ONE LOVELY JUNE MORNING INTO PLYMOUTH HARBOR WE SAIL.
Ten days after the events recorded in the last chapter I sailed once more into Havana. This time a prisoner. Two days after my capture, by order of the Captain-General of Cuba, I was put on board the little gunboat Santa Rita, a wretched little tub that steamed four miles an hour and took eight days going from Puerto Novo on the south to Havana.
I was taken by a guard of soldiers, not to the police barracks, but to the common prison, where an entire corridor was cleared of its inmates to make room for me and my guards. Pinkerton was the first man to call. He, of course, was delighted to see me. While giving me credit for my escape, he told me he did not purpose to have me leave him again, and having permission from the authorities, he or some of his men intended to keep me company night and day. Of course I respected him for his honest determination to do his duty. He really was an altogether good fellow, and showed me all possible courtesy and consideration; in fact, on his first visit he brought me a letter from my wife, along with a box of cigars and a bottle of wine on his own account.
One of his men, by the name of Perry, used to sleep in my little room with me, and every morning Mr. P. would relieve him, remaining until dinner time. We had many long talks on all sorts of subjects, and he gave me many inside histories of famous criminal cases which he had been engaged in. In time we became very good friends.
He also gave me full particulars of the really extraordinary way in which he discovered my presence in the West Indies and the reason which led him to conclude that F.A. Warren and I were one. William Pinkerton ordered him to look up the New York end of the business and see if he could discover the identity of Warren. He was one of the many working on the case, but to him belongs the credit of establishing my identity, also of locating my whereabouts and of effecting my arrest.
When ordered on the case he knew no more about me or the forgery than what he read in the newspapers. He soon made up his mind that I was an American, and that I was a resident either of New York or Chicago. This because I was so young and evidently had a good knowledge of finance and financial matters. So he determined to seek for a clue to F.A. Warren in Wall street. He procured a list of the names of every banker and broker in New York, and then spent some time in interviewing them, his one question being "Now, who is he?" With their assistance he soon made out a list of nearly twenty possible Warrens, and speedily narrowed it down to four, my name being one of the four. He soon located my home, and began making cautious inquiries on the spot from neighbors and others. He discovered that I was believed to be in Europe, and had been there before, and that when I last returned I had paid off debts and apparently had plenty of money. He had become convinced of my identity, but if I were Warren—where was I?
Without arousing suspicion, he heard from some of my acquaintances a saying of mine that whenever I had a bank account, I should live in the tropics. So he reported to his superiors that in his opinion F.A. Warren and I were one, and he believed that, if in America at all, I might be found at some fashionable resort in Florida.
He concluded to go to Florida, and visit the various resorts. Upon his arrival at St. Augustine, he sent letters to several of the West India islands, including Martinique, Jamaica and Cuba, inquiring for the names and descriptions of all wealthy young Americans lately arrived. One letter he sent to Dr. C.L. Houscomb, then the leading American doctor in Havana, who, replying to his inquiry, gave my name among others. After my arrest Dr. Houscomb told me how grieved he was to have betrayed me, but that he thought that Pinkerton was a newspaper man, and wanted the information as a matter of news.
With this letter in his hand, Pinkerton found a plain path before him. To go ahead of my story a little, I will say here that eventually the bank authorities made him a considerable present in cash, along with their congratulations over his clever detective work. Capt. John Curtin is to-day well and hearty, a prosperous man and very generally respected by the citizens of San Francisco, where he lives.
About ten days after my arrival he brought me a New York Herald containing these dispatches: