Brakeman Schwartz, the only man on the train who had not yet been questioned, "deadheaded" his way, in railway parlance, back from Davenport the following night on conductor Danforth's train, and reported to Mr. Pinkerton the next morning. He was a tall, fine-looking young fellow, about twenty-seven, with thin lips and a face that showed determination. He was rather dapper in dress, and kept on his gloves during the conversation. Mr. Pinkerton received him pleasantly, and, after they had been smoking and chatting for an hour or so, he suggested to Schwartz that he would be more comfortable with his gloves off. Schwartz accordingly removed them, and revealed red marks on the backs of his hands, such as might have been made by finger-nails digging into them.
"How did you hurt your hands, Schwartz?" asked Mr. Pinkerton.
"Oh, I did that handling baggage night before last," explained Schwartz; and then he related incidentally that as he was on his way back to Chicago, the conductor of the train, conductor Danforth, had discovered a valise left by somebody in one of the toilet-rooms. Later in the day Mr. Pinkerton summoned the conductor, who said that the valise was an old one, of no value; and, having no contents, he had thrown it out on an ash-pile. The only thing he had found in the valise was a piece of paper that attracted his attention because it was marked with red lines.
Examining this piece of paper carefully, Mr. Pinkerton saw that it had been torn from a money-draft, and at once thought of the package in the express messenger's safe. Now it is a remarkable fact that no human power can tear two pieces of paper in exactly the same way; the ragged fibers will only fit perfectly when the two original parts are brought together. There remained no doubt, when this test was made in the present case, that the piece of paper found on conductor Danforth's east-bound train had been torn from the draft in the express-car robbed the night before on the west-bound train. The edges fitted, the red lines corresponded, and unquestionably some one had carried that piece of paper from the one train to the other. In other words, some one connected with the crime of the previous night had ridden back to Chicago twenty-four hours later with conductor Danforth.
Mr. Pinkerton at once ordered a search made for the missing valise, and also an inquiry regarding the passengers who had ridden on conductor Danforth's train between Davenport and Chicago on the night following the murder. The valise was found on the ash-heap where the conductor had thrown it, and in the course of the next few days the detectives had located or accounted for all passengers on conductor Danforth's train, with the exception of one man who had ridden on a free pass. The conductor could only recall this man's features vaguely; and, while some of the passengers remembered him well enough, there was no clue to his name or identity. As it appeared that no other of the passengers could have been connected with the crime, efforts were redoubled to discover the holder of this pass.
II
So great was the public interest in the crime and the mystery surrounding it that three separate, well-organized investigations of it were undertaken. The Rock Island Railroad officials, with their detectives, conducted one; a Chicago newspaper, the "Daily News," with its detectives, another; and the Pinkertons, in the interest of the United States Express Company, a third.
Mr. Pinkerton, as we have seen, concluded that the crime had been committed by railway men. The railway officials were naturally disinclined to believe ill of their employees, and an incident occurred about this time which turned the investigation in an entirely new direction and made them the more disposed to discredit Mr. Pinkerton's theory. This was the receipt of a letter from a convict in the Michigan City penitentiary, named Plunkett, who wrote the Rock Island Railroad officials, saying that he could furnish them with important information.
Mr. St. John, the general manager of the road, went in person to the penitentiary to take Plunkett's statement, which was in effect that he knew the men who had committed the robbery and killed Nichols, and was willing to sell this information in exchange for a full pardon, which the railroad people could secure by using their influence. This they promised to do if his story proved true, and Plunkett then told them of a plot that had been worked out a year or so before, when he had been "grafting" with a "mob" of pickpockets at county fairs. There were with him at that time "Butch" McCoy, James Connors (known as "Yellowhammer"), and a man named "Jeff," whose surname he did not know. These three men, Plunkett said, had planned an express robbery on the Rock Island road, to be executed in precisely the same way, and at precisely the same point on the road, as in the case in question.
The story was plausible, and won Mr. St. John's belief. It won the belief, also, of Mr. Melville E. Stone of the "Daily News"; and forthwith the railway detectives, working with the newspaper detectives, were instructed to go ahead on new lines, regardless of trouble or expense. Their first endeavor was to capture "Butch" McCoy, the leader of the gang. "Butch" was a pickpocket, burglar, and all-around thief, whose operations kept him traveling all over the United States.