto. For almost thirty years he has been inspector, and, in that time, murders by the dozen, burglaries by the score, crimes of all kinds, totalling thousands, have been solved by him, and the perpetrators apprehended. His career MURRAY 13 is a record of events outrivalling the detective tales of fiction ; for fact, in its fullest scope, is stranger far than fiction. He has followed men" over two continents ; he has pursued them over land and sea, from country to country, from hemisphere to hemisphere, from New World to Old World and back again. He has travelled over 30,000 miles in the chase of a single man. He has shot and has been shot. He has been worsted in des- perate struggles when help came in the nick of time, and he has fought grim battles single-handed when defeat would have meant death. His prisoners have ranged from men of high estate to creatures of the lowest depths. The cases he has solved range through every variety of crime known to the police records of the world. He has run down counterfeiters of ;^ 1,000,000 and more; he has unravelled the mysteries of murder where life was taken for eighty cents. He has the counterfeiting plates, val- ued at ;^40,ooo, as a trophy of the one chase, and he has a rusty iron pipe as a souvenir of the other. He lives in Toronto, in a comfortable brick house in Brunswick Avenue. As he comes and goes, a stranger seeing him would regard him as a prosperous business man, of placid life and uneventful career. His home life is the antithesis of his official life. He lives alone, with a trusted housekeeper and discreet servants. His pleas- ure, apart from his work, is in outdoor life, with his dogs and gun, his fishing tackle, or, above all, a boat on the open sea. Beside his desk in the library of his house, are his favourite books on a separate shelf — the poems of Robert Burns, the works of Scott, the essays of Emer- son, the Count of Monte Cristo, Gulliver's Travels, and the Bible. He is an omnivorous reader, but these are his favourites. On the wall, side by side, are pictures of Queen Victoria and Abraham Lincoln. His den is filled with reminders of his life's work. There are rusty bul- lets that have come from the brains of murdered men ; there are bludgeons, knives, revolvers, sand-bags, pieces of pipe, jemmies, kits of burglars, outfits of counterfeiters, symbols of the crucial clues that fastened on criminals 14 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE the guilt of their crimes. Each has its history, and in the story of his life all have their place. In a gold frame on the top of his desk, in old English lettering on heavy paper, is the following : They talk about a woman's sphere As though it had a limit : There's not a place in earth or heaven, There's not a task to mankind given, There's not a blessing or a woe. There's not a whisper, yes or no, There's not a life, or death, or birth That has a featherweight of worth, Without a woman in it. Murray smiles when a visitor reads it. II FROM BABYHOOD TO BATTLESHIP Even the early years of the life of John Wilson Mur- ray were eventful. He was born in the city of Edin- burgh, Scotland, on June 25th, 1840. He is sixty-five years old, and looks little past fifty. He came of a sturdy family of seafaring men, who had been sailing the globe for generations before him. His father was Daniel Dun- can Murray, a sea captain, and his grandfather was Hec- tor Murray, a sea captain of some note, who owned a number of coasting vessels off the north of Scotland and in the German Ocean, and who was a rich man until a storm at sea swept many of his ships away. Murray's mother was Jeanette Wilson, daughter of Dr. Alex. Wilson, of Belfast, County Antrim, in the north of Ireland. Her father and mother died when she was quite young, and the lass was raised in Scotland at the home of a relative of Murray's godmother, named Mac- Donald, an Edinburgh merchant's wife. There Daniel Duncan Murray met her, a winsome maid, whose picture FROM BABYHOOD TO BATTLESHIP 15 is a gem, and married her in 1834. He sailed the seas, returning to Edinburgh for short visits after long voyages to all parts of the earth. There were two children who survived infancy. One was John Wilson Murray, the other was his sister, Mary, five years older, who died some years ago. When young Murray was five years old the family moved to New York. Captain Daniel Duncan Murray sailed ships out of New York for a number of years. Among them were the Benjamin Adams, the Flying Cloud and the Ocean Wave, in its day a fast clipper. Young Murray was sent to school in New York, but in 1851, when he was eleven years old, his mother's health failed, and she returned to Scotland, taking him with her, but leaving his sister, Mary, attending school in Hartford, Conn. The mother, on her arrival in Edinburgh, placed her son at the old Royal High School on the east end of Princess or Regent Street. A few months later she heard that her daughter in Hartford had been thrown from a horse, and that her arm had been broken. She immediately started for New York, leaving young John Wilson Murray at school in Edinburgh. The son soon showed the family love for roving, a trait dominant in his father and his father's father. He became dissatisfied ; he disliked his teacher. The dissatisfaction and dislike grew when he heard his father was due a month later in Liverpool. In 1853 this boy of thirteen ran away from school, shipped on a coaster and made his way to Liverpool. He travelled the Liverpool docks a night and a day before he found his father's ship. " I'll tack you back to Edinburgh on the morrow," said Captain Daniel Duncan Murray. " Gin you do, I'll be off again on the next morrow," replied his thirteen-year-old son. Captain Murray laughed mightily at this, and when his ship sailed for New York he took his son with him and turned him over to his mother again. Mrs. Murray took him to Washington and sent him to the Georgetown i6 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE Academy. He stayed there until 1855, when the spirit of adventure seized him and he ran away a second time. With him went another lad of the school, who now is a prominent man in the business affairs of the United States. The two boys went to Baltimore. They tried to ship aboard a whaler. At the first shipping office they entered, the man in charge eyed them suspiciously as they glibly told of an imaginary career, since infancy, at sea. " Hold out your hands," he said suddenly. The astonished lads obeyed. " Bah ! " he roared, as he spat on the white unmarked palms. " Out of here, or I'll have you both arrested. Go back to your mas and your milk, ye pair of unweaned liars. Ye're dressed for a party." Thereupon he spanked them both soundly, and sat them down with a thud. They fled, not alone from the office, but from Baltimore, going to Philadelphia. They prowled around the water-front of the Quaker City look- ing for a whaler. After their Baltimore experience they had decided to steer clear of all shipping offices. After a week of unavailing search for a whaler that would carry them to the far north, where they expected to bag whales by the score and seals by the thousand, young Murray met a fruiter. She was a brig. They wanted a boy, but did not want two boys. Murray's companion in adven- ture found a berth on a Liverpool ship, and the lads sep- arated, not to meet again for thirty years. The fruiter on which Murray shipped was the Sequence. She went to the West Indies, Murray receiving the princely wage of $'j a month. The Sequence stopped at the Bar- badoes, Trinidad, and St. Kitts, then sailed for Boston. The boy, who had stepped aboard in velvet knicker- bockers at Philadelphia, stepped ashore in duck togs at Boston. He sailed on the Sequence four months ; then returned to Philadelphia and shipped again, this time on the Dauntless, a full-rigged ship bound around the Horn. He left Philadelphia early'in October, 1855, going out for FROM BABYHOOD TO BATTLESHIP 17 guano on the islands off Lima on the west coast of South America. She struck appalling weather off the Horn, and limped into Callao badly battered. In this hurricane young Murray was seasick for the first and last time in his life. On his return from the guano islands, he shipped on the brig Tortoise, for a short trip to San Domingo after logwood. He was out two months, and when he landed in Philadelphia he heard of a grand new vessel on the great lakes, and straightway started for Buffalo, and shipped on the Great West, at that time (1856) the biggest vessel on the lakes. Captain John Bampton, a giant in bulk and heart and voice, was her master, and Toppy McGee, of Oswego, was mate. She was a full-rigged ship, the only one on the lakes at that time. Murray sailed on the Great West between Buffalo and Chicago, and had made several trips when, one morn- ing at the docks in Buffalo, Captain Daniel Duncan Murray appeared and led his runaway offspring back to New York. " This time you go to school and you stay at school," said the captain. " 'Tis a profession I intend you should follow. From the cut of your jib you'll make a fine preacher-person; or, at the worst, I'll turn you out a doctor-man." " I may go, but I will not stay," said young Murray. The captain placed him in school. Young Murray languished through the winter months, and when spring came, the spirit of unrest stirred within him, and away he went, back to the sea. In the late spring he returned to the Great Lakes, and on June Sth, 1857, he enlisted in the United States Navy, joining the U.S.S. Michigan, then in Chicago, although her headquarters were in Erie, Pa. He stayed aboard the Michigam until the Civil War broke out in 1861. He was twenty-one years old then, and the opportunity came for him to realise the ambition of his early years. There was a shortage of officers in the regular service, and Murray was picked as one of the likely young fellows to be sent on to the training-school at Washington. He worked and studied faithfully then, 1 8 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE and when the examinations were held he passed, and received a commission in the United States Navy. Murray served through the Civil War in the Navy. He was in the Mississippi or Gulf Squadron a part of the time, under Commander Jewett, and he fought under Farragut, and was in a number of engagements, including the fight at Mobile. " The first time I saw Farragut was aboard the Hart- ford, and I can see him now, over forty years after, as distinctly in memory as I saw him then in reality," says Murray, in speaking of the great naval genius of the war. " Once seen, never forgotten." From service in the Mississippi and the Gulf, Murray was ordered to the Great Lakes aboard the Michigan. He continued aboard her until after the close of the war, and in December, 1866, he left the Michigan and the service. Thus, at the age of twenty-five, Murray had sailed the south seas and around the Horn, had stood the gruelling of a six months' trip to the guano fields, had been through the pounding life aboard the West Indies fruiters, had fought through the Civil War, and stood, a power- ful, self-reliant young giant on the lookout for his calling in life. One of those who knew Murray in these days, and who is a banker in Ohio now, says of him : " He was strong as a bull, quick as a cat, rather a silent fellow, slow to anger, and plenteous in vengeance once he was aroused. He feared neither man, gun, nor belaying pin. He was a faithful friend and a relentless foe. He was the last to pick a quarrel, but once it was picked he was the last to drop it. His associates liked him. He was a silent, sturdy, self-contained man, with a remarkable gift for gaining the confidence of other men." The war left its indelible imprint on the hfe of Murray, as it did on the life of many another man. It tended to mould his ambitions and direct them along the line of what later became his occupation. In Murray's mind it is a settled belief that if he had not served in the Navy CONFEDERATE COLE'S COUP 19 during the Civil War he would have been a sailor until he died, following in the way of his ancestors, and traversing all the seas to all parts of the world as master of his own ship. His career was not cast ashore by any dread of hardship afloat, or by any dislike of service at sea. It was influenced by an event that is one of the important, yet little-known, episodes of the Civil War. It sufficed to decide finally the future work of Murray. He holds it, therefore, a bit apart from other excitements of his career, for in it the hand of fate pointed the way of his destiny. Ill THE FIRST CASE : CONFEDERATE COLE'S COUP It is a wonderful story, this narrative of the attempt of the Confederates, in 1864, to capture the U.S.S. Michigan, ■ to take Johnson Island in Sandusky Bay in Lake Erie, release 4,000 Confederates imprisoned there, burn the island, if possible, destroy Detroit, Cleveland, and Buffalo by fire, and strike terror to the heart of the North. The man who discovered the plot was Murray, and it was he who unearthed the identity of the picturesque leader and was instrumental in frustrating the schemes so cun- ningly devised. The war was at its zenith, says Murray, in telling the story. It was the year 1864. Commander J. C. Carter of the United States Navy sent for Murray and detailed him to special duty. There had been talk of a Con- federate plot to blow up Johnson Island and liberate all Confederate prisoners and land them safely in Canada across Lake Erie. *^ " ' Try to get to the bottom of the conspiracy, if there is one,' said Commander Carter to me, in the latter part of May, 1864," says Murray. "Carter added: < Go to any place and every place ; you have an unlimited com- mission. Report to me from time to time.' " 20 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE Murray went first to Detroit and conferred with Colonel Hill, who gave him what information he had. It was meagre. At that time, Vallandingham, a member of Congress from Ohio, was in exile in Windsor, Ontario, across the river from Detroit. Vallandingham was a Southern sympathiser. Murray — in the garb of a civil- ian, of course — crossed to Windsor, and settled down to learn, first of all, the ways of Vallandingham and any other Confederate sympathisers gathered there. He ob- served closely all who called on Vallandingham. Among them he noted a dapper, energetic, little fellow, who came and went at Vallandingham's headquarters. Murray, un- suspected, learned his name was L. C. Cole, and that he was reputed to be a Confederate agent. Cole was about thirty-eight years old, five feet seven inches tall, weighed a hundred and thirty-five pounds, with red hair and long mustachios, and grey eyes, so small and sharp and bright, that Murray says the first thing he noticed about Cole was his eyes. Murray finally caught a scrap of conver- sation between Cole and Vallandingham that convinced him Cole was an important and dangerous figure. He communicated with Commander Carter and made ready to follow Cole, if it led to the ends of the earth. Cole left Windsor, with Murray on his trail. He went first to Toronto and stopped at the Queen's Hotel, where he was joined by a number of other rebel sympathisers. Murray says a dozen or more gathered instantly to greet him, all being strangers. Cole clearly was the chief among them, as they deferred to him. After long con- ferences. Cole went to Montreal. Murray went on the same train. Thus the chase began. Murray was a young fellow of twenty-four, inexperienced as a detective, untrained in shadowing a man or in running down a clue or solving a mystery. Cole, on the contrary, was an experienced and trained agent, schooled in all the tricks of that branch of war in which he was engaged. The difficult task, however, seemed simple to Murray ; he adjusted himself to it from the outset. It serves to indicate his natural CONFEDERATE COLE'S COUP 21 bent towards the work of a detective. A coincidence of his career is that his first visit to Toronto, where later he estabhshed his headquarters in his life-work, was as a dc tective, trailing his man. " I learned then the simple rule for following a man," says Murray. " Keep him in your sight as much as pos- sible, and keep yourself out of his sight as much as possible." When Cole alighted from the train in Montreal, Mur- ray was a car length behind him. Cole went to the St. Lawrence Hall Hotel and Murray followed. There Cole was joined by a woman. " She was an elegant-looking lady," says Murray. " She was big and stately, a magnificent blonde, with clothes that were a marvel to me. I did not know her then, but later she turned out to be the celebrated Irish Lize. The contrast between her and Cole was striking. She was big, stout, and fine-looking; he was a little, sandy, red-haired fellow, but smart as lightning." From Montreal, Cole and Irish Lize went to Albany. The impulse was strong on Murray to seize them and notify Commander Carter. He debated it with himself. He had evidence that they were Confederate sympa- thisers, but he had not the desired evidence as to a plot or their plans. He decided to follow them, half expect- ing they would go far South before returning to execute any desperate plans in the North. They stopped over night in Albany, then went to New York and then on to Philadelphia and thence to Washington. Murray trailed them from city to city, from hotel to hotel. Cole and Irish Lize met one, or sometimes two or three strangers in each city, evidently by previous appointment, as in every instance they were waiting Cole's arrival. From Washington, Cole and Irish Lize went to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and from Harrisburg to Buffalo, New York, and thence to Cleveland, Ohio. In Cleveland they were joined by a young man, whom they had seen in Phila- delphia. He was Charles Robinson, son of a former "judge. They stayed in Cleveland two days and then 22 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE went to Sandusky, Ohio, where Cole and Irish Lize stopped at the West House, and Robinson at a private boarding-house. They arrived at Sandusky about June 20th, 1864. Murray arrived on the same train. " I learned for myself on that trip," says Murray, " the various ways to ascertain a man's destination before he boards his train. Sometimes he states it at the hotel when paying his bill, sometimes it can be learned when he buys his ticket, sometimes the conductor is obliging, and sometimes, when the worst comes to the worst, you can sit in another car, or at the other end of the same car, and keep an eye on the stations. All this has changed greatly in recent years. Cooperation among the police forces of all cities and of hotel, railroad, and other detectives has simplified this task of trailing a traveller." Cole posed at Sandusky as an oil prince. Irish Lize passed as his wife. Soon after their arrival an assistant joined Cole. He was known as G. C. Beal. One week to the day after Cole arrived at the West House, a young man registered as John U. Wilson of New Orleans. In the course of a few days he met Cole casually, as guests staying for long at the same hotel are apt to meet. They drank together, and seemed to become well acquainted. Cole bought fast horses and finally chartered a yacht. He made the acquaintance of the officers of the U.S.S. Michigan, then lying off Sandusky, and also of Colonel Hill (not the Colonel Hill whom Murray had seen in De- troit) and the U.S. Army officers in charge of Johnson Island. Cole appeared a jolly good fellow, who spent money like water, and was too busy having a merry time to give heed to the afTairs of' war. He became a great favourite with both the Naval officers aboard the Michi- gan and the Army officers on the Island. He sent baskets of wine and boxes of cigars aboard the vessel and over to the Island. Murray, meanwhile, had reported to Commander Carter. About the middle of July, 1864, Cole arranged a party to the Seven Mile House, seven miles out of San- CONFEDERATE COLE'S COUP 23 dusky. He invited all the officers of the Island and the ship. A number of them were making preparations to go. Young Wilson, of New Orleans, was Cole's assistant in planning the details of the outing. Early that morn- ing Cple received a telegram from Detroit : " I send you sixteen shares per two messengers. — D.B." On this particular morning, on the steamer Philo Parr sons, plying between Sandusky and Detroit on daily trips, with a stop at Windsor, Ontario, ten men got aboard at Windsor, and eight more got aboard at Amherstburg, in Canada, at the mouth of the Detroit River. They had their luggage with them. They were the sixteen shares sent by two messengers to the merry Mr. Cole at Sandusky. After the steamer Parsons got well out into Lake Erie, these eighteen men opened their luggage boxes, took therefrom braces of revolvers and ca,ptured the Parsons, making her captain a prisoner. Then they steamed on to Kelly's Island, off Sandusky, where the steamer Island Queen was lying. They sent some of their men aboard the Queen, caught the few of her crew aboard unawares, gave orders to Engineer Richardson, and when he refused to obey, shot him dead. They then took the Island Queen out into the lake and ran her on to Gull Island and abandoned her there. Then they headed for Sandusky in the Parsons, which was due at six o'clock in the evening. While this was occurring on Lake Erie, Cole was in Sandusky with his plans all made for the party that would call practically all the officers on the Michigan and on Johnson Island to the Seven Mile House, well away from their posts of duty. They were to start from Sandusky in the afternoon. Cole and young Wilson waited, and finally Cole, becoming impatient, said to Wilson : " It's strange these officers are not ashore before this. You go ofT and see them." " They would not come for me," said Wilson. " Ypu'd better go." 24 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE Cole, who usually dressed in black or dark clothes, was dressed on this day in a suit of grey. He discussed the matter of going over for the officers with Wilson, who walked down to the dock with him and said : " Here's a boat belonging to the ship now. Go off in her and get them. I'll go with you." Cole handed a $io bill to the coxswain of the boat's crew and told him to take the boys up for a drink. All ■ went except the boat-keeper, who waited with Cole and Wilson, and James Hunter, an officer of the Michigan, who was ashore. When the crew returned they willingly pulled off to the U.S.S. Michigan, lying three miles off Sandusky. About half-way out. Cole, who seemed to have a presentiment of trouble, decided to turn back. " The pennant of the ship is flying," remarked young Wilson to the coxswain. " Yes, we'll have to go on and I'll bring you back as soon as I've reported," said the coxswain. They went on to the Michigan. The officers aboard greeted Cole cordially arid invited him to have a glass of wine, telling him they were sorry to disarrange his plans or delay his party. Young Wilson called on Carter in his cabin. " I have the man," he said as he entered. " The right man ? " " Not a shadow of doubt," said Wilson. " Bring him up," said Carter. Young Wilson turned to the orderly. " Tell Mr. Cole Captain Carter wishes to see him," he said. Cole appeared, smiling and merry. Young Wilson met him on deck. " The captain wants to see you," said young Wilson. At the tone of his voice Cole stopped short and looked at him, his eyes like gimlets boring for what it all meant. Then he laughed and went to see Carter. He entered with Wilson. " Captain Carter, this is Mr. Cole, a rebel spy," said Wilson. " Murray, arrest him," said Carter to young Wilson. CONFEDERATE COLE'S COUP 25 " I am not a spy ; I am a Confederate officer," said Cole, who had straightened and stiffened. Carter smiled. Cole thrust a hand in his grey coat and drew forth his commission, signed by Jeff Davis, showing him to be a major in the Confederate army. Murray took it and read it. " Take him and search him, Murray," said Carter. Cole, accompanied by his former friend, Wilson of New Orleans, now Murray of the Michigan, went to a cabin, and a sentry was placed at the door. Murray searched him and found ^600 in currency, some letters and papers, and ten certified cheques for ;gS,ooo each, on the Bank of Montreal, Canada, payable to bearer. Murray laid them all out. Cole eyed him and laughed. " You served me well, Murray Wilson, or Wilson Murray, or whatever the deuce your name may be," he said. " I served the best I could," said Murray. " Sit down," said Cole. Murray and Cole sat down. " ' Now, you're a pretty smart young fellow,' said Cole to me," said Murray, in telling of what occurred. " ' We got "along very well, didn't we? You wouldn't like to see me hung, would you ? ' " I said : ' I wouldn't like to see anybody get hung.' " ' Well, that's what you're trying to do with me,' said Cole. " I said : ' It's a very unfortunate thing, and I hope I am not responsible.' " Cole was very cool. He had the best nerve of any man I ever saw. He made no fuss, his voice never changed, his face never lost its jolly, careless expression for a minute. ' I suppose I ought to shoot you,' he said, ' and, if I had a gun and could get away, I'd probably do it, for business is business, Wilson, and war is hellish business. There is ^50,000 in gold in those cheques. They are as good this minute as the gold in the Bank of Montreal. You can keep them. No one aboard here knows I have them. You can cash them when you wish. 26 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE All I ask is that you won't know enough to get the rope around my neck and that, if the chance conies, you'll do me a friendly turn to get away. Once I'm out, you can give me ^500 or enough to get South, or you needn't give me five cents. It's a fair bargain, isn't it, Wilson ? My young friend, you'll never get such a chance again in your life. " I saw the possibilities of it in a flash. It was a for- tune in my grasp, yet if I took those cheques, the merry little Mr. Cole could have sent for Carter and said : ' Let me suggest you search your man, Murray, or Wilson. I think he's the one of us who should be under arrest.' Or, if Cole saw that to play me false would mean his own death, there still was the idea of selling out your country; and I wouldn't have done that for as many millions. I was a young fellow and |ISO,ooo was more then than ^500,000 would look now, but I thank the everlasting God that I had the sense to say : ' That may be, Mr. Cole. I may never get such a chance again. I'll do what I can consistent with my duty, but I cannot well make you any promises.' " • Wilson, you're a fool,' he said. " ' Mr. Cole, would you sell out the Confederacy ? ' I asked, for I was vexed over the turn of affairs with him. " His manner changed. He put out his hand and shook mine. " ' No, Mr. Wilson, I wouldn't,' he said. ' I under- stand you now.' " We chatted pleasantly. He asked me where I first saw him. I told him the whole story of my trailing him, giving him even the numbers of the rooms in the hotels at which he had stopped. " ' You're right,' he said, ' but I could swear, on a stack of Bibles as high as this ship, that I never saw you be- fore I saw you in Sandusky.' " As I left him, a prisoner, he shook hands and said : ' You won't reconsider about the cheques ? ' I shook my head and left him smiling in the little cabin with the sentry at the door." CONFEDERATE COLE'S COUP 27 Carter alone had been in the secret of Murray's masquerade as Wilson. Officer James Hunter, of the Michigan, rendered valued assistance on the day of the arrest. Murray had arranged for the boat's crew to be waiting at the landing to take Cole to the ship, and Murray had intercepted telegrams to Cole and thus had learned of the telegram about the " sixteen shares." " My own common sense told me the sixteen shares meant sixteen men," said Murray. " The way they would come would be on the Parsons." With Cole a prisoner aboard the Michigan, Carter made ready to capture the men on the Parsons. Neither Murray nor Carter knew at that time that Cole had ar- ranged for the Parsons to stay outside until he should go out with his yacht and give them a signal to come in. He was to slip away from his guests at the Seven Mile House, drive swiftly to Sandusky, and go out to meet the Parsons while the officers were enjoying themselves seven miles away. " They had all their plans made," says Murray, " to meet Cole, and go in small boats to the Michigan, cap- ture the ship, and then run over to Johnson Island and release the four thousand Confederate prisoners, chiefly officers, imprisoned there. They planned to land them at Point Pelee in Canada, right across the lake. They were to approach the Michigan, and when asked who came there Cole would answer. He was well known to all, and relied on no one to suspect him. Once aboard, he believed he could carry the hatches with a rush. The Michigan had fourteen cannon aboard her, six parrot rifles, six twenty-four pound howitzers, two light how- itzers, and over a hundred tons of ammunition. They had no other heavily armed craft to fear on the lake. They believed they could not only liberate their four thousand men on Johnson Island and land them in Canada, but also could sail the lake without fear of superior vessel until they had bombarded and burned Detroit, Cleveland, and Buffalo. Some of the captured papers corroborated details of this plot." 28 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE But the Parsons did not go in at Sandusky. Her Confederate crew waited in vain for the signal from Cole. They became alarmed, scented disaster, went back to the Detroit River under cover of darkness, scut- tled the Parsons, and landed in Amherstburg, Canada. The Michigan, after watching all night for the Parsons, went searching for her the next morning, and found her scuttled. " The rumour of the plot had spread with the arrest of Cole," says Murray ; " and when the Michigan returned to Sandusky all guns were trained on her until it was learned that the Confederates had not captured her. Some of her officers went oflT her, and were recognised, so that she would not be fired on. " That night, another officer went with me, and we ar- rested Robinson at his boarding-house in Sandusky. He had twenty revolvers in a trunk. A family of Southern Hebrews, named Rosenthal, also found them- selves in trouble. Quite a little colony of Southern sym- pathisers were clustered in Sandusky at that time. I next went to Irish Lize. She was infuriated. When I searched her trunk she seized me, and when I shook her off she wanted to shoot me. In one of her trunks were dozens of pairs of gloves. She informed me gratuitously that she never wore a pair of gloves a second time. I told her that, if she had not tried to shoot me, I would have believed her a perfect lady, even if I knew nothing about the gloves. " There was quite a how-de-do over the entire affair. Major-General Hancock and Major-General Heinzelman were sent on to investigate. I was sent to Cleveland to meet them, and accompanied them to Sandusky. They talked at first of trying Cole by a military commission. I told them what I knew of the matter, and what sort of chap Cole was. After hearing all the facts they returned to Washington. " Cole was transferred from the Michigan to Johnson Island, and thence to Fort Lafayette at New York, and from there to Fort Warren, in Boston, where he was held A WORD BY THE WAY 2g until after Lincoln's proclamation. I had sold his horses for him, and closed up his business affairs at Sandusky, and turned over the proceeds to him. The Rosenthals were liberated. Beal disappeared. Robinson was held until after Lincoln's proclamation. Cole never was tried. He came to see me after his release. " ' Murray,' he said, • you were a fool.' *• T thought of Irish Lize, and concluded that while Cole was a little fellow he was a bigger fool than L" IV A WORD BY THE WAY When the war was over and Murray left the Service he went to Washington. It was the day before Christ- mas in 1866. He called at the Navy Department. There were officials there who remembered his work in the Cole case, and before New Year arrangements had been made for Murray to become identified with the United States Service on special duty. " Wood was chief of the Secret Service in those days," says Murray. " I became, so to speak, a special agent in the Navy Department. For about two years I en-- gaged in this work. It took me all over the country, particularly through the South. I was in New Orleans, Mobile, Charleston, Pensacola, and other Southern cities, and was on duty in New York for some time. My ex- perience here settled finally my determination to make the detective business my life-work. I realised that to make a success of it I would have to go to work to per- fect myself in it, just as does a man fitting himself for any other business, and advancing himself after he en- gages in it. " The detective business is the higher branch of the police business. A man may be an excellent policeman, and yet be an utter failure as a detective ; and I have 30 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE seen many a clever detective, who was out of his element in the simpler lines of police duty. There is no magic about the detective business. A detective walking along the street does not suddenly hear a mysterious voice whisper : ' Banker John Jones has just been robbed of ;^ 1 ,000,000.' He does not turn the corner and come upon a perfect stranger, and then, because the stranger has a twisted cigar in his mouth, suddenly pounce upon him and exclaim : ' Aha, villain that you are ! give back to Banker Jones the ^1,000,000 you stole ten minutes ago ! ' The detective business is of no such foolish and impossi- ble character. Detectives are not clairvoyants, or infalli- ble prophets, or supernatural seers. They possess no uncanny powers and no mantle of mysterious wonder- working. I remember a few years ago I was subpoenaed before a grand jury in the city of New York to testify on a matter pertaining to a prisoner, whose record I kflew here in Canada. The foreman of that jury was a man prominent in New York's business life. When I was called "he looked at me and suddenly said : " ' Inspector Murray, what crimes have been com- mitted within the past hour in New York, and who committed them ? ' " ' I have not the slightest idea,' I replied. " ' Oh, ho ! So you cannot go out and put your hands on every man who has committed a crime ? You are a detective, yet cannot do that ? ' he said. " ' I am not that kind of detective,' I replied. ' When I get a guilty man it usually is by hard work or good luck, and often by both.' " ' Thank the Lord we've found a detective who is not greater than God,' he said. " As a matter of fact the detective business is a plain, ordinary business, just like a lawyer's business, a doc- tor's business, a railway manager's business. It has its own peculiarities because it deals with crime, with the distorted, imperfect, diseased members of the social body, just as a surgeon's business deals with the distorted, im- perfect, diseased members of the physical body. But it A WORD BY THE WAY 31 is not an abnormal or phenomenal or incomprehensible business. There is nothing done in it, nothing accom- plished by any detective, that is not the result of con- scientious work, the exercise of human intelligence, an efficient system of organisation and inter-communication and good luck. A good detective must be quick to think, keen to analyse, persistent, resourceful, and cour- ageous. But the best detective in the world is a human being, neither half-devil nor half-god, but just a man with the attributes or associates that make him successful in his occupation. " A wide acquaintance is one of the most valuable assets of a detective. The more crooks he knows the better. I have seen detectives visit a prison, and walk through it, recognising man after man — hundreds of them. I have seen detectives stand before photograph cases, and name and describe criminal after criminal, even to the minute eccentricities of each one. A good mem- ory is a great help ; in fact, it is essential to the equip- ment of a clever detective. A wide acquaintance of the proper sort is invaluable. Personal friendship, among detectives and police departments of diiTerent cities and different countries, is one of the greatest aids to efficient detective work. Detectives and police departments can help one another, for by their cooperation they create a detective system that covers the world. If a criminal escapes in one city he is apt to be captured in another, and times without number the perpetrators of crime in one community are arrested by the police of another, and held until called for by the police of the place where they are wanted. From the outset of my career I have made it a point to increase steadily and systematically my acquaintance among detectives, among criminals, among bankers, lawyers, business men, professional men, people of all sorts and conditions. Hundreds of times I have had occasion to be glad I did this. By knowing a man in the right way personally, you will find he will do things for you in a pinch, that he never would do for you otherwise, under any circumstances. 32 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE " Personal knowledge of crooks is valuable, for many reasons. Often you may recognise the perpetrator of a crime from a witness's description of a person seen in the vicinity. You may recognise a certain kind of burglary as the work of a certain gang. In an emergency you may gather information from crooks that will enable you to lay your hands on the very man yoa are after. " Much has been written about crooks by students of the social problem and by scientists. At least all writers agree that they are a queer lot, a class by themselves, with a hfe of their own and a point of view that is pe- cuharly their own. They have the characteristic of grati- tude in perhaps a greater degree than some other classes of humanity. Of course, there are exceptions. But crooks as a whole have a code of honour, or rather a code of dishonour, that is always paradoxical, yet they adhere to it. If you do one of them a favour — that is, a turn that he, not you, regards as a favour to him — he will not forget it. More opportunities than are imagined present themselves where, in no way inconsistent with his duty, a detective may gain the favour instead of the dis- favour of a crook. The best crooks make the least trouble personally to a detective. They are the hardest to catch, next to unknown crooks who are on the road for the first time, but once they are caught they realise that the part of wisdom is to acquiesce. " Crime is a disease. It is hereditary, just as consump- tion is hereditary. It may skip a generation or even two or three generations. But it is an inherent, inherited weakness. I am satisfied of this. I have seen instances where the identical kind of crime has appeared in genera- tion after generation, great-grandfather down through grandfather, father, son, and grandson. I have known men whose grandfathers were horse thieves or counter^ feiters, and whose fathers were honest, to become horse thieves or counterfeiters and do nothing else dishonest. In the oldest records of crime we find inherited crime traced through three hundred years, and even longer. The conditions of the criminal may be bettered, just as A WORD BY THE WAY 33 the conditions of the consumptive may be bettered. The disease may be checked : in some instances it may be averted, but the crime-germ, if I may use the word, is there, lurking in the life of the victim. You have read of people living immaculate lives for many years and suddenly succumbing to crime. The disease was ever present, but was not manifest. Crime also is contagious. Constant contact with criminals often leads others to be- come criminals. It is the old story of ' evil associations.' " Onc9 dishonest, always dishonest. That is the gen- eral rule. I believe in it absolutely. Reformation is the exception. The degree of dishonesty may Vary, but the fact of dishonesty does not alter. I made up my mind slowly on this point, and I reached my decision with re- luctance. But I have seen it over and over again. It is observed more clearly about professional dishonesty than amateur dishonesty, if I may draw such a distinction. :The crook who goes to prison once is apt to turn up again in the hands of the police. The mark of profes- sionalism in dishonesty is acquaintance, as a prisoner, with the police. There is many an amateur who belongs to the professional class ; and there are those in the pro- fessional class who belong to the amateurs. That is one of the vexations of the detective business. " The business is full of vexations. There are times when you know to a certainty the doer of a deed, yet arrest must wait until the evidence is in hand. Some- times the evidence never comes, and you see the years go by, with a guilty man enjoying the liberty denied to another, no more guilty, who had not the good fortune to lose scfme links in the chain of evidence that sur- rounded him. It is the law of chance. " I believe in circumstantial evidence. I have found it surer than direct evidence in many, many cases. Where circumstantial evidence and direct evidence unite, of course, the result is most satisfactory. There are those who say that circumstances may combine in a false con- . elusion.. This is far less apt to occur than the falsity of direct evidence given by a witness who lies point blank, 34 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE and who cannot be contradicted save by a judgment of his falsity through the manner of his lying. Few people are good liars. Many of them make their lies too prob- able ; they outdo truth itself. To detect a liar is a great gift. It is a greater gift to detect the lie. I have known instances where, by good fortune, I detected the liar and then the lie, and learned the whole truth simply by listen- ing to the lie, and thereby judging the truth. There is no hard and fast rule for this detection. The ability to do it rests with the man. It is largely a matter of instinct. " The best detective, therefore, is a man who instinct- ively detects the truth, lost though it may be in a maze of lies. By instinct he is a detective. He is born to it ; his business is his natural bent. It would be a platitude to say the best detectives are born, not made. They are both born and made for the business. The man who, by temperament and make-up, is an ideal detective, must go through the hard years of steady work, must apply himself, and study and toil in making himself what he is born to be. Sandow was born to be a strong man, but, if he had not developed himself by hard work, he would not have become the strongest -man of his time. As a detective advances in his business he will find that the more he studies and works, the stronger his powers of intuition, of divination, of analysis, become. A very simple broad illustration will prove this. If a detective is chasing a criminal from country to country, and has learned, by study of the extradition treaties, that a cer- tain country offers a better haven than another, he may save himself many a weary mile by going to the country where his common sense tells him his man is more likely to be. A mechanical knowledge of the use of tools, a knowledge of the effects of poisons, a knowledge of the ways of banking, of the habits of life of the various classes in various callings, a knowledge of crooks, and, above all, a knowledge of human nature, in whatsoever way manifest, are invaluable elements of the equipment of a good detective. KNAPP: A WEAZENED WONDER 35 " In a vague way I held these opinions away back in 1866, when, as a young fellow of twenty -six, I left the Service in the Navy after the war, and for about two years served as a special agent in the employ of the United States Government. I made acquaintances all over the country in those days, many of them being young fellows like myself, who were in the police busi- ness then, and later became heads of detective or police departments. I obtained my first experience then in the secrets of counterfeiting, in the arts of burglars, in the ways of the classes of thieves busy in those days in all parts of the United States, and more or less bothersome at times to the Government. It was precisely the expe- rience and training I needed at that time. " In 1868 I was persuaded to go to Erie, Pennsylvania, where I had made friends during my early days on the lakes, including prominent railroad men, and joined the police force there. In the four or five years I remained there I had plenty to do, and it fitted me further for the work I had outlined for myself. I became a detective on the force in Erie. Tom Crowley, a man I loved and respected, was chief at that time. " Sometimes, when the wind howls and the world is full of gusts and gales, and I am caught where the man next me has a pipe as old as Methuselah, and tobacco as strong as Samson, my mind turns back to Crowley, and there flit through my memory, like ghosts of long ago, episodes of the old days in Erie when I was a sleuth from Sleuthville, and mighty proud of it, too." V KNAPP: A WEAZENED WONDER A PLAGUE of sneak-thieving broke out in Erie in 1869, shortly after Murray became a detective. It grew to be epidemic. Furniture vanished out of houses. Cloth- 36 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE ing seemed to fall upon the backs of invisible wearers and saunter into Spookland. Ploughs disappeared from farmers' fields, as if they had started on the shortest route to China. Horses trotted off into nowhere. Entire shelves in stores were swept bare in a single night, and from one of them twenty dozen pairs of shoes seemed to walk out of sight at midday. " ' We had better order the people to anchor their houses/ said Crowley to me," says Murray, in telling the story. " We watched all day and we watched all night for weeks, but the stealing went on just the same. Crowley said it must be giant rats, who had a den in the bowels of the earth and decided to furnish it from Erie. He said some one had told him that in India they had a plague, by which people wasted away and finally dried up. He concluded that the plague had spread from India to Erie, and had seized upon everything port- able in and around the town. ' They're not stolen, they just waste away,' said Crowley. ' It's a case of now you see them, now you don't.' To clinch this, one of the men began to lose his hair. Crowley pointed to it and exclaimed : ' See, it's just wasting away.' I had a moustache that was not flourishing just then and I shaved it off. When I appeared for duty the next day Crowley gasped : " ' Great Scott, Murray ! They didn't steal your mous- tache, did they?' " Finally, a new democrat waggon disappeared. It belonged to James Tolwarthy, a grocer, who had left it in front of his store the day after he had paid II275 for it. The democrat had gone, as completely as if a mod- ern Elijah had impressed it for chariot service to the skies. Tolwarthy was angry. He kept his waggons usually in a hotel shed near his store. When he went there to look for his new democrat he found an old crackey waggon standing in its stead. It stood there for weeks, and every day we went to look at it, as if its tongue could tell us who left it there. " We searched every stable and every vacant building KNAPP: A WEAZENED WONDER 37 in the town. Not a trace of Tolwarthy's democrat or of any other vanished property did we find. A little child can lead us, however, and I came across a boy who said he thought he had seen the man who left the waggon in Tolwarthy's shed. He described him as best he could. It was not much of a description, but a poor description is as good as a good photograph any day. I would rather have a fair description than a dozen photographs when it comes to going after a man I never saw. I took the lad's description and started out to visit every farm- house on every road leading out of* Erie. I nosed into all of them for a radius of several miles. I found no such man as the lad described, and no haymow hid any plunder either, for I climbed into all of them. " At last I found a farmer who had seen a fellow drive by his house in a new democrat about the time Tol- warthy's waggon vanished and the description of the democrat tallied with that of Tolwarthy's democrat, while the description of the man proved him the same fellow seen by the lad. " Crowley, Officer Snyder, and myself got a team and started to drive the road the stranger went with Tol- warthy's waggon. We stopped at every house along the way, but not a sign or trace of him could we find. For a dozen miles we made this farm-to-farm search. After fifteen miles or more we decided to put up the horses for a feed and rest. We turned off the main road, and in a secluded, out-of-the-way place, in a clearing with about twenty-five acres of pine-woods around it, we saw a house. No one was in sight. We hailed, and presently a buxom, blooming woman, about twenty-five years old, seemed to pop out of nowhere and ask us if we wanted anything. Crowley asked for the man of the place, as he wanted to feed his horses. The woman whistled and out from a clump of bushes near the barn came a little, weazened old fellow, about fifty years old. He reminded me of a muskrat. The moment I laid eyes on him I re- called the description by the lad of the man who left the crackey waggon. 38 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE " We alighted and fed the horses. The old man eyed them keenly and looked at their teeth. " • What's your name ? ' I asked him. " ' George Knapp," he said. " ' Lived here long ? ' " ' Me and my wife been here about a year/ he an- swered. " ' Your wife ? ' I said. " ' Yep, ain't she a bloomer ? ' and the old man chuck- led hideously as he leered at the young woman who was standing in the doorway of the house. " He was keen as a scythe. I innocently asked him if he had seen any stranger driving past his house in a new democrat waggon. " ' Nope ; no one ever drives past here/ said he. ' There ain't no past. The road stops here.' " He parried us at every point. We searched his place, barn, house, and outbuildings and found nothing. Yet I was morally certain we had our man. As I sat in the shade by the barn I gazed idly at the stretch of cleared land running down to the creek. I noticed a place or two where the sod had been turned recently. It is the little things that point the way to big results. A sign-board a foot long often tells you the road for the next forty miles. " ' Knapp,' I said, ' I am going fishing in that stream.' " ' All right/ said Knapp. ' Hope they bite.' " ' Lend me a spade,' I said. " ' What for ? ' said Knapp, with a sudden sharpening of his glance. " ' I want to dig some bait,' said I. " Knapp hesitated, then brought a spade, and followed me as I set out for the stream. I halted at one of the spots where the sod had been turned. " ' No good digging here/ said Knapp. ' Come on farther down.' " ' Why ? ' said I. " ' This has been dug/ said Knapp. ' It's worm-scarce right here.' KNAPP: A WEAZENED WONDER 39 " ' Never mind,' said I. ' I only want a few, and it's easier digging.' " The perspiration started on Knapp's weazened, wrinkled face. I never dally in my garden with my spade but I see a vision of Knapp dripping like an April shower. " I drove in the spade. It struck something hard. I turned back the soil and there lay one of the wheels of Tolwarthy's democrat buried beneath a foot of earth. I looked at Knapp and he was grinning in a sickly sort of way. I called Crowley and Snyder and arrested Knapp. Then we led him down to the stream and sat down and informed the old man, on the edge of the water, that the wise thing for him to do was to confess the whole series of thefts. He looked at us and then at the water and then back at us. I think he understood. At any rate he stood up. " ' Come on,' he said, and led the way to the house. " The buxom woman met us at the door. " 'Get the shingle,' said Knapp. " Without a word she went indoors and returned with a broad shingle. It was covered with red dots, which Knapp explained were made with chicken blood. One big blotch was to show where the barn stood. The smaller dots spreading out beyond it showed where Knapp had buried the plunder. " We began to dig. The first thing we struck was a coffin. " ' You murderer ! ' said Snyder. ' Now we know why you used blood to dot the shingle.' " We lifted the coffin carefully out of the grave. It was very heavy. We prized off the lid, expecting to see the mutilated body of one of Knapp's victims. Instead of a pallid face and glazed eyes we found dozens of boxes of shoes. Knapp chuckled. " ' Coffins ain't only for corpuses,' he said. " We unearthed samples of everything from a needle to an anchor, a shroud, a toilet set, a baby carriage, forty silk dresses, gold watches, seven ploughs, a harrow, sur- 40 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE gical instruments, a churn, a log chain, a grandfather's clock, a set of grocer's scales, hats, overcoats, pipes, a barber's pole, even a policeman's shotgun, that cost one of the Erie policemen ^80, and that Knapp had stolen from his house. One of us would dig for a while, then Knapp would dig, and if any one dug more than his share it was Knapp. We uncovered ten waggon loads of stuff, including Tolwarthy's democrat, which Knapp had buried piece by piece ; even the bed or body of the waggon being interred behind a clump of bushes. It was the most wholesale thieving I had known. Old Knapp gloried in it, chuckling over each fresh discovery we made. The marvel of it all was how he had managed to steal the stuff. He swore to us that he had stolen it all single-handed, and I believe he did. " We took Knapp and his wife to Erie, and locked them up. We hired a large vacant store in the Noble block in Erie, hauled in the plunder from Knapp's, and put it on exhibition for identification. It filled the place. Knapp had stolen enough to equip a department store. " In burying his plunder he had boxed it up, preparatory to sending it away in the fall. He said frankly that he had been stealing for years. He explained that the way he did it was to drive into town in a waggon, pretending he was selling farm produce or garden vegetables, and seize opportunities in that way to familiarise himself with houses, and then sneak in later, and steal whatever he could carry away. No one seemed to know much about him, either who he was or whence he came. A year be- fore he had settled in the secluded tract of timber, and had kept entirely to himself. He told me he had preyed on other places before he set out to steal everything port- able in Erie, but never before had he been made to dig for two straight days uncovering his own plunder. " Knapp was very angry over being compelled to work so steadily with a spade. He vowed he would get even. Sometime after he had been locked up in Erie, he called us in and informed us, in profound confidence, that he had buried ^^2,500 in gold out on his place, and if we would KNAPP: A WEAZENED WONDER 41 take him out there he would show us where it was. The story was plausible, and three of the fellows got a team, and drove out seventeen miles with Knapp to his place. They took three spades and a pick with them. Knapp began a lot of manoeuvring, pacing off distances from house to barn, and from barn to tree, and from tree to stump. They followed him, and he tramped about for an hour, leading them through briars and swamps, and finally back towards the barn again. " ' There is the place,' he announced. " They began to dig as if their hope of eternal salvation depended on it. Knapp encouraged them to greater ex- ertion, and told them he had buried the gold seven feet deep to have it secure. They toiled for hours, digging to a depth of eight feet, but finding nothing. One of them, who knew unbroken earth when he dug it, accused Knapp of tricking. The old man said he might have made a mistake in his measurements, and he led them off for another tramp through brush and wild wood, and ended up about ten feet from the hole they had dug just before. " ' Ah, yes, I remember. This is the place,' said the old man. ' There is ^2,500 in gold in two canvas bags.' " They fell to again. It was a broiling hot day. They toiled until towards sundown, when the old man began to chuckle. " < That'll do,' he said. ' I'm even.' " ' Even for what ? ' they asked. " ' For the two days I had to dig,' said Knapp. " ' And there's no gold here ? ' they demanded wrath- fully. " ' There's gold all right, but I cannot remember where it is,' said Knapp with a chuckle. " They drove him back to Erie, and locked him up again. He was tried, convicted, and sentenced to sixteen years in the Alleghany Penitentiary. His wife was rer leased. Knapp played insane, and beat the penitentiary. He was transferred to the lunatic division, and, soon after, he sawed the bars, escaped, and never was caught. I saw 42 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE him several times in the Erie gaol before he was sent away. He always was chuckling. " ' Murray,' he would say on each occasion, as I was leaving, ' remember you are leaving a man who never met a man who knew enough to be his partner.' " What became of him no one knows. He was a weazened wonder." VI THE FEMININE FIRM OF HALL AND CARROLL A COMPARATIVELY short time after Knapp was sent away thieving began again in Erie. It was not on quite the same wholesale basis, but what was lacking in quantity was present in quality, for the thieves made it a point to steal the finest silverware and jewellery. Instead of sneak- thieving it was burglary. The marks of jemmies on doors and windows were sufficient to demonstrate this. " Crowley thought at first that Knapp might have re- turned and changed his tactics," said Murray. " We drove out to Knapp's and made sure he was not there, although after his escape from the penitentiary no one could tell what had become of him. I was satisfied from the outset that Knapp had no hand in the thieving. Knapp prided himself on his cleverness as a sneak thief. Burglary would be a clumsy way of stealing, according to Knapp's ideas. " After the second or third job it was apparent that no lone burglar was at work. There was a gang, for some of the jobs necessarily called for a watcher or lookout on the outside while a pal was inside a house. Silverware, fine clothing, and jewellery began to disappear with a regularity that reminded us often of the day when Knapp was in his prime. Mr. Skinner's house was ransacked and a great quantity of silverware taken, and soon after the Skinner robbery the home of Mr. Bliss was plundered and a big haul of silverware and jewellery was made. FEMININE FIRM OF HALL AND CARROLL 43 " Crowley was worried. So were the rest of us. We put in about twenty hours a day, and I verily believe we scrutinised every man in and around Erie. We made every stranger account for himself. We gathered in all our regulars in the suspicious character line. We re- doubled our patrol precautions at night. It was of no avail. The burglaries went on just the same. One night a house in one end of the town would be robbed and the next night the burglars would do a job in the other end of the town. The only clue or trace of them that I could get was a peculiarity in the jemmy marks, showing a piece had been chipped or cut out of the jemmy. But to tell the truth we were at our wits' end and could make no headway. There were so many burglaries, yet we could not get on to them. " Our last hang out at night was the Reed House. We would step in there regularly before going to bed. As we stood talking in the Reed House in the early morn- ing hours or shortly after midnight, I noticed by the merest chance a woman slip quietly down the back stairs and out into fhe night. For three or four nights I ob- served her doing this. The clerk told me she was a scrub-woman, who worked late and lived outside the hotel. There was nothing suspicious about that. I asked the clerk where she lived. He said he did not know. It was a pleasant night and I felt like taking a walk, and just for amusement I decided to follow the old scrub- woman. She slipped down the back stairs as usual and went out. I trailed after her. We had not gone five blocks when I lost her. She seemed to have been swallowed up by some hole in the earth that vanished after devouring her. I laughed at the joke on me, unable to trail an old woman, and I went to bed. " The next morning Crowley was glum. ' Another burglary last night,' he said, and named a house about four blocks from where I lost the old woman. I said nothing, but that night I was at the Reed House, waiting for my old scrub-woman. About one o'clock in the morning she appeared, a flitting figure on the back stairs, 44 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE and darted out. I was after her in a jiffy. For about fifteen blocks I followed her. Then she suddenly turned a corner and when I came up she was gone. The next morning Crowley was mad as a hornet. ' Another bur- glary last night,' said he. I was a little hot myself. But that night I turned up at the Reed House, and at one o'clock out came my vanishing scrub-woman again and away she went, with me on her trail. " I have shadowed many people in my life, but that old scrub-woman was one of the most artful dodgers I ever knew. I followed her from one o'clock until after four o'clock in the morning, up streets and down streets, through alleys, across lots, around buildings, and then across lots again. But I stuck to her and there was no corner she turned that I was not close up to spot her if she dodged. Soon after we started a cat suddenly- mewed and startled her mightily. Along about dawn she headed away to the outskirts of the town and stopping in front of a double house tossed a pebble up against a win- dow and a moment later went in. I sat down some dis- tance away and thought it all over. I was puzzled. Women burglars were something unknown in Erie or anywhere else, just then. Yet to think that an old woman after scrubbing for hours in an hotel would go out for a stroll and prowl around all night for her health was out of the question. I waited until broad daylight and when she did not come out I went to headquarters. " ' Another one last night, Murray,' said Crowley. " Then it could not have been my old scrub-woman, for I had her in sight every minute. However, I determined to pay her a visit. I took Jake Sandusky of the police force, who now is the Pennsylvania Railway detective, with headquarters at Erie, and went out to the house. On one side of the double house lived Mrs. O'Brien, a respectable woman. She knew nothing of the occupants of the other side of the house, beyond the fact that they were women and had lived there less than a year. " I knocked at the door. There was no answer. I banged again, loud and long. I heard a scurry of feet FEMININE FIRM OF HALL AND CARROLL 45 inside and finally the door opened. A big, fine-looking girl, about twenty-three years old, stood in the doorway. I walked right in. " ' What is your name ? ' I asked her. " ' Mary Ann Hall,' said she. " ' Do you live alone ? ' said I. " ' I live with my mother,' said Mary Ann. " ' Call your mother,' I said. " Mary Ann opened wide her mouth and let out a bawl like a donkey's bray. " ' Ma-a-a-aw ! ' she bellowed. " Out from the adjoining room pranced my old scrub- woman as sprightly and spry as any being of sixty years I ever saw. " ' What's your name ? ' I asked. " ' Mrs. Julia Hall,' said my old scrub-woman, and if ever there is a gallery for the portraits of sixty-year old coquettes I will contribute the picture of Julia Hall. " ' Who else lives here ? ' I asked. " The answer was the opening of Mary Ann's mouth in another prolonged bellow. " ' Ma-a-ag-gie ! ' she shouted. " Out from the adjoining room trotted a second old woman, a little bit of a body about fifty years old, with a face like an eagle's. She had a loose ringlet that flipped around her cheek, and she constantly blew at it out of the side of her mouth to fleck it back to her ear. " ' Ladies,' said I, ' sit down.' " To my astonishment all three promptly sat on the floor. I observed that the chief articles of furniture in the room were a cook stove, a rough kitchen table, and one dilapidated rocking-chair. " ' Mrs. Julia Hall,' I said, and I can see her coy leer as she sat on the floor, ' you were out all night, last night.' " ' I always am,' she said. " ' Yes, Julia cannot sleep in the dark,' spoke up the eagle-faced woman, who hastened to add apologetically, ' I am Mrs. Maggie Carroll, her friend.' 46 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE " • I never sleep in the night,' said Mrs. Hall. ' I work or walk all night, and when daylight comes I sleep.' " ' It's an affliction,' said Mrs. Carroll. ' She had the fever when she was a child.' " I talked on with these three strange creatures squatted on the floor. They puzzled me. I mentioned the bur- glaries to them. They knew nothing of them, they said. Mrs. Carroll was particularly vehement in protestations of ignorance. I crossed over and sat down in the dilapi- dated rocker beside the range. There was a kettle on the stove, but no fire. Suddenly the chair collapsed with a crash. Over I went with my heels in the air. One of my feet struck the kettle and it fell to the floor and the hd rolled off. The three women had laughed uproari- ously when the chair broke down; Mary Ann haw- hawing, Mrs. Hall tittering, and Mrs. Carroll cackling. But when the kettle fell and its top rolled off there was sudden silence. I looked at the three women and then at the chair and then I saw the kettle. Its top was towards me and inside I observed what I thought was a stove lifter. I reached for it and drew it out. It was a jemmy ! Moreover, it was a nicked jemmy ! " I stood up and eyed the three women. Mrs. Carroll feigned weeping, but Mrs. Hall tittered and made saucer eyes, as if bent on conquest, even on the penitentiary's verge. " ' Mary Ann,' I said, ' you might save me the trouble of searching the house by hauling out the plunder.' "At this Mrs. Hall struck Mary Ann a resounding whack on the head and bade her : • Squat where you be, you hussy ! ' " I searched the house. I found silverware, jewellery, linen, fine clothes in amazing quantities. The Skinner silverware, the Bliss silverware, the plunder from many houses, all was recovered. I found also a complete set of pass-keys and a house-breaking kit of burglar's tools. " We arrested the three women. All three were tried. Two, Mrs. Julia Hall and Mrs. Maggie Carroll, were sent to Alleghany for four years, and Mary Ann was let off". THE EPISODE OF POKE SOLES 47 While in gaol Mary Ann gave birth to a bouncing baby. I asked Mrs. Hall about her tramp through the night when I was following her. She laughed in a flirtatious way that was ludicrous. From Mrs. Carroll I learned that she and Mrs. Carroll were to have done another job that night, and Mrs. Hall was to meet Mrs. Carroll at two o'clock in the morning. But Mrs. Carroll had spied me trailing Mrs. Hall, and had mewed suddenly like a cat, a signal to Mrs. Hall that she was being followed. That was the cat's cry that had startled Mrs. Hall, and caused her to prowl around all night and not go home till morning. " They were the only pair of professional women bur- glars working alone that I ever met red-handed. They had been caught first in Ireland and were sent to Aus- tralia, when they got into trouble again and jumped to the United States. Mrs. Julia Hall was the genius of the. two. I often thought that she was foolish to use a nicked jemmy. Her cracked smile would have broken into almost anything." VII THE EPISODE OF POKE SOLES Poke Soles was a " shover of the queer." An epi- sode of his life occurred at Erie, following the capture of the women burglars, which reveals now for the first time the story of Tom Hale, a counterfeiter, who subsequently was a side-member of the United States Secret Service. Poke's duties as a shover of the queer were to pass counterfeit money. " In the winter of 1869 and 1870 some ^20 bills that were queer, appeared in Erie," says Murray. " It was some time after the women burglars had been tried and sentenced. Fred Landers kept a restaurant in Erie, and one day I happened to drop in, and he told me of a fel- low who had been in and ordered a light lunch and paid 48 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE for it with a ^20 bill, and who bought a drink as he went out and offered a second ;^20 bill to the bartender, who said he could not change it. I looked at the bank-note Landers had taken. It was a clever one, but it was queer. My experience with counterfeiters in the special service of the United States was of instant value. Landers de- scribed the man. I spotted him at the railroad station and got him, but did not find any of the stuff or counter- feit money on him. He simply was a shover, one who passed the money, and he received only a couple of ^20 bills at a time. " Few classes of crime are organised so scientifically as counterfeiting. The man who makes the plates never does business with the men who pass the money. The plate-maker is an engraver who usually gets a lump sum for his work. Those who print the money are the man- ufacturers and they sell the queer in wholesale quantities to dealers, who sell to retail dealers, who have their shov- ers out passing the money. The man I got was a shover. I locked him up and in searching him I found the name ' Tom Hale, New York.' I reported to Crowley and sent a telegram addressed to Hale and reading : " ' Come on. I am sick. Stopping at Morton House, Room 84.' " I made all arrangements with the hotel clerk to get track of any one who called and asked for the man in room 84. No one came. I kept the shover, whose name was Soles, locked up in gaol. Landers and the bar- tender had identified him. A week passed. It was in the winter of 1870 and the trains were blockaded and it snowed and blew and delayed all traffic. On the ninth day a nice looking man walked into the Morton House. It was bitter cold and yet he had no overcoat. He asked for Mr. Soles in room 84. I was in the hotel at the time ; the clerk tipped me and I walked over and collared the stranger. I took him down and searched him and locked him up. He had several hundred dollars of good money on him, but no counterfeit money. I intended to hold him while I hunted for his baggage, for at least a man THE EPISODE OF POKE SOLES 49 dressed as he was, would have an overcoat somewhere near. " The' next morning Officer Snyder and I went to the railroad station and began, from there, a systematic search for trace of the stranger's overcoat. In the morn- ing we were in the habit of stepping into John Anthony's German saloon for a mug of beer. On that morning Anthony said : ' A funny thing happened yesterday. A nice looking fellow came in and washed his hands and went away leaving his overcoat.' " ' Let me see it, John,' said I. " Anthony produced the coat. In the first pocket in which I thrust my hand I found a roll of something wrapped in a handkerchief. I drew it out and found $1,000 in counterfeit ^20 and ^100 bills, with coupons attached to the ends. They were such excellent counter- feits that later I passed one at a bank as a joke and then told them of it. I took the coat to the lockup. " ' Hello, Hale ; here's your coat,' I said. " < All right. Thank you,' said the stranger, who was Tom Hale. " I said : ' That's your coat, Tom ? ' " ' Oh, yes,' said he. " Then I hauled out the counterfeit money from the pocket. He then said it was not his coat. I made him put the coat on and it fitted him perfectly. Then John Anthony identified him as the stranger who had left the coat in his saloon. " Soles was held for passing counterfeit money. He pleaded guilty and was sent to Alleghany for five years. The United States authorities took Hale to Pittsburg, then to New York, and then to Washington. He promised to do everything for the Secret Service Department. He was going to give away the whole counterfeiting business. " Wood, then chief of the Secret Service, appointed him to the United States Secret Service and sent him to New York. Hale never gave any one away, but a few shovers and small Italians. In the meantime. Wood left the Service. Colonel Whiteley became chief. He sent so MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE for Hale and told him he was doing nothing. Hale prac- tically told Colonel Whiteley to go to hell, which showed Hale was not so wise as some people seemed to think he was. " Finally Hale was arrested and taken back to Pitts- burg and tried. Butcher Swope was the United States prosecuting attorney. Hale was convicted and sentenced to fourteen years in the penitentiary. It was proved where he stood in with thieves. Butcher Swope was a cracking good prosecuting attorney, and a hard man after these crooked fellows. " The last time I saw Tom Hale was about 1884. He was keeping a dime lodging house on the Bowery in New York at that time. He fared far worse in his sen- tence than did Poke Soles who stood up like a man when he was caught and did his time. I understand Hale never set foot in Erie again and vowed he never would. The most disappointed man was John Anthony, when the owner of the overcoat was found and the ^1,000 turned out to be queer." VIII HOW A FEUD ALMOST BURNED ERIE A FEUD broke out in the Fire Department in Erie in 1869. Crowley, Murray, and the police were busy on other matters, and paid no attention to it at the outset. It began with a contest for the position of chief of the Fire Department. Before the struggle was over, Erie was threatened with destruction by fire, and the under- writers refused to issue insurance. " There were two bodies of the City Council," says Murray. " The Common Council discharged the old fire chief, and the Select Council would not sanction the ap- pointment of the new chief. The Fire Department also promptly took sides. Part of it stood with the old chief HOW A FEUD ALMOST BURNED ERIE 51 and part of it stood with the new chief. Feeling ran high and there was much bitterness. " When the fight first started, various fires occurred. Old houses and old barns in out-of-the-way places caught fire in mysterious ways, and the rival factions in the De- partment were kept busy. Each endeavoured to get to a fire first and thereby obtain an opportunity to jeer at the other. At length the fires began to get rather numerous. The crop of old houses and old barns became pretty well thinned out. All the rickety buildings in Erie went up in sparks and smoke. Then the fires seized upon build- ings a grade better than those destroyed in the first blazes. Thousands of dollars' worth of property was damaged. Property owners became alarmed, and finally sent for outside aid, and detectives were brought to Erie from New York and Chicago. " Their presence quickly became known. It enraged the firemen. They called indignation meetings in the Fire Department, and arranged to put themselves on guard against them. Then the fires began to blaze up in bigger buildings, and, despite the presence of the outside detectives, they burned factories. At length the under- writers refused to issue insurance, and Erie was at the mercy of the Fire Department feud. " They were so devilish sly about the fires that it was next to impossible to catch them. Neither side would agree to a compromise on the chiefship, and the fires nightly reddened the sky. " One night there was a fireman's ball at Uncle Sam's Garden. I was there, of course, and so were other police. I was full of hope that before the night was over, during the dancing and the drinking, I might get some stray hint that would lead to evidence sufficient to catch some of the firebugs. Finally I went out in what they called the wine garden and lay down under a bench and pretended to be asleep. Soon two firemen came out. The bench was in a secluded corner of the garden. If there was to be any talking done that night it would be done in such a place. They came over to the bench. " ' Hello,' said one of them, - John has his collar full.' 52 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE " ' Let him sleep,' said the other. " They whispered a moment and then chuckled softly. I listened intently but could hear nothing save their sub- dued laughter. Then suddenly I was sprinkled, de- liberately and thoroughly, from shoulders to shins, and those two firemen did it without calling the engines. My first impulse was to spring up and wallop them. But the damage had been done, so I sprawled out motionless and took it. In that interval I vowed ten thousand times that, if the chance ever came, I would get even. After tiring of the sport of saturating me, they sat down on the bench. " ' A great night for a blaze,' said one. " ' Yes,' said the other, • and there's the nigger's barn on Parade Street.' " They were confident I was dead to the world. They talked over their plot, planning to slip away from the dance. I, under the bench, supposed to be in a stupor, heard all that was said. When they walked away I got up, shook myself and called my partner, who was in the dance hall. " ' What's happened, John ? ' he called, as he caught sight of me. ' Did you fall into the creek ? ' " ' No,' said I, ' the Fire Department has been practising on me.' " Then I told him what had occurred and what I had heard in the wine garden. I knew both the young fel- lows and they came of respectable families. It was a dark night, black as soot. We knew the two firemen had started for their fire-house or the old barn, and we took a short cut across a cemetery, cutting off about a mile. On the way we lost track of the pair of firemen, but we knew their fire-house and we knew the barn and we skipped on as fast as we could go. They had quite a start of us, but we got to the fire-houSe just in time to see one of them come out with a can of oil and a bunch of shavings wrapped up in paper. He darted over to the old barn on Parade Street. I followed. He set the shavings and sprinkled the oil over them and touched a match and away she went. HOW A FEUD ALMOST BURNED ERIE 53 " The fire-engine was there in a jifify. In fact, the flames hardly seemed to have begun to leap when the engine arrived. The old barn burned like a tinder-box, and nothing was left but a pile of ashes. When the engine from the other faction in the department came up, there was a lot of jeering because it had not arrived first. " After the fire I went to the young fellow. I knew him well, and was a family friend. His name was Ed, and he was about twenty years old. " ' Come on, Ed ; I want you,' I said. " ' What for ? ' said he. " ' You know,' said I. ' Come on, without a fuss.' " • I thought you were asleep, John, or I'd never have disturbed you,' he said. " ' It's not that,' said I. " Then I told him what I had heard and seen. We walked quite a distance. He sat down and began to cry. I advised him to tell me the whole story. He did so ; telling me all who were in the feud and all about it. I told him to go home to bed and report at police head- quarters at nine o'clock in the morning. He did so. Crowley was so tickled he chuckled off and on for a week. Whether it was at my getting it under the bench, or my getting the firebug at the darky's barn, I never could tell. " As a result of the information obtained, we arrested five firebugs, and all were convicted and sent to the penitentiary. " It simply was a rivalry of factions. I saw a young fellow, who set fire to a factory, hang on the eaves on a winter's night until the water froze to an ice-coating on his clothes, putting out the fire he had set. They had no desire to destroy property. What they wanted was an opportunity to gain glory for their faction and outdo the rival faction. The great trouble was the opportunities were too costly. When I think, even at this late day, of what the eavesdropping cost me, I am moved to retire to a Turkish bath and sojourn in the steam-room for a fortnight, at least. Yet a fortnight in a Turkish bath is 54 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE better than a year in the penitentiary, and he laughs best who laughs last." IX TWO SCARS, BY THE BLADE OF NAPPER NICHOLS AND THE BULLET OF WHITEY STOKES Napper Nichols, a bad coon from Corry, Pa., turned up in Erie, in 1873, and close on his arrival clicked a dispatch stating he was wanted for robbery. No one knew his right name, but as Napper Nichols he was known in Erie and many other towns. " Napper had stolen the trunk of a Mrs. Kelly, a cook in an hotel at Corry," says Murray. " He had not been out of the penitentiary long. I was acting chief, and I nabbed Nichols on the street. He was a stout darky, as broad as he was long, with an arm on him like a horse's leg. He was a bad nigger in the worst sense. He started to buck when I nabbed him, but promptly changed his mind and said he would go with me. " I took him before Judge Phil Honiger. I stated to Judge Honiger what Nichols was accused of stealing, and I was reciting the coon's penitentiary record, preparatory to searching him and locking him up, for I knew the judge would remand him. Suddenly the coon whipped out a razor and slashed at me. I saw it coming and dodged. The blade caught me on the left shoulder. The coon had aimed for my throat, but missed it by three inches. The slash cut away the collar of my coat, and cut through the shirt and into the flesh. " I closed with him. Over we went on to the floor, over and over, I with one hand at his throat, closing on it with every ounce of strength in my grip, while my other hand clutched his hand that held the razor. He began to bellow and snort like a bull, striving to wield the razor and sink it into me. " A handsome, heavy cane had been presented to TWO SCARS 55 Judge Honiger by some of his many admiring friends. When he saw us grapple, with the razor flashing, he seized the cane and vaulted over the desk and down to where we were struggling and pitching and tossing on the floor. I saw the cane whirl overhead, and I heard the smash as it sent the razor flying out of the coon's hand. Then the judge, dancing around us, planted crack after crack upon the coon's head. We tossed so much that some of the wallops landed on me. My hand- cuffs fell out of my pocket, and as we rolled near them I grabbed them and snapped them first on one wrist, and, after a long fight, on the other also. " Nichols was a desperate nigger. He lifted up hi% cuffed hands and brought them down like a pile-driver, aiming at my head. I simply had to roll out of the way. But as I rolled I pulled a billy. The momentum of the coon's attempt to smash the handcuffs on my head carried him forward, and I put the billy in. It was like beating a railroad tie, but I did a good job for the doctors. " When Nichols had his fill of the billy, I took him right over from the police court to the court-house. He was indicted within two hours, was tried within three hours more, and at half-past five o'clock that same day he was sentenced to seven years in the penitentiary, while I went out and got another collar and a change of clothes. " About six months later, Whitey Stokes, a burglar and all-round bad man, who had been released from the penitentiary, committed a robbery, and I had a warrant for him. I was passing Lou Shoemaker's saloon about twelve o'clock at night, and stepped in. It was a big place under a bank, with two doors leading into it. " ' You . You're just in time to have a drink,' said a voice behind me. " I turned. There stood Stokes, a strapping, big fel- low, with a revolver not three feet from my chest. As he fired I grabbed the revolver. The bullet bit its way through my hand. I bear the scar still : on my right hand, between the first and second fingers. As the gun went off" we went to the floor together, and around we tossed like a chicken with its head off", flopping this way 56 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE and that. Shoemaker ran outside for the police, instead of coming to take the gun. I stuck to the gun with my right hand, wrenched it from Stokes's grasp, and threw it across the room. I felt something tugging at my hip pocket. It was Stokes reaching for my gun. " A foot-rail ran along the front of the bar, several inches from the floor. I managed to slide Stokes along the floor until I got his head near this iron rail, and I jammed it under. He had been snapping and snarling at me like a mad dog, trying to sink his teeth in me. Once I got his head under the rail I drew my own re- volver, and used its butt so that Mr. Whitey Stokes was not fit to be photographed for a month. They carried him to the lock-up. I went with them to see him safe inside. " On my way home, about one o'clock in the morning, I met Dr. Spenser, who dressed my hand. Two hours after I went to bed it began to swell. Blood-poisoning had set in. My hand was as big as a boxing-glove. They wanted to take it off, but I refused. I needed the hand in my business. They prepared a bowl of diluted laudanum, and I used to soak the hand in it until I was almost stupefied. Dr. Brandes saved the hand for me, although for three months I carried it in a sling. " The hand is as good as ever ; but on cold days my second finger gets numb, and the scar gets red as scarlet. However, if the scars of that struggle turn scarlet in the cold, Whitey Stokes, wherever he may be, goes through each winter with a countenance crimson from forehead to chin, not forgetting behind the ears." X A KING, A LUNATIC, AND A BURGLAR— THREE IN ONE, AND NONE AT ALL Murray had his full share of exciting experiences dur- ing his service in Erie. One episode in particular he laughs over, for in it he was mistaken for a king, a luna- tic, and a burglar, all in a single night. A KING, A LUNATIC AND A BURGLAR 57 "In November, 1872, a Miss Julia Oliver, sister of a prominent man in Erie, became demented," says Murray. " Her family were English people. She imagined they had large estates in England, and one of her delusions was that her brother was trying to beat her out of them. At times she had brief lucid intervals, but gradually she became worse, and they decided to send her to the Dix- mont Asylum, up on the mountain near Pittsburg. I was acquainted with her, and her family, and they suggested that I would be the proper person to take her to the asylum. All the plans were made. We intended to start in the morning, but she locked and barred her bedroom door and windows, and we could not get into the room until after the morning train had gone. Fearing to have her at home another night, lest she should do some overt act or kill herself, the family decided I should take her on the afternoon train. It was an hour or two late. Miss Oliver and I arrived at the small asylum station long after dark. I remember it was a bright, cold, moonlit night in the latter part of November. The train steamed away, leaving this crazy woman and myself alone on the plat- form of the little station. There was not a soul around, no agent, no one from the asylum, not even a station lounger. It was as deserted as the North Pole, and al- most as cold. The asylum was a mile or so up on the mountain from the station. There was a terraced walk for a part of the distance. The wind was howling, and everything was frozen tight. I looked far up the moun- tain, where I could see the asylum lights shining out in the night. The crazy woman passively waited. " ' Come, Miss Oliver,' said I. ' We will have to walk. I am very sorry, but there is no other way.' "She looked at me with big, innocent, reproachful eyes. She had a very sweet, childlike voice. She made no move. " ' I know you are going to kill me,' she said so sor- rowfully, and with such sweet simplicity and directness, that I started guiltily at the very candour of the accusa- tion. ' Do kill me here,' she continued. ' Do not kill me on the mountainside, and let me roll down the hill. 58 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE The one thing I dread after death is to have to roll down long hills.' " There was no use to argue. She was insane. Yet she was so self-possessed, so gentle a lady, so frank, that if I had not known positively she was crazy, I would have believed her as sane as any other person I knew. " ' If you will not walk with me I must carry you,' I said. " ' I weigh over one hundred and forty pounds,' she said solemnly. • I will not resist, although I prefer to be killed here rather than on the mountainside. Please kill me here.' " No one likes to be regarded seriously as a murderer, even by insane folk. So, without further ado, I picked up Miss Oliver in my arms and started up the mountain. She certainly had stated her minimum weight ! She lay in my arms like a sack of salt. The wind raged about us. Step by step I made my way up the mountain, heading for the lights of Dixmont. Despite the bitter cold I sat her down and threw off my overcoat, then picked her up and laboured on. It was weary, toilsome work. I stumbled and staggered, but ever nearer shone the lights. The insane girl begged piteously to be killed. " ' Kill me ; why don't you kill me ? ' she kept crying. ' Oh, think how far I must roll after I am killed ! ' " It was useless to be angry. I trudged on. Then she began to resist. She kicked and screamed and clawed. I was compelled to put her down and sit on her while I threw off my undercoat. Then up the mountain we went, in a perambulating wrestling match. She fought valiantly. Once she tripped me, and we rolled far down the path before I could stop. She shrieked with delight as we rolled. Then slowly, labori- ously I worked our way back over the lost ground. All the asylum lights went out while we were on our way, except the few that burned all night. Finally I got her up to the door and rang the bell. As I rang, she wrenched away. I grabbed her, and she began to shriek so piercingly that it seemed as if her family away back in Erie must hear it. We were in a tangle on the ground A KING, A LUNATIC AND A BURGLAR 59 when the door opened, and a flood of light poured out on us. " There I stood — hatless, coatless, dishevelled, wet — with a .wild woman wailing piteously, struggling, and crying to be freed from a monster. They well might have wondered which of us was insane. I carried her inside, and the doors were closed. I knew Dr. Reed, the Superintendent, but he was away. They roused the as- sistant superintendent out of bed. He was none too pleased at being disturbed. I had my commitment papers in my shirt, and I drew them forth. They were as wet as if they had fallen into a basin of water. Miss Oliver was a pay patient, of course, and her bed was ready. She looked serenely around the reception room, noting the paintings and the furnishings. " ' What do you think of my castle. King George ? ' she said to me. ' Is it not beautiful, your majesty ? Pray make yourself at home, your majesty.' " There never was a King George who looked as I looked just then. Small wonder a nurse sniggered. They took Miss Oliver to her quarters, and I returned to the ofiSce. I could hear the wind whistling around the corners outside. I asked if I could stay all night. They said no, it was against the rules. " ' If Dr. Reed was here I could stay all night,' I re- torted. " ' Dr. Reed is not here,' was the icy reply, matching the zero weather outdoors. " They showed me the door. I went out, hatless, coatless, into the night. I stumbled down the mountain, and hunted for my undercoat. I found it, and then found ray overcoat. But my hat was nowhere around. The wind must have blown it away. I made my way down to the station. I was getting cold, and my damp clothes were stiffening on me. I tried to find warmth or shelter at the station, but there was none. I shivered and stamped to and fro, endeavouring to keep warm. There was no hotel around, none within a couple of miles. The only house near was a gashouse, where they made gas for the asylum. It was across from the sta- 6o MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE tion. I saw a light in it, and I went over and stepped in. A lone man was sitting by the fire, watching the drafts. He turned as the door slammed, and seeing me hatless, with scratched face, he groaned and jumped over to the other side of the room. " ' Get out ! get out ! ' he shouted, waving his arms. ' You cannot stop here ! Get out ; I'm closing up now ! ' " ' You poor fool,' said I. ' I want to get warm, that's all. Nobody will hurt you. Sit down.' " ' Go back to the asylum if you want to get warm ! ' he yelled, as if I were a deaf lunatic. ' I don't warm crazy men here.' " The fellow was beside himself with terror. He thought I was an escaped madman from Dixmont, and I did not blame him. I certainly must have looked the part. Suddenly his manner changed. " ' If you're really cold, my friend, I'll show you the new tavern that has been built right down the road,' said he. " I thanked him heartily. He put on his hat and over- coat, and we started out of the door. As I stepped out- side he slammed the heavy door behind me, and locked it from within. It simply was a ruse to get me out. I saw it was useless to try to get into the gashouse again, so I started on a brisk walk down the road, looking for a tavern or boarding-house, or place of shelter for a half- frozen man. I walked over two miles before I came to what appeared to be a boarding-house. I banged on the door. There was no answer. I shook the door by its handle. Suddenly an up-stairs window was raised, and a hoarse voice shouted : ' Who's there ? ' I answered that I was an officer who had come from the asylum and desired a bed for the night. " ' Get out of there ! ' roared the voice. " ' Come down and open this door ! ' I shouted in reply. " The answer was the bang of a shotgun, and a charge of buckshot bored into the woodwork about a yard from where I stood. I scooted around the corner of the house as the second barrel followed the first. I crawled along behind fences until I struck a bend in the road, and then A KING, A LUNATIC AND A BURGLAR 6i crossed to the railroad track, and started on a fast walk back towards the gashouse. On my way I met the gas- man. When he saw me he let out a shriek of terror and fled across the fields. I walked fully three miles, past the gashouse, which was locked, before I came to a tavern. Profiting by my former experience I knocked, and when I heard a window raised up-stairs I got around to the other side of the house. " ' Vat you vant ? ' asked a heavy German voice. " ' I want to get in,' said I. " ' Go away ! ' said the voice. " ' I want to get in ! ' I shouted. " Bang ! bang ! went a gun. But I was around the corner of the house. I waited a few minutes, then thumped again on the door. Three times I thumped, and every time the old German roared. Finally I crossed the road and got behind a tree. " ' Hello, there ! ' I shouted. ' You'll kill some one if you don't stop.' " • Veil, vat you tink I am shootin' for, eh ? ' " I began a long palaver with him. " ' I want to get a bed for the night,' I said in conclu- sion. " ' So ? Why ain't you say so first ? ' said he. " I could hear him talking to his wife. They went away from the window. I waited fifteen minutes, and kicked again on the door. Presently a light appeared in the hall. Through the glass alongside the old-fashioned door I could see them coming down the stairs. The wife was ahead carrying a lighted candle. The husband was behind carrying the shotgun. " ' Hello, out there ! ' he shouted, as they neared the door. " ' Hello ! ' I answered. " ' Who are you ? ' he asked. " I told him. " ' How do I know you are who you say you are ? ' he demanded. " I recited a long list of people I knew. " ' How do I know you know them ? ' he asked. 