True Detective Stories Part 7

Finally came the theory that the money package had been stolen while in the care of the express company. In considering this possibility it became necessary to know exactly what had happened to the package from the moment it was taken through the window of the money department up to the time of its delivery at the Treasury. The package was first receipted for by the head of the money department, Mr. J. C. Young.

Having handed the receipt to the bank messengers, he pa.s.sed the package to his a.s.sistant, Mr. Littlefield, who in turn pa.s.sed it on to another clerk, Mr. Moody, who way-billed it in due form for Washington, and then placed it in the iron safe which was to carry it on its journey. Two or three hours may have elapsed between the receipt of the package and the shipment of the safe, but during this time the package was constantly in view of five or six clerks in the money department, and, unless they were all in collusion, it could scarcely have been stolen by any one there. As for the express messenger who accompanied the safe on the wagon to the train, and then on the train to Washington, and then on another wagon to the Treasury building, his innocence seemed clearly established, since the safe had been locked and sealed, according to custom, before its delivery to him, and showed no signs of having been tampered with when opened in Washington the following morning by another representative of the express company. The messenger who accompanies a through safe to its destination, indeed, has small chance of getting inside, not only because of the protecting seal, but also because he is never allowed to have the key to the safe or to know its combination. Recently, as a still further safeguard, the Adams Express Company has introduced into its cars an equipment of large burglar-proof and fire-proof safes, especially as a guard against train robbers, who found it comparatively easy to break open the small safes once in use. In the present instance, of course, there was no question of train robbers.

One important fact stood out plain and uncontrovertible: that a responsible clerk in the money department of the Adams Express Company had receipted for a package supposed to contain forty-one thousand dollars intrusted to the company by the bank. This threw the responsibility on the company, at least until it could be shown that the package as delivered contained brown paper, and not bank-notes. In accordance with their usual policy of promptness and liberality, the Adams people paid over to the American Exchange Bank the sum of forty-one thousand dollars, and said no more about it. But their silence did not mean inactivity. Their instructions to their detectives in this case, as in all similar cases, were to spare neither time nor expense, but to continue the investigation until the thieves had been detected and brought to punishment, or until the last possibility of clearing up the mystery had certainly expired.

Hastening to New York in response to the telegram sent him, Robert Pinkerton examined the evidence already collected by his representative, and then himself questioned all persons in any way concerned in the handling of the money. Mr. Pinkerton, after his investigation, was not so sure as some persons were that the package had been stolen by employees of the express company. He inclined rather to the opinion that, in the rush of business in the express office, the false package, badly made up though it was, might have been pa.s.sed by one of the clerks. This conclusion turned his suspicions first toward the two bank messengers. Of these he was not long in deciding Dominie Earle to be, in all probability, innocent.

While he had known of instances where old men, after years of unimpeachable life, had suddenly turned to crime, he knew such cases to be infrequent, and he decided that Earle's was not one of them. Of the innocence of the other messenger, Crawford, he was not so sure. He began a careful study of his record.

Edward Sturgis Crawford at this time was about twenty-seven years old, a man of medium height, a decided blond, with large blue eyes, and of a rather effeminate type. He went scrupulously dressed, had white hands with carefully manicured nails, parted his hair in the middle, and altogether was somewhat of a dandy. He had entered the bank on the recommendation of a wealthy New-Yorker, a young man about town, who, strange to say, had made Crawford's acquaintance, and indeed struck up quite a friendship with him, while the latter was serving in the humble capacity of conductor on a Broadway car. This was about a year before the time of the robbery. Thus far Crawford had attended to his work satisfactorily, doing nothing to arouse suspicion, unless it was indulging a tendency to extravagance in dress. His salary was but forty-two dollars a month, and yet he permitted himself such luxuries as silk underclothes, fine patent-leather shoes, and other apparel to correspond. Pushing back further into Crawford's record, Mr. Pinkerton learned that he had grown up in the town of Hanc.o.c.k, New York, where he had been accused of stealing sixty dollars from his employer and afterward of perpetrating a fraud upon an insurance company. Putting all these facts together, Mr. Pinkerton decided that, in spite of a perfectly self-possessed manner and the good opinion of his employers, Crawford would stand further watching. His general conduct subsequent to the robbery was, however, such as to convince every one, except the dogged detective, that he was innocent of this crime. In vain did "shadows" follow him night and day, week after week; they discovered nothing. He retained his place in the bank, doing the humble duties of messenger with the same regularity as before, and living apparently in perfect content with the small salary he was drawing. His expenses were lightened, it is true, by an arrangement voluntarily offered by his friend, the young man about town, who invited him to live in his own home on Thirty-eighth Street, whereby not only was he saved the ordinary outlay for lodgings, but many comforts and luxuries were afforded him that would otherwise have been beyond his reach.

