The Crime of the Century Part 24

THE OTHER ACCUSED MEN.

Dan Coughlin, the detective, at this time was about 34 years of age. He was a native of Michigan, and worked in the iron mines of the northern part of that State when a boy. He arrived in Chicago at the age of 26 and immediately fell in with Tim Crean, Florence Sullivan, and Tom Murphy. They introduced him to Alex. Sullivan and he secured a position on the police force through the latter.

Sullivan's influence was such that he had an easy time. He became a pet of Capt. Schaack and stood closer to that officer than was good for the discipline of the force.

P. O'Sullivan was born in Galena about 1853. His parents were from Galway, Ireland. They moved to Southern Michigan soon after he was born, and subsequently to Wisconsin, where they worked a farm which O'Sullivan owned at the time of the tragedy. He moved to Chicago about 1877, obtained employment as a street-car conductor, and quit that position after about eight years to go into the ice business.

He went into politics in Lake View, and was a candidate for Alderman on the Democratic ticket, and was beaten.

Frank Woodruff, or Black, was the son of a farmer of San Jose, Cal.

He was born in Wisconsin. He had been in various penitentiaries, but for petty offenses. He moved to Chicago about five weeks before the 5th of May. He was an American.

CHAPTER XII.

AT THE TORONTO END OF THE CONSPIRACY--INVESTIGATING LONG'S CIRc.u.mSTANTIAL STORIES, AND HIS INTERVIEWS WITH DR. CRONIN--A CHICAGO FUGITIVE CONCERNED--HIS SUSPICIOUS MOVEMENTS--A CHAPTER OF STARTLING COINCIDENTS--LONG ON THE RACK--MAKES DAMAGING ADMISSIONS AND BREAKS DOWN--THE OBJECT TO DISTRACT ATTENTION FROM THE SCENE OF THE CRIME-- ANOTHER CONFESSION FROM WOODRUFF.

With the recovery of the body of the murdered physician, and the developments that followed in such rapid succession, attention was attracted anew to the reports that had emanated from Toronto during the week following the disappearance. The circ.u.mstantial stories and interviews that had been scattered broadcast from that city over the signature of Charles Long, the ex-Chicago reporter, not only had a tendency to give the case an international aspect, but also to confirm the suspicions of the dead man's friends, that he had fallen a victim to a conspiracy wide in its ramifications, and planned, moreover, by a master mind. The dispatches were false, for the finding of Cronin's body in the Lake View catch-basin admitted of no possible argument to the contrary. It was equally certain that it could not have been a case of mistaken ident.i.ty--not merely because Long's acquaintance with Dr.

Cronin had been of a nature to render a mistake of that kind improbable, but because the detailed character of their conversation, as reported by Long, had been such that Cronin's part in it could not have been taken by any but Cronin himself, or some one of a few men familiar with the inner workings of the Clan-na-Gael or United Brotherhood. For example, a week after the disappearance, and before the finding of the body, Long had concocted in Toronto the story of the troubles in the Clan-na-Gael, with Cronin's charge that nearly $100,000 of its funds had been misappropriated, while papers elsewhere were still confusing the organization with the Irish Land League and its Detroit treasurer. "No one not a member of the Clan-na-Gael could have gotten up these interviews," Irishmen had said; and they were right. To the general public also, unacquainted with these facts, it seemed incredible that a presumably reputable journalist, with an utter absence of malicious motive, would, of his own free will, and simply for the advantage of the small pecuniary recompense that his labors might bring, so deceive and mislead the numerous and prominent newspapers to which his dispatches were addressed. It was a prost.i.tution of the liberty and license of a correspondent such, perhaps, as had never been parallelled in the newspaper history of the country, while, moreover, it was of a character calculated to wreck, for all time, the journalistic reputation of the man most directly concerned.

What, then, were Long's motives in giving currency to these dispatches?

Whose was the guiding hand that induced him to take so great a risk? The Chicago _Tribune_--one of the papers that had been victimized--took it upon itself to answer these questions. A member of its staff was dispatched to Toronto, with instructions to sift the matter to the bottom. He was fully equal to the task, and within a few hours of his arrival in the city, his investigations had brought to light a startling array of facts.

STARKEY'S SUSPICIOUS MOVEMENTS.

Among the American residents of Toronto at this time was one William J.

Starkey. Up to a year before he had been a member of the bar in Chicago.