62 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE " I pondered. The only way to convince him was to hit upon some man he would be sure to know well. I saw a whiskey sign by the door. " • Do you know Fred Applebaum, of Pittsburg, the singer and whiskey man ? ' said I. " ' Freddie Applebaum ? Do I know him ? ' he said, and I could hear the bolt shot back. " I fairly leaped inside. The old German kept point- ing the shotgun at me. He said there had been many burglaries in the vicinity, some of the robberies having been committed by men who called late at night and said they wanted lodgings. His wife brought me whiskey, and I took a big drink. The old German meanwhile held the shotgun full upon me. I sat close to the fire, and after thawing out I went to bed. The old German fol- lowed me with the shotgun and a candle. He sat down in a corner of the room with the candle on the window sill and the shotgun pointed at the bed. I fell asleep. It was daylight when I awoke. There sat the old Ger- man sound asleep in his chair, with the shotgun across his knees and the candle down in the socket. I coughed, and he awoke with a snort. When I came to pay my bill he said, - Fifty cents for bed, fifty cents for breakfast, and fifty cents for extra.' " ' What's the extra for ? ' I asked. " ' For keeping watch on you,' said he. ' How do I know you ain't a burglar ? ' " ' Would you take in a burglar ? ' said I. " ' If he was half froze,' said he. " I took the first train for Erie, after buying a hat in Pittsburg, and patching my scratched face with court plaster. It was the only night of my life in which I had been invited to a palace as a king, locked out of a gas- house as a lunatic, shot at as a burglar, and put to bed with a shotgun pointed at my head." &. THE BOX-CAR BATTLE OF SWEETMAN 63 XI THE BOX-CAR BATTLE OF SWEETMAN. AND THE THRASHERS WITH THE WHEAT In addition to his regular work on the Erie police force Murray was gradually drawn into the service of the men at the head of the Pennsylvania Central Railroad. His success in the cases he undertook attracted their atten- tion to such a degree that they finally urged him to sever his connection with the Erie Police and devote himself exclusively to railroad detective work. William L. Scott, the railroad magnate, whose home was in Erie, and for whom Murray had done considerable difficult railroad detective work, was particularly desirous of ob- taining Murray's undivided services. Mr. Scott, Milton Cartwright, who built the Dismal Swamp canal, and was interested in the building of the Elevated Railway system in New York, James Casey, George Ham of Boston, and others, united in the build- ing of the Canada Southern Railroad, now the Michigan Central, between Buffalo and Detroit, with its route in Canada from Fort Erie, opposite Buffalo, through St. Thomas to Windsor, opposite Detroit. They had diffi- culties in Canada. Station houses were burned. Trains were derailed. Bridges were fired. The trouble primar- ily grew out of the right of way. Some of the country folk seemed to think the railroad should make them all rich. The officers of the company knew Murray, and they held a conference and urged him to leave Erie and straighten matters out in the Canada Southern's troubles. Their offer to Murray was so flattering that he agreed to go for three months, with the right to return at the ehd of that time if he did not find matters satisfactory. In May, 1873, Murray left Erie and went to Canada as head of detectives of the Canada Southern Railroad of which William L. Scott was president and F. N. Finney was general superintendent. He established headquar- ters in St. Thomas and travelled between Buffalo and Detroit, and frequently Chicago. 64 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE " The bridge-burning stopped first," says Murray. " I began a systematic watch of the bridge that was the scene of the most trouble. Night after night I lay in a clump of brush by the railroad track. They were hard to catch, but eventually the bridge-burning stopped, along with the firing of stations, for I gave chase in earnest and caught some of the incendiaries and they were sent to the penitentiary. " Soon after the bridge-burning was broken up, L. D. Rucker, of the Canada Southern, called my attention to complaints of wholesale robbery of cars. Goods con- signed from Boston and New York to the west were found to be missing on the arrival of the cars at their destination. The various roads over which the cars passed had to pay pro rata the loss to the shippers." The selection of Murray to run down this wholesale train robbing, affecting various railroads, indicates the reputation he had earned at that time as a clever detect- ive. It was a hard case. " I went to Boston and started over the route of the goods," says Murray. " I saw the cars go through un- broken to Black Rock at Buffalo, where customs officers and sealers inspected and resealed the cars, after which they went on west through Canada. After following the route of goods several times I became convinced that the robberies were perpetrated at Black Rock, and that car sealers and railroad employees were in collusion. They, alone, could have the necessary knowledge or oppor- tunity. " Mose Mills was Customs Officer at the International Bridge at that time. I put up a job with Mills. We made a fake manifest showing boots, shoes, silks, and clothing, making a fat car. We gave the number of the car and sent the manifest out as usual, and then had the car placed at the old Bathurst Street yards at Black Rock. I got Police Captain Dixon, of old No. 5 station in Buffalo, and two of his men, Joe Henderson and Andy Dayton, a brother of Mayor Dayton. A fence ran along by the tracks. We got outside the fence and lay in wait. " I remember the night well. It was the night of July THE BOX-CAR BATTLE OF SWEETMAN 65 1 2th, 1874. It was blazing hot, breezeless, suffocating. We crouched alongside the fence for several hours. About 1.30 o'clock in the morning we saw two lanterns dodging in and out among the trucks. Three fellows slipped along silently, looking for the car numbered in the fake manifest. " ' Here it is,' said one of them. " They broke the seal, slid the door, climbed in and began to open the boxes. When they were well along with their work we made a break for the car. Two of the three ran, with Dixon, Henderson, and Dayton after them. I grabbed the third fellow, a powerful gaint in a cotton shirt and overalls. We grappled in the car and fell among the boxes. It was stifling hot in the box car and the water began to pour off us. Neither spoke a word. It was a silent struggle in the darkness. I recog- nised the fellow as one of our road's employees named Sweetman, counted one of the huskiest men in the busi- ness. He tried to strangle me to death, tried it so de- liberately I had to admire his coolness. I broke his hold and, when he tried to jam me behind the boxes where he could shove a big packing case on me and crush me, I forced him over by the car door. There we heaved and strained amid the big boxes. " I had stripped him naked in the first grapples of the fight. His cotton shirt and overalls had come off like the peeling of a banana. In his fury he tore my clothes off me and as we lurched towards the car door we fell out to the track below, two naked men, drenched with perspiration as if a tub of water had been emptied on us. We fell in a bunch and over we went on to the cinders and ballast and ties. There was no let up. Whichever man got the chance banged the other's head on the rails, jammed his face in the cinders or thumped his bare body on the ballast and ties. A free hand meant a stunning blow. We fought under the car and out on to the other tracks. All the while we were silent as two mutes. It was a case of which or t'other on top. He was worrying me. I was busy as I could be and I could not yell, and my gun was gone. 66 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE " We came to a full stop on the track between the rails beyond the car where our fight began. Neither of us was on top. We were a tangled bunch. As we lay straining, gasping, we heard a creaking and crunching. Instinctively both of us looked down the track. An engine had backed some cars in and they were bearing slowly, steadily down upon us. Sweetman was a game man, he never flinched. ' You first ! ' he gasped, as he strove to roll me nearest the approaching cars. My answer was a heave that turned him prone between the rails and there I held him, panting and desperate, not daring to relax my hold. Nearer and nearer came the cars. We could hear the grind of the flange. Sweet- man writhed and strove to drag me down and force me over. " ' Give up ? ' I gasped. " Sweetman shook his head and butted me full be- tween the eyes. Together we reeled back on the track. The trucks of the nearest car were not thirty feet away, when Joe Henderson came running down the track, from the chase after the other two men, and dragged us back and snapped the handcuffs on Sweetman. Henderson had captured his man and the third escaped. I was somewhat disfigured and had to borrow some clothes, but I was mightily relieved when I saw the grim trucks of the freight cars go by and felt my bones safe beyond their reach. Sweetman was a partner of Slip Lewis. He was locked up, and later his attorney made a fight on some technicality. " But this stopped the car burglaries. The railroads thanked me, and thereafter goods went west and arrived at their destination unmolested." When Murray returned to St. Thomas, after breaking up the car burglaries, he found complaints of train-tap- ping and quickly located it at the west end of the road in the vicinity of Amherstburg, on the Canadian side of the mouth of the Detroit River. Cars laden with grain would lose bushels in transit, in some unknown way. The cars were weighed at Detroit to make sure of their cargo and when weighed later by the railroad they were THE BOX-CAR BATTLE OF SWEETMAN 67 many bushels lighter. Murray by a plan of frequent weighing of the cars, narrowed the territory, where the thefts were committed, to the vicinity of Amherstburg. "The method employed by the train tappers," says Murray, " was to crawl under a grain car at night, bore holes in the floor of the car with an auger, fill as many bags with grain as they could cart away, and then plug up the auger holes, and the car would bear no visible outward sign of having been robbed. Hundreds of bushels of grain would be stolen in this way. One night a single train was rifled of enough grain to make two waggon loads of filled bags. The quantity stolen in such a short time satisfied me that a gang of six or seven did the job, and that it was not the work of only one or two. So I nosed around looking for sixes or sevens who would be apt to engage in train-tapping. I was puzzled to learn what became of the grain, if the thieves were people in the vicinity, for I could find no trace of any sales of grain apart from the usual barter in crops by farmers. " I arranged for a string of grain cars to be laid out on a siding, and the first night I spotted a figure sneak under some of the cars and bore holes and put in plugs. No attempt was made that night to steal any of the grain, and evidently the cars were being prepared for the next night's raid. I decided to follow the fellow to his home on the first night, and I did so. The trail led to the home of the five Thrashers, a father, mother, and three sons, whose constant companions were two fellows named Johnson and Mike Fox. " I went back and got two constables, and told them to meet me at a point in the yards, where I would have a freight engine. I got a switch engine, but the con- stables failed to appear, so I went alone with the engineer, John Savina by name, and the fireman. The engine stopped opposite the Thrashers, and I went out to the house to arrest the five people. I told the engineer and fireman to be prepared to come in a jifTy. I knocked at the door, and no one answered. I knocked again, and when no response came I shoved against the door and 68 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE walked in. No one was in sight. I passed through the kitchen, and was about to enter a room opening off it when a tremendous screech came from the room. I stood and listened. It was like the high, quavering note of a calliope or steam piano. Without further ado I shoved open the door and entered. All I could see was a big, old-fashioned bed, surmounted by a mosquito net. Sitting upright in this bed was one of the ugliest women I ever saw in my life. She would glance at me, and then throw back her head and screech just as a coyote howls when he serenades the moon. She was Mrs. Thrasher. I bade her get up. She answered with a series of ear- splitting screeches. I spent about ten minutes trying to persuade her to get out of bed. When words were of no avail I laid hold of the mosquito netting and pulled it out of the way. " ' I am palsied ! ' shrieked Mrs. Thrasher. ' I am paralysed, and cannot be moved ! ' " I approached the bed, and she dealt me such a thump on the head with her clenched hand as no paralytic ever was able to do. I sought to take her out of bed, but she buried herself in the bedclothes. So I simply took the tick, and pulled it off the bed, and was preparing to take the bed apart with her in it, when she sprang out and fled through the kitchen. I knew I could get her later, and the tick had seemed very heavy in my hands. I slit it open, and found it filled with new boots and shoes. While I was emptying them out I heard a stealthy step behind me, and whirled around just in time to see Mrs. Thrasher swing an axe and aim it at me. I dodged, and laid violent hands on Mrs. Thrasher's ankles, and landed her on the floor with a thud. Before she could regain the axe I just rolled her into the emptied tick, and fastened her by one of the tall bed-posts, where she kicked and screeched, and probably well-nigh suffocated while I was searching the house. " They had a number of bedticks all filled with wheat. They also had a big chimney that was unused. They had stuffed this chimney full of bags of wheat. Old man Thrasher came out of a closet, and I arrested him. WITH THE HELP OF JESSIE McLEAN 69 The engine hands helped me take the plunder away. I went to the place of Mike Fox, near by, and arrested him after finding more of the stolen stuff on his premises. I also arrested Johnson, and took the whole batch before Magistrate George Gott, who also was Canadian customs officer, and he committed them to Sandwich gaol for trial before Judge Home, who sent them to Kingston Peni- tentiary for four years each. " That broke up train-tapping. Mrs. Thrasher averred that after she was bagged in the tick she experienced a sensation similar to that caused by smiting the outside of the tick with the open hand. I suggested to her that perhaps she had wriggled and kicked so much as to bump herself against the bed-post. But she seemed to cling to the idea that she had been spanked soundly, not beaten or bruised, but simply spanked strenuously. What could a woman named Thrasher expect ? " XII WITH THE HELP OF JESSIE McLEAN On a bright, sunshiny day in 1874 Murray walked out of General-Superintendent Finney's office in the Canada Southern Station at St. Thomas. He had just returned from Cleveland, and had made a report on the arrest of a thief, who at one time had been bothersome to the com- pany. As he strolled down the platform he saw a group of trainmen laughing and chatting and sunning them- selves. They were talking of fires. " Sparks from Canada Southern locomotives seemed to become contagious, and various buildings along the line began to shoot sparks and to go up in smoke," says Murray. " It grew to be bothersome, and the insurance companies became considerably wrought up. The com- plaints, of course, came to me. " At that time one of the features of life in St. Thomas was Jessie McLean. Jessie was as bonnie a Scotch lass 70 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE as a man could meet in twenty counties. She was good- looking, with peachy cheeks and sunny hair and merry eyes. But, above all, Jessie weighed 250 pounds. She was the biggest girl in St. Thomas. Some of the fellows used to joke at Jessie, but I always treated her with courtesy, and I remember the days when I used to walk a quarter of a mile just to see Jessie McLean on her way to church. It was not a case of love, but simply a desire to see a 250-pound girl go by. Every man, as he looks back through the years into the little town where he lived long ago, can recall certain sights and scenes that stand out vividly in the vision of his memory. 'Twas so with Jessie McLean. I can close my eyes and see her still, tripping churchward, 250 pounds of graceful femininity. " But back to the burnings. The climax of the fires came when the Dufferin House, in St. Thomas, burned. The Dufferin House was named after Lord Dufferin, then Governor-General of Canada. It was a large wooden building with sixty or more rooms, and stood on Talbert Street, near what is now the Michigan Central Station. Johnnie Hanley was the proprietor. He had ^9,000 of mortgages on the house. The hotel was not paying, and Johnnie could not pay the mortgages. " One quiet Sunday evening in October the Dufferin House was burned. No lives were lost. The insurance people were certain the fire was incendiary in its origin. Mr. Westmacott, the insurance representative from Toronto, came to me; and I also heard the talk that engine sparks caused the fire. I took charge of the case. I began a search for evidence. It was a difficult task. The evidence was not connected in its chain of circum- stances. Finally, I found the pastor of the Baptist Church could strengthen my cause ; but I still lacked the desired clinching testimony. Where was I to get it? " The answer came in Jessie McLean. The 250-pound Scotch girl told me she had seen Johnnie Hanley as he came hurriedly off the back steps just before the fire. It completed the case, and, thanks to Jessie McLean, who had been on her way to church when she saw him, Johnnie THE COURSE OF A CAREER 71 Hanley was convicted and sentenced to seven years' im- prisonment. " Hanley had a son-in-law, Bill Cronin, who kept the Detroit House ; and subsequently it was burned. Assisted by Chief-of-Police James Fewings, who also aided me in the Hanley case, I convicted Cronin of setting the house on fire, and he also was sent to prison for seven years. After Cronin had followed Hanley to prison, the sparks of the Canada Southern engines seemed to become harm- less ; for there were no more mysterious fires, and the insurance companies breathed easy, and Jessie McLean continued on her innocent, 250-pound way, and finally married a bouncing railroad conductor." XIII THE COURSE OF A CAREER After Murray had been with the Canada Southern Railroad for about a year, the Ontario Government be- gan to inquire if he was restricted exclusively to railroad detective work. His line of work had brought him under the constant and direct notice of the Department of Justice. He received requests from the Department of Justice to aid them, first in matters in his territory as head of the Canada Southern's Detective Department, and finally to take up a baffling case for the Crown and work it out. In the fall of 1874 Murray received this telegram : " John W. Murray Come to Toronto. — O. Mowat." The signer was Sir Oliver Mowat, at that time Attorney- General and head of the Department of Justice. Murray turned the telegram over to the railroad people. They told Murray to go to Toronto and see what was wanted, as they desired to keep on good terms with the Govern- ment. Thus Murray, as chief of detectives of the Canada Southern, went to Toronto in 1874 to see Attorney- 72 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE General Mowat. The Attorney-General asked Murray to become connected with the department. Murray de- clined, saying he had come, in response to a telegram, to aid the Government in any particular matter it had in hand. " The matter was stated by the Attorney-General and his deputy, J. G. Scott," says Murray. " For a number of years counterfeiters had been at work in Owen Sound and vicinity. Some of them had dealt in counterfeit money for a long time, and had grown very wealthy and had influential connections. In fact, their relationships made it a doubly difficult matter. The Government was annoyed greatly by their actions, and the conditions finally had become such as to make it necessary to break up the gang, regardless of their influential connections. Once more I was thankful for my early training in the counterfeiting line. I went direct to the vicinity stated by the Attorney-General, and it was not long before I ■was in the confidence of the men who were handling the queer. The families of some were among the most respectable in that part of the country. I went ahead and obeyed my instructions. The members of the gang were arrested and convicted, and sent to the penitentiary. " One of the gang had disappeared. He forged bonds and mortgages on various farmers, including a ;^ 1,500 mortgage on a farmer named Laycock, in the township of St. Vincent, county of Grey. He sold the forged paper in Toronto to Blaikie & Alexander and fled the country, leaving no trace of his whereabouts. His name was John C. Bond, of Owen Sound. " I returned to St. Thomas, after breaking up the gang and putting a stop to the counterfeiting, and resumed my duties with the Canada Southern. At intervals I re- ceived communications from the Department of Justice relative to securing my services permanently. Sir Oliver Mowat was Attorney-General then, and J. G. Scott, now Master of Titles, was Deputy Attorney-General. In the spring of 1875 came a formal tender of appointment as Detective of the Department of Justice. I conferred with my friends in St. Thomas. They advised me to ac- THE COURSE OF A CAREER 73 cept. Mr. Finney, however, urged me to remain with him ; and later, when he went west and built the Wiscon- sin Central, he endeavoured to get me to go with him. " In April, 1875, I was appointed by the Ontario Government. When I received the notice of appoint- ment, I wrote at once saying it would be impossible for me to get away for at least three months. They replied that this was satisfactory. I finished the work I had then in hand, and in July, 1875, 1 reported for duty in Toronto as Detective for the Provincial Government. I was the only regular officer, and I succeeded a man named Smith. My territory was all the Province of Ontario, and also I was to follow criminals to any place and run them down. I took charge of the detective work in the Department of Justice, of which the Attorney- General was the head." Murray was thirty-five years old at this time. He found himself in charge of the detective work in a field extending practically from Montreal on the east to Mani- toba on the west ; from the United States on the south to the wastes of snow and ice above Georgian Bay on the north. Its total area was 101,733 square miles, and its division was into eighty-four counties. It was girdled by the Ottowa River, the Upper St. Lawrence and Lakes Ontario, Erie, Huron, and Superior. From southeast to northwest it stretched 750 miles, and from northeast to southwest it was 500 miles. In this field to which he was called, Murray found that the Department of Justice, otherwise the Attorney-Gen- eral's Department, had charge of all the criminal business of the Province. For the expense of the administration of criminal justice there is an appropriation made by the Legislature, or Parliament, every year. A certain pro- portion of this appropriation is charged up to the various counties for work done therein. Each county has a County Crown Attorney, equivalent to a District Attor- ney in the United States. The County Crown Attorney is under the direction of, and is paid by, the Department of Justice. The counties have their local constables ap- pointed by the County Judge of each county, but any criminal matter of importance is reported immediately to 74 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE the Department of Justice. If the Department deems the case of sufficient importance, Murray takes it up either in person or supervises the investigation, the con- stables and others being subordinate to him in the matter. " It is an excellent system, and the splendid record of the Department of Justice for many years indicates how efficient it is and how well it works," says Murray. Murray thus entered upon the full course of his career over twenty-eight years ago. He brought to his work a rich experience and rare training. His dangerous and exacting duties during the Civil War were followed by busy years with the United States in special service and hard years, filled with all sorts of experiences, on the police force at Erie. He learned all the details of the lower forms of police work and gradually broadened his field of activity until he was graduated from the detective work at Erie to the duties of head of the Canada South- ern Railroad's detective department. He had learned what it meant to come in contact with desperate crimi- nals. He had improved the opportunities to study the ways of the keenest crooks. He had schooled himself in the details of information of every class of crime. The severity with which his skill and knowledge and ability were tested in the years to follow is shown again and again in the tales of the crimes whose mysteries he solved and whose perpetrators he ran to earth. His new field included cities, towns, and villages, thickly populated places, and vast stretches of country unsettled and wild. In the flock of this new shepherd were the keen city thieves, the riff-raff of towns, the roughs of the country, and the outlaws of the wilds. The people of the Province varied as much as did its physical geography. There were strong French settlements, strong German settlements, strong English settlements, strong Irish set- tlements. Each had its distinguishing characteristics. They were clannish in their ways. Entire counties were known as German counties, or French counties, or English counties. Scattered among the honest, peaceful folk were desperate and lawless men. In addition to those who had THE COURSE OF A CAREER 75 sought the country from the old world as a haven wherein to hide, or who had grown up to disregard the law in the liberty which the land afforded, were those who fled from the United States and buried themselves in out-of- the-way places. There were endless opportunities for the perpetration of all kinds of crime. In the outlying villages or sparsely settled country, ruffians were able to outrage law and order, and escape to other remote parts of the Province. Burglaries, murders, assaults, forgeries, counterfeitings, all classes of crime and all classes of criminals were known to the Province at that time, as they have been known to it since. But the criminals soon were to learn the grip of a new master. They were to feel the iron hand of a man who feared none of them ; they were to hear the tread of footsteps in pursuit, that never ceased until the pursued was dead or behind prison bars ; they were to behold a new face and listen to a new voice, and realise that the old order of things had passed away, that a new figure had risen among them and ruled in absolute sway. Murray in 1 875 was a broad-shouldered, powerful giant, sandy haired, sandy moustached, blue-eyed. His voice, then, as now, was remarkable for its wide range, and par- ticularly for its power to change from gentle, tender tones to ones so deep, so rough, so harsh, that at times the guilty, on hearing it in thunderous accusation, have burst into tears and confessed. In all the years that have passed since he began his work in Canada, Murray has changed little in appearance. Age has dealt kindly with him. The broad shoulders and powerful frame are giving their meed of deference to the fateful years that have gone, but the blue eyes look out upon the world, as of old, bright and unafraid. 76 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE XIV SANCTIMONIOUS BOND One of Murray's first acts after becoming identified with the Department of Justice at Toronto, was to turn back to the case of John C. Bond, of the Owen Sound gang, who disappeared the year before when Murray, at Sir OHver Mowat's request, broke up the gang, and sent all but Bond to prison. Bond had sold a ^1,500 forged mortgage in Toronto, and vanished. Murray saw at the outset it was important he should impress upon the mind of all the criminal classes in Canada that, once he set out after them, he would land them, no matter where they went or how snugly they hid. So he undertook to find Bond. The man had over a year's start of Murray. He had gone, no one knew where. He had money to aid him, and friends to protect him. He might be in China or Labrador, in Australia or Russia. He might be dead. " The first thing I did was to bill him," says Murray. " I prepared bills or hand posters giving his description, his habits, his crime, and any other information of use in identifying him. I sent these all over the world — to Scotland Yard, to Paris, to Berlin, to Rome, to New York, to Chicago, and all the chief police departments in the United States, and elsewhere. This is called billing a man. Sometimes I do not bill them, for I prefer a still hunt, and I conduct it through personal letters to my personal friends in all these police departments. In the course of my life I have had occasion to make friends with able men in practically all the detective bureaus of all the great police departments. But I desired to take no advantage of Bond. It was to be a fair chase, with fair warning, his wits against mine. No tidings came from billing him. So I took the next step in hunting a man. I located his nearest kin. " Bond had a brother, who was chief clerk in the post- office in Lindsay, Ontario. That year a new postmaster SANCTIMONIOUS BOND ^^ was appointed. I went to Lindsay with a letter of intro- duction to the postmaster. I had obtained specimens of Bond's handwriting for purposes of comparison, and the next day, after my arrival, there was a new assistant clerk in the Lindsay post-office, who opened the bags of in- coming mails, and ran over the letters. Soon two letters came. I got a glimpse of one, but not sufficient for my purposes. The brother was quick and wary, and scooped the letters over. The second letter I saw, for the simple reason that some candy I offered to the brother caused him to rush out very frequently. He looked for a letter every other Thursday, and it was on a Thursday I gave him the candy, and he was called out about the time the mail arrived. The letter was postmarked Evanston, 111. The handwriting was unlike that of Bond, except for a kink in the B. I remembered his skill as a forger, and did not worry. When the brother reentered the office his letters lay in the bunch, without a sign of having been touched. " I quietly got my warrant for Bond's arrest, and slipped away to Chicago. Bill McGrogle was chief in Chicago in those days. Later, he foolishly hurried over into Canada for a sojourn when, as I understand, there was no necessity for it. From Bill I received a letter of introduction to the chief of police in Evanston, 111., whose name was Carney, and who was a deputy sheriff, and several other officials, as well as chief of police. Carney was away when I first arrived. " I had a good description of Bond, although I never had seen him, as he skipped out of Owen Sound the year before, when I went there to break up the gang. I also had a blurred photograph, but as I have said before, a good description is worth more than a dozen photographs. It gives you an accuracy in idea of how your man looks and acts, that no photograph can do. I began to walk the streets of Evanston, not much of a town in those days, on the lookout for a man answering the descrip- tion of Bond. I was smoking a big, black cigar, and was blowing the smoke skyward with great gusto. In fact, I stopped at a street corner and became absorbed in blow- 78 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE ing smoke rings and watching them float away, expand- ing and fading as they went. Suddenly I heard a voice beside me, one of those smooth, flat, oily voices, that causes you to think its owner soaks it every night in a vat of tincture of hypocrisy. " ' My friend,' the voice was saying, ' are you not aware that smoking is a filthy and wasteful habit ? ' " ' It depends on the point of view,' I remarked mildly, for I was a stranger in a strange land, and desired to make friends not foes just then, to aid me in my hunt for Bond. " As I spoke I eyed him, and, while his hair decora- tions were different, he answered to a dot my description of Bond. If I could see him walk I would be sure. Bond had ho limp, but my description was particularly good as to his general appearance and manner when walking. He was revelling in a tirade against smoking, and finally took up the theme of the evil of intemper- ance. I said just enough to keep him going, and when he began to pace to and fro I stepped back about fifteen feet and watched him. I saw him clasp his hands behind his back. Bond did the same thing, according to my description. I saw him clasp his hands in front of him. Bond did the same. Bond also interlaced his fingers, and I vowed that if this sanctimonious, hypocritical haranguer interlaced his fingers, I would seize him on the spot. Lo and behold ! he did so. I stepped forward, seized his right hand, and shook it heartily. " ' Why, Bond, old fellow, I didn't recognise you at first,' I said, and continued to shake his hand with in- creased fervour. " He stopped short in his sermonising on smoking. " ' You are mistaken,' he said, endeavouring to draw away his hand which, by that time, I was shaking vio- lently. " ' No,' said I, seizing both hands, and shaking them so that his teeth chattered. ' I met you in Hamilton, where you were in the sewing-machine business.' " ' Oh, yes,' he chattered, for I had his head bobbing by my hand-shaking. ' What name ? ' SANCTIMONIOUS BOND 79 " ' MacDonald,' said I, and I shook his hands until I warrant his arms almost fell out of their sockets. " This hand-shaking a man until he almost falls apart is not an accepted form of arresting a man, and I never had done it before, but I actually was glad to see Bond, and also, I was very fond of tobacco then, although I do not use it now, and I resented his interfering with my morn- ing smoke, particularly when the rings were floating so beautifully. Also I hoped to shake an acknowledgment of his identity out of him, if he was Bond. So I simply stood there and shook him. I shook his hands until his hat fell off. I shook his hands until he was red in the face and was gasping for breath. The few people who saw us grinned understandingly, as if witnessing the re- union of two long-lost brothers. I shook his hands relent- lessly, furiously for several minutes. Then I stopped and looked at him. " ' Bond, I am glad to see you,' I said, and I made as if to shake hands again. " ' No, no,' said Bond, hastily clasping his hands behind him. " ' Will you have a drink. Bond ? ' I said. " The sanctimonious expression settled down over his face again, like a putty mask. I respect a sincere tem- perate man, but a hypocrite makes me feel as if I had mosquitoes down my back. " ' This is a temperance town, and I neither smoke nor drink,' said Bond. " ' Well, I tell you, Bond,' said I ; ' you may not smoke or drink, but I arrest you just the same. It's not because you neither smoke nor drink, but because you are wanted over in Canada for a little business you did over there.' " I arrested him then and there. All I had was the Canada warrant, and it alone was not worth the paper it was written on in Illinois. But the chief of police, Car- ney, had come home, and I handed over my letter of in- troduction, and after he read it I locked Bond up, and took him to Chicago by the next train. He was in the piano business, and was a temperance lecturer and or- ganiser. 8o MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE " ' Where am I wanted ? ' asked Bond, on his way from Evanston to Chicago. " I knew Bond relied on his ability to escape conviction in Owen Sound, for in those days it was a mighty diffi- cult task to convict a man in Owen Sound, who had money and friends there. So I answered : ' Owen Sound.' Bond smiled outwardly; so did I smile, in- wardly. " Bond had a brother in Chicago who was a member of the Board of Trade. When we arrived there the brothers talked it over, and were satisfied Bond should return, they thinking it was the aftermath of the troubles of the Owen Sound gang. Bond came with me, and when I arrived in Canada I informed him we were going to Toronto, instead of to Owen Sound. He was one of the maddest hypo- crites I ever saw. He was so hot that, despite his not using tobacco, he almost blew rings of smoke. I landed him in Toronto on October i6th, 1875. He was sent to the penitentiary for seven years. I brought him back over a year after he disappeared, and a little over three months after I became a Government official. " Bond was a hypocrite. He posed as a saint, and in fact he was a crook. A change of countries did not work a change of character. To look at him as he sermonised on the street of Evanston, one might mistake him for a minister, but a second glance would tell the difference. However, the countenance does not always betray the crook. I have read often about the most accomplished crooks having the most clerical faces. That does not ex- ist, as a rule, at all. Crime leaves its traces just as con- sumption leaves its traces. Yet I have known desperate criminals who looked like ignorant bumpkins or scholarly ministers. The eye is the great betrayer. Some crooks have a hard, steady eye ; others have a small, restless eye ; others a large, placid eye. It is not so much the size or kind of eye, as it is the sudden gleam or flicker, or waver or droop, the barest flash of guilt, ofttimes merely frac- tional or intangible, yet as ample as the flare of a beacon light to locate the danger and reveal the true character. Often you instinctively know your man. It is as if some RALPH FINDLAY LURCHED AND FELL 8i mysterious transmission of intelligence told you certainly : ' There he is,' or ' He is lying.' " Bond was one of the immaculate sort, so far as coun- tenance was concerned. But I will venture that never again in all his life has he approached a stranger, who was enjoying a quiet smoke, and poured forth upon him a street corner tirade against the evils of tobacco. Evans- ton lost a thrifty piano dealer and loquacious temperance lecturer, but Kingston Penitentiary gained a sanctimonious prisoner." XV WHEN RALPH FINDLAY LURCHED AND FELL In the pale moonlight of a warm night, in September, 1875, a door opened softly in the big farmhouse of Ralph Findlay, in the township of Sombra, county of Lambton, about a hundred and fifty miles west from Toronto, and a man stepped out. He was clad in nightshirt and trou- sers. In his hand he carried a lantern, that cast a circle of fitful light about him as he walked. He crossed swiftly from the house to the barn. There were noises in the barn. The horses were neighing and stamping. The figure with the lantern paused and listened, then hastened to the nearest door. The noises ceased as he approached. He stepped forward and opened the door. A shot rang out in the night. He choked, swayed, and fell forward on the floor, the lantern in his hand. So he lay. The terrified squealing of the horses died away. Their stamping ceased. The minutes passed. A figure crept cautiously out of the barn, peering into the face of the man prone on the floor, and vanished in the night. The swish of his feet could be heard as he sneaked along in the shadow of the fence beyond the barn and near the house. Then all was still. No sound came from house or barn. The lantern in the stiffening hand had gone out. So had the life. 82 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE The door of the house opened cautiously a second time. A woman stood in the doorway. She held a light above her head and suddenly shouted : " Get up ! Get up ! " Lights popped out in the house. The woman and three men ran out of the house and across to the barn. They went straight to the nearest door. They peered in. The Ught of their lamps fell upon the lifeless figure on the floor. " Oh, my God ! The horses have kicked him to death ! Go for my father ! " shrieked the woman. One of the three men ran to the horses, bridled one of them, leaped upon him and went galloping through the night to the home of Farmer Rankin, nine miles away, to tell him that his daughter's husband had been kicked to death by the horses. The other men beside the body in the barn knelt and looked at the dead man, then crossed to the horses and found them in their stalls, but with their halters slipped. The woman ran screaming back to the house and to her two little children. The two men hastened for some of the neighbours. They came in the night and bore the body into the house. The Rankins, father and sons, came galloping with doctors before the dawn. But Ralph Findlay was beyond all need of doctors. They started a coroner's inquest at once. Mrs. Find- lay told how she was in bed with her husband, and they heard a noise in the barn. He got up, slipped on his trousers, and went out. He stayed so long that she be- came alarmed, arose, went to the door, heard nothing, and then roused the inmates of the house and ran to the barn, where they found him dead on the barn floor. William Smith, the hired man, who rode away to notify the Rankins, told of being awakened by Mrs. Findlay's cries and going out to the barn and finding Findlay dead. The other hired men, Buchanan and Reed, told of being awakened and rushing out and finding the dead man. They were under the impression that horse thieves had sneaked into the barn to steal the horses, that Findlay had caught them in the act, and they had shot him and es- caped. The Department of Justice at Toronto was noti- fied by telegraph. Murray was near St. Thomas on RALPH FINDLAY LURCHED AND FELL 83 another case. The Department telegraphed to him to go immediately. " I arrived there on the day of the funeral," says Mur- ray. " I never had seen such a crowd of farmers as had gathered there. I was a stranger to them all. Findlay was a highly esteemed, educated man. He had been a professor and had taught in various schools, and was considered one of the best mathematicians in the prov- ince. I learned from neighbours who were at the place for the funeral, that several years before he had bought the farm of two hundred and fifty or more acres, stocked it well, and shortly before moving on to it he married Sarah Rankin, daughter of a big farmer in the adjoining township of Dover. She was a rosy, good-looking, stout woman of about twenty-seven when her husband was killed. He was a man of gentlemanly appearance and about thirty-eight years old. He had three hired men. Smith, Buchanan, and Reed, and also a hired girl. There were two children, a little boy and girl. The hired man Smith had gone away once and spent some months in the lumber woods of Michigan, but returned and resumed his work with Findlay. " All was confusion and excitement around the place. Farmers were talking, and women were gathered in groups, some weeping, others full of anger or fear. I saw the hired girl out near the well and quietly learned what she knew. Smith, the hired man, had been to Wallaceburg, five miles away, on the evening of the murder, but had returned in good time and retired with the hired man Reed. The hired girl went to bed as usual, and was awakened by Mrs. Findlay's crying: • Get up ! Get up ! ' I next talked with Reed, a young fellow about nineteen years old. He said he and Smith slept together, that they went to bed as usual, that he slept soundly until he heard Mrs. Findlay shouting : ' Get up ! Get up ! ' Reed jumped out of bed at once, he said, while Smith still was sleeping. He shook Smith, who was hard to waken, and they went down-stairs and out to the barn. Buchanan, the hired man, told me his story too, similar to the others. 84 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE "I had not seen Mrs. Findlay or Smith. In fact, wherever I went I was followed by a throng of people, who dogged my footsteps and crowded forward when I stopped. Two of Findlay's brothers were there. One of them was a Customs officer at Port Stanley, and the other, John Findlay, was a merchant also at Port Stanley. John Findlay was in a frenzy of excitement. He went about exclaiming that his brother was murdered, and be- seeching me to find the murderer. "I drew back from the throng of country folk and looked them over. My eye lighted on the keen, in- telligent face of an old fellow, and I walked over and called him aside. He said his name was McLean, and he lived about a mile away, his house being in plain view. We chatted, and suddenly the old fellow said : " ' This summer I was out looking for my cattle be- yond the woods, and I stopped here for a drink of water. There was no cup at the pump. I walked into the kitchen and Smith and Mrs. Findlay were on the floor. She jumped up and said Smith was taking a thorn out of her foot.' " While we were talking McLean nodded towards the outskirts of the crowd and said : ' You see that fellow in the blue shirt ? That's the hired man, William Smith.' I looked and saw a hangdog sort of fellow standing apart from the others. The minister had not arrived, so I sat quietly watching Smith, who chewed a piece of grass and paced slowly to and fro. The minister came and the crowd rushed around him, John Findlay shouting for justice. I walked through the house and out of the back door. I saw a stout woman back of the house, moaning and wringing her hands. " ' Oh, my God ! Oh, my God ! ' she was crying, sway- ing to and fro as she cried. " ' Are you Mrs. Findlay ? ' I asked. " • Yes, yes. Oh, my God ! Oh, my God ! ' she cried. " ' Come here. I want you,' I said roughly. " ' Oh ! ' she gasped. " I led her well away from the house and the crowd, to a quiet corner where an old log lay. She sat down on RALPH FINDLAY LURCHED AND FELL 85 the end of the log. I stood up. I looked at her fully five minutes without speaking or moving. She rocked to and fro, moaning and crying bitterly at first, and all the time exclaiming : ' Oh, my God ! Oh, my God ! ' But as the silence lengthened, I noticed her look at me through her fingers as she held her hands to her face. When she looked she ceased crying, but immediately would resume her lamentations and moans of ' Oh, my God ! Oh, my God ! ' " • You might well say : " Oh, my God ! " ' I exclaimed suddenly. " ' Oh, my God ! Oh, my God ! ' she answered, rocking violently. " I bent over her with my face close to hers. ' Are you not afraid to mention the name of God, you mur- derer ? I do not sympathise with you, but I do sym- pathise with your two little children. Their father mur- dered, and their mother hanged ! ' " ' Oh, my God ! ' she moaned and shuddered. " ' Don't you dare say that,' I thundered. ' Speak some other name but not the name of God.' " Suddenly Smith came into sight near the house. " ' Look at that villain ! ' I said to her, and she raised her head and looked towards the house and saw Smith. " ' Oh, my God ! ' she shrieked. " ' I told you before not to call your God to witness,' I said, my mouth close to her ear. • You know what your God knows of this ! ' " ' Oh, oh, oh ! ' she gasped and put up her hands as if to shut away a hateful sight. " She began to pant like a hound that is exhausted. She gasped and clutched at the empty air. She rocked and swayed and beat her clenched hands together and struck herself upon the forehead, temples, and bosom. I waited. The vision of the crime was before her, the clutch of the sense of guilt was choking her. She writhed in mental and moral agony. She shut her eyes and turned away her head, but turn where she would, the crim,e con- fronted her. 86 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE " ' Out with it ! ' I said. ' Tell me the truth. I want nothing but the truth.' " She looked up and her eyes were like those of an ox in whose throat the butcher's knife has been buried. " ' Oh ! ' she husked, in a hoarse whisper. ' Will you hang me ? ' " ' I am not in a position to say what will become of you, but I do pity your children,' I answered. " With a gulp she lurched back, clutched at the log, sat up and, dry-eyed and sobless, told me the story of the crime. She blamed Smith at the outset. She said he did it and had caused all the trouble. When he went to Michigan to the lumber camps it was because her husband had discharged him. While in Michigan, Smith had corresponded with her, and had brought to her a bottle of strychnine, with which she was to poison her husband. She had failed to do it, but when Smith returned she persuaded her husband, much against his will, to hire Smith again. On the evening of the murder she gave Smith |ii to go to Wallaceburg, five miles away, to buy a bottle of brandy to give him courage. He bought the brandy and came back and went to bed as usual, sleeping on the outside of the bed he shared with young Reed. He sneaked out when he thought all were asleep, went to the barn, untied the horses, and began to slash them so that they would make a noise. Mrs. Findlay woke her husband and told him he'd better go out to the barn. He went, and Smith shot him as he entered. No one but Mrs. Findlay heard the shot. She arose when she heard it, and let Smith into the house. ' I finished him,' said Smith, as he entered. ' Good boy,' she said, and closed the door. Smith had another drink and went up-stairs to bed, and after all was still she opened the door and began to cry : ' Get up ! get up ! ' " As she sat on the log she told me the story. I im- mediately got John Findlay, the brother, and old man McLean. I gave Findlay a book and pencil and she told the story again, while he wrote it down. " ' Go back to the house and the crowd,' I said to her, when she finished. ' Don't open your mouth or say RALPH FINDLAY LURCHED AND FELL 87 a word to that murderer. I am not going to arrest him now.' " She started back, tearless and no longer moaning. " • Begin to sob,' I told her, and straightway she re- sumed her moaning and crying, with mutterings of ' Oh, my God ! Oh, my God ! ' " The minister began the service. The hearse arrived. The coffin was carried out. The people entered their waggons. The procession was about to start. I was watching Smith. I saw him hang back and I sent old man McLean to him. " ' Smith, ain't you going to the funeral ? ' asked Mc- Lean. " ' No,' said Smith. ' Too much to do.' " ' Go on and get your coat or people will say you did it/ said McLean. " Smith got into a waggon and drove to the cemetery. He was placed well up towards the grave. They low- ered the coffin. Some clods fell on it with a rattle and a thud. Smith turned his back. I stood right behind him. As he turned I said, right in his ear : ' Go and take your last look at the man you murdered.' " He started as if he had been knifed. " ' I ain't murdered no one,' he said, pale as a candle. " ' Go, look at that coffin, going down into the grave,' I said. " He would not look. It seemed as if he could not look. I arrested him, and, calling the constable, had him taken away quietly and locked up. It did not dis- turb the burial. " Then came the battle. I foresaw the tremendous elements of influence that would rally to avert a convic- tion. I reopened the inquest, put Mrs. Findlay on the stand and she told her story. She and Smith were com- mitted to Sarnia gaol. I searched the house and found the strychnine in the bottle. I went to Michigan and made a tour of the drug stores, and in St. Louis, Michi- gan, I found the druggist who sold the bottle of poison to Smith. I proved by young Reed that the gun used to shoot Findlay was kept in the barn, and Reed had 88 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE seen Smith reload it a few days before the murder. While Mrs. Findlay was telling her story on the stand. Smith burst out : ' Oh, you villain, you will hang both of us.' Her answer was characteristic : ' Oh, my God ! ' " While Mrs. Findlay and Smith were in gaol awaiting the trial, she corresponded with Smith, writing him notes and lowering them from her cell window to his cell win- dow, by means of a thread made by unravelling her stocking. The gaoler finally got the correspondence, and it was turned over to the sheriff; but when called for in court it was not to be found. The failure to pro- duce it caused a great deal of talk. " Judge Moss presided at the trial. He is dead now and this case came in his first year on the bench. The Crown was represented by the present Judge MacMahon, a descendant of the distinguished French MacMahons. Smith was defended by a very able lawyer, David Glass, of London, now dead. Smith belonged to a prominent order, of which no member ever was hung in that county. At the assizes, in October, 1875, Smith was tried and convicted of murder. In Canada there are no verdicts of degrees of murder. A prisoner is guilty of murder or manslaughter, or is acquitted, or the jury disagrees. When a prisoner is convicted of murder, the judge has no alternative but to sentence him to be hanged. For manslaughter the sentence may be for life or for any less term down to three months. At the trial of Smith, Mrs. Findlay went on the stand and swore to her story. " Mr. Glass took an objection to the legality of the evidence. It was carried to the Court of Appeal of the Province, then to the Supreme Court of Canada, and finally to the Privy Council in England. It was a, prec- edent case. The Privy Council sustained the rulings of the trial judge, that Mrs. Findlay's evidence was admissi- ble under the circumstances. It was over a year after Smith's conviction, when the Privy Council passed on the case. Smith was sentenced to be hanged. Through the influence of his counsel, who was a very prominent party man at that time, his sentence was commuted to imprisonment for life. He died in the Penitentiary after WELLINGTON SQUARE 89 serving fifteen years, or more. Mrs. Findlay was in gaol for a couple of years, or more, and finally was released without trial, and went back to her people. Smith was about thirty-two years old, and vastly unlike the man he murdered, either in appearance or education. " It was a case in which the countryside at first was united on the theory of horse thieves. To me the theory was worthless, for the horse thieves would not have un- haltered four horses and turned them loose in a barn, but would have haltered them and led them quietly out. It was a case where, the general history of all concerned, prior to the crime, supplied the possibility of an adequate motive in the form of a desire to be rid of Findlay. The woman's grief was sham. McLean's thirst in the sum- mer which caused him to walk unannounced into the kitchen of the Findlay house, led to the clue that caused me, upon seeing how unreal was the woman's sorrow, to crowd her for a confession. Her imagination pictured to her the crime when she strove in vain to shut it out. Imagination is the key that has unlocked the secret of many a crime. Imagination conjures up all the potent fears that the guilty dread. It causes many crimes, but it also betrays many a criminal." XVI THE TINKLING HOUSE OF WELLINGTON SQUARE Near the main road leading through Wellington Square, a little place twenty-five miles west of Toronto and a convenient drive from Hamilton, stood the farm- house of an old man named Pettit. Neighbours who passed in the night averred that at unusual hours a light shone and there was a tinkling sound such as they could not account for. They used to creep close and listen. They could hear the tinklety-tink, tinklety-tink, like the muffled tapping of a tiny bell, yet different from a bell's clear voice. 90 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE The old man kept to himself. He had a son who lived with him, and they were uncommunicative about their affairs. They were industrious and thrifty. Their crops were good, their cattle were fat, their expenses were small. Finally a neighbour, bolder than the others, was passing the house one night and hearing the faint, insistent tinklety-tink, he crept close, and finally climbed a tree and peered into the window. The sight made him gasp. A candle stood on the table. Beside the candle was a box as big as a wash-boiler. Old man Pettit stood by the box. His face was beaming, his eyes were bright. On the table was a heap of gold, not a little heap, but a big pile, with gold coins scattered all over the table. They shone and glittered in the candle-light. The old man would thrust his hands into the pile, seize the gold coins until he could hold no more, raise his hands and then drop the coins in golden streams down on to the pile again. As they struck the yellow pyramid they clinked and tinkled musically. At the sound of the gold the old man would laugh hke a Httle child. His gold was the joy of his hfe. After delving in this treasure to his heart's content, the old man gathered the gold pieces carefully into piles and placed them in the box. Then he blew out the can- dle and was lost in the darkness. The neighbour chmbed down out of the tree. He had solved the mystery of the tinkling house. He was an honest man and said nothing. But gradually others came to know that Pettit distrusted banks, and was said to keep a large sum of money in his house or buried on his farm. " This talk spread until, in the country round about, Pettit was regarded as a man living in a treasure house," says Murray. " In the spring of 1875, before I became connected with the Government, Pettit went to Hamilton with a lot of fat cattle, and sold them for a good price. He was spotted ; and when he did not put his money in a bank, the spotters made sure where he lived and let him go unmolested. A few nights later a waggon drove up to a dark spot near the Pettit house. Four WELLINGTON SQUARE 91 masked men alighted. They went on foot to the Pettit house and knocked upon the door. The old man an- swered the knock, and when he opened the door they knocked him down, while his son ran out of the house and across fields, and hid in the woods a mile away. They ransacked the house, discovered the box, and emptied out the gold. There was ^10,500 in gold. De- spite the old man's pleadings they took the gold and went away. " The old man raised a great hubbub and four men were arrested in Hamilton, taken before a police magis- trate and promptly acquitted. They were very highly connected and a large number of the leading lawyers ap- peared for them. The affair ran along until November, 1875. PoHtics had become mixed up in it, some alleging that the reason the men were not prosecuted was, that their friends had a large amount of political influence. No doubt they had. Finally a demand was made on the Department of Justice to have the matter investigated. I had become connected with the Department in July, and when the complaint came in I was instructed to take the matter up. I knew at the outset that, owing to certain matters, I could not look for much assistance in Hamil- ton. Every detective must expect such conditions oc- casionally to confront him. So must men in other busi- nesses. Friendships are friendships, and business is business, and there may be times when the ties of one are as strong as the rules of the other. " I set out to learn what became of the gold. I learned that some of it had appeared in Brantford the morning after the robbery, so it was probable the robbers had gone to Brantford and divided it. My suspicions were correct. They had divided the booty in Brantford and had bought wine there. I learned also that they had hired the waggon in Hamilton. I got track of one of the four men in the United States. He was a professional burglar and thief. He has reformed since, and now is living in Buffalo, and I would be quite as ready to trust him as a lot of other people who lay strenuous claim to respectability. I had known him of old, and had landed 92 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE him for seven years once. That was long before he re- formed. He had his share in the Pettit gold, for he had done his part in the Pettit robbery. " I learned, by tracing the gold in various places where it was spent, that the chief figure in the robbery was Cha,rles Mills, of Hamilton. He was highly connected with leading people and had gone to Texas. He was far from being a poor man, having ;^5o,ooo or so, and, in addition, a rich old aunt, who was expected to leave him a fortune. I planned various ways to get him back into Canada, but none worked. Finally, I got track of a girl in Hamilton, named Lil White, of whom he was very fond. I had scoured the country for miles around in hunt of gold that had been spent and in search of infor- mation about Mills. I heard of the White girl through an acquaintance of Mills, and through Lil White I put up a job on Mills, and lured him back to Canada. I caught him in Hamilton on Sunday night, December 1 2th, 1875. I convicted him, too. Among the witnesses was Detective Patrick Mack of Buffalo, and I traced where they spent some of the gold there. " The case, of course, attracted considerable attention, because of the influence of the friends of some of those involved. The late B. B. Osier, then County Crown At- torney in Hamilton, prosecuted. The prisoners were de- fended ably by William Laidlaw, K. C, of Hamilton, now of Toronto, and by the present Judge Robertson. Mills was convicted of robbery on January 14th, 1876, at Milton, and was sentenced to five years' imprisonment. Subsequently he was pardoned through the efforts of po- litical friends. Politics cut no figure in the conviction, but it did in the pardon. Mills demanded a speedy trial instead of a trial by jury, and he was tried by the County judge without a jury. In Canada you can waive the right of a jury trial and demand what is termed a speedy trial. The Act was just passed at that time. " After the trial and sentence, old man Pettit began an action against the Mills estate for the ^10,500 of his gold that had been stolen. He got a judgment, and collected all the money with interest. Then he began an action ON CALEDONIA ROAD 93 against his own lawyer for overcharging, and he beat him, too. " Pettit was a man of deep-set characteristics. I remem- ber that, when I set to work on the case for him, I went to his house at Wellington Square, and went over the ground. From there I desired to go to Milton nine miles away. " ' I will drive you over,' said old man Pettit. " ' Thank you,' said I. " He hitched up a horse and drove me the nine miles to Milton. When we arrived at Milton I alighted, thank- ing him, and bade him good-day. '"Just a minute,' said he. ' I'd hke $i.ySt please.' " ' What for ? ' said I. " • For driving you over,' said he. " ' But I am working on your case,' said I. " ' I know that,' said he, ' so I used my son's rig and the bill is $1.7$-' " I paid it. If he had made it $2 he could have put it into gold." XVII THE DRIVERLESS TEAM ON CALEDONIA ROAD A LONG road of many turnings leads out of the town of Caledonia, fifty-five miles beyond Toronto, and winds its way through the county of Haldimand. In parts it is broad and open, and in parts it is narrow and shaded. One evening, in December, 1875, a waggon drawn by two horses, moved out this road. No driver was visible. The horses jogged along of their own accord, the reins hanging loose from the seat and flapping as the horses went their way. Some cows passed, and the horses turned out to give them part of the road. Then on they went as if a driver handled the reins. Night fell, and in the darkness the waggon rumbled on. Lights flashed out in farmhouses along the way and voices were heard in 94 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE the darkness. The driverless team plodded on until they came to a broad pathway of light shining out across the highway through the open door of a farmhouse, standing close by the road. The team stopped in this light. A dog rushed out, sniffed at the horses, then at the waggon, and fell to barking furiously. A farmer appeared in the doorway, and shouted to the dog to be silent. He saw the team standing in the light, and called out a cheery good-night. There was no answer. The dog whined, and ran to and fro, and darted out to the waggon, and began barking again, more excitedly than before. The farmer, standing in the doorway, shaded his eyes with his hand and peered out into the night. " Anything wrong ? " he called towards the waggon. No answer came. He called again. When no one answered he walked down to the waggon, looked it over, saw no one, then stepped up on the hub of a wheel, and looked in to see what load it carried. All he saw was a big, black bundle lying in the bed of the waggon beneath the seat. He called to those in the house, and they took a lantern to him. He held it over the waggon bed, and the bundle took the form of a man, doubled over. The farmer clambered into the waggon, set the lantern beside the figure, undoubled it, and took the man's head in his hands. An ugly wound was slashed across the head. The body had a faint warmth, but the eyes were dim- ming fast, and, as the farmer held the injured head, the eyes glazed, the jaw set, and death came. The dead man was a stranger to the farmer. He car- ried the body into his house, and sent for doctors, who came and found the unknown dead. The team and waggon were not recognised by any one who looked at them. The dead man was past fifty years of age, evi- dently a well-to-do farmer of the better type. There was nothing in his belongings to identify him. A strange team had come jogging out of the darkness with a dying stranger, halted in the light, and waited for death to over- take him. Murray, who had been busy on the evidence in the ON CALEDONIA ROAD 95 Findlay and Pettit cases, as well as travelling from one end to another of the province on various other matters, was notified through the Department of Justice by telegraph, and straightway went to the place where the stranger lay dead. " To learn who he was, of course, was the first thing," says Murray. " The country folk gathered rapidly for miles around, and soon there were several who knew him. He was Abel McDonald, a prosperous farmer, who lived in the township of Walpole, about eighteen miles away. There were some bags in the waggon, and the team had been travelling on the road leading out of Caledonia. A tour of the town of Caledonia resulted in learning that the old man had driven into town on the day of his death, with a load of wheat, had sold it, and started home at twilight. He had about ^35 with him when he last was seen in Caledonia. No money was found on him or in his waggon. An inquest was held, but no evidence of value had developed. " The fact that Caledonia was a little place, where everybody knew everybody, aided me. I set out to ac- count for the whereabouts of almost everybody in or around Caledonia about the time of the murder. I went from house to house, talking to every one. Finally I learned that John Young and William James Young, his nephew, two farmers with none too good a reputation, who lived in the township of Ancaster, over the moun- tain five or six miles from Hamilton, were among the people seen on this road on the day of the murder. John Young was about thirty-five years old, a big, burly, powerful fellow, and William James Young, his nephew, was about twenty-two years old, and a well-built, good- looking young fellow. I found a man who knew them, who had seen them going out the road before McDonald started home, and I found other witnesses who had seen them later coming back along this road, walking. " The two Youngs went with two Barber girk in Cale- donia, and were at their house after they were seen coming back on the Walpole road. It was slim evidence on which to arrest them, but it was wiser to get them 96 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE into gaol, so they were arrested. When arraigned before Magistrate John Scott they laughed and scoffed at the evidence. In truth, we had barely enough evidence to commit them for trial. But we had enough, although none to spare, and they were held. I saw I had an uphill job. The Barber girls were prepared to swear that the Youngs were with them, and could not have been near the scene of the murder. I .went over the road foot by foot. I found the club used to kill McDonald. It was hid under a fence. I found also the sapling from which it had been cut. In fact, it was a young tree about two inches in diameter, and I had both the roots of the tree and the club itself in court at the trial. I had the road surveyed, and the scene of the murder located ex- actly. This was all very good, but it was not enough to convict the Youngs beyond any doubt in a jury's mind. " So I sent over to Buffalo in New York State, and brought over a friend of mine, Hugh Massey a former member of the Buffalo police force. I got Massey before Major Hugh Stewart, then warden of the county and justice of the peace, and had him committed to gaol for sixty days. He was locked up in a cell near the Youngs, and in due time he ingratiated himself into their confi- dence. I had studied the Youngs, and had come to the conclusion that a clever man, if unsuspected, could draw their story from them. I was right. Massey got the whole story out of them. They told him how they had been in Caledonia, and had seen the old man with his money, how they went out the road ahead of him, how John cut the club, with the knife found on him when he was arrested, how they waited about two and a half miles from the town, how they jumped on McDonald's waggon when he drove along, how John struck him over the head with the club, how they robbed him, left him in the bottom of the waggon, started the horses, jumped out, and returned to Caledonia. I had Mr. Lawrence, gov- ernor of the gaol, and the turnkey to hear the story. " The trial occurred in March, 1876, before Judge Adam Wilson, at Cayuga. John Idington, now County Crown Attorney of Stratford, prosecuted, and Attorney ON CALEDONIA ROAD 97 Duff, of Hamilton, defended. It was a long, tedious case. They sought to prove an alibi by the Barber girls, just as I expected. The Crown swore over eighty witnesses, and we disproved the alibi. Massey, on the stand, told his story in such a straightforward way that, not only the jury, but every one who heard him, believed him. Late on the night of March 27th, 1876, the jury brought in a verdict of guilty. Both Youngs were sentenced to be hanged. John Young was a desperate man, and after the sentence the governor of the gaol was instructed to put a special guard over the two men, to make sure they would not escape. The governor was a well-meaning and honourable old fellow, but he had an idea he knew his business better than any one could tell him. Sure enough, the Youngs broke goal and got away. The question was, who was responsible ? I was instructed to investigate, in connection with the inspector of prisons. Governor Lawrence was removed. In those days the sheriff had the appointment of gaolers, but now the Gov- ernment appoints them. " The Youngs made their way by night to some re- mote place, beyond reach of those who tried to find them. I immediately thought of the Barber girls, and sent word to watch them. They were seen going to a thick wood some distance from Caledonia. They went to meet the Youngs, who had secreted themselves in an old barn in the woods. This barn was filled to the top with hay. The Hamilton police were notified, and they went out to the barn, and, after a stubborn revolver fight, captured the Youngs, and they were taken back to Cayuga gaol." In September, 1876, Murray went to Philadelphia, for a month at the Centennial, where James Tilley, of New York, was chief of the detective department at the Exposition. Tilley was a fast friend of Murray, and had been endeavouring to have him join the corps of de- tectives, culled from all over the country, and stay during the entire Centennial, but Murray was so busy in Canada that the Government spared him for only one month, September. 