Thus three months went by with no result; then four, five, six months; and, finally, all but a year. Then, suddenly, in April, 1889, Crawford took his departure for Central America, giving out to his friends that he was going there to a.s.sume the management of a banana plantation of sixty thousand acres, owned by his wealthy friend and benefactor.

Before Crawford sailed, however, the "shadows" had informed Mr.

Pinkerton of Crawford's intention, and asked instructions. Should they arrest the man before he took flight, or should they let him go? Mr.

Pinkerton realized that he was dealing with a man who, if guilty, was a criminal of unusual cleverness and cunning. His arrest would probably accomplish nothing, and might spoil everything. There was little likelihood that the stolen money would be found on Crawford's person; he would probably arrange some safer way for its transmission.

Perhaps it had gone ahead of him to Central America weeks before.

"We'll let him go," said Mr. Pinkerton, with a grim smile; "only we'll have some one go with him."

The Pinkerton representative employed to shadow Crawford on the voyage sent word, by the first mail after their arrival in Central America, that the young man had rarely left his state-room, and that whenever forced to do so had employed a colored servant to stand on guard so that no one could go inside.

Nothing more occurred, however, to justify the suspicion against Crawford until the early part of 1890, when the persistent efforts of the detectives were rewarded by an important discovery. It was then that Robert Pinkerton learned that Crawford had told a deliberate lie when examined before the bank officials in regard to his family relations in New York. He had stated that his only relative in New York was a brother, Marvin Crawford, who was then driving a streetcar on the Bleecker Street line. Now it came to the knowledge of Mr.

Pinkerton that Crawford had in the city three married aunts and several cousins. The reason for Crawford's having concealed this fact was presently brought to light through the testimony of one of the aunts, who, having been induced to speak, not without difficulty, stated that on Sunday, May 6, 1888, two days after the robbery, her nephew had called at her house, and given her a package which he said contained gloves, and which he wished her to keep for him. It was about this time that the papers contained the first news of the robbery, and, her suspicions having been aroused, she picked a hole in the paper covering of the package large enough to let her see that there was money inside. Somewhat disturbed, she took the package to her husband, who opened it and found that it contained two thousand dollars in bank-notes. Realizing the importance of this discovery, the husband told his wife that when Crawford came back to claim the package she should refer him to him, which she did.

Some days later, on learning from his aunt that she had spoken to her husband about the package, Crawford became greatly excited, and told her she had made a dreadful mistake. A stormy scene followed with his uncle, in which the latter positively refused to render him the money until he was satisfied that Crawford was its rightful possessor. A few days later Crawford's young friend, the man about town, called on the uncle, and stated that the money in the package belonged to him and must be surrendered. The uncle was still obdurate; and when Crawford and his friend became violent in manner, he remarked meaningly that if they made any more trouble he would deliver the package of money to the Adams Express Company and let the company decide to whom it belonged. This brought the angry claimants to their senses, and Crawford's friend left the house and never returned. Finally Crawford's uncle compromised the contention by giving his nephew five hundred dollars out of the two thousand, and retaining the balance himself, in payment, one must suppose, for his silence. At any rate, he kept fifteen hundred dollars, and also a receipt in Crawford's handwriting for the five hundred dollars paid to him.

Other members of the family recalled the fact that a few days after the robbery Crawford had left in his aunt's store-room a valise, which he had subsequently called for and taken away. None of them had seen the contents of the valise, but they remembered that Crawford on the second visit had remained alone in the store-room for quite a time, perhaps twenty minutes, and after his departure they found there a rubber band like those used at the bank. The detectives also discovered that on the 15th of May, 1888, eleven days after the robbery, Crawford had rented a safety-deposit box at a bank in the Fifth Avenue Hotel building, under the name of Eugene Holt. On the 18th of May he had exchanged this box for a larger one. During the following months he made several visits to the box, but for what purpose, was not known.

On presenting this acc.u.mulated evidence to the Adams Express Company, along with his own deductions, Robert Pinkerton was not long in convincing his employers that the situation required in Central America the presence of some more adroit detective than had yet been sent there. The difficulty of the case was heightened by the fact that Crawford had established himself in British Honduras, and that the extradition treaty between the United States and England did not then, as it does now, provide for the surrender of criminals guilty of such offenses as that which Crawford was believed to have committed.

