What made the case more difficult was the uncertainty as to the robber's personal appearance; for some of the passengers testified to one thing, and some to another. The black beard was a cause of confusion; only one witness besides Mr. Pollock remembered that the man wore such a beard. Mr. Pollock, however, was positive as to this particular, and it seemed as if he ought to know. It was also impossible to decide, from conflicting statements, whether the robber had a mustache or not, and whether it was dark or light in color. The fact is, the passengers had been so thoroughly frightened at the time of the assault that the credibility of their testimony was much to be questioned.
Mr. Pollock reported that for several weeks previous to the robbery he had suspected that he was being followed. He also reported that on the day of the robbery he had been in the shop of the largest pawnbroker in Omaha, and that while he was there two noted Western gamblers had entered the shop and been presented to him as possible customers. He had made a trade of some diamonds with one of the men, and, in the course of the negotiations, had shown his entire stock. While the trade was in progress a negro on the premises had noticed, lounging about the front of the shop, a man in a slouch-hat who suggested the robber. From these circumstances it was decided that the robbery might be the work of an organized gang, who had been waiting their opportunity for many days, and had selected one of their number to do the actual deed.
All his life it had been Mr. Pinkerton's business to study criminals and understand their natures. He knew that a crime like this one was much beyond the power of an ordinary criminal. Let a robber be ever so greedy of gold, reckless of human life, and indifferent to consequences, he would still think many times before declaring war to the death upon twelve men in a narrow car, on a swiftly moving train. This was surely no novice in crime, reasoned Mr. Pinkerton, but a man whose record would already show deeds of the greatest daring; a brave fellow, though a bad one. And even among the well-known experienced criminals there must be very few who were capable of this deed.
Mr. Pinkerton, therefore, set himself to studying the bureau's records and rogues' gallery to first pick out these few. Page after page of photographs was turned over, drawer after drawer of records was searched through, and at last a dozen or more men were decided upon as sufficiently preëminent to merit consideration in connection with the present case.
Photographs of these dozen or so were speedily struck off, and submitted by the detectives to all the men who had been in the smoking-car at the time of the robbery, to the conductor of the train and the trainmen, to other passengers, to farmers and others who might have seen the robber while making his escape, and to various people in Omaha. The result was startling. Conductor D. M. Ashmore, without hesitation, selected from the dozen or more portraits one as that of the robber. Mr. Shaw, the Omaha well-digger, who had sat just behind the robber, selected the same photograph, and was positive it pictured the man he had tried to talk to. Other passengers also picked out this photograph, as did various persons who had caught sight of the man as he escaped.
The portrait thus chosen by common accord was that of Frank Bruce, one of the most desperate burglars of the younger generation in the country, and it seemed only necessary now to find Bruce, to have the problem solved. Many days were spent, and hundreds of dollars, in searching for him. Dozens of cities were visited, and every conceivable effort made to get on his track; but it was not until his pursuers were almost weary of the chase that he was finally discovered living quietly in Chicago, on Cottage Grove Avenue, near Thirty-sixth Street, where he was operating with another high-class burglar, "Billy" Boyce.
Requisition papers were at once procured from the governor of Iowa on the governor of Illinois, and men were sent to take Bruce into custody, when the "shadows" reported that he and Boyce had left for Milwaukee, where, of course, the requisition papers were valueless. Fortunately, that same night they attempted a burglary in Milwaukee, for which they were arrested and held for ninety days. This gave the Chicago detectives abundant time to identify Bruce as the missing robber.
Mr. Pinkerton himself went at once to Milwaukee, saw Bruce in the jail, heard his story, verified its essential facts, and within two days, to his own complete disappointment, and in spite of himself, had proved a complete alibi for Bruce. To satisfy himself in this connection, Mr. Pinkerton brought conductor Ashmore and Mr. Shaw to Milwaukee, and pointed Bruce out to them; and, after looking carefully at him, both men declared they had made a mistake in choosing his portrait, and that Bruce was not the robber.
With Bruce clear, the detectives were again without a suspect, and almost without a clue. Just here, however, Mr. Pinkerton recalled that on a trip to the West, some three years previous, to investigate the case of a man arrested at Reno, Nevada, on a charge of "holding up" a faro-bank, and while stopping over in Salt Lake City, Utah, he had run across some sporting men in that city with whom he was well acquainted, and on his telling them where he was going and what his business was, one of them, whom Mr. Pinkerton had known for years, had said: "Why, the man at Reno is innocent. The men who committed that robbery are in this city. One of them is a smooth-faced boy, about twenty years of age, and the other is a heavy-set, dark-complexioned fellow, with a dark mustache. They are the intimate friends and companions of Jack Denton, the well-known gambler of Salt Lake; and only a short time ago, at Salt Lake, they entered a house one night, going in through a rear door, and compelled two ladies, who were just returned from a ball, to give up a large amount of diamonds."
Though not interested in this particular robbery, Mr. Pinkerton had mentally jotted down the intimacy of Jack Denton with this class of people; and he recalled it now in connection with the fact that Jack Denton was one of the two gamblers to whom Pollock had exposed his diamonds at the pawnshop in Omaha. He at once decided to secure definite information in regard to the boy who had been with Denton at Salt Lake three years earlier. Proceeding immediately to Salt Lake City, and making cautious inquiries, he learned that the boy in question, since he first heard of him, had been arrested and convicted of robbery at Ogden, Utah, and sentenced to one year's term in the penitentiary. An investigation at the penitentiary disclosed that the young man had given the name of James Burke, had served out his sentence under that name, and had been released about one month previous to the Pollock robbery.