98 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE "While I was in Philadelphia, on September 21st, 1876, John Young was hanged at Cayuga," says Murray, " and James Young's sentence was commuted to im- prisonment for life. Sixteen years later I was in Cale- donia one pleasant afternoon on a matter, and had to wait an hour for a train. I strolled over the big bridge across the grand river, while waiting for the train. In the middle of the bridge stood a man, gazing into the water flowing beneath. I got just a side glance of him as he turned his head away, but I said to myself : ' If James Young was not in the Penitentiary that would be he.' I turned back and looked at him. He walked away. I went back to my hotel, and said to the landlord, ' If I did not know James Young was in the Penitentiary I would swear I saw him on the bridge.' " ' Yes,' said the landlord, ' he's pardoned, and is around looking at the old familiar places for the first time in many years.' " ' I am sorry not to have talked to him,' said I, and if my train had not been almost due I would have gone back and had a chat with him, for he seemed lonely." XVIII APROPOS OF HUNKER CHISHOLM When Murray arrived in Toronto his attention was called to a series of horse-stealings occurring in several adjoining counties. None but fiie finest horses dis- appeared. " I went to investigate," says Murray, " and I met one of the most picturesque old crooks I ever became ac- quainted with. His name was Chisholm, George Chis- holm, called by some of his friends. Hunker. He was an inveterate horse thief. He simply could not help it. In the many years I knew him he never stole anything else, but out of sixty years of hfe he spent about forty years in prison, all for stealing horses. APROPOS OF HUNKER CHISHOLM 99 " Chisholm stole horses to order. Sometimes he would read the papers for advertisements of men who wanted to buy horses. He would cut out the description of a horse, go around the country hunting for an animal to match the description, and when he found such a horse he would steal it and go and sell it to the man who advertised. Sometimes he would spot or locate a fine horse, and would go and look him over carefully. Then he would go to some other county and hunt for a purchaser. He would describe the horse exactly as he was, and if the pros- pective purchaser seemed pleased and told him to bring the horse around, Chisholm would disappear, steal the horse, and in a few days reappear and sell him. He never stole anything else. He never was a born burglar except for horses. He never robbed a house. He simply was a horse thief. From time to time he would get caught and sent down to a stiff term, but at its expiration he would bob up serenely, and horses would begin to disappear again. " When I was investigating the horse thefts I recalled that a tailor named Spellman had been arrested in the town of Vienna, in the county of Elgin, and accused of arson. The chief witnesses against him were Chisholm and an acquaintance of his named Bloom. He was con- victed chiefly on their evidence, and was sentenced to seven years in the Penitentiary. I heard about it and made inquiries, and satisfied myself that Spellman was innocent. I interested County Judge Hughes, and finally had the tailor pardoned, after he served a considerable length of time. Meanwhile Chisholm had landed back in the clutches of the law himself. The same old charge was against him — horse-stealing. He was convicted and sentenced under another name. " About this time the Government began to receive letters regularly from an inmate of the Penitentiary regarding crimes that had been committed. A day or two after any big burglary or murder or other crime occurred, a letter would come from Kingston Penitentiary ofTering to reveal the names of the perpetrators. In 1876 an obstruction was placed on the tracks of the Canada loo MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE Southern Railroad, and in the wreck that followed Engineer Billy Hunt was killed. Three days later came a letter to the Government, and a letter also to the solicitor of the Canada Southern, signed James Clark, from the correspondent in Kingston Penitentiary. Both letters were turned over to me. Clark offered to reveal the names and get the evidence to convict those who did the job. I told the Government officials that I did not be- lieve the letter, but I went to Kingston and the warden sent for James Clark. Who walked in but old Chisholm ! I looked at him as he hopped blithesomely along, and I could hardly keep from laughing. " ' What is your name ? ' I asked. " ' James Clark,' said he. " ' This is your correspondence ? ' I asked, producing various letters to the Government on numerous cases. " ' Yes, I wrote them,' said he. " • Chisholm,' said I, ' you are as big a fraud as you ever were.' " Old Chisholm stared with open mouth. Then he slapped me on the shoulder. " ' Murray, be a man ! Be a man ! ' he said. ' Liberty is sweet. Don't betray me.' " ' Chisholm,' said I, ' I could forgive you everything if you had not sent Spellman, the tailor, to the Penitenti- ary for burning that barn, when you know he didn't do it.' " ' Oh no, oh no. He did do it,' insisted the lying old rascal. " ' Well, Chisholm, I intend to put a stop to your writing all over the country with these bunko letters,' said I. - I'll tell the warden not to send out any more of them. Try to get pardoned some other way, but stop trying to put up jobs to land innocent men in prison simply in hope of getting yourself out.' " Old Chisholm looked at me sadly. •"And to think, I thought you were a man, Murray,' he said. ' I honestly thought you were a man. Here am I, in prison, giving you a chance to be a man and get me out, and you won't take it. Well, well, Murray. I'm disappointed in you.' THE WHITESIDES OF BALLINAFAD loi " I left him wagging his head in seeming sorrow. But he did not stop writing letters. He wrote as before, im- mediately after hearing of a crime. Nothing was done any- where in the criminal line, but old Chisholm, upon hear- ing of it, wrote a letter stating he knew the very man or men who did it. He always added a postscript after my visit. It read : ' Don't tell Murray about this.' " He got out when his term expired. He stole some more horses and promptly went back again. When ar- raigned and asked to state his residence, Chisholm an- swered : ' The Penitentiary.' In truth he spent two- thirds of his sixty years there. Even then, he was away from home about ten years too much. A man like Hunker Chisholm should stay at home indoors about fifty out of sixty years. " I met later an old, old man who had been Chisholm's teacher in his boyhood. He told me that at school Chisholm stole slate pencils from every one. He stole nothing but slate pencils. When kept in after school or about to be punished he invariably informed the school- master that there was a plot on foot among some of the other pupils to do mischief, and if he was not punished he would tell who the plotters were. This worked at first, and several times innocent boys were punished, just as the innocent tailor, Spellman, was sent to prison. But eventually the schoolmaster got on to Chisholm, al- though Chisholm kept it up to his last day of school life. The slate pencils of his boyhood symbolised the horses of his manhood.'' XIX THE WHITESIDES OF BALLINAFAD Murray's first year with the Canada Government won for him the praise of those in authority. He had con- victed the guilty, despite powerful influences exerted to acquit them ; he had established throughout the Province the understanding that a man who committed a crime I02 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE and fled, would be followed and brought back and pun- ished. He had failed in no case ; he had solved every mystery arising ; and perpetrators of crimes had been brought to justice. " There were many more cases than those I have men- tioned," says Murray. " I was busy day in and day out; ever on the go ; always working. I remember in Au- gust, 1876, just after my first year had been rounded out, I sat down to look over again my records for the year, when a telegram told of the Ballinafad murder." Ballinafad was a mite of a hamlet in the township of Esquesing, county of Halton, near Georgetown, about forty miles from Toronto. On the finest timber-tract in that part of the country lived John Whiteside, an old man in his sixty-eighth year. He was regarded as a miser. Instead of gold, land was his god. All that he could rake or scrape or get together went to buy land. He worshipped his timber. He would walk through his woods, rubbing his hands and chuckling. He would sit by the base of a big tree, his cheek pressed affectionately against its trunk. He would fall prone upon the earth with limbs outstretched and murmur : " Mine, mine, mine." " Sometimes he would pause and pat a tree as if it were a little child," says Murray. " A broken bough caused him as much distress as if a child had broken a limb. His forest was his family, and his trees were his little ones. He loved them. Sometimes in the night, when the wind was moaning in the tree-tops, or the for- est was swaying in the song of the gale, the old man would steal out of the house, bareheaded, and listen as if the wind-music were a lullaby. " He had a wife, and sons and daughters. He seemed to be so engrossed in his timber and his land that he gave little heed to his family. A number of his children went away, leaving his wife and second son, Harry, and a daughter at home. It was alleged that the old man barely permitted them to have the actual necessaries of life. He had his house in a little clearing, with his tim- ber towering all around. THE WHITESIDES OF BALLINAFAD 103 " One night he stepped outside, as he had done so often. It was a black night. He did not return. A neighbour, passing in the dim dawn, hailed the house, and when the family opened the door they saw the old man lying near by, dead. His head had been chopped open with a single blow, followed by others, in the dark. The axe was found near by, with some of his grey hairs on it. " The son Harry was arrested, and I also arrested the wife, Harry's mother. At the inquest they gave evi- dence that the dogs barked in the night, the old man went out and did not come back, and that was all they knew about it. The magistrate remanded them from time to time, and they were held in Milton gaol for a considerable period. " It was a difficult case, and there was not sufficient evidence for conviction then. I called from time to time to see them. On one of my visits, as I approached in the corridor I heard a hacking cough. " ' Who is that ? ' I asked. " ' Harry Whiteside,' was the reply. " I looked him over more carefully than on previous visits. His eyes were bright, and in each cheek a pink spot glowed. I saw the mother, and her eyes and cheeks were like those of her son. Nothing more was done to- wards convicting them. They were released. Quietly I made regular trips to the vicinity of their place. I could hear from quite a distance the coughing — dry, hard, and hacking — of the son. I used to stand a mo- ment and listen, then softly go away. One day I went and waited, and heard nothing. I drove to the cemetery, and he was there — asleep forever. " The mother lived on. I had gathered together what evidence I had been able to find, and I held it pending a series of occasional visits to where she was living. I never annoyed her by my presence. I could stand off some distance and listen and learn all that I desired to know. Occasionally I would get a glimpse of her as she appeared, very white and feeble, by the door in a big chair, to get the sunlight. She went very slowly, far I04 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE more deliberately than her son. He had galloped from the gaol to the grave ; she plodded along a weary way. But at last she, too, ceased coughing, and was borne away. " Consumption had killed both of them. The Crown had done its full duty, in so far as the evidence war- ranted. The malady was hereditary in the family, and seized violently upon both mother and son soon after the old man was murdered. I visited the vicinity, to make sure there was no shamming, and to ascertain whether, on the eve of the arrival of death, any farewell word was to be uttered. I remember vividly the occasions on which I stood in the background hstening while mother and son coughed their lives away." XX THE MONAGHAN MURDER Fence-rail robberies were quite a fad in part of Can- ada early in 1876. The robbers selected isolated houses, in the farming districts, where occupants were prosperous and apt to have money on the premises. In the night the robbers would drive up near the house, take a stout fence-rail, batter in the door, with loud shouts, terrify the family into submission and ransack the rooms, after threatening the family with death, if they did not tell where the money and valuables were concealed. The robbers then would drive away with their plunder, noti- fying the family they would return and shoot them like dogs if they dared to give an alarm. Old folk usually were the victims. " In March, 1876," says Murray, " there were living in the township of Warwick, county of Lambton, two brothers, Patrick Monaghan and Michael Monaghan, sturdy old Irishmen, both over fifty, and within a few years of the same age. They were bachelors, prosper- ous and industrious. Their widowed sister, Mrs. Mc- THE MONAGHAN MURDER 105 Guire, kept house for them. About March loth a big snowfall came, and the Monaghan brothers went early to bed and soon were asleep. They occupied the one bed. An old rifle hung above the bed on the wall. It had not been fired for over five years. " A crash at the front door awakened them in the dead of night. It was followed by shouts and curses, then an- other crash, and the front door banged open and in rushed three strange men. " ' Get down on your knees ! ' they shouted with oaths. " Michael Monaghan leaped out of bed, grabbed the old rifle and rushed to meet them. They met face to face in the big room, in the darkness save for the flash of their lantern. They saw a figure in white, with a long rifle pointed at them. " ' Stand back and get out ! ' commanded the figure. " A second white figure with an axe loomed up as Patrick joined Michael. " ' Out, or I'll shoot ! ' said Michael. " A revolver spat a flash of flame in the darkness. Michael fell, shot through the leg. The robbers fled. Patrick bent over Michael. " • Good-bye, Pat, I'm done for,' said Michael. " The bullet had cut an artery in Michael's leg and he bled to death. I was detailed by the Government at once. I drove to the Monaghans, and there I tramped all around the house and the road in the heavy snow of the day of the murder. I came upon the track of a cutter that had been hitched not far from the house. No neigh- bours had hitched a cutter there. Tracks led from it to the fence, where a rail had been taken, and thence the tracks led to the Monaghan house and then back to the cutter. " I took the trail of the cutter. A piece evidently had been broken out of the shoe of the cutter for it left a mark on the snow as if it had been split. I observed also a peculiar mark in the print of a foot of one of the horses. Evidently it interfered for it had been shod so that a cross-bar showed singularly on the shoe. With these two marks to identify the trail, I started at once. I io6 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE went to Brantford and followed the tracks to London, to the house of a woman known as Mary Ann Taylor. I followed also the tracks of the cutter as it drove to the Monaghan farm over twenty-five miles from London. In Brantford I immediately set out to find the cutter. In the stable of Liveryman Hewitt I found a Portland cutter that had a split about six inches long in the hind part of the shoe. In searching the cutter we found the shell of a cartridge that fitted the bullet found in Monaghan's leg. I learned that three men hired a team in the even- ing. They wanted two good travellers. A cross- matched pair, one white and one black, were offered. They objected to taking the white horse, and a dark bay horse was substituted. They drove that night to Lon- don, over forty miles away and the horses were put up at Lewis's Hotel in London. " Mary Ann Taylor had no information to give me. Among the girls who lived in her house was a very pretty German girl named Polly Ripple. She came from Brook- lyn in the State of New York. I learned that three men had stopped at Mary Ann Taylor's and had some beer and then drove on along the road that led to Monaghan's. I found a witness who saw three men in a cutter at Hickory Corners, a few miles out on the way. On the night of the murder, Polly Ripple was late for the mid- night meal at Mary Ann Taylor's, and she said Mary Ann was serving three men. Polly swore she saw them and heard them mimic the Irishmen, Monaghan. " ' Arrah, Mike, are you shot ? ' the one was saying. " ' Shure, I am, Pat,' said another. " The upshot of all my work was the arrest in London of Daniel McPhee and Robert Murray, and the arrest in Brantford on May isth, 1876, of Robert Greeny. On May 1 8th they were committed to Sarnia gaol to stand trial. Before the trial, Polly Ripple disappeared. I went to her old home in Brooklyn' and through her friends there I located her in Rochester, where she was living with a Mrs. Jennings. I went to Rochester to see her, but pretty Polly said she would not go back to Canada for all the diamonds in the world. I could not take her THE MONAGHAN' MURDER 107 back. So I set out to get her back by strategy. I learned the name of a young fellow in Rochester on whom pretty Polly was sweet. I quickly got in with him and arranged for him to take pretty Polly to Niagara Falls on an excursion. When they arrived at the Falls they crossed to the Canada side to get a better view of the cataract, and pretty Polly was taken in charge by a respectable woman who made sure she would be present at the trial. " Bob Murray, who was a big fine-looking fellow, of respectable family, got out on bail and did not appear for trial. In those days I could not get them back from the States, as I could later. At the trial Arthur Sturgis Hardy, the late Premier of the Province, then a Queen's Counsel and a Member of Parliament, defended the pris- oners, and the present Judge MacMahon was prosecutor. Mr. Hardy and I had quite a tiff at this trial and it was some months before we made peace. But we became good friends and later he became Attorney-General and head of the Department of Justice. " When pretty Polly Ripple came to tell her story on the stand I cautioned her to tell the truth, the naked truth. She did not vary from her story of the men in Mary Ann Taylor's and she saw them plainly and heard them mimic the Monaghans. Mr. Hardy's cross-exami- nation of her dealt with details of her life in Mary Ann Taylor's, and she answered truthfully about the life of shame, and some of its particular degradations, and the judge became disgusted. I pitied poor, pretty Polly, who told the naked truth. Greeny and McPhee were ac- quitted. Bob Murray was not tried, as he was shot and killed in Port Huron by a fellow named Tom Britton, a brother of Royal Britton. Tom Britton was not con- victed for the shooting, and he, too, is dead. Dan Mc- Phee went to Australia ; he was a horseman. Greeny is a hotel-keeper in the United States. He is one of the men in this world who do not feel kindly towards me. " After the Monaghan affair it was a long time before I heard of another fence-rail robbery, and it was not in this part of the world at all. So far as Greeny and Mc- io8 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE Phee were concerned their acquittal of course established, in the eyes of the law, their innocence. Pretty Polly Ripple went back to the United States, and Mary Ann Taylor was as uncommunicative in after years as she was in 1876, and compared with Mary Ann at that time an oyster was loquacious and a clam was a garrulous, talk- ative thing." XXI THE SIX-FOOT NEEDHAMS: FATHER AND SON While Murray was trailing the cutter in the Monaghan case he passed on the road near London a swarthy giant who waved to him as he vanished in the woods. He was a man of colossal build, over six feet tall, with a massive frame and huge head and shoulders. His skin was copper, and his tread, despite his great size, was light and panther-like. His hair was jet-black, coarse and glossy. When Murray waved in response the man's voice called back a cheery welcome, followed by a perfect imitation of the barking of a fox. " He was young Needham," says Murray, " and thereby hangs a tale that recurs to me every time I see an Indian who is fearless, or a bully that is beaten. The Need- hams, father and son, were Indians. Both of them were giants in build and strength. Either one of them could pick up a two hundred pound man, and toss him over the fence as if he were a bag of buckwheat. They lived in an out-of-the-way place in the county of Elgin, but roamed all over that part of Canada. One interesting feature of their appearance was they looked so much alike that many people mistook them for one another and could not tell them apart. In fact, they looked more like twin brothers than like father and son. Both were superb specimens of physical manhood, and their con- stant trudging about the country kept their muscles hard as steel. THE SIX-FOOT NEEDHAMS 109 " The father was called Doc Needham. He was not a regular practitioner, but was an Indian herb doctor. A great many people believed in his naedicines, and there were tales of marvellous cures he had wrought. One legend was that with three drops of the essence of a certain root he had restored to life a man who was about to be buried. The son helped the father. He dug roots and gathered herbs, and kept the medicine pot boiling, and accompanied his father on some of his trips around the country, particularly to county fairs. They came to be a feature at these fairs and their fame spread far and wide. Sometimes they drew crowds for their medicine- sellings, by short exhibitions, in which the father and son both displayed, in small degree, the great strength they possessed. They were a peaceable pair and never sought trouble. " At the township fair in Wallace, county of Elgin, in 1874, the Needhams were present with their supply of herbs. Crowds gathered to see their exhibition and to buy their medicines. Among those at the fair was Harry Fitzsimmons, a big fellow, built like a bull, with thick neck and deep chest and heavy head. He claimed to be a fighter, and prided himself he could lick any man in the county. He had a boon companion with him that day, George Lipsey. Lipsey was something of a fighter himself, but deferred to Fitzsimmons as the king of the county when it came to a fight. Fitz was bent on trouble. He thrashed that day two or three husky country fellows who had thought they could fight. Then, flushed with his easy victories and a stranger to defeat, he came upon the Needhams, father and son, busy with their medicines. Fitz's brow clouded. He had heard of the Needhams and their feats of strength until he was sick of the tales of their prowess. He would show the countryside that Fitzsimmons was master. He tried to pick a fight. The Needhams ignored him. Fitz and Lipsey grew boister- ous and the Needhams moved away. They followed. Young Needham could be seen speaking earnestly to his father, who shook his head sternly. Fitz and Lipsey persisted in annoying the pair, and at last Doc Needham no MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE nodded to his son. Young Needham doffed his coat and slipped over to within ten feet of Fitz and Lipsey. Fitz spied him and bore down upon him with a rush. The crowd fell back and the strong arm of Doc Needham drew Lipsey back as if he were a child, and kept him out of the fray. It was a fight for gods and men. Young Needham, light-footed and graceful, played around the bull-like Fitz, dodging his blows, evading his rushes, until with sudden swoop of arms and stiffening of body he seized Fitz, banged him upon the earth with terrific thud, then heaved him upward and tossed him, literally threw him, full fifteen feet, as a man would hurl a heavy hammer. As he struck the earth young Needham was on him like a panther, and he dug a hole in the Wallace Fair grounds, using the face and head of Fitz as a spade. When he finished, he picked him up again and slammed him down, and the mighty Fitz lay still, with a zigzag gash on his cheek. " Doc Needham released Lipsey, who cared for his beaten crony, fanning his face, resuscitating him, and leading him away. The Needhams, amid the plaudits of the crowd, resumed their medicine vending. They were not molested again, but in the evening Fitz limped over to their stand with Lipsey and shook his fist at young Needham. " ' I'll get even with you,' he said. ' I'll break every bone in your body.' " Young Needham leaped at him, the whole savage in his being aroused, but the giant arms of Doc Needham closed on his boy and held him as a mother could clutch her child, and those who saw it beheld, for the first and last time, which of the two Needhams was the mightier man. " ' Go away or I'll loose him,' said Doc Needham, and Fitz and Lipsey limped away. " But for Doc Needham there would have been murder at the Wallace Fair that day. " Some time after the vanquishing of Fitz, Doc Need- ham and his son were in St. Thomas. They had their own team. They took a little fire-water before they THE SIX-FOOT NEEDHAMS in started home. They stopped, on their way home, at the tavern by Kittlecreek Bridge, on the outskirts of St. Thomas. Young Needham alighted before reaching the tavern and started off to see a man on business. Doc Needham drove up to the tavern and stopped. In a bag in his waggon he had an axe-head and some pork, both of which he had bought in St. Thomas. When he drove away from the tavern, Fitz and Lipsey jumped into the waggon, grabbed the bag containing the pork and axe- head, and while one tried to hold Doc Needham the other beat him over the head with the bag and killed him. They mistook him for his son and thought they were beating young Needham. " They escaped in the darkness and got out of the country. This had occurred before I began to work for the Government, but I took up the case. Doc Needham was popular throughout the entire country round about. I sent circulars all over Canada and the United States describing Fitz and Lipsey. Young Needham had marked Fitz for identification in the fight at the Wallace Fair. Through a stray letter I got track of Fitz out near Red Wing in Minnesota. I went after him, taking Gov- ernor John King of the St. Thomas gaol with me to identify him. Governor King knew Fitz well, as Fitz had worked for him at one time. King and I arrived in Red Wing late at night. We had a double-bedded room. It was late in November. King snored like a hippopota- mus and I could not sleep, so I arose at the first sign of dawn and went out to find a barber's shop. I walked the silent streets of Red Wing for about an hour, when a barber's shop opened and I started for it. As I crossed the street an enormous fellow came slouching along and entered the shop. He had a full beard and long hair. I followed him into the shop. I waited while the barber was cutting his hair. He sat with his eyes shut, and as I studied him in the mirror, the description I had of Fitz seemed to fit, bit by bit, to the bearded giant in the chair. " I recalled the zigzag scar on the cheek, and waited while the barber's shears snipped, snipped, snipped at the hair. The man fell asleep in the chair. He must have 112 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE been up all night. He snored and the barber smiled. A voice outside began shouting : ' Joe ! Joe ! ' The barber answered by going to the door and calling : ' Yes, in a minute.' The man outside yelled again, and, with a glance at his sleeping customer, the barber laid down his shears and stepped out. I waited. If I only knew whether there was a zigzag scar on the sleeper's cheek. I tiptoed to the door and looked out. The barber was talking busily to a man in a waggon. I tiptoed back to where the sleeper snored in the chair. His head was on one side. The scissors were within easy reach. He snored. I seized the scissors, moved them close to his cheek, snipped and quickly laid them down and resumed my seat. He snored on. I stood up, and there, where the hair had been cut away, I saw the outhne of a zigzag scar. I arose and walked out of the shop. The barber called to me as I passed him. " ' I'll be back presently,' said I. " I simply located the gaol accurately and returned to the barber's shop. The giant was just getting out of the chair, and was raging at the barber for slashing his beard so close on the cheeks. " ' I said to trim it on the chin, not the cheeks,' he growled. " I walked out with him. He growled at me about the barber, and said I did right to leave without a shave. " ' What might your name be, friend ? ' I finally asked him. " ' Church,' he said ; ' and I'm bound down the river instanter.' " It was a desperate situation. I was sure he was Fitz. Yet I might be mistaken. I must find some way to hold him until I could get Governor King to look him over. The giant refused an invitation to drink or breakfast. He was angry and determined to get out of town at once. An idea struck me. "•Well, Church,' said I; 'I am sorry, but I want you.' " • Want me ? What for ? ' he roared. THE SIX-FOOT NEEDHAMS 113 " ' You stole a canoe and a coil of rope down river last night,' said I. " ' You're a liar,' said he, in a rage. " ' It's not what I say, it's what a fellow over here says,' said I. " ' Over where ? ' growled the giant. ' Show him to me.' " • Come on,' said I. ' Face him, and make him face you.' " The ugly bully side of the man was aroused. For once in his life, whoever he was, he had been accused wrongfully and was innocent. He would wreak his vengeance on his accuser. " The court-house and gaol were in the centre of the square. A man stood in the doorway. We approached, I walking ahead, and I quickly said to him ; ' I want the sheriff.' " ' He's just getting up,' was the reply. " ' Well, he'd better be quick about it,' rumbled my companion, who had not heard my question, and who thought I had asked for the man who had made the charge of stealing against him. " The man in the doorway was the turnkey. Without a word he opened the door and we entered, and the door clanged shut behind us. " ' Wait here,' I told my huge friend, and I went in and saw the sheriff. " Chandler was his name. He was a bachelor, a fine man, and was serving his third term as sheriff. I told him my whole story : that I was an officer from Canada, and that I had a man charged with murder. The sheriff was very nice. He called Church in, told him to step into the next room, and when he did so, locked him in. I hurried back to the hotel and awakened Governor King. " • I've got Fitz,' said I. " ' Nonsense,' said he. ' You don't even know him when you see him.' " ' Come to the gaol,' said I. " Governor King dressed in a jiffy. On the way to the gaol I told him the story. I reminded him that, if it 114 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE was not Fitz, all he needed to say was that he was not the man who stole the canoe and rope. If it was Fitz, he should give him a nice talk about the folks at home, and how the people felt, and jolly him along, as we could not take him back, under the circumstances, unless he was willing to go. We entered the gaol. We could hear a thunderous roaring. It was my friend Church, bellowing in rage over being locked in. King went to the door. Church spied him. " • Hello, Harry,' said Governor King. " ' Hello, governor,' said Fitz, meek as a lamb, and no longer roaring. " They shook hands and talked for an hour. I break- fasted with the sheriff. Fitz consented to return to Canada, after talking with King. We started that night. The news of a murderer being arrested spread like wild- fire. When we left the gaol over two thousand people were waiting to see the murderer from Canada. The crowd grew rapidly, until the entire town and many from round about followed us to the train. A number boarded the train and rode to the next station. We rode in the smoker that night, and in the morning a fellow passenger told me that a lawyer from Milwaukee had heard of the matter and would try to make trouble for me with my prisoner. Fitz and King and I still were riding in the smoker at that time. " ' Harry,' said I to Fitz, ' a shyster is coming in here soon to make trouble for you. Give him a short an- swer.' " Presently in came the Milwaukee lawyer, with a high hat and lofty air. " ' Where is this prisoner charged with murder they are going to take to Canada ? ' he demanded in a loud voice. " No one answered. He spotted Harry. " • My man,' he said to Fitz, • don't you know you have a right in this country, and only the President can have you taken out ? What are you charged with ? ' " ' Kissing a mule's tail. Ain't you glad you found out ? ' said Fitz, at the top of his voice. THE SIX-FOOT NEEDHAMS 115 "Everybody in the car laughed. The lawyer from Milwaukee grew red as a beet. " ' You ought to be hung ! ' he snorted, and everybody laughed again. " As our train near home crossed Kittlecreek Bridge, Fitz pointed out the tavern and started to tell me about the murder. I told him not to tell me. He was con- victed of manslaughter, and was sentenced to ten years in the Penitentiary. " All four men who were figures in the fight at the Wallace Fair came to tragic ends. Doc Needham was murdered ; Fitzsimmons died in the Penitentiary ; Lipsey was killed in a circus row in a Western State; young Needham was killed in 1902, up near Spring Bank, not far from London. Spring Bank was a picnic place near the Indian Reserve at Muncietown. Young Needham, no longer young, was there with numerous Indians on a holiday, in August, 1902. He was drinking at the pump. Big McCarter, of London, was there, and he ordered Needham away from the pump. Needham refused to go. It was about ten o'clock at night. McCarter said he would make him go. Needham stood off to meet him. Everybody fell back to make room for the fight. They were fighting, when suddenly Needham, who had been untouched, fell like a log. McCarter kicked him savagely as he lay, and when they picked young Need- ham up, he was beyond need of aid. " McCarter was arrested. An autopsy was held. It showed several of Needham's ribs had been kicked in ; but it showed also, according to the testimony of those who performed the autopsy, that the direct cause of death was heart failure. Big McCarter was tried at the Fall Assizes in 1902 and acquitted. The autopsy saved him. It also saved young Needham's record, and sent him to his grave unbeaten." ii6 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE XXII PRETTY MARY WARD OF THE GOVERNMENT GARDENS A WINDOW of Murray's office in the Department of Justice in the old time Government building in Toronto, looked out on the flower gardens, the gravel walks and close-;cropped lawns and luxuriant shade trees of the Government grounds. Daily, the old gardener, and his wife might be seen working in the grounds. Early in 1876 a new face appeared in the gardens, amid the flow- ers. It was a face so winsome and sweet that it seemed to have caught the fragrant beauty of the flowers, with roses blooming in the cheeks and violets nestling in the big dark eyes. She came and went with her uncle and aunt, and gradually became a familiar figure as she delved in the flower beds or gathered bunches of blooms. The girl had come out from England in the early part of the year. She came to make her home in the New World with her aunt and uncle, who kept the Govern- ment gardens. Aboard ship, on the way out, she met Ebenezer Ward. Ward was a big, handsome, well-to-do cattleman, about thirty-four years old. He owned a fine farm in the township of Caledon, in the county of Peel, about thirty miles from Toronto, and his family was highly respected in that part of the country. They were prosperous farmers and came of very nice English people. Ebenezer was a bachelor. He was shrewd and indus- trious. He bought and sold cattle and also was a butcher. He visited England in the fall of 1875, and was on his way home when he met the pretty English lass on her way to Toronto. From his window Murray could see, of an occasional bright afternoon, the pretty girl of the flower gardens walking in the shady paths with a large handsome fel- low, and at times their happy laughter rang out, and once, amid the flowers, the big man took her in his arms and lifted her up and kissed her. Soon after, she went away, and Murray saw her no more. The old woman PRETTY MARY WARD 117 said she had married Ward, and they were living happily on his farm in the county of Peel. The old woman de- lighted to tell of her niece Mary's fine home and farm. She would dwell on the beauties of the large log house, with a cellar the entire length, with a good barn and all the desired outbuildings, even to a fine modern dairy ; but above all was the house, with the cellar its entire length, and the grandest of new furniture, including a big, new Gurney range, bought in Toronto and sent to the farm. Moreover, Mary had her own maid, a girl named Jennie Morrison, the fifteen-year-old daughter of a neighbouring farmer. Mary wrote frequently to her aunt, telling of how devoted her husband was, how he spent much of his time with her, and how happy she was in her new home and new life. One day the old woman, brimful of joy, called cheerily up to Murray's window that Mary Ward was coming to visit her that day. The day passed, but Mary Ward did not come. About one o'clock that night a red glow lighted the skies in the township of Caledon. It grew and deepened as the great tongues of flame leaped up from the home of Ebenezer Ward and licked the night. A naked figure burst through the doorway and fled across the fields a half mile to his father's house. It was Ebenezer Ward. He rolled over at intervals as he ran and his body was marked with many burns. " My house is on fire ! " he shouted, as he fell ex- hausted in his father's house. " Where is Mary ? " they asked. " The last I saw of her, she was at the door, going out," he said, and burst into tears. They roused the countryside. The house was burning furiously. In his cellar Ward kept barrels of tallow and the heavy logs fell into the cellar one by one. The heat was intense. Mary Ward was nowhere to be found. " I was notified," says Murray, " and I went to the Ward farm. The place took a long time to burn. It was still burning when I arrived. The heat was so great that one could not get very close. We pumped the well dry and hauled water, and finally, on the second day ii8 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE after, we got the fire out. I saw Ward at his father's house. His mother was putting goose oil on his burns. She told me that since his outburst of tears as he fell on their floor after the fire, he had spoken but little of the disaster. In fact I found him very reticent and disin- clined to talk. I sympathised with him and told him he had a miraculous escape. He thawed out a little and told me that he and his wife were awakened by the heat and jumped up and he got her as far as the door and had found the door difficult to open and when he finally opened it he turned for her, where she had stood beside him, but she was gone, and the flames were close upon him, their heat becoming intolerable. So he fled alone. " ' Poor Mary ! ' he sorrowed. ' I never can forget it.' " His mother continued to dress his burns. I watched her and my eye lighted on a deep burn on the back of the neck at the base of the skull. The flesh was burned severely, but no hair was burned. That struck me as very strange. I examined the burn carefully. Ward became uneasy. My suspicions were aroused instantly. I examined the other burns. They were deep, so deep and so similar as to strengthen my suspicions. " I asked about Jennie Morrison, the fifteen-year-old domestic. She was at her father's home. I learned from her that on the morning of the night on which the fire occurred, Mary Ward was to have gone to visit her aunt in Toronto. Her husband had consented, but with re- luctance. Before he started to drive her to the train he told her she had better send the Morrison girl home until she returned. Mary Ward said ' Nonsense,' but he in- sisted, saying the neighbours might talk, so Mary Ward, as she drove away, told Jennie Morrison she might go home for a few days and Jennie went. " Ebenezer Ward drove his wife to the Caledon Station of the Canadian-Pacific Railroad. I learned there that after arriving at the station he changed his mind and told his wife she better not go that day but should wait a day or two and he would go with her. It seemed he could not bear the thought of having her out of his sight. She remonstrated reasonably, saying she was all ready to go. PRETTY MARY WARD 119 her aunt was expecting her, the train was about to arrive, and she should be glad to have him come that day or later. He insisted she should go back to the house and finally she obeyed and reluctantly gave up her trip that day and drove home again with him. They were alone in their house that night and at one o'clock in the morn- ing the fire occurred and Ward ran naked from the house to his father's home. " When the ruins had cooled so that I could go among them I had all the logs pulled out that were not burned. Then I began the supervision of a systematic sifting of the debris. I was hunting for traces of the remains of Mary Ward. I came across the stove. It was a fine Gurney range. I examined it and found it was burnt on the inside, burnt molten. I knew very well that cast iron could not be burned in this way except by artificial heat. I looked at the name on the range, Gurney. The letters were not molten nor had they been burned. Clearly it was not the heat of the burning house that had burned the stove inside, otherwise the outside and particularly the raised lettering of the name would have been burned. I took a piece of the stove and put it in an old bag. Then I had the men continue sifting the debris. " I found a butcher's knife. The handle had been burnt off". The point of the knife was bent. I put it in the bag. I sifted for half an hour or more, and then found a piece of what resembled bone of a human body. I put this in the bag. I sifted on and found another piece of bone. I found some copper that had been melted. I also found a piece of feather-tick, matted, as if wet. As you probably know wet feathers are very hard to burn. All these finds I arranged carefully in the old bag, and that night I went to Toronto and called at the School of Practical Science. Dr. Ellis is there now, but Professor Croft was there in those days. I asked him if he could find traces of blood, if bleeding flesh had been burned in a stove and had stained it. He said he could, and that it was possible also to tell if it was the blood of a human being or the blood of an animal. I produced my piece of the stove and asked him to make an analysis. He did I20 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE so and later reported that he discovered traces of the blood of a human being, and further that it was the blood of one who could nurse young, a female. " The first piece of bone I had found was the sixth and seventh vertebrae of a human body. The second piece of bone I had found was a piece of ankle bone of a hu- man body. These pieces of bone I had found some dis- tance apart. The bent point of the butcher's knife seemed to say to me that it had been bent by disjointing Mary Ward's body after the blade had cut her into chunks. The matted piece of the bedtick turned out to be matted with human blood. In the cellar I had found traces of the big barrels of tallow, and a speck or tallow spot on the range gave me the missing link. Mary Ward had been murdered in her bed, and her blood soaked the mattress and matted the feathers. Her body then was cut into pieces and the bones prized apart with the butcher's knife. The pieces were taken to the Gurney range and a copper bucket of tallow was placed upon them, and then more tallow, and then the whole was lighted and the terrific heat of the tallow consumed the body and melted the inside of the range. To conceal the crime the house was set on fire. Ward was a butcher. Such a mannered murder would be characteristic. For years he had butchered cattle, and when he decided to kill his wife the way naturally occurring to him was to butcher her as he would a steer. His jealousy, manifest in his unwillingness to have her out of his sight, his ina- bility to have her go away, even for a day or two with her aunt, evidenced in the scene at the railroad station, threw light on the motive. " I arrested Ebenezer Ward, charged with the murder of Mary Ward. It created a sensation. He was tried in Brampton in 1876. The late Kenneth Mackenzie, later a judge, prosecuted. Ward was defended by eminent counsel, one of the brilliant men of Canada, John Hilliard Cameron. It was the last case he had in court. Judge Morse, his first case on the bench, presided at the time. The Crown swore eighty witnesses. The case of circum- stantial evidence was impregnable. The defence, after THE FATAL ROBBERY OF THE DAINS 121 all else failed, fell back on a plea of insanity. Fourteen doctors were called by the defence to prove Ward insane. I had sixteen doctors and thus the Crown had the pre- ponderance of medical testimony. Ward, despite the able fight made by his counsel, was convicted on May I2th, 1876, and was sentenced to be hanged. Subsequently the Minister of Justice commuted the sentence to impris- onment for life, owing to the difference of expert opinion. " Ward was sent to Kingston Penitentiary. He acted strangely, and a great many believed he still simply was feigning insanity. He was removed to Rockwood Asylum in Kingston. There he became worse and died. His brain was examined by famous experts from the United States and Canada, including Dr. MacDonald, Dr. Work- man, and Dr. Dickson. They found his brain was dis- eased. " The burn on Ward's neck had been made purposely by him with a piece of iron, red hot. He had done it too well. A mere blister would have aroused no suspicion, but he had, pressed the iron in so deep that if a flame had inflicted so severe a burn on the back of his neck, it would have scorched the hair off and blistered the back of the head. The piece of ankle bone and the vertebrae were buried decently later. They were all that remained of pretty Mary Ward, who used to laugh among the flowers opposite my window." xxni THE FATAL ROBBERY OF THE DAINS While crimes were occurring in the counties round about Toronto, the capital city was not immune. On a bitter cold night, in March, 1875, two men slipped noise- lessly along in the darker shadow of the house walls in Yonge Street. One was on one side of the street, the other was on the other side of the street. They made their way swiftly and silently out to the corner of Bloor 122 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE Street, where the city limits ended in those days, and the district beyond was called York. On a corner of Yonge and Bloor Streets lived the Dains. They were rich drovers and butchers. Three brothers — Joseph Dain, James Dain, and Major Dain — lived there with their mother. They were good business men, and carried large sums of money on their person for cattle buying. Their house loomed silent and sombre in the night. The two men in the street met in its shadow, and slipped around to the rear. One of the two took his stand by the rear corner of the house, where he could see any one approaching. The other took off his overcoat, handed it to him, and approached the door. He fumbled in his pocket a moment and produced something that resembled a double-sized cigar. He pressed it close against the door. There was a moment's silence, then a rending sound, and the door swung open. He had jemmied it. Both men waited, but no noise from within followed the forcing of the door. The one man noiselessly entered the house, and the other moved in and stood by the door- way, concealed from any passer-by. Up-stairs Joseph Dain was asleep in his room, his trousers on the chair beside his bed. He stirred, opened his eyes, and saw a tall figure standing by his bed, rifling the pockets of his trousers, in which he had considerable money. Joseph Dain was a powerful, fearless man, and he leaped out of bed and grabbed the burglar. The man broke away and fled down-stairs, where his pal was waiting. As he bounded down the stairs his pal swung the door wide open, and as he sprang past, his pal slammed the door in the face of Joseph Dain, and the two burglars fled, sep- arating as they ran. Dain jerked open the door, and although there was snow on the ground, and it was almost zero weather, and he was naked, save for a nightshirt, he gave chase to the man who was running down Bloor Street West. It was the one who had rifled his trousers. Block after block they ran, and Dain, his feet bare and bleeding, was gain- ing on his man when the burglar shouted over his shoulder : THE FATAL ROBBERY OF THE DAINS 123 " Turn back or I'll shoot ! " Dain leaped forward, and was closing on him when a shot rang out, and Dain fell with a bullet in the abdomen. The burglar pocketed a smoking revolver, ran on, and escaped. His pal meanwhile, as he ran across Yonge Street, tripped on the extra overcoat he was carrying, and fell. A baker going to work in the early morning hours, grabbed the fallen man, and held him until a policeman came and locked him up. Dain was carried indoors, surgeons were summoned, and he ralhed after the opera- tion for the bullet. " I did not take up the case until later, when I looked the captured burglar over, and recognised him at once as Charles Leavitt, a desperate American burglar and thief," says Murray. " His home was Buffalo, although the police there knew him so well that it was the last place he could hope to stay. I took the overcoat, and looked it over carefully, and found in it the mark of a Cleveland tailor. I started for Cleveland, and, in look- ing up Leavitt's record in the States, I found that one of his friends was Frank Meagher, of Cleveland, a danger- ous man, a skilled burglar, a clever crook, and one of the ablest and worst rough-ones at large at that time. I knew his description well. It tallied in general outline with Dain's description of the burglar at his bedside. It tallied exactly with the tailor's description of the man for whom he made the coat. The escaped burglar, I was satisfied, was Frank Meagher. He and Leavitt, a bold and reckless pair, had crossed to Canada on a burglary tour, and had spotted the Dain house for their first job. " Meagher seemed to have vanished completely. I set out to trace him in Toronto after the shooting. I made the rounds of all the resorts, and finally found a young man named John Jake Ackermann. Jake was known in Toronto as Keno Billy, and was a bartender and faro dealer. He was at a place on King Street, known as the Senate saloon, kept by Mike Ganley, a United States refugee from justice in Indiana, when Meagher arrived on the day of the burglary. Jake had taken Meagher's 124 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE valise and put it behind the bar. About an hour after Dain was shot, Meagher appeared at the back door of the Senate, and was admitted by Bill Frazer, one of Ganley's friends, and then the trail disappeared. Ganley's place was a great hang-out in those days for men of Meagher's stripe. " Leavitt was convicted, and was sentenced to Kingston Penitentiary for life. He took his medicine without a word, refused to betray his pal, and went, with sealed lips, to serve until death inside the prison walls. No trace could be found of Meagher. " Dain did not die immediately. He lived over one year and one day. Under the law in England and Canada, a man cannot be convicted of murder and hanged, if his victim lives for one year and one day after the crime is committed. Dain lived for a couple of months over the year and died. The wound inflicted by Meagher caused hernia of the bowls, and killed him. But he died too late to hang the murderer even if he could be found. I determined to find Meagher if it took twenty years. " Two years passed. I searched on. Whenever I made a trip to any big police centre I made special enquiries. I examined every description I could obtain of every prisoner sentenq^ to any prison in Canada or the States. In 1877 I came across a description that fitted Meagher in almost every respect. It was of a man sentenced to seven years' imprisonment in the Northern Indiana Penitentiary for a burglary at Big Bend under the name of Louis Armstrong. I read it over and over, and the oftener I read it the surer I be- came that Louis Armstrong was none other than Frank Meagher. I prepared extradition papers, and on June ist, 1877, 1 started for Indianapolis. Detective Lou Muncie, of Cleveland, who knew Meagher well by sight, went out to the prison and identified him, and thus I made doubly sure that Armstrong was Meagher, for the moment I saw him I was satisfied of it. " When I arrived in Indianapolis I called on my old friend. General McAuley, formerly of Buffalo, and then THE FATAL ROBBERY OF THE DAINS 125 Mayor of Indianapolis. General McAuley had a twin brother, by the way, and they looked as much like one another as did the Needhams. The General said to me that the man for me to see was ' Dan Voorhees, of Terre Haute, one of the best criminal lawyers in this state.' I also called on my friend, Senator Joseph E. MacDonald, who corroborated General McAuley. I went to Terre Haute, and stated my case to Voorhees. I told him that the State of Indiana had a criminal serving a sentence for a crime committed subsequent to the commission of a far graver crime in Canada, and that I wanted to take him back at once to pay the penalty of his prior crime. Voorhees took the case, and accompanied me to Indian- apolis, and there the fine point of law was raised. " Meagher was a man serving a term in a penitentiary in the State of Indiana, paying a penalty he owed the State for burglary. Could he be taken out of the State before he paid that penalty? Blue Jean Williams, the farmer who wore Kentucky blue jean, was Governor. Voorhees had stumped the State for him. We called on him, and also on former Governor Tom Hendricks, later nominated for Vice-President, and on former Governor Baker, who agreed with Voorhees that they would sanc- tion Meagher's return to stand trial in the country where he committed the greatest offence. We called also on Judge Gresham, later Postmaster-General, who suggested to Voorhees that he should see Chief Justice Perkins of the Indiana Courts. We called on Chief Justice Perkins, who heard the statement of the case from Voorhees, and said that if it wjis laid before him in due form he would call in his associate judges and consult them on the matter. He did so, and they suggested that the Gov- ernor should serve a writ of habeas corpus on the Warden of the Northern Indiana Penitentiary to produce Meagher before the Supreme Court of the State. This was done. " The Warden produced Meagher in Indianapolis. The prisoner was taken before the full bench of state judges. I went on the stand, and was sworn as the representative of the Canadian Government, and stated and proved the case of the Crown against Meagher. A Cleveland de- 126 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE tective identified Armstrong as Meagher. Meagher had counsel, and a long argument followed. Voorhees made the claim that the country where the first and greatest crime was committed should have preference in the custody of the prisoner. Chief Justice Perkins suggested that the Governor might issue a conditional pardon. The court sent a transcript of the proceedings to the State Department in Washington, and on June 19th, 1877, a warrant of surrender was sent to me in Indian- apolis. The Governor had granted a conditional pardon on June 8th, and Meagher was ordered into my cus- tody. " Meagher was in gaol in Indianapolis, where he was kept pending the outcome of the case. He got wind of the conditional pardon and of the case going against him. He was a bad man, a clever and daring crook. Two or three times in his career he had escaped, and had shot and killed a deputy on one occasion. He had a brother, Charlie Meagher, of Cleveland, also a thief and burglar — a desperate, resourceful crook. He had friends ; and Frank Meagher, then a fine-looking, well-educated fellow of twenty-eight, was highly respected and much liked among the abler crooks for his daring and clever- ness. I knew that the chances were all in favour of complete plans having been made to rescue Frank. I had all my papers ready on the evening of June 19th. It was long after midnight when I had the last of them signed. I went direct to the gaol with Detective Lou Muncie. A train left at 4.35 o'clock in the morning, and I decided to get away on it with Meagher, and had notified the sheriff several hours before. We arrived at the gaol about three o'clock in the morning. " ' Mr. Sheriff,' said I, ' I am here after Meagher. Here are my papers.' " ' I'm afraid we're going to have trouble with Meagher/ said the sheriff, who was greatly perturbed. " ' What's the trouble with Meagher ? ' said I. " ' He's armed, and he's got up to the fourth floor, the top tier of cells, and threatens to kill any one who goes near him,' said the sheriff with the perspiration streaming THE FATAL ROBBERY OF THE DAINS 127 down his face. ' He's a desperate man, Mr. Murray ; a desperate man.' " ' Sheriff,' said I, • I want the prisoner. My papers call on you to produce the prisoner.' " ' But how am I to produce him ? ' exclaimed the worried sheriff. " ' That is for you to determine,' said I. • Please pro- duce the prisoner.' "• Well, then, come this way, please,' said the sheriff; and we went into the main part of the gaol, where the cells rose in four tiers, with iron stairways leading up from tier to tier. " The sheriff looked up to the top tier, and there, at the head of the stairway, sat Meagher. He had a baseball bat in one hand and a revolver in the other. " ' Meagher, come down ! ' called the sheriff in nervous voice. " Meagher's answer was a volley of oaths. " ' Come up and get me ! ' he yelled. - I'll kill the first that sets foot on these stairs ! ' " ' There, you see ! ' said the sheriff to me. " ' Sheriff, I want him,' said I. ' Here are the docu- ments. It's your duty to produce him.' " The sheriff was in a sad state of mind. " * I know ! I know ! ' he exclaimed. ' But I don't want to be killed or to see anybody else get killed.' " I saw that the sheriff would not get Meagher. I saw also that Meagher was playing for time, and the purpose of it probably was an attempt to rescue him. From the fact that he had the revolver and club, I knew that some of his pals were at work. I decided that I must take him on the 4.3s train at all hazards. " ' Open that gate,' I said to the sheriff. ' I want to speak to him.' " < Don't do it,' said the sheriff. ' He'll kill you ! ' " ' John, I wouldn't do it,' said Muncie. " ' I warn you not to go,' said the sheriff. " I had him open the gate. I stepped in and walked up-stairs. When I reached the landing of the stairs, where Meagher was at the top, he said : 128 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE " ' Stop, Murray ! Don't you come near me ! ' " I stopped. I saw the club and the revolver, and he had the gun pointed straight at me. I could see the gloom in the muzzle. " • I am not coming up, Frank,' I said, as I stood on the stairs. ' I want to talk to you so everybody won't hear.' " He had risen, and we stood, he at the top of the stairs, I just below him. All was quiet. "•Come down, or I'll shoot!' shrilly cried the sheriff below, " I heard Muncie sternly tell the sheriff to shut up. " ' Shoot and be ! ' yelled Meagher to the sheriff ' I'd rather be shot here than hung in Can- ada.' "'Shut up, sheriff,' I said, with my eyes still on Meagher, who, while he yelled defiance to the sheriff, had not swerved his glance for an instant from me. ' Frank,' I continued, ' you won't be hung. You know that. The man lived over a year. You know you've got to come. You could try to kill me, but you would go just the same.' " While I was speaking I mounted the stairs step by step until I stood within ten feet of him. He stood above me, with the revolver pointed full at me. " ' Stop ! ' he said. ' Stand where you are ! Not a step nearer ! ' " I stopped and looked him full in the eye, face to face ; and I have a feeling to this day that I never was nearer death in my entire life. He looked me over slowly from head to foot and back again. His eye was cold and hard, yet, as he glared at me, I saw that something of curi- osity mingled with its murderous, merciless, fine-pointed blaze. He eyed me thus for several minutes. Neither of us spoke. My hands were empty, my revolver was in my pocket. " ' Murray,' he said suddenly, but without shifting his eyes, ' I have no fit clothes. I am not going like a pauper to Canada. I am a gentleman.' " ' The sheriff has a suit of clothes for you, Frank,' I THE FATAL ROBBERY OF THE DAINS 129 said. ' It's a pretty good suit ; but if it is not good enough, I will wait until you can get one.' " His eye lighted with satisfaction ; and I was sure then that he was playing for delay, and I was doubly deter- mined to take him on the 4.35 train. He began to curse Muncie, possibly hoping a row would break out then and there. " ' I don't blame you, Murray,' he said. ' But don't you come near me.' " I thought it all over. He could kill me as easy one way as another, so I turned my back half to him and sat down on the stair. If he had glanced away I could have slipped out my gun. He watched me like a hawk. I yawned and turned my back full to him. •"I do not want to get hurt any more than you do, Frank ; but I'm not afraid of anything any more than you are,' I remarked. " There was a long silence. I wondered once if he would reach down and smash me with the club, and I thought I heard a catlike tread on the step. I kept my eyes front, however, although I have done easier things in my life. Finally he spoke — softly, and in almost a whisper. " ' Murray,' he said, ' you're a game man. Get me a suit of clothes and I'll go with you, but not with Muncie.' " He handed me the club. " ' Give me the gun, Frank,' said I. " He handed me the gun. We walked down the stairs into the office side by side. He spat at the sheriff and swore at Muncie, and his glance flew to the clock as we passed it. It was four o'clock, and a smile flitted over his face. He donned the suit of clothes, and he really looked a prosperous gentleman. I put the irons on him, and, with him swearing all the way at Muncie, we drove at a gallop in a closed carriage to the station. As we alighted the train was making ready to go. A second carriage galloped up, and out jumped Red Jim Carroll, Joe Dubuque, and two others of their crowd. I lifted Meagher aboard the train, Muncie beside me. As the I30 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE train pulled out a third carriage came up, the horses on a gallop ; but the carriage door evidently stuck, for the men inside missed the train. Red Jim and his three, how- ever, caught it. " ' See them ? ' I said to Muncie, as they entered an- other car. " He nodded. " ' We're going to have some trouble,' said I. " Meagher was very nervous. I had leg-irons as well as handcuffs on him. I sent for the train conductor and brakeman, and told them I expected trouble. " ' Well, I and my crew are not on this train to get shot, but I'll do what I can,' said the conductor. " We put Frank in the middle, Muncie facing one way and I the other, with our revolvers in our hands, well be- yond Frank's reach. " ' Frank,' I said, ' if there's any break here, some one will get killed before we do.' " I think he knew what I meant. " An hour passed. No one entered the car. We had scanned the faces of every one in it, and most of them had hastened into other cars after our talk with the con- ductor. Suddenly the front door of the car swung open and in stepped Red Jim Carroll. I had told Muncie if they started in, to jump to his feet and fight them stand- ing, for a man is as good a target sitting as standing. We both jumped up as Red Jim entered, Muncie still facing the other way and I facing Red Jim. The others of his crowd were behind him. " ' Stop there, Jim ! ' I ordered. " He stopped in the doorway, and it was a wise act. " ' Good-morning, Mr. Murray,' he said. ' Good-morn- ing, Mr. Muncie.' " ♦ Are you looking for trouble, Jim ? ' said I. " ' No, Mr. Murray, I am not looking for trouble,' he answered, with a grin. ' Will you allow me to speak to Frank?' " ' Speak to him from right there, Jim,' said I. " Meagher had been watching the whole affair. I had reminded him that he must sit absolutely quiet in the THE FATAL ROBBERY OF THE DAINS 131 seat. When Muncie and I rose up he had half risen, but remembered in time and sat back, watching all that occurred with eager, encouraging face turned towards Red Jim. But when Carroll halted Meagher's face grew sullen. " ' Go to hell ! ' he shouted at Red Jim. " Jim was about to put a hand in his pocket when I stopped him, for I did not know what he might draw forth, and Meagher's rage could easily have been feigned. " ' What did you want to get, Jim ? ' I said. " ' I wanted to give Frank a couple of hundred dollars,' said Red Jim. " ' Go to hell with your money ! ' roared Meagher, who seemingly was in a terrible rage over the failure, thus far, of the plot for his rescue. " Still keeping Red Jim covered, I told him to go no lower than his breast pocket with his hands, and to count out the money where he stood, and I would take it and see Frank got it. Meagher shouted that he wanted none of the dirty money of a gang of cowards that would stand by and see a friend dragged away. " Red Jim answered with a touch of dignity. " ' Sometimes the worst comes to the worst, Frank, and nothing can help it just at the time,' said Red Jim. • This man, Murray, is a gentleman, Frank, and he will take no advantage of you, and he will give you a fair show.' " So saying. Red Jim tossed the money towards my feet, remarking I would have to pardon him for not handing it to me. " ' Good-bye, Jim,' I said pointedly. " He hesitated, glanced at me with a revolver in each hand, then nodded. " ' Good-bye, Mr. Murray,' he said. ' Good-bye, Frank. Good-bye, Mr. Muncie.' " He backed out of the doorway and closed the door. Meagher was beside himself with wrath. I picked up the money Red Jim had left for him, and later I gave it to Frank, and he found it of real use in his defence by able counsel. The train stopped at a junction. I had 132 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE the brakeman bring our breakfast aboard. As the train pulled out Red Jim stood on the platform and waved good-bye. " We went through to Buffalo, and thence to Lewiston on the Niagara River, and thence by boat to Toronto. As the steamer passed Old Fort Niagara at the mouth of the river and glided out into Lake Ontario, Meagher stood on deck. The American flag was flying over Fort Niagara. He raised his manacled hands and saluted the flag. " ' God bless it ! ' he said. ' I suppose it's the last time I ever shall see it. Good-bye ! I'd rather I was dying for it than for what I am ! ' " He gazed after it until it was a mere speck against the sky. He still believed he could be hanged for killing Dain. " ' Don't talk like that,' I said to him. ' You won't be hung. English law will treat you fairly.' " He answered with a gloomy shake of the head. We arrived safely in Toronto, and he was locked up for trial. Dain was dead. We had to have the evidence of Leavitt to convict Meagher. Leavitt, however, was sentenced for life, and, being a life prisoner, he was not a compe- tent witness. He was dead in the eyes of the law, and could not testify. I went to Kingston and saw Leavitt. He yearned for liberty, and I told him we had Meagher beyond doubt. So I returned to Toronto, and recom- mended to the Government that Leavitt's sentence should be commuted to imprisonment for ten years, to make him a competent witness. This was done. I took Leavitt from Kingston before the police magistrate, and also took the notorious Jimmy Pape, pickpocket and sneak-thief. Pape had told a cock-and-bull story in Kingston about what he knew of the case, but his evidence simply was that he met Meagher in Chicago, and gave him some money to go to South America. I hustled Jimmy Pape back to Kingston Penitentiary. " ' I got a breath of fresh air just the same,' said Jimmy on the way back. * I had to get it or die. I'd lie for it any time.' THE FATAL ROBBERY OF THE DAINS 133 " Leavitt told the story of the crime, and the evidence corroborated it. When Meagher heard Leavitt testify he stood up and swore a savage oath. " ' You traitor ! ' he said. ' I will kill you in this world or the next.' " When it came to the trial Keno Billy, otherwise Jake Ackermann, who had taken Meagher's valise for him at the Senate, was missing. He had gone to the States. I went to Buffalo, and there met Bill Carney, who kept the Little Tammany. With Carney I went to New York, and used every effort to get track of Keno Billy, dead or alive. If he was alive, I wanted him to testify. If they had killed him I wanted to know it. I turned out the Police Department in New York, and I got the gamblers and sports, Billy Tracy, Arthur Stanley, and others, and hunted all over, but could find no trace of Keno Billy. Some of Leavitt's friends joined in the hunt, for they felt that, if Meagher was convicted Leavitt would get out. They all failed to find him. Keno Billy was dead to the world in which he had lived. " I finally set out alone, and came across a man named Ackermann, caretaker and warden for a nice little church on Thirty-fourth Street, not far from Broadway, in New York. The name was not in the City Directory, but it was on a name plate, and I read it as I passed. A drowning man will clutch at straws, and I walked into the basement of the church to look for Keno Billy, the faro dealer. I found a nice old lady, and I asked for the Ackermann family, and whether they had a son John Jake Ackermann. The old lady burst into tears. " ' Dear me ! dear me ! ' she sobbed. ' You are looking for my dear boy Billy ! ' " Even she called him Billy, thought I. " ' Yes,' I answered her. ' But I mean him no harm. Is he here ? ' " ' No,' said she, sobbing afresh. " ' Where is he ? ' I asked. " ' Dead and buried four weeks ago yesterday,' said she. " ' Did he die a natural death ? ' I asked. " • He did,' said she. ' He just naturally died.' 134 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE * " I sat down and sympathised with her until she showed me the record of his death, and I then went to verify it. Keno Billy indeed was dead. I returned to Toronto without him. " Chief Justice Hagarty presided at Meagher's trial. Matthew Crooks Cameron, an able lawyer, afterwards judge, defended him. The defence was an alibi. They swore Jimmy O'Neill from Detroit, Tom Daly, and some women, but it did not work. Meagher was convicted of robbery, and on January 9th, 1878, he was sentenced to eighteen years in Kingston Penitentiary. He served his time, and the last I heard of him he was near Cleveland. Leavitt was pardoned, after Meagher's conviction, on my suggestion tiiat it would not be safe for him to stay in Kingston, as other convicts probably would kill him. Leavitt behaved for a time, and then showed up in Buffalo, and Chief of Detectives Cusack promptly drove him out. His father was respectable, but Charlie always was a bad one. Of course he worshipped me after re- gaining his liberty. But some time in this world, or the next, he and Meagher will meet. What a meeting it will be ! " XXIV "AMER! AMER! AMER!" Far to the north, over three hundred miles from To- ronto as the crow flies, in the waters of Georgian Bay is Manitoulin Island. Through the township of Tekemah, on this island, winds a road that was famous in years past for the beauty of its scenery. Twenty-five years ago the houses along this road were few and far between. Neigh- bours usually were from seven to ten miles apart. Here and there two families lived within a mile of one another, but in the outlying sections of the township this was the exception and not the rule. The settlers cleared the land and wrestled with the earth, carving farms out of the " AMER ! AMER ! AMER ! " 1 35 wilds. They were a rugged folk, courageous and patient in their struggle with untamed nature. One Sunday morning in 1877, a young girl of the family of Porters set out to attend church twelve miles away. It was a bright sunshiny June morning and the Tekemah road stretched away like a broad band of rib- bon upon which the sunlight and shadows beneath the trees flung a web of iine-spun lace. The girl was sing- ing as she crossed the crest of the hill and moved down the road where it swept in graceful curve past the home of William Bryan, nearest neighbour to the Porters. Bryan was a good neighbour, a steadfast friend and ready helper. He was a little, old fellow with a squeaky voice and hair the colour of a roan horse. He weighed less than one hundred and thirty-five pounds, but was wiry and active, and there were tales of grand battles he had fought in the days of his youth. He lived with his wife and son Charlie, a young fellow of steady habits and about thirty years old. Mrs. Bryan was a tot of a woman, a mere mite, who seemed to grow smaller year after year, until old age threatened to shrivel her into nothingness, and when she died she would vanish, leaving no body for burial. She was weak in her mind, and was given to spells of blackness, like the long, long nights a little farther north. Their home stood near the road, so situated that a passer-by could hail in easy voice those in the doorway or the yard. The Porter girl came swinging down the hill. Mrs. Bryan had a habit of joining in any noise she heard, and once or twice the girl in the road paused to hear if the wee woman with the troubled mind had heard her sing- ing and joined in. No answering voice greeted her, so she moved on until, in a rise in the road, she came full upon the Bryan home. In the doorway sat the faded, shrunken little woman of the troubled mind. Her hair was loose and dangled about her face and down upon her shoulders. She was crooning and swaying to and fro. At times she paused, threw back her head, shook the long hair from her face and laughed a cackling, merry chortle. Again, she 136 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE bowed her head and wrung her hands and tore her hair and wept and moaned. Then she grew quiet again and mechanically swayed and crooned, and gazed vacantly out upon her little world. The Porter girl, still singing, waved to her and drew near. The little woman of the troubled mind began to mutter and to grin. She waved the singer back with frantic gesture. The girl glanced about the yard and beheld two figures prone and still. One was old man Bryan, the other was his son. The old man's face was upturned, and his eyes gazed dully to- wards the sky. The son lay face downward, arms ex- tended. The girl rushed into the yard and gazed first at the father, then at the son. They were dead, with blood dyeing the earth beneath them. The girl turned to the httle old woman, who sat in the doorway, tangling her hair. " How did it happen ? " asked the girl. The little old woman gazed at her and burst into rip- pling laughter. " Amer ! Amer ! Amer ! " she laughed. " When did it happen ? " asked the girl. The little old woman laughed on. " Amer ! Amer ! Amer ! " she said. It was all that she would say. The girl questioned her closely but no other word passed her lips. " Amer ! Amer ! Amer ! " Sometimes she sobbed it, sometimes she laughed it, sometimes she muttered it solemnly. Back to her own home sped the Porter girl and told her family of the tragedy, and back to the Bryan farm went the Porters ; and while some cared for the bodies, others hastened for the coroner and other neighbours. Suspicion inevitably fell upon the little old woman of the troubled mind. Yet her whole life was one of gentle- ness. She had been known to sob when a chicken was killed, to weep when a cat caught a mouse, or to cry out if her son struck one of the horses with a whip. In the perplexity of the affair, the Department of Justice was notified, and Murray, who had just returned from a trip " AMER ! AMER ! AMER ! " 1 37 on the Meagher case, was directed to take it up. He went to Manitoulin Island at once. " I drove out to the Bryan homestead," says Murray. " There sat the old woman in the doorway, her chickens feeding around her, a cat beside her, a dog at her feet. Some wild birds were fluttering about as if she had been feeding them, or as if they knew her and had no fear. I went to her gently and sat down on the step. " • Amer ! Amer ! Amer ! ' she murmured softly. " ' And where is Amer ? ' I asked very gently. " She looked cautiously round about, then moved the cat back lest it should hear, and leaned over and whis- pered in my ear : "•Amer! Amer! Amer!' " I spent an hour or more with the poor little lady and all that she could say was this one word. The dog kept nosing my hand and I shoved him away and bade him sternly to sit down. She wept when I spoke gruffly to the hound. " The bodies had been buried. The coroner who had made the post-mortem was at Manitowanning. In mak- ing the post-mortem he had cut his hand and blood poi- soning set in and the results of the post-mortem were not satisfactory, so when the bodies were exhumed I had a second post-mortem made. The bodies bore the marks of heavy blows and both father and son had been killed by bullets. Clearly there had been a fight with strong men and it had culminated in revolver shots. It elimi- nated the little old woman from any part in the affair. Moreover, I took her muttered word as the clue to solve the case. " • Amer ! ' she had muttered. " On a farm adjoining that of the Bryans lived George Amer and his son Reuben. Their house was less than a mile from the Bryan farm. I began a systematic visiting of all the families thereabouts. I learned that Amer and Bryan had trouble over their boundary line and the hne fences, and about the Amer cattle getting in and injuring the Bryan crops. Amer was a big fellow, massive and strong. He formerly was chief constable of Owen 138 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE Sound. His son Reub was about twenty-four years old and of niedium build. I learned from a passing neigh- bour that, on the day before the Porter girl had found the Bryans dead in their yard, the Amer horses had broken into Bryan's wheat-field, and Bryan and his son im- pounded them, and were seen tying them up in their yard on that Saturday afternoon of June 8th, 1877. When young Amer went to look for the horses on Sat- urday night they were gone and he followed their trail from the Bryan wheat-field to the Bryan yard. He went home and reported to his father, who armed himself with a policeman's club that he kept in the house, while the son took a revolver. I found a neighbour who saw them skulking along near the Bryan yard on this Saturday night. " What happened then only the poor little old woman saw, and she could not testify. But afterwards I learned that the Amers demanded their horses. The Bryans re- fused to give them up, saying they were impounded. A fight ensued. Big Amer grappled with little Bryan and the wiry old fellow was getting the best of Amer, who called to his son Reub. Young Bryan was struggling with Reub, who, when he heard his father's cry, pulled his revolver and shot and killed both Bryans, and as they lay dead he emptied the revolver into them. Then the Amers took their horses and went home. " I had the Amers arrested and committed to Sault Ste. Marie goal for trial. The regular Assizes were held only once a year there, so the Government commissioned Judge McCrea to try the case. Amer was a man who was rich for that section of the country. He sent to Toronto and employed the Hon. Matthew Crooks Cam- eron, paying him a big fee and all expenses. John Ham- ilton, later a judge and now dead, prosecuted as the Crown Attorney for that district. After reading the depositions, Mr. Cameron told his clients the case would be thrown out by the grand jury. I differed from him. The case was wholly and purely a case of circumstantial evidence, but the chain of circumstances was so complete as to be absolutely convincing. The grand jury took this view MCPHERSON'S TELLTALE TROUSERS 139 and found a true bill. The motive of ill-feeling and the fight over the horses was shown. The evidence showing the Amers approaching the scene of the crime shortly before the murder was presented. The Amers were tried and convicted entirely upon circumstantial evi- dence. In September, 1 877, they were sentenced to be hanged. " Mr. Cameron, for the Amers, filed an objection to the legahty of the Court that tried them. He claimed the Government had no authority to commission a judge to try a case of murder. The question was carried to the Divisional Court and to the Court of Appeal, and it was held that the commission was legal and right. The sen- tence of the Amers was commuted to life imprisonment. Some years afterwards, on a strong petition, and aided by political friends, father and son were released, and the last I heard of them they were back on the island where the crime occurred. " The little old woman, of course, was not called as a witness, as she was not competent. I tried to glean some of the details from her after the arrest of the Amers. I even rehearsed part of the struggle in the yard. She sat in the doorway and screamed with child- ish delight. Then her mood changed. She dropped her face in her hands. "'Amer! Amer ! Amer ! ' she sobbed, her hair hanging over her like a veil as she crouched and writhed. " And 'tis so I see her still, doddering in the door- way." XXV McPHERSON'S TELLTALE TROUSERS Murray was at Manitoulin Island, clearing up details of the Amer case, when a telegram notified him of an- other murder in the township of Pickering, county of Ontario. It was four hundred miles or more from Teke- mah, but the next day Murray drove up the Pickering I40 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE Road, thirty miles from the railroad, to the house where the murder occurred. " It was a little house in a lonely part of the town- ship," says Murray. •• A labouring farmer, named Ben- nett, lived there with his wife and two small children. Mrs. Bennett was a pretty woman about thirty years old. Her husband was away working in June, 1877, and she was alone in the house with her two little ones. About midnight two men broke into the house and treated her so horribly, in the presence of the little children, that she died three days later. Her children were too small to be able to tell about the crime. Mrs. Bennett, however, rallied, and described the two men minutely, and finally, in her ante-mortem statement, she said they were two young men named Burk and McPherson, sons of well- known farmers in that vicinity. " I saw at once that, with the woman dead and her children too young to testify, we would have nothing but her ante-mortem statement ; and while it was strong and convincing the accused had friends, and they were rally- ing to make a desperate fight, with scores of living against a dead woman's word. I laid my plans. " Burk and McPherson were arrested. I had them separated at once, and then had each state in detail his movements on the day and night of the murder of Mrs. Bennett. I accepted all they said in apparent credulity. Their confidence grew as they saw me seem to weaken in any belief that they were guilty of the crime. They lied beautifully, lied valiantly, lied so completely that I knew I had them where their word on the witness stand would be blasted and worthless. However, I noted care- fully the movements of each as he dictated them. Then I compared them. They vowed they were not together at certain hours, and were in certain places at certain times. I set out and spent days in following these fic- titious movements of these two men. I disproved them, step by step. I found people who saw them together when they averred they were apart. I found people who saw them in places where they stoutly maintained they had not been. In short, I incapacitated the pair as McPHERSON'S TELLTALE TROUSERS 141 worthy witnesses. I had them ; so the word of one dead woman was better than the word of the two live men. " I searched their houses and the premises round about for evidence that would corroborate the dead woman's word. Hid away in McPherson's mother's house, John Hodgins, one of our Toronto officers, found a pair of his trousers. They were of a kind very fashionable then, but would appear rather ridiculous now. They were light woollen, washable and very baggy, in fact, balloon- like in their leg effects. They had been washed. I took them out in the sunlight, and despite the washing I detected what I believed were stains. McPherson's trousers were taken to Professor Ellis, then assistant to Professor Croft, at the School of Practical Science in Toronto. He analysed the stain and discovered it was blood, and further that it was the blood of a woman. " The trial was postponed, but finally held in May, 1878, at Whitby. Chief Justice Harrison presided. B. B. Britton, now a judge, prosecuted for the Crown. The Hon. Matthew Crooks Cameron defended. Mr. Cam- eron, as in the Amer case, told his clients the grand jury would not find a true bill. Again he was mistaken. It was a tedious trial. We swore many witnesses to trace their movements and contradict them flatly in their story of where they had been on the day of the tragedy. When McPherson's stained trousers were produced they swore in rebuttal that McPherson had killed a rat, and that the blood stains were the stains of rat's blood, and not of woman's blood. Dr. Ellis positively swore the stains were not rat's blood. The jury so believed, and Burk and McPherson were found guilty and sentenced to be hanged on June 14th, 1878. Both sentences, how- ever, were commuted to life imprisonment, and after both had served long terms they got out. " Interest in this case grew and became wide-spread in the States and Canada, because of the point of chemical analysis involved. It was one of the most advanced cases known at that time. It was expert testimony, of course, but it was founded on a precise science, and therefore certain and accurate. Some expert testimony becomes 142 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE largely a matter of opinion, but that opinion is based on trained judgment, skilled discernment, and scientific methods for ascertaining the truth. Experts may differ honestly, and here and there an expert or two may differ otherwise. But the testimony of competent experts, known to be men of ability and integrity, like Dr. Ellis, is as valuable as the testimony of worthless witnesses is valueless. " At this time I was opposed in three prominent cases by the Hon. Matthew Crooks Cameron. They were the Meagher case, the Amer case, and the Burk and Mc- Pherson case. In each case he defended. He was the greatest criminal lawyer in those days. Almost invaria- bly he appeared for the accused. Later he became a judge, and died in the fulness of his powers and fame. When a judge he seemed to feel instinctively that he was concerned in the prisoner's defence. Hence he was not always very satisfactory to the prosecution in a criminal case, yet he was an able man. It was force of habit as- serting itself unconsciously, and was not intentional par- tiality, for he was a man of integrity. " Judges run that way, just as do men in other walks of life. Early training asserts itself in the judge's career on the bench, particularly in regard to his attitude to- wards persons accused of crime. Perhaps I should say his point of view, rather than his attitude. The point of view of each of us is our view-point, or the position from which we view a matter, and that position is determined by our career up to the time we come to consider the case presented to us. We adjust our views of a criminal case according to our judgment, and my experience is that the judgment of a judge is formed on a foundation in which the corner-stone is the substance of his training prior to going upon the bench. " The machinery of justice makes few slips, after all. It has a gigantic task, for to it is assigned the perpetual adjustment of human rights and wrongs. If either hand of the blindfolded goddess were to symbolise criminal justice, it is the right hand with the sword. I have seen it strike with the swiftness of a lightning flash. I have GLENGARRY WRECKED THE CIRCUS 143 seen it hover like the sword of Damocles, suspended by a thread for years before it falls. In these three cases in which the Hon. Matthew Crooks Cameron was pitted against us, I sometimes think that justice showed its cer- tainty. Years passed in one, a thread of circumstantial evidence held true in another, and truth prevailed in the third; while in all three justice was done, and the heavens did not fall." XXVI WHEN GLENGARRY WRECKED THE CIRCUS The men from Glengarry met Murray for the first time in the summer of 1877, and the acquaintance formed then ripened into friendship, and has strengthened throughout the years. The Glengarry lads were famous fighters in the bygone days, and it was through a fight, that lives to this day in the history of the county, that Murray went among them. There are firesides in Glen- garry where old men sit in the winter evenings and spin, among their tales of prowess, the yarn of the great battle of 1877, when the men of Glengarry fought the travelling circus, and drove it, beasts and all, out of Cornwall. Many a scar is cherished as a souvenir of that fray. A thousand times beyond count have the children heard how Danny McLeod seized the lion by the tail and twisted it until the big beast roared. John O'Brien, of Philadelphia, was the owner of the circus. It was travelling through Canada, and pitched its tents in Cornwall, the county seat of three counties — Glengarry, Stormont, and Dundas, fifty miles west of Montreal. The lumbermen and shanty-men had come out of the woods with their winter's wage in their pockets. They were stalwart lusty fellows, and they gath - ered from far and near to see the circus in Cornwall. They strode the streets in gorgeous red or rainbow shirts. They saw the grand parade in the morning, and 144 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE joked about freak features that caught their eye. There was no talk of trouble, no premonition of a row. The men of the woods were out for a jolly day, expecting to bother nobody, and expecting nobody to bother them. They formed in a long line by the ticket waggon to buy the red pasteboards for admission to the tent. Some fell out of line to wrestle or spar good-naturedly, but all were waiting their turn. A shout at the other side of the big tent steadied the line. It was the cry of a Glengarry man. Following it came the crack, crack, crack, of heavy blows, and around the side of the tent appeared one of their men, backing away, and whirling a long tent stake, as he came. Pur- suing him were three circus-men, each with a club. Blood gushed from a big slash across the Glengarry's face. He was shaking it off as he swung the heavy stake. He dared not turn his head to look for help, but with eyes set and arms waving he whirled his weapon so that the three circus-men were held at bay. A flap in the big tent was raised as he passed ; a fourth circus-man crept out behind the Glengarry, and as the stake swung around the newcomer dealt him a heavy blow with a club, and he went down like a log. A roar burst from the line of lumbermen, a roar like that of the entire circus menagerie if the beasts had howled in unison. The line quivered, swayed, and broke. In a wild rush the lumbermen sprang forward, seizing clubs, tearing up tent stakes, jerking out poles and pins and stanchions. The four circus-men yelled for help, and out of the big tent swarmed canvas-men, helpers, acrobats in tights, gymnasts in tinsel, clowns in paint and powder — every man the show could muster. They were needed, too. The lumbermen had formed in long open lines, like fire-fighters, and they moved into the thick of the tangle of men and ropes and canvas, beating right and left with their long clubs. The weapons rose and fell, whack, whack, whack, falling with terrific force, smit- ing whatever was within reach. When a man in the line fell another stepped forward into his place. " Herd them ! Herd them ! " was the cry. GLENGARRY WRECKED THE CIRCUS 145 The lumbermen were striving to surround the circus- men and drive them into a huddled mass, and then — woe betide them ! The force of the onslaught, the im- pact of the furious assault, drove the circus-men back to the side of the big tent, so that when the lumbermen beat them in on three sides they had the tent behind them. There were mighty deeds of daring done that day. Shanty Donald, it is told, took five cracks on the skull and laid three circus-men out in a struggle where they had him three to one. Big McGregor seized an acrobat by the neck, and flung him skyward, and when he alighted he wildly begged for mercy. The strong man in the side show seized little Joe Sumac, and, when they fell apart, the strong man's left arm hung limp and useless, snapped below the elbow. One revolver flashed, and before it banged again, the circus-man who held it lay senseless, with his face trampled like a cleavered beefsteak. The circus-men retreated under the flaps of the tent as the lumbermen crowded them. Knotty O'Brien, of Glengarry, one of the foremost in the lumbermen's line, dived under head first. His feet suddenly flew up, his limbs jerked, and he lay still. The lumbermen fought up to where he lay, and they smote the canvas side of the tent with mighty blows, ripping it to shreds, and as it tore away they saw little O'Brien gasp, half rise, choke and fall back dead. None spoke, none shouted as they beat before them. It was like a battle of mutes. Slowly they fought their way into the tent, when from the menagerie came the keepers with the elephants, and rushed the great beasts to the front, and ran them to and fro. " 'Tis like smiting a mountain ! " quoth Big McGregor, as he drove his stake against the towering hulk. The next instant Big McGregor was flying skyward higher than he had tossed the tinselled acrobat. He came down with a thud, and plunged in again. " The lions ! the lions ! " shouted the circus-men, and it is related that sure enough, a big beast came slouching forward with a keeper at his side. In the tale as it is told, forward sprang Danny McLeod 146 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE and faced the king of beasts. Even the men of Glen- garry paused. The lion shook his massive head and tawny mane. Danny suddenly struck the keeper full in the pit of the stomach with his boot, and seized the lion by the tail and twisted it around and around. With a roar of rage and pain the king of beasts wheeled and fled, galloping pell-mell back to his cage, and clambering into it. But the elephants won the day. Both sides drew off, and the circus left Cornwall. Little O'Brien was buried, and the lumbermen sat them down to nurse their wounds and heal their scars. " It was learned some time after the battle," says Mur- ray, " that the man who struck O'Brien was Louis Kipp, a canvas-man, a fellow so short, and yet so stout, that he seemed as broad as he was long. He was about twenty- eight years old, and weighed about one hundred and seventy pounds. He had been one of the circus-men who fought without flinching, blow for blow. The final evidence that it was he who struck O'Brien was obtained from a witness early in 1878, and in March, 1878, I was instructed to locate him. I had nothing but his name and a poor description. I went first to Philadelphia and saw John O'Brien, the circus-man. He said he knew nothing of Kipp, that his head canvas-man hired men anywhere and paid them off anywhere. I found his head canvas-man at Newark, in New Jersey. He remem- bered the fight, and remembered Louis Kipp. " ' He fought a good fight, too,' said the head canvas- man. " He thought Louis was a Pennsylvania Dutchman from Bucks County or Lancaster in Pennsylvania. He had heard Louis speak of this section of the country, but knew nothing more about him, and said he had not seen Louis since the fight at Cornwall. He claimed the cir- cus-men had fought in self-defence. I went to Easton, Pa., to an old friend of mine, Jake Johnson, chief of police. Jake knew that entire country. He had served in the Molly Maguire business, and was just voluntarily giving it up at that time. Jake agreed to go with me in a search of the two counties for Louis Kipp. GLENGARRY WRECKED THE CIRCUS 147 " Jake and I started out on Sunday, March 17th, 1878, St. Patrick's Day. It was raining hard. We had a cracking good team. We drove all day from place to place, and at nightfall came to a little tavern away up in the mountains, and decided to stay there all night. As we were putting up our team we got our first trace of the whereabouts of Louis. A lot of fellows were in the tav- ern celebrating St. Patrick's Day ; and one of them told us that a fellow named Louis Kipp worked for a farmer about ten miles farther on, over the mountain. We were forty miles or more from Easton. We pledged every- body's health in the tavern, and took the fellow with us to show the way. It poured like a deluge for the entire ten miles. Finally we came to a big farm with a great farmhouse and tremendous barns. We banged on the door, and my mind went back to Dixmont at the other end of the same State. A nightcapped head popped out of a window, and asked in German who was there and what was wanted. We answered that we wanted to see Louis Kipp, if he lived there. " ' He lives here, but he and his girl are out together for a walk,' was the reply. " It was after midnight, and raining hard. The farmer, however, invited us in, and had us put up our team. Then he brought cider, and headcheese and gingerbread, and we sat in a huge room with a big fireplace, and sipped cider and munched headcheese and gingerbread while we waited for Louis. An hour passed, but no sign of Louis. Our host explained that Louis's girl also lived in the house, and that every Sunday evening they went spoon- ing, rain or shine. Another hour passed. It was after two o'clock. Our host smoked on unconcernedly. " ' Sometimes they spoon till dawn,' he said in German. ' It is the way of unmarried love.' " He told us of some fine currant wine he had in his cellar, and at length he insisted on getting some of it. He took a candle and disappeared into the cellar. Pres- ently he reappeared without the wine, and in great ex- citement. He beckoned us to follow noiselessly. We did so, tiptoeing softly down the cellar stairs. It was a 148 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE vast, cavernous place, with rows of huge hogsheads, like vats or cisterns. He led us among them to a remote cor- ner, then held up his hand and pointed to a hogshead re- clining on its side. We stepped silently up, and peeped in while he held the candle. I never will forget the sight There sat Louis and his girl, their arms around one another, her head on his shoulder, both sound asleep, both with their mouths wide open, both snoring sonorously, inside this big hogshead. " ' Beautiful, is it not so ? ' said our host in German. " He gazed enraptured on this picture of bliss. Then suddenly he sneezed a loud, resounding sneeze that blew out the candle. Louis, in the hogshead, awoke with a snort, as did his girl. We bumped amid the hogsheads until our host relighted the candle. " ' Pardon ! pardon ! ' he exclaimed in German. ' Every time I see true love it makes me sneeze. I feel myself about to cry for joy, and when I would not cry, but almost, then I sneeze at the tickles of the nose from tears.' " Louis and his girl, yawning and sheepish, followed us up to the big room. There Louis hugged his girl until I thought he would crush her short ribs, kissed her with a resounding smack, waited while she kissed him with equal explosion, and then said : " ' Goot-night.' " She went to bed. In the talk that followed I must confess I lied a little to Louis. " ' Louis,' I said, ' you were with John O'Brien's circus last year ? ' " ' Yah, yah,' grunted Louis, who spoke in broken English. " ' Do you remember a fight in Cornwall, Canada ? ' I asked. " Louis's face lighted up. " ' Yah, yah,' he grunted. ' T'at vas te tamtest fight I efer see. Ve pull out t'e stakes und ve get t'e pest of it, but t'ey fight like t'e vild men ofer t'ere.' " I said that one fellow had been badly hurt among the circus-men, and some fellows were arrested, and I wanted Louis to come over for the trial. GLENGARRY WRECKED THE CIRCUS 149 " ' I got no money,' said Louis. ' I gif it all to my girl-' " I said I would pay all the expenses. Louis was de- lighted. The farmer said he could go. Louis called up the stairs to his girl, excitedly told her of the fine trip he was going to take, told her to take good care of his money while he was gone, and then hurried out, hitched up our team, and we started back to Easton at dawn. Louis was eager to go. I have often thought since, that he never realised, when the frenzy of the circus fight was over, that he had struck a fatal blow, and he honestly believed he was going back to Cornwall to testify for an- other. He stuck to me night and day, afraid lest he should lose me and miss the trip. We arrived in Cornwall on March 20th. There I told him that it was he who was to be tried. " ' Mein Gott ! ' said Louis. ' Von't I efer git back to my girl and my money ? ' " That was all that worried him. He was very good, and gave me no trouble. He pleaded guilty to man- slaughter, and I got him off with one year in gaol. " ' I remember now t'e little fellow vat I hit,' he told me, after hearing the details of the charge against him. ' It vas too bad he die. He vas a goot fighter. I vould radder it haf been one of t'e fellows who hang back and not fight.' " When Louis got out of gaol he hied himself back to his girl and his money in Pennsylvania. " Jake Johnson, of Easton, was glad to oblige me in the matter of finding Louis. For in January, 1878, two months before I started after Louis, Jake had been over in Canada for a man by the name of Gillard, of Easton, who was a refugee from justice from Pennsylvania. Gil- lard had come to Canada, and found employment as a carriage maker with a man named Dixon, of Oakville, twenty miles from Toronto. The crime of which he was accused was serious, but did not come under extradition, although Jake Johnson was very anxious to get him. " I had been laid up with typhoid fever, but in Jan- uary, 1878, I was able to get out, and Jake came to To- ISO MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE ronto ; and we went to Oakville and saw Mr. Dixon. He appeared to be quite willing to aid us after hearing of the serious charge against Gillard. Arrangements were made to land Gillard in some part of the United States. He would suspect if Suspension Bridge were chosen as the place, so Ogdensburg was selected. Mr. Dixon took Gillard with him, ostensibly on a business trip about waggons. I accompanied them. It was bitter cold weather. On January 23d we crossed the St. Law- rence River at Prescott. Jake Johnson was on the Amer- ican side. He had the papers for Gillard's arrest, with a requisition from the Governor of Pennsylvania on the Governor of New York. Instead of keeping these papers until train time, Johnson foolishly got a policeman in Ogdensburg, and had Gillard arrested and put in the lockup. I foresaw trouble. Gillard had no inkling of what was in store for him until he was arrested, and then he promptly sent for a lawyer, a prominent attorney named Kellogg. Gillard told Mr. Kellogg he had been kidnapped out of Canada. He told of my coming over, of Dixon's part in the matter, and of Jake Johnson. His lawyer caused warrants to be issued for the entire party. They arrested Dixon and Johnson, and were looking for your humble servant, but I was over the river. ' " The first intimation I had of what was happening to Johnson was when this telegram from Jake was handed to me aboard the Grand Trunk train : " ' I am in the Ogdensburg gaol for kidnapping. What shall I do ? ' " I answered, ' Employ counsel and fight.' " At almost every station I received a frantic telegram from Jake, and I answered them all with the same advice. They had him locked up, all right. Dixon gave the affair away, saying he was induced to get Gillard over the line as a special favour to me. They released Dixon, but they held on to Johnson. Jake telegraphed me almost hourly. They committed him for the grand jury, and then released him on bail, and gave him no end of trouble. I looked into it in the meantime. When the THE DISAPPEARING STORES 151 matter finally came before the grand jury they ignored the bill against Jake. Gillard, in the interval, had been discharged, but he was arrested subsequently, and was held. After a great deal of trouble and litigation he was handed over to the Pennsylvania authorities. Jake Johnson had the satisfaction of seeing him tried and con- victed. " Gillard was very different from Louis Kipp. He was quite unwilling to go back to Pennsylvania, whereas Louis, during his year's sojourn in Canada, dreamed con- stantly of the big farmhouse and his rosy-cheeked, buxom Dutch girl, and his money, and the big hogshead in the cellar, where they spooned, and slept, and snored." XXVII THE DISAPPEARING STORES The night express from Montreal was puffing into Cornwall, and Murray, who had finished with the case of Louis Kipp, was waiting in the station to return to To- ronto, when a telegram was handed to him. It was from George F. Marter, formerly leader of the Conservative or Opposition party in Parliament, and now manager of the Lancashire Insurance Company of Toronto. It simply stated that the general store at Gravenhurst had been cleaned out by unknown thieves. " A short time before," says Murray, " thieves had plun- dered a harness shop in Gravenhurst. All that remained of the shop was the frame of the building. Every scrap of stock had vanished in a single night ; collars, harness, whips, blankets, everything in the store had been taken. Lethbridge was a little place, six miles from Gravenhurst and about one hundred and thirty miles north of Toronto. Mr. Marter and his partner, Hull, had a timber limit and sawmill there. In connection with the mill in Leth- bridge they started a general store in Gravenhurst. The goods were bought at wholesale houses in Montreal and 152 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE Toronto, and were shipped to Gravenhurst, and delivered into the general store. They were not unpacked, but were still in their boxes when they vanished as the har- ness shop had vanished. It was in May, 1878. I went on through Toronto to Gravenhurst, arriving the next day. Mr. Marter met me and we went to the store. It had been cleared out, big boxes and little boxes ; almost the entire stock had been stolen. My mind went back to the old days in Erie, and I wondered if George Knapp had moved to Canada and settled somewhere in the vi- cinity of Lethbridge. Knapp was the only man I ever had seen who would feel equal to stealing a harness shop and then a general store. " I asked Marter to let me talk during the day with all the men in his employ. I went with him to his mill at Lethbridge, and began with the head sawyer and the tail sawyer, and then the teamsters, and then the other men, getting their ideas and opinions, and asking if they knew of any strangers in the vicinity. They all passed muster with me except one fellow, a big teamster named George Rose. His eyes were too small and too quick, and his story was too smooth. He said nothing to cast suspicion on himself. On the contrary his talk was very plausible. But of all the men he was the one whose looks I did not like. I thought him over carefully, and finally I went, alone, to his house. He was married and lived in a house among the rocks, about a mile from the sawmill, in a picturesque, out-of-the-way, inaccessible place. He and his wife and a seven-year-old boy lived there. I hunted around, look- ing for signs of fresh digging or traces of newly-turned earth. I found not a sign, not a clue, not a single thread. Back to Toronto I went, empty handed. " I turned the case over in my mind night and day. Whenever I thought of it there seemed to rise in my vision the face of Rose, with the sneaky eyes. I kept thinking of him until my suspicion grew to a moral cer- tainty. Back I went to Lethbridge. I went straight to Rose's house and walked in. His wife was there. I spoke of the robbery of Marter's store. She replied it was wonderful to think it could be done. I called the THE DISAPPEARING STORES 153 little boy. He was a nice child, with a strong English accent. " ' This is not your boy ? ' I said to Mrs. Rose, when I heard him speak. " ' Oh no,' said she. ' We adopted him from Miss Rye at Belleville.' " The lad chatted with me, telling me of the ship on which he came over. I lingered around the house, but neither there nor elsewhere in Lethbridge could I find a trace of the perpetrators of the robbery. It annoyed me. Here was a complete general store, packed in boxes filling many waggons, goods worth thousands of dollars and of great bulk, gone completely, vanished in the night, and not a clue even as to the road they went. They did not fall through the earth. They did not vanish into air. They must have been hauled away, and that meant many waggon loads, and yet there was not a single track nor trail nor trace of their whereabouts or of the road they were taken. The more I hunted for evidence against Rose the less I seemed to find. He and his wife lived happily, and were very fond of their adopted child. I stayed around a day or two and I went away again empty handed. " At this moment in the case, although I was bare of evidence, I could have sworn almost to a certainty that Rose stole the store. I thought and thought and thought. At last a plan presented itself. I wrote to Miss Rye at Belleville to take the child away. She sent a man at once to Lethbridge to take the boy away from the Roses. I had the man bring the boy to me. I examined him carefully. I found he was wearing new stockings and had two new pocket-handkerchiefs that never had been used. " ' Where did you get these ? ' I asked him. " ' My mamma,' said the little fellow, meaning Mrs. Rose. ' She cried when I left.' " I bought him new stockings and handkerchiefs and some candy and sent him on his way to Miss Rye. I kept the stockings and kerchiefs given to him by Mrs. Rose. Several times I had mentioned Rose to Mr. 1 54 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE Marter, who invariably defended and praised the team- ster. Time passed. Mr. Marter was worried greatly. No trace of his store had appeared. He came to me the day I saw the boy on his way to Miss Rye. " ' Any clue, Murray ? ' he asked. " ' I do not like Rose,' said I. " ' Nonsense,' said he. ' Rose is all right. He is a good man, a reliable man. He is steady and goes to church.' " ' That cuts no figure with me,' said I. ' Many a job has been planned by a churchman.' " ' You should not be swayed in your suspicions by disUke of a man's looks,' said he. " For answer I showed him the handkerchiefs and stockings. " ' Did you buy such goods ? ' I asked. " ' Why, yes, I did ! ' he exclaimed. "I went back to Gravenhurst. I spent a day in the town learning if Rose had any friends there. I found, from residents, that a barber named James Fuller was a great friend of Rose. I waited until next morning, so that my beard would be out, and then went to Fuller's shop to get shaved. Fuller was out. A half-breed woman, his wife, part Indian and part white, was keeping shop. She sat in a back room with the door half open, so she could see who entered the shop. She was sewing lace on some undergarment. A bunch of lace was on the floor beside her. I walked right through the shop into the back room. " ' Fuller in ? ' I asked. " ' No, he's gone to Cooksville,' said she. " ' That's pretty lace ; where did you get it ? ' I asked, picking up a piece of the lace and admiring it. " • I bought it at Coburn's store,' said she, with a furtive glance at me. " ' How much did you pay for it? ' I asked. " ' I forget,' said she. " ' I wonder if they have any more of it,' I said. ' How long ago did you get it ? ' " ' I don't remember,' said she. THE DISAPPEARING STORES 155 " ' May I have this piece as a sample ? ' said I, pocket- ing the piece I had picked up. ' I want to get some like it." " She objected. I walked out of the shop. This was on Saturday, July 13th, 1878. I went to Coburn's store. They said they had sold no lace to Fuller's woman, and when I showed them the piece they said they never had carried such lace. " I went before a magistrate and laid an information against Rose and Fuller. Fuller had gone to Cooksville. I went out to Lethbridge and met Marter, and told him I was going to arrest Rose. Marter identified the lace, and went with me to Rose's house amid the rocks. Rose sat in the doorway cleaning a breech-loading carbine. " ' Hello, Rose,' said I. ' What are you doing? ' " ' Cleaning my gun,' said Rose. " • That's a nice-looking gun,' said I. ' Let me see it.' " He handed me the gun. I laid it aside and arrested him. He made no resistance and I put the handcuffs on him. He asked what he was arrested for. I told him it was for robbing Marter's stores. " ' We'll see about this,' said Rose, with an air of in- jured innocence. " We started for Gravenhurst. We walked part of the way to the station in silence. " ' Rose,' said I, ' the jig is up. See these ? ' and I drew the lace out of my pocket. ' The squaw is coming out in good style.' " ' What squaw ? ' asked Rose surlily. " ' Mrs. Fuller,' said I. " Rose was mum. We walked on in silence for half a mile. " ' Rose,' said I, • I don't think it is fair for Fuller to throw the responsibility for this job on you. I believe he knows more about it than that you gave him this lace as a present.' " Rose said nothing until we got out to the railroad track, a mile from his house. Then he broke silence. " ' Fuller has not treated me fairly,' said Rose. ' He 156 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE lied about the lace. Come on. I'll show you where the stuff is.' " We went back a mile to his house. A rod or two from the back of his house was a potato patch between two rocks, about twenty feet apart. " • There it is,' said Rose. " I stared at the potato patch where the potatoes were growing and the ground was unbroken. I thought he was joking, like old Knapp in Erie about the buried gold. I sternly told him to dig it up if it was there. I loosened the handcuffs. Rose dug down into the potato patch and struck boards. He pulled up one or two of these boards and there, beneath the potato patch in a big hole or bowl in the earth, was the stolen store. Mr. Marter went for his men and teams while Rose cleared the potato patch away. It was the cleverest hiding-place I had ever seen. He had laid some of Marter's lumber across the opening or mouth of the big hole and had dumped dirt on to the boards and had planted potatoes in this earth, making a garden or potato patch as the covering for the goods. In the two months and more that had passed the potatoes had flourished. " In addition to finding the stolen general store, we found the stolen harness shop with dozens of sets of harness, collars, saddles, etc. It took Marter's men half the night, to haul the stuff back to the store. Rose threw the blame on Fuller, saying Fuller planned it while Rose simply did the hauling and helped to hide the goods. They had begun on a Saturday night, and spent Saturday and Sunday nights stealing and hauling and hiding the boxes of goods. I locked Rose up. " Fuller was in Cooksville, eighty miles away. I ar- ranged to block any telegram that might be sent to him and that night I drove over fifty miles to Barrie. There my horse gave out, for it was a choking hot night in July. I hired another team and arrived in Cooksville about eight o'clock in the morning. I tied the team in the hotel shed and turned to walk down the street. I met a fellow on the street by the hotel. " ' Can you direct me to a barber's shop ? ' I asked. MARY ANN WEATHERUP, COQUETTE 157 '"I am going there,' said he. ' I am a barber my- self.' " ' Is that so ? ' said I. " ' Yes,' said he. ' But not here.' " ' Where are you from ? ' I asked. " ' Gravenhurst,' said he. " ' Oh yes,' said I. • I think you shaved me there.' " ' Yes, I probably did,' said he. ' My name's Fuller.' " • Oh yes. Fuller,' said I. ' Well, you'll never shave me again,' and I arrested him. " He took it very hard. He protested his innocence. I showed him the stockings and the handkerchiefs, but not the lace. " ' Fuller,' said I, < I don't believe you gave these to George Rose as a present for his adopted boy. I believe Rose knows something about them himself.' " Thereupon Fuller, wrathful at Rose, told the whole story, cursing Rose while he told it. He said Rose planned the job and got him into it, and that he could not have planned it, for he did not know the country or the store as did Rose. After breakfast I drove with Fuller to Barrie and there took the train to Gravenhurst, arriving at one o'clock on Monday afternoon. Both Rose and Fuller demanded a speedy trial. Both pleaded guilty on Wednesday, July 17th, 1878, and were sen- tenced to five years each in Kingston Penitentiary. Fuller was the tool. Rose was a bloomer, well named." XXVIII MARY ANN WEATHERUP, COQUETTE Mary Ann Weatherup was a country coquette. She lived in the township of Hope, in the county of Dur- ham. She was a buxom, blooming girl, with red cheeks and flufify hair and big eyes. Many a lad in the town- ship of Hope spent long hours in the township of De- spair, all on account of Mary Ann Weatherup. She 158 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE would pick out a young fellow, spoon with him on moon- light nights, drive with him on Sunday afternoon, and when Monday came, he was left to sit on the fence and crack his knuckles, while Mary Ann Weatherup went gaily off with another swain. The youth who basked in Mary Ann's smile for a month plumed himself on his powers of attraction, for seldom did a lover outlast a fort- night in the good graces of Mary Ann Weatherup. Squeaky shoes or pomaded hair or choker collar or city perfume never dazzled Mary Ann Weatherup. She loved variety, and men came and went with unbroken regularity, regardless of the artificial charms with which they were bedecked. Mary Ann Weatherup's family lived on a little rented farm in a house scarcely large enough for the father and mother and three sisters, of whom Mary Ann was the oldest. They were poor in worldly goods, but Mary Ann was rich in physical beauty. She stayed at home until opportunities came for her to work out, and then she was much away, working at the house of some big farmer. Her admirers ever kept her whereabouts in mind, and it is related that there were evenings on the farm where Mary Ann Weatherup yvas employed when eleven young men sat moodily on different sections of the same rail fence waiting for Mary Ann to stroll forth in the twilight. It is related also that Mary Ann Weatherup would saunter forth and gracefully trip along the path, glancing at each figure on the fence until she had passed them all. Then, to make sure there were no others, she would call aloud their names and at the end would shout : " Are there any more, that I have missed ? " When no answer came, Mary Ann would trip blithe- somely back along the path, halt by the favoured one of the evening and say : " Come, Donald," or " Tis you to- night, Thomas," or " You look fine gay this eve, Willie," or " Wast waiting for me, David ? " She would give no heed to the others apart from the one she chose. The lucky one would leap down from the fence and he and Mary Ann Weatherup would go swinging away, hand in hand, in the evening time. The others disappeared. MARY ANN WEATHERUP, COQUETTE 159 some abruptly, some lingeringly, to reappear the next night and perchance be chosen. Seldom, in such carnivals of choosing, was the same adorer selected on two successive evenings. Sometimes, a week or a fort- night, or even three weeks, passed before David, on the third section of the fence, was called, while Donald or Willie alternated for a week. Certain sections of the fence came to be regarded as lucky or unlucky, and significance attached also to the attitude of the sitter, as if crossed limbs or interlaced fingers could cast a magic spell upon the comely Mary Ann Weatherup. Once or twice Mary Ann Weatherup hastened home and remained there in seclusion for a time. Later there were grandchildren but no son-in-law at the Weatherup family home. On the first occasion the Mother Weath- erup grieved and reproached Mary Ann and admon- ished her not to let it happen again. On the second occasion she upbraided Mary Ann, and said she was im- posing on the good nature of her parents and overtaxing the capacity of their home. Mary Ann went away again and all was serene once more. " Some Frenchmen were cutting cordwood in the township of Hope, not far from the farm of the parents of Mary Ann Weatherup, in November, 1879," says Murray. " Their dog was nosing in the brush and they saw him running along with something in his mouth. They followed the dog, thinking he had a woodchuck, and, as all French woodsmen at that time believed, wood- chuck was a splendid cure for rheumatism. They hailed the dog and he dropped his burden. Instead of a wood- chuck they found the body of a young child, roasted, partly devoured and frozen. They reported it to the authorities and I was notified. I went to the township of Hope. " The fame of Mary Ann Weatherup was not abroad in that immediate part of the land so much as might have been supposed. I began a systematic search for the mother of the child. In due time I came upon Mary Ann Weatherup and arrested her. She denied the motherhood of any child within a year or more. When i6o MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE she was locked up her father and mother became fright- ened and disappeared. They had made sworn statements under examination before they ran away. I had Mary Ann kept in gaol and went to see her there. Finally she told me the story. " ' Maw was most unjust,' said Mary Ann. ' When I had my first child she used harsh words to me, and when I had my second child she accused me of imposing on her and paw, who had both hands full, said maw, with a family of their own. I went away and at length I went home again. " What again ? " said maw, as she looked at me, and she was most angry and charged me with try- ing to crowd her out of her own house. She called in paw, who swore I must get out. I sat down and folded my hands, and said : " Here I am and here I stay." They raged and stormed until I asked them what they thought I had them as my paw and maw for. They had not thought of this, for it silenced paw. He could see he owed me a duty. But maw she vowed she had done more than her duty by me when she let me grow into long dresses and put my hair up. Maw took after queer kind of people. She was not like paw. Paw could be subdued. I stayed despite maw. She kept vowing she would have a Judgment Day on earth and do some reck- oning. On the day the boy was born maw stirred up a big fire in the stove. She almost melted us, and paw he went out to cool himself The stove got red hot. Maw she came and grabbed the baby from me and laid him on the stove and roasted him, and then took him out and threw him in the woods. She said that would be a lesson to me not to try to overcrowd the house.' " Mary Ann did not know where her parents had gone, when they ran away. At least she vowed she did not. One day a letter came addressed to her and postmarked away up in the Huron Peninsula. I got it and tried to decipher it, but it was beyond me and beyond any one else who tried to read it. Mary Ann said it was from her maw and had been written by her paw, and was in- tended to be an epistle of abuse, as the only other kind of letter her paw could write was one of praise, and his CAPTURE OF LOCHINVAR SPROULE i6i commendatory notes were less full of blots and splashes than his condemnatory communications. " I went up to the wilds of Huron Peninsula and found Mary Ann's parents living in a remote, out-of-the-way place. It was easy to locate them approximately by the postmark on the letter, and then drive through the country until I found some one who knew of such a family. I brought them back and had them indicted for perjury. The mother was sent to gaol. They were ignorant people and very poor and ill-tutored. Mary Ann was kept in the common gaol for a year or so and then she was released. She went back to working out with farmers. " Mary Ann never quite got over her coquettish ways. But her sojourn in gaol made her more thoughtful and her folks never thereafter had cause to complain of Mary Ann Weatherup trying to crowd them out of their own house." XXIX THE CAPTURE OF LOCHINVAR SPROULE The paw and maw of Mary Ann Weatherup were still in hiding in the wilds of the Huron Peninsula when an elopement occurred in the county of Elgin. W. W. Sproule was the hero and a barber's wife from Aylmer was the heroine. Sproule was a spruce, sleek, dapper lover, and about forty years old, whose old home was in the maritime provinces, where his family was so influen- tial that it was able to throw out a helping hand to its romantic offspring in the county of Elgin and have him appointed bailiff by the county judge without even the formality of giving security. Sproule's love affairs proved costly, and when he skipped by the light of the moon with the barber's wife, the judge found a double reason for desiring him to return. "Sproule defaulted as bailiff," says Murray. "The i62 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE barber of Aylmer was wroth and he missed his wife, for she was reputed to be a good housekeeper. The case came to me, and Sproule was wanted, both as an eloping defaulter and a defaulting eloper. I started for the mari- time provinces, for it was dollars to doughnuts that the festive Lothario was back among his old-time friends. Sure enough he was at his old home in Hampton, about twenty miles from St. John's, after an absence of twenty- five years. I made a few preliminary inquiries and learned that his brother was the sheriff of the county, that another brother was deputy-sheriff, that another brother was a lawyer, that another brother was clerk of the court, that a nephew was a conductor on the road, that another nephew was a brakeman, and, truth to tell, almost every fifth man in that part of the country was a Sproule. I realised at the outset that strategy alone would enable me to land my man. " I called on the old chief of police in the city of St. John's and told him I would like to have an officer. I mentioned no names. I simply said I wanted to arrest a Canadian near Hampton. The people in the maritime provinces do not call themselves Canadians, but they call Canada the remainder of the Dominion. The chief in- formed me he had an officer who had come from that part of the country and would send him to me the next day. The next morning this detective called. Weath- erhead was his name. It was March 1st, 1880. I told him, as we were about to start that my man was in Hampton. Weatherhead said all right and asked his name. I foolishly told Weatherhead Sproule's name. The detective immediately said he had to go to the office a minute. He went, too. I afterwards learned that the chief of police and one of Sproule's brothers were per- sonal friends, but I did not know it then. Weatherhead returned and we boarded a local train, mixed passenger and freight, and went to Hampton. At that time I had to get a warrant from one province indorsed in another, but since then all that has been changed. Weatherhead told me the only magistrate there was Mr. Barnes, regis- trar of the county. We hunted up Barnes. One of CAPTURE OF LOCHINVAR SPROULE 163 Sproule's brothers was his clerk. Weatherhead said again that Barnes was the sole magistrate within a radius of miles, and I reluctantly had to accept his word. Barnes was at the court-house. He dilly-dallied and wasted time until I took a copy of the statutes and said : " ' There's the law, sir, and there's the warrant issued by the county judge, sign it or not ! ' " He signed it after further delay. It was three miles from the court-house to the town proper. Hampton was a little gut of a town, stretched along one street. Weath- erhead said we could not get a rig to drive, and it was too far to walk, under the circumstances. Up to this time I had accepted Weatherhead in good faith. While I had my suspicions I was loth to believe that a fellow detective would betray me or sell me out. Never before had such a thing happened to me, and I am thankful to say that few times, in all the years of my experience, have I known one detective to play another false. I have found the men of the police business of the world honourable, fair and square in their deaUngs one with an- other, and the cases of sell-out have been the exceptions with me. But I was weary of Weatherhead. " ' I will go myself,' said I to him. ' I see through this pretty well.' " ' Hold on,' said Weatherhead. " ' No, sir, I don't hold on,' said I. ' I go myself. Good-day to you, sir.' " I left him in the road, this Detective Weatherhead of St. John's. He followed me. I walked on to Hamp- ton, and on the way I met a boy and gave him a quarter to show me where the returned Sproule was living in the little town. The boy piloted me to a double house and showed me the door and left me. I rapped. No one answered. I rapped at the next door and a lady an- swered my knock and said that Mr. and Mrs. Sproule left in a great hurry a few minutes before I arrived. They drove away with their trunks and a fast team, she said. I went back to the Sproule house and got in through a back door. I found the dishes on the table, the stove hot and other signs that the people had gone in a hurry. I 1 64 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE had missed them by a mere few moments. I was satis- fied then that I was sold. I was mad as a hornet, but I put a fair face on it and smiled. " ' I'm glad they're gone/ said I. ' I was not anxious to take them back, for it was not so serious a crime, after all. I had to go to Quebec and was ordered to stop here on the way.' " I went back to my hotel at St. John's. The chief of police called to take me for a drive and to meet the men of the town. I declined. I saw the sheriff of St. John's, whom I had met before, and I told him of the Sproule matter in Hampton. I told all of them that I was going away, and desired them not to bother about Sproule. Outwardly I was smiling, but inwardly I was vexed and determined to take Sproule, of Hampton, back to the county of Elgin, no matter what games were played to block me. " In St. John's, commercial travellers have to pay a licence to sell goods. Sometimes they leave their goods outside the city and take customers out to look at them. I told the clerk of the hotel to get me a good, lusty man, as I wanted to go to Sussex, twenty-five miles out, where I had some samples to bring in. The clerk got me a big Irish porter, who was not afraid of anything. " ' Bring two good lanterns and a stout stick,' said 1 to the porter. ' The scoundrels may steal my samples.' " The spirit of adventure stirred the porter and he was eager for an encounter. We took the train for Hampton the next evening. The conductor smiled at me. The porter and I walked three miles to Sproule's in the dark- ness. I stationed him at the front door. " ' Grab anybody that comes out,' said I. " I entered by the back door. I prowled through the entire house. The Sproules were not there. I left the house by the front door and as I stepped outside I was seized and whirled violently out into the road with a human hyena on top of me, yelling : " ' I've got ye ! I've got ye ! ' " It was my Irish porter obeying orders to seize any one coming out of the front door. He recognised me in CAPTURE OF LOCHINVAR SPROULE 165 a moment and promptly dusted me off and we went back to St. John's, empty-handed again. " The next evening I boarded a train on which Sproules were part of the crew and doubled back to Moncton, one hundred and twenty miles. The Sproule brakeman fol- lowed me into the sleeper and made sure of my depar- ture. I crept into my berth with my clothes on and drew the curtains. At Moncton I met the Halifax train going north. I slipped out of the sleeper, boarded the Halifax train and rode about fifty miles to Weldford, while the Sproule brakeman thought I was sleeping blissfully in my berth on the other train going to Quebec. At Weldford I stayed all night in a little hotel and then drove by stage, twenty-five miles away from the railroad, to Kingston, where I stayed a day and then drove to Richibucto and stayed two days, and then I drove back to Weldford and thence by rail to Moncton, where I arrived on a storm- ing, blowing night in March. The clerk at the American House, where I stopped, said they were out of liquor and cigars. I told him to go out and get a supply to last a few days. He went out and returned with two bottles of beer, two cigars, and a half-pint of whiskey. It was too serious then to be as ludicrous as it seems to me now. " A big storekeeper named McSweeny was president of the Moncton Council. I called at the store and met a Mr. McSweeny and told him the whole story from start to finish. He heard me through and said his brother was the Council president and that there was a bold, ambi- tious young fellow who wanted to become chief constable, and whose father was sheriff of the county and who knew the Sproules, of Hampton. " ' My brother has the appointment of the chief constable, and I think this man can help you,' said McSweeny. " When President McSweeny came in he heard my story, and said : ' Murray, we'll see you do not go back without your man.' He sent for the candidate for chief constable. Vail was his name. McSweeny promised the appointment to him if he helped me get Sproule. I 1 66 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE knew it was useless for me to try to run the gauntlet of Sproules, so I gave Vail some money and he went to Hampton while I waited in Moncton. He stayed with Sheriff Sproule in Hampton, and in a few days returned to Moncton empty-handed. His story was that my Sproule was still away, but would be home the next week. I gave no sign of increduhty and four days later I sent Vail to Hampton again, with the warrant endorsed and regular. The next day I received a telegram reading : " ' Got him ! ' " I took the next train to Hampton. Sure enough, Sproule had returned and Vail had nabbed him. The Sheriff Sproule was enraged at his guest. Vail, who grinned and said he would be a chief constable soon. I started back with Sproule. The conductor of the train was the Conductor Sproule who had given me the laugh. I had the pleasure, this time, of a broad smile at him. I left the wife of the barber of Aylmer, in Hampton. I handcuffed Sproule. In travelling with a handcuffed prisoner you have to sleep side by side with him in the berth. Every time Sproule thought I was asleep in the berth he would yank me by jerking the arm by which he was handcuffed to me. I had to laugh. I really enjoyed his wrath. I took him back to St. Thomas and turned him over to the authorities in the county of Elgin. " I never forgot the sell-out that was worked on me. Treachery is one of the rancid, nasty wrongs of life. Ingratitude is another. If in eternity there are figures before doorways to denote the character of the interiors, the Temple of Infamy will have its entrance flanked by a traitor and an ingrate. It is a source of pleasure to me that in matching my experience in my business with the experiences of other men in other businesses, I find that I have come into contact with far less treachery among my colleagues than they have encountered. It speaks well for the honour of men in the police business in so far as their dealings with one another are concerned. The Sproule case contained my first difficulty with an officer. I got my man just the same, and I often thought how much alike were the names of Mary Ann Weatherup, MILLION DOLLAR COUNTERFEITING 167 of Durham, and my friend, Detective Wetherhead, of St. John's, whom I left standing in the Hampton road." XXX THE MILLION DOLLAR COUNTERFEITING The first five years of Murray's service with the Gov- ernment in Canada were drawing to a close in 1880. They had been five eventful years. He had done his difficult work faithfully and well. He added to the name and fame, not only of the Department of Justice, but of himself. He had handled successfully scores of cases of varying degrees of importance, from atrocious murders to petty and persistent thievings. The Government in no instance had called upon him in vain. But clever as he was, able and resourceful as he had proved himself to be, a still severer test of his qualities was about to come, and a task was to rise before him beside which all former cases seemed simple and insignificant. It was the Mil- lion Dollar Counterfeiting. This crime is known as one of the boldest and greatest of its kind ever undertaken. It was a crime of genius. The man who solved its mystery and ran its perpetrators to earth, was a detective of genuine worth. His trophy of the chase rests on a stand in his library, one of the largest hauls of counterfeit plates ever made on the American continent, plates that are worth over ^40,000, plates that set in circulation bogus money totalling over ^1,000,000 so true to the genuine currency that to this day some of it is in circulation, and banks could not tell it was counterfeit. " la the months of March, April, and May in 1880," says Murray, " Canada was flooded with the most danger- ous counterfeit bills ever put in circulation. Banks took the bogus bank-notes over their own counters, and could not tell they were not genuine. Officials whose signa- tures were forged could not tell the forged signature from 1 68 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE the genuine. Good and bad bills were laid side by side, and experts had to resort to scientific methods to tell which were good and which were bad. The bills ap- peared all over Canada. It is known now that over ^1,000,000 of them were sent out. In the far northwest ^200,000 of this money was paid for furs that were shipped to England, Montreal, and New York from this remote country where there were no banks, and to the present time some of it is in circulation there, and is good money. The banks, as I have said, took them over their own counters to my positive knowledge. " One of the counterfeits was a United States ^5 bill of the Government issue of 1875. It was one of the first to be discovered. It was detected in Washington by accident. An expert in connection with the Treasury Department happened to run across one of the new bills. He remarked that it was better work and a prettier bill than any he had ever seen. The one fault was the bill was too perfect. The expert took it to the Treasury Department to hunt up the series of numbers, and he found the bill was a counterfeit. Secret Service men were detailed at once. They set to work. Two or three were over here. This was before there was much talk of our counterfeits being in circulation. The Secret Service men got no trace of the counterfeiters. " Then came the discovery of the Canadian counter- feits. Numbers on new bills on this side were compared, after the United States Secret Service men began to work and stir around, and the discovery was made that whole- sale counterfeiting of Canada bills had occurred. The banks were in a stew. Everybody was stirred up. Busi- ness men were worried. The Government instructed me to get to the bottom of it, and above all to get the plates, and thereby stop further issue of the bills. I found the following Canada counterfeit bills in circulation : "A ^10 bill on the Bank of Commerce. " A ;^s bill on the Bank of Commerce, whose head ofifice is Toronto, with branches all over Canada. " A $S bill on the Bank of British North America, of Toronto, with branches all over the country. MILLION DOLLAR COUNTERFEITING 169 " A ^10 bill on the Ontario Bank. " A $4 bill on the Dominion Bank. " A ^i bill Dominion of Canada, Government issue. " There is any amount of this currency out still. Har- rington, the signer of the Government issue, could not detect the forgery of his own signature. The counter- feiters were so bold and so daring that, as I have said, ^200,000 was paid for furs and was accepted, and to this day part of it is in circulation in the northwest, and is as good as gold for all practical purposes out there. Even the banks whose bills were counterfeited accepted the counterfeits over their own counters. They denied that they ever paid any of them out again. The bills were afloat in all sections of the country and there was a great stir. " It was my old line of work, although I was a little rusty, for I had lost track of some of the details of the whereabouts 'of the various people. I started out, and I knew at the outset that I was tackling one of the hardest cases of my life. The principals, not the small fry, alone held the plates. I went to New York, taking with me specimens of the Canada bills and of the United States bill, for the United States bill also was in suspiciously large circulation in Canada. In New York I went at once to the cooney places, and looked for cooney men. I found no one who had any information. From New York I went to Philadelphia, and there I made the usual rounds of the cooney places, and also called on the ofifi- cers. I learned nothing. The Secret Service men had been over the ground before me without avail. From Philadelphia I went to Washington, and called at the Treasury Department. John Sherman, of Ohio, was Secretary of the Treasury. Jim Brooks, an old English- man, was chief of the Secret Service then. I talked with the officers, and learned nothing. Back to New York I went empty-handed. " In the old days in New York I had known some of the counterfeiters and ex-counterfeiters, and I got track of two or three of them in the cooney places or resorts they frequent, and finally I struck the trail of a man who I70 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE was an expert in his day, and who was thoroughly up in counterfeiting and the work of counterfeiters. He had been a counterfeiter himself in the old days, and I had known him when I was working for the United States some years before. I showed him the bills. Counter- feiters often know each other's work. In using the word counterfeiters in this sense I mean the engravers, the men who make the plates. An expert engraver of coun- terfeit plates usually can tell within a group of men, if not the very man, who made the plate from which a bill was printed. They seem to recognise some bit of char- acter, some intangible trait in the work that enables them to identify its maker, or the group from whence it came. " My ex-counterfeiter in New York looked the bills over very carefully. " ' They are beauties,' he said. ' It looks very much like the work of old John Hill, but I think Hill has been locked up since he got the ^10,000 for making those last plates of his. Yet it looks like Hill's work.' " I knew Hill. He was an old, crooked engraver whose home was in New York, and who had done time twice. He charged a fee of |1 10,000 for making the plates for bogus bills, and would have nothing to do with shoving the queer — that is, circulating the money. I went to Albany, and thence to Troy to see another old cooney man who had reformed. He looked at the bills. " ' They look like Hill's,' said he, ' but I know Hill has not been situated in recent years so he had time to make them.' " I thought the plates, wherever they might be, were the handiwork of Prussian Mark Ulrich, and that Pete McCarthy might have aided him, they were so perfect. " ' No,' said my cooney acquaintance whom I saw in Troy, ' they look like Hill, and next to Ed Johnson, Hill is the best man in the world to-day. They are not Prussian Mark's.' " I ran down Hill's whereabouts, and satisfied myself that he had nothing to do with the Canada plates in this work. It required several years to make the plates, for a crooked engraver worked only at certain hours of the MILLION DOLLAR COUNTERFEITING 171 day, in a certain light, and the plates that made the bills I had were masterpieces from a master's hand. " I decided to try Chicago, and see what I could learn there. I was on my way west from New York to Chi- cago, with Hill dropped from my consideration, when my mind turned to Ed Johnson. Where was he? I remembered the tales I had heard of him. He was an Englishman by birth, who was an educated man, and had married an educated Englishwoman. He learned the trade of an engraver, and the young couple moved to America, and he was supposed to be honest, and worked at his trade until, when the Civil War came on, some one made a fortune out of ^100, ^50, and ^20 counterfeit bank-notes, and Johnson had been mixed up in it, and later was reported to have returned to England. My Troy cooney man agreed, as a matter of course, that Johnson was the ablest man in the business, and the bills were beauties created by a master. They were the best ever seen, and unless a greater than Johnson had arisen, it was Johnson. I determined to account for Johnson as I had accounted for Hill. So I went on to Chicago, and there I learned that the last trace of John- son in the business in that section of the country was in Indianapolis several years before. I learned this from an old time ex-counterfeiter whom I had known in 1867, and who had settled in Chicago. I conferred also with the United States authorities in Chicago. At every step in this case thus far, I had occasion to be thankful for my United States Government experience at the close of the Civil War, and for the acquaintance I built up at that time among ofificers and ex-counterfeiters and counter- feiters themselves. " My next move was to Indianapolis, where I was well acquainted. I called on United States Senator Mc- Donald, and others. I was on the hunt for trace of Ed Johnson. I learned that a family named Johnson had lived in Indianapolis about six years before in elegant style in a big house, with horses, carriages, coachman, footman, and quite a retinue of servants. They spent money lavishly, and lived luxuriously. Then came 172 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE trouble in the form of an accusation that they were coun- terfeiters. The Johnsons promptly retained McDonald & Butler as their counsel, and I understood they paid the attorneys a ^25,000 fee for defending them. They finally got clear, but the trouble had affected their posi- tion in Indianapolis, and they went away. " In the family were Mr. and Mrs. Johnson, two beau- tiful girls and five boys. The daughters were Jessie and Annie Johnson, both clever, accomplished girls. The boys were Tom, Charlie, Johnnie, Elijah, and David Henry. I knew three of them myself. I learned from friends of their counsel that when they left Indianapolis they moved to Cincinnati. I went on to Cincinnati, and found they had lived in Sixth Street there, and had oc- cupied a big house over in Covington, Ky., for a while. They had left there several years before, and through one of their acquaintances I learned they had gone to Hartford, Ct. I went on to Hartford, and found the house there where they had lived in strict seclusion, sel- dom being seen on the street. They had moved from Hartford to a big, old house near Fall River, Mass. I located this house, but they were gone, bag and baggage, almost, a year before, and there I lost the trail. I worked like a beaver trying to get some trace of them. But they had burned all bridges behind them. " I finally went from Fall River back to New York, and saw the man I had seen there before. " ' Do you know old Johnson ? ' I asked him. " ' Yes, but I have not seen him in years, ' was the reply. ' He is as clever as they make. He used to get on drunks, and his family had a desperate time watching him.' " ' Where is he likely to be now? ' I asked. " • They have money, Murray,' said he. ' Old Mrs. Johnson is rich. In the first two or three years of the war they rolled in it, and the old woman always is look- ing out for a rainy day. I heard they had left the coun- try.' " We talked the matter over fully. It was in a little restaurant. I remember well the little cubby-hole in MILLION DOLLAR COUNTERFEITING 173 which we sat. I told him to bring his glass next day, and study the bills. He did so. We had luncheon in my room, and he examined the bills minutely. For three hours or so he fussed over them, studying them under the glass. At last he looked up. " ' Well ? • said I. ' Mark Ulrich ? ' " • No,' said he. ' Hill may have done the States ^5 bill, but Johnson did the Canada bills.' " ' Are you sure of Johnson's work ? ' I asked. " ' As sure as I would be of my own — in the old days,' said he. " ' And you have no idea where Johnson is ? ' I asked. " ' Not the slightest, Murray,' said he. ' I tried to get a hint of him last night, but the best I can learn is that . he is out of the country — possibly in England, unless there is a job on the Continent.' " I dug around in New York, and was bafRed. I knew young Dave Johnson, and Tom, who was lame, and Johnnie. But the whole family had vanished when they left Fall River. I went to Buffalo and saw a retired man there, but nobody knew where Johnson was. From Buffalo I went to Detroit, and saw a man who used to be an expert bank-note engraver, and who had got square. He had no trace of the Johnsons, but agreed, as had my other acquaintances, to endeavour to find some track of them. By this time I was becoming satisfied that the Johnsons had gone abroad or had moved to Canada, and were in personal charge of the distribution of the coun- terfeit money. As a rule, the engravers or plate-makers had little to do with shoving or passing the bogus money. I went up to my room in the hotel at Detroit. I intended to take a train an hour later, but became so absorbed in contemplation of the case that I missed the train. I thought it all over, and it became perfectly clear to my mind that the Johnsons, if they were to be found any- where on this side of the Atlantic, were to be found in Canada, and probably right in or near Toronto, if they had not flown recently to other parts. " Missing the train turned out to be a godsend. I took the next train for Toronto. When I alighted in Toronto 174 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE I crossed to a saloon to get a welcome-home nip. I saw a figure at the other end of the bar. He turned. I stood face to face with Johnnie Johnson ! If he had dropped from the clouds I could not have been more astonished, and if he had been the Recording Angel come to write my title clear, I could not have been more delighted. Johnnie was full. He stood alone at one end of the bar drinking. " ' I'll shadow you,' said I to myself. " It was shortly after eleven o'clock at night. Johnnie finished his drink, and went out. I went out by the other door. I was just in time to see Johnnie jump into a cab and drive away. He was out of sight and sound before I could get a cab. I spent that night, and the next, and the next looking for him. On the third night I spied him. He was just slipping out of Mitchell & Ryan's saloon on King Street, between Bay and York Streets. He walked quickly down Bay Street, jumped in a cab, and drove away. I had kept a cab within hail ever since I lost him the first night, so I jumped into my cab, and away we went after Johnnie. He drove north to Bloor Street, and at the corner of Bloor Street and Avenue Road, not far from where the Parliament building is now, he got out of the cab, paid the man and walked away. I got out of my cab and followed him on foot. He went around six blocks to Hazelton Avenue, turned into Hazel- ton Avenue, and, taking out a latch-key, unlocked the door of a comfortable brick house and went in. " ' There's where the Johnsons are,' quoth I to myself, as I heard the door softly close. " It was a hard house to shadow, there being no shel- tered place near by. I made arrangements with the oc- cupants of an adjacent house, and kept the Johnson house under surveillance. For five days after Johnnie Johnson entered the house, no one passed in or out except the butcher and the baker and the milkman. I saw the baker down town, and asked who lived there. " • An old lady and gentleman, two nice-looking girls, and a couple of sons,' he said. " I saw the milkman. He had seen the girls, and had MILLION DOLLAR COUNTERFEITING 175 hfeard them play the piano and sing. The butcher saw the girls occasionally. I had no case on the Johnsons then, nothing beyond my certainty that they did the job. I kept watch of the house. One night lights burned in the parlour of the house all night, and the piano was played until an early morning hour. I sat watching and waiting. Days and nights had passed, and no one had appeared at the house. It was like a house where every one had gone away. But about seven o'clock in the morning, after the night of lights and music, the front door opened and old man Johnson himself, Edwin John- son, the king of counterfeiters, appeared on the door-step and walked jauntily down the street. I knew him the moment I saw him, for I had a dozen descriptions of him and a photograph, all of recent years. I had discarded the photograph, but my descriptions tallied to a dot. I trailed him. He stopped in almost every saloon on his way down town, but he paid for his drinks in genuine money. He got boozy, and finally he went to the rail- road station and bought a ticket for Markham. I sat six seats behind him on the train. We both got off at Markham. He went into a saloon, and bought a drink. When he came out, I went in. There was a young bar- tender — a saucy, smart aleck, but I had him call the pro- prietor, and through him I got the $1 bill that Johnson had given in pay for the drink. I paid silver for it, and had the proprietor initial it. I eyed it eagerly when I got it. It was a new Dominion $1 bill. I had my man at last. " Johnson went into place after place, buying a drink or cigar, and paying in bad bills. I followed him from place to place, buying the bills as he passed them. He passed one of the $4. Dominion Bank bills in a store, where he bought a necktie. In fact, he kept busy until train time, when he went back to Toronto. I went on the same train. When he alighted in Toronto, I stepped up and tapped him on the shoulder. " • How do you do, Mr. Johnson ? ' said I. " Johnson was a gentleman. He was a very polite, polished old fellow, grey-haired, dapper, and of precise speech. 176 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE " ' You have the advantage of me, sir/ said he. ' I do not know you.' " ' I've seen you often on the other side/ I said. " ' Oh/ said he, • who might you be ? ' " ' I am Detective Murray,' I said. ' We might as well understand each other. You are my prisoner.' " ' All right, sir,' said old Johnson very politely, and not in the least flustered. ' What is the charge ? ' " ' Counterfeiting/ said I. " We walked along as we talked. Edwin Johnson looked like a prosperous banker — as indeed he was, in bad money. He seemingly gave no heed to my answer. " ' Murray, Murray,' he mused. ' Oh yes, I've heard of you. This is rather unexpected. It takes me quite by surprise. I never had the pleasure before, sir.' " ' I have met several members of your family,' I said. " ' Indeed ? ' he said. • A very fine family, sir. Do you not agree with me ? A fine family.' " We walked on to the corner. " ' Well, good-day, sir,' said Edwin Johnson. ' Very glad to have met you.' " ' Just a moment,' said I. ' You are my prisoner, Mr. Johnson. You are a counterfeiter. I have in my pocket the bogus money you passed at Markham, and you have the equivalent of my good money in your pocket.' " Instantly he ceased bluffing, and his manner became grave and earnest. He seemed to sober up. " ' Is there no way of arranging this ? ' he said. ' It appears to be a serious matter.' " ' We'll talk it over,' said I, and I called a cab and took him to the gaol. "This was on Friday, June nth, 1880. I held him without a commitment, for I wanted nothing known of it. In the gaol he said : " ' Murray, I'd like another word with you. Can we not arrange this matter ? Give me your terms. I have money. I mean good money,' he added, with a smile. " I searched him, and found more bad bills on him. Then I told the gaoler to treat him well, and left him MILLION DOLLAR COUNTERFEITING 177 cigars and the like, and told him to think the matter over until Monday, when he would be in better condi- tion to discuss it. " • The only thing you can do with me,' I told him, on leaving, • is to deliver up to me the plates and whole paraphernalia of counterfeiting.' " On Saturday, next day, he sent for me, and I went to the gaol. He renewed his proposition. He told me to name any amount. He did it in a very nice way, saying that his friends could raise a considerable amount. " ' Nothing for me except the plates,' said I. " ' A foolish fellow,' said Edwin Johnson. " As I was leaving he said : ' Murray, if you ever get into this line of business, don't drink. A man does things when he is drunk that he never would dream of doing when he is sober.' " I knew he referred to passing the bills. Except when he was drunk Johnson never shoved or passed any bad bills. The shovers and the middlemen did not know him at all. Only the wholesale dealer knew him. " ' If I had not been drunk this would not have hap- pened,' said Johnson, as I left him. " On Monday I called again at the gaol. Johnson was as polite as if he were receiving me in the Indianapolis mansion of several years before. " ' Good-morning,' said he. ' A very fine day, al- though a trifle hot outdoors, I should judge.' " We talked a few minutes. I insisted that I must have the plates. " ' All I want is the plates,' I said. " ' I have thought it all over, Murray,' said Edwin Johnson. ' I sent for no lawyer. I sent no word home. I am going to turn everything over to you. We will have to go out and get it.' " I had a cab. I sent for Detective John Hodgins, of Toronto Police Headquarters, and Johnson, Hodgins, and I drove away together. Johnson told the way. We drove out to Wells Hill into a piece of woods above Toronto. There we got out. The old man took obser- vations. He spotted a large elm tree. As he sighted i;8 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE and moved around I thought of old Knapp and the buried plunder out of Erie. " ' That's where they are/ announced the old man. " We took off our coats, got sticks, and began to dig. It was a blazing hot day. We dug and dug, and found nothing. I saw that the ground had not even been dis- turbed. I remembered Knapp, and told Johnson that he was mistaken. He went back and took another range, and tramped around, and finally pointed out another tree. " ' Here they are,' he said. " ' Sit down, Mr. Johnson, and cool off,' said I. • Mr. Hodgins, you take the cab and go get a spade.' " I was determined not to waste any labour on what might be a fool's errand. During the absence of Hodgins I gently reminded Johnson that it was not a propitious time for a practical joke. " ' They are here, Murray,' he assured me. ' I vow they are here.' " Hodgins returned with a spade, and he set to work. He dug while we waited. Finally he struck them. Johnson sprang forward and stayed his hand. " • Careful, man ! Careful ! ' said Johnson. ' They took years to make, and are worth over forty thousand dollars.' " Johnson lifted them out as tenderly as a mother would raise her sick babe from a cradle. They were wrapped in oiled cloth, and were encased in solid cover- ings of beeswax. " • Here they are, Murray,' said Johnson, handing them to me. ' They cost over forty thousand dollars to make. I don't own all these plates. A party on the other side has an interest in them.' " They made a package the size of two big bricks, and were very heavy. I took Johnson back to the gaol, and then drove to the Attorney-General's Department with the plates. There I examined them, and saw they were the finest in the land. I marvelled at the firmness and precision of the strokes, the authority of the signatures, the beauty of the vignettes and medallions, the accuracy of following all the little whimsies of the engravers of MILLION DOLLAR COUNTERFEITING 179 the original, genuine plates. For each bill there were three copper plates — one for the front, one for the back, and one for the wedge. Each plate was about one quar- ter of an inch in thickness. I scored them crisscross, and locked them up. Not only were the six Canada counterfeits in the lot, but the plates for the counterfeit States $$ bill were there. There were twenty-one sepa- rate copper pieces or plates, three each for the Bank of Commerce ^10, the Bank of Commerce $S, the Bank of British North America $5, the Ontario Bank ^10, the Dominion Bank $4, the Government issue $1, and the United States $^. " I went to the gaol and saw Johnson. " ' Yes,' said Johnson, when I asked him, ' Hill made the States $^, and I made the others. It took me years to do them.' " Johnson then told me the whole story. He made the plates in the States. His daughters forged the sig- natures. They had been trained in forging or duplicating signatures since childhood. They would spend hours a day duplicating a single signature, and would work at the one name for months, writing it countless thousands of times. Jessie was better on larger handwriting, and Annie was better on smaller handwriting. The boys were learning to be engravers, and one or two of them were so proficient that the old man spoke of them with pride. " ' I am the best,' he said proudly, ' and one of my boys may become better than I.' " He said they had printed large quantities of the bills. They printed once a year. After each printing the plates were encased in beeswax and oilcloth and buried, and the other paraphernalia was destroyed. The bills were turned over to the wholesale dealer in the queer. The wholesale dealer, in turn, placed it with the retail dealer, who placed it with the shover. " ' The engraver, the man who makes the plates, is the only one who deserves credit or praise,' said Johnson. ' He has the skill, the creative genius. Yet, Murray, every time I get drunk the debased desire comes over i8o MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE me to descend to the low level of a shover, a passer of the queer. I cannot account for it. It is my lower nature. When I drink I indulge in it, and because I drank and indulged in it you got me.' " I told him it was through Johnnie I came upon him, and he was much relieved to think that he had not been the first to give me the scent. Johnson said the half in- terest in the plates was owned in the States. He had lived in the Hazelton Avenue house a little over twelve months, and had been out comparatively seldom during the entire year. "On August 19th, 1880, I went to Washington, and called on the Hon. John Sherman, Secretary of the Treasury, and told him the story and showed to him the ^5 bill plates of the State issue. He congratulated me, and said it was one of the most valuable hauls of counter- feit plates ever made. Secretary Sherman sent for Jim Brooks, chief of the Secret Service. " ' We want Mr. Murray used well in this matter,' said Secretary Sherman to Brooks. " I gave to Brooks the names of the parties I had ob- tained from Johnson. They were arrested, and gave the names of Howard and Swanston and others. Their right names were not given, and I received none of the credit that otherwise might have occurred. " Edwin Johnson was placed on trial at the Fall Assizes in 1880, in Toronto, before Chief Justice Hagarty. When he was arraigned, the Chief Justice looked down at him and asked : " ' Who is your attorney ? ' " ' Murray,' said Johnson. " ' What Murray ? ' asked the Chief Justice. •"Your lordship, he means Detective Murray,' said Counsel .