“Yes,” said Schnaubelt, “a devil of a time.”
Intending to further draw him out, the employer continued:
“You Anarchists didn’t half do your job, though. Why didn’t you use more bombs?”
“Because,” he answered, “they didn’t get up with them in time.”
That evening Rosbeck told this story to a friend, who informed the detective, and the arrest was made Thursday morning. Wednesday Schnaubelt had a heavy beard and moustache. At the time of his arrest Thursday he had no beard and his moustache had been trimmed close to his lip. After his release by the police Schnaubelt returned to the shop and resumed work, but that Thursday night he informed Rosbeck that he might not return the next day. He said that he feared the detectives might search his house and then arrest him. He said Mrs. Schwab was his sister, and he was often at her house. If they searched Schwab’s house it might lead to his (Schnaubelt’s) arrest. He has not been seen since that Thursday night. His tools and clothes remained in the shop, as also did his unpaid wages. Rosbeck thought Lambrecht had knowledge of his friend’s whereabouts. About the middle of May Lambrecht informed Rosbeck that Schnaubelt had instructed him to draw his salary and take possession of his clothes.
In his evidence before the jury M. M. Thompson declared that he saw either Spies or Schwab—and he felt almost certain it was the latter—hand Schnaubelt the bomb while the trio were about fifteen feet from the wagon. Schnaubelt, he said, was in waiting for them when they came from Halsted street. Krendl testified that in his opinion Schnaubelt could not have been handed the bomb at the place designated, because he saw him go to Halsted street with the speakers, and return. He admitted, however, that Schnaubelt had something in his outside pocket when near the wagon.
Schnaubelt, when arrested by Detective Palmer, admitted to Lieutenant Shea that he was with Schwab that Tuesday night, but insisted that he left the wagon on which they were standing when it commenced to rain.
Various rumors as to Schnaubelt’s whereabouts were received. A letter, said to be in the fugitive’s handwriting, was received by the police some weeks after the riot, from Portland, Oregon. The writer poked fun at the chief and said that the fact that he was so far away was due to the stupidity of the detective force and Lieut. Shea’s gullibility.
Subsequently the body of a man was found in the canal at Erie, Pa., which in features and in the clothes upon it corresponded to the description of Schnaubelt, and it was thought he had left Chicago as a stowaway in a vessel and had been drowned in trying to get ashore at Erie at night. The authorities, however, became convinced that this was not Schnaubelt. Some of the police have always believed that Schnaubelt left the city with Parsons the night after the bomb-throwing, and after remaining in hiding with the latter near Omaha until Parsons decided to appear and stand trial, continued his flight South or West. September 15, 1886, H. F. Schaffer, a conductor on the Mexican Central Railroad, on his way to his home in Ohio, called on Chief of Police Ebersold and informed him that from a picture of Schnaubelt in the Police News, he thought he had identified the fugitive in the person of a jeweler in the City of Mexico, who spoke English with a German accent. Mr. Schaffer and a companion visited the jeweler frequently and endeavored to draw him out upon the subject of the Haymarket massacre, but the suspected person would not talk about the Anarchists. It is understood the police took measures to investigate this supposed clue.