He had been compelled, however, to flee to the hospitable sh.o.r.es of the Dominion and join the army of exiled forgers, embezzlers and others--who preferred the free air of the Dominion to the confined quarters of an American prison--by reason of the discovery of an attempt he had made to bribe a juror in a case in which a street railroad company with which he was identified was the defendant. Starkey knew Cronin well. He had learned his history by acting as chief attorney in the bogus case that had been brought against the physician before a Chicago justice for the express purpose of cross-examining Cronin regarding his past life. From that time on he had been bound, body and soul, as a result of certain transactions, to a prominent Irish-American of Chicago, who was one of the promoters of the case in question. It was developed that for months before the murder, and also afterward, he had been in communication with acknowledged enemies of Dr. Cronin. It was likewise discovered that he had left Toronto on Sunday, May 5th, the day after Cronin's disappearance, without leaving word with anyone, unless in secret, as to his destination. He took train No. 5, at 12:20 P. M., on the Great Western division of the Grand Trunk, which made connection at Hamilton with New York and Detroit, as well as the lake steamers. He reappeared Friday, May 10th, and this was the day that Long's first dispatch, to the effect that Cronin was in Toronto, was sent out. After remaining over until the following Sat.u.r.day, when the second and detailed interview was sent out, he disappeared again. The day following the finding of the murdered man's body, cipher telegrams pa.s.sed between Starkey, at 135 Fourth avenue, New York, and D. K. Mason, his business agent, in Toronto, and who, by the way, was an exile in Canada from the warehouse receipt law of Louisville, Kentucky. While in New York, as will appear hereafter, Starkey was seen in company with several well-known opponents of the physician.

A CHAPTER OF COINCIDENCES.

What was the connection between Starkey and Long in the fict.i.tious telegrams sent out from Toronto announcing that Cronin was in that city.

This was the first question to be solved. Inquiry through the ordinary sources of information failed to throw any light on the matter. Starkey was not known to the Toronto detectives or its police officers. None of the local members of the press, save one, had come in contact with him.

A few hotel clerks knew him by sight, but even these walking directories, who are generally supposed to have a knowledge of everything under the sun at their fingers' ends, could not tell his place of abode. A few knew him under the alias of Hardy, and that was the extent of their information. Several correspondents, who, upon request from papers in New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, and other cities, had inquired into his relations with Long, reported that the two were not on friendly terms. This information, however, came to them from Long himself, who referred all inquirers to the Toronto _Empire_ of February 21, in which issue, he claimed, he had "written up" and "roasted" the Chicago fugitive. Right here was a coincidence of a startling nature. It was on that date that the furniture found in the blood-stained cottage had been purchased.

"You must either see that Starkey and I are at outs," said Long to Sergeant Reburn, of the Toronto detective force, "or else that we planned this thing as early as the 21st of February, and prepared this article to throw people off the scent as to our true relations. I leave it to your common sense to determine which is the proper version to take of it."

The article was examined, and the result was surprising. Long had "roasted" Starkey, not by his own name, but under the alias of "A. B.

Darlingford." This individual, it was stated, was residing in a fashionable section of Bloor street, and was on intimate terms with a number of the most aristocratic families of the city.

No better disguise could have been conceived for the real Starkey, or, as he was generally known, "W. J. Hardy," and who was boarding at the time in an humble house on the northwest corner of Wellington and Johns streets. He had never pa.s.sed under the name of "Darlingford," nor had he ever lived on Bloor street, while his favorite haunts, instead of being in the aristocratic circles, had been the bar of the Walker House, which was presided over by two young Irishmen, and Kieche's European Hotel, of which another Irishman was the proprietor.

To establish the fact that the relations of Long and Starkey were not only pleasant, but extremely intimate, was to the investigator a task involving but little trouble. It was found that Long had been a frequent visitor at the residence of Starkey, alias Hardy. Several weeks before, R. A. Wade, at one time a Chicago lawyer, had called at the house, and found the two men in conversation. "Billy" Acres, the princ.i.p.al waiter at the Rossin House, declared that Long and Starkey frequently sat together at the table. It was also shown that Starkey and Long had been frequent visitors to a room of another fugitive from Chicago justice, who was temporarily stopping at the before mentioned hotel. On the face of these facts, Long was finally forced to admit that he and Starkey were very well acquainted with each other, although he still insisted that their relations were anything but friendly.

To ascertain the motives and the individuals that had inspired the Toronto reporter to deceive the press of the country with his infamous dispatches regarding the alleged presence of Dr. Cronin in that city, was the point with which the commissioner from Chicago now directed himself. Long lived with his father--president of the Toronto Printing Company, a stockholder in the Empire newspaper, and an ex-member of the Parliament of Ontario--in a handsome residence located in s.p.a.cious grounds. Here he was called upon. His visitor urged him to remedy the serious mistake he had made by giving to the public the information he possessed regarding the persons who had instigated the writing of the articles, and their reasons for so doing.

"I will never do it," cried Long. "I saw Cronin. The interviews proved that. Every member of the Clan-na-gael in Chicago knows that I could have known nothing about Cronin's threatened disclosures of treason among its members, or of the theft of $85,000 from its funds. I must have talked with Cronin to have known that."

The visitor suggested that he might rather have talked with William J.

Starkey, and Long, pale and trembling, sank back into his chair. He recovered his composure in a moment and went on to say that Starkey and he were enemies. Then the visitor confronted him with remorseless facts.

He told him that he had frequently been seen in company with Starkey, both at the latter's residence and at the Rossin House; that he had met Starkey at McConkey's restaurant on King Street on the day he claimed to have seen Cronin, that being the day on which he sent off his first dispatch; that he and Starkey were together for a long time on the following day, when the lengthy interview with Cronin was sent out; that he had told the Toronto detectives that Cronin was at Starkey's house, and that he had given the latter's name as a witness and as one who had known Cronin in Chicago, to the fact that the dispatches were truthful.

"_Starkey told me that Cronin was at his house_," exclaimed Long, who by this time was in a condition, bordering on the hysterical.

"Why didn't you bring Cronin out to your house?" the visitor asked.

"Why should I?" replied Long. He had evidently forgotten that two weeks before he had a.s.sured Detective Reburn that Cronin had visited his residence. Two days afterward, when confronted with Reburn, he repeated his original statement.

"Cronin _was_ at my house," he said.

"Why didn't you say so in your dispatches? Why did you tell another story the other morning?" asked the visitor.

"I did not telegraph everything that pa.s.sed between Cronin and myself, nor did I tell you everything the other day."

"Who saw Cronin at your house?"

"My wife."

"Did the servants?"

"Well, they wouldn't remember him."

"Did you present him to your father and mother?"

"They were away."

It was apparent by this time, even apart from the fact that the body had been discovered and the circ.u.mstances demonstrated that it was in the catch-basin at the time Long's dispatches were filed, that his carefully prepared story would not hold water.

Still the visitor persisted, and literally compelled the reporter to drive him to the different points at which he claimed to have seen Cronin, and over the route he followed him the first day. Long took him to the Yong Street Arcade, thence to the Union Depot, thence up to King and Ontario streets; thence to Adalaide and Toronto streets, where Cronin was alleged to have taken a hack, and Long had taken another and followed him. Pressed to give the name of the hackman, his number or his description, Long said that he was in such a hurry that he paid no attention to any of these details. He was reminded that Alexander Craig, clerk at the Rossin House, had declared that no such guests as he, Long, had described were ever at the hotel, that no one had turned up to say that Long and Cronin had been seen in conversation, that the hackman had faded into air, and that Starkey remained the only bulwark of the story.

"Make a clean breast of it," he was urged. "Tell the public the truth regarding the circ.u.mstances under which your stories were originated."

"I will never retreat," was Long's reply. "I would drag no one else through the mire of calumny I am now going through."

"How do you happen to know so much about Cronin's St. Louis record?" he was asked.

"I was in St. Louis a little over a year ago and made inquiries about him."

"What prompted you to do that?"

Long declined to answer, but said that he had a copy of the pamphlet ent.i.tled, "Is It A Conspiracy?"

This was important, because it was known that a number of copies had been sent to Starkey, whose name figured in the pamphlet as one of Cronin's enemies.

Numerous Toronto Irishmen who were consulted expressed the opinion (some of them to Long's face) that they believed his dispatches had been manufactured out of whole cloth. A final effort was made to induce Long to clear up the mystery surrounding the murder, by disclosing how he was prompted to send the dispatches, and a suggestion was made that, upon the existing facts, he stood in danger of being indicted by the Chicago authorities. This, however, failed of its purpose, and, failing to induce the reporter to unbosom himself in the cause of justice, the matter was dropped.