THE REPORT OF MILES
"This report relative to the case of the death of Arthur White covers the period of my work from the time of the trial of Henry Winters to date. The facts discovered before the trial were presented in the evidence and need not be re-stated.
"They pointed to Winters as the criminal, but I did not believe him guilty. If Winters was not guilty, theft was not the object for which the crime was committed, for all the money missing not traced to him was otherwise accounted for. This made it likely that the crime was committed by a higher order of criminal, some one who had a personal motive for wishing White out of the way. Such a man should be looked for among White's associates. Mr. Littell had taken this line in his defence, and it seemed sound. I was satisfied that the facts would not lead me to the criminal: that course I had tried, and it had failed. I therefore determined to try and find the criminal and trace him to the crime. The method, though not generally approved, is not so haphazard as it might seem to be, and I have tried it successfully before when only circumstantial evidence was available.
"White's closest associates were Van Bult, Littell, and Davis, and they had all been with him the night of his death. I therefore immediately put detectives on each of them and began my work on the case of Van Bult. I went to his rooms and interviewed his servant. Van Bult left his rooms about seven o'clock on the evening of the murder. His servant, who slept elsewhere, did not see him again till the following morning about half-past six, when he went again to the rooms and found Van Bult there and assisted him in his preparations for a journey, served his breakfast, and saw him off by the eight o'clock train from the New York Central Depot for Buffalo. He had been told by Van Bult the evening before of his intended trip to Buffalo, and had come early that morning by his order. He had not seen Van Bult again till the next succeeding evening, when he had met him at the depot, in obedience to a telegram sent from Buffalo in the name of Van Bult.
"Van Bult's actions on the night of the murder still remained to be accounted for, and I sought information of them elsewhere. The rooms adjoining Van Bult's are occupied by a gentleman named Dean, who is a friend of his. I interviewed Dean. He recalled the night of the murder and stated that on that night Van Bult had returned to his rooms about one o'clock. He recalled the hour because he had been up and Van Bult had come to his room and they had remained together talking for nearly an hour and afterwards he had heard Van Bult for some time moving about in his own rooms.
"In the meanwhile I had sent a man to Buffalo to trace his actions while there. He reported that Van Bult had arrived there on the afternoon after the murder, stopped at the Wilson House till the following morning, and had then taken a train for New York. While in Buffalo he remained most of the time in the hotel, but made a visit to a private insane asylum, of which his wife had for two years been an inmate.
"Van Bult's actions were thus accounted for fully and I was satisfied of his innocence.
"Next I took up the case of Littell. He parted from Mr. Dallas a little before one o'clock on the night of the murder in Madison Square and apparently continued up Fifth Avenue. He testified at the Coroner's inquest that he walked directly to his hotel, The Terrace, near the Park entrance. It was first important that I should determine about this fact. For that purpose I went to the hotel and interviewed the desk clerks. There are two of them who divide the night work, one relieving the other at 1.30 A.M. Littell, on that night, had not reached the hotel during the hours of the first clerk; he did come in about fifteen or twenty minutes after the second one had taken the desk; therefore he arrived about ten or fifteen minutes before two o'clock. There was no trouble in fixing the occasion with the witnesses I interviewed. Littell's association with so sensational a case had made all his actions of that night a matter to be remembered by those who had seen him. I had thus established the fact that nearly an hour had elapsed between the time Littell left Mr. Dallas and that at which he arrived at his hotel. It was altogether improbable under these circumstances that he had gone directly home as he said he had done, but this was still unimportant unless I could track him to the neighborhood of White's house. It was evident that I could not expect to actually locate him there, but I had another means available of establishing his probable presence on the scene if such were a fact. The hour that intervened between his parting with Mr. Dallas and his arrival at the hotel was too much time to have been consumed in a direct walk there, but it was insufficient to admit of his returning to White's house unless he later used some quicker means of reaching the hotel than by walking. In such event he must either have taken the elevated road or a cab. The former seemed the more probable and the easier to determine, so I tried it. I found that at about half-past one o'clock on the night of the murder, a man wearing a long light coat and a soft gray hat, such as Littell had on, took a north-bound train at the Eighteenth Street station. This I learned from the night-guard, whose attention had been especially directed to the passenger because of the necessity of changing a five-dollar bill to make the fare. By itself this was not sufficient to establish the identification but I had a further means at hand. If that man was Littell he must have gotten off at some station near his hotel. At the Fifty-eighth Street station on the same night about ten minutes later Littell got off a north-bound train. The night-guard at this station knew him and spoke to him, for he had been using the station almost daily for several years. I had thus located him at four points within an hour, that is Madison Square, a little before one o'clock; Eighteenth Street elevated station about half after one; Fifty-eighth Street, about ten minutes later, and at the hotel about a quarter before two. I then accounted for his movements in the following way: he had consumed about half an hour from the time he left Madison Square till the time he took the train at Eighteenth Street. Of this period, he was about five minutes returning to White's house; he was there about ten minutes; the remaining fifteen minutes were divided between a journey to Belle Stanton's and thence to the station.