(Eniilius Irving. " There was much laughter. Seven indictments were read, one after another. Johnson pleaded guilty to every one. The counsel for the Crown asked the Court to suspend sentence, and the Court did so. Johnson was released, and I took him and his daughters to the States, where the United States authorities desired to make use MILLION DOLLAR COUNTERFEITING i8i of them. The family jumped out of Canada. The son Tom, the lame one, had started a blind tobacco store in King Street, Toronto. He was arrested in Erie, Pa. He was searched, and nothing was found. He carried a cane. Its top was unscrewed, and the cane was found to be stuffed with bogus bills. Tom went to the penitentiary for shoving. " Johnnie Johnson was arrested in Black Rock at Buffalo, and locked up for shoving. I called to see him when he was in gaol. He got counsel, and escaped con- viction. Six years ago Tom and Charlie were arrested at Sarnia, in Canada, for having counterfeit money, and they were convicted and sent to the penitentiary. They had no business to set foot in Canada. Johnnie was arrested here in Toronto, after getting out in Buffalo. He was shoving the jSio Bank of Commerce bill, and he got ten years in Kingston. He too should have stayed out of Canada. " After Charlie got out of the Canadian penitentiary for the Sarnia business, he went to Detroit, and on August 1 2th, 1898, he and young Ed or Elijah were arrested. The old man was dead. The mother and sisters were living at No. 106 McGraw Avenue, Detroit. David Henry was living at No. 795 26th Street, Detroit, and was married and had two children. Detectives Kane, Downey, and Reegan, with Webb, of the Secret Service, got them. They searched their houses, and found a hollow place in the base board which opened with a secret spring, and revealed a panel cabinet, in which was between $7,000 and ^10,000 of counterfeit notes of the $2 Hancock issue and Windom issue of 1 89 1 and 1893. On the bills the eyes had an upward stare, which was the only flaw. One of the family got away, and was caught at Blenheim, Ontario. The two girls were taken to Washington, as I had taken them in 1880. The mother was arraigned for disposing of coun- terfeit money. She always did the changing with the wholesale dealers. " Old Hill in 1896 was still in prison in the United States, under the name of John Murphy. Part of the 1 82 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE Johnson family is in prison, part is out and their where- abouts known, and part is dead. " They were a wonderful family. Their biggest coup was the Canada counterfeiting. They placed over ;^i,ooo,ooo of the Canada bills. Up in the Hudson Bay district the Johnson bills to this day pass as readily as gold. The capture of the plates put an end to the issue of more bills. The banks were delighted, of course. They had talked of a reward. I received it — in thanks. A meeting was held of the bankers in the Receiver- General's office in Toronto, and I was thanked formally for what I had done. At that meeting I laid some of the Johnson bills side by side with some of the genuine bills. Some of the experts failed to tell which were good and which were counterfeit. " I treated old man- Johnson fairly. The Canada counterfeiting was broken up, the plates were captured and incapacitated, and the Johnsons lived in the States, or if they set foot again in Canada, went to prison. Crime lost a genius when old man Johnson died." XXXI HENEY, OF THE WELTED FOREHEAD Beneath the big trees in front of the farmhouse of John Morrison, chief constable of the county of Russell, who lived near the village of Bearbrook, a score of women were flitting to and fro on Friday, June 2Sth, 1880, bear- ing steaming dishes or plates or pitchers to a table that seemed spread for the feeding of a regiment. Some were singing, others were jesting or gossiping as they bustled about. From the woods near by came the sound of many voices, the shouts of men, the ring of axes, and the crash of falling trees. It was sunset time. A horn blew. An answering chorus of cheers came from the woods, where a great clearing had been opened since the morn- ing. The ring of axe and crash of tree ceased. Out of the timber came a little host like the vanguard of a HENEY, OF THE WELTED FOREHEAD 183 marching army. There were stalwart men bare-headed, bare-armed, bare-throated, with axes on their shoulders or in their belts. Teams of horses followed them, dozens of teams, with more men behind them. They swarmed into the road and came homeward enveloped in a cloud of dust. All halted at the barn and tended to the horses first, then left them and the axes and came empty-handed to the house. The feast was waiting. They sat down amid laughter and shouts, and as they feasted they told the story of the day's work ; of the race between champion choppers to fell mighty trees ; of the rivalry between famed teams in the drawing of the logs ; of the tricks of toppling trees in unexpected directions. Between stories they sang, men and women joining in the choruses. John Morrison sat at the head of the table — a fine host, a goodly man to look upon. He was in merry mood ; for the axes had cut that day beyond his expectation, and the clearing was larger even than he had dared hope it would be. He pledged to his neighbours, that if ever they wanted five strong men and four stout teams, for a land-clearing bee, let them simply send a good word to John Morrison, who with his teams and men was at their command. The cheers that greeted this were dying away when a hoarse hail sounded from the roadway. Morrison stood up. His face grew stern. He left the table and walked down to his gate. Two men were waiting at the gate. One was a bull- dog faced fellow with a deep furrow across his forehead, between his eyes and hair ; and when he scowled, this furrow deepened to a purple welt. He was Bill Heney — Bad Bill, a tough fellow of the countryside, given to bullying and roystering. The man with him was his brother-in-law, Bud Harrison. Bill had not been seen for several months. In the past winter he had assaulted a neighbour, and a warrant for him had been placed in Morrison's hands with instructions to arrest Bill, if he did not keep out of the country. " Morrison," said Heney, " you've got a warrant for me. Why don't you execute it ? I'm^ tired staying away." 1 84 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE " You had better go away, Heney," said Morrison. Heney's answer was a volley of oaths, which ended in the flash of a revolver shot. Morrison fell by his gate- way. Heney turned and fled. The neighbours at the feast sprang up. Some carried Morrison into the house, others mounted and rode for doctors, others gave chase to Heney. They pursued him to the Harrison woods, a dense tract of timber, with an area of ten miles. In the centre of this tract, in a little clearing, lived the Heneys, father and mother of the refugee ; and, since the winter- time, Mrs. Bill Heney had lived with them. Heney, with the neighbours close upon him, plunged into the thickets of the woods and vanished. The doctors worked in vain over Morrison. He died in agony. The neighbours set a watch on the Heney house, and mean- while notified the Department of Justice. " When I arrived at Morrison's," says Murray, " the neighbours reported that Heney's wife had been seen, day after day, sneaking from the house out into the thickets with a tin pail, and they were certain she was carrying meals to Heney. They were positive Heney was concealed in the woods. I decided to beat the woods. I called on the neighbours to rally the country- side. They came with a rush from every section of the district. I counted them off, and there were one hun- dred and forty-three men, with a host of boys and a legion of dogs. All the men had guns or revolvers. Some of them also had knives, axes, and clubs. A few had pitchforks, and I remember two had scythes. We divided them into squads and spread them out in a circle, surrounding the woods fairly well. We swore in the men as special constables. Every squad had a captain, and every captain had a separate section of the woods. At the word all advanced in the man-hunt, to beat the woods and capture Heney. I can hear them still as they moved forward, the dogs barking, the boys cheering. As they advanced they kept in touch. I left some watchers outside the woods on horseback ; so if Heney slipped past the searchers and sought to escape, the watchers would see him and give chase. HENEY. OF THE WELTED FOREHEAD 185 " Hour by hour the circle drew in. Every yard of land in the Harrison woods was beaten. We travelled around the circle as it narrowed, and we saw the hunters searching even the bushes and the tree-tops. They were to capture Heney alive, if possible; but if he showed fight, they were to shoot him like a dog. Under no circumstances were they to shoot until they saw him and knew it was Heney. The circle closed in on the little clearing. Rabbits and wild fowl had been driven in, but no trace of Heney had been found. As the cordon of men, boys, and dogs stepped out into the little clearing and closed together around the house. Bad Bill's mother let out one of the most awful cries of human agony I ever have heard. " ' Oh, my poor boy ! My poor boy ! They'll hang you ! ' she wailed. " She rolled over on the ground in her grief and howled forth her misery. We searched all the more diligently. The hunters stood in a solid circle around the house. Every man in the circle had a gun, and be- hind them stood the other men and boys, and on the far outside the dogs. We went into the house, the old woman begging us to spare her son's life. We searched in that shanty for an hour, and he was not there at all. I walked out, and when the old woman spied me she ceased wailing and began to grin. I called off the hunters and left the woods. " I set men to watch the house for weeks. Heney never appeared. He was not in the woods at any time, since before the search. I began to watch the mails, and intercepted a letter from Heney to his mother-in-law. He told her he was writing in a schoolhouse in Fort Win- gate, in New Mexico. He told her how he hid in the woods until nightfall on the day of the shooting ; how he crept out in the darkness and boarded a freight train and got away to Boston ; and how he went from Boston out to the southwest, where he was going to work for John Sullivan, a Boston contractor in the building of the Santa Fe Railroad. I knew a John Sullivan in Boston who was a railroad contractor, and I learned by telegraph 1 86 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE that the John Sullivan I knew was the John Sullivan for whom Heney was going to work in New Mexico. In the meantime I had billed Heney all over the country ; and I sent to John Sullivan, in New Mexico, a copy of the bill. It had a picture of Heney in the upper left- hand corner, and read as follows, in heavy, black type : — ^250 REWARD ! Is offered by authority of the Ontario Government for the arrest and detention of William Heney, for the murder of John Morrison, at Bearbrook, in the county of Russell, Canada, on the 25 th of June, 1880. ' William Heney is 34 years of age; about five feet ten inches high ; weighs about 160 lb. His com- plexion is very dark, and he has raven black hair and small dark grey eyes. His forehead is a very peculiar shape, and has a furrow running across it midway between the eyes and hair ; nose very low between the eyes, and then a rise, then a hollow, and the end rises again; one front tooth out; large dimple in the chin ; shoulders a little stooped ; walks with a shuffling gait. Heney is a Canadian by birth, of Irish parents, and used to work as a farm labourer. The above photograph was taken two or three years ago — Heney was then stouter and fuller ip. the face than he is now. » When arrested, communicate immediately with J. W. Murray, Government Detective, Toronto, Canada. " I sent a second copy of this to my friend John Sullivan out in New Mexico, and early in December, 1880, I received a reply from him that a man answering the description was in one of his gangs. On December 14th I started for Fort Wingate. As I was leaving the office on my way to the train, I received a telegram from Sam Farmer, city marshal of Fort Worth, Texas. It read : " ' Have arrested Heney here.' HENEY, OF THE WELTED FOREHEAD 187 " I went through to Fort Worth, and Sam met me when I arrived. " ' I've got your man, John, beyond doubt,' said Farmer. " ' Maybe so, Sam,' said I ; • but I'm afraid it is a mis- take.' " I looked the fellow over. He was almost Heney's double, but he was not Heney. Sam was crestfallen. That was on the evening of December 22d. I was stopping at the El Paso Inn. A northerner came up, and it grew very cold. There was no adequate heating apparatus in my room at the hotel, and Sam sent word for me to meet him at Smith's saloon, a drinking place with a billiard-room beyond the barroom, and with swing doors between. The bartender was alone in the bar when I entered. I told him Sam Farmer had sent word to me to meet him there. I sat down in a chair. All was very quiet. Some men were playing billiards in the adjoining room, and I could hear the click of the balls. " ' Come, sit behind the bar,' said the bartender to me, after a sudden silence in the billiard-room. " ' No, thank you ; I'm very comfortable here,' said I, in my chair by the swing doors. " ' Come,' said the bartender abruptly. ' Sam Farmer wouldn't like it if a guest of his got hurt.' " ' Hurt ? ' said I. ' What's the trouble ? ' " ' Move over behind the bar,' said the bartender. ' Take my word for it.' " He seemed a decent sort of chap, so I moved. I sat on a beer keg behind the bar for about five minutes. The stove was red hot, and I began to perspire. I thought it was a joke. The bartender was squatting on a box back of the bar. Not a sound was to be heard except the quiet shuffle of the feet and the click of the balls in the billiard-room. I was dripping with perspir- ation. I stood it for another five minutes, and was about to step out and address a few remarks to the bar- tender when — " ' Bang ! Bang ! ' went two revolver shots in quick l8a MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE succession in the next room, followed by a third, and then silence. " ' All right,' said the bartender cheerily, to me. ' She's all over. Pretty hot back in here, wasn't it ? Too bad, but it was more dignified than squatting back of a box.' " While he was speaking the swing doors of the bil- liard-room opened and a nice-looking fellow stepped into the barroom with a revolver in his hand. " ' Has Sara Farmer got around yet ? ' he asked of the bartender. " ' No sir,' said the bartender, as if nothing had hap- pened. ' He's due in a few minutes, as there is a friend waiting for him.' " The man with the revolver in his hand turned to me. I dodged behind the stove and reached for my own gun. He smiled and held up his hand. " ' No, no,' he said gently. ' Come, join me in a cigar.' " The bartender nodded to me. " ' It's all right,' he said. ' The shooting's all over.' " Just then Sam Farmer entered. The fellow bade him good-evening, and then, without an explanatory word, handed Sam his revolver, a 44 Colt. " ' Ah,' said Sam quickly. ' You've done it, have you?' " ' In the billiard-room, sir,' said the bartender briskly. " ' I'll have to lock you up,' said Sam, and turning to me, invited me to accompany him. " We walked to the lockup, where Sam threw open the door and said : ' Wait for me, Charlie.' My new ac- quaintance went in and sat down while Sam and I re- turned to the saloon. They were just carrying the corpse out. The judge had arrived and went to the court-house, and a dozen men offered to go bail. The bonds were filled out, and Sam sent word to the lockue for the fellow to come out. " ' It was an old score,' said Sam. ' They happened to meet and they settled it.' " Business went on as usual. The next morning a paragraph in the paper simply stated the shooting had HENEY, OF THE WELTED FOREHEAD 189 occurred. The shooter was acquitted. The dead man had gone back to his pistol pocket first. " ' There is little hanging for murder here, unless it is murderous robbery/ said Sam Farmer. ' But they hang for stealing mules.' " Two days later I was on my way to Albuquerque, and I arrived in Fort Wingate, New Mexico, on De- cember 29th. I learned that my man Heney had worked for a week there, and then had gone on to the front of the new railroad. I called at the United States Army headquarters there, and the officer in command was a gentleman, through and through. He said he would give me every assistance in his power. Lieutenant Wat- son, a bright, intelligent officer, was sent for. He got a sergeant and three horses, and we started to ride out to the front, where the railroad was being built across to- wards the coast. We rode about forty miles, and on be- yond where the rails had been laid, out to the farthest outpost gang, for Heney had kept in the van. They were a tough crowd, these road builders, culled from all parts of the country, some of them, like Heney, fled from justice and buried in the wilds of the southwest. Sullivan, of Boston, was at the front. He said Heney had started out alone with another fellow, the pair saying they were going to hoof it to Lower California. " The Army men and I rode on out, and stopped and looked ahead to where the earth and sky seemed to meet. In the intervening reaches of space no living man or beast or bird was to be seen. The heat hovered over the waste places as if a vast furnace lay beyond. Sullivan had said that one of the two men who started out had been shot by an Indian, and that from what he heard of the raven-black scalp it was Heney, as the fellow who had started with him had red hair. We turned and rode back to the rude outpost of civilisation, the shelter of the van-gang of road builders. On every side stretched the seemingly endless expanse of earth. I looked to the western skyline, where the strange roads went down. " ' Poor Heney ! ' I thought, and I turned homeward. " He never came back." I90 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE XXXII THE TOOKES'S REVEL IN RICHES Charlie Tookes was a school-teacher. He had a younger brother, George Tookes, who decided that he would be a millionaire. All that was necessary was to get ^i and add $ggg,gQg to it; the sooner he began, the sooner he would finish. So in the tender years of his youth, George Tookes set forth to accumulate seven figures of worldly wealth. He pottered around at odd jobs for a couple of years, and then struck a balance. He had ^i6 of the ;^ 1,000,000. At the rate of ^8 a year he would be over a hundred thousand years old before he could sit back in his private car and gaze out upon the world through the window — a miUionaire. George Tookes's father was a minister — a good man, of ancient family and respected name — who lived east of Brockville, and who gave little thought to laying up treasure where moth and rust would corrupt, and where thieves would break through and steal. He gave both of his boys a good education, and had taught them faith- fully that the love of money was the root of all evil. George Tookes grieved the good man by painting a motto for the wall, declaring that the lack of money was the root of all evil. When the lack fell heavy on George, he would fall back on his brother Charlie. On these visits the dead-broke George would confide in the school- teaching Charlie his plans to wake up some sunny morn- ing and have the bank telephone him he was a millionaire. Charlie was a bookish sort ; he would listen to George's dreams and would blink. Money, to Charlie, was some- thing to read about, with an occasional glimpse of a sample of it on its way to the landlady or the clothing store. But such a thing as having ;^is in his inside pocket was something beyond the range of Charlie's imagination. When George, therefore, descended upon Charlie after two years' travelling on the highway to be- coming a millionaire and produced ^16 Charlie was daz- THE TOOKES'S REVEL IN RICHES 191 zled. George was affluent beyond Charlie's wildest dreams of riches. " It's very easy," said George. " Once you get money started your way it comes of its own accord. All money wants is a leader ; it follows the leader." Charlie blinked many times and looked again at the fortune of ^16 in the hands of George. " For instance," said George, " it is very simple for you to make money. In your own particular line of business — this educating line — what do the most people want most at the present time ? " It was June, 1881. The examinations in the high schools and colleges were about to be held throughout all Canada. Charlie gravely pondered George's question. " Advance papers," he answered. " What's that ? " asked the embryonic emperor of finance. " Advance copies of the examination papers, so they will know what questions they will have to answer," said Charlie. George thought the matter over. " A good idea," he said. " A capital idea." "What is it?" said the confiding Charlie. " Why, we'll furnish them the papers," said George. " But where will we get them ? " asked his brother. " Leave that to me," said the future millionaire. George went away. He visited various high schools and educational institutions and, by one pretext or another, obtained lists of those about to be graduated, and more particularly of those who expected to apply for admission. He represented himself as a book agent and stationery seller, and in other ways managed to get copies of the lists. Then he returned to Charlie, and his ^16 had dwindled to ^3. " It takes money to make money," he explained to Charlie, when the latter asked for a glimpse once more of the fabulous sum of ^16. George set Charlie to work preparing a set of questions and answers. " Make them precisely as if you were preparing a set 192 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE of examination papers, marking the standard for the high schools of Canada," said George. Charlie worked day and night on the task. George, meanwhile, was making scores of copies of a letter he had drafted. It was marked confidential, and stated that the writer was glad to inform the reader that a complete set of the questions and answers in the examination of such and such a school might be had for the simple pledge of confidence and the small amount of . George left the price blank, as it would vary according to the school or college. For some the price was ;^io, for others it ranged as high as ^50. Charlie had suggested a fee of 50 cents for high schools and $1 for colleges ; but Charlie was ambitious to become worth ^16, while George aimed ^999,984 higher. George's scale of prices pre- vailed. The letters were written, the papers prepared by Charlie were copied. George took a big bundle of envelopes to the post-office and dropped them through the slot. " In a few days you will be a rich man," said George to Charlie. " I have my doubts," said Charlie to George. The few days passed. Letters began to pile in ; every mail brought a batch, and every batch brought a bundle of money. Every enclosure of money was answered with a copy of the papers prepared by Charlie. " What did I tell you ? " said George, as the bank-notes overflowed Charlie's sack, in which they had decided to. keep them. " Money flows in. You are worth ^500J already." " I feel that I have enough," said Charlie. George smiled pityingly on him. A few days later they moved on to another post-office address, CharUe leaving his school. From their new headquarters they sent out a second batch of letters and the answers poured in, and in a few days they moved on again. " I heard of them in the form of a dozen complaints from honest, straightforward, righteous folk who had sent them money to buy examination papers and had found the THE TOOKES'S REVEL IN RICHES 193 papers worthless," says Murray. " I heard of them in Kingston, Belleville, Cobourg, Port Hope, and all along. I suppose those who bought the bogus examination papers did so, not to use for themselves, but to destroy them with- out looking at them, and thereby keep them out of the hands of others. However, their course did not affect the attitude of the law towards the Tookes brothers. I set out to learn their next probable headquarters. I intercepted some letters in Brantford, identified by the return mark and I sent a decoy letter to them at Paris, Ontario, in which I wrote as a tender young lady of high hopes and ad- vancing years, who did not dread the examinations, but nevertheless preferred to make sure. On the day I mailed the letter I went to Paris and secreted myself in the post-office to await the call of one of the Tookes brothers. " It was a rainy day, the streets were muddy, and the skies were pouring down a modern miniature deluge. In due time a fine-looking young fellow entered the post- office and asked for letters for Charles or George Tookes. The clerk asked him again for his name, and he said ' Charles Tookes.' Thereupon the clerk handed him my letter from Brantford and one or two others. Their lists were thinning out, and their mail was not as big as it had been. I moved out from where I was concealed in the post-office. Whether Tookes knew me or whether he suspected something was wrong I do not know, but he made a leap for the door and bolted down the street in the rain. I sprang after him ; he could run like a grey- hound. " Away we went through the streets of Paris, mud fly- ing at every leap, water splashing, Tookes running as if his hope of glory depended on his smashing all the world's records. Some dogs saw us and they dashed forth in pursuit ; that summoned the small boys, and soon there was a howling horde of dogs and youths trail- ing after us. I have chased many men, but Tookes was one of the fastest runners I ever saw. I realised I could not catch him by greater speed, for he was swifter than I, so I settled down to wear him out. Block after block we ran. 194 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE My feet seemed to weigh two tons apiece; the sticky- mud clung to them. If I was impersonating justice I certainly was leaden heeled. But Tookes was no better off than I. I could see him flounder at times and strive to shake his feet free. He was turning a corner when his feet clogged, he slipped and fell flat in a puddle of mud and water. I came up panting and waited for him to rise. He was a sight ; mud-coated from head to foot with a face like a Comanche Indian's. He spluttered and gasped to get the muddy water out of his mouth. I handcuffed him, found the papers, including my letter, on him, and started back through the town at a proper gait. " Twice he tried to break away. The second time I stopped, and, placing my mouth close to his ear, I in- formed him what would happen if he tried it a third time. He looked at my feet, big as gunboats with their armour of mud, and he surrendered. " As we walked up the street I saw a fellow on the other side of the highway that looked so much like him that instinctively I felt it was the brother. " ' There's your brother over there,' said I. " ' No,' said he. ' I never saw him.' " ' Oh yes it is,' said I ; and I called to the man across the street, ' George ! Come over here ; Charlie wants you.' " George crossed the street, and I promptly handcuffed him to Charlie. " I took them to Brantford. Old Mr. Weymes was magistrate. He was a sympathetic old gentleman, with a tender heart, which constantly pleaded for mercy to be mingled with justice. They gave the name of Tookes, and Magistrate Weymes had heard of their father and mother and sisters, and he was moved to have compas- sion on them. Yet justice was justice, and he finally sent them to the Central prison for six months apiece. " Charlie Tookes, when liberated, resumed a sedate life in the rural districts. George Tookes resumed his plan- ning to become a millionaire. The last I heard he was still in the vicinity of the ^^16 mark. But his hopes were high." BIG MAC OF SIMCOE 195 XXXIII BIG MAC OF SIMCOE, YOUNG SMITH, AND BILL NAY A MIGHTY hunter lived in the county of Simcoe. His name was Henry McCormick. Everybody in those parts knew him as Big Mac. He was a giant, with the strength of two powerful men. He had been known to up-end a log as if it had been a barber's pole. He could shoulder a deer at noon and trudge till nightfall, with the burden on his back. At logging bees he led the gangs. In the early '70's in Canada some of the logging bees culmi- nated in carnivals of fisticuflfe and sometimes in revelries of death. After the big supper, when the day's work was done, whiskey would be served like water and at last came murder in the moonlight. It was so in the case of Big Mac. At a logging bee in the county of Simcoe in 1870, with liquor flowing after the supper, a drunken row started, and a powerful fellow named John Pangman became involved with Big Mac. There was a brief struggle, then Big Mac stumbled on a stake from a sleigh. It was four feet long and very heavy. Big Mac seized it, thrust Pangman from him and smashed the stake down upon his head. Pangman went down in a heap, dead as a stone. Big Mac disappeared, taking with him his wife, who was at the logging bee. Eleven years passed. The county of Simcoe was divided, the county of Dufiferin being cut from it. " After the new county was made," says Murray, " the old county's records were divided. The records of the townships in the new county went to the county of Dufiferin. Included in them was the township of Mulmer in which Big Mac had killed Pangman in a drunken row. The new county had a new gaol, a new sherifif, and a new county Crown attorney, Mr. McMillan. He found this case of murder, eleven years old, and wanted to make business and communicated with the Department of Jus- tice. I went to Orangeville, the county seat of the new 196 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE county, and obtained full information of the crime and details of the life and appearance of Big Mac. The people all remembered him, a mighty man, a great hunter, a powerful fellow of colossal frame and tremendous strength, and one of the swiftest men afoot that the county ever had known. I obtained a perfect description of Big Mac as he had appeared eleven years before, and I billed him north, south, east, and west. No answer came. I found at last an old-time friend of Big Mac, who told me that Big Mac had travelled for several years after the murder and then had settled down near Saginaw in Michigan. I prepared extradition papers and then went to Saginaw. " I located Big Mac near Coleman, Michigan. I got Officer Sutherland of Saginaw and went to Coleman. I knew that if Big Mac saw us first he would fight or flee. If he fought, it meant a desperate battle; if he fled, it meant a long, hard chase. On July 15th, 1881, 1 arrived in Coleman. It was a hot day and I was wearing a blue serge suit. Sutherland and I went to Big Mac's house. No one was there. As we stood in the shade beyond the house I looked across the field and saw a man I knew at a glance was Big Mac. He was picking berries. He was indeed a giant. His wife was with him. We slipped down to the field beyond. A barbed wire fence was between. I hailed Big Mac and asked where some one lived. Sutherland was on the other side of the field. I started over the barbed wire fence when I hailed Big Mac, and in my haste to get over, my serge suit, trousers and coat, became hooked on the barbs. I jerked to get free and split my trousers from end to end and tore two long slits in my coat. I struggled and tore my trousers almost completely off". Big Mac laughed like a lion roar- ing and his wife pulled her sunbonnet close down over her head. I tied my slit coat around my waist by the sleeves, wearing it like an apron, and went over to where Big Mac was waiting. " ' Aren't you Henry McCormick ? ' I asked. " • Yes, what of it ? ' said Big Mac, still laughing. " ' I'll have to arrest you and take you back to Canada,' said I. BIG MAC OF SIMCOE 197 " Mrs. Mac let out a howl of rage and tore her sun- bonnet off. " ' You naked barbarian/ she cried, • you'll never take him out of Michigan alive.' " I thought she might mean to call me a naked barb- wirean ! She started at me, but Big Mac drew her back. " ' Silence be,' said Big Mac, ' 'Tis a case for men, not women.' " I thought he meant a finish fight there, and I knew I had him with my revolver against his fists. But Big Mac thrust out his wrists for the handcuffs and was as docile as a child. We went to his house and I borrowed a pair of trousers, that looked on me as if an ostrich were to don the hide from an elephant's legs. Big Mac enjoyed my plight. I verily think it was the sight of me strug- gling on the fence, that put him in the good humour to submit tamely to arrest. " I took him to Saginaw. He employed as counsel the Hon. Tim Tarsney, later a member of Congress, and a son of Judge Gage, before whom the extradition case was to be argued. I employed Mr. Durand, and I had seen Judge Gage about the case. Naturally I felt a little squeamish with a son of the judge against me. Big Mac had friends in Michigan and one of his sons had married and his friends had money. I swore a number of wit- nesses from Canada at the extradition hearing. Judge Gage was strictly honest and committed Big Mac for extradition. I arrived in Orangeville with Big Mac on August 26th. He was a fascinating old fellow. Men liked him. Although he had been away eleven years he had many warm friends. He was tried at the Fall Assizes in 1 881 and was convicted of manslaughter. The jury brought in a strong recommendation for mercy and Big Mac was sentenced to one year in the county gaol. " I remember one of the spectators at Big Mac's trial was an old man named John Smith, who had passed his seventieth birthday, yet farmed like a youngster and lived alone with a fifteen-year-old nephew, Johnnie, on his farm in the township of Amaranth, county of Dufferin. The old fellow was supposed to have money and to keep 198 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE a snug sum hid in his house. On Saturday night, Janu- ary 2ist, 1882, while Big Mac was serving his year in gaol, fire partly burned the house of old man Smith. The nephew ran to a neighbour's house, cap in hand. He told the neighbour that as he sat with his uncle, two shots were fired through an uncurtained window. One pierced his cap, the other, he thought, struck his uncle, who fell. Flames broke out and the nephew ran for help. " The neighbour, with others, went to the Smith farm- house. It was partly burned. The old man was found on the floor, dead, with part of one leg burned off. The doctors laid the old man out and washed him. They found no marks of a wound on him and no trace of any bullet. I arrived in the night and the doctors reported no marks of a wound on the body. I got a lamp and went to the old man's house with the doctors. He had not been coffined, and I went over the body carefully. I finally discovered a punctured wound beneath the breast, so located and of such size as to pass almost unnoticed. In fact, the doctors had failed to observe it. I pointed it out. They examined it. " ' Is that an ante-mortem or post-mortem wound ? ' I asked. " ' Ante-mortem,' they agreed. " We traced up the wound and found the bullet. It was such as would fit a thirty-two calibre revolver. I saw Mr. Hannah, the hardware merchant in Shelburne, the town nearest the Smith farmhouse, and I learned that young Smith, the nephew, had bought a thirty-two cal- ibre Smith and Wesson revolver at his store shortly be- fore the mysterious death of old man Smith. The revolver was not to be found. I searched the premises several times, and finally I began to drain the well. In its bot- tom I came upon the revolver and fished it out. Young Smith was arrested and held for trial. He was locked up in the county gaol at Orangeville, where Big Mac was serving his year for the murder of Pangman. The boy was close mouthed. " I had been in Big Mac's good graces ever since I first BIG MAC OF SIMCOE 199 met him in the berry patch in Michigan, with my trousers in shreds. I instructed Big Mac to find out what he could from the boy. Mac made friends with young Smith and promised to take him to Michigan, and eventually got the whole story of the crime from the boy. Young Smith was tried in October, 1882. Big Mac was a witness against him. He went on the stand and told, under oath, the story as the boy had related it to him. George Galbraith was attorney for the boy and iEmilius Irving, Crown attorney, prosecuted. Galbraith gave Big Mac a severe cross-examination on the line that he was^my detective. Some of the gaol officials swore they would not believe Big Mac under oath. The jury brought in a verdict acquitting young Smith. Later I took up the matter of the conduct of some of the gaol officials and attended to it. " Big Mac returned to Michigan after serving his year. I kept the revolver for some time that young Smith bought shortly before his uncle was murdered. The bullet found in his uncle's body fitted the cartridge of the revolver. I regarded that as quite an interesting coinci- dence. But coincidences occasionally fail to convict. " I recall one case, about the same time, that was full of more than coincidences. Yet the most powerful anti- dote to convincing evidence was present in the form of friends on the jury, and the result was acquittal. It was a crime that duplicated in marvellous accuracy of detail, the murder of old Abel McDonald by the Youngs. It occurred in 1881 and if it had been patterned after the McDoncild tragedy it could not have fitted it more pre- cisely. " A team of horses with a waggon and no driver ran into a stump, on the road leading out of Barrie into the farming country of the county of Simcoe, and stopped. It was twilight on November 1 8th. A farmer saw the team standing there and climbed into the waggon and found an old man lying dead, with his head beaten in with an axe handle. The farmer recognised him as Thomas Sleight, an old fellow of sixty-six, who was a farmer in the township of West Gwillimbury. The team, 200 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE when it stopped, was in the township of Innisfil, on the road leading to the township of Gwillimbury, so the crime became known as the Innisfil West tragedy. I took up the case. " Sleight had driven from his farm to Barrie with a load of cider and potatoes. He sold them and started home at sundown with the cash in his pocket. I skirmished the entire county for a clue to the perpetrator of the crime. I visited farmhouse after farmhouse, talking with all the inmates. Three or four persons were locked up and released after accounting for themselves. Finally, near the town of Bondhead, I got Bill Nay, about twenty- six years old, son of a farmer. Bill always was broke. The day after Sleight's murder Bill had money. I ar- rested him and searched him and found money on him, and Bill, at that time, was not clear as to where he got all of it. When the coroner's inquest was held, I had a strong case of circumstantial evidence against him. The inquest resulted in a verdict of murder against Bill and he was held for trial. I scoured the county for evidence. I found a little girl of fifteen, who saw Bill get into old man Sleight's waggon on the way out the Barrie road. I had other witnesses who saw him coming away along the road. " Bill Nay was tried at Barrie at the Spring Assizes in 1882. He was defended by a great lawyer, an able man, the Hon. Dalton McCarthy, of Barrie, a Member of Parliament and a brilliant advocate. Colin Macdougall, of St. Thomas, prosecuted. Judge Strong presided and charged the jury strongly against Bill Nay. There was quite a connection of Nay's in the county and Dalton McCarthy was a lawyer who knew the county thoroughly and a man who missed no opportunities in behalf of a client. The jury was out a long time. Bill Nay was on the anxious seat in great suspense. But the jury came in with an acquittal, and Bill Nay's friends reminded him that Dalton McCarthy was an able man and that friends on a jury were like pearls beyond price. " An interesting coincidence of this case is that I heard Bill Nay was killed since. Big McCormick, young Smith, JOHN DOBBIN 201 and Bill Nay were three vastly different individuals. The law dealt with each of them in its own way. Of the three, I like to think of Big Mac rather than of young Smith or, least of all. Bill Nay." XXXIV JOHN DOBBIN, FROM BEYOND THE QUICKSANDS Wild Dobbin was a name given by some to John Dobbin of Bracebridge, when he skipped out of the dis- trict of Muskoka and settled across the Red River in the western country, away out in Manitoba, seventy miles beyond Winnipeg. He won the nickname by flying into fits of rage and chasing those near him helter-skelter, while he pursued with club or gun or whatsoever he laid his hands upon. Dobbin was about fifty years old, five feet nine inches tall, with a sandy beard. He was a wiry fellow with an ungovernable temper. " The reason for his skipping out of the district of Muskoka," says Murray, " was his treatment of John Breckenridge, a Scotchman, who came from the old country. Breckenridge had some money, but knew nothing of farming. He went to the District of Muskoka and settled near Bracebridge. He wanted to buy a farm. John Dobbin heard of it and went to see him and sold him a farm. Breckenridge paid Dobbin part cash and gave him a note for the balance, pending the arrival of a remittance from the old country. When the note came due, Dobbin told Breckenridge he had lost it, and made an affidavit to that effect. Thereupon Breckenridge paid him the amount of the' note. Dobbin went away and was seen no more. After he disappeared it transpired that, instead of losing the note, he had sold it to a man who gave it to another man to collect, and this man sued Breckenridge for the value of the note and got judgment. The Scotchman saw he had been swindled by Dobbin, and applied for assistance to the Government. He was directed to me. 202 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE " I went to Dobbin's old home at Bracebridge. I could find no trace of him. I nosed around until I learned that his sister had gone away some time before and had bought a ticket to Winnipeg. Through a friend of the sister in Winnipeg I learned that she had gone to Morris, at that time the end of that branch of the Canadian Pacific Railroad, and at Morris she had disappeared. I got my warrant and went to Winnipeg. There I got an officer, Mackenzie, now a private detective, and went to Morris, where the railroad ended. I arrived in Morris on a stifling hot day in July, 1883. I inquired right and left for trace of John Dobbin, but no one seemed to know of him. I decided to try the open country beyond the Red River. I walked for three miles down the river, asking at every house if they knew John Dobbin. No one knew him. After trudging another mile and finding no way to cross the river I sat down in the shade to cool. The river was not so wide but you could be heard on the other side, so while I sat in the shade I bellowed at the top of my voice, at frequent intervals. I became inter- ested in the echoes and shouted lustily. Then I whistled and listened for the echoes and finally I screeched and roared. I was lying flat on my back. " Suddenly I heard an answering screech. I sat up and looked across the river. On the opposite bank stood a woman screaming to know what was the matter. " • I want to cross the river,' I shouted. " ' How much will you give if I take you over ? ' she screamed. " ' I'll give you ;^i,' roared I. " • All right ! I'll call my man from the field ! ' she shouted. " I waited. She moved back into a field and presently I saw a man at the water's edge and he pushed off in a boat and paddled over. He stood off" shore about fifteen feet and I looked him over. He was a funny little French- man, burned almost black by the sun. " ' Give doUair,' he said, keeping his boat away from the shore. " I stood up, took out a paper dollar and was about to JOHN DOBBIN 203 walk down the sandy shore to the water's edge, when he let out a terrific whoop and waved me back with frantic flourishes of the paddle. " • Queeksand ! Queeksand ! ' he yelled. " I stopped short on the very edge of a treacherous pit of quicksand. I tested it cautiously with one foot and while it looked like dry sand it yielded readily and sucked in the foot greedily. The little Frenchman all the while shrieked for me to keep back. He would not come nearer shore but motioned for me to give him the $1 first. I cut a long stick from a tree and fastened the ^i to an end of the stick, then climbed out on a limb of a tree overhanging the water and tried to hand the money to him in this way. The limb bent and suddenly broke clean off and down I went in a quicksand by the water's edge. I began to sink. My ankles had disappeared in the sand and my knees were vanishing. I had strug- gled to an upright position as I fell. The little French- man backed his boat over near me, but just beyond my reach. " ' Back in here quick and let me get hold ! ' I shouted. " He smiled at me with a sweetness born of the angels. " ' How much you give ? ' he asked. " ' Back in here ! Name your price later but give me a grip of the boat ! ' I said, for I could feel myself set- tling and I knew that to struggle would involve me all the deeper. " My little Frenchman paddled a foot nearer but still kept beyond reach, even if I had flung myself forward with outstretched arms. ".' How much you give ? ' he asked again, with a voice that seemed to tremble with divine pity. Then, as a thought struck him, he added : ' You give to me, not to her,' and he nodded to the woman who calmly waited on the opposite shore. " ' Yes, yes ! ' I roared. ' Back the boat in, you fool ! ' " ' But how much you give ? ' he insisted, holding him- self just out of reach. " Figures flashed through my head. A goodly sum 204 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE trembled on the tip of my tongue. I felt myself slowly settling. " ' Name your own price,' I said. " The little Frenchman eyed me with sparkling eyes. " ' It must be one doUair ! No less ! ' he cried. " You could have knocked me down with a feather. I had been thinking of hundreds. " ' All right ! Back in ! ' I said. " ' But please give it me,' he said sweetly. ' Give me please the doUair ! ' " I was sinking well up to the hips and beginning to set- tle fast, too, but I had to go down in my pocket and dig up another ^^i, and toss it out to the little Frenchman, who had rescued the first $i when the limb broke and the stick fell in the water. The Frenchman whirled his boat around and shot the light end in to where I could reach it. I clutched it and kicked and heaved while the little boatman paddled valiantly. I came up like a cork out of a bottle and the boat shot out into the stream with me dragging along in the water behind it. I clambered in and the little Frenchman, with the perspiration pouring down his shining face, paused in his paddling to take the two $1 bills out of his mouth. He folded one in a tiny wad and tucked it into his left ear. The other he rolled in a ball and as he was about to hide it in his mouth, under his tongue, he smiled to me and said : " ' Please, you do not tell her,' and as if to make doubly sure of my good will he added : • if you had not been in such hurry I would have done it for feety cents — maybe.' " I smiled, and he paddled us to shore. The woman was waiting and the little Frenchman took the ^i put of his ear and gave it to her. She shouted at him to give her what he had in his mouth, but he darted be- yond reach and defied her. I told her I was buying farms. " ' I understand a man named Dobbin lives near here and has a farm to sell,' I said. " ' Buy ours,' she said. " ' I'll buy a lot of farms,' said I. ' But I must see Dobbin's first. Where does he live ? ' JOHN DOBBIN 205 " ' The only Dobbin I know is four miles back cutting hay,' she said. " • Can your man show me ? ' I asked. " The commercial instinct popped out again instantly. •"For ;gi.So/ she said. " I paid her the money then and there. She shouted to the little Frenchman and he nodded, and away we started to find the man Dobbin, who might or might not be my Dobbin. The little Frenchman walked ahead and I followed. We trudged along in the blazing sun for an hour through brush and across prairie. At last we came upon a man in a field cutting beaver hay. " • There's Dobbin,' said the little Frenchman, keeping aloof, for it seemed all thereabouts feared Dobbin. " Dobbin stopped mowing as we drew near. He was dripping wet and his face was crimson from his labour. " ' Are you John Dobbin who lived near Brace- bridge ? ' I asked, while the little Frenchman listened intently. " ' Yes, why ? ' said Dobbin. " ' Dobbin,' said I, ' I have a warrant for your arrest.' " ' Arrest me ! ' exclaimed Dobbin, and then slowly he turned on the little Frenchman. ' And you brought him here to arrest me ? You French ! ' " With a roar of rage Dobbin went after the little Frenchman with the scythe. With a shriek of terror the little Frenchman sped away, Dobbin in hot pursuit and I after Dobbin. As the little Frenchman ran he squealed with fright, and as Dobbin ran he bellowed in fury. I began to laugh. The ludicrous side of it struck me. There scooted my little Frenchman like a rabbit, bound- ing over ditch and bush, while Dobbin thundered after him like a savage hound or an avenging demon. They ran until Dobbin dropped the scythe and settled down into steady chase. I trailed along for I saw that the httle Frenchman was heading for the river. The terrific pace was telling on both of them, and their gait fell bit by bit until it was a lagging trot, then a walk, then a stagger. And so they trotted on, not twenty feet apart, both 2o6 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE gasping and well-nigh exhausted, the Frenchman unable to go forward and Dobbin unable to overtake him.. They ran themselves to a standstill. I came up and caught Dobbin and started him back towards his house, which was beyond the field where he had been mowing. I heard the little Frenchman crying after me piteously. I turned back to see if he were hurt. " ' The dollair ! ' he lamented. ' I did sw£illow it ! ' and his grief burst forth afresh. " As I started away he cried after me : ' Think, oh think ! The queeksand ! I save you ! I do eat the dollair ! Give to me a dollair ! ' " Dobbin, furious as he was, laughed scornfully back at the little Frenchman. " Dobbin's wife was out when we arrived at his house, but she came in presently with her sister. She was a terror. The moment she spied the handcuffs on her hus- band she made a break for the wood-pile and the axe. The sister ran down in the cellar. Dobbin and I were in the kitchen, he on a chair in one corner and I on a chair in another corner. In a moment in marched Mrs. Dobbin, axe in hand, and up from the cellar came the sister with a cleaver. " ' What does this mean ? ' said Mrs. Dobbin to me. ' Explain yourself, or I'll chop you into mince-meat.' " She was the kind of woman who could have made first-class mince-meat out of a man. I carefully changed my revolver to my left hand, and began to reason with her. But it seemed there was to be no such thing as reason. She advanced towards me with the axe. I drew a second gun, " ' Dobbin,' I said, • call off your wife. I dislike to shoot a woman. I can arrest her and take her to Win- nipeg and lock her up and send her to prison. She's a fool' " The woman stopped in the middle of the kitchen floor. There she stood, axe in hand, while her sister guarded the door with the cleaver. It was twilight, and darkness came. I could discern the three figures as they stood. A clock struck nine. JOHN DOBBIN 207 " ' Time's up,' I said, rising. ' Strike a light ! ' " There was silence. I turned to Dobbin. " ' I've had enough of this,' I said. ' Axe or no axe, woman or no woman, this stops now. Call her off.' " Mrs. Dobbin burst into furious ragings. " • I'll die before Dobbin crosses the Red River to- night,' she shouted. " ' I'll take him, you, and your sister,' I replied ; and I advanced, preparing to dodge the axe and seize it. " She raised the axe and planted herself to strike. I stepped forward, and with my left hand holding a revol- ver and my right hand free, I feinted to draw her blow. Dobbin, who had watched it all, saw the beginning of the end, and stood up and called his wife aside and tried to pacify her. The sister sought to slip outdoors, but I called her in, mindful of men who had been shot in the darkness through an open window. " ' Be quick,' I said to Dobbin. • I've dallied too long. I'll get a boat three miles up the river.' " ' I own a boat on the river,' said Dobbin sullenly. " ' It's mine, not yours,' said Mrs. Dobbin. " I thought of the commercial instinct. " ' You can make some money out of your boat,' I said to her. ' Dobbin must go over the river with me. Some one will make the money.' " ' What will you pay ? ' she asked. " • I'll give you a dollar,' I said. " I dropped four silver quarters on the kitchen floor, one by one. She leaped for a candle, lighted it, and gazed at the money. " ' Who will bring the boat back ? ' she asked. " • You can send for it,' said I. " She thought it over. " ' For ^^1.50 I'll do it,' she said. " I dropped two more quarters on the floor. She clutched them eagerly, and the woman who was going to die before Dobbin should cross the river — and meant it, too — capitulated for six quarters shining in the candle- light on her kitchen floor. Truly, the power of money is magical at times. 2o8 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE " I took Dobbin away in the night, and we crossed the river and hired a team and driver at Morris and drove the seventy miles to Winnipeg, getting a midnight meal on the way. Dobbin kicked in Winnipeg. He employed a lawyer, the famous Fighting Mackenzie. This lawyer took Dobbin before Chief Justice Walbridge on a writ of habeas corpus. I employed the present Judge McMahon to fight the writ. The Chief Justice dismissed the writ, and ordered the prisoner into my custody. I started back with Dobbin. I had to take him by way of the Sault Ste. Marie Canal, and the boat went through the American side. Fighting Mackenzie told Dobbin to keep quiet until the boat was in the Soo ; then to yell and demand protection, and he would tele- graph the American sheriff to be there and compel me to liberate Dobbin, as I had no papers authorising me to hold him in American territory. " Dobbin and I embarked on the steamer Campana at Port William, which at that time was Port Arthur. Cap- tain Anderson, now of the steamer Manitoba, was her commander. I got a hint of the job put up to save Dobbin in the Soo. I knew everybody aboardship. The crew and officers all were my friends. I said to Captain Anderson : • Before we get to Sault Ste. Marie, land me with Dobbin in a small boat above the rapids, and I'll pull for the Canadian shore.' I told him of the job. " ' I know the sheriff myself,' said Captain Anderson, 'and instead of risking it in a small boat above the rapids, I'll put Dobbin in the hold and shut the hatches before we get to the American side.' "John Burns of Toronto was steward of the boat. Captain Anderson and Burns and I talked it over, and the captain selected a room on the port side farthest from the American shore, and told me to get Dobbin in there and Burns would lock the door. " ' He can yell like a Comanche in there and no one will hear him,' said Captain Anderson. " Dobbin was all primed for the job. As we drew near the locks he even cleared his throat for the yells that he was to pour forth. The steward came to me. JOHN DOBBIN 209 " ' Mr. Murray,' he said, • would you like a little good whiskey ? ' " ' Yes, indeed,' said I. ' Dobbin, want a drink ? ' " Dobbin smacked his lips. He had time, before the boat entered the locks. " ' Why, yes,' he said. " We went down to the room. It was a little cubby- hole of a place with no window or outlet but a little port-hole. A decanter of whiskey and glasses were on the table. We went in. The steward stepped out and slammed the door. " « What did he shut the door for ? ' asked Dobbin, with sudden suspicion. " I eyed him. " ' Why don't you holler, Dobbin ? ' said I. " He glared at me. I could see the crimson dye his face, the veins swell, the eyes grow small, as his temper rose. He grabbed the decanter. I flipped out my re- volver. We stood face to face with the little table be- tween us. I eyed him, look for look. " ' Take a good drink, Dobbin,' I said. " The boat was in the locks. Dobbin drank. '"Why don't you holler? ' I said. " He looked at me, at the locked door, at the port- hole ; then he sank into a chair. " ' Murray, I've lost my voice,' said Dobbin. " He sat with eyes closed for an hour or more. When we were through the locks and out into Canada waters and away from shore, the steward unlocked the door and said: " ' Dinner, gentlemen ! ' " Dobbin awoke, as if from a dream. " ' I'm hungry as hell,' he said, and went in to dinner. " We landed in Collingwood, and went to Barrie, where, on August 13th, 1883,1 turned Dobbin over to the authorities. As I bade him good-bye, he said : • Just wait till I get back to Red River and meet that French- man ! ' At times, when weird noises sound in the night, I think of Dobbin, and wonder if he has caught the little Frenchman at last." 2IO MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE XXXV LUKE PHIPPS, WHO BURIED HIMSELF ALIVE Sandwich gaol, three miles from Windsor, was re- garded by many American crooks in the early eighties as a vestibule to Kingston Penitentiary. If a lawbreaker landed in Sandwich he was apt to end in Kingston. The result was constant attempts on the part of prisoners to break gaol. In 1884 among those locked up in Sand- wich awaiting trial were Luke Phipps, a wife murderer, and Bucky Greenfield, a professional thief Neither knew the other until they met in Sandwich gaol. A mysterious female visited Bucky Greenfield, and for ten days after her call Bucky kept close in his cell. His friendship for Phipps had sprung up after a sight of the young fellow. Bucky pitied him. Phipps began to whistle at night. No one objected, although for hours at a time he would whistle furiously and occasionally would sing in a loud voice. During these nocturnal concerts Bucky Greenfield was busy in his cell. He had hacked a file out of a woman's corset steel and was sawing the bars of the window of his cell. At last the bars were cut through. That night Bucky tapped Phipps on the shoulder in silence and they slipped out. Phipps stuck in the window overlooking the wall. Bucky tried to extricate him, but he was caught fast, so Bucky fled alone. Phipps wrestled and struggled in the window, and finally tore himself free with a wrench so powerful that the momentum threw him over the wall, and he fell heavily to the ground. There he lay for some time, severely hurt and half conscious. He was aroused by hearing voices in the gaol. He dragged himself away, hunting for a hiding-place. He came to a graveyard, and as he crawled along in the darkness he fell head foremost into a newly dug grave. The bottom of the grave was covered with hay that broke the force of his fall. He stretched out like an uncoffined corpse in the grave, pulled the hay over him and waited. He heard the barking of the dogs and the galloping of horses and LUKE PHIPPS, BURIED HIMSELF ALIVE 211 the voices of men as they searched for trace of the fugitives. He could see nothing but the night sky and the sparkling stars, through a screen of hay. Voices came nearer. He could hear the tread of feet and the sniff of hounds. Men paused by the grave, and he heard one instruct the others to shoot him on sight if he resisted or fled. The light of a lantern fell across the grave. One of the men held it over the hole and peered in, while the dogs looked over the edge and whined. " Nothing but hay for coffin bedding," said the man with the lantern, and gradually the footsteps and voices died away. Phipps lay still until he thought the last of them had gone. Then he moved slightly to ease his position, for he Wcis fast growing numb and his injuries pained severely. He half sat up, when over the edge of the grave was thrust a head with shining eyes and lolling tongue. There was a rattle of earth, and then a loud, long howl. One dog had lingered and he gave the alarm. Back came the other dogs with a rush and hung over the grave barking excitedly. Phipps sank back beneath the hay. The men returned with the lantern and looked down into the grave. Phipps could see their features in the yellow light. " Nothing there, I tell you," said the man with the lantern. " Jump in and see," said one of the others. " Not I," quoth the lantern bearer with a shiver and a laugh. " 'Tis a sign of death to enter an open grave." Phipps heard the rattle of earth again, and one of the three men stood over the grave with a huge clod. " I'll make sure," he said, and dropped the clod into the grave. It struck Phipps a glancing blow on the head. He lost consciousness. When he came to, it was bright day- light overhead, and he lay numbed and stiff beneath the hay in the grave. His head felt as big as a wash-tub and his legs were as heavy as two water-soaked logs. His hands were swollen, and the blood from the wound in his 212 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE head had dyed his face and shoulders. It was a raw, bleak day. He judged it must be noon. He heard a bell tolling in the distance. He wondered if Bucky Greenfield had been killed. A long silence followed. Then he heard the crunch of carriage wheels and the even, measured tread of slowly marching feet. Nearer they came and still nearer, then stopped seemingly at the brink of the grave. He heard muffled voices in subdued tones. He heard the rumble and roll as of a coffin slid out of a hearse. A woman sobbed. Then a calm, even voice was lifted up, and Phipps could hear a prayer for the sorrowing and desolate. After the amen there was a silence so deep that the man in the grave could hear the broken murmurs of those who wept. A hymn was sung, " Asleep in Jesus," and Phipps drowsily listened to the music of the " Blessed Sleep." The singing ceased ; there was a sound of creaking straps, of a box bumping against solid earth. He shut his eyes and waited for the coffin to settle upon him. He heard the solemn " Dust to dust, ashes to ashes," and in his heart throbbed a feel- ing of gratitude that, at the last, he should come to know a Christian burial with sorrowing people around his grave. He felt a rush of thankfulness to the corpse in the coffin, who had shared the farewell to loved ones with him. He lay very still, with closed eyes and rigid body. The bumping and the creaking ceased. There was a rattle of clods thumping on the box. He heard it faintly, as if it were far away. He felt no weight and seemed to bear no burden. He heard the carriages de- part, the footsteps die away. He heard shovels grind into the earth and dimly he heard the bump and thud as the grave was filled. After all, death was a sleep, he thought, and he seemed to be sinking, sinking, sinking, on to a downy couch, as if he were whirling away into space on a cushion of clouds. He wished they would sing again about the blessed sleep. So wishing, he slept. He awoke with a start and opened his eyes. It was pitch dark. He tried to move. His body seemed para- lysed. He remembered with a rush of recollection the LUKE PHIPPS, BURIED HIMSELF ALIVE 213 burial and the prayer and the singing. He moved his head and looked up through the hay. The stars were shining ! He sat up slowly, feebly, and with great pain. Where was the coffin? Where were the six feet of earth ? He tottered to his feet. The grave was empty. He felt its chilly sides and the bed of hay. He laughed a weak, maniacal laugh. Perhaps the resurrection had come and they had overlooked him, hid beneath the hay, and he was left alone on earth, with all other souls gone to their judgment. He tried to clamber out. He fell back exhausted. He rested and tried again. It was an hour's task to rise from the grave. When, at last, he was out, he sat on its edge in the moonlight and laughed to the stars. Close beside the open grave was a new-made mound. The burial he had heard was in the grave ad- joining that in which he lay. The murderer stood up and laughed like a little child. Then, in the moonlight, he saw the Sandwich gaol loom- ing, like a gigantic shadow. He remembered then that it was not the resurrection, but the lif?. He staggered away from the grave that had hid him. On the new- made mound stood a vase of flowers. He plucked one and dropped it in the empty grave, then crept away out of the cemetery, across the road, through the fields, trav- elling like an injured dog, limping on all fours. He was hunting for the river. He came to it in the hour after midnight and found an old boat half full of water. He came upon a piece of board, crawled into the boat, shoved off and began to paddle. Hours later, as dawn was breaking, he found himself on the American shore, be- low Detroit, nine miles down stream, wet to the skin, blood-stained, wounded and faint. But he knew the country round about, and made his way into the city to the house of a friend, knocked and was taken in, clothed and fed. When his wounds healed he started out into a new life. " I was instructed to find Phipps," says Murray. " I had known him in Detroit where he kept a billiard-room and lived on Jefferson Avenue. He was a nice fellow ; quiet, peaceable, about thirty-four years old, with fair, 214 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE brown hair and sandy moustache. He was married, and had a very pretty little wife and two children, a boy and a girl. He loved his family dearly. In the latter part of March, 1 884, Phipps discovered his wife made frequent trips across the river to Windsor. On one occasion he followed her aboard the ferry-boat. He had been drink- ing. She was unaware of his presence on the boat until he confronted her and accused her of infidelity. She gave him a harsh answer, and he whipped out a revolver and shot and killed her on the boat. Many passengers saw the murder. When the boat landed at Windsor, Phipps was arrested and taken to Sandwich gaol, three miles from Windsor, and was committed for trial. While waiting in Sandwich gaol for trial he escaped with Bucky Greenfield, hid in a grave a night and a day, crossed the river the second night and got to Detroit, where he hid with friends, who supplied him with money and clothes and started him out anew. " I sent his description all over the country. He was a billiard-room keeper, and I judged it was simply a ques- tion of time until his money gave out, and he would look for a job in a billiard-room. Every man to his trade is true also of fugitives from justice. My surmise was cor- rect. Phipps turned up in Pullman, Illinois, and obtained a job in a billiard-room there. I located him through detectives and inquiries, and prepared my papers and went to Illinois, and took Phipps from Pullman to Chi- cago. , There he employed Jesse Ball, an able lawyer, and made a desperate fight against extradition. His counsel endeavoured to show the shooting was done in American waters. There is no hanging in Michigan. If the crime had been committed in American waters, Phipps would have been tried in Michigan, and, if convicted, he would not have been hanged. I proved by the captain of the boat and a number of its passengers that the shoot- ing was done in Canada waters on the Canada side of the river. The legal fight lasted a number of days. Both sides called witnesses. Phipps lost. An appeal was taken and a writ of habeas corpus was issued, but this proceeding was dismissed. LUKE PHIPPS, BURIED HIMSELF ALIVE 215 " I started back to Canada with Phipps on April nth. When I met him in the Chicago gaol to take him back, he raised his hands. " ' What is it ? ' I asked. " ' Aren't you going to handcuff me ? ' he said. " ' Not you, Phipps,' said I. " He thanked me. We stopped on the way to the sta- tion for cigars and the like, went aboard the Pullman car, and started. At Ann Arbor, and other points, newspa- per men boarded the train in search of me to get a talk with Phipps. The prominence of the case in the papers made Phipps a figure of interest, and it was known we were aboard the train. At one station one of the news- paper men politely asked me : " ' Pardon me, are you Luke Phipps, the wife mur- derer ? ' " I said I was happy to say I was not. " At Ann Arbor two of the newspaper men, after going through the car, stopped in front of Phipps and whispered to him, as they nodded towards a well-known Detroit min- ister who was snoozing in a corner of the car : " • Is that murderer Phipps ? ' " Phipps laughed over it later, although the word mur- derer shook him at the time. These incidents of mis- taken identity occurred all along the road. At Detroit a couple of hundred of his friends were at the station to see him. Phipps stepped off the car carrying my grip. Chief Bains, of Windsor, was there with a cab. " ' I'll see you fellows at the Michigan Exchange,' said Phipps, and we drove there on our way to Canada. ' I want a good-bye drink,' said Phipps, as we went in. " A great many of his friends gathered there to see him. They all were full of expressions of sorrow. " ' Yes, I'm sorry, too,' said I ; ' but what Phipps needs for his defence is money,' and I started the thing and everybody chipped in. " Phipps shook hands with all of them. I asked him if there was any other place to which he wanted to go. " ' I'd like to drive past the old home in Jefferson Avenue, Mr. Murray,' he said, with a gulp. 2i6 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE " I have been glad many times since that I drove him past his old home. He looked at it out of the carriage window, and then through the little window in the back, until he could see it no longer. " ' I'm ready to go now,' he said. " We drove over to Sandwich gaol, and I left him there. He was tried at the Fall Assizes. Sol White, a member of the Provincial Parliament, defended him. He was found guilty, and was sentenced to be hanged. He was hanged in Sandwich gaol in November, and the earth, near the cemetery where he once had hid in a grave, opened for him, and he was laid to rest to cross another river when he should rise from this second grave. " I regretted it. I thought there were some extenuat- ing circumstances. His escape from the goal weighed against him. Moreover, the episode of Billy Callaghan in Sandwich gaol had much to do with influencing public opinion in the county of Essex at the time of the Phipps trial. Bucky Greenfield escaped to Mexico, and we had no extradition treaty with Mexico at that time to cover his case, and later he vanished. He meant well by Phipps, but it would have been better for Luke if he had not escaped. Between Bucky Greenfield and Billy Callaghan, Phipps's fate was sealed. " Callaghan belonged to Detroit. He came of a re- spectable family, and in his younger days he was a clerk in a dry-goods store, but finally turned out to be a pro- fessional burglar and desperate crook. At this time he was about twenty-eight years old, short, stout, and swarthy. Billy and another crook named Kennedy were gaoled in Sandwich for burglary. On March i6th they made a dash for liberty. George O'Callaghan Leech, the old governor of the gaol, endeavoured to intercept Billy, who pulled a revolver, which had been smuggled into his cell, and shot and killed O'Callaghan Leech, and got away with Kennedy. The people of the county of Essex were up in arms. They searched the county for trace of the fugitives. Callaghan got out of the country. " Kennedy was caught, and sent to Kingston Peniten- tiary for seven years. While in Kingston he became LUKE PHIPPS, BURIED HIMSELF ALIVE 217 pals with Blinky Morgan. I had spotted Blinky in To- ronto in July of the year before. I was on my way to the train for Winnipeg after Dobbin, and had stopped in the Rosslin House barber's shop. In the chair next to mine sat Blinky. I had not seen him for years, but I knew him the moment I glanced his way. He got out of the chair before I did, and went to the Shakespeare Hotel. I left word to tell the police he was there. The day after I arrived in Winnipeg, I learned that Blinky had shot and killed a porter named Marooney in the Walker House on York Street. Detective Cuddy pur- sued Blinky, who shot twice at him, one bullet piercing his tunic. Cuddy bravely stuck to the chase, and cap- tured Blinky. Blinky's trial was before Judge Sir Thomas Gait, who thought the murder was not premeditated, and cautioned the jury, and it brought in a verdict of man- slaughter. Blinky, instead of getting a life sentence, got only five years in Kingston. " Kennedy and Blinky, after becoming pals, broke out of Kingston Penitentiary. Morgan was traced to Reno, Ohio, by Detective Hoolihan and others, and in the fight that occurred Blinky killed Hoolihan and escaped. Later he was run down in Alpena, Michigan, where he shot the sheriff and wounded another man. He was captured and taken to Cleveland and hanged. Kennedy got away. " Callaghan, meanwhile, had disappeared completely after killing Governor O'Callaghan Leech, of Sandwich gaol. I sent out circulars offering a ^500 reward. No answer came until December, 1884, when the police of Hannibal, Missouri, telegraphed to me : " ' Come at once. Callaghan in gaol ; acknowledges identity.' " I was up north on a case at the time, and I wired back : ' Will come ; but I do not believe it is Callaghan. He would not acknowledge identity.' " I prepared the necessary extradition papers, and was instructed to go to Hannibal, Missouri. I went by way of Windsor, and took with me Turnkey Smith, of Sand- wich gaol, who knew Callaghan well. We arrived in 21 8 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE Hannibal on the evening of December i6th, and went at once to the gaol. It was the roughest gaol, with the hardest-looking lot of pills in it that I had ever seen. We were told by the police that two crooks, known as Joe Rice and John Carr, had burglarised Banker Patter- son's house in Barry, Illinois, stealing his gold-mounted revolver, and making him get up out of bed and open the safe and turn over its contents. They had been caught in Hannibal, and Rice had the stolen revolver. On their way to gaol Rice whispered with Carr, and in the gaol he had said to a fellow prisoner, ' I wonder if these cops have stumbled on to who I am. They offer a reward for me in Canada.' The prisoner told Detective Sesnor, who questioned Rice, and Rice confessed he was Bill Callaghan. Then they telegraphed to me. " I was shown to the cell of the self-confessed Bill Callaghan. I looked in. It was gloomy, but even in the gloom I was confident it was not Callaghan. " • That's not Callaghan,' I said. " The gaol people thought I was trying to beat them out of the reward. I told them to bring the fellow out into a better light. They did so, and Turnkey Smith, of Sandwich gaol, said it was not Callaghan. I looked at Rice. " ' No,' I said ; ' he is not Callaghan. This is Jim Leavitt, of New York. Jim, I have seen you at BiUy Brown's in Bleecker Street, and at The Allen's.' " ' Well, you needn't get mad about it,' said Jim. " ' What do they charge you with ? ' said I. " ' They say I made a call on a banker, and some one stuck his revolver in my pocket and I did not throw it away,' said Leavitt. " He was a droll crook. He was no relation to my old friend Leavitt of the Dain affair and Frank Meagher's case. " I returned to Toronto without Callaghan. I next heard of him in New Mexico. Some said he was killed, and, later, others said he was drowned in South America. He never was captured, and in all probability he is dead. His murder of Governor O'Callaghan Leech stirred up LUKE PHIPPS, BURIED HIMSELF ALIVE 219 the people of the county ; and when Luke Phipps, who had escaped from the same gaol, came up for trial for murder some months after the Leech killing, public opin- ion was not kindly. So Luke Phipps went to the gal- lows. I pitied Phipps. " His sentence seemed as heavy as Blinky Morgan's seemed light. Judge Gait, however, balanced the Morgan sentence soon thereafter. In the county of Durham lived four young men, sons of respectable farmers. Their names were Karsha, Kating, Armour, and Hearn. They were great friends, and were much together. Near Graf- ton, in that county, lived a Mrs. Bennett, of the same name as the woman in the Burk and McPherson case. The two women lived about fifty miles apart, but were not related. This Mrs. Bennett lived with her husband, who was a labouring farmer, and her three children (two girls, fourteen and twelve years old, and a little boy). In November, 1884, she was in a delicate condition, and her husband was away working. " Karsha, Kating, Armour, and Hearn had started out that day together, bent on pleasure. They had no par- ticular plan at the outset to violate the law. But they drifted along together in careless association. In my ex- perience, with minor crimes particularly, I have observed ■again and again how two or three or four young fellows, without any criminal intent at the outset, have ended a day together in lawlessness that landed them in prison. It began, perchance, in idle boast and then in banter, over little acts of recklessness, until by gradual advance they came to the boundary line of crime, and rushed across it with a hip-hurrah, to drown any voice that might whisper of open prison-doors beyond. It was in this way that Karsha, Kating, Armour, and Hearn drew themselves on until they swooped down on the little home where Mrs. Bennett lay ill. They beat in the door and fell upon her brutally, then fled. " The alarm was given. The woman knew them, and her little girls knew them. The countryside turned out and gave chase. Karsha, Kating, and Armour were caught and locked up. Hearn escaped, and made his 220 MEMOIRS OP A GREAT DETECTIVE way to New York. He had a mother and sister Hving at that time in Napanee. His sister was ill. Hearn was very fond of her, and she worried over his fate. He communicated with her, saying he had escaped and tell- ing her where he was. I intercepted the letter, and within an hour a telegram went to him saying that, if he wished to see his sister alive, he should come at once. I went to Napanee and watched the trains. Hearn was due on the night train twenty-four hours after the tele- gram was sent. The train arrived, but no Hearn alighted. I went to the house of his sister and found him. He had leaped from the train before it reached the station, and had made his way to the house by a roundabout route across the fields. I took him to Cobourg the next morn- ing, in time for him to stand trial with Karsha, Rating, and Armour. " All four were found guilty. The woman, who did not die, and the little girls identified them. Judge Gait, who had let Blinky Morgan off with five years, told the four young men to stand up, and he sentenced them to ten years apiece in Kingston Penitentiary. The sentence offset the comment that had arisen when Blinky, who had killed a man and tried to kill an officer, escaped with only half the sentence meted out to the four young men of Durham." XXXVI THE NEW YEAR'S MURDER OF STILLWELL OF BAYHAM One-eyed Ranse Forbes was considered the best shot in his section of the county of Elgin. Ranse lived near Eden, in the township of Bayham. He had a sister, Jennie, and the two frequently visited at the home of Lewis N. Stillwell, a young farmer, who lived with his wife and two children in the same township of Bayham. Ranse and Mrs. Stillwell were old acquaintances, and MURDER OF STILLWELL OF BAYHAM 221 Stillwell and Ranse's sister had known each other for a long time. " On New Year's Day, 1885," says Murray, " Ranse and his sister Jennie, and Albert Thomas, the son of a neighbouring farmer, were at the Stillwells'. It was a jolly party. Stillwell was about thirty-five years old, Ranse was twenty-eight years old, and Thomas, the youngest of the three, was twenty-two years old. They had a fine dinner at the Stillwells' that day. A neigh- bour who asked for Stillwell that evening was told he had gone to his father's house. Forbes and Thomas told other neighbours that Stillwell had started on the after- noon of New Year's Day to visit his parents. The par- ents had seen nothing of him, so on the following Satur- day a searching party was organised, and fields and woods were beaten, and the body of Stillwell was found in a clump of woods some distance from his house. He was dead. " A bullet-hole in the back of the head and a hole in the forehead showed how he had died. I went to the place. The shot had been a beauty. It required a perfect marksman to put a bullet in the head so it would bore, as it came out, a hole directly through the centre of the forehead. I learned that Ranse had borrowed a forty-four calibre Spencer repeating rifle on December 26th from a man named Rutherford. I learned also by thorough inquiry that Forbes had bought a box of forty- four calibre cartridges at Golding's. I questioned young Thomas. He was not communicative. In fact, after I had left him he said to a friend, ' The authorities will have to stretch my neck as long as a fence rail before I'll squeal.' " No one had even suggested squealing or confessing to this young man, so far as I knew. But I promptly heard what he had said, and it decided me finally as to my course in the case. I learned from the women at the Stillwell house on New Year's Day that after dinner on that day Stillwell, Forbes, and Thomas went down to the clump of woods in which Stillwell's body was found. I learned also that along towards twilight Forbes and 222 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE Thomas returned to the Stillwell house alone. They were committed for trial. " Soon after they were committed, a magistrate of the neighbourhood came to me, and asked if Thomas could tell the whole truth. Thomas's father and sister had called on him. I saw Judge Hughes, and Thomas was called in before Forbes and Mrs. Stillwell, and he, the young man whose neck would be stretched as long as a fence rail before he would squeal, voluntarily confessed, and told his story of what had happened. He said that after the three entered the woods, Forbes walk- ing behind, shot Stillwell in the back of the head, the bullet passing out through the forehead. Forbes and Thomas then returned to the house, leaving Stillwell dead in the woods. When they arrived at the house, said Thomas, Forbes said to Mrs. Stillwell, ' Come back to the kitchen.' When she went to the kitchen, said Thomas, Forbes told her, ' We've done the job.' " The trial was held at the Spring Assizes. Judge Matthew Crooks Cameron, of whose extensive career as a defender of prisoners I already have spoken, presided at the trial, as he had become a judge some years before. Macdougall and Robertson were counsel for the accused, and Colter, of Cayuga, prosecuted. The defence, of course, knew that young Thomas was to testify against Forbes. They set out to nullify his testimony. They got some one into the gaol who talked that Forbes was going on the stand and swear that it was Thomas, not he, who did the shooting. When Thomas was on the wit- ness-stand at the trial, he was asked in cross-examination if he had heard any one say that Forbes had stated he would swear Thomas did the shooting ? Thomas replied that he had heard such talk. " ' Who was doing the talking, did you think ? ' he was