Crawford could be arrested, therefore, only by being gotten into another country by some clever manoeuver. The man best capable of carrying out such a manoeuver was Robert Pinkerton himself; and, accordingly, the express company, despite the very considerable expense involved, and fully aware that the result must be uncertain, authorized Mr. Pinkerton to go personally in pursuit of Crawford.

Mr. Pinkerton arrived at Balize, the capital of British Honduras, on February 17, 1890, nearly two years after the date of the robbery.

There he learned that Crawford's plantation was about ninety miles down the coast, a little back of Punta Gorda. Punta Gorda lies near the line separating British Honduras from Guatemala, and is not more than a hundred miles from Spanish Honduras, or Honduras proper, directly across the Gulf of Honduras.

Difficulties confronted Mr. Pinkerton from the very start. People were dying about him every day of yellow fever, and when he started for Punta Gorda on a little steamer, the engineer came aboard looking as yellow as saffron, and immediately began to vomit, so that he had to be taken ash.o.r.e. Then the engine broke down several times on the voyage, and the heat was insufferable.

As the boat steamed slowly into Punta Gorda it pa.s.sed a small steam craft loaded with bananas. "Look," said one of the pa.s.sengers to Mr.

Pinkerton, not aware of the nature of Mr. Pinkerton's mission, "there goes Crawford's launch now."

Landing at once, the detective waited for the launch to come to sh.o.r.e, which it presently did. The first man to come off was Marvin Crawford, whom Mr. Pinkerton recognized from a description, although he had never seen him. Then he saw Edward Crawford step off, dressed smartly in a white helmet hat, a red sash, a fine plaited linen shirt, blue trousers, patent-leather shoes, and so on. Mr. Pinkerton approached and held out his hand.

"I don't remember you," said Crawford; but his face went white.

"You used to know me in New York when I examined you before the bank officials," said the detective, pleasantly.

Crawford smiled in a sickly way and said, "Oh, yes; I remember you now."

Mr. Pinkerton explained that he had traveled five thousand miles to talk with him about the stolen money package. Crawford expressed willingness to furnish any information he could, and invited Mr.

Pinkerton to go up to his plantation, where they could talk the matter over more comfortably. Seeing that his best course was to humor Crawford, Mr. Pinkerton consented, though realizing that he thus put himself in Crawford's power. They went aboard Crawford's launch and steamed up the river, a very narrow, winding stream, arched quite over through most of its length by the thick tropical foliage, and in some parts so deep that no soundings had yet found bottom. The plantation was entirely inaccessible by land on account of impa.s.sable swamps, and the crooked course of the river made it a journey of twenty-three miles from Punta Gorda, although in a straight line it was only six miles away.

Mr. Pinkerton was surprised at the unpretentious character of the house, which was built of cane and palm stocks and roofed with palm branches. Originally it had been one large room, but it was now divided by muslin sheeting into two rooms, one at either end, with a hall in the middle. Almost the first thing Mr. Pinkerton noticed on entering was a fire-proof safe standing in the hall. It was of medium size and seemed to be new. He knew he was powerless, under the laws of the country, to search the safe, but he made up his mind that while he was in the house he would keep his eyes as much as possible upon it.

That night he did not sleep for watching. But Crawford did not go near the safe until the next morning, when he went to get out some account-books. While the door was open Mr. Pinkerton saw only a small bag of silver inside, but he felt sure from Crawford's manner that there was a larger amount of money there.

Mr. Pinkerton remained at the plantation for forty-eight hours. On the second day he had a long interview with Crawford, questioning him in the greatest detail as to his connection with the robbery. Crawford persisted in denying that he had had any connection with it, or had any knowledge as to what had become of the stolen money. Argue as he would, Mr. Pinkerton could not beat down the stubbornness of his denials. All direct approaches failing, at last he tried indirection.

He spoke of Burke, the absconding State treasurer of Louisiana, who, along with a number of other American law-breakers, had fled to Central America. "Burke had a level head, hadn't he?" said he.

"How do you mean?" asked Crawford.

"Why, in going to Spanish Honduras. You know the United States has no extradition treaty there under which we could bring back a man who has absconded for embezzlement or grand larceny. Burke is as safe there as if he owned the whole country."

"Is that so?" said Crawford, looking significantly at his brother Marvin, who was present.

"Yes," said Mr. Pinkerton, "it is. I only wish the fellow would come up here into British Honduras; then we might do something with him."

Here the subject was dropped.