"This all required action, but Littell is a man of quick action. Note that I allowed time for him to have gone to Stanton's. I did this because I have always believed that it was the murderer who left the ulster there.
"The man the night-officer saw leave White's house about a quarter after one o'clock was not White as he supposed, but the murderer wearing his ulster and cap as a disguise. Note again the hour, a quarter past one o'clock; the same at which my calculations place Littell there. There remained another point to be determined.
"If my theory was correct and Littell the man who left White's house, disguised in the ulster, and if he disposed of it at Stanton's house, some explanation had to be found of his means of access to the house. If he had such access it was most likely he secured it through Stanton, with whom he was acquainted.
"From her I learned that Littell probably possessed a key to the front door of the house where she lived; she told me that shortly before the murder Littell had taken her home from a supper somewhere and that she had given him her key to let her in and that he had failed to return it to her. With this key in his possession his means of access to the house is explained. With these facts brought out I had accomplished all I could expect to from the events of that night.
"I could not actually fix the crime on any one because no one saw it committed,—but I had demonstrated:
"1st. That Littell had testified falsely as to his movements on that night.
"2d. That he had been in the neighborhood of the scene of the crime and the place where the ulster was found, because he must have passed that way to get from Madison Square to the corner of Sixth Avenue and Eighteenth Street.
"3d. That he occupied over half an hour in covering the distance, which is but six blocks, and therefore must have delayed in some way.
"There are also many peculiar circumstances in the case all explainable on the theory of Littell's guilt:
"1st. The criminal secured admission to White's rooms, although the doors were generally locked. Littell was there that night and had opportunity to fix the catches so as to permit of the doors being opened from the outside.
"2d. If White did not leave the ulster at Belle Stanton's house the criminal did, and his object in so doing was plainly to convey the impression that White had done so, and such purpose suggests a man intimate with White and having knowledge of his personal affairs.
"3d. If White did not wear the ulster and the cap out that night the criminal did, but the cap was back in White's room in the morning. The criminal therefore must have found some opportunity of returning the cap. Littell was on the scene and by the divan where the cap was found before it was discovered the following morning.
"A strong circumstantial case was thus made out against Littell, but the necessary motive was still lacking.
"For this motive in the case of a man like Littell, it was necessary to look into White's life and actions, for the motive would not be of an ordinary kind. The evidence had disclosed the fact that White had some trouble of some kind and that another was involved in it; it had also disclosed the fact that White felt under some great obligation to his cousin Winters and the language used in the will, that he left his estate to Winters as 'the reparation of a wrong,' pointed to the disposition of his uncle's estate as the possible explanation of it all. It was extraordinary under any circumstances that a father should leave practically all of a large fortune to a nephew and cut off his only child with almost nothing. I therefore investigated the circumstances under which the will of Winters, Sr., was made. The will was witnessed by the butler and a trained nurse who was in the house at the time, and was made on the testator's death-bed. I found the butler and the nurse and from them learned the following facts:
"On the morning of his death the testator in the presence of the nurse told White he meant to leave him a bequest of ten thousand dollars and asked him to go for his lawyers, who were Dickson & Brown. White departed on the errand and returned in about an hour with Littell.
"The butler let them in and knew the latter.
"The nurse heard the testator ask White why he had not brought his lawyers, to which White replied that they were both out of town. The testator then instructed Littell as to the provisions of the will; his voice was very weak and the nurse could not distinguish what they were. Littell then left the room with White, and they went to the library, where the butler provided them with materials for drawing the will. They returned to the room of the testator and Littell read the will to him. The nurse was standing in the embrasure of a window near the bed and heard the will read. She remembered distinctly that as read by Littell it gave to White the ten thousand dollars the testator had promised. The testator did not read the will himself, he was not able to do so. The will was thereupon duly executed by the testator and the witnesses, and the former directed that it be given into the custody of Dickson & Brown, who, as afterwards appeared, were named as executors. The testator died that afternoon. I did not in any way suggest anything to the nurse about the provisions of the will,—merely asked her if she remembered them and she volunteered the statement about the bequest of ten thousand to White. She did not even know that the will actually gave to him a hundred thousand, for she had never given it further thought or heard of it again. I visited the law firm of Dickson & Brown, and from them learned that after the death of the testator but on the same day White had delivered the will to them and also that they were neither of them out of town on that day.
"Six months after the death of the testator they distributed the estate. White received from them his bequest of one hundred thousand dollars and deposited it in the bank as I on inquiry learned; within a week he withdrew fifty thousand dollars and the succeeding day Littell deposited that amount in a bank in Jersey City, subsequently withdrawing it and depositing most of it—forty-odd thousand—in his own bank in this city. This latter fact I learned from his New York bankers and through them I was enabled to trace the deposit in the Jersey City bank, from which bank the transfer had been made direct.
"The witnesses necessary to substantiate the foregoing facts are all at hand and can be produced at any time.
"Respectfully submitted,
"C. Miles.
"New York, March —, 1883."