asked. " ' I thought detectives were those talking it,' he an- swered. " Judge Cameron discarded his evidence. The defence made an able fight, and the verdict was acquittal. " I was in California on another case at the time of the MURDER OF STILLWELL OF BAYHAM 223 trial, and was not present during any part of it. The case was one of interest at the time, for the public seemed to have well-defined ideas as to how the death of Still- well had occurred. Confessions are not always effective, even if they should happen to be true in every detail. The circumstances surrounding every episode of signifi- cance in a case are certain to weigh heavily one way or the other. I have seen direct evidence, given under un- favourable circumstances, thrown out or rendered ineffect- ive by reason of these very disadvantages of circumstan- ces. Circumstantial evidence is harder to upset than direct evidence in certain respects. A positive fact, relying on a direct statement for its confirmation, may fail by reason of the statement being involved in extrane- ous matters damaging to its own good repute or validity. A positive fact, borne out by circumstances, needs no further confirmation. " The Stillwell case demonstrated clearly that some one was lying desperately. Thomas said Forbes shot Still- well. Thomas's statement was discounted because some one had stated Forbes said Thomas shot Stillwell. The accident theory, that Stillwell had shot himself, did not figure in the case. But the chief interest of the case, to my mind, was not in its mystery, for after the evidence was collected there was no mystery about it, but in the clever evasion of the effects of a damaging confession. And after all, young Thomas's neck was not stretched as long as a fence rail. " The results of such a trial are permanent, even where there is an acquittal. For instance, in the township of Bayham, the entire countryside does not puzzle still as to who killed Stillwell. The trial served some good ends. The verdict was ' Not guilty.' The people heard it, and went on about their business. That was the only thing to do. " Jennie Forbes, Ranse's sister, afterwards married the turnkey of the St. Thomas gaol." 224 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE XXXVII THE WINTER ROAD TO MANITOULIN One of the exciting times in the history of the Pro- vincial Parliament was in 1885. It began in accusations of bribery and grew into a dynamite scare, in which some nervous members believed, as they sat in their seats, that the next minute they might be sailing skyward in frag- \ ments, along with the remnants of the building, all blown to pieces by a dynamite explosion. " A plot or conspiracy had been hatched," says Mur- ray, " to defeat the Mowat Government. Several cash offers were made, and it was stated that in certain in- stances money actually had been paid over to members to draw them away from the Government side. The Government got on to it, and there was great excitement in the House. Feeling ran high. There was bitterness on both sides. " On top of all the excitement came the discovery that dynamite was placed round the building, and there was talk of a terrific explosion that was planned. At that time the old Parliament Building at Wellington and Front Streets was in use. There was a great scare over the dynamite affair, and the excitement grew. It cul- minated when some of the members rose and stated the amount of purchase money that had been offered to them to vote for the Opposition. Warrants were issued for the arrest of parties alleged to have tried to bribe members. ' Big Push ' Wilkinson, a politician, and others were arrested. " One of the members, R. A. Lyon, living on Mani- toulin Island, was absent at his home, and I was instructed to serve papers on him. It was in March, 1885. Lyon ' lived far to the north, several hundred miles from Toronto. The time was limited. I went by rail to the end of the road at that time, Gravenhurst. I arrived in Gravenhurst on Tuesday, March 3d. A blizzard was raging. I hired a pair of horses and a sleigh, and struck out for the north, heading first for Sufferin, forty-five miles away. I THE WINTER ROAD TO MANITOULIN 225 had been over the road only once before, in the summer. I tried to hire a man to go with me, but none was will- ing to go. The snow was whirling and blowing and drifting, and the trail was hid, for long distances, beneath stretches of snow that rose and curved away like sand dunes. Night fell shortly after I started, and I pressed on in the dark hoping for a brighter moon. I had stuck in a drift a few miles out of Gravenhurst, and had found a rail fence near by. I appropriated one of the rails, and took it with me in the sleigh. " About midnight I suddenly came upon the end of my road in a dense wood and a deep drift. The horses were stuck, the sleigh was fast. No house was in sight. I could move neither forward nor back. The snow drifted up against the sleigh. I seemed to have come into a pocket where the road ended. I tumbled out and floun- dered around. I had missed the main road and gone up a blind timber trail, and had driven into a drift. I got my fence rail and laboriously broke a road. Then I unhitched the horses, and tied them to a tree beside the sleigh. Then I tried to get the sleigh turned around. I dug the snow away from it with the rail, and finally got underneath it and lifted it around. In doing so, I stuck feet first in the snow underneath the sleigh. I struggled to get out, but was caught as if in a vice. The rail lay just beyond my reach. The wind was whirling the snow about me, and I was yearning for it to subside. I grimly calculated my chances of escape. I was up a blind trail, untravelled and abandoned. I could expect no help from passers-by, because there were no passers-by on such a road. As I thought it over, I was dealt a stinging blow across the face. It seemed to come from nowhere, yet I felt the burn of the welt. I began to dig with my hands to free my body from the drift, when a second smashing slash in the face made me turn in time to see the reins from the horses fly past in the wind. I waited, watching them. They whirled up again, and came swishing down. I grabbed and caught them. Then I began to pull and call to the horses to back up. They plunged a bit, then drew back, snapping the hitching strap that tied them to 226 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE the tree. I drew them over close by me, and fastened the reins through the traces and then wrapped them around me. Then I shouted to the horses and pelted them with snowballs, and wriggled and kicked as best I could. They leaped forward, and at last I felt myself coming up out of the drift. " I hitched the team to the sleigh again, and beat my way back along the timber trail to the main trail, and pressed on. It was a rough, hilly, rocky country. The wind was howling and tearing at the trees in the forest. I remembered that Sufferin simply was a farmhouse with a barn and a big tree — a giant, standing alone near the barn. Every big tree that loomed up caused me to stop and alight and stumble through the snow in search of a house or barn. At half-past one in the morning I heard a long, loud howl. I stopped and listened. It sounded again, ahead of me. I drove forward, listening, and saw in the night another big tree. I alighted, and started towards it, and a dog rushed through the drifts to me. I followed him, and found the farmhouse of Sufferin. I went back for my team, brought them up, and hailed the house. A woman answered; the man was ill. I stabled the horses. They were too hot to feed, and I had to wait up with them until three o'clock. It was biting cold. I took the buffalo robes into the house, and laid down on the floor by the stove at three o'clock, and slept two hours. " At half-past five o'clock in the morning I started for Parry Sound, thirty miles from Sufferin. It was after- noon when my tired team dragged its weary way into Parry Sound. The horses were exhausted. I stabled them, and called on Postmaster Ainsley and Judge McCurry, the stipendiary magistrate. I had over one hundred and fifty miles by the nearest route from there to Manitoulin Island. I searched Parry Sound for a man to go. None would make the trip. It was a wild route over a desolate way. There was no road, no trail. There were stretches of ice that ended suddenly in open water, there were rocky trails along bits of land, there were yawning cracks in ice and deep chasms in snow. Some THE WINTER ROAD TO MANITOULIN 227 had to be bridged with trees, others had to be circled for miles around. They said no team could make the trip, that only a dog sled could hope to get through in such weather. I finally found a fellow named Elliott who agreed to go, naming his own price. He had been a sailor and hunter and trapper and fisherman, and knew the whole country. After agreeing to go, he went out and came back shortly, and declined to go. " ' Name your own price,' said I. " He gave me a raise on his first figure, and agreed to go. He went out, came back, and declined again. " ' For the third and last time, name your own price,' said I. " Elliott gave me another raise, saying there were some bad holes in the ice that he had not remembered at first. He went out again, and came back and said he would have to buy some new snow-shoes or he could not go. I bought them for him. He went out and came back and said he would have to buy a new dog sled or he could not go. I bought a new dog sled for him. He went out, and back he came again and said he had to buy another dog or he could not go. I bought the new dog for him. He came back for two extra blankets. I bought them. " ' And here are three bottles of brandy,' I said. ' Now will you go ? ' " ' It's a go this time,' said Elliott. " He brought up his sled and four dogs, and I gave him the papers and conduct money. To make sure he would go, I drove ten or twelve miles with him on the ice of Georgian Bay, as far as I could go. Then I had to turn back to Parry Sound, as I could go no farther. I saw him go singing over the ice with his dogs. He had chosen a route of two hundred and seventy miles. He slept out with his dogs on the way. He made his way through, too ; thanks, I suppose, to the brandy, from his point of view. Lyon was served with the papers. I made my way back to Toronto, driving to Gravenhurst by daylight from Sufferin. " The bribery cases dwindled to nothing, like all bribery 228 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE investigations, as a rule. No one was sent to prison. No dynamite exploded. All grew tranquil, and the Mowat Government was not upset. On the road to Sufferin was the only time in my life when I was grate- ful for a slap in the face, repeated on one cheek and the other also." XXXVIII THE LONG POINT MYSTERY The lighthouse keeper on Long Point, on the north shore of Lake Erie, near Port Rowan, was sitting by the window one bitter cold morning in December, 1884. The waves were pounding shoreward over a fringe of ice. The wind was howling in a gale, and not a sign of life was visible over the expanse of waters. The keeper idly swept the shore-line with his gaze, from horizon on the right to horizon on the left. He saw nothing but tumbling waters and icy rime. He poked the fire and resumed his seat. As he glanced out he saw a black object bobbing in the water ; it rose and fell and rolled as the waves beat in or receded ; it was coming shore- wards. Thrice it was tossed up on the ice, and thrice it glided back and slid with a splash into the water. The fourth time the waters seemed to lift it up and toss it for- ■ ward so that it lay a shapeless bundle on the shore. The keeper of the light levelled his glasses on it, and instantly laid them aside, donned his cap and coat, and hurried out. He ran down the shore to where the object lay, and knelt beside it. The figure was that of a man. The body was wound with rope, and the limbs were rope-bound. The hands were tied. Dickinson, the light keeper, picked up the icy body and carried it to the lonely lighthouse. He judged it was a sailor from some vessel of the lakes, gone to a watery grave and cast ashore long after death. He made a rough box, cut away the ropes from the body, and buried it as it was, boots and all, on THE LONG POINT MYSTERY 229 Long Point. He marked the grave of the unknown dead with a board ; there was no clue to the man's identity. His features were the face of a stranger ; he wore no hat, his clothing was unmarked. Snow soon hid the grave, and Dickinson forgot about it, save for an occasional wondering, as he sat by the fire in the long winter nights, whether the man had come to his death by fair means or foul ; whether he had died in his bunk naturally or whether in the night he had been seized and bound and buried alive in the waters that may give up their dead but tell no tales of their tragedies. A para- graph in the newspapers some days later said simply that an unknown body had been washed ashore on Long Point and had been buried by the keeper of the light- house. " Three months later," says Murray, " John Piggott, of Bay City, Michigan, communicated with the Govern- ment about this body. For months John Piggott had been searching for his brother Marshall Piggott. Marshall was a young farmer, twenty-nine years old, who lived in the township of Malahyde, county of Elgin, Ontario, about forty miles from Port Rowan. His father, before he died, gave him a small farm of about fifty acres on the shore of Lake Erie. Piggott married Sarah Beacham, a neighbouring farmer's daughter, and they settled on the little farm. They had no children. In the early part of 1 884 Sarah died mysteriously, and one of the features of her death was a violent attack of retching. Marshall Piggott was not a bright man, but rather slow and simple minded. At ten o'clock on the morning of November 17th, 1884, a few months after his wife died, Marshall was seen going down the road towards the lake near his house. That was the last known of him. Some of the neighbours, when he failed to appear, thought he had gone on a visit to his brother John in Michigan. When John heard of it he began a search for his brother. He read the newspapers carefully for tidings of unknown dead, and when the Long Point burial was printed he saw it, and once more communicated with the Government. This was in March, 1885, and on March lOth I went to 230 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE St. Thomas and met John Piggott, and conferred with Judge Hughes. " John Piggott and I then went by train to Aylmer and thence drove to Port Rowan, and then drove on the ice to Long Point. We had the body dug up and the coffin opened. The body was decomposed, but John Piggott identified it positively as the body of his brother Marshall Piggott. He identified the boots as a pair he had worn and had given to Marshall. He identified a peculiar mark on the big toe of the right foot, and he also identified the peculiar pigeon-breast. William Dick- inson, the lighthouse keeper, said that the face, when he found the body, bore a strong resemblance to the face of John Piggott. He said John and the dead man looked alike. There was little face when we saw the body ; the head had been smashed in and the chin broken. Satis- fied that the body was that of Marshall Piggott we had it taken to Port Rowan and buried. On March 24th I drove the mother of Marshall Piggott from her home in Nilestown, county of Middlesex, to Port Rowan and had the body exhumed, and the mother identified the clothes and the body. " Who killed him ? The question presented itself the moment I saw the crushed skull and the lighthouse keeper told me of the way the body was bound with rope, and the way the hands and limbs were tied. It was not suicide. The rope and the wounds settled that ; no man could have tied himself in such a manner. I asked the mother when she first heard of her son going away. She said that the day after Marshall disappeared in November, Havelock Smith, a young man, twenty-eight years old, who lived with his widowed mother on her farm, near the farm of Marshall Piggott, and whose family was respected highly and prominent in the country, had appeared at the house and said he wanted to see her alone. Her son, young William Piggott, was with her that day, making ready to go to Oregon to live. William stepped outside, and Havelock Smith then showed her a note for ^1,300 made to him, ostensibly by Marshall Piggott. Havelock Smith told her, said the mother, that Marshall had given him THE LONG POINT MYSTERY 231 the note the day before in exchange for ;^ 1,300, and Marshall had said he was going away. The note was dated the day Marshall disappeared. When asked where he got the money to lend to Marshall, Havelock Smith said he borrowed it from Richard Chute. Mrs. Piggott said she would have to find her son, Marshall, before she could do anything about the note. She called her son, young William, and told him to go to Marshall's place and look after it. I saw William. He told me he had driven back from Nilestown to Marshall's with Havelock Smith, and on the way Havelock asked William to help him get the money. The story about borrowing the money from Richard Chute I found untrue. " I went to Marshall's place, and I looked Havelock Smith over. Then I visited the neighbours one by one. I learned from Walter Chute and from Mrs. John Han- kenson that on the day Marshall disappeared Havelock Smith went to Piggott's house about half-past nine o'clock in the morning. Smith and Piggott were seen later walking away in a southeasterly direction, towards Smith's farm. That was the last seen of Piggott alive. I learned that about four o'clock that afternoon Smith was seen by Walter Chute and his son, Ainslie Chute. Smith had been seen first going towards a gully about half a mile from Piggott's house, and he was seen later coming back from the gully. This gully led to the lake, and was secluded. Walter Chute spoke to Smith on his way back ; Smith's trousers were wet, as if he had been in the water. A shot had been fired while Smith was in the gully. Smith told Chute he had shot at a grey fox and missed it. " I learned that on the Sunday before Piggott disap- peared Smith went to Port Royal, six miles away, and hired a rowboat, and took it to his own gully and left it there the day Piggott disappeared. " I began a search for the weapon. I learned that some years before part of an old steamer had drifted ashore, and in the wreckage were some iron grate bars, each weighing about one hundred pounds. Walter Chute had found these bars. He had a maple sugar 232 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE bush near the gully, and for arches in his sugar-boiling furnaces he used some of these grate bars. Shortly after Piggott disappeared Chute was in his maple grove and he missed one of these bars. " The theory of the prosecution was that Piggott had been inveigled to the gully to help launch the boat, that while launching the boat he was struck with a heavy, blunt instrument, which smashed his skull and drove his head down so that the chin was broken on the gunwale of the boat, that the iron bar was taken out in the boat, and tied to the body which was dropped in deep water. After the body was in the water some time it wanted to rise. The motion of the water, washing the body to and fro, cut the rope, the body rose and drifted forty miles to Long Point, near Port Rowan, where the lighthouse keeper found and buried it. This theory was upheld by the wounds on the head, the skull being smashed and the chin fractured. The shot heard by the Chutes was be- lieved by the prosecution to be a blind to account for Smith's presence in that vicinity, as if hunting for a grey fox. The rope was not a new rope. I searched the country for miles around, but could get no trace of where it was obtained. It was not an uncommon kind of rope. " We got a tug and dragged the lake in the vicinity. We found the bar, and a piece of rope, and Piggott's hat. The hat was anchored to a stone. I learned also that after Piggott disappeared, Smith went to Buffalo, and on his return he said he had heard from Piggott while in Buffalo. " Havelock Smith was arrested on Tuesday, March 24th. Arthur Belford, a friend of Smith, also was arrested, but later was discharged. The preliminary in- vestigation was quite lengthy. Smith was remanded for trial. Young William Piggott had gone to Oregon to live, and I went out to Portland, and brought him back on April 28th, and he gave evidence against Smith. " The trial of Havelock Smith began on Tuesday, No- vember 24th, 1 885 , at St. Thomas. Chief Justice Armour presided. It became a famous case. John Idington, of THE LONG POINT MYSTERY 233 Stratford, prosecuted for the Crown, assisted by Donald Guthrie, of Guelph, and County Attorney James. Coyne, now registrar of the county of Elgin. Colin Macdougall, James Robertson, and Edward Meredith defended Smith. The prosecution swore 108 witnesses. The defence swore a large number. The defence maintained that the body found by Dickinson, the lighthouse keeper, was not the body of Piggott. A Dr. McLay had obtained an order from the coroner, and had exhumed the body, and said that no one could tell whether it was the body of a white person or black person, man or woman. Aaron Dolby testified that Dr. McLay told Mrs. Dolby there was no doubt it was Piggott's body. The defence also put in an alibi with Smith's mother as the chief witness. An excerpt from the report of the charge of Chief Justice Armour to the jury will give a good idea of the trend of the testimony. The Chief Justice said, in part : " ' The prisoner (Smith) had a motive and interest in removing Marshall Piggott. Had any other person an interest or motive ? If you believe that the body is that of Marshall Piggott and the note is a forgery, which could not be realised on except by the removal of the maker, then does not the evidence point conclusively to the prisoner as the perpetrator of the crimes ? Why did the prisoner make so many untrue statements ? What was the object of prisoner's visit to Buffalo ? He told several people he had received a letter from Marshall at Buffalo. Why wasn't the letter produced? Wasn't the whole thing a blind to throw suspicion off himself ? Who was it had the opportunity to kill Marshall, who had the motive, and who had the object ? If you have reasonable doubt as to the guilt of the prisoner, then it is your duty to acquit him. But this doubt must be a reasonable one, gentlemen. If, after sifting the evidence thoroughly, and eliminating all that you believe to be false, you think that the evidence is equally divided as to the guilt or the innocence of the prisoner, then it is your duty to acquit him. But, if on the other hand, the facts and circum- stances advanced by the Crown and the deductions to be drawn therefrom are, in your opinion, sufficiently strong 234 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE to prove to you that Marshall Piggott met his death at the hands of an assassin, and that the prisoner was an active or passive participant in encompassing his death, then it is equally your duty to fearlessly and man- fully record your verdict of guilty. You may now re- tire.' " The jury deadlocked. It stood five for conviction and seven for acquittal, and could not agree. " The second trial was set for May, 1886. The defence was not ready, and the trial went over until September, 1886, before Judge O'Connor, at St. Thomas. The case was fought out again. In selecting the jury for this second trial I objected strongly to certain jurors, but the Crown attorneys overruled me. They said they were satisfied the jurors were all right. They thought the de- fence would object to some of them. I said the de- fence would not object, and it then would be too late for the Crown. The panel was almost exhausted, and, against my urgent advice, they accepted two of these jurors. The result showed the jurors I objected to were the main- stay in holding out for a disagreement. The jury at this second trial stood seven for conviction and five for ac- quittal. The prisoner was released on ;^8,ooo bonds. I advised a third trial, as there was no question in my mind as to who did it. Smith had a number of influential friends. His brothers, Harvey and William, were highly esteemed. William was a member of the County Council. At both trials there was great sympathy for Havelock Smith's family and relatives. " In this case the Chief Justice said to the jury : ' The only certainty that human affairs permits of is a high de- gree of probability. You are not expected to have direct evidence of a crime. If such were the law, ninety-nine out of one hundred guilty men would go unpunished. Criminals seek secrecy for their crimes. If a witness comes forward and says he saw a man kill another by a blow, or in any other way, there is always the possibility that he may be telling an untruth, and there must always be corroborative evidence of a circumstantial character.' The Chief Justice's charge, in the report, also contains JOHN STONE, GENTLEMAN 235 the sentence : ' Circumstantial evidence is the best kind of evidence.' " I read a lot of praise of the circumstantial case of the Crown against Havelock Smith. My mind is undimmed by a doubt on this case. Smith, the last I heard, still was around in that vicinity, and Marshall Piggott lies buried not far away." XXXIX JOHN STONE, GENTLEMAN John Stone was a cynic, an atheist, and an English gentleman. He came of an ancient and honourable family. His father educated him for the Church of Eng- land and his mother's heart's desire was to see him a clergyman. He graduated from Harrow (preparatory school only) and was famed among his classmen for his brilliancy. Instead of training for the pulpit he de- veloped a yearning for the stage and he turned his back on the ministerial career planned by his parents, and devoted himself to the study of Shakespeare and the portrayal of Shakespearean roles. He married a Miss Morley, a relative of the Right Hon. John Morley, and after loitering for a year or two he suddenly packed his trunks and sailed, with his wife, for America. " He settled in Texas," says Murray, " and bought a large ranch not far from Dallas. Subsequently he moved into Dallas and was elected Mayor of Dallas and was re- elected. He was such a remarkable man, with such a command of language, that it is not strange he should become involved as the central figure in an affair which drew the attention of the President of the United States, the British Ambassador, the Attorney-General of the United States, and high officials of both Canada and the neighbouring country. " Stone had a sister, a Mrs. Asa Hodge, who came from England to Canada and lived in Beamsville, county 236 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE of Lincoln, twenty miles from Suspension Bridge. Her husband was a fruit grower. Mayor Stone of Dallas made occasional visits to New York, and on one of these trips he called to see his sister. One of her children, Maude Hodge, was a beautiful girl of sixteen at this time. John Stone, when he saw her liked her so much that he took her back to Texas and kept her in his own family, educating her with his own children. Several years later Mrs. Hodge went to Texas to visit her brother and daughter. She did not like the look of things. Maude had grown to a lovely young woman of nineteen, and John Stone regarded her with jealous affection. Mrs. Hodge took her daughter away from Stone and brought her home to Beamsville, very much against Stone's wishes. " John Stone tarried in Texas for a short time, and then he, too, went to Beamsville, where Maude was liv- ing. He started a cheese factory, and moved his family from Dallas to Beamsville. Maude Hodge became his clerk in the factory. At that time Stone was a man about forty-five years old, of remarkable personality and amazing command of language. He was a man of re- fined appearance, with sandy-brown hair and grey eyes, and rather classic features. One of his chief pleasures was to inveigh against churches and clergymen, and to mock at the calling for which he had been educated. He proclaimed himself an atheist, a believer in no church and in no creed. He denounced Christians as pretenders and the Christian life as a delusion and a sham. Con- sequently, when Maude, his favourite, became acquainted with Miss Chapman, a very fine lady and sister of the Rev. I. M. Chapman, pastor of the Baptist Church of Beamsville, John Stone was displeased greatly. As Miss Chapman's influence over Maude grew, the young girl began to weary of her uncle's employ and went to the factory reluctantly. At length, in January, 1886, she stayed away from the factory, remaining at her own home with her mother. John Stone waited in vain for her return. On January Sth he went to her house. Maude and her mother were sitting in the kitchen. JOHN STONE, GENTLEMAN 237 chatting, about two o'clock in the afternoon, when Stone walked in. " ' Is Asa in ? ' he asked Mrs. Hodge. " Asa was out. Mrs. Hodge said he would return presently. John Stone stepped over to Maude, opened his coat, drew something from an inside pocket and held it out to Maude. " ' Well, Maude, I guess you and I will close issues,' he said, as he opened his coat. " The girl saw him draw forth the revolver and offer it to her. She shrank back. " ' Maude, shoot me,' said John Stone, holding out the revolver to her. " Mrs. Hodge screamed and begged her brother not to shoot. Stone, without a word, fired three shots at his favourite. Mrs. Hodge ran out of the house shrieking. As she ran she heard a fourth shot, John Stone had walked to the door, put the pistol to his head and shot himself. Mrs. Hodge and several of the neighbours hurried to the house. Maude staggered out of the door and fell in the yard. She was carried to the house of a neighbour, Mrs. Konkle, and Drs. Jessop and McLean attended her, locating one bullet in the left side below the heart and another near the left shoulder blade. Stone was taken to his own home. The doctors thought both would die. Two constables were set to guard Stone at his own house, night and day. He hovered on the verge of death for five weeks, and suddenly, to everybody's surprise, he began to recover. Towards the middle of February the doctors said he soon could be removed to St. Catherine's gaol. " I talked with him at that time and he impressed me as one of the most fluent talkers I ever had heard. Words flowed in a ceaseless, unbroken stream. His vocabulary was remarkable. " ' It was a high ambition ; these things cannot always be accounted for,' he said, referring to the shooting. " In February a stranger, giving the name of Mr. Matthews, arrived in Beamsville. No one knew who he was or whence he came. He disappeared as suddenly as 238 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE he had appeared. John Stone also disappeared. This was on February 14th. One of the constables guarding him possibly was not so much surprised as some others over his escape. I went to Beamsville and traced Stone, where he had driven in a carriage to Suspension Bridge and had crossed to the States and had taken a train. There I lost him. I returned to Beamsville and learned that Mr. Matthews had a satchel with him marked ' H.W.M., Balto.' I prepared extradition papers and went to Baltimore and found that Hugh W. Matthews, a rich manufacturer, lived in a fine mansion at No. 263, West Lanvale Street, and was a prominent business man of high standing, in that city. On inquiry I ascertained that he was a brother-in-law of John Stone. It was March 5th when I arrived in Baltimore and I called on Chief Jacob Frey, an old friend. He detailed Detective Albert Gait to assist me. On March 6th Gait and I went to the Matthews's house and walked in and found John Stone lying on a lounge in the library gazing idly at the ceiling. I had laid an information before United States Commissioner Rogers, and Gait arrested Stone. " In a twinkling the whole household, servants and all, were around us saying John Stone was ill and we could not take him. Dr. Bacon and Dr. Harvey hurried in, summoned by a member of the household, and told us we must not lay a hand on John Stone, as it would en- danger his life. Discretion was the better part of valour. Stone had seemed quite comfortable when we entered, but he seemed to sink rapidly in five minutes. It may have been due to his earlier love for the stage and acting. I was satisfied he was shamming, and I left Gait with him in case he tried to escape again. I went back to Police Headquarters and saw Chief Frey and told him what had happened. " ' All right,' said Frey. ' If there he's ill, there he stays.' " Frey detailed two more detectives, Tom Barringer and Mark Hagen, to join Gait. The three detectives ar- ranged their tours of duty in shifts of eight hours, and they watched John Stone, keeping him in actual sight day and night. JOHN STONE, GENTLEMAN 239 " I called on Commissioner Rogers and on United States Marshal John McClintock. They said they could do nothing. I went to Washington and called on Sir Sackville West, then British Ambassador, and stated my case. Sir Sackville West called a carriage and drove me to the State Department. Thomas F. Bayard was Sec- retary of State. He was deaf as a post. We shouted the case to Mr. Bayard. He said he did not know what he could do until the case came into court. I returned to the British Legation with Sir Sackville, who was a very nice little gentleman. He advised me to get an American lawyer. He also gave me a letter to Dennis O'Donohue, at Baltimore, one of the oldest British Con- suls on the continent. After leaving Sir Sackville I went to call on my old friend Senator Daniel W. Voorhees, of Indiana, who had been my counsel before in various extradition cases including the Meagher case in Indian- apolis. He was living at The Portland and was indis- posed, but he sent word for me to come right up. " Three justices of the United States Supreme Court were calling on Senator Voorhees at the time. They were Justice Gray, Justice Field, and another. It was March 22d. Voorhees made me blush telling the judges of old cases and heaping flattery on me. " ' What is it this time, Murray ? ' he asked. ' Out with it. These gentlemen have heard cases stated before now — desperate cases, too, and desperately stated.' " I told the case right then and there, the whole story, while the four men, three justices of the United States Supreme Court and Senator Voorhees listened. " ' Is he dying ? ' they asked. " ' I think he is feigning,' said I. " ' Suppose he pleads insanity ? ' said one of the justices. " • It would not be upheld,' said I. " • But if the Commissioner decided against you ? ' he asked. " ' Murray would appeal, so beware, gentlemen, be- ware,' said Senator Voorhees. " The three justices departed, and I asked Senator Voorhees to take the case. He said he could not. 240 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE " ' But as an old friend I'll assist you in every way/ he said. " I explained to him that Stone, through his rich brother-in-law, had retained William Pinckney White (former Governor of Maryland), ex-Judge Garey, W. M. bimpson, and Governor White's son, four able lawyers and influential men, to fight his case for him. Voorhees instantly told me not to be anxious, but to call the next morning and we would go to the Department of Justice. I did so, and Senator Voorhees and I called on Attor- ney-General A. H. Garland. " ' Mr. Murray is a particular friend of mine, an officer of Canada, who has come here after a refugee from justice named John Stone,' said Senator Voorhees. " The Attorney-General questioned me, and I told him I was morally certain Stone was feigning. Mr. Garland dictated a letter to Marshal McClintock in Baltimore, and suggested a commission of United States surgeons be ap- pointed to go to Baltimore and examine Stone, and see if he could be removed with safety. The letter of the Attorney-General of the United States to Marshal Mc- Clintock read : ' Department of Justice, ' Washington, March 2jd, 1886. ' 1999-1886. « John McClintock, Esq., • United States Marshal, ' Baltimore, Md. 'Sir, ' It has been brought to my attention that John Stone is under arrest on an application by the Canadian authorities for extradition, and fears are entertained that Stone may make his escape, and avoid the investigation necessary to his extradition. I hope you will see to it, and take every precaution to that end, that he is safely kept until that examination is had. You will spare no pains to effect this. ' I am more particular in this matter than ordinarily, because last summer, on an application by this Govern- JOHN STONE, GENTLEMAN 241 ment to the Canadian authorities for the extradition of an offender against our laws, every facility was afforded us and everything done by those authorities to enable us to bring back the offender, which we did, and I cannot afford to put this Government into the attitude of lacking in the proper comity towards those people. If any ad- ditional expense is necessary to secure this man's attend- ance, it will be paid by this Department. ' I have written to the Treasury Department that they request Surgeon Meade to make the examination which you desire. ' Very respectfully, • A. H. Garland, ' Attorney-General' •' Two United States surgeons proceeded to Baltimore after our call on the Attorney-General. I went on the same train. They drove to the Matthews' house. There they were joined by the family physicians. Dr. Bacon and Dr. Harvey, and two or three others. The civilian doctors already were in favour of the prisoner, for Stone was a prisoner in the Matthews' mansion. After the ex- amination, the opinion of all the surgeons was that the removal of the prisoner would be dangerous, and any undue excitement might cause a rush of blood to the head and rupture a blood vessel, causing death instantly. The two United States surgeons returned to Washington and made a report to this effect. I also returned to Washington and saw Voorhees, and induced him to take the case. We called on Attorney-General Garland again, and saw him and his first assistant, Heber May, of In- diana, a friend of Senator Voorhees. Then Senator Voorhees and I went to Baltimore, and the three detect- ives who were watching Stone night and day told Senator Voorhees that Stone was feigning. " Senator Voorhees, as counsel, had a writ of show cause issued on Marshal McClintock to learn why he could not produce John Stone in Court before Commis- sioner Rogers. The Marshal appeared with the affidavits of the doctors that Stone could not be moved. Matters 242 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE went on, the three detectives keeping John Stone in sight every minute of the time. Sir Sackville West sent me a private note to call on him at the Legation. I did so, and stated what had occurred, and he was greatly pleased over what had been done. Senator Voorhees and I went to Baltimore again and again and again, for over four months, each time getting a show cause order, to which Marshal McClintock would reply with affidavits of the doctors. " In June I called on President Cleveland, whom I had known in Buffalo. " The Department of Justice ordered a second com- mission of United States surgeons to examine Stone. They did so, and reported that Stone could be moved with safety, from the fact that wherever the bullet was, it would be imbedded permanently now, and not apt to cause any trouble. This examination was held on Fri- day, July 9th, and the report was made the next day. Tuesday, July 20th, was set as the date for the hearing before Commissioner Rogers. It was a memorable hear- ing in the history of extradition cases. For the prosecu- tion appeared United States Senator Daniel W. Voor- hees, Assistant Attorney-General of the United States Heber May, Paul Jones, a nephew of Voorhees, and United States District Attorney Thomas Hayes. For the defence appeared ex-Governor William Pinckney White, his son, and ex-Judge Garey, and W. M. Simp- son. The hearing began on Tuesday, and continued every day until Saturday. The defence, as the Justice of the United States Supreme Court had foreseen, ad- vanced the plea of insanity. To this the prosecution objected, and very rightly, stating that was for a jury, and not for a Commissioner, to determine ; and I believe that the Justices of the United States Supreme Court would have taken this view of it. The defence brought witnesses and doctors all the way from Texas to prove John Stone did remarkable and irrational things. " They swore John Stone imagined at times that he was Napoleon, and that he rode with a cloak and sword on the prairies, that he reviewed imaginary armies, and JOHN STONE, GENTLEMAN 243 that he delighted imaginary audiences. They swore Maude Hodge, the girl whom he had shot, and who had recovered, and her mother, Mrs. Maloma Hodge, who swore that on the day of the shooting John Stone's eyes were like those of a raving maniac. Hugh W. Matthews and Mrs. Matthews also were sworn. When it came to the arguments, a two-horse waggon would not carry off the law books used by counsel. I got a post-graduate course in extradition law that I never will forget. Com- missioner Rogers decided John Stone was insane. I went to Washington. " ' You'll appeal, won't you, Murray,' said Attorney- General Garland. " ' Yes,' said I, ' but I must see the Attorney-General of Ontario first.' " I returned to Toronto, and conferred with Premier Mowat. He thought we had done all in our power, and it would appear too vindictive, as if we were after blood, to push it further. If I had foreseen this I would not have conferred with him. I went back to Washington to settle up the matter. I called on Senator Voorhees, and we went to see Attorney-General Garland. " ' Murray's come here with a pocketful of Canada money,' said Voorhees to Garland jokingly. ' What shall we do ; take it away from him ? ' " ' Oh, no,' said Attorney-General Garland. ' In re- spect to our friend, we'll bear the burden of these ex- penses, and his Government of course will appreciate the splendid work he has done.' " Attorney-General Garland directed that all expenses, the Commissioner, Marshal, witnesses, doctors, and de- tectives, amounting to several thousand dollars, be paid by the United States. The three detectives were on duty watching Stone one hundred and thirty days. They re- ceived ^5 each a day, or a total of ;^ 1,950. Chief Frey and his staff gave a banquet for me before I left. He and his men stood true through the entire case, and could not be swerved. They are of God's own people in the police business. " John Stone was discharged in Baltimore. He went 244 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE to Texas, as well as ever. Two years later eczema broke out, and shortly thereafter he died. The bullet was found imbedded in his brain. After hearing this, I investigated the matter of foreign substances in the brain. I found a case reported in New Hampshire where a man was blast- ing, the charge hung fire, he tampered with it, and the crowbar was blown up to the top of his head, so that two men had to pull it out, and yet he lived. A German case was reported where a man, desiring to commit suicide, drove two chisels into his head with a mallet. They caused him such pain that he yelled, and help came, and pulled them out, and he lived. Marvellous things happen to the brain, and the persons still live. " The case of John Stone was remarkable, not alone for the bullet in the brain. John Stone was a remarkable man, with a brain full of stranger things than bullets, but we were entitled to a jury trial of his case, and in this I feel that my opinion would have been upheld by the Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States. I do not, of course, mean to say that I know whereof I speak. I heard Stone died in the midst of vain imagin- ings." XL BATES OF ALLANBURG'S FUNERAL PYRE Delusions of grandeur adorned the closing years of the life of one of the picturesque country characters of Canada. He was Old Bates of Allanburg. He lived in a comfortable house with his wife, and the old couple were known widely in the county of Welland. Both were deaf. Old Bates had heart disease, and finally dropsy developed. To brighten his burdensome days the hand of afifliction mercifully touched his mind, and thereafter the old man's troubles fell away. " Dr. Blackstock, of Thorold, attended him for many months," says Murray. " The doctor's skill did much to make the old man comfortable. But he gave little heed BATES'S FUNERAL PYRE 245 to the actual affairs of life. He dwelt in an imaginary world peopled with strange beings. He saw a neighbour- ing farmer passing his house one day, and invited him to stay to tea. The farmer reluctantly accepted, lest he should offend the old man. Old Bates welcomed him with much ceremony, and bade him feel perfectly at home among the distinguished guests. All were personal friends of Old Bates. " ' Napoleon,' said Old Bates, speaking to the cupboard, ' this is a personal friend of mine ' ; and, continuing to the neighbour, he said : ' Shake hands with the Emperor. He's a little fellow, but he's ploughed a big furrow in his day.' " After laughing and patting the imaginary Napoleon on the back. Old Bates led the neighbour aside, and point- ing to a table said : ' That black moustached, handsome man is a villain and a scoundrel, and his weakness is slap- ping the faces of sunflowers. He is cruel to them.' Pointing to an ironing-board he said : ' That tall man is a gentleman. He and I often chat together for hours in the night. He is in love with the moon.' Turning towards a chair. Old Bates whispered : ' That fellow with the red scar on his face is an incendiary. He sets fires all over the world. He has stopped here on a visit to Na- poleon, and is going away in a day or two. He's a very agreeable fellow in the winter, but in the summer he gets oppressive. That venerable, white-bearded fellow beyond him is a prophet and the son of a prophet. He knows all that is to happen, and forgets all that has hap- pened. That pale-faced fellow in the corner is dying of fright ; he has the fear fever. He is afraid of everything he sees, and of everything else because he cannot see it. He sleeps with a lighted candle at the head of the bed. If the night wind blows the candle out he will die. I sympathise with him. It is an awful thing to die in the dark. You cannot see where you are going. You may stumble into the wrong world in the hereafter. Napo- leon says that he intends to make a lantern out of some stars when he goes.' " Old Bates chatted confidentially with the neighbour 246 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE and then with members of the invisible company. He bade them all look well at the neighbour, so they would know him if they ever met him again. Old Bates laughed with the imaginary incendiary, had a great joke with the tall gentleman, and engaged in a thoughtful, earnest dis- cussion with the prophet. The people of his imagination lived and moved and had their being in his existence. Old Bates summoned them all to the table, and told them to eat, drink, and be merry. He listened intently while the phantom Napoleon told of great war-fires he had kindled, and Old Bates applauded excitedly as he seemed to hear the fiery tale of flames roaring on all sides of an advancing army, devouring the land. He shook hands enthusiastically with Napoleon, and declared it was too bad he had not been born an Englishman. " The neighbour humoured the old man, and after tea he went his way. Old Bates continued with the figures of his fancy, the old man ruling a motley company. He never was violent, but always was gentle and peaceable. They entertained him well, and at times they sang ; for Old Bates suddenly would burst into rollicking choruses and clasp hands with imaginary hands extended out of the world of unreality. The hobby of the old man was fii-e or light. He disliked the dark. He believed in brightness and brilliancy, and a sudden light or shining would delight him. " Ori ,the morning of February 6th, 1 886, neighbours who passed the house observed the windows were bar- ricaded and all the doors were shut. There was no sign of Old Bates or his wife ; but smoke from the chimney told that they were inside, and probably getting break- fast. The barricading was attributed to the whims of the old man, who may have withstood a heavy attack on his home from fancied foes in the night, or who might have rallied with Napoleon to fight again one of the mighty battles of the French Empire. "That night the home of Old Bates burned. The neighbours saw the glare in the sky and hastened to the house, but were too late. It burned to the ground, leav- ing a waste of ashes and a cellar full of charred timbers. BATES'S FUNERAL PYRE 247 In a corner of the cellar sat Old Bates, dead, with a butcher's knife in his hand. Near by lay Mrs. Bates. She had been stabbed from head to foot, tattooed with knife-jabs. There was not a spot on her body as large as your hand that had not been stabbed or gashed with a knife. " There was great excitement, of course, among the neighbours. They were divided as to how it had hap- pened. Many believed a burglar or an incendiary had stolen in upon the old couple and robbed them, and mur- dered the old woman and thrown the old man into the cellar and then fired the house. In fact, this view spread until a fellow named Neil McKeague, who had been ap- prehended once in Chicago, was looked on as one who should be arrested. I satisfied myself absolutely that he was not near the Bates's place, and could not have reached there within some hours of the tragedy. It was difficult to persuade or convince many of the people of this. They had become aroused by the crime, and it had stirred them out of their calmer judgment, and they were ready to fasten suspicion or belief of guilt on any person available for a culprit. But the jury took our view of it, and McKeague was not held after the inquest. " Then came an incident that served to justify fully our course. A son of Mrs. Bates lived at Port Rowan. He said that on the night of the fire he was asleep in his bed in his home at Port Rowan, when, in a dream, he saw his father barricade the doors and windows, then stealthily approach the bed where his wife was sleeping and drag her out and make her kneel on the floor while he seized a knife and stabbed her from head to foot. Then, in the dream, the old man set fire to the house, his face bright- ening and his eyes gleaming as he saw the tiny flame creep over the floor and leap up and lick the bed and rush roaring through the house. In the dream, the son said, he saw his mother die ; he heard her cry for help ; he saw his father, knife in hand, sit calmly back and face the flames, as if he were gazing upon good friends. The son told the dream, in the morning, to his wife. While he was telling it, he said, the telegram came informing 248 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE him of the fire, and of the finding of the bodies of Mrs. Bates and Old Bates. The son said the bodies were found precisely as he had seen them in the dream. " This statement of the dream by the son was accepted as absolutely true by many of the people, and it put an end to any talk that an outsider had fired the house. Some of the country folk travelled miles to hear this story, and some looked upon the dream as a revelation to the son in order to prevent the arrest or trial of an in- nocent man. " In this case I had some remarkable illustrations of the inaccuracy of the average man or woman's descrip- tion of a person. Even when they know a person well, they fail to describe the person perfectly. In the Bates case, for instance, I had descriptions of Bates himself, in which he had a full beard, was smooth-shaven, had white hair, had black hair, was six feet tall, was four feet tall, walked with a crutch, had one leg, had one eye, and so on. Many folk are inclined to agree to your question, that is, to answer it in the affirmative. I remember that at some of the places I stopped I tried this, and the an- swers were ' yes ' almost invariably. " ' He had a black moustache, had he ? ' I asked, about a supposed stranger seen a week before in that part of the country. " • Yes,' was the reply. '"And he had a big scar over his left eye ? ' I asked eagerly. " ' Yes,' was the reply. " ' And his hair was purplish over the forehead ? ' I went on excitedly. " ' Yes, kind of purplish,' was the reply. " ' On his left hand he had a sixth finger ? ' I ex- claimed. " ' Yes, on his left hand,' was the reply. " It was all imaginary, of course. They meant well, and probably desired to be obliging, or did not wish to disappoint me.. This incident supplies an exaggerated illustration of what I mean. If you should doubt the accuracy of this observation, select six acquaintances A SPREADER OF ARSENIC 249 whom you know fairly well — not your most intimate friends, but six whom you see frequently. Jot down de- tailed descriptions of them in their absence ; as to height, weight, colour of eyes and hair, and marks like visible scars or birth-marks. Then compare these descriptions with the originals. The test will be full of surprises. I have met people, on the other hand, who had a niere casual glance at a stranger, yet gave a description simply perfect in its accuracy and completeness of detail. " The Bates case had no outsider in it. Old Bates did it alone. He may have been in the clutches of one of his invisible company at the time. The incendiary who set fires all over the world may have overpowered him. The villain who slapped the faces of sunflowers may have seized the butcher's knife and stabbed the old woman. The pale-faced fellow with the fever of fear upon him may have appealed to Old Bates not to let him die in the dark. The old man may have yielded to the plea and summoned Napoleon, and sat back calmly to face death, delighted that he also did not have to die in the dark." XLI A SPREADER OF ARSENIC Cattle poisoning in Canada is a crime certain to be punished severely. Some of the finest cattle in the world are bred in Ontario, and the province is watchful in its protection of them. Near Cortland village, in the county of Norfolk, in 1886, Dr. McKay, a breeder and raiser of fancy stock, had a choice herd on a large tract of land. There were beauties in the herd, and the doctor justly was proud of them. " In the spring of that year a number of the doctor's fine cattle died suddenly," says Murray. " They had not been sick or off their feed, and their unexpected death immediately aroused the doctor's suspicions. A week 250 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE later, more of the cattle died in the same manner. They dropped as if struck by invisible lightning. The doctor notified the department. I suspected poisoning, and went to investigate. I obtained the viscera of some of the cattle, and had an analysis made, and it revealed the presence of arsenic in large quantities. That proved positively the poisoning theory. The probable way for giving arsenic would be with the salt. Cattle love salt, and when it is sprinkled on the ground they will lick the earth to get it. The traces of salt were not easily found when I arrived, but I discovered one spot that still showed traces of it, and I carefully dug it up, and had the top of the earth analysed, and faint traces of arsenic were found. In some of the spots where the cattle had fallen dead the grass had been licked to the ground. " All that summer the cattle kept dying. They would go out in the morning healthy and strong, and suddenly drop dead in the field or by the roadside. I talked with Dr. McKay, and asked him if he ever had any quarrel or trouble with a neighbour. He recalled one man, Robert Morrow, who lived near, and who formerly had taken contracts from the doctor for draining or otherwise im- proving the doctor's land. On one occasion, a year or more before. Morrow became dissatisfied over a contract, and sued the doctor. Dr. McKay said he had offered to leave the matter to arbitration or to one or three of the neighbours, but Morrow wanted law, and told the doctor that if he did not pay him what he asked he would get even with him. Months passed, and suddenly the doctor's cattle began to die. " I met Morrow casually, and I did not like his looks. I placed two men to watch Morrow all that summer. The months went by, and they could not catch him. The cattle kept dying, and finally in December of that year I went to Cortland, and took up the matter of Mor- row's actions. There was no spot near his house con- venient for hiding except a tree. So I sent a man, who sKpped up in the twilight, and climbed the tree, and waited. For three nights I did this unknown to any one, and Morrow never so much as stuck his head out of the A SPREADER OF ARSENIC 251 door. On the fourth night, after one o'clock in the morning, my watcher heard the door open softly, and a figure slipped out and started along in the shadow of the fence. My watcher waited until he was well started, and then slid down out of the tree. As he began to slide his coat caught and held him. It was a lucky catch, for, as he drew himself up, he saw the figure stealthily sneaking round the house. It was Morrow, and he was investi- gating his own premises to make sure he was not being watched. The watcher sat silent on his perch in the tree and saw him enter the house, then reappear, carrying a small bag. He glided away in the darkness, and my man followed. The pursuer fancied he heard him once, but was careful not to crowd upon him. The result was, he lost him. " Along a fence near McKay's he disappeared, and the watcher crawled to and fro, looking for him in vain. At length he gave him up, and crept out into McKay's field, and there came upon newly laid salt. In fact, he had his hands in it before he discovered it. He carefully brushed up enough to fill a cup. This he put in a bag, and tucked away in his pocket. Then he went to McKay's, and told them not to turn out any cattle in that particular field. It was daylight when he reported to me. I started at once to Morrow's. " Morrow was standing outside when I approached the house. " • Good-morning,' said I. " ' Morning to you,' said he. ' Nice day.' " ' Fine,' said I. ' By the way, where did this salt in McKay's field come from ? ' and I produced the bag. " Morrow gasped, then paled — I almost pitied him. He stared, and shook like a man with the ague. I waited. He twitched, and shivered, and gasped. " ' Are you ill ? ' I asked him. " ' I don't feel well this morning,' said he. ' Bilious ; bad stomach ; indigestion.' '" Ah ! ' said I. ' Salt's just the thing. Nothing like salt to fix the stomach. Have some ? ' and I held up the bag. 252 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE " Morrow shrank as if I had offered to shoot him through the heart. He clapped one hand to his mouth, and suddenly began to hiccup. He actually grew sick, gulping like a landlubber in a heavy sea. I pocketed the salt and went over to him. " ' Some of this sdt was on the food you ate for break- fast,' I said, for he was so flustered he did not know what was coming next. ' You must have eaten it.' " He writhed and moaned. He verily seemed to fear he had been poisoned. While he retched and groaned I searched his house and found arsenic. I arrested him, and told him to stop belching, as he was not going to die. He was as reUeved as a man reprieved on the gal- lows. The black cap of death seemed lifted from his head when he learned he had not eaten of the salt he had poisoned. " I took Morrow to Simcoe gaol, and on December 22d he was committed for trial. He was tried before Judge Matthew Crooks Cameron at the Spring Assizes in 1887, and was sent to Kingston Penitentiary for seven years. I not only had the evidence of the arsenic in his house, but I learned also where he bought the arsenic. Dr. McKay lost over fifty head of cattle, but all of them combined did not suffer agonies equal to those endured by Morrow on the morning he retched and moaned in the belief that he had eaten of his own poisoned mess. It was drastic, but deserved. Morrow had an im- aginary taste of his own mixing. It stirred him to the innermost parts of his being. He almost gave up the ghost." XLII FOR A MESS OF POTTAGE Ben Hagaman was his mother's pet. She coddled him as a child, and pampered him as a youth. His father was a rich merchant of Ridgetown, Ontario, and FOR A MESS OF POTTAGE 253 his brother-in-law was a prosperous, successful business man. His uncle was Benjamin Hagaman, the Chicago millionaire, who was a bachelor, and after whom young Ben had been named. " Young Ben stood to inherit old Ben's fortune," says Murray. " He was a sunny-tempered, merry, good- looking, Ukeable young fellow, and his shrewd, rich old uncle was very fond of him. All Ben needed to do was to learn the ways of business under his uncle's super- vision, and in due time he would inherit millions. Young Ben knew this. His uncle took him when he was of age and taught him something of business, and in the course of giving him practical experience old Ben sent young Ben out to Fargo, North Dakota, and made him paying teller in his bank there. Young Ben seemed to do well, but one day he unexpectedly returned to Canada and settled down again at the old home. No word came from old Ben, and no explanation was given by young Ben. In due time young Ben had married, and had two children. " Sir William P. Howland, of Toronto, ex-Lieutenant- Governor of the Province, met young Ben. Sir William was the head of Howland, Jones & Co., and had large flour mills at Thorold. He needed a bookkeeper there, and when young Ben, son of the rich Ridgetown mer- chant and nephew of the Chicago multi-millionaire, applied to him, he employed Ben in the capacity not only of bookkeeper, but confidential clerk at the Thorold mills. Sir William instructed young Ben to keep an eye on Sir William's partner, who was as honest a man as the sun ever shone upon. Young Ben nodded wisely, aware instantly that Sir William might distrust his partner despite their close relations. " Young Ben quickly familiarised himself with his duties. He learned that grain was bought by the car- load, and was paid for by cheques drawn by the book- keeper and signed by Mr. Jones, Sir William's partner. Young Ben was deft with a pen. After the arrival of a consignment of grain valued at ;^470, young Ben wrote out a cheque with a little interval after the ' four ' in the 254 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE ' four hundred and seventy.' He took the cheque to Mr. Jones, who signed it as usual. Young Ben then took the signed cheque and added ' teen ' to the ' four,' making it read ' fourteen hundred and seventy,' and put a ' i ' after the ' $' before the '470,' making it ^1,470, and thereby raising the cheque ;^i,ooo. He arranged the indorsement also, and sent it through the bank. Between September and December, 1886, young Ben did this sixteen times, getting ^1,000 each time, or ^16,000, apart from the amount actually due for grain. On December 20th he went away, saying he would be back on the 22d. He did not return, and the firm's balance at the bank showed ^16,000 missing. Before disappearing Ben made a fare- well visit to Toronto, where he bought some elegant jewellery from W. P. Ellis, including some costly dia- monds. Part of the jewellery he succeeded in obtaining on credit. " Sir William was dumfounded. He could not bring himself to believe that young Ben had robbed him. Yet there were the cheques, each for ^1,000 more than the proper amount. Mr. Jones was sure they had been raised after he had signed them. Finally the matter came to my attention, and on January 24th, 1887, I took it up. I first learned that old Ben, the Chicago million- aire, had washed his hands of his precious namesake after young Ben had made away with some $4,000 or $5,000 not belonging to him in the Fargo bank. Old Ben had said that ended it between him and his nephew, and he had packed young Ben back home. If young Ben had straightened out and worked steadily, old Ben would have taken him again, for the uncle was fond of the nephew, and was greatly pleased when young Ben went to work for Sir William P. Howland. " I traced young Ben to Michigan, then to Chicago, and then to Denver. He had money, and spent it freely. He started out as B. Hatfield, then he became W. T. Schufeldt, then he called himself Frank Bruce, and next he was masquerading as J. Peter Sonntag. I telegraphed his description all over the country, and heard from him under these names as having been in these places. His FOR A MESS OF POTTAGE 255 description was such that it was easy to identify him ; and so long as he had money he would be in public places, for he was a lavish spender, a high liver, and a gay sport. The love of high living was one of the roots of his evil. I conferred with the Pinkerton people, who also were looking for young Ben, and finally I prepared extradition papers and started for the States, and Ben was arrested in San Francisco as he was taking steamer to leave the country. Instead of J. Peter Sonntag, or any of his other aliases, Ben at this time gave the name of plain P. Sontag. " Benny Peter Sontag Hagaman had been living a merry life in San Francisco. He was a thoroughbred in the Pacific coast city. He frequented Patsy Hogan's, and was in with the swiftest boys in the town. He had hired a box in a safety vault in a trust company, and had deposited in it thousands of dollars in cash, and a lot of diamonds and jewellery. I arrived in San Francisco on February ist. Sir William P. Howland had telegraphed to some friend of his to engage counsel. His friend had engaged Davis Louderback, and he did not prove very satisfactory. I appeared on February 2d before United States Commissioner Sawyer. Ben was arraigned, and remanded for eight days. He prepared to fight extra- dition, and W. W. Bishop defended him. Bishop, Ben's lawyer, and Louderback, my lawyer, hired by Sir William's friend, visited the prisoner several times in gaol. Everything uttered before the Commissioner was ordered to be taken down, until there were volumes of evidence. Ben was remanded for extradition, and I was informed the papers had gone to Washington for the warrant of surrender. I waited and heard nothing, and promptly telegraphed to the British Legation at Wash- ington that the forms of the treaty had been complied with and copies of the proceedings had been sent to the State Department, and I asked that the warrant of sur- render be sent to me as soon as possible. Sir Sackville West replied that inquiry at the State Department showed no papers had arrived there in the case, and the Depart- ment knew nothing of it. I called on Louderback, and got very little satisfaction out of him. 256 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE " I then called on Commissioner Sawyer. He was a nephew of Judge Sawyer. He said the papers had not been sent to Washington, and had to be paid for before they would be transmitted. He said the charge was ^150. I told him I would pay if he would give me an itemised bill. He refused, but finally gave me a receipt for ;^iSO. The papers were so bulky that the postage on them was ^11. The postmaster was quite unlike some of the other people I met in San Francisco, and he treated me most courteously, and franked the papers for me, which the Commissioner had refused to do. " While I was waiting for the warrant of surrender to arrive from Washington, I began to puzzle over what further steps might be taken to get young Ben out. I knew that the money he had would be of great value to him in this emergency, and I finally concluded that it was quite possible for young Ben to be brought in on a writ of habeas corpus and discharged without my knowl- edge, in the event of a failure of counsel to notify me. So I went over the heads of all the lawyers and lesser officials, and called on Judges Sawyer and Hofman and stated the whole case to them, explaining how I consid- ered I was handicapped. They told me there would be no discharge of young Ben on a writ of habeas corpus, and I breathed easier. The warrant of surrender had arrived, and on March 26th I left San Francisco, with young Ben. Before leaving I began a civil suit to return the money and diamonds which the police meanwhile had taken into their keeping. I had Sir William P. Howland employ other counsel, and they recovered over ^S,ooo. " When young Ben arrived home he was released on ^8,000 bail, pending his trial. He came to Toronto while he was out on bail, and called on me for advice. He asked me what he had better do under the circum- stances. He wanted my honest opinion, so I gave him a gentle hint. "'Ben,' said I, 'you have spent ;^ 1 1,000 of another man's money, and you have put him to great trouble. Your father is rich, your brother-in-law is rich, your FOR A MESS OF POTTAGE 257 uncle is a millionaire. The other man wants his money. If you want to go to the penitentiary, don't pay him; but if you want to keep out of the penitentiary - (( f What! Pay old Rowland ;^ 11,000?' said young Ben, and he laughed uproariously. ' Not on your life. I'll beat Sir Bill, and I'll not go to the penitentiary either.' " Foolish young man ! I. told him so at the time. But he was at the age when all who are younger have it to learn, and all who are older have forgotten what they once knew. He went his way, pig-headed, obstinate, self-willed, and a fool — a pleasant, bright, intelligent, likeable fool. His trial came on at the Spring Assizes in 1888. Colin Macdougall, an able lawyer, defended him; but he was prosecuted by one of the most bril- liant criminal lawyers Canada has produced, the late B. B. Osier. Young Ben was convicted, and was sent to the Kingston Penitentiary for seven years. " I saw him once or twice in the penitentiary. One of the old-time Sunday-school texts was ' The way of the transgressor is hard.' Young Ben had it on the wall of his cell. It certainly was true of him. He came of a refined, rich family, in which he was the mother's darling and a spoiled child. He was to inherit millions, and he sold his birthright for a mess of pottage. He stole ^4,000 and then ;^ 16,000, and thereby sold more than ^1,000,000 for ^20,000, of which he had to repay over ^5, 000. So he forfeited a fortune for ;^ 15,000. There was no need for him to steal. He had all of life's good things essential to the joy of living — a happy home, a fine family, a lucrative position, and good health. After he fled his two little children died, and after he went to the penitentiary his wife got a divorce, and remarried ; and when he came out into the world and his uncle died, leaving no will, instead of finding himself a millionaire he left Canada a branded man. It was an awful lesson. It began simply in a love for gay company, and it ended in solitude in a stone-walled cell." 258 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE XLIII "SHET-BLACK HERRES OF THE DING-DONG MUSTACHEES " A SING-SONG voiced, jet-black haired, sanctimonious scalawag named J. K. Herres lived near Elmira in the county of Waterloo. His father kept a country store, and was reputed to be fairly well off. When young Herres was not teaching a little school or singing Ger- man songs he was gallivanting about the country. He had a profuse rush of hair to the upper lip, and he developed a particular fondness for twirling the drooping ends of his mustaches. He seemed so insipid that one never would have imagined him to be the child of destiny in a stirring event where a whole town turned out to rescue him, while his captor, with drawn guns, backed against a wall with Herres at his feet, and prepared to sell his life as dearly as possible. " Herres frequently went to Gait in his Locliinvarring tours," says Murray. " In the summer of 1 887 he walked into the office of John Cavers, manager of the branch of the Imperial Bank at Gait, and presented two notes to be discounted. One was signed by Peter Leweller, a neighbour of the Herres family, and the other by Herres's father. They totalled ^900, and Mr. Cavers discounted them. Herres vanished with the money. Old man Herres and Peter Leweller pronounced their signatures forgeries. The case came to me, and on September 22d I went to Gait, saw Manager Cavers, and thence went to Berlin, the county seat of Waterloo. There I prepared extradition papers, and obtained from Chief Constable John Klippert, of Waterloo, a description of Herres. Klippert was one of the best constables in Canada, a shrewd old German. " ' Shon,' he said to me, ' you vill know him two ways, one by his shet-black hair and one by his ding-dong mustachees. He has some of the lofliest mustachees you efer see. They flow down like Niagara Falls, only they, too, are shet-black.' " THE DING-DONG MUSTACHEES " 259 " ' But suppose he has shaved them off? ' I said. " ' You vill know t'em by the place where they once used to be,' said Klippert. ' And remember — shet- black ! ' " I telegraphed all over the country for a trace of Herres, and found none. I learned that he had a cousin who was a lawyer at White Cloud, in Minnesota, and Shet-black Herres, as I called him ever after hearing Klippert's description, had been in correspondence with this cousin, whose address was found in an old coat be- longing to Herres. I decided to visit White Cloud. On September 28th I started for St. Paul. On arrival there I called at Police Headquarters and on United States Commissioner Spencer, and prepared the necessary warrant for Herres, if I should find him. I also called on my friend United States Marshal Campbell, who gave me a letter to Congressman C. F. McDonald, of White Cloud, a prominent man in that part of the country. I went to White Cloud and looked up the cousin of Herres. I learned from neighbours that the cousin had a visitor sometime before, a dapper fellow with a remarkably fine mustache. He had tarried only a few days, and then had driven away. He had not shaved it off was my glad thought. I called on Congressman McDonald, and he gave me letters to prominent people within a radius of a couple of hundred miles. Part of the country round about was thinly settled at that time. I set out to find the man with the fine mustache. " It was like looking for a needle in a haystack. I travelled all around the country. I saw more smooth- shaven men and more men with beards than I imagined were in that part of the country, but not one man with ' ding-dong mustachees ' did I see. I returned to White Cloud without clue or trace of my man. I learned then of a settlement of Germans at Little Falls, and I remem- bered what I had heard of Herres's fondness for German songs ; and one man in White Cloud thought Herres's cousin had a relative in this settlement. Little Falls was several hundred miles from St. Paul, and I arrived there on October 4th. It was a little place of about one thou- 26o MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE sand people, and I think I saw everybody in the town. I found no trace of Herres and was about to give up the chase there, when the school-teaching side of Herres came again to my mind. The idea struck me to try the schools. I did so — no Herres. But there were country schools. I called on a storekeeper who was one of the school trustees. Yes, some teachers had been employed for country schools. The clerk of the school board lived near by, he said, and I should see him. To the clerk I went. He immediately wanted to know the names of the teachers I sought. I said I did not recall the names. He said two teachers had been appointed to little rural schools about forty miles out in the country. Both teachers were strangers to him. He gave me their names. Neither was named Herres. " ' One was smooth-shaven, one I did not see,' he said. " I decided to look at the two teachers. There was a big fellow named Richardson in the town, a sort of mar- shal or town policeman or constable. He said he knew the country all around there, as he had been born there. I hired a splendid team from a liveryman, a pair of as good horses as a man could wish to drive, with a light cracky waggon. The liveryman lent me his gun and shooting jacket, cartridge belt and two valuable dogs. I told Richardson we were going shooting. Prairie chickens were thicker than flies. We started on Wednesday, October 5 th. We drove about twenty miles to the crossroads of nowhere. It was dark when we trotted out of Little Falls, and we breakfasted at a crossroads store on the way. I told Richardson, after we were well on the road, the real purpose of my trip. It seemed to make him as solemn as an owl. He was a jolly hunter, but a solemn policeman. Many men are that way. Their business is something awesome or deadly serious, but apart from it they are good fellows. " At length we came to the first school. The teacher was a little fellow, a Frenchman, and he could not speak German. He was not Herres, and we drove on to the next district school. The little Frenchman told me of the teacher. "THE DING-DONG MUSTACHEES" 261 " ' He has ze long moostache,' he said. ' Very fine, oh very ' fine. Ze long moostache, and I haf ze no moostache at all,' and he clasped his hands and sighed. " I was sure the other teacher was Herres. When we came in sight of the school I unhitched the horses and tied them, and cut across towards the schoolhouse. " • If this is the fellow, I will nod to you and you arrest him,' I said to Richardson. " ' I have no authority,' he said, ' and I will not arrest a man without authority,' and I saw he meant it. " ' Richardson,' I said solemnly, ' I am a United States Marshal. I hereby declare you my deputy. You must obey the law and serve.' " ' But I must be sworn in,' said Richardson. " I pulled out a bundle of papers, ran over them, selected one and told him to kneel down. He knelt amid the briers. I mumbled the form of an oath. " ' I do,' he answered solemnly, to my question of, ' Do you so swear ? ' " Then we went on to the schoolhouse and walked in. There stood the teacher, dapper and with a ' ding-dong mustachees,' but instead of being ' shet-black ' his hair and mustache were brown. He was a bleached Herres. ' It looks like him,' said I to myself, ' and yet, is it he ? ' Just then he twirled his mustache. That settled it. There were about thirty children, mostly girls, in the room. They eyed us curiously. " ' Teacher, how long have you been here ? ' said I. " ' For some time — since school opened,' said he, and his voice had a little sing-song. " ' What is your name ? ' " • John Walker,' he replied. " ♦ When did you leave Canada ? ' I asked. " ' I have never been in Canada in my life,' he said. " I looked at his school-books. All were marked John Walker. " ' Are you German ? ' I asked. " ' Yes,' said he. " • John Walker is not a German name,' I said, " He smiled. 262 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE " ' You are from Canada ! ' I said abruptly. " ' I am not ! ' he exclaimed, and turning to the astonished children, he told them to go out and get their fathers. ' Bring them quickly,' he said, speaking rapidly in German to the children. 'Tell them to bring their guns. There are robbers here.' " I understood him clearly, and I told Richardson to keep the children in. Deputy Marshal Richardson obeyed by standing against the door. The children be- gan to cry, then to scream. " ' That's right ! ' said the teacher to the children. ' Shout for help ! Shout as loud as you can ! ' " The whole school began to yell. They ran round the room shrieking and screaming. " ' Keep your seats and scream,' said the teacher. " They promptly sat down and howled at the top of their voices for help. " ' Come with me,' said I to the teacher. " ' I will not,' said he, and he whipped off his coat. " I leaped for him, and down we went, upsetting the table and rolling over the floor. He was an active fellow, and I had to drag him out of the schoolhouse. " ' Keep the children in,' said I to Richardson, ' until I fire a shot, then run as fast as you can to the waggon.' " The teacher quieted down after I got him outside, but I had to drag him across to the waggon. I tied him to a wheel, handcuffed, while I hitched up the horses. Then 1 lifted him into the waggon and fired the gun. The gun scared him, and he sat quiet. I could see Richardson come running, and I could see the screaming children stream out of the schoolhouse and rush, yelling for help, in all directions. Richardson fell on the way and got tangled in some briers, and after considerable delay he reached the waggon and clambered in. "'Drive to the nearest railroad station,' I said, and Richardson whipped up the horses and away we went on the road to Royalton, over thirty miles away. " We could hear the cries of the children dying away as we went. " • You'll suffer for this, sir,' said the school-teacher to "THE DING-DONG MUSTACHEES " 263 me. ' You will pay for dragging an honest man about like this.' " I looked him all over, and to tell the truth I felt shaky myself. We got into Royalton late in the after- noon. It was a German settlement of perhaps fifteen hundred population. We drove to the railroad station. The telegraph operator was a German. When the school- teacher spied the telegraph operator he began to yell in German to send a message saying he was kidnapped by robbers. , The operator wanted to help him. The school- teacher shouted in German. " ' Save me ! Save me ! I am being kidnapped ! Help ! Help ! ' he shouted, as loud as he could yell. " A crowd gathered. It grew rapidly. All the while the school-teacher kept yelling with all the power of voice and lungs. The crowd began to murmur. I moved back against the side of the station, keeping the school-teacher beside me. " ' Richardson, keep the crowd back,' I said, but Rich- ardson decided he wanted nothing more to do with the affair. " ' I resign as deputy marshal,' he said. " The crowd drew in closer. I could see men gallop- ing into town, and I knew they were farmers who had been aroused by their children's tale of the struggle in the schoolhouse. They dismounted and told the story given by the children. The crowd surged in. I had the shotgun and a revolver, with another revolver in my pocket. I discarded the shotgun and drew a second re- volver. All the while the school-teacher kept haranguing the crowd, inciting them to hang me and praying to them to rescue him. The mob actually surrounded the station. " ' Give up that man,' demanded one of their number, a sturdy fellow not twenty feet from me. " ' The first man of you who touches him or me dies in his tracks,' I said, while the school-teacher begged them to rescue him from my clutches. " ' Do not let him take an innocent man to be mur- dered,' shrieked the school-teacher. 