CHAPTER XII.
AT THE TORONTO END OF THE CONSPIRACY—INVESTIGATING LONG'S CIRCUMSTANTIAL STORIES, AND HIS INTERVIEWS WITH DR. CRONIN—A CHICAGO FUGITIVE CONCERNED—HIS SUSPICIOUS MOVEMENTS—A CHAPTER OF STARTLING COINCIDENTS—LONG ON THE RACK—MAKES DAMAGING ADMISSIONS AND BREAKS DOWN—THE OBJECT TO DISTRACT ATTENTION FROM THE SCENE OF THE CRIME—ANOTHER CONFESSION FROM WOODRUFF.
With the recovery of the body of the murdered physician, and the developments that followed in such rapid succession, attention was attracted anew to the reports that had emanated from Toronto during the week following the disappearance. The circumstantial stories and interviews that had been scattered broadcast from that city over the signature of Charles Long, the ex-Chicago reporter, not only had a tendency to give the case an international aspect, but also to confirm the suspicions of the dead man's friends, that he had fallen a victim to a conspiracy wide in its ramifications, and planned, moreover, by a master mind. The dispatches were false, for the finding of Cronin's body in the Lake View catch-basin admitted of no possible argument to the contrary. It was equally certain that it could not have been a case of mistaken identity—not merely because Long's acquaintance with Dr. Cronin had been of a nature to render a mistake of that kind improbable, but because the detailed character of their conversation, as reported by Long, had been such that Cronin's part in it could not have been taken by any but Cronin himself, or some one of a few men familiar with the inner workings of the Clan-na-Gael or United Brotherhood. For example, a week after the disappearance, and before the finding of the body, Long had concocted in Toronto the story of the troubles in the Clan-na-Gael, with Cronin's charge that nearly $100,000 of its funds had been misappropriated, while papers elsewhere were still confusing the organization with the Irish Land League and its Detroit treasurer. "No one not a member of the Clan-na-Gael could have gotten up these interviews," Irishmen had said; and they were right. To the general public also, unacquainted with these facts, it seemed incredible that a presumably reputable journalist, with an utter absence of malicious motive, would, of his own free will, and simply for the advantage of the small pecuniary recompense that his labors might bring, so deceive and mislead the numerous and prominent newspapers to which his dispatches were addressed. It was a prostitution of the liberty and license of a correspondent such, perhaps, as had never been parallelled in the newspaper history of the country, while, moreover, it was of a character calculated to wreck, for all time, the journalistic reputation of the man most directly concerned.
What, then, were Long's motives in giving currency to these dispatches? Whose was the guiding hand that induced him to take so great a risk? The Chicago Tribune—one of the papers that had been victimized—took it upon itself to answer these questions. A member of its staff was dispatched to Toronto, with instructions to sift the matter to the bottom. He was fully equal to the task, and within a few hours of his arrival in the city, his investigations had brought to light a startling array of facts.
STARKEY'S SUSPICIOUS MOVEMENTS.
Among the American residents of Toronto at this time was one William J. Starkey. Up to a year before he had been a member of the bar in Chicago. He had been compelled, however, to flee to the hospitable shores of the Dominion and join the army of exiled forgers, embezzlers and others—who preferred the free air of the Dominion to the confined quarters of an American prison—by reason of the discovery of an attempt he had made to bribe a juror in a case in which a street railroad company with which he was identified was the defendant. Starkey knew Cronin well. He had learned his history by acting as chief attorney in the bogus case that had been brought against the physician before a Chicago justice for the express purpose of cross-examining Cronin regarding his past life. From that time on he had been bound, body and soul, as a result of certain transactions, to a prominent Irish-American of Chicago, who was one of the promoters of the case in question. It was developed that for months before the murder, and also afterward, he had been in communication with acknowledged enemies of Dr. Cronin. It was likewise discovered that he had left Toronto on Sunday, May 5th, the day after Cronin's disappearance, without leaving word with anyone, unless in secret, as to his destination. He took train No. 5, at 12:20 p. m., on the Great Western division of the Grand Trunk, which made connection at Hamilton with New York and Detroit, as well as the lake steamers. He reappeared Friday, May 10th, and this was the day that Long's first dispatch, to the effect that Cronin was in Toronto, was sent out. After remaining over until the following Saturday, when the second and detailed interview was sent out, he disappeared again. The day following the finding of the murdered man's body, cipher telegrams passed between Starkey, at 135 Fourth avenue, New York, and D. K. Mason, his business agent, in Toronto, and who, by the way, was an exile in Canada from the warehouse receipt law of Louisville, Kentucky. While in New York, as will appear hereafter, Starkey was seen in company with several well-known opponents of the physician.
A CHAPTER OF COINCIDENCES.
What was the connection between Starkey and Long in the fictitious telegrams sent out from Toronto announcing that Cronin was in that city. This was the first question to be solved. Inquiry through the ordinary sources of information failed to throw any light on the matter. Starkey was not known to the Toronto detectives or its police officers. None of the local members of the press, save one, had come in contact with him. A few hotel clerks knew him by sight, but even these walking directories, who are generally supposed to have a knowledge of everything under the sun at their fingers' ends, could not tell his place of abode. A few knew him under the alias of Hardy, and that was the extent of their information. Several correspondents, who, upon request from papers in New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, and other cities, had inquired into his relations with Long, reported that the two were not on friendly terms. This information, however, came to them from Long himself, who referred all inquirers to the Toronto Empire of February 21, in which issue, he claimed, he had "written up" and "roasted" the Chicago fugitive. Right here was a coincidence of a startling nature. It was on that date that the furniture found in the blood-stained cottage had been purchased.