Next Mr. Pinkerton exhibited to Crawford a sealed letter written by James G. Blaine and addressed to the chief magistrate of British Honduras, pointing to the seals of the State Department to a.s.sure Crawford of the letter's genuineness, and hinting mysteriously at the use he proposed making of this doc.u.ment and at the probable effect that would follow its delivery.

With this the interview closed, and Mr. Pinkerton announced his intention of going back to Punta Gorda. Crawford had practically told him to do his worst, and he had not concealed his intention of doing it. Nevertheless their relations continued outwardly pleasant, and Mr. Pinkerton was treated with the hospitality that is usual in tropical countries. He saw no sign of any disposition on the part of either of the Crawfords to do him harm, but he kept his revolvers always ready, and gave them no chance to catch him napping.

Toward evening of the second day Crawford and his brother got the launch ready, and took Mr. Pinkerton down the river back to Punta Gorda, where they said good-by. At parting Crawford made a brave show of treating the whole matter lightly. "I may see you in New York in a couple of months," he said to the detective as they shook hands.

"If you see me in New York," said Mr. Pinkerton, "you will see yourself under arrest."

On landing, Mr. Pinkerton proceeded, with all the obviousness possible, to call at the house of the British magistrate, which was so situated that Crawford from the launch could not fail to see him enter. This seems to have confirmed the impression he had been striving to create, that British Honduras, though in truth a perfect refuge for a criminal like Crawford, was none. Crawford, apparently thoroughly frightened, and thinking he had not an hour to lose, steamed back in all haste to his plantation, gathered together, as subsequently appeared, his money and other valuables, and then, under cover of night, dropped down the river again, put out to sea forthwith, and crossed the Bay of Honduras to Puerto Cortes, in Spanish Honduras, the country of all Central America in which Mr.

Pinkerton preferred to have him. In short, Mr. Pinkerton's stratagem had worked perfectly.

Mr. Pinkerton's reason for wishing to get Crawford into Spanish Honduras was not because the treaty arrangements were more favorable there than in British Honduras, but because the Pinkerton Agency enjoyed unusual personal relations with the Honduras government.

Several years before, when President Bogram had in contemplation the federation of Central American States under one government, he had applied to the Pinkerton Agency for reliable detectives for secret-service work. In consequence of this the present head of the Honduras secret force was no other than a former Pinkerton employee who had been recommended by the New York office to the Honduras government, and upon whom Mr. Pinkerton knew he could rely absolutely.

Another man equally disposed to favor him was Mr. Bert Cecil, a member of the cabinet, and at the head of the telegraph service, and thus in a position to render most valuable service in the apprehension of Crawford.

As soon as Mr. Pinkerton learned of Crawford's flight, he hurried in pursuit, crossing the bay to Livingston, in Guatemala. In so doing he risked his life, first by putting out to sea in a little dory, and then by trusting his safety to a treacherous Carib boatman, who, when they were several miles out, evinced a strong disposition to take possession of the detective's overcoat, in order, as he explained with a cunning look, to turn its silk lining into a pair of trousers. At this, Mr. Pinkerton carelessly produced his revolver, which had a quieting effect upon the fellow, and the voyage was completed in safety. But soon after landing Mr. Pinkerton suffered an attack of fever, and being warned by the doctors to return to a Northern lat.i.tude, he got the government machinery in motion for the apprehension of Crawford, had photographs of the former bank messenger spread broadcast through the country, and then having cabled the New York bureau to send responsible detectives to take his place, he sailed for New Orleans.

Mr. Pinkerton was succeeded in Central America by detective George H.

Hotchkiss, one of the best men in the country, who arrived in Balize on the 18th of March. A telegram from Pinkerton's former employee, now chief of the secret police in Honduras, informed him that Crawford had been seen in San Pedro, Spanish Honduras, on the previous Sat.u.r.day, and was being closely pursued by Spanish soldiers accompanied by Pinkerton men. Hotchkiss sailed at once for Puerto Cortes, where he learned from the American vice-consul, Dr. Ruez, that Crawford had left San Pedro hastily the previous Monday night. On further investigation the detective discovered that a San Francis...o...b..lly and former prize-fighter, "Mike" Neiland, had called at Crawford's boarding-house on Monday, and warned him that detectives were pursuing him from Puerto Cortes on a hand-car. Neiland had pretended to be Crawford's friend, and said he would keep him out of the hands of the detectives. Crawford, very much frightened, grabbed up some of his luggage and left the house with Neiland. It was generally believed that Neiland had designs on Crawford's money, and would not hesitate to kill him, if need were, in order to get it.

