The next day she seemed as pleasant as usual, and planned her own future course, which consisted in opening a massage establishment in a London hotel, Hatch to help her in conducting the enterprise.
About the middle of February I sent to her, from Fort Worth, $1,750, which, when deducted from my previous indebtedness due her, left me still considerably in her debt. This was secured by the Wilmette property, the title to which it was agreed she should hold until all was paid. I left Miss Williams in Detroit, apparently well pleased with her business arrangements, and at least passably satisfied that the many other matters between us had been settled.
Early in January, 1894, I sent Pitezel to Fort Worth, instructing him to sell the real estate there which previously had been conveyed to Benton T. Lyman, whom Pitezel was to personate, it not being safe for him to act in his own name on account of his recent trouble in Terre Haute, Ind. He did not succeed in readily finding a purchaser, and later in the same month, having been married in the meantime, I joined him there to aid him in his work. I had given Pitezel careful instructions as to his conduct while away, but I found upon reaching Fort Worth that he had not been governed by them. My first duty was to remove him from the boarding place he had chosen to one in a more respectable quarter, but the mischief had already been accomplished, and he was known by that time throughout the town as a liberal, free and easy drinking man, who, it was understood, had considerable property.
A party owning property adjoining that which we wished to sell had need of a portion of ours, but would not buy, depending upon renting it at a very small figure, as he had been doing heretofore. In order to force him to buy I directed Pitezel to withdraw his offer, and remain wholly away from him, quietly survey our lot, and proceed to excavate a portion of it, having it understood that he was about to erect a large building, covering all of the ground. Our neighbor was fully as crafty as ourselves, and not until we had caused elaborate drawings to be prepared by an architect, and some foundation laid encroaching upon the portion he needed, did he conclude to buy, and at a figure about twice what it was worth. With a portion of this money, the old encumbrance of $1,700, that had existed against the property, was paid. Then having had some tempting offers from prospective tenants, a larger loan was made and the building later nearly completed.
While the building was in progress there came to us a forlorn looking object, begging for work, and out of charity we gave him some light labor to do. He grew stronger as soon as he procured food. Later he confided to me that he had recently been released from serving a ten-year term in a Southern prison.
I had at first called him “Mascot,” which name clung to him thereafter, though I think his real name was Caldwell.
Early in March Pitezel came to me one morning to say that the day before while drunk he had been induced by some of the disreputable associates he had formed at his former boarding place to marry a woman of doubtful character, an adventuress some said, and that as soon as he became sober had come to me. He threatened to shoot both the woman and himself. I had him watched carefully for a few days, until I had reasoned him out of this idea. A little later I sent him home to his family in Chicago. He had in the meantime lived with this woman, and they were known as Mr. and Mrs. Lyman.
Upon reaching Chicago he did some work there, and in St. Louis where he afterwards went. He finally met me about May 1st, at Denver, where I had gone to prepare papers with which to secure a loan of $16,000 upon this Fort Worth building. I needing his signature to the papers, inasmuch as the property was (and still is) in his fictitious name, Lyman, upon meeting him in Denver, I wished to proceed at once to the Court House to have the necessary papers acknowledged, but he told me he had, while away, devised a plan whereby he could not only gain $10,000, but at the same time forever do away with any fear of prosecution or trouble in consequence of his marriage in Fort Worth—a matter which had perpetually worried him.
I had times without number listened to his visionary schemes for obtaining vast wealth upon a day’s notice, usually in connection with some new patent, until such matters had become a joke between us.
So I said to him, “Well, Col. Sellers, what is it now?” He replied that it was one of my own inventions, and if I would go to the hotel with him, he would tell me of it. He seemed so much in earnest that I, although in a great hurry, went with him.