The Great Harry Thaw Case; Or, A Woman's Sacrifice

by Benjamin H. Atwell

“‘But I said that I would go; that I had no other means of livelihood.’ You remember they met a couple of days afterward and he asked her to tell him of the stories that had been told about him. ‘I told him then,’ she said, ‘all they had said about him and that he was addicted to morphine and had many other vices, and he said he could easily understand that they had made a fool of me. He urged investigation.’

“She could find nothing in the stories. ‘I never lie,’ Thaw told her. ‘You never told me a lie in your life,’ she said. And while she was investigating these stories spread by Abraham Hummel for the protection of Stanford White, he told her all these things had been disseminated by Stanford White and his friend.

“When she discovered that these awful stories were untrue—learned that they had been disseminated by Stanford White and Abe Hummel for the purpose of separating her from the man who loved her and whom she loved—hope began once more to dawn upon him.

“The hour of reconciliation was at hand. The barriers which had been set up between them were one by one falling to ruin and the two persons whom God and nature had intended to be united were drawing nearer to each other.

“That night in December, 1903—that night might have been, gentlemen, the beginning of another tragic chapter in the life of this poor child—the night when Stanford White in the lofty room in the tower where he had spread a banquet in celebration of the birthday of his child victim—the night in which he was to lure her once again if possible, and bring her under his influence—the night in which, amid the glare of the lights and the splendor of the treasures he had planned to renew his power over the child victim.

“And the little girl, who had resisted the pleadings of rescuing her came to her and snatched her from the clutches of Stanford White—snatched her from the snares set for her—from the man whose very existence had been a menace to her and the curse of his whole life.

“He folded her in his arms; he snatched her away from the old man. And that night began another series of events. It was on that night that Stanford White, baffled, his plans disconcerted, went about that theater in Madison Square hunting for his victim, and, finding her not, pistol in hand and with impotent rage in his heart, threatened to shoot the man who had baffled his schemes.

“And that night Harry Thaw, as he walked the streets of New York, found that his footsteps were being dogged by hired malefactors in the pay of Stanford White, and he learned in a few days of the threat of Stanford White and his hirelings. From that moment the dread of his life being taken away by this man added a grim specter to the one that already had been haunting him.

“And he from that time, as she relates to you, began to think himself persecuted by Stanford White. The scurrilous stories circulated in newspapers and elsewhere he attributed to him. He expressed apprehension of personal violence and impressed upon her mind that if he died she was to have his death investigated and to spare no pains.

“He told her he would probably be set upon in New York by some one in the employ of Stanford White. He said the Monk Eastman gang had been hired to kill him and the fear of death constantly haunted him.