Hotchkiss immediately requested Mr. Bert Cecil, at Tegucigalpa, the capital, to cover all telegraphic points, and, if possible, have Crawford and his companion arrested on some trivial charge. The day after he reached San Pedro, on March 22, he received a telegram saying that Crawford and Neiland had been arrested and taken before the governor at Santa Barbara. They had been searched, and about thirty-two thousand dollars had been found on Crawford's person. The money was in old and worn bills that in every way resembled those in the stolen package. Whether they were the identical bills or not it was impossible to say, as the bank had not recorded the numbers.

On receipt of this news, Hotchkiss, accompanied by Jack Hall, a guide, set out across the country for Santa Barbara. The journey was accomplished, but only after the most terrible suffering and many privations and dangers. Moreover, the fever got its deadly clutches upon detective Hotchkiss; and when he had finally dragged himself into Santa Barbara, he cabled the New York office: "Crawford and money held for extradition. Am sick. Cannot remain. Coming on steamer Tuesday. My a.s.sociate takes charge."

Before sailing for New Orleans detective Hotchkiss had an interview with Crawford, in the presence of the Spanish officials, and obtained from him a written confession of his guilt. While admitting that he had been a party to the robbery, the absconder tried to lessen his own crime by declaring that the plan to plunder the bank had been suggested to him by two men, named Brown and Bowen, whom he had met accidentally on a railway-train in New York, and with whom he had afterward become very friendly. These men had taken him to Brown's house on Thirty-eighth Street, somewhere between Eighth and Ninth avenues (Crawford could not locate the place more precisely), and introduced him to a fine-looking woman presented as Mrs. Brown, who was also in the conspiracy. They told him that he was earning very little money for a man in such a responsible position, and that he might easily make a fortune if he would put his interests in their hands and be guided by their advice.

The outcome of several conversations was a plan to get possession of a valuable money package on some day when Crawford should know a large sum was to be sent away from the bank. He claimed that on the day of the robbery one of his fellow-conspirators, Bowen, followed behind himself and Earle after they entered the Adams express offices, and managed to subst.i.tute a bogus package for the real one while the two messengers were going up the stairs. He did not make this attempt until he saw the bank detective McDougal turn back up Broadway.

Crawford said that he managed it so as to precede Earle in going up the stairs, which gave Bowen, who was standing at the first turn, in the shadow, an opportunity to open the satchel and quickly make the subst.i.tution. Crawford declared that the conspirators gave him only twenty-five hundred dollars as his share of the booty, although promising him more. This sum he put in two envelops and sent to his aunt, the one to whom he afterward intrusted the package supposed to contain gloves.

Crawford stated further that Brown and Bowen, having been forced to flee the country, sent him word from Paris, some time later, in a letter written by Mrs. Brown, that the greater part of the stolen money had been buried in a flower-bed in the southeast corner of a yard on West Thirty-eighth Street, and asked him to dig it up and send it to them. A remarkable fact in this connection is that the yard referred to on West Thirty-eighth Street belonged to the house of the friend and benefactor with whom Crawford was living at the time of the robbery.

Crawford claimed to have carried out these instructions, and deposited the package of money taken from the flower-bed in the safe-deposit vaults in the Fifth Avenue Hotel building, where, as a matter of fact, he was known to have rented a box. He gave as his reason for not sending the money to Paris that he was in trouble himself, being under constant surveillance, and thought it best to keep the money secreted for the time. He admitted that he had carried this money with him to Honduras, and that it was the same found on his person by the detectives. By his description of Brown and Bowen, the former was a man about twenty-five years old, of slight build and light complexion, while the latter was ten years older, two or three inches taller, with a sandy mustache and very fat hands. Mrs. Brown Crawford described as about twenty-five years old, a blonde, with regular features. He had no idea what had become of these people since he left America, having had no further communication with them. None of the alleged conspirators has ever been found, and they are believed to be purely mythical.

Detective Hotchkiss also had an interview with "Mike" Neiland, Crawford's companion in flight, who described his first meeting with Crawford at his boarding-house in San Pedro, and acknowledged that he had deliberately frightened Crawford into running away by his story of the pursuing detectives. He described their adventures and hardships in trying to escape over the rough country, the difficulties they experienced in buying mules, their sufferings from exposure in the swamps, and finally their capture by the soldiers. Neiland said that Crawford gave him three thousand dollars in fifty-dollar bills, and also allowed him to carry, a part of the time, a large package wrapped in oil-cloth paper and sewed up tightly. Crawford had told him to throw this package away rather than let any one capture it; for, he said, it contained money which would send him to prison if found upon him.