264 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE " The crowd surged in. I gripped both revolvers, thinking, ' Here she comes ; steady, old man, steady,' and I decided that the bleating school-teacher would be one of us on the other side when they picked up the bodies. " ' Stand back ! Stand back ! ' I shouted, at bay, one man standing off a whole town. " I flourished the guns, then levelled them, and just as I expected to have the crash come, a big fellow burst through the crowd. " ' What's up ? ' he said, as his eyes took in the braying school-teacher, handcuffed at my feet, the surging crowd and myself, up against the station wall, a revolver in each hand. " The big fellow's hands flew to his hip pockets. Out flipped two guns as he sprang over beside me and backed up against the wall. " ' A thousand to one,' he chuckled. ' God, but you're a game man.' He looked out of two fearless blue eyes at the crowd. ' Come on, you villains ! ' he shouted. ' Come on ! Who'll be the first to die ? ' " It was superb. The man was a whirlwind in his way. " ' I'm Quinn, sheriff of the next county,' he said to me rapidly. « What's it all about ? ' " ' I am an officer from St. Paul, and these people are after my prisoner,' I said. '" So ho ! ' said Quinn. ' Well, they don't get him.' " He eyed the crowd. " ' Get back ! Back up ! ' he shouted. ' Back up or I'll back you up ! One — two ' he counted. " The crowd began to give, and the space in front of us grew as Quinn counted one and two. He laughed and I laughed. I turned to the telegraph operator and told him to take a dispatch as I dictated it and send it at once. As we stood, revolvers in hand, backed up against the station beside the telegraph office, I sent a telegram to Marshal Campbell saying we would arrive in St. Paul by the next train. " ' It gets in at one o'clock in the morning,' said Quinn, and I put the hour in the dispatch. "THE DING-DONG MUSTACHEES" 265 " Richardson came up then, and I gave him the shot- gun and money to pay the hveryman, and he drove away ; and later I wrote to the liveryman, who rephed that all was satisfactory. Quinn stood by until the train arrived, and he boarded it with me and rode to the third station beyond, where he left me, with a hearty hand- shake and a laugh when I thanked him. The school- teacher had subsided, except to remind me occasionally that I would suffer for treating an innocent man in this way. He may have realised how close to death he was on that station platform. Marshal Campbell met us at the train at one o'clock in the morning in St. Paul. " ' This is Herres,' I said to Campbell. " Up spoke the school-teacher, as if he were about to shout again for a crowd of rescuers. " ' My name is not Herres ; my name is John Walker,' he said. ' Some one will pay for this.' " It shook Campbell. We stepped aside. " ' Are you certain he is Herres ? ' asked Campbell. " ' I am not certain, but I'm fairly sure,' said I. ' His hair is lighter. But I'll be responsible.' " Campbell locked up the school-teacher. John Walker immediately sent for Colonel Kerr of St. Paul, to defend him. He also engaged a fighting lawyer named Ryan. They wanted to get a change of venue. I had United States District-Attorney George N. Baxter as my coun- sel. In making the affidavit on the application for a change of venue they swore the school-teacher to it. He signed it. Campbell and I eagerly looked at it. The signature was J. K. Herres ! The marshal and I silently shook hands and went out and had a drink. It took a great load off me. The Court denied the change of venue sought on the unjust allegation that Commissioner Spencer was a friend of Canada officers. Then began the battle for extradition. " It was fought to a finish. Herres's cousin in White Cloud joined Colonel Kerr and Mr. Ryan. Herres was committed for extradition. His counsel applied for a writ of habeas corpus before Judge Nelson. It seemed that when Judge Nelson's father was Judge of the Su- 266 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE preme Court a man named Kane had killed some one in Ireland and escaped to Minnesota. The British Govern- ment sought to extradite him, and the case was carried to the Supreme Court, which held that it was necessary to have the President issue an executive mandate to give the Commissioner power to try the case. The counsel for Herres claimed the proceeding in the Herres case was irregular, and Judge Nelson discharged Herres. We ap- pealed from the decision of Judge Nelson and carried it to the Circuit Court before Judge Brewer, now Justice Brewer of the Supreme Court of the United States. Judge Brewer wrote a long opinion reversing Judge Nelson's judgment and ordering the prisoner back into my custody. This case is an authority in extradition cases, and is reported in Federal Reports of the United States, No. 33, page 265. We fought the matter in the courts through November and December, 1887, and finally the warrant of surrender arrived ; and on January 17th, 1888, I left St. Paul with Shet-black Herres, and handed him over in Berlin on Thursday, January 19th. He pleaded not guilty to forgery at the Spring Assizes, but was convicted and sentenced on March 20th to seven years in Kingston, where his ' ding-dong mustachee ' vanished before the razor of the prison barber. " He had dyed his ' shet-black ' hair with butternut dye. It made his hair a nasty yellow and seemed to me to symbolise the make-up of Herres. The two meanest prisoners I ever had were this Shet-black Herres and a fellow named Drinkwater. Herres was a mean cuss. He was not a finish fighter like some desperate, coura- geous men, out in the open. He was a skulker, and a mean one. While in gaol at St. Paul he acted so badly with the officials that some fellow, a little insane, was put in the cell with Shet-black Herres and committed all kinds of nuisances over him. Shet-black began an action against the sheriff in St. Paul, but it failed. Shet- black was serving seven years in Kingston instead of suing the good sheriff of St. Paul. But greatest of all his griefs was the loss of his ' ding-dong mustachee ! ' " BALDY DRINKWATER 267 XLIV BALDY DRINKWATER Drinkwater's first name was Archibald. His friends called him Baldy Drinkwater. He was a travelling nursery-man, and he drove from county to county doing business with farmers. He had a wide acquaintance. His speciality was selling trees and fancy shrubbery. He was persistent, and clung to the guileless farmer until he had him for a customer. Cash or notes, it was all the same to Baldy Drinkwater. In fact, he seemed to prefer notes from many of his customers. " He finally began to discount notes in the banks, and eventually he disappeared," says Murray. "When the signatures were investigated it was found that Baldy Drinkwater was a forger, and had faked the signatures to bogus orders and to notes. The farmers were angry, and it was just as well for Baldy that he was out of the coun- try. The case came to me, and I set out to find him. He had a brother-in-law in Illinois, and it was quite prob- able Baldy had skipped to him. Refugees frequently flee to relatives in other countries, instead of braving exile alone or apart from any one who knew them before. I billed Baldy all over the country, too. While I was wait- ing for trace of him, I prepared the necessary extradition papers, and when no clue to his whereabouts developed I started for Chicago. There I called on the United States Commissioner and the marshal, and he assigned a Ger- man deputy to assist me. The deputy and I went by train to the village of St. Ann's, about one hundred and fifty miles from Chicago. Baldy's brother-in-law lived near St. Ann's. " The German deputy was a funny fellow. He spoke quaint English, and was full of proverbs. Also he had a love affair, which demanded much of his thought, and of which he spoke frequently and fervidly. I remember we were riding serenely along, and the train passed a farm- house painted sea-green. My German friend grasped my 268 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE arm and shook me out of a pleasant doze, and pointed excitedly out the window. " ' See it ! See it ! ' he cried. " ' That house ? What about it ? ' I asked, wondering if Baldy Drinkwater's face had appeared at the window. " ' Her eyes are yust t'at colour,' he exclaimed, and sank back with a happy sigh. " • The colour of that house ? ' I said, craning my neck for another glimpse of the sea-green farmhouse. " ' Yah,' he said sweetly. ' Heafenly blue ! ' " A lot of things along the road reminded him of her. He was not backward to tell me of them. " ' Say, Peter,' said I finally, ' does she ever cry ? ' " ' Vunce,' said Peter sadly. " ' What did you do ? ' I asked. " ' I yust let her cry till she dried herself up,' said he. " ' Don't you know that the books tell of how the fond lover kisses the tears away ? ' I asked. " I remember Peter's expression to this day. His face puckered up. " ' Ah, yah ! ' he said. ' I yust tried it, und it was salty like t'e mackerel — o-o-oof ! ' and Peter spat mightily at the mere memory of it. ' She iss very salty, iss Katrina.' " But he turned out to be a brave man, did Peter. We arrived at St. Ann's about six o'clock in the evening, and I had no trouble in learning that Baldy's brother-in-law, who was a county constable named Goodfellow, lived about twenty miles out in the country, and was quite well known there. I hired a team, and Peter and I started to drive from the little village. It was a fine road, and we made good time, and about ten o'clock at night we drove up to the crossroads saloon of a little country- corners town. We hitched the team and walked into the saloon. There were six men in the place apart from the bartender. The seven were drinking together, and all were half-drunk. The moment Peter spied them he whispered to me : " ' T'at is Big PoUey, und t'e little fellow und he yust got out of t'e penitentiary.' " • I never had seen Drinkwater, but I had a fairly BALDY DRINKWATER 269 good description. The first man I spied answered the description to a dot — big, burly, rough, with facial marks to make sure. As they all turned, when we asked the bartender for a drink, I saw to my amazement that the second man was almost a duplicate of the first. Never have I seen such a remarkable likeness between two men. I was positive one of the two was Baldy, but which one ? I could not tell. They were playing pool, and resumed their game as the bartender went behind the bar to serve us. There was a mirror behind the bar, and I could see them clearly as I stood with my back to them. Peter ordered a whiskey. As he did so an idea struck me. " ' What's yours ? ' asked the bartender. " ' I'll drink water,' I said, rapidly and distinctly ; and added, ' with whiskey on the side.' " As I spoke I watched the six men through the mir- ror, and saw one of the pair glance up quickly, shift un- easily, eye us a moment, and turn again to the game. I believed I had learned which was Drinkwater. Peter and I finished our drink. How to get the man, without a fight and perchance a shooting, was puzzling me. Peter read my thoughts. We stepped outside and untied the horses, and drove the team close up to the saloon and beyond the door. " • Peter,' I said, ' you saw the two men who looked alike, and you know the big one with the grey hat ? ' " ' Ah, yah,' said Peter. " ' Step in and tell him a woman wants to speak to him at the door,' said I. ' Be sure you come out ahead of him, and when you get out jump for the waggon and the reins.' " Peter went in. I stood close by the door, holding the reins loosely and ready for the door to open. Peter popped out, leaped in the waggon, and caught the reins. Right behind him came the big fellow. " ' Where is she ? ' he said, as he stepped through the door. " Without a word I grabbed him and heaved. He was caught unawares, and landed sprawling in the light waggon. Peter sat on him in a jiffy, and I snapped the 270 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE handcuffs on him and jerked his revolver out of his pocket. The moment he felt himself seized in the dark he yelled for help. Out rushed his friends. They sprang to the horses' heads in the interval of our struggle in the waggon. Two of the crowd drew revolvers. So did Peter and I. The bartender ran out with a light. '"Tank you, kint frent,' said Peter. 'I kin see to shoot.' " • Stand back from the horses,' I said. " They answered with a chorus of oaths. I told them I was a United States Marshal from Chicago. One of them began to yell for a magistrate. My big fellow lay in the waggon swearing like a trooper and beseeching his friends to kill us. A man came out of the back room of the saloon. He seemed to be a magistrate. He told me to show my papers. I told him I was a United States Marshal, and would not show my papers to him or any one else. " ' If anything happens here, you will be held respon- sible,' I said to him. " He called three of the gang into consultation. That left three men. " ' Loose the horses' heads,' I commanded. " They laughed. I aimed as close as I could for an ear of one of the horses and fired. With a snort the two horses reared, tore loose from the men, and flew down the road at full gallop. I caught the reins while Peter sat on the big fellow, who raged and swore and kicked. The horses were headed for St. Ann's, and I gave them full rein, and they sped through the night like swallows. Peter's human cushion yelled and howled all the way, struggling to free himself, and calling on his friends to follow and kill us. As we neared St. Ann's I tied a ker- chief round his mouth, so he would not rouse the whole village. He bit and snapped at it as if he were a mad dog. " We drew up at the hotel in St. Ann's in the dead of night. The horses were fagged out, and stood panting, wet, drooping. We had to carry our prisoner, kicking and swearing, into the hotel and into a back room to wait BALDY DRINKWATER 271 for the Chicago train. I expected pursuit, and told the landlord I was a United States Marshal and for him to lock the doors. Hardly had he shot the bolts when we heard the hoof-beats of galloping horses, and then we heard men's voices, and finally they halted outside the hotel and began to laang on the door and fire revolvers. " ' Landlord ! ' they shouted. ' Open this door in the name of the law. We are officers ! ' " The landlord wavered, and finally said he would have to admit them. I had sent Peter into the back room with the prisoner. I had two revolvers, one in each hand. I stood by the door, and when the third of the gang outside had entered I shut and locked the door and faced them. " ' Hands in front of you, please,' I said, and they obeyed. ' Now, who are you, and what do you want ? ' " ' We are officers, and want to see your authority for holding the prisoner you have,' said their spokesman. " ' I am a United States Marshal from Chicago, and I have a warrant from the United States Court for this pris- oner, and I am not obliged to show my authority to county constables, bailiffs, or anybody else,' I answered. " While this was occurring, the prisoner kept yelling for them to shoot me, to rescue him, to kill me like a dog. " ' Peter,' I called to the deputy marshal, ' if you hear a scuffle or a shot out here, shoot the prisoner first through the head, and then come out.' " ' Ah, yah,' answered Peter from the back room. " The three men turned to form a group, ostensibly to confer. " ' Face me, please, and keep your hands in front,' said I. " ' May we speak to the prisoner ? ' said their spokes- man. " ' One at a time, from the doorway,' I said. " One of them went to the doorway, and spoke to the prisoner, who answered with a volley of oaths and a de- mand that I be killed and he rescued. " ' I guess that's all,' I said, when the prisoner had fin- ished his tirade, and the three filed out at the door. 272 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE " As the last one went out he flung himself against the door. I was expecting it, and there was a moment's scuf- fle, then the door banged amid curses and shouts. Sud- denly a shot rang out in the back room, followed by a moan, and then all was still except for a faint ' Ah, yah,' from Peter. I hung on to the door, struggling to keep it shut and lock it. When the shot sounded, the noises outside ceased. I bolted the door, and sprang for the back room. There lay the prisoner, gagged and unhurt, while Peter smilingly eyed a hole in the wall which he had made with the bullet he fired to cause the gang out- side to think the prisoner had been killed. " The Chicago train was due in thirty minutes. I slipped up-stairs, and through a window I could see the gang drawn back down the road, and they were drinking. I looked out the back way and saw a rear road leading to the station. I softly opened a back door. I went back to Peter, and we took the prisoner, and lugged him out, and away we went to the station. We laid back by a fence corner near the station until the train came in, and then we picked up the prisoner and made a rush for it. We got aboard all right, and the train moved out, while we could see the crowd riding to and fro by the hotel, occasionally shooting into the darkness. " The prisoner was sullen. He kicked at Peter until finally the good-natured German got a pin, and every time the prisoner kicked him Peter drove the pin into him. About the third pin-drive the kicking ceased. " ' Herr Trinkvater, v'at a foony name you haf,' said Peter. " The prisoner turned to me. " ' I'm Drinkwater,' he said. ' Now take that Dutch- man away.' " Peter instantly began to tell him of his beloved Katrina, and all the way to Chicago little Peter told big Baldy of the beauty and the goodness of his sweetheart. " ' Ven I sat on you in t'e vaggon, I fought of Katrina, you vas so big and soft,' said Peter. " Drinkwater swore. When we arrived in Chicago, Baldy fought extradition determinedly, but it was no use. OLD JOHN KLIPPERT OF WATERLOO 273 Back he came to Owen Sound in Canada, and he was sent to Kingston Penitentiary for seven years. He and Herres, as I have said, were the meanest prisoners I ever had. I have thought since of the absence of any sense of sorrow when I heard Dutch Peter's shot ring out in the back room of the hotel at St. Ann's. A hole in a wall looks different from a hole in a man's head. But the temptation had been strong on Peter, and he shot cis close as he dared. The hole in the wall was about an inch from Baldy Drinkwater's head. Peter was a good shot, too. He could miss a man closer than most marks- men. He reminded me, in some of his quaint ways, of John Klippert, who died recently, full of years, and with his life's work well done." XLV OLD JOHN KLIPPERT OF WATERLOO John Klippert was the Pooh Bah of the county of Waterloo. He filled many ofifices, and filled them ably too. He was chief constable and crier of the court and bailiif and issuer of marriage licences and deputy sherifT, and several other ofificials, all in one. He was a keen, shrewd fellow, abrupt in his manner and picturesque in his speech. He had sandy hair and a sandy mustache, and he used to toddle along with his head well for- ward, conversing amiably with himself. The county of Waterloo was known to him from end to end, every nook and corner. It is a rich county, and among its settlers was a colony of sturdy German loyalists who moved from Pennsylvania to Ontario in the early days of the history of the United States. Klippert was of German ancestry, and he reminded his hearers constantly of the fact by his entertaining English. " The farms of the county of Waterloo were well stocked," says Murray, "and in 1888 horses began to disappear. The stealing increased, until Mr. Snyder, the 274 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE member of Parliament from Waterloo, spoke to me about the matter. Klippert also had written to me about it and described some of the horses. I knew where old Chisholm was, and settled first of all that he could not have been mixed up in it. Klippert worried me as time passed, and he pestered me with letters. At length I telegraphed him to get a warrant and come to Toronto. Old John arrived on the early train next day. It was Fair-time in Toronto. Detective Burrows had seen James Little, a notorious horse thief and head of a bad family, at the fair grounds the day before. Little had a son Tom, who was a highwayman. " I sent old John out to the fair grounds. Little had been trying to sell a couple of horses. Burrows spied him and pointed him out to old John. Klippert drew back about one hundred feet and carefully took out his handcuffs and carried them under his coat tails. " Then he advanced stealthily, as if about to sprinkle salt on a bird's tail. Old Little was gazing at the crowd, when suddenly a hand was thrust into his face and a hoarse voice said : " ' Surrender ! ' " Old John compelled old Little to hold out his wrists and be handcuffed. Then he led him over in triumph, and I met them. " ' I got him ! ' he exclaimed. " Even old Little laughed. " ' What is the case against me ? ' he asked. " That puzzled old John. He called me aside, keeping a watchful eye on old Little. " ' What case do I haf on him, Shon ? ' he asked. " ' You'll have to work it up,' I said, to have some fun. ' I'm sure he's your man, but you'll have to prove it.' " I intended to send the witnesses to Berlin, the county seat of Waterloo, the next day. So I told Klippert to take old Little to Berlin and work out the case. The old constable was perplexed, but he took it seriously and bade me good-bye. " ' Come on,' he said to Little. " What happened then I learned afterwards from both OLD JOHN KLIPPERT OF WATERLOO 275 Klippert and Little. On the train old John began to talk of Little's hard luck. " ' Too bad, too bad," said old John. ' I'm sorry to haf to take you back. T'at Vaterloo is a bad county for horse stealers. T'e shuries t'ey is yust death on horse thieves. T'ey socks it to a man, und t'ey always asks t'e shudge to sock it to him. T'at is part of t'e verdict, a plea from t'e shury to t'e shudge to sock it to t'e stealers and t'e thievers.' " Old Little listened while honest old John told him of how the farmers hated a horse thief, and how they tried to get them sent down for twenty years, and how they were stirred up by recent thefts so that they were ready, almost, to take the thief out of gaol and string him up to the limb of a tree. The more old John, in his simple, broken way, talked of the tense state of affairs in the county, the more impressed was old Little over the dangers of his predicament. " ' Ven ve get to Berlin I yust will see you safe in gaol, and tell no one but t'e shudge who you are und vat I got you for,' said old John. " Little asked old John if it was necessary to tell the judge about his record. Klippert said it depended. If Little desired to take a jury trial, all the facts of his career would have to come out. If Little wished to make no trouble and take a speedy trial before the judge, without a jury, his past would not necessarily have to come out. " ' Of course,' said old John, ' t'e case I haf on you is so plain t'at t'ere vill be no use to fight it. I yust show t'e shudge t'e evidence, und he say " guilty." ' " Old Little told John he would take a speedy trial if old John would not rake up his record, and if he would put in a good word with the judge to get him off. " ' Yah, yah,' said John. ' I will fix t'e shudge. You vas a vise man.' " So old John took old Little before County Judge Da Costa and charged him with horse stealing. " ' I plead guilty,' said old Little. " The judge withdrew to a side room. Old John went in to see him a moment, and then returned to old Little. 276 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE " ' T'e shudge he vant to know if you vas honest,' said old John. ' I say yah, you vas. T'e shudge he ask me vere you sold t'e horse. Vat shall I tell him ? Shcill I tell him t'e right place or some wrong place ? ' " ' Tell him the right place,' said old Little. ' You know — Burns's coal yard in Toronto.' " Old John went back, and later old Little was brought up for sentence. Klippert meanwhile had telegraphed to Toronto and located the horse, and its owner identified it. Then old John, when Little was to be sentenced, said to the judge : " ' Shudge, t'is man iss an old villain. His whole family t'ey is stealers und thievers. He ought to go to prison for life.' " Old John painted old Little so black that the notori- ous old horse tiiief did not even recognise his own record. " The judge sent Little to Kingston for seven years. Klippert was delighted. " ' I worked out my case ; eh, Shon ? ' he said to me, and chuckled. " Old Little was sore as a bear with the toothache. He blamed himself for being caught by old John's hon- est, blunt manner. " ' There's no fool like an old fool,' said Little, ' and I am the old one in this case.' " From Klippert's view-point it was all right. He worked up his case after he got his man. As to the change of front towards old Little, every man must be his own arbiter in such matters. 'The man who would achieve the greatest success in the detective business must keep his word absolutely when he gives it. Oftentimes confi- dence of others in his word will bring success where otherwise there would be failure. The detective who breaks his word is marked among crooks just as among other men — in fact, he is marked more clearly and more disastrously. If he does not wish to keep his word, he should not give it. " John Klippert, however, viewed the case from his standpoint, and his course appeared all right. He never saw Little before and he never expected to see him again ; OLD JOHN KLIPPERT OF WATERLOO 277 and his business was to protect his county and show no favour to those who showed no favour to it. He used to chuckle over the case, and often spoke of it. Klippert was a faithful, efficient man. Old Little finally forgave him, and wrote him a letter, saying : '"If I had a horse I would drive to Berlin and see you.' " Old John sent word to him that if he ever set foot in the county of Waterloo the farmers would string him up by his heels and pitchfork him into eternity upside down. Old Little must have believed him, for he never poked his nose into Waterloo thereafter. " Klippert was with me on an occasion when I bade as dapper a little crook, as ever did wrong, to keep out of Canada. The affair began in the old days back in Erie. A suave, polished little fellow stepped off a train one day in Erie and registered at the Reed House as J. O. Flan- ders. He was as pleasant as could be, and made friends quickly. I met him and played billiards with him, and we became well acquainted. He said he was connected with the Claflins in New York, and he soon knew the leading merchants of Erie. He made friends particularly with Church, the merchant, producing a forged letter of introduction, and one day he went to Currie's bank, with Church to identify him, and deposited a draft for ^^ 30,000. The next day he went to the bank alone and drew ^25,000, and skipped with the money. The draft turned out to be worthless. We set out to find him. Not a trace of him could we get. If he had kept out of women troubles, we never would have landed him. But he stole another crook's woman, and that made the other crook angry ; and we were tipped that J. O. Flanders was living in grand style at the Spencer House at Indianapolis, in Indiana. Crowley and I went out there to take Flanders back to Erie. " Never had I seen such a complete change of appear- ance as there was in J. O. Flanders. His own mother would not have known him for the man who was in Erie. Hair, complexion, walk, manner, all were changed. He had plenty of money, and over ^22,000 was found on 2/8 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE him. He was taken before Judge Morris, who, to our great surprise, released him. We appealed, but Flanders had taken his ^22,ooo and was gone, and we returned to Erie. Nine months later he was caught in Fort Wayne. His ^22,000 had vanished and he had ,^200 when ar- rested. Crowley and I went after him a second time and he was safe in gaol. The night before I was to take him away he thumped a gaoler on the head, stunning him, and escaped. I thought at the time the gaoler was in on the game. Then I returned to Erie in disgust, and said I was through monkeying with Flanders. " Several years later, when I was with the Canada Southern Railroad, F. N. Finney and I walked into Strong's Hotel at London, Ontario, and who should be back of the desk as clerk but my old friend J. O. Flan- ders. " ' Great God ! ' he whispered to me. ' Are you after me again ? ' " ' Not on your life ! ' I answered. ' I quit chasing you in Indiana when they let you go.' " ' Don't give me away, Murray,' he pleaded. ' I blew all the money in six months.' " ' I'm not going to give you away,' I said, ' but I am vexed still at that gaoler.' " Mr. Finney had gone to bed, but I sat up until three o'clock in the morning with Flanders, while he told me of himself and of crooks he had known. " ' You did wrong to accuse the gaoler,' he said. ' He did not let me go.' " I went away the next day, and I lost track of Flan- ders. Along towards 1888 I was with old John Klippert at Berlin, when none other than J. O. Flanders stepped ofifthe train. " ' John,' said I to Klippert, ' tell that polite, fine gen- tleman over there that his presence is desired in the United States.' " Old John walked over and thumped Flanders on the shoulder. " • You're vanted in t'e States, und vanted quick,' said old John. THE RETURNING OF GEORGE CLAXTON 279 " ' Thank you, my deah fellah, I know it well,' said Flanders. " Old John gasped. He hastened back to me and ex- claimed : " ' He admits it, Shon ; he admits it ! Vill I jigger him ? Say t'e vord, Shon, und I got him.' " Flanders spied me and promptly came over and bowed. I explained to him that I had changed positions since seeing him in London, and perhaps, if he still con- templated the easy, anxious life, it would be better for him to sojourn in the States. He understood, bowed politely, thanked me for past courtesies, and took the waiting train out of Berlin again. Old John gazed after him. " ' He looked a shentleman, but I could tell he vas a horse thiever,' said old John, and he chuckled, then looked at me and said, ' I can tell 'em efery time, t'e horse thievers, Shon,' and he shook his old head wisely. " I never saw Flanders again." XLVI THE RETURNING OF DARKY GEORGE CLAXTON George Claxton was a negro Napoleon of finance. His empire was Coontown, a darky suburb of the town of Buxton, in the county of Kent. He was a yellow fel- low with kinkless hair and a complexion suggesting an olive's greenish tan. In fact there were uncanny, absurd tales among some coloured folk that Darky George knew a five-footed rabbit and in its jaw was a shark's tooth, and every time the moon shone on the tooth Br'er Claxton turned a bottle green. If any one touched Darky George while he had the greens, some foolishly thought it meant the passing of a charm. Many of the negroes pooh- poohed this talk of wonder-working, but others were said to believe in it, and to the believers Darky George was said to be as sacred as the prophets of old and as much 28o MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE to be dreaded as the lightning, or a humpbacked cat with its tail on high. " I remember him well," says Murray, " a glistening little fellow, about forty-five years old, who walked with a quaint shuffle of the feet, and who seldom stood still, but constantly tapped with his toes. He dressed in wondrous fashion. Sometimes he looked the colour of a banana. Some alleged he actually seemed a sort of green, as if he were not quite ripe. He was a money- maker and, unlike most darkies, he was thrifty. While other negroes were always buying. Darky George always had something to sell. He was a leader among a certain class of darkies, and he had great influence with them. He had come to Canada from the States in a colony of negroes whose owner bought farm lands in Ontario for them and set them free. Darky George traded among them, ever bartering, and so shrewd was he that eventually he came to be regarded as the darky Jay Gould in that part of the country. " But he flew too high. He put some paper in the Chatham branch of the Merchants' Bank and before it came due he departed. It was alleged Darky George had forged the names of other negroes. He left his family behind him. On April i8th, 1888, I went to Chatham and ascertained the particulars and prepared extradition papers. This proceeding includes laying an information against the refugee, taking a deposition setting forth his crime, having his papers identified by the American Consular officer and obtaining a warrant of recipias from the Governor-General. This warrant of recipias is an authority to receive the prisoner. In the meantime I billed Darky George from Podunk to Timbuctoo. He was out of sight of the police. At length he wrote a letter to one of his family. It was dated Mason City, in Iowa. I started for Mason City that night. When I arrived there I found Darky George had skipped. I drove to various parts of the country around there look- ing for the yellow darky. Other negroes had heard of him ; some had seen him ; none knew where he had gone. I finally learned that he had checked a trunk to St. Paul, THE RETURNING OF GEORGE CLAXTON 281 in Minnesota, and I went there and saw my police friends. " We knew that Brother Claxton would not be among darkies very long without doing something to their amazement and his profit. Sure enough, Darky George had established himself to become a fixture in St. Paul. Some said (and I did not believe it) he had a little back room with a green curtain, and behind it was concealed a lamp with a green glass ; and Darky George would lead a superstitious negro into this little room and make him kneel, and then Darky George would chant and moan and groan and suddenly smite the kneeling negro on the bowed head and bid him look up, and he would behold Darky George in the green light of the lamp, staring at him with wild eyes and making passes with his hands and spitting like a cat. " ' Fsst ! Fsst ! Fsst ! ' Darky George would spit, and cast the magic spell. " Then the scared subject would bow his head, the chant would die away, while Darky George softly pulled the string to screen the lamp, and the subject withdrew while George pocketed $1 or $2, or whatever the fee might be. I did not believe all this talk, and I investi- gated it and put it aside. In fact, so far as I could find, it was entirely untrue, as well as the talk of wonder- working and charming. Darky George did nothing of the kind so far as I could ascertain. " I took Darky George before United States Com- missioner Spencer. He pleaded guilty and agreed to come back. Then he changed his mind, sent for a lawyer, and refused to go. His lawyer had him taken before Judge Nelson on a writ of habeas corpus in May. There were three postponements. J. E. Markham was my counsel, and finally Judge Nelson dismissed the writ. A vice-consul, acting as consul, had certified the papers, and Darky George's counsel argued that the certificate was irregular. The court held otherwise and the case became a precedent case on this point in extradition decisions. It is reported in the Minnesota Federal Re- ports, 34. Darky George was turned over to me. 282 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE " In travelling with a prisoner for a long distance, involving night riding, it is necessary to sleep in the same berth with him, if he is the sort with whom it is safe to shut your eyes. He is handcuffed and has irons on his legs and he lies on the inside of the berth. It was June and the nights were warm, and I decided I did not care to sleep in the same berth with Brother Claxton, so I took a detective, a first-class man, then of the Pinkertons, now with a northern railroad, with me to sleep in the berth handcuffed with Darky George. The three of us left St. Paul on June 28th. It was stifling hot in the car and Darky George and the detective crawled into the berth with their clothes on. Presently I heard Darky George. " ' Foh de Lawd's sake ! ' he gasped, ' I'se a-melting away.' " ' Melt ! ' was the answer, and all was still. " The train whizzed on. I waited an hour, and tiptoed up the car and peeped at the berth. The detective lay half out of the berth, puffing and gasping for fresh air. Inside I could see the dark outline of Darky George. The curtain was up and it was moonhght. " ' I'se a turnin',' he was saying. " ' Turn, ye naygur, turn purple, turn pink, but don't ye turn over,' growled the detective. " ' I'se a turnin'. I'se a turnin',' whispered Darky George hoarsely. ' I kin feel it a-comin'. I'se a-goin' to throw. I'se a gettin' ready to throw.' " ' Throw any dom thing ye please except a fit,' snorted his keeper, who lifted his head and eyed Darky George, and added, as he sniffed, ' Gee, naygur, but ye stink. Sweat less. Do you hear me? Stop pourin' perspiration out of yersilf.' " ' I can't help it,' said Darky George, who lay like a monster loaf of bread in a hot oven. ' Deed, boss, I jes' can't help it. Dey ain't no way I knows to keep de sweat back. It just rolls out itself, and deed I can't stop it.' " ' Draw in your skin, ye heathen,' growled the de- tective. ' Pucker yersilf up. The tighter ye pucker the less ye sweat.' TWO DISAPPEARANCES 283 " There was a long silence. Then Darky George gasped. " ' Deed I can't pucker,' he said sadly. ' I jes' can't help dis water a-pourin' off me.' " ' Lie still, naygur,' said the detective sternly. ' Ye stink. Them that must smell to high heaven should smell in silence, for their odour is loud enough.' " I laughed throughout the night. The detective and Darky George slept little. I landed George in Chatham gaol on Saturday, June 30th. He made restitution to the bank and was acquitted. The last I heard of him he was busy among the darkies, bartering and dickering. " The detective soaked himself in a bath for five hours after the trip. Years later I saw him, and he said : ' Go away, Murray. Ye remind me of a sleeping car, and whenever I think of a sleeping car I smell naygur,' and he sniffed violently." XLVII TWO DISAPPEARANCES In the united counties of Stormont, Dundas, and Glen- garry, where Louis Kipp served a year for his part in the big circus fight, the county treasurer was Aeneas Mac- donald. He held office as a nominee of the Government. He was one of the leading men of that part of the country, active in business and social affairs, and of a prominent and influential family. " Aeneas was married, and was about forty years old," says Murray. " He was popular, and knew everybody in the three counties. One evening he was rowing on the St. Lawrence River, opposite Cornwall. He was seen at sunset in the boat. When he did not return his wife became alarmed and a searching party was organised. The boat was found, capsized and floating aimlessly about in a little bay, and later his hat was found in the water. The river was dragged, and men dived for the 284 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE body, but it could not be found. Mrs. Macdonald put on widow's weeds. Aeneas was mourned as lost. Several bodies, found at various points along the river, were held in the behef that one of them might be the missing man, but none was identified as Macdonald. He had been county treasurer for many years, and his death occasioned wide-spread sorrow. It was thought at first that a stranger had been with him in the boat, and that he might have met with foul play, and, as in the Long Point or Piggott case, the body would wash loose from the weights at- tached to it and rise to the surface. Those who last saw Aeneas in the boat were confident he was alone and be- yond the reach of any one seeking his life. Suicide was scouted. Aeneas loved hfe too well for that. " A new county treasurer, Mr. Mathias, who died re- cently, was appointed, and Aeneas passed into the history of the three counties as an honest man and an upright official, who had come to an untimely end by accidental drowning. Months passed. The last hopes of finding the body were abandoned. Then the widow notified the insurance companies to pay to her the amount of her late husband's life insurance policies. It came to light then that Aeneas had taken out policies for thousands of dol- lars. The companies refused to pay until they had more positive proof of the death of Macdonald. They pro- fessed to beheve he was alive and not dead. Mrs. Mac- donald began an action against the insurance companies to get the money. In the meantime the new county treasurer had been verifying the accounts of the office, and he found that Macdonald had embezzled thousands of dollars from the county funds, and had committed forgery and other crimes. " In the spring of 1888 the Government instructed me to find Macdonald. This action was due to the requests of the county officials of the united counties, and the letters of the officers of the insurance companies. It was a hard case. I sent personal communications to my police friends throughout the continent. The search was conducted largely in a confidential way, for I did not wish to arouse the suspicions of his friends, and he had TWO DISAPPEARANCES 285 many of them. I explained the circumstances of his dis- appearance in detail, and cautioned them to make sure of their man as a mistaken arrest would be unpleasant. About this time a body was found far down the St. Lawrence, and some who saw it said it was the body of Macdonald. The people of the united counties were divided as to whether Aeneas was living or dead. As time passed there were folk who asserted positively they had seen him drown. " From police friends in California, I heard of a man named Abner Holt, who, they thought, was Macdonald, if Macdonold were alive. Mr. Holt did not tarry long in California, but shortly thereafter, I heard of a James B. Carter, in Oregon, who was suspiciously similar to Abner Holt of California in appearance. Then I heard from police friends in Colorado of the arrival of a Walter Holder in Denver, and Mr. Holder was a counterpart of Mr. Carter of Oregon, and Mr. Holt of California, and all three bore more or less resemblance to the ghost of Aeneas Macdonald. Next I heard of a Thomas Collier in St. Louis, and he, too, joined the list of duplicates of the missing Aeneas. These mysterious strangers popped up at intervals that satisfied me one man was travelling through the western part of the United States, with a change of names between cities. I determined to shake hands with this gentleman, and give him greetings in the name of those solicitous of the whereabouts of Aeneas. " I prepared the necessary papers, properly authenti- cated, and at the next city where this travelling mystery appeared I hastened to take the trail. I fell in behind him in Omaha, from whence he had bought tickets to St. Paul, and with a glad heart I took the next train to see my old friends in Minnesota. Mr. Many Names was there ahead of me, and was running short of funds. In fact, the first trace of him I obtained was as an applicant for a job as a street car conductor. He was to return the next morning. When he appeared I was there. " ' Good-morning, Aeneas,' said I, shaking hands heartily. ' When did you get out of the river ? ' " ' I never got in,' said he. 286 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE " I took him before United States Commissioner Spen- cer on June 2d. He was remanded until June iSth, and then until June 21st. In this interval a number of tele- grams came to me from Cornwall and Toronto to drop the case. I refused to have Aeneas discharged, and I ig- nored the telegrams. Immediately after his arrest Aeneas had sent word to his friends in Canada. Finally I re- ceived a written communication from the then Deputy- Attorney-General to drop the proceedings. It was a matter of great surprise and disappointment to me and to the United States authorities that, with such a clear case against Macdonald, it should have been dropped. It is entirely unusual to drop such extradition proceedings. It was brought about no doubt by the refunding of some of the stolen money to the county officials and by the abandonment, of course, of the actions against the insur- ance companies. That is the only way I can account for such unprecedented instructions to drop extradition proceedings when the prisoner was before the United States Commissioner. I think it was a great miscarriage of justice. " Aeneas Macdonald was released in St. Paul and the proceedings for his extradition were abandoned. He still is absent from Canada, and he never has returned. There are a few folk who possibly still cling to the be- lief that Aeneas was drowned, and that the man arrested was his double or his reincarnated spirit. But there are not many who think this. All others in the united counties know that Aeneas Macdonald was not drowned, and that he was apprehended later in St. Paul, Minnesota, and he would have been brought back but for the action of the then Deputy-Attorney-General in directing that the ex- tradition proceedings be discontinued. " Aeneas was inclined to piety at times. That may account for the happenings in which he was dead and was alive again, was lost and was found. " A few weeks after my return from St. Paul and Aeneas, there was another disappearance. It occurred hundreds of miles from the old home of Aeneas. About five miles from Thessalon, on the shore of Georgian Bay TWO DISAPPEARANCES 287 in the district of Manitoulin, lived a family of farmers named Gillespie. There was a pretty thirteen-year-old daughter, Maud Gillespie. Early in August, 1888, she went out to pick berries and did not return. She was seen last near a trout stream, and a bully good trout stream it is, as I happen to know. Searching parties went out and hunted for days, but could find no trace of the child. On August nth I went up to Thessalon and began another search. I organised parties and ap- portioned the territory, and sent some on foot and others in boats, and for days and nights we scoured the islands and the shores of Georgian Bay. We visited scores of Indian camps, and pushed on into the wilds, but could not find her. I knew she had no life insurance, and was not a county treasurer, and that her disappearance there- fore was not suspicious, so far as she was concerned. Her parents were well-nigh distracted, and I determined to make a final effort to find her. With a small party I went far up to remote Indian camps, and in one of them I found an old squaw, who nodded and grunted to me, and I went outside with her. " ' White girl ? ' she asked. " I nodded. The old squaw held out her hand. " ' Give,' she grunted. ' Give.' " I drew out some money. She sniffed. I felt in my pockets. I had a couple of trout flies in some tinfoil ; I took them out. The old squaw seized the glittering tin- foil eagerly, taking my last trout flies with it. She tucked it in her jet-black hair, coarse as a horse's tail. " ' Me — see — white girl,' she muttered slowly. ' She go — so — so — so — ,' and she waved far north with her long arm. " ' Alone ? ' I asked. ' She go alone ? Indian take white girl ? ' " But the old squaw only grunted and played with the tinfoil and trout flies in her hair. We searched farther north, and twice we heard from Indians of a white girl who had passed that way. When further trailing was hopeless we turned back and made our way to Thessalon. It was a long, hard tramp. On the fourth day I came to 288 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETpCTIVE the trout stream, where the little girl last was seen. I was tired, and I stretched full length on the ground and idly gazed at the blue sky through the trees, and then rolled over and stared at the water. It was a lovely stream. It glided beneath the overgrowth into a broad, deep pool, on whose placid surface the reflection of the waving trees rose and fell amid patches of mirrored blue. Farther down the stream narrowed and rippled over rocks, splashing and gurgling as it went. But there must be no drifting aside into a fish story. I lolled by the stream until my men came up, and we moved on. No further trace of little Maud Gillespie was found, and I returned to Toronto. Fifteen years passed. In May, 1903, a surveying party was exploring in New Ontario north of Lake Superior, over four hundred miles from the Gillespie home. They came upon a white woman living with the Indians in the wilderness. She was the wife of a big chief. She possessed a rare beauty of the wilds, yet was not wholly like her associates. She lived as an Indian, and exposure had tanned her a deep, dark brown. At first she was unable to talk with the white men, then gradually her power of speech in English returned until she could talk brokenly and remember a few English words. She finally recalled her name, Maud Gillespie, and her mother. They asked her if she wished to go back to her mother. She said she did, and they com- municated with her people and she went back to them, a woman almost thirty years old. She had gone away a little girl of thirteen, fond of her mother, and constantly talking or singing in her childish way. She returned a silent, reserved woman, with the habits and manner and speech of an Indian. She had lost her language, she had become an Indian. Gradually her people are winning her back. It is like taming a wild creature, but eventu- ally the inborn instincts will assert themselves, and much of the Indian life will fall away. They have been teach- ing her to speak her own language again, and she readily learned anew the songs she sang as a little child. "This loss of language is a singular thing. I met an Englishman in South America who had lost his THE HOLLOWED CHOCOLATE 289 language, and he was distressed almost to distraction because of it. I have seen other cases, too, passing strange." XLVIII THE HOLLOWED CHOCOLATE A CALL to Gait awaited Murray on his return from Thessalon and the search for Maud Gillespie. Great ex- citement prevailed in the county of Waterloo. Many people were terrified; others were infuriated. A fiend was among them spreading death and planning the ex- termination of whole families. No one had any clue to the mysterious one's identity. It might be a stranger, it might be a neighbour ; it might be a person of high estate or it might be a creature of low degree. None knew, and there were myriad suspicions. It was as if an avenging angel or a deadly devil were abroad in the county, lurking to slay and escape unseen, leaving no trace of the manner of death. A victim arose in the morning well and happy, and fell lifeless before noon without a sign of sickness or an intimation of the end. " The climax came when little Meta Cherry, the three- year-old daughter of John Cherry, a prominent mill- owner of Gait, died in a sudden and mysterious way," says Murray. " I went to Gait, a prosperous town near Berlin, in the county of Waterloo. It was September, 1888. Several persons were sick, as if a plague were upon them. I looked at the little child. She seemed startled, even in death, as if the hand that thrust her into eternity had seized her roughly and scared her. I talked with John Cherry, and he told me of a box of chocolate drops that had come through the mail. He showed me the box. A few of the chocolates were gone. Meta had eaten them. I took one out, and carefully scraped the chocolate off with a knife-blade. I found on the bottom of the chocolate a spot where a cavity had been 290 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE bored, and this had been filled with a whitish substance, unlike the cream candy of the chocolate, and the hole then had been sealed deftly by glazing over the bottom with more chocolate. I took the contents of the box, and sent the chocolates to Professor Ellis for analysis. " I examined the box minutely. It revealed no clue, simply an ordinary pasteboard box. The wrapper in which it came showed a label pasted over an old address. The address on this label was printed with a soft lead pencil. I steamed the label to get at the address under- neath it, but it had been washed out and scraped away, except for the one word ' Miss.' The package had been mailed in Gait. On inquiry I learned that similar pack- ages had been received by the Rev. John Ridley, minister of the Church of England in Gait, and by Miss May Lowell and Mrs. Lowell, daughter and wife of Charles Lowell, proprietor of the Queen's Hotel in Gait. The boxes were quite small, and the inscriptions were alike as to the soft lead pencil. The packages had been dropped in the mail when no one was around, and the sender had vanished unseen. " Professor Ellis reported that the cavities in the choco- late drops were filled with strychnine. This established clearly the intent of the poisoner to kill many people, and wipe out a number of families. " I spent days gathering all the gossip of the town for generations back, hearing all the tales of trouble, and searching for some secret feud or some deadly hatred that would supply a motive for the deed. I ransacked an- cestral closets for family skeletons, and I poked in all the after-dark affairs and twilight scandals since the days when the oldest inhabitants were gay young folk, fond of walking hand-in-hand through the gloaming. I ran down secrets that distressed dear old ladies, and left them in tears. I heard confessions of errors of youth that had lain locked in gentle bosoms for many kindly years ; in fact, for a time I was an old Paul Pry Gadabout, poking my nose into other folk's business, until I felt I had sifted the lives and winnowed the chaff from the wheat in the collective career of the entire community. Every town THE SHANTY CITY OF SLABTOWN 291 has its chamber of horrors, where the sad episodes of in- discreet living are laid away to crumble in darkness, and the town of Gait has no more than its share of secrets of the passing generations. I found nothing in the long- gone years to throw light on the crime. There was no venerable hatred sufficient to inspire the murder of a lit- tle child. So I turned to later years, and for entangle- ments of recent months. " In the meantime, about the middle of October, I arrested Hannah Boyd at Thorold. Hannah was a fine- looking girl, and had been living as a domestic in the Queen's Hotel, of which Mr. Lowell was proprietor. Later she removed to Thorold, and worked for a family there as Hannah Bond. Her home was in Hamilton. I kept her a week, and interviewed her thoroughly, par- ticularly as to the family life of the Lowells, and whether she knew of the receipt of the package of chocolates by Mrs. Lowell and Miss Lowell, and whether she ever had heard of any trouble with the Ridleys, the Cherrys, and the Lowells. I was satisfied after these interviews with Hannah that she had no guilty knowledge, and that she had nothing whatever to do with sending the packages. " I did develop promptly a strong suspicion as to the person who did send the poison packages. I searched the drug-stores through Canada, and examined the poison-books in all of them, and went so far as to de- scribe to some of the druggists the person I suspected ; but I found no clue that would hold in a trial as sufficient evidence to convict anybody. It is one of the most ag- gravating cases of my entire experience, yet I hold stead- fast to my first impression." XLIX THE SHANTY CITY OF SLABTOWN Slabtown is a sprawling settlement of shanties along the feeder to the Welland Canal on the outskirts of Dunn- ville in the county of Haldimand. It is a Government 292 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE reserve, and the residents are squatters. They are a motley population, who pay no rent, and fish or loll through life with an occasional industrious man among them. They are as distinct, in their way, as a nation apart from Canada, for they seem to have a code of morals all their own, and their customs in business are unique. One of the flourishing features of trade in Slab- town is in wives. They trade wives like knives in Slab- town, a fair swap and so much to boot. The women do not object, and the families increase and multiply upon the bank of the canal, one mother and several fathers. This results in quite a tax on the memory of Slabtown society. Mrs. Sallie Poney, for instance, using fictitious names, had seven children. One was Johnnie Poney ScoUie, another was Mickey Poney Ready, another was Luella Poney Stott, another was Mabelle Poney Watkins, another was Thomas Poney Colter, another was Samson Poney Pettingil, and another was Tillie Poney ScoUie, for in the end Mrs. Salhe had been traded back to the father of Johnnie Poney Scollie. Tobias Stott could point, as could other men of Slabtown, to a fine family of sons and daughters scattered through the shanties. Not all the elite of Slabtown were of the Stott or Scollie kind, of course, or the population would have become hopelessly mixed. As it was, a man was living with his great aunt, while an uncle traded for his niece's daughter by his aunt's son. In fact, one Slabtown dame once said that she had become her own mother. " Shure, Patty Scollie is his own grandfather for he traded for his father's great aunt's mother's son's daugh- ter," said she. A stranger appeared in Dunnville on October 31st, 1888. " He was an old gentleman," says Murray, " about fifty-five, well dressed, apparently respectable. He had money. About eleven o'clock at night John Upper, living near the canal bridge on the edge of Slabtown, heard a loud scream and a splash in the water, then a clatter on the bridge, as if a man ran across it to Slab- town. Upper spoke to several persons about it, and in THE SHANTY CITY OF SLABTOWN 293 the morning they looked for signs of a struggle but nothing was to be seen. Nine days later a body was found floating in the canal west of the bridge. It proved to be that of the old gentleman who was in Dunnville on October 31st. He had been murdered before the body was thrown into the canal. There was no water in the lungs, and the base of the skull was fractured. The pockets were turned inside out, his money was gone, no papers were found on him, and there was no clue to his identity. He was last seen about five o'clock in the after- noon on his way to Slabtown, slightly under the influence of liquor. I sent out his picture and long afterwards I learned that he was a harness-maker named Lowrie, from Toronto. " The autopsy I ordered, when I had the body ex- humed on my arrival, showed that the man not only was dead when put in the water but the body was still warm. This was shown, said the doctors, by the fact that what a layman calls goose-flesh, was visible. This appears and remains when a warm dead body is put in the water. Thus it was evident that the old gentleman had been at- tacked, had screamed, had been struck on the head with a blunt instrument and killed, then had been robbed and the body thrown in the water. " I became a frequenter of Slabtown. I collected a marvellous mass of information. You can get all kinds of information in Slabtown. Anything you want to know, they will tell you. I learned from a Slabtowner, named Henry Overbold, that three hours before John Upper heard the scream and splash in the night, Joe Clemo, of Slabtown, had stopped at Overhold's, and told him that before morning he would be a rich man. Joe Clemo then went out and returned to Overhold's house at seven o'clock in the morning, and drew a big roll of bills from his pocket and slapped them down on the floor. " ' Hanky,' said Joe Clemo, - I made that since I saw you last.' " Overbold told this to me solemnly. I looked up Joe Clemo's record and found he was a bad egg, and for so young a man he had spent much time in the peni- 294 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE tentiary. I learned from an hotel man in Dunn vi lie that, two days before the murder, Joe Clemo had borrowed five cents. He always was broke. " I called on the aristocracy of Slabtown. They re- ceived me with open arms and soapsudsy hands or fishy fingers. Huldy Smith led me out to the bank of the canal, and there told me that Joe Clemo had called on her when John William Smith was out. " ' Joey showed me the squidge of bills, and he shook them to me so's I smelt 'em, and he says to me: " Huldy, fly with me to the United States." Joey says it to me.' " ' Was that all he said ? ' I asked. " ' Oh, no,' said Huldy. ' He says he love me and I smelt the bills again. Bills has a funny smell.' " ' Didn't Joey tell you where he got the bills ? ' I asked. " ' No ; I didn't ask,' said Huldy. " ' But if Joey really had loved you he would have told you where he got them,' said I. " Huldy bridled up. " ' Huh ! ' said she. ' So he did tell me. While I was smelling the bills Joey Clemo whispers to me : " Huldy, I love you ; fly with me ; and I killed an old man be- cause I had to hit him to rob him, and I hit him harder than I meant, so when he wouldn't come to I pitched him in the canal. Fly with me." I told Joey that was no way to get money, and for him to go on about his own business and fly himself, but he wouldn't fly me with him. I stood by for John William, who ain't hitting people too hard on the head and pitching bodies into the canal.' " I found Joe Clemo had skipped out a few days after the murder. I hunted him for months, and finally heard of a fellow answering his description near Essex Centre, in the county of Essex. I went there late in March, and on April 4th I arrested the man, who was Joe Clemo. He had stopped at a farmhouse and was on his way to the United States. I handcuffed him, but said nothing about the charge against him. THE SHANTY CITY OF SLABTOWN 295 " ' What are you arrested for ? ' asked the farmer's wife. " ' Oh, I am arrested for murder, that's all,' said Joe Clemo. " He had excellent power of divination. He evidently expected to be arrested for a murder. Men who have done no murder seldom expect to be arrested for killing a man. I took Joe Clemo to Cayuga before Squire Win- termute, and I summoned a number of Slabtown wit- nesses, and the magistrate was satisfied of Joe Clemo's guilt, and on April i6th, 1889, Joe Clemo was held for trial. Sam Smith, who, it was said, had been seen in Joe Clemo's company, also was remanded. I arrested Sam in Dunnville, but later no bill was found against him. " In making ready for the trial of Joe Clemo, I found the Slabtowners eager to be called in the case. Every time they told their story they made it stronger, as if they feared they would be overlooked unless their testi- mony was sensational and positive. They seemed to enter into a competition to see who could tell the most damaging story against Joe Clemo. This rivalry became so keen that Joe Clemo, according to the tales of the witnesses, had waved the bank-notes before several women and while they smelt them, Joe said : ' Fly with me.' When Huldy Smith said Joe had asked her first, another promptly declared Joe Clemo had asked her three times and had showed her how he had killed the old gentleman and had dived with the body to the bottom of the canal, and had stuck it head first in the bottom so it would not come up, and had robbed it under water so no one would see him do it. One of the women finally said that Joey embraced her and said : ' You need not fly with me, if you don't want to. I love you so that you can take the money and not fly.' She added that she refused the money. This aroused other witnesses to still greater efforts. " I conferred, finally, with Crown Prosecutor Colin Macdougall, and I explained the situation to him and said frankly that it was one of the strangest cases I ever had encountered. Meanwhile, the grand jury, after calling 296 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE only a few of the witnesses, had found a true bill against Joe Clemo, and his trial came on before Chief Justice Armour. We were in an awkward position. While I thought Joe Clemo did the deed, I did not think the wit- nesses were telling the truth, as they kept changing their stories constantly, and finally, as I have said, got into a competition as to who could tell the strongest story. Joe Clemo was defended by an able counsel, the present Judge Snyder, of Hamilton. I had a conversation with him, and he had very little hope of getting Joe Clemo out of his trouble. I had another conversation with the Crown Prosecutor and advised him to speak to Chief Justice Armour about the matter. I knew there would be no restraining many of the witnesses, once they got on the stand. They simply would vie with one another to tell the biggest story and make the grandest appear- ance on the witness stand. She who carried off the hon- ours would be queen of Slabtown, and her various chil- dren would bask in her glory. However, we hit on a plan of our own. " First we proved the death of the old gentleman. Then we selected some of our choicest Slabtown wit- nesses. Sarah Scollie was one. Sarah ScoUie and Sally Poney were not the same woman. Sarah told her story. It was just grand to see her swell before the Slabtowners on the benches. Then came her cross-examination. " ' Are you married, Sarah ? ' asked Mr. Snyder po- litely. " ' None of your business,' replied Sarah haughtily, with her nose elevated and her head held high, as a sign of utter disdain. " Sarah meant to squelch her cross-examiner. So she gave him the Slabtown snub. Her answer gave the judge and jury an idea of Sarah's character. She was instructed to answer the question. " ' Not by a sight,' said Sarah. " She was asked with whom she was living at that time. " ' Sam Smith,' said Sarah, sniffing. " ' How long have you lived with Sam ? ' THE SHANTY CITY OF SLABTOWN 297 " ' Two years,' said the haughty Sarah. " ' With whom did you hve before that ? ' " ' Ben Hughes,' said Sarah, glaring. " ' How long ? ' " ' About a year and a half,' said Sarah. " ' Was there not a dicker between Sam Smith and Ben Hughes about your transfer?' " Sarah tossed her head and looked unutterable scorn. " ' What transfer ? ' she snapped. " ' Of you to Smith.' " Sarah glared. The court instructed her to answer. " ' Yes,' exclaimed Sarah. ' A cow and a couple of dollars.' " Sarah stepped down. Next came Mrs. McCann. She was of the same stripe, only she was better natured than Sarah. She had lived with one man after another and there had been bargains and barter. After a few more of these witnesses the judge asked Mr. Macdougall if that was the kind of witnesses the Crown proposed to produce throughout the prosecution. " ' We take the witnesses just as they come,' said Mr. Macdougall. " ' Well, I would not hang a dog on the testimony of such witnesses,' said the court. " We had some respectable witnesses, but they were not our main ones. Joe Clemo went free. He was the hardest-looking man in the dock I ever saw. He was cross-eyed, so that he seemed to hold his head sidewise to see you. He was so well known as a bad character that the jury would have been apt to convict him. I was under the impression he was guilty, but I did not think it right to convict a man on the testimony of people whom the Crown officers did not believe ; and, under the circumstances, I was glad he was acquitted. " Numerous unsuccessful efforts have been made to break up Slabtown. The ministers and county councils and others have tried it, but there it is and there it seems to stay. There are honest, industrious folk in Slabtown. It is not a nest of thieves or a mere place of dissolute people. They simply are traders, even in wives." 298 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE L WHY TAMBLY SLEEPS IN GEORGIAN BAY High on a hill overlooking the waters of Georgian Bay stands a white farmhouse. It may be seen from afar, shining like silver in the sunlight. Mariners know it as the White House on the Hill. They point it out, across the waters, a mere white speck ; or, when nearer, they nod towards it, as if to the marble tomb of some mighty chieftain. A lad once lived at this White House on the Hill — a fair-haired, blue-eyed, merry lad, whose grandfather carved small boats for him and taught him to sail them, first in the watering trough, then in the duck pond, and finally in the creek. The old man and the boy were wont to sit for hours in the shade, looking out over the bay, where the waters shimmered and sparkled, where the ships came gliding up out of the no- where, beyond the line where the sky dipped down to the earth. Stories of terrible tempests, tales of phantom ships, yarns of gallant seamen and how they went to their death were spun by the old man, while the boy listened, wide-eyed and open-mouthed. " The waters rock them to sleep," the old man would say. " The ships that go down are the cradles in which the seamen sleep." A great love for the water came to possess the boy. The land seemed a hard and desert place. He yearned for the life of a sailor. He used to tell his mother of his dreams, when golden ships came sailing over shining seas with a ship for him on which his name glittered. He plodded on about the farm, toiling in the soil and dream- ing of the sea. " When he was twenty-two years old," says Murray, "he packed his duds in a bundle and went to Owen Sound, determined to be a sailor. The Baltic, a steamer plying on Georgian Bay, between Owen Sound and Sault Ste. Marie, was in port at that time. He went aboard. It was in September, 1889. " ' I want to ship as a sailor,' said he. TAMELY SLEEPS IN GEORGIAN BAY 299 " ' What's your name ? ' they asked him. " ' George Tambly, of the county of Grey,' said he. " ' Ever been afloat ? ' " ' No, I've lived on a farm near Wiarton.' " They laughed ; but they hired him. He shipped as a deck-hand, and it was the proudest moment of his hfe when he went ashore and sent word home that he had shipped and was going to be a sailor. The Baltic carried a crew of about ten deck-hands, four firemen, two wheels- men, two engineers, and a chief cook. Captain Robin- son was her master. Many of the crew were rough-and- ready fellows, hardened to the life they led, reckless and devil-may-care. They were a different crowd from the gay adventurers who manned the shining ships in the farmboy's golden dreams. They were no gentlemen with velvet coats and jewelled daggers and bags of gold. Instead, there were slovenly, grimy, hard-spoken toilers, to whom life was a stern and merciless taskmaster, to be greeted with a sneer or a guffaw. " The crew quickly learned of young Tambly's high ideals, and they gibed him constantly. The green coun- try boy shrank from them, and sought to be alone. There was liquor in the cargo on this trip. It was alleged that some of the crew pilfered and that a group of them broached the cargo. Certain it is that they hunted out Tambly and dragged him from his hiding- place, and sat him down in the centre of their circle and bade him drain a cup of liquor. He refused. They seized him, to force it down his throat. He set his jaws, and they could not open them. So they drank around the circle, each draining the cup that Tambly had re- fused. They spat on the country boy, and kicked him until he broke away and hid again. " ' He knows of the broached cargo,' said one. " ' Aye, and he refused to join us,' said another. " They debated it in their drunken way. Their con- tempt for the country boy grew to dislike and deepened to a deadly hatred. " ' Let's coat him, and make him dance,' said one. " With a shout they leaped up to carry out the sug- 30O MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE gestion. Two went for tar ; one stole a pillow, and slit it open and made ready the feathers ; the others began a search for Tambly. They found him hid near his bunk. He fought and kicked, but they choaked him and dragged him out in the moonlight. They stripped off his clothes and beat him, and then the hot tar was brought forth and they tarred him, slapping it on with paddles and smearing it over his naked skin. In agony he broke from his tormentors and ran around the ship. He shouted to the ship's officers for mercy, he pleaded with his pursuers to have pity. He fell on the deck and writhed as they chased after him, slapping tar on him and thumping him with the paddles. He knelt in anguish, and begged them to desist. Their answer was taunts, oaths, and more tar. The captain was aware of the persecution, but made light of it. Then they chased him again. Around and around the deck he fled, a hunted, tortured being, the tar stiffening and smarting. In despair he sprang upon the rail, and struggled to climb beyond reach. They gathered below him like a pack of hungry, snarling wolves. " Tambly looked down at them and then out across the water. High on the hillside he saw a light shine out, bright as the evening star. It was the light of home. He knew the old man was there, and probably had the glad note spread out before him, reading of how George had shipped as a sailor. A door in the farmhouse opened, and a stream of light poured forth like a beacon to beckon him home. The boy, for he was only a boy, hesitated. The waters looked cold and dark in the night. The drunken crowd beneath him clamoured for him to come down. One started to climb up after him. The door in the farmhouse on the hill closed. The light went out. His cry rang out in the night, and he leaped. There was a splash, and the ship went on. " The bodies that go down in these waters never come up. The water is too cold, and the depths are far, far down. Tambly sank, and never rose again. Quiet fell aboard the Baltic. " A passenger who was aboard the steamer on this trip REGINALD BIRCHALL, MURDERER 301 heard of the outrage. He notified the proper authorities, and on the next trip I boarded the Baltic at Wiarton. I made the trip, and I drank with some of the crew and got the story and the names, and I arrested six of them, in- cluding Russell, the second engineer; Tripp, the chief cook ; a deck-hand named Jennings, and others. I took them to Owen Sound and locked them up, and they were committed for trial for manslaughter. Later four of them were sent to prison. The captain's licence was revoked for a year. " I went to Tambly's house. I asked what they last heard from the boy. They told me that they had received his note about shipping as a sailor ; and the old man had taken it out again, for the hundredth time, to read it, and as he read he thought he heard a cry in the night. " ' I thought George was calling,' said the old man, and he opened the door and stepped outside and listened. " Far out on the water he could see a steamer's lights. He heard nothing and went indoors. " ' I thought George called,' he said, • but I was mis- taken. George is where, even if he called, I could not hear.' " The old man was right. George, far down in the icy waters, was where, even if he called, the old man could not hear." LI REGINALD BIRCHALL: OCCUPATION, MURDERER Thick grow the briars in Blenheim Swamp. Fallen logs and tangled thickets mingle in a maze, impassable save where paths penetrate the dense underbrush. Deso- lation and loneliness pervade the place. The spirit of solitude broods over the marsh. Wild creatures are its only habitants. They flit to and fro, their weird cries echoing in the stillness. On an edge of it is a deep and silent pool, Pine Pond. Its inner fastnesses for many 302 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE years were an undiscovered country, from whose bourne at least one traveller did not return. The bones of dead men had been found in the swamp ; but not until Feb- ruary, 1 890, did it reveal a body lately dead — a body that lay like a bundle, half concealed. Two woodsmen pass- ing came upon it and rolled it over. Two long arms flapped lifelessly, two glassy eyes stared vacantly, and a cold, white face turned skyward, with a purple blotch to tell where a bullet bored its fatal way. Only the wild creatures of the swamp had beheld the tragedy. From the tree-tops and the moss lands they saw a young man, a gentleman, come walking up an old nar- row trail. Gaily he came. He was smoking, and gazed eagerly ahead as if the bush-grown road were a golden highway to a promised land. They saw him point for- ward and press on. They saw death walking at his elbow — a second figure, handsome and alert, swift of move- ment, stealthy, noiseless. They saw the glitter of steel, the flash of flame, the puff" of smoke, and heard the ex- plosion ring out through the forest. They saw the blithesome young gentleman lurch forward, sway and fall, as a second shot went echoing over the marsh. They saw the murderer coolly feel the pulse, quietly search the pockets, then dehberately produce a pair of scissors and clip from the dead man's clothes all telltale traces of his identity or of the place whence he came. Nothing was done hurriedly. The noise of the shots was the rudest part of it. All else was done softly, placidly. The murderer raised the body by the arms and started towards Pine Pond, but the way was choked with tan- gles, and the blood left a crimson trail. So he laid the body down in a lonely spot, hid it as best he could with- out too great exertion, washed his hands in a pool, and walked briskly out of the swamp, whistling softly a merry tune. The murderer neither hurried nor lagged. He cast no furtive glances around him. Perfect self-possession marked his mien. He seemed to have no fear. He skirted Pine Pond, whose unfathomed depths would have told no tale if the body had been buried there. All was silent, for REGINALD BIRCHALL, MURDERER 303 picnic parties had not visited the pond since a fire and storm felled trees and blocked the way. He vanished down the picnic road, where the year before jolly parties journeyed on merry outings, and where Lord and Lady Somerset, spending some monthj at Woodstock, eight miles away, were fond of coming to explore the Blenheim Swamp before they returned to England. " The body was found," says Murray, " by the Elridge brothers, Joseph and George. They hved in that vicinity, and were out chopping on Friday, February 21st, and one of them, in the tangle of the bog, amid a snarl of logs, and vines, and briars, and brush, stepped on the body, slipped, and almost fell upon it. They bore it out of the swamp, and, in response to a telegram to the Department of Justice, I went immediately to the township of Blen- heim, in the county of Oxford, and saw the body. It was the body of a young man, smooth shaven, of refined appearance, and clearly a gentleman. The clothing was English in style and cut, with a check caped mackintosh. The underclothing was of English make, for I had ordered some of the same kind and make in England some months before. There was no clue to his identity. The name of his tailor and the label on his clothes had been cut out carefully. The label of his brown Derby hat had been removed. Even a possible telltale button had been severed. I sat down with the body, placing it in a sitting posture opposite me. I looked at it as if it were a man asleep. He was little more than a big boy, a gentle lad, a youth just out of his teens, a refined son of refined parents. In the back of his head was the purplish black hole of the bullet, and near the nape of the neck was another. He had been shot from behind ; perhaps he never knew who shot him. Death crashed upon him from the rear, and he fell without a glimpse of his murderer. " What could have brought this young Englishman of gentle birth to this desolate spot, and what could have been the motive for his murder? Possibly he had been murdered elsewhere, and the body taken secretly to the swamp and hid, to shrivel and wither and crumble away 304 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE until only a string of dead men's bones remained to tell of the tragedy. " ' Who are you ? ' I asked the dead body as it sat facing me ; but, in answer, it lurched forward and fell on its face. " I had it photographed. I gave copies of the photo- graph to the newspapers of Canada, and requested them to print the picture and to ask other papers throughout the United States and England to reproduce it. I hoped that some one somewhere in the world, seeing the face of the unknown dead, would recognise it, and thus solve the mystery of his identity. Even in death he was so typically English, so characteristically British, that I said at once he was not from Canada or the States, but was from England. But where had he been murdered ? " I went to the snarl in the bog in Blenheim Swamp where the body had been found. I saw where it had lain, half hid, where only an accidental stumbling on it would have revealed its presence. I pondered on the mystery of Providence in guiding the Elridges to the precise spot where the body lay. A regiment of hunters might have tramped through the swamp and not come upon it, yet one of these two brothers, by favour of good fortune, had slipped and stepped on it, and so discovered it. I saw the crimson stain where the head had been. I crawled on hands and knees over the surrounding ground, and I found a crimson trail. I followed it back a few paces, and it stopped in a blotch of blood. Beyond the blotch there was no further trace of blood. Here the murder had been done, here the shot had been fired, here the victim had fallen. His murderer had borne him to the denser place and hid him there. I crawled about the scene of the crime. I went over the ground inch by inch. On three separate visits I did this, hoping that some clue, some bit of a label, some little button, some shred out of his past life, might be lying in the swamp- land. On my last search I came upon a cigar-holder with an amber mouthpiece marked ' F. W. B.' It was half buried, as if it had been stepped on. It was the first clue. REGINALD BIRCHALL, MURDERER 305 " Five days had passed since the finding of the body. No identification came. The picture was in all the lead- ing papers in Canada, and in a few days more it would be published in England. The body was buried at Princeton, a town a few miles from Blenheim Swamp. On the sixth day a man and woman arrived at Princeton, and asked to see the body of the young man who had been found in a swamp, and whose picture had been printed in the papers. They said they had crossed from England recently, and on the same ship was a young man who resembled strongly the picture of the dead man. The body was dug up on March ist. The lady and gentleman looked at it, and both identified it as the body of their fellow passenger, and both were shocked deeply. " ' His name, we think, was Benwell,' they said. ' He was merely a casual acquaintance aboard ship, and we knew nothing of him.' " The lady and gentleman returned to Paris, about ten miles from Princeton. I had been to the swamp and out among the people living in that section, seeing them one by one, and I returned in time to join the lady and gentle- man at Paris. We met in the hotel. I introduced my- self, and the three of us were alone in the parlour up-stairs. " ' I am J. W. Murray, of the Department of Criminal Investigation,' I said. ' You are the gentleman who has been out looking at the body of the young man found in the swamp ? ' " The gentleman was dressed in perfect taste. He was handsome and easy in manner, with a certain grace of bearing that was quite attractive. He came towards me, and I saw he was about five feet nine inches tall, supple, clean cut, well built. His hair was dark and fashionably worn ; his forehead was broad and low. He wore a light moustache. Two dark-brown eyes flashed at me in greet- ing. Clearly he was a man of the world, a gentleman, accustomed to the good things of life, a likeable chap, who had lived well and seen much and enjoyed it in his less than thirty years on earth. The lady stood by the 3o6 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE window looking out. She was a slender, pleasant-faced blonde, a bit weary about the eyes, but evidently a woman of refinement. She half turned and watched us as the man advanced to meet me. " ' Yes,' said he, in quiet, well-modulated voice ; ' my wife and I were out at the grave and saw the body.' " The lady shuddered. The man continued that he was very glad to meet me. " ' You knew the young man ? ' I asked. " ' Yes, very shghtly,' said he. " ' Ah, I am very glad to hear it,' said I. ' At last we may know who he is. Where did you meet him ? ' " ' In London,' said he. " ' London, Ontario, or London, England ? ' said I. " ' He came from London, England,' said he. ' A mere casual acquaintance. I met him, don't you know, on the ship — aboard ship, in fact.' " ' His name ? ' I asked. " ' I think it was Bentwell, or Benswell, or Benwell,' said he. ' I knew him very slightly.' " • What ship ? ' said I. " ' The Britannic of the White Star Line,' said he. ♦ We arrived in New York on Friday, February 14th.' " ' When did you last see the young man alive?' I asked. " ' He was on his way to London, Ontario, and as we were travelling to the Falls our way was the same. I last saw him at the Falls. He had a great deal of luggage down there. He left some of it, in fact.' " ' I'm very glad to know this,' said I gratefully. ' You will be able to point out his luggage ? ' " ' Yes,' said he. ' I'll be very glad to aid you. I am returning to the Falls to-day. We came, you know, because we saw the picture in the paper.' " ' Will you take charge of the luggage for me ? ' I asked. " ' Gladly,' said he. " ' Your name, so that I may find you at the Falls ? ' I asked. " ' Birchall,' said he. • Reginald Birchall, of London — London, England.' REGINALD BIRCHALL, MURDERER 307 " ' Very glad to know you, Mr. Birchall ; very glad indeed,' said I. " During our conversation he became quite familiar and talkative. His wife was very nervous, as if the sight of a dead body had upset her. She began to pace up and down the room. " ' How was the young man dressed when you last saw him ? ' I asked. " I had a navy-blue overcoat on at the time. Mr. Birchall put his hand on the coat sleeve. There was no tremor in it. I noted it was rather a dainty hand. " ' Like that,' he said. " ' A whole suit of that colour ? ' I asked. " ' Yes,' said he. " ' Would he take a glass, do you know ? ' " ' Oh, yes, he used to get very jolly,' said he. " ' That London, Ontario, is a bad place,' said L ' They'd kill a man for a five-dollar note there. And this poor young man went to London, eh ? ' " I could see the wife's face clear with an expression of relief. The man reiterated his pity for the young man, and his desire to be of any service possible to me. We chatted quite cordially. " ' Were you ever on the continent before ? ' I asked. " ' Yes, New York and Niagara Falls, but never in Canada,' said he. " After further conversation I produced my note-book. " ' I am greatly indebted to you, my dear sir, for your kindness,' said I. ' This information is most valuable. It tells us just what we wish to know. May I trouble you to repeat it, so that I may note it accurately ? ' " The lady began to pace the floor again. The man told once more the story he had told to me. He made occasional pauses to ask the lady a question, as if his own memory had failed to note certain desired details of a casual acquaintance. She answered in a weary, anxious voice. " ' And I bade him good-bye at the Falls,' he con- cluded, ' and he went on to London, Ontario.' "'Did you hear from him ? ' I asked. 