Finally, all being settled, the music teacher consenting to the suggestion of the committee that I should be paid out of his funds one thousand dollars, then and there, and I keeping the rest of his money, we bade our friends good by, and started on our way to Pittsburg. I had no trouble with the teacher on my way to Cincinnati (it was given out, by the by, that he was going to study medicine with "Dr. Hudson"); but when we arrived in Cincinnati I took him aside, told him he was my prisoner, and that I would give him a disguise, so that he need not be subject to shame in case we encountered, on our way, anybody he might know; but that he must submit to be manacled in travelling with me farther, for I feared he would escape. He consented to this.
I started with him from Cincinnati to Pittsburg, and arriving there, placed him in charge of parties at the hotel where I stopped. He wanted to write some letters, he said, and I let him do so. One of them was to the lady he had left behind, Mr. Perkins's niece. The letters could not go till the morning's mail, and I could not, of course, let those to others than the young lady go without reading them myself, for they might mean mischief. Intending to take proper legal proceedings the next day, I had him placed in a small room leading out from my sleeping-room, and without a door except that into my room, and with no avenue for light, save a small window at the top, divested him of his clothes, which I put back of my bed, and caused my door to be guarded outside all night. I suppose I slept with unusual soundness, for I heard not the slightest noise from his room. On awaking in the morning I called to him. There was no answer; and I jumped out of bed, and went into his room, only to find him hanging, cold and dead, from a clothes peg in the side of the wall in the room! He had somehow managed to strip a piece from a sheet without awakening me, rolled it into a small rope, and hung himself by this peg. He proved himself a young man of spirit in his last act; for his legs were bent up to keep his feet from the floor—the rope being too long, or having stretched evidently.
Such was the end of the music teacher; and not the least interesting fact touching him was, that he was from one of the first New England families, well educated, expelled college in his second year for some "romantic conduct" which bordered on crime, and was shunned by his high-toned Puritanic relations,—mercilessly treated, in short,—and to this fact, I conceive, may be attributed his downfall in part. Mercy and forgiveness, bestowed at the proper time, are among the best preventives of a course of crime once entered upon.
The music teacher's letters were never sent to their intended destinations. That to the young lady was very kindly, telling her that his love for her was an infatuation, from which he had broken away; that they were not suited to live together after all; that she would probably never hear from him again, for years at least (!), and that he hoped her every joy. I did not think it best to forward it to her. She married, in a year or two after his "desertion," to a fine man, so "Mr. Perkins," when I last saw him, told me, and was very happy, and still in blissful ignorance of the fate of the "heartless" but brilliant music teacher, and finally brave (?) suicide.
THE COOL-BLOODED GOLD ROBBER, AND THE WAY HE WAS TRACKED.
A SUDDEN CALL—GREAT CONSTERNATION AT THE —— BANK IN WALL STREET—TEN THOUSAND DOLLARS IN GOLD STOLEN—A HARD, INSOLUBLE CASE—"TRY," THE SOUL OF SUCCESS—BANKS COMPELLED TO GREATEST CAUTIOUSNESS—NO ESPRIT DE CORPS AMONG MONEY-CHANGERS—THE WAY I "CREATED" DETECTIVES—RAG-PICKERS MADE USEFUL ABOVE THEIR CALLING—AN UP-TOWN CARRIAGE HOUSE, AND ITS TREASURES—A LAUGHING COACHMAN—A PRESENT—COMPLICATED EVIDENCE UNRAVELLED—AN OLD OFFICE-WOMAN INVOLVED IN THE MYSTERY—A BIT OF FUN FURNISHES THE DESIRED "KEY"—"SMOUCHING," AND WHAT CAME OF IT—EXTENDING MY ACQUAINTANCESHIP—THE THIEF FOUND—A WALL STREET BROKER—STUDYING HIM—HIS CLERK WILED AWAY—GOOD USE OF THEATRE TICKETS—THE SCHEME OF IDENTIFICATION; A PLOT WITHIN A PLOT—THE BROKER WORSTED—HE STRUGGLES WITHIN HIMSELF; GROWS PALE—HOW HE EXECUTED THE ROBBERY—THE TERRIBLE "FORCE OF EXAMPLE" SOMETIMES—THE THIEF BECOMES A MEMBER OF THE COMMON COUNCIL—A SALUTARY WARNING TO OTHER THIEVES.
"Sir," can you come right down at once to the —— Bank?" (It was and is in Wall Street.) "Mr. —— (the president) wants to see you if possible," exclaimed a messenger, one day, less than ten years ago, as he bolted into my office in great haste; and this was the opening to me of a case in which I did, perhaps, more hard work than I ever performed in working out any other case.