3o8 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE " ' Just a line,' he said. " ' Have you got it ? ' I asked. " ' Have I got Fred's note, my dear ? ' he asked his wife. " • No,' said the lady, ' but I remember seeing it.' " ' It was just a note to get his luggage through,' said he. " ' His first name was Fred ? ' I asked. " ' I think so,' he said quietly, as we eyed each other. ' It was so signed in the note.' " His manner changed to even effusive cordiality. " ' Mr. Murray, come down and spend Sunday with us at the Falls,' he said heartily. " ' Delighted, but I must go to Toronto,' said I. " ' Toronto ! ' said he. ' I'd like to see Toronto. My dear, will you go to Toronto on Sunday as Mr. Murray's guest ? ' " ' Unfortunately I will not be home on Sunday,' said I. ' Will you meet me at nine o'clock on Monday morn- ing at the Falls, and get all the luggage at the Customs House ? ' " ' Delighted to aid you,' said he. " We shook hands and bowed. The tired lady bowed, and I withdrew. I walked straight to the telegraph of- fice. On the way I thought it over. The man was lying ; I was sure of it. Yet, if he knew aught of the crime, why should he come to Canada at least a week after the deed was done and identify the body ? The au- topsy had shown the young man had been dead a few days, but not over a week ; so it was within eight or ten days after the murder that this suave, handsome English- man and his gentle wife had come from the Falls to Paris and thence to Princeton to view the body. Why had they come ? This story of seeing the picture in the pa- per was quite plausible. If he were telling the truth I could understand it, but I was satisfied he was lying. Yet the London, Ontario, part of it might be true. I wanted a few hours to investigate it and make sure. So I entered the telegraph office and sent a telegram to the Falls, describing Birchall and telling of his return to the Falls later that day. REGINALD BIRCHALL, MURDERER 309 " ' Shadow this man,' I telegraphed. ' Do not arrest him unless he tries to cross the river to the States. I will be there Sunday night.' " I jumped to London, Ontario, and called on acquaint- ances there for trace of this young Fred Benwell. Among those I saw was Edward Meredith, a lawyer, to whom I spoke of Benwell and the steamer Britannic, and he told me that Barrister Hellmuth, of London, Ontario, had returned from England on the Britannic. I made sure that Benwell, or whoever the young man was, had not been to see Attorney Hellmuth ; in fact, I scoured London, and satisfied myself he had not been there at all. Birchall and his wife, meanwhile, had returned to Niagara Falls, Ontario ; and on March 2d Birchall was arrested, his wife being taken into custody two days later. They were remanded until March 12th. " I found that Birchall and Mrs. Birchall and a young man named Douglas Raymond Pelly were stopping at Baldwin's at Niagara Falls, and had arrived there the day after the murder. I saw Mr. Pelly. He was a handsome young fellow, about five feet nine inches tall, slight build, small light moustache, and a decided English accent. He told me he was the son of the Rev. R. P. Pelly, of Walton Place, Vicar of SafTron Walden, Essex, England. He was twenty-five years old, a graduate of Oxford, and a cousin of the beautiful Lady Pelly, who was one of the suite of Lord Lansdowne, formerly Governor-General of Canada. He told me he knew both the dead man, whose picture was in the papers, and Birchall. " ' Benwell, Birchall, Mrs. Birchall, and I all came out from England in one party,' said Pelly. * Birchall and Benwell left us for a day, and Benwell never came back. I saw the picture of the dead man in the paper a few days later, and I told Birchall it was Benwell, and that he ought to go and identify the body and make sure.' " I sat down with Pelly, and for several hours he talked, telling me what he knew of Benwell and Birchall. Among Birchall's papers, found in searching his effects, were letters corroborative of what Pelly said. Pelly, with his Oxford course finished and the world before him, wa^ 3IO MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE looking for an opening in life when, in December, 1889, he read an advertisement in London, England, newspa- pers as follows : ' Canada. — University man — ^having farm — wishes to meet gentleman's son to live with him and learn the business, with view to partnership ; must invest five hundred pounds to extend stock ; board, lodging, and 5 per cent, interest till partnership arranged. — Address, J. R. Burchett, Primrose Club, 4, Park Place, St. James', London.' " Pelly saw this advertisement, and wrote to J. R. Burchett about it, asking for particulars. He received in reply, on December 9th, a telegram from J. R. Burchell, stating that he would go down to Walden Place, Saffron Walden, on the following Thursday. Pelly answered with a note, which was found with other letters in Birchall's effects, hoping he would stay all night as it was a long way to come for such a short interview, and also as he desired to have his father meet J. R. Burchell. On the appointed day J. R. Burchell arrived at Walden Place, and later met Pelly in London, and won over both Pelly and his father. He pictured to them a large farm one and a half miles from Niagara Falls, Ontario ; a farm with large brick houses and barns, the former heated by steam and lighted by gas and the latter by electric light, with lights placed around the farm. He told of the big and profitable business, and mentioned the fine fishing, shooting, and other sports to be enjoyed on the farm. He explained that the business carried on was buying horses in the rough and grooming them to sell for profit ; that the farm was used to raise horse feed; that during J. R. Burchell's absence, his overseer, a Scotchman named McDonald, and several hired men looked after the farm and business ; that he had a branch business at Wood- stock, and had rooms there, where he and Mrs. Burchell lived at times. He said a number of Englishmen lived around Niagara Falls, and that a club had been created in which the members lived in English style and had REGINALD BIRCH ALL, MURDERER 311 English servants. J. R. Burchell said he organised the club. The country was an earthly paradise, with wealth to be had for simply sojourning in the land. This glow- ing description captivated Pelly, and on January nth, 1890, he wrote from Hollington, St. Leonard's-on-Sea, to J. R. Burchell, saying : ' Please consider all settled. If you will have the agreement drawn up, I will sign it and forward you a cheque for one hundred and seventy pounds at the same time. I shall look to meeting you on February ist. When you get my steamer tickets would you be so kind as to forward me some steamer la- bels at the same time ? ' " References had been exchanged. Pelly had referred J. R. Burchell to Edward Cutler, Esq., Q.C., 12, Old Square, Lincoln's Inn ; Godfrey Lawford, Esq., 28, Austin Friars, E.C., and the Rev. Alfred Rose, Emman- uel College, Cambridge. J. R. Burchell referred to David Stevenson, Bainbridge, Maberley Road, Upper Norwood, master of transportation of the London and North -Western Railroad. J. R. Burchell drew up the following agreement : ' Memorandum of agreement, made this day of , 1890, between J. R. Burchell, of Niagara, Ontario, Canada, and Bainbridge, Maberley Road, Upper Norwood, England, on the one part, and D. R. Pelly, of Walden Place, Saffron Walden. in the county of Essex, on the other part, to the effect that the said J. R. Burchell agrees to provide the said D. R. Pelly with board, lodging, washing, and household extras for one year, also with travelling expenses in Canada and United States, use of horses, carriages, sleighs, and such things as he may require pertaining to his business ; also for the space of one year : the said D. R. Pelly in consideration of the same, one hundred and seventy pounds, agrees to pay the sum of one hundred and seventy pounds sterling, the money to be invested in stock (horses) ; this sum to be repaid together with interest at five 312 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE per cent, per annum in case the said D. R. Felly does not stay beyond the year before mentioned. If the said D. R. Felly should stay for a longer period, then the aforesaid sum to be repaid or ap- plied as the said D. R. Felly shall determine. ' The year mentioned to date from the signing of this agreement.' " A copy of this agreement I found in Birchall's hand- writing, and beneath it were scribbled various names, in- cluding A. Sloden Jones, 18, Talbot Road, Bayswater; J. R. Birtwistle, Fred Beteor, H. H. Foxby, J. B. Simons, Dear Miss Lovett, the Rev. J. Readon, and Alfred A. Atkinson. " Felly continuing his story, told me that he met Mr. and Mrs. Birchall on February 5th, and boarded the Britannic at Liverpool. To his surprise he found a fourth member of the party, a young man whom Birchall introduced to him as Fred C. Benwell, son of Colonel Benwell, of Cheltenham, England. Birchall intimated to Felly that Benwell was not much of a fellow, but that he was simply crossing with them to a farm, and that it would be just as well for Felly to have nothing to do with him. So Felly treated Benwell rather distantly, and de- voted himself to Mrs. Birchall and Birchall on the voy- age. Benwell seemed to reciprocate by treating Felly coolly, so Birchall deftly kept the two young men from becoming familiar and confidential. Finally Benwell and Felly chatted together and Benwell told Felly he, too, was to join Birchall in the horse business. Felly went to Birchall and threatened to withdraw. Birchall pacified him, saying : ' Never mind, I shall find some way to get rid of him.' Birchall enlivened the voyage with glowing pictures of the profits awaiting them. " The Britannic arrived in New York on February 14th. The Birchalls, Felly, and Benwell went to the Metropolitan Hotel. While there they met a fellow from Woodstock, Neville H. Fickthall, who greeted Birchall and his wife. " ' Why, Lord Somerset and Lady Somerset,' ex- REGINALD BIRCHALL, MURDERER 313 claimed Pickthall, the moment he saw them. ' De- lighted ! Are you on your way back to Woodstock ? ' " Birchall got free from Pickthall with little ceremony. Later some people supposed Pickthall had gone to New York to meet Birchall, but it turned out that green goods men had persuaded Pickthall to borrow ^1,000, on his farm and go to New York to buy a lot of bogus money. Pickthall went, and happened to be there when the Birchall party appeared at the hotel. The same day the green goods men got Pickthall's ^1,000, and sent him out to Denver, Colorado, on a wild-goose chase, and he turned up in Denver broke, and wrote to friends in Woodstock, and I had him back to testify at the trial. " Pelly said their party stayed overnight at the Metro- politan Hotel, and the next day, February iSth, they went to Buffalo, arriving there on the morning of Feb- ruary 1 6th, and registering at the Stafford House. Each young man was eager to see the mythical farm. It was only a couple of hours from Buffalo, said Birchall. Mrs. Birchall preferred to wait in Buffalo until sure everything was all right at the farm for her reception there. Pelly gallantly agreed to tarry with Mrs. Birchall while Birchall and Peijwell went on to the farm to surprise the em- ployees. If all was well at the farm, Benwell would re- main there, and Birchall would return and take Mrs. Birchall and Pelly to the farm. Benwell and Birchall were to start at six o'clock the next morning. They did so, leaving the Stafford House bright and early on the morning of February 17th, to take a Grand Trunk train to the farm. " Birchall returned to the Stafford House in Buffalo alone at half-past eight that evening. He was in good humour, pleasant and laughing. Pelly asked where he had left Benwell. Birchall said he took Benwell to the farm and introduced him to McDonald, the overseer, and later in the day Benwell had told him he did not like the place, and did not care to associate with such people, and that Benwell had eaten nothing all day, but had stayed at the farm when Birchall left for Buffalo. Birchall said he gave Benwell some addresses before leaving, so he could 314 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE visit folk in the country roundabout, including Attorney Hellmuth, of London, who had been a passanger on the ship. Pelly began to ask too many questions, and Birch- all said he was tired and went to bed. The next day they went to Niagara Falls, taking their luggage with them. They crossed to the Canada side and stopped at Mrs. Baldwin's, Birchall arranging for rooms and board there. " ' Soon after our arrival,' said Pelly to me, ' Birchall invited me to go for a walk. I went. We walked along the river road which goes from the village up to the Falls. I had told him about ten minutes before that he was failing to fulfil the representations he had made to me. He had replied with a shufHing explanation, and I mentally decided to give him another week, and if mat- ters did not change I would leave him. On our walk we came to a place where Birchall said a religious body in past years had held camp -meetings, and it was thought it would be nice to bathe in the river, so a stairway was built down over the cliffs with the idea that they could go down it to bathe, but it had been found impossible to bathe there because the current was too strong. Birchall said to me : " Oh, you have never been down here ; you ought to go. It is the best way to see the Falls." I told him I should like to go down, and he stepped aside for me. I went down first and soon noticed it was a rotten, unsafe stairway. It led down close by the Falls. " Birchall," said I, " this is a horrid place." He was fol- lowing and said : " Go on ; it will pay you." I won- dered afterwards that I did not slip or miss my footing. We landed at the bottom finally. To my great surprise, there stood a man gazing into the swirling water. This man turned and looked at me. I sprang past Birchall and started back up the stairs. The man turned and re- sumed his gazing into the water. Birchall seemed non- plussed when we came upon this stranger in this lonely, secluded spot, with the roaring waters ready to sweep a dead body away. Birchall followed me up the stairway, and all that day he was moody and silent. " ' He invited me for another walk the next day,' con- REGINALD BIRCHALL, MURDERER 315 tinued Pelly. ' He led the way down to the cliffs close to the cantilever bridge. Underneath this bridge you can- not be seen. You get in between the brickwork of the span and the edge. Birchall took me in there so as to get a better view of the rapids. He tried to persuade me to stand close by him at the edge, but his manner seemed so coldly quiet, so repellent, that instinctively I drew back and made my excuses for not going near the edge and went away. This was the second time. A little push and all would have been over. We returned to our rooms. I saw in the papers about a murder near Woodstock. On the next morning Birchall proposed I should go to Woodstock and look at the body and see if it was Ben- well. That alarmed me, and I got a revolver and put it in my pocket. Birchall and I went to the station, but the train had gone. I wanted to telegraph to New York, thinking Benwell might be there. Birchall refused to do this, and persuaded me to go over to the American side to see about some supposed matter of baggage. It began to rain while we were there, and he wanted to stay on the American side, but I said that was absurd, because his wife was at the Baldwin's boarding-house and would ex- pect us back. We started to walk back to Canada across the lower suspension bridge. It was storming and blow- ing. When out near the centre of the bridge, Birchall walked over by the edge and looked down at the roaring rapids. " Come, see the view ; it is superb," said Birchall, beckoning me close to the edge. I drew back. He grew white and walked on. I lagged behind, out of his reach. " Come, walk with me," he said, halting. " Your great coat will help keep off the rain." I shook my head. He repeated his invitation. I declined. He stopped, turned squarely and looked back. Then he advanced a step towards me. I stepped back and was about to run over the bridge when two men came walking across and Birchall turned and walked on to Canada. I see these things in a clearer light now that I know Ben well's fate. " ' The next day,' continued Pelly, ' Birchall went to Buffalo to see about some message he said was from Ben- well. When he returned he said Benwell had sent a 3i6 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE message to forward all his heavy luggage to the Fifth Avenue Hotel in New York. The next day I saw the awful picture of the dead man in the paper. I took it to Birchall. " That looks like Benwell," I said. Birchall said it was impossible, as Benwell was to be in New York. I told him he should go and see the body, and I would go to New York to see if Benwell was at the Fifth Avenue Hotel. I saw him leave for Paris with Mrs. Birchall to see the body. Then I went to New York on the next train. I could find no trace of Benwell, so I returned. Birchall and his wife had been to view the body and it was Benwell, and the arrest followed.' " Felly was telling the truth from first to last," says Murray. " In going through Birchall's effects I found this note, written in a big, boyish hand : — ' 20, porchester gardens, ' Bayswater, ' London, W. ^ December ^d, i8gg. ' Dear Sir — ' My father thinks I had better see you as soon as possible. I will be at my club, " The National Con- servative," Pall Mall, at the corner of Waterloo Place and opposite the " Athenaeum " at three o'clock on Thursday afternoon, and will wait there till five o'clock ; or if you prefer it I will go down to Norwood or any place in London you like to name, soon, if you will drop me a line. ' I am, dear sir, ' Yours faithfully, ' F. C. Benwell. ' J. R. BuRCHELL, Esq.' " I found other letters from Benwell to Birchall, and in Benwell's luggage I found letters from Birchall to Ben- well. Here is one : REGINALD BIRCHALL, MURDERER 317 ' Primrose Club, 4, Park Place, St. James' ; ' Bainbridge, Maberley Road, ' Upper Norwood, S.E., Feb'mary 2d, i8go. • My Dear Benwell — ' We sail Wednesday next, February Sth, in the White Star S.S. Britannic. I have got you a ten-guinea berth for the eight pounds and ten shillings you sen^ me. So that is pretty good, I think. The ship sails in the after- noon early. I am going up first thing in the morning to ascertain the exact time of sailing. If the ship doesn't sail till after three, we shan't go down overnight, as there will be lots of time in the morning, if we leave here by an early train. Your heavy baggage must be taken on board by the tender on Wednesday, or shipped in the dock on Tuesday. However, I fancy it will be best to have it consigned to the care of the White Star Com- pany, per S.S. Britannic. I will wire you in the morn- ing, how to act. Of course, if we haven't time we must leave on Tuesday night. This you shall hear further of. Your labels shall be posted to-morrow morning. ' I fancy the storms are gone over now and we shall have a good voyage. You will be able to meet us on the voyage. Of this I will inform you to-morrow. ' Kind regards to Colonel Benwell and yourself. ' Yours very sincerely, ' J. R. Burchell.' "The letters showed conclusively that Benwell, like Pelly, had been caught by Birchall's advertisement, and that he had arranged with each without notifying the other. Benwell and Birchall had met and talked over the farm business. Young Benwell talked to his father, who had travelled considerably and he advised his boy to go and see the farm and then draw on him for what he re- quired. Birchall had taken Benwell with him to this side, Benwell paying the passage money to Birchall and having an ample amount of money with him for expenses and the authority to draw on his father. " I cabled and wrote at once to Scotland Yard for 3i8 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE information about Birchall and his reference, David Stevenson, as well as Pelly and Benwell. I also adver- tised all over this continent for the stranger who stood at the foot of the old stairway by the Falls when Pelly and Birchall descended to the water's edge. The stranger never answered the advertisement. He may not have seen it or he may have seen it and desired to avoid notoriety. I doubt if he were an accomplice or acquaint- ance of Birchall. He probably was a sightseer enjoying the view. " The replies from my friends in England informed me that J. R. Birchall was none other than the younger son of the Rev. Joseph Birchall, late well-known Vicar of Church Kirk and Rural Dean of Whalley. The Birchalls had a sort of hereditary connection with Brasenose College, Oxford, where the father held a foundation scholarship or fellowship. Wherever the young Birchall had lived he achieved notoriety. In his younger days he was at Rossall School for some time when the Rev. H. James, late Dean of St. Asaph and then head of Cheltenham College, was head master. He left there suddenly and entered the Reading School, boarding with the Rev. Mr. Walker, head master. He earned a reputa- tion in these schools that preceded him to Oxford where he went in the autumn of 1885. His name vanished from Oxford's calendar in the spring of 1888. His col- lege was Lincoln, and the dons remembered him with sad head-shakes. He was a rake and a wild one. He was an organiser of carousals, in and out of college, day and night. He had plenty of money, and kept a num- ber of horses at college. No one was cleverer than he at evading punishment for his pranks. Often merciless in his pursuits of mischief, he would do his fellows a turn with good grace. He was hail-fellow-well-met with a number of men, who knew little of him except that he was full of humour and fun and had singular conversa- tional gifts. His notoriety was due in no small part to his loud style of dress. He wore gaudy waist-coats, and his costume rarely lacked some adornment of flaming hue. He established at Oxford a club called The Black REGINALD BIRCHALL, MURDERER 319 and Tan. It attained such a reputation for noisiness and boisterousness that it became extinct. At Oxford, Birch- all showed, in his class work, great powers of mind, with an exceptional memory. He was being educated for the Church. His father's church at that time was in Lan- cashire, and his brother had a church near Lechlade. His father died while he was at Oxford, and the property was divided between the two sons and a daughter. Reginald's share was over ;^20,ooo, but by the provisions of the will he was not to come into possession of it until May, 1 891. In June, 1889, he had been notified by Clement, Cheese, and Green, solicitors, of London, that his creditors proposed to throw him into bankruptcy. He replied that he had sold his interest in his father's estate for ^15,000 to pay other creditors. " After leaving Oxford he went to London. There he eloped with Florence Stevenson, daughter of David Stevenson, for fifty years master of transportation of the London and North-Western Railroad. This explained the reference to Mr. Stevenson when Birchall exchanged references with Pelly. Birchall's father-in-law knew nothing of the use of his name. He was a respectable, honest man, seventy-six years old. In his daughter's effects were found some pathetic letters from the old man to his son-in-law. On November 25th, 1888, when he heard of the marriage, he wrote saying : ' Let me at once recognise your perfect right to get married in the form you preferred ; but we were a little grieved that we did not see our daughter take the most important step of her life.' Other letters were marked with tender solicitude, Birchall had dabbled in theatricals before his marriage and was well known to many stage-folk in London. His favourite club at this time was the Badminton Club, 100, Piccadilly, W. When he made ready to leave England after his marriage, he cashed cheques for £2$, or ^125, at the Badminton Club, and C. Stewart Sproat, secretary of the club, wrote him on January 7th, 1890, when he was back in England, to send the cash without further delay. He and his bride sailed for America in the fall of 1888, after their marriage. They wrote to David 320 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE Stevenson from America, and early in 1889 Birchall wrote from Woodstock, Ontario, to creditors at Oxford, saying he was in the employ of Somerset & Co., Brock Street, Woodstock, and had a lucrative position and would pay his debts promptly. While he was in Wood- stock, solicitors in England were advertising in the news- papers for his whereabouts. His father-in-law called on the solicitors and asked what such scandalous advertise- ments meant. When he was informed of his son-in-law's conduct the old man wept bitterly. In the summer of 1889 Birchall and his wife returned to England and lived with Mr. Stevenson. Then it was that Birchall began advertising, under the name of J. R. Burchett or Bur- chell, address the Primrose Club, for young men with money to go to Canada and learn farming. " My information from England proved Felly and Benwell to be just what Felly had said, two victims of Birchall. Felly's father was vicar of Saffron Walden, Essex, and Benwell's father was Colonel Benwell, of Cheltenham. The parents of both confirmed the stories told by the letters I found in the luggage. " At Woodstock I learned that Birchall and his wife had arrived there from England in the autumn of 1888 to look over farm lands and enjoy the country life of Canada. His name was not Birchall then. He was Lord Somerset, Frederick A. Somerset, some day to be one of the lofty lords of England. His wife was Lady Somerset. They boarded at Mrs. John McKay's in Woodstock, lived gaily, dressed loudly, and became familiar figures in the country round about. They seemed to have money like the lord and lady they were supposed to be. They were fond of driving and picnics, and one of the spots Lord Somerset visited on various occasions was Pine Fond, with the Blenheim Swamp around it. This was eight miles from Woodstock and Lord Somerset came to know it well. When they left Woodstock to return to England, Lord and Lady Somer- set were called away suddenly and left numerous unpaid bills behind them. Lord Somerset, from across the sea, wrote to a Woodstock acquaintance as follows : REGINALD BIRCHALL, MURDERER 321 ' Midland Grand Hotel, ' London, England. « My dear Mac, ' You must have been surprised to find me gone. I went down to New York for the wife's health and while there got a cable the governor was suddenly taken ill. I rushed off, caught the first steamer over, and got here just too late, the poor chap died. So I have been anyhow for some time. I am coming out to Wood- stock shortly, I hope, as soon as I settle up all my governor's affairs. I owe you something I know. Please let me know, and tell Scott, the grocer, to make out his bill, and any one else if I owe anybody anything. I was in too much of a hurry to see after them. I have several men to send out to you in August. Tell me all news and how you are. Many thanks for all your kind- nesses. Let me know what I owe you and I will send a cheque. ' Thine ever, ' Fredk. A. Somerset.' " Lord Somerset did not return to Woodstock promptly. The next time he sailed for America was under his right name with Lady Somerset under her proper name, Mr. and Mrs. Reginald Birchall, and they had with them the two young men, Pelly and Benwell, and the four arrived in New York on the Britannic, on February 14th, and the first person they saw in New York, by the merest accident, was the farmer Pickthall of Woodstock on his way to meet the green goods men. He recognised Lord and Lady Somerset and went his way to be fleeced by others. I verified at the Metropol- itan Hotel the date of their arrival and departure. I ver- ified at the Stafford House in Buffalo the fact of the ar- rival of the party of four on February i6th. I verified also at the Stafford House the fact that, the next day Pelly and Mrs. Birchall stayed at the hotel, while Birchall and Benwell were called before six o'clock and went away. Birchall returned in the evening. Benwell never returned. 322 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE " I took up the trail of Birchall and Benwell when they walked out of the Stafford House about six o'clock on the morning of February 17th. I saw Conductor William H. Poole, who had the run on the Grand Trunk Railroad between Niagara Falls and Windsor. He had two pas- sengers who got off at Eastwood, a station four miles from Blenheim Swamp. Their description answered that of Birchall and Benwell. The train stopped at Eastwood at 1 1. 14 that morning. Matthew Virtue, a bailiff of Wood- stock, was on the train. As the train left Eastwood he saw two young Englishmen walking away from the sta- tion, one of them wearing a cape coat. Miss Lockhart, of Blandford, was on the train. A couple of seats ahead of her in the car sat two young Englishmen. As the train approached Eastwood her attention was drawn to them by the manner in which they were talking about the land. They were admiring fields which were in no way to be admired. One wore a big astrakhan cap. It was easy to identify him by it. She noticed the man in the cap was very quiet and twitched in his seat, yet always was attentive to his fellow traveller, the younger man. She saw them alight at Eastwood and start off briskly to the north, the man with the fur cap in the lead. I found others who saw the pair on the train. Alfred Hayward and his wife saw them leave Eastwood station. John Crosby, a young farmer, living in Blenheim town- ship, was driving in Governor's Road about noon when he saw the two young men walking towards Blenheim Swamp. Miss Allie Fallon, who lived with her mother a short distance from Blenheim Swamp, saw two young men pass the house on the road leading past the swamp. There was a ball at Princeton that night and she re- marked : ' There go two dudes to the Princeton ball.' One, in a cape mackintosh, walked ahead. The other was walking behind. She had come to know Lord Som- erset by sight the year before and she thought the man walking behind was Somerset. They were walking in the direction of the swamp. James Rapson, owner of a swamp adjoining Blenheim Swamp, was out with his men cutting timber about one o'clock in the afternoon, when REGINALD BIRCH ALL, MURDERER 323 he heard two pistol shots in quick succession in Blenheim Swamp. He was a little less than a mile away but heard the shots distinctly. " Thus I traced them, step by step, to the swamp and to the very hour of the murder. Then comes an interval when the murderer is alone in the swamp with his victim. The shots are fired about one o'clock, within about half- an-hour after Miss Fallon saw the two men going to the swamp. Birchall evidently had been pointing out land from the car window, as part of his farm, and had told Benwell they would take a short cut through the thick woods and surprise the men at the farmhouse. Benwell was a credulous young fellow and innocently entered the swamp and started up the abandoned winding trail, Birchall readily finding a pretext for dropping behind a moment and Benwell eagerly pressing on for a sight of the farm — the farm he never was to see. " An hour passes. At half-past two Charles Buck, a young farmer living on the road between Eastwood and Blenheim Swamp, about half a mile from the swamp, was driving home from Woodstock, when, at the crossroa,ds leading to Eastwood, a man turned the corner from the Blenheim Swamp road and started for Eastwood. The man wore a fur cap, and he stopped and asked Mr. Buck the way to Gobies Corners, as he wished to get to Wood- stock. Buck told him he was within much less than two miles of Eastwood and he could get to Woodstock from there as easy as from Gobies Corners. The man thanked him and walked on towards Eastwood at a rapid pace. At three o'clock Miss Alice Smith arrived at the East- wood station to post a letter. As she was going into the station gate she came face to face with Lord Somer- set, who had been in Woodstock the year before and who had called at her grandfather's, John Hayward's, home at Eastwood. Somerset wore an astrakhan cap. He came up to Miss Smith and shook hands pleasantly, saying : ' How do you do ? Don't you remember me ? ' and asked after her family and the • old governor,' mean- ing her grandfather. He told Miss Smith he was coming back later and then bought a ticket for Hamilton. Miss 324 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE Mary Swazie, another young lady of Eastwood, also was at the station for the three o'clock train. She saw the stranger. His trousers were turned up and his shoes were muddy. Miss Ida Cromwell, of Eastwood, also saw him at the station. James Hayward, an Eastwood store- keeper, saw him at the station and recognised him as the so-called Lord Somerset. " At 3.38 the train for Niagara Falls arrived at East- wood. The stranger in the fur cap boarded the train. George Hay, a train brakesman, saw him and remem- bered him distinctly, and identified Birchall positively as the man. Other witnesses also identified Birchall, and I established a perfect chain of evidence showing his whereabouts from the time he left London and from the time he left the Stafford House on the morning of the murder until his return there at 8.30 that night. Wit- nesses identified the dead body of Benwell as that of the young man with Birchall on the train to Eastwood and on the road to the swamp. I traced them together to the swamp, where Benwell was found dead the next day, and I traced Birchall away from the swamp and back to Buf- falo, after the pistol shots had been fired. He had four hours and twenty-four minutes in which to walk the four miles from Eastwood to the swamp, do the murder, and walk back to Eastwood. He arrived at 11. 14 in the morning and departed at 4.38 in the afternoon. If he took three hours to walk the eight miles, he still had one hour and twenty-four minutes for the crime. " To clinch Birchall's guilt, I heard from London at this time that Colonel Benwell had just received from Birchall an undated letter, headed with the address of Niagara Falls. The postmark revealed its date was February 20th, three days after Birchall left Benwell dead in the swamp. In this letter Birchall asked that the agreement be set aside, and that $500 be sent him at once. ' I have been talking to your son to-day about arrangements, and he is so well satisfied with the pros- pects here that he is ready to go immediately into part- nership, and he is writing to you to-day on the subject,' wrote Birchall. This was three days after he left Benwell REGINALD BIRCHALL, MURDERER 325 dead in Blenheim Swamp. The ;iSSoo was to be the first payment on ^2,500 which Colonel Benwell was to send to his son for Birchall if the farm and prospects pleased young Benwell. Pelly identified the body found on Feb- ruary 1 8th as Benwell's body, and thus Birchall could not have been talking to him on February 20th. Instead of writing to his father on February 20th, Benwell lay dead on a slab with none to know his name. " I brought creditors of Lord Somerset from Wood- stock to see Birchall. They identified Birchall as the bogus Lord Somerset. One of them, William MacDon- ald, denounced Birchall as a dead-beat, a swindler, and a faker. Birchall haughtily declared that such language offended and insulted him. Later a lunatic in the gaol approached him and said : ' Tell me why you killed Benwell.' Birchall laughed merrily, and was neither offended nor insulted. I brought witnesses who said Birchall was the same man who, as Lord Somerset, had made frequent visits to Blenheim Swamp the year before, and had learned the path to Pine Pond, the lake in the swamp that is supposed to be bottomless. I studied all the data I had in hand, and worked out the theory on which I was certain we could convict this clever murderer. " Birchall had embarked in business as a murderer. He had adopted life-taking for revenue as a profession promising rich returns. He had become deliberately a professional murderer. For a year he had planned the crimes, and fitted himself for the practice of his pro- fession. While masquerading as Lord Somerset he had selected the bottomless lake, known as Pine Pond, for the grave that would tell no tales. The Blenheim Swamp he selected as the place of slaughter, his chamber of death. He was familiar with the emigration business, through his father-in-law's knowledge of it. He conceived the idea of taking rich young men instead of poor emigrants. He created an imaginative farm, and he went back to England to select a victim. He made the mistake of taking two instead of one. Even then his plans were well laid. He would kill Benwell in the swamp and shove Pelly into the rapids at the Falls to be pounded to 326 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE pieces. Neither body would be found, for he would bury Benwell in the bottomless lake and Pelly would vanish in the whirlpool. If one of the Elridges had not slipped in the Blenheim Swamp all would have been well. He stepped on Benwell's body, and the crime was known. Birchall had not intended to leave the body where any one could step on it or see it. He was heading for Pine Pond when he killed Benwell, and meant to drag the body thither ; but since his last visit to the swamp, a fire and storm had swept it and choked the way to the bot- tomless lake. He was relying on water to hide both his victims. Neither body was to be found. The two young men were to vanish from the face of the earth. The professional murderer would have collected, by bogus letters to fond parents, the sum still due from the vic- tims, and would have gone back to England for more victims. " He had no grudge against either Benwell or Pelly. They never had wronged him. No flame of fury leaped up within him inciting him to crush out their lives. It was purely and simply a matter of business. The life of each young man represented so much ready money, and Birchall was a murderer for the money there was in it. He went about it in a practical, quiet, methodical way. Eventually he might become rich. No bodies could be found, and lost dead men are as good as live men whom no one can find, he reasoned. As he increased his capital, he might buy a farm with a bottomless lake and a dismal swamp, and kill his victims without trespassing on other people's property. He could vary his name and address and keep the families of his victims far apart, and thus minimise the risk of detection while the bottom- less lake swallowed the victims one by one and kept their bones icy cold through endless years. " Fate was against the murderer for revenue only. Fire and storm had blocked his way in the marsh. Provi- dence guided a woodman's step to the very spot where the body otherwise would have lain undiscovered, and crumbled away. Fate placed the stranger at the foot of the rotten stairway at the Falls where Pelly was to die. REGINALD BIRCHALL, MURDERER 327 Fate put the two strange men on the lower suspension bridge the night Pelly was to be hurled into the rapids. Felly lived, and he compelled Birchall to go to Princeton and view the body. It may be that Birchall believed he would brave it through, and still kill Pelly at the Falls, and then throw the crime of Benwell's death on the miss- ing Pelly. But it all failed. The hand of Fate reached out of the world of chance, and destroyed the whole fabric this professional murderer had constructed so carefully. He planned well, but Providence swept his plans aside. " The case had all the elements to make it a famous crime. It involved immigration, in which both England and Canada were interested vitally. The high connec- tions of young Pelly, the refined associations of young Benwell, the notoriety of Birchall and his previously pic- turesque career, combined to give it prominence. Some folks declared the murder of Benwell was but a part of a plot of wholesale killing of rich young men of England by an organised band of red-handed villains, who enticed their victims to Canada. This I never have believed. Birchall had no male confederates, and he acted single- handed. I looked up his life thoroughly, year by year. John Emery, a London actor, wrote to me of Birchall's theatrical career. He was treasurer of one company, and appropriated some of its funds to his own use. Later he was assistant manager of a company playing A Child of the West in the provinces in England. Emery was in the company, and when a difference arose over failure to pay salaries, Birchall and the manager called Emery into a room and drew a pistol, and advised him to cease being dissatisfied. Other episodes showed Birchall a desperate man if occasion demanded. His crime at Blenheim Swamp aroused Canada. Great crowds attended the in- quest at Princeton on March 8th. Pelly testified against Birchall. Mrs. Birchall was discharged. Public sym- pathy had been awakened for her. Birchall was com- mitted for trial. Mrs. Birchall's father, David Stevenson, cabled ;^SOo to me for his daughter the day after she was arrested. I gave it to Mrs. Birchall and her counsel, Hellmuth and Ivey, of London, Ontario. 328 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE " The trial of Birchall stands out as one of the great criminal trials of Canada. It attracted world-wide atten- tion. On September 20th the grand jury returned a true bill against Birchall. His trial began on Monday, Sep- tember 22d. It was held at Woodstock. Justice Mc- Mahon presided. B. B. Osier, a truly brilliant lawyer, prosecuted for the Crown, assisted by J. R. Cartwright, Deputy Attorney-General. George T. Blackstock ably defended Birchall, making a desperate effort to save his life. Cable connections led direct from the court-house to London, England. The English newspapers, as well as those of France, Germany, and Italy, printed columns upon columns of the trial, some of the English papers printing the full testimony, the lawyers' pleas, and judge's charge. The gist of the defence was that in the four hours and twenty-four minutes between his arrival at Eastwood and his departure on the day of the murder, Birchall could not have walked four miles to the Blenheim Swamp, shot a man, and walked four miles to the station. The verdict was inevitable — guilty. The evidence simply was over- whelming. Birchall was sentenced to be hanged on November 14th. " During his imprisonment in Woodstock gaol, Birch- all was the recipient of much attention from some peo- ple. There were people in Woodstock who bared their flower gardens to send him nosegays every day. Silly girls wrote silly letters to him. He sent me word on various occasions that he wished to see me. Indeed he became quite offended if I went to Woodstock and did not call and take him for a walk in the gaol yard. " ' I found you always a gentleman,' were his last words to me ; ' and you did your duty, and I have no hard feel- ings against you.' " During his last months of life he wrote an autobiog- raphy, in which he omitted many salient facts of his career, and in which he did not confess the crime. However, I may say that, while Birchall went to his death without a public confession, the last possibility for doubt of his guilt was swept away before he was ex- ecuted. REGINALD BIRCHALL, MURDERER 329 " He was hanged on November 14th — a cold, grey morning. He went to his death ghastly white, but with- out a tremor. He walked out in the prison yard in his own funeral procession, unsupported, and mounted the scaffold with a steady step. ' Good-bye, Flo dear ; be brave,' was his farewell to his wife. The Domine cum veneris judicare noli nos condemnare — ' O Lord, when Thou shalt come to judge, do not Thou condemn me ' — was uttered by the Rev. W. H. Wade, of Old St. Paul's. The Lord's Prayer was said. And then — a crash, a creak, and a lifeless body dangled where a man had stood. It swayed gently to and fro in the chill November wind. So ended the Birchall case as it had begun — with a death. " Pelly returned to England after the trial. He had desired to go home after the preliminary hearing, but the Government decided he should remain, and he stayed with me until after the trial. He arrived at Saffron Walden at seven o'clock in the evening of October 27th. An English newspaper, telling of his home-coming said : " ' The knowledge of the arrival had become known, and the result was that a crowd of some thousands had assembled in the vicinity of the railway station in order to give a welcome to the returned voyager. The arrival of the train was signalled by a feu dejoie. Mrs. Pelly, with Miss Geraldine 'and Miss Daisy Pelly, were on the platform when the vicar stepped out with his son, and the greetings between mother and son, sisters and brother, were very warm. These over, a move was made for the carriage in waiting, and as soon as Mr. Douglas Pelly appeared on the outside of the station he was received with prolonged and deafening cheers. The horses were unharnessed, and the car was drawn to Walden Place by willing hands, preceded by the Ex- celsior Band, playing " Rolling Home to Dear Old Eng- land," and men carrying lighted torches. In addition to the large following, crowds had assembled all along the line of route, and as the carriages passed along, the oc- cupants were repeatedly cheered. Flags were hung from various private houses, and the residence of Mrs. 330 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE Bellingham was illuminated with coloured lights. At the entrance to Walden Place a triumphal arch had been erected, having on the front the words " Welcome Home." ' " Pelly was drawn home by a rope in many willing hands ; Birchall was drawn home by a rope in hands he did not know and never saw." LII THE FOOTMARK BY LANGFORD'S BED Old Dick Langford was a miser, and the pride of his life was a fine bay horse with a white spot on his nose. Old Dick was eighty years old and the horse was eight. They lived on Old Dick's farm in the county of Carle- ton, six miles from the town of Carp, ten miles from Stittsville, and thirty miles from Ottawa. Many a time the shrivelled old man and the spirited bay horse had done the distance to Ottawa in less than four hours. Old Dick's wife had left him twenty years before he got the bay horse. She had said Old Dick was a skinflint and a torturer, and she would not live in the same county with him. He chuckled and showed his solitary front tooth, and transferred his farm so that she could not claim a part of it. After his wife was gone. Old Dick tried to regain title to his farm, but the man to whom he had transferred it disappeared, so Old Dick bought the farm near Carp and settled down alone, with his bay horse with the white spot on his nose, and a few farm horses, cows, chickens, dogs, and four books. "Old Dick's bay horse was stolen in 1889," says Murray, " and the old man raised a tremendous hulla- baloo. About three months later the horse was re- covered in Ottawa and Old Dick was happy. In the fall of 1890 the horse was stolen again. Old Dick declared he knew the thief, and the adjoining counties were pla- carded with the following : THE FOOTMARK BY LANGFORD'S BED 331 ' STOP HORSE THIEF ! ' Stolen from Richard Langford, Lot 1 3, Con- cession 8, Township of Huntley, County Carle- ton, on Friday night, October 3d, 1890, A DARK BROWN HORSE; age 8; height 16 to 17 hands ; weight about 14 cwt. ; black points, except white spot on nose and white hind feet. May have traded since. Arrest 'GEORGE GOODWIN, « alias St. George, alias Brennan ; height, about 5 feet 8 or 9 inches ; age, about 24 ; fair com- plexion, small sandy moustache, sandy hair, slim build and sharp features ; grey clothes, and wore a cap when last seen. Take charge of any horse he may have and wire ' R. McGregor, ' County Constable, ' Almonte, Ont.' " Old Dick spent his time driving about with other horses searching for his bay horse, and declaring that the thief would go to prison this time. In December Old Dick ceased driving about and locked himself up in his house and devoted himself anew to his library of four books. The favourite was a ' History of the Siege of Londonderry and Defence of Inniskillen.' The other books were ' Meditations and Contemplations,' by the Rev. James Hervey ; ' A Short Defence of Old Religion against Certain Novelties, Recommended to the People of Ireland ' ; and a big family Bible. Old Dick would open the ' History of the Siege,' and lay it on the table. Then he would shout passages from it at the top of his voice and toddle up and down the room in the throes of great excitement over the deeds of the lads of London- derry. " On Saturday afternoon, December 6th, 1 890, three weeks after Birchall was hanged, neighbours passing to and from the town of Carp could hear old Dick, the 332 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE miser, roaring away over the ' Siege of Londonderry.' His door was locked and his windows were barred, but his voice could be heard while he thumped with his cane and trod the kitchen floor, as if leading a gallant charge. Robert Clark, a neighbour, whose house was in plain sight of the home of Old Dick, saw a light in the house in the early evening and at nine o'clock, when he looked out. Old Dick's house was dark, the light was out and the old miser, as was his custom, was supposed by Clark to have gone to bed. About half-past ten that night, as Clark was locking up for the night, he looked out and saw Old Dick's house brightly lighted, something Old Dick never did, because he deemed it extravagance. It was so unusual, that Clark was on the verge of going over to see if all was well with the old man ; but it was snowing and blowing, so he concluded to wait until the next morning. On Sunday Clark went over to Old Dick's. The house was locked. It was blowing heavily. Clark beat on the door, and when no answer came he went to the barn. Lying on the floor of the barn was Old Dick, sprawled out senseless, his head a mass of frozen blood. Clark shouted over to his own house and his family came and they bore the old miser to his house, forced in the door and endeavoured to revive him. The doctors were called and they worked over Old Dick, but he died, declaiming a passage from the ' History of the Siege of Londonderry,' and speaking no word as to the identity of his murderer. " I arrived before the old man breathed his last. His head had been beaten by a blunt, heavy instrument. I searched the barn and found an iron pin, thirty-seven inches long and weighing ten pounds. Old Dick had used it as a pin to fasten the barn door, but white hairs and blood on it showed the murderer had used it as a club to beat Old Dick's head almost to a pulp. The doctors, who examined the wounds on Sunday, said that Old Dick had been beaten on Saturday, and had lain all night in the barn. I searched the house. I found the ' Siege of Londonderry ' open on the table, as the old man had left it. I found his bed had been disturbed and THE FOOTMARK BY LANGFORD'S BED 333 that some one had slept in it ; a man, judging from the footmark, which was not Old Dick's. The footmark showed no shoe, but seemingly, a thick, wet sock. The murderer, whoever he was, called Old Dick out from his house to the barn on Saturday evening, either by hailing him or threatening to steal a horse, and as Old Dick entered the barn the murderer smote him with the iron pin and left him for dead, then quietly went to the house and lighted the light seen at half-past ten by Clark, who had thought at once that something was wrong, or Old Dick would not waste candles or oil. After warming himself at the fire, the murderer calmly went to rest in Old Dick's bed, and slept serenely while Old Dick lay dying in the barn with his wounds freezing. On Sunday morning the murderer had gone his way in the blinding snow-storm that covered his tracks. " I began the usual house-to-house questioning of everybody in that part of the county, and at the very out- set I was reminded of Old Dick's stolen horse and his belief that he knew the thief. At every house I asked if they had seen George Goodwin recently. Goodwin was known in that locality as a loose character. He chopped wood and did odd jobs for farmers. I found a farmer who had seen him early on Saturday evening about a mile from Old Dick's. Goodwin at that time was walk- ing towards the Langford farm. I found another farmer who saw him still nearer Old Dick's house. Later I found another who saw him on Sunday bound in the opposite direction, away from Old Dick's. I got a good description of Goodwin. He was twenty-four years old, five feet eight inches tall, weighed one hundred and forty- five pounds, and had sandy hair and a light sandy mous- tache. He was bow-legged, had watery eyes, was near- sighted, and a silent fellow, who seldom spoke unless spoken to. But what satisfied me was the description of his clothing given by the farmers who saw him. He wore a blue suit, a short, striped overcoat, an imitation of lamb- skin cap, and beef-skin moccasins. The moccasins settled it. They accounted for the footmark in Old Dick's bed- room as of a thick, wet, stained sock. I billed Goodwin 334 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE for Old Dick's murder. He was known also as Brennan, St. George, Wilkins, and used still other names. He had relatives living near Ottawa, and I expected him to go to them before jumping to the United States. He had not robbed Old Dick, for I found his money. " Goodwin did precisely as I expected. He sent to his relatives for money, while he hid near Ottawa. I had hunted him through December, 1890, and January and February, 189 1, and in March I located him near Ottawa. His trial was set for the Spring Assizes. His relatives re- tained Dalton McCarthy to defend him. Justice Mc- Mahon presided, and the trial was postponed until the Fall Assizes at the request of the defence. In the interval, Goodwin got out on bail. He skipped the country and never came back. It was good riddance of bad rubbish. " I wondered often whether the murderer enjoyed pleasant dreams when he lay down and slept in his victim's bed. The prosecution's theory was, that Good- win had killed Old Dick, not for robbery necessarily, but because Goodwin had stolen Old Dick's horse and Old Dick knew he did it, and was waiting to locate him in order to have him arrested and sent to prison. If our theory as to the murderer had been wrong, Goodwin would not have been apt to run away. " I had good luck in the Goodwin case, as indeed I have had in almost all cases. But about this same time I had a case where luck seemed wholly against me — in fact, I laid it away as a hard luck case. It was towards the close of 1890. John Brothers was the man in the case. He manufactured agricultural implements in the town of Milton, in the county of Halton, about twenty miles west of Toronto. He took farmers' notes in part payment for implements. He became hard up, placed his genuine notes in the bank and added some forged notes to them. In due time the manager of the bank told him to take up the notes. Brothers went to his brother-in-law, Amos Darling, an honest farmer who had a nice home earned by hard work. He dumped the notes on to Darling, tell- ing him they were a good thing, paying seven and eight per cent, interest. Darling went to the bank and took up THE LADY OF PIERCING BLACK EYES 335 the notes, giving the bank his own note for ^5, 000, or almost the value of his farm. Brothers promptly disap- peared, and the bank induced Darling to exchange his note for a mortgage on his farm, and in the end he lost his farm. I billed Brothers all over the country. " Through a letter he wrote from San Francisco, I lo- cated him there. He was working as a moulder in the Risdon foundry. I prepared extradition papers and started for San Francisco. While I was on my way west and before I arrived there, a friend of Brothers in Canada notified him of extradition papers having been issued, and Brothers disappeared the day before I alighted from a train in Frisco. I notified the police all over the coun- try, and after waiting some days and hearing nothing, I returned to Toronto. My train was several hours late. I learned that Brothers had been arrested by the chief of police at El Paso, Texas, on the Mexican border. The chief had wired me to Toronto and the telegram had been repeated to San Francisco and I was on my way back, so it missed me. I telegraphed immediately to El Paso, and the chief replied he had held Brothers as long as he could and had been compelled to release him a few hours before my telegram arrived, and Brothers had just left the town. If my train had not been late I could have reached the chief in El Paso in time. But luck was against me clear through in this case. " Brothers crossed into Mexico and stayed there. I have heard he is dead. I felt very sorry for his brother- in-law, Amos Darling, whose home paid the forgeries of Brothers. Such Brothers as this one are not desirable even as brothers-in-law." LIII THE LADY OF THE PIERCING BLACK EYES The lady of the piercing black eyes crossed Murray's path in 1891. She was an amazon, and Murray avers she was a virago as well. Her maiden name was Nettie 336 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE Slack, and her cradle was rocked in the county of Perth. As a young girl she was famed for her jet-black eyes and raven-black hair, the eyes as shiny as the hair was glossy. " She grew to superb womanhood," says Murray. " She was very tall, very muscular, with big, broad shoulders and swinging tread, and the mien of a power- ful man. Her piercing black eyes were wicked looking, and there were few men in the county of Perth who ven- tured to cross humours with Nettie Slack. She was rather a good-looking woman. Her eyes enhanced her attractiveness and yet seemed to mar her beauty. This may seem a paradox, yet in the case of Nettie Slack it was perfectly true. She was one of those big, sturdy, almost burly, women who remind you of reincarnated creatures of ancient times, as if some of the white statues had turned to flesh and blood, with jet black tresses and adornings. As I looked at her the first time, I thought, ' What a ploughman you would make ! What a wood- man you would be ! ' " She married. Her husband was her cousin, Thomas Blake Carruthers, a quiet, inoffensive young man, a pros- perous farmer, who lived near St. Mary's, in the county of Perth. Nettie Slack was not exactly quiet, and in other ways she differed from her husband. They had two children, and Tom Carruthers was a good father. He managed his stalwart wife, too, and all seemed serene on the Carruthers' farm. One day old Grandpa Fother- ingham, who was rich and lived in the township of Blanchard, county of Perth, died and left a goodly sum to his grandson, young Fotheringham, who knew Nettie Slack, and had gazed into her piercing black eyes. Young Fotheringham called on Nettie Slack after her marriage, and, of course, the gossips had their busy buz- zings over the woman with the piercing black eyes and the man with his grandfather's money. I could have pictured Nettie Slack, if she had heard this gossip, sally- ing forth with a flail and belabouring the backs of all the busybodies. The reports of alleged improprieties between Nettie Slack and young Fotheringham con- THE LADY OF PIERCING BLACK EYES 337 tinued, and finally Tom Carruthers was said to have twitted his wife about it, while she flamed in fury, with her jet-black eyes ablaze. " Young Fotheringham took his money and went up on the Rainy River, in the wilds of the western part of this Province, and started a sawmill. Then he returned to the county of Perth and saw Tom Blake Carruthers and told him that on the Rainy River was the place to live, with the money flowing in. Fotheringham induced Carruthers to sell his farm and move out to the Rainy River and build a house and work in the sawmill. Nettie Slack Carruthers and the two little children, one four and the other two years old, accompanied Tom. They built a house near the mill and Carruthers worked in the mill. Nettie Slack kept house for Tom, and assisted a Mrs. Walt in the care of Fotheringham's home. Mrs. Walt said Nettie Slack was more like a visitor than a house- keeper. Fotheringham was unmarried. These condi- tions continued until January, 1891. On the morning of January 3d two shots resounded, and Nettie Slack rushed out of her house, shouting : ' Tom is dead ! Tom is dead ! ' She wrung her hands, and told those who came running to the house that she was down at the river after a pail of water when she heard the shots and ran up and found her husband dead on the floor. She had left him writing at a table. She was the principal witness at the inquest, and the coroner's jury brought in an open verdict. " It was over two hundred miles to civilisation. There were no roads ; only a dog trail in winter. But after the inquest Nettie Slack took her two children and started out with the mail carrier to get away from Rainy River. She slept out four nights in the snow-banks, and finally arrived at Rat Portage, where she took the train for her old home near St. Mary's, in the county of Perth. After navigation opened in the spring, people in the Rainy River district began to talk, and in July, 1891, I went up to Rainy River. I had the body of Tom Carruthers ex- humed and a post mortem made, and had the head cut off. The moment I saw where the two bullets entered 338 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE the skull I knew it was not suicide but murder. One had entered well around at the back of the head, behind the right ear. The other entered the left temple. The doctor showed that either would have caused death as it crashed into the brain, and I saw clearly that Tom Car- ruthers never shot himself in the back of the head, be- hind the right ear, and also in the left temple. " Nettie Slack had said her husband had written a note of farewell as he sat at the table while she was out after a pail of water. I obtained this note. It read : " ' I was heart-broken and tired of life and decided to end the awful conflict. Good-bye. " ' Tom.' " I obtained specimens of Nettie Slack's handwriting. It was just as I suspected. The farewell note was a clumsy forgery written by her. I had this note photo- graphed. I got the thirty-eight calibre revolver. Tom was supposed to have written the farewell and then to have shot himself twice in the head and to have fallen dead on the floor beside the table. He fell dead, but the shots were fired by another. I returned to Rat Portage and laid an information against Nettie Slack Carruthers, and obtained a warrant for her arrest. I was on my way to St. Mary's when I learned she was in Toronto, and I arrested Nettie Slack Carruthers at the house of a Mrs. Walsh, and took her back to Rat Portage and locked her up. Her brothers were well-to-do, and they went to Rat Portage and saw her, and then engaged B. B. Osier, the foremost counsel in Canada, to defend her. The pre- liminary examination extended over a week, and Mrs. Carruthers was committed to the Port Arthur gaol for trial. All concerned knew a big legal battle would follow. " I talked with the five-year-old child. " ' Popy shot himself ; Popy shot himself,' the tot would repeat over and over. " ' Who told you to say that ? ' I asked. " ' Mammy,' said the child, and it began afresh, ' Popy shot himself; Popy shot himself.' THE LADY OF PIERCING BLACK EYES 339 " Justice Armour presided at the trial. R. C. Clute prosecuted, and B. B. Osier defended. The trial did not come on until June, 1892. In the meantime, Nettie Slack's sister, a nice-looking girl, had gone to Port Arthur and stayed at the house of a merchant. Nettie Slack, in her girlhood, had played the organ in the coun- try church near St. Mary's, and her sister had an organ sent to the gaol and Nettie Slack played sacred music and sang hymns day after day. The men for jurors were selected by the sheriff and through some mistake the merchant, at whose house Nettie Slack's sister stayed, was drawn as a juror along with others inclined to be friendly to the prisoner. " I had handwriting experts to prove the farewell note a forgery. The wily Osier admitted the letter was a for- gery, and turning to the jury he exclaimed : ' What would a poor woman do in a strange country but look for an excuse to defend herself from an unjust accusation that might be made ? ' He was a great lawyer and a re- sourceful advocate, was Osier. I produced the skull and showed to the jury how impossible it was for Carruthers to have shot himself where the two bullets entered the head. Dr. Macdonnell had the skull in charge and it slipped and fell on the table and rolled to the floor. Nettie Slack laughed. Osier saw her, and quick as a flash he opened out his long gown like a curtain and stood so that the jury could not see her. Then he walked back to the box with his gown open and said : " ' You villain ! It's crying you should be instead of laughing ! You deserve to be hung ! ' " I heard him. Straightway Nettie Slack wept. " ' That's better,' said Osier, and he drew in his gown. " Osier and I often talked of this afterwards. " One of the witnesses was a woodman, named Cam- eron. He stumbled and mumbled and hesitated in his testimony, evidently having a wholesome regard for Nettie Slack's powerful physique. The virago eyed him. Mr. Clute asked Cameron if Mrs. Carruthers had shown any signs of grief over her dead husband. 340 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE " ' I — I — well,' mumbled the reluctant Cameron, ' I don't think so.' " Up spoke the woman. " ' Say yes, Cameron,' she said. ' You know you saw me kissing the body.' " I proved where a spot of blood, some distance from the table and the body, had been washed up, but not suf- ficiently to obliterate the traces of it. I showed the woman was a clever shot with the pistol. I showed that Fotheringham was not near the house at the time, and that no one but Tom and the woman and the two tots were there. Tom and the tots could not have done the shoot- ing. The charge of Justice Armour emphasised this and clearly indicated who was guilty. The jury had a hard tussle, but the friends stood fast. Mrs. Carruthers was acquitted on Saturday, June i ith, 1892. She came down from Port Arthur on the same boat I did. She spied me on deck and came over to me. " > Well, Murray, you didn't hang me after all,' she said. " ' I don't hang anybody,' said I. " She looked at me and smiled. " ' You were pretty decent,' she said, ' but that old rowdedow of a judge tried to put the black cap on me right in court.' " After the verdict Justice Armour had said to the jurors that their verdict was not consistent with the evi- dence, and had said to the woman : ' Prisoner, you are acquitted; I hope your conscience is acquitted.' The woman sneered. " ' Murray, life's sweet, but it isn't worth much without liberty,' she said, as she sniffed the air aboard boat, after almost a year in gaol. " I watched her as she stood there, her eyes flashing, her bosom heaving, a towering creature stirred by a sight of water, land, and sky. " ' Murray,' she said, suddenly, tensely, ' it was worth it.' " ' What was worth what ? ' I said. " She laughed ; then her face, for once, seemed to be- come almost sad. AN ESCAPER OF GENIUS 341 " ' I mean the year in gaol,' she said. ' A whole year out of my life.' " She looked full at me, then walked away. It was my last glimpse of the lady with the piercing black eyes." LIV AN ESCAPER OF GENIUS A MAN of many disguises appeared in Canada in 1 890. He had wigs and beards and moustaches of varying sizes, shades, and shapes. He had a walk and talk, and com- plete change of clothes to match every alteration of hair and face. Sometimes he was a French tourist, again a patriarchal clergyman, again a gruff, bluff Englishman, then a keen Yankee trader, next a quiet country gentle- man, then a prosperous American banker, next an inno- cent old farmer, until he seemed to have stepped out of the pages of fiction, a remarkable character who would flit around a corner — and, presto ! he was a different man. " His first appearance was in Halifax, Nova Scotia," says Murray. " He purported to be a yachtsman, and put up at the best hotel, registering as Mr. Thompson. He stayed a few days, getting acquainted quickly, and saying he expected his yacht to arrive shortly, and he had come on from Boston by rail. He looked the typical gentleman yachtsman. Finally he went to a wholesale liquor and supply house and bought ^500 worth of wines and groceries for his yacht, to be delivered aboard on the yacht's arrival. He presented a Boston draft for ;^2,ooo, and they accommodatingly gave him ^^1,500 cash. He skipped. His next stop was at Moncton, one hundred and fifty miles north of Halifax, where he appeared as a gay young sport, expecting some horses to arrive. He finally got into the hotel for ^500 on a bogus draft, and then flitted to the eastern townships of the Province of Quebec, where he did a land office business in drafts, and where he posed as a minister, a doctor, and a German 342 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE globe-trotter. He seemed to have some hypnotic power over the hotel people and tradesmen. They cashed his bogus drafts without suspicion. From Quebec he jumped to Belleville, Ontario, where he bought a suit of clothes from a merchant tailor about noon on a Saturday, shortly before the banks closed. He gave the tailor a draft for ^500, the tailor endorsed it, the bank cashed it, and away went the stranger. He skipped Toronto, and alighted in Listowel. There he pretended to be buy- ing horses, and he did buy a horse. A man named Laurie met him there. " There was a private banker in Listowel named John Scott, who was very rich and very close. He had a fine fancy team. The stranger offered to buy the team from Scott. They had two or three dickers over it. In the course of one of these horse talks the horse-buyer asked Scott what discount he charged on American drafts. Scott named a rate. The stranger said it was too much. " ' I don't want to pay that much,' he said. • I've got them cashed at so-and-so, and so-and so, and so-and-so, for less,' he added, naming a number of places and banks and bankers. " At length he made an arrangement with Scott to cash a draft on the First National Bank of Mahanoy City, Pennsylvania, William L. Yoder, cashier, for ^1,000. He got the money and skipped out. Scott was furious. "The next place this draftsman turned up was in Winnipeg. It was here he showed his first sign of drink. He had gone through Canada from the Atlantic Ocean on the east, cashing bogus drafts totalling high up in the thousands, without a slip-up, and he was well on his way towards the Pacific Ocean, when he stopped in Winnipeg and got a jag. He went to a bank to get a draft for ^1,000 cashed on a Louisiana bank. Like all his drafts the handiwork was perfect. But his leering manner aroused the suspicions of the manager of the bank, who told him to leave the draft ' until the manager comes in,' and to return in three hours, and see the manager, who would cash it for him. The manager played it well, although if the stranger had not been drinking he would AN ESCAPER OF GENIUS 343 not have returned. The manager telegraphed to the Louisiana bank, and the answer came that the draft was bogus. The stranger, who was going under the name of Hale in Winnipeg, called again at the bank after three hours, was arrested, convicted of attempting to pass bogus drafts, and sent to gaol for one year as Edward Hale. "I got after him in 1892. Some of those he fleeced held back for months before they notified any one of it. I started after him on the Scott case, and all the while he was in gaol in Winnipeg. I finally located him there. He heard I was after him, and he became very religious in the gaol, and at length he preached there to his fellow prisoners, exhorting them to reform and forsake evil ways. Crossley and Hunter, the evangelists, went to see him, and heard him preach, and thought he was reformed. The Rev. Mr. Crossley wrote to the Attorney-General and to me about him. I read the letter, and laid it away. I was biding my time, waiting for the expiration of Hale's time in Winnipeg. The day he walked out of gaol I intended to take him to Ontario to answer for the Listo- wel draft. " Hale sent for Fighting MacKenzie, who had acted as attorney for Dobbin on one of my visits to Winnipeg. " ' There is ^1,000,000 in it if I can get out,' said Hale. ' I was full when I did this, and I never did it before. If I can get free it means millions.' " Hale then told of a patent he had for ' manufacturing mosaic embroidery.' He sent for his wife, who came from the States, bringing a working model of this patent. Hale produced also forged patent rights for the United States and Canada, such clever forgeries that the lawyer did not detect them. " ' I'll give you half the patent rights if you give me ^1,500,' said Hale. • It is worth ^200,000 to anybody, but I want to get out. If I was out I would not take ||200,000 for a quarter interest in it.' " The turnkey was called in. He agreed to give ^500 for half the Canada patent rights. The attorney was to give ;^i,ooo for half the United States patent rights. The 344 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE ;^i,SOO was paid to Hale, who gave it to his wife, and she went away, taking the cash with her. The patent papers were executed. Consul Taylor was called in and wit- nessed the transaction. " Then came the question of Hale's release. He ex- plained that he must have his liberty to realise on the patents. In telling later of what happened he said the turnkey took a saw to his cell. " ' Saw the bars and get out, so I may keep my skirts clear,' he said. " Hale went down with the saw and returned almost immediately. " ' That won't saw hard butter,' said Hale, and he threw down the saw in disgust. " That night he was let out into the open yard. He returned to the window and hailed the turnkey. " ' How do I get over the wall ? ' asked Hale. " ' There is a loose board walk a foot wide,' said the turnkey. ' Put it over the wall and slide down.' " This is Hale's story. He did as he said the turnkey told him. He left a note stating nobody was to blame, and telling how he was supposed to have escaped. The escape was reported, and I set out to get Hale. With his disguises off he was a httle, smooth-shaven, sandy- haired fellow, with false front teeth. I had his photo- graph, which had been taken as he was, without make-up or disguise, when he was locked up in Winnipeg. I knew he was a clever man. His work proved him to be as shrewd as any crook on the continent. I went to New York and saw Byrnes, and some of his officers remem- bered him. He had hung out in Brooklyn, and was known as Ed. Hayes. Those who knew him said he was as slick in his line as any man in America. I went to Winnipeg, and learned there that when the model of the supposed patented machine had arrived in Winnipeg with Hale's wife, it had been shipped by express from St. Paul, Minnesota. I had learned in New York that Hale's name was Ed. Failing. I prepared extradition papers, and went to Minneapolis, arriving there on Wednesday, April nth, 1892. I conferred with my old friend, Jim AN ESCAPER OF GENIUS 345 Hankinson, for thirty years a detective. We began a hunt for people of the name of Failing, and we found the superintendent of the cattle yards near New Brighton was named Faihng, and was a prominent and influential man. From neighbours of his we learned he had a brother, Ed. Failing. A liveryman at New Brighton, who was a friend of Hankinson, knew Ed., and said he was living in a secluded, lonely place some miles out of New Brighton, with his wife and two children. The liveryman said he came in for his mail about three times a week at eight o'clock in the morning. We waited, and on the second day he drove up to the post-office. I arrested him. " He became greatly excited, shouted that it was an outrage, and declared I had the wrong man, and that he was an honest farmer. He ranted while I snapped the handcuffs on him, and then he quieted down, still protest- ing it was a mistake, and asked to be permitted to go out to his home and say good-bye to his folks. I consented, and we drove out to his home. His wife greeted us at the door — a red-haired, pretty young woman of twenty- five. She nodded indoors, and an older, grey-haired woman appeared. Failing said she was his mother. When Failing told them of his arrest and how I had consented to let him say good-bye to them, one of them fell on my neck to embrace me. I pretended not to feel her hand slip into my pockets hunting for the key to the handcuffs, but I stepped back so quickly that her hand caught. I extricated it, and apologised for the clumsi- ness of my pocket and its rudeness in holding her hand. " Failing started to walk through the house. He ex- plained that he wanted to bid the old place good-bye. I bade him keep in my sight and not far from me. " ' I don't intend to have you mistaking me for the old place, and bidding us both good-bye,' said I. " He appeared much hurt, and said I spoke harshly to one who was an innocent farmer. We drove to St. Paul, leaving his family weeping in the doorway until they thought we were out of sight, but a bend in the road showed them without trace of tears. Failing fought ex- 346 MEMOIRS OF A GREAT DETECTIVE tradition. He denied being in Canada, and he called several witnesses to prove an alibi. I had gone east and arranged for my witnesses from Canada. On my trip east, I met my old friend Chief Cusack, of BufTalo, on the train, and we had a pleasant ride together, and exchanged some photographs of crooks, and among those he gave me was the picture of a fellow who, with Shell Hamilton, had been arrested some time before in Buffalo for at- tempting a sneak on Mrs. Dickinson's jewellery store. I had seen the pair at the Buffalo police headquarters, and had looked them over. I had the photographs with me when I returned to St. Paul for the extradition pro- ceedings. " One of the witnesses called by Failing to prove an alibi was a young man named Collins. He was the last called, following the wife, the mother, and a tailor and other friends, who swore Failing was in Minneapolis the day he foisted the bogus draft on Banker Scott at Lis- towel, in Canada. Collins swore he was with Failing in Minneapolis all that day, and that he (Collins) was con- nected with a Turkish bath in the West House. I pulled a photograph out of my pocket, and handed it to my at- torney, Markham. " ' Were you ever in Buffalo, New York, Collins ? ' " ' No,' said he. " ' Ever know Shell Hamilton ? ' " ' No,' said he. " ' Is that your photograph ? ' — and Markham handed him the picture Cusack had given to me. " Collins wavered, but blurted out : ' No.' " I took the stand, and told of seeing Collins in a cell in Buffalo, and I showed the commissioner the police photograph. That settled the alibi. I had Bob Wood, a liveryman of Listowel, who identified Failing positively, and I had W. L. Yoder, cashier of the Mahanoy City bank, who swore the draft was a forgery. Commissioner Spencer committed Failing for extradition, and on May 1 6th I started for Listowel with the prisoner. He pro- tested it was an outrage, and he was not the Failing I was after. Up to Stratford he denied his identity. AN ESCAPER OF GENIUS 347 " ' Well,' he said, as the train left Stratford. ' Listowel is next. I give up the ghost. I'll put you to no more trouble.' " ' I don't care a cuss whether you do or not,' I an- swered, tartly ; for he had done all he could to block me, and ever was on the alert for an opportunity to escape. " Then he told me all about the Winnipeg business, and the fake patent, and the getting out of gaol. Banker Scott was at Listowel when we arrived. When Failing saw him he walked up and seized the hand of the aston- ished Mr. Scott, and shook it heartily before the banker could draw it away. "