On Sunday morning Mrs. Pitezel came to Detroit, and I did not think it wise to tell her positively that she was to settle there until I should have heard again from both St. Louis and Chicago. During the interval, I had her board at a hotel; nor did I think it wise to tell her the other children were in the city, until I knew that no further move was to be made, lest she not understanding the danger of arrest—if such danger I should find still existing—she would be unwilling to go elsewhere, unless she supposed the children and her husband, or both, had already gone.
I had brought with me a package of papers from Chicago, which I did not care to carry in my own trunks, and it was arranged to conceal them in the house lately rented in Detroit. I took them there in company with Hatch, and proceeded to place them above the ceiling of the upper story, when he suggested that in case of fire they would be lost, and volunteered to prepare a place next day in the basement for their safe-keeping. And this he did by first buying a new shovel, and then making a small excavation in the earth, not using this shovel, as it afterward appeared, but another found in the basement.
Upon the morning of October 17th I received startling intelligence from both St. Louis and Chicago, and, upon holding a consultation, it was with reluctance that we decided to leave Detroit and go either to Canada or Europe; for I felt that any move, without regard to expenses, was better than to have Mrs. Pitezel arrested and myself as well. This day was a very busy one. Before Mrs. Pitezel left St. Louis I had bought a large trunk, which I loaned to her to carry part of her personal effects to her new house. When it was decided to make a move into other lands, I arranged with Hatch that, while I was busy about other matters, he should take the trunk to his room and repack it, and exclude a multitude of worthless articles, after having told Mrs. Pitezel that this was to be done.
It also became necessary to go to a city called Ypsilanti upon that same day to get a package of valuable papers I had ordered forwarded to me there, and, being so busy about other matters, I requested Hatch to make the trip for me. He hesitated considerably about doing it, saying he must see to repacking this trunk. I told him that I could better take the time to do this than to go to Ypsilanti. He replied that I could not well take it to his room, as I was not known to the people of whom he rented. I told him I would arrange it otherwise, and he then started for Ypsilanti.
At about one o’clock I found an expressman, and accompanying him to a feed store near by bought a flour barrel with the address of a party in Hartford, Conn., upon one end of it. We then drove to Mrs. Pitezel’s hotel and had the trunk taken to the depot. There, upon the platform, I took such worthless articles as Mrs. Pitezel had placed in a separate part of the trunk and put them in the barrel, and leaving the trunk at the depot had the expressman take the barrel to either the United States or American Express Company’s office, and ship it to Hartford, Conn. At about 2 p. m. I went to a livery stable on —— street, and hiring a horse and buggy drove to the house that had been rented and took the two girls with me for a drive. I entered the house and procured the papers I had previously left there. I also left a note instructing Hatch to the effect that if he came there from Ypsilanti with the other papers, not to bury them. I then drove to Hatch’s room and left a small note, and this accounts for the note being later found in the house where I directed the authorities to search.
Earlier in the same day Hatch and I visited several large stores, and at one obtained a $500 and two $200 bills, which, together with other small bills, making in all $1,000, which sum he took to Miss Williams to pay upon what was due her on the Fort Worth transaction. Before leaving Detroit, Hatch brought to the depot the new shovel wrapped in a paper, and wished to put it in the trunk, but upon my remarking that it seemed more useless than things I had just taken out to make more room, he said he had paid for it and did not care to throw it away.
The next morning my wife and I left Detroit for Toronto at 10 o’clock. Mrs. Pitezel and the two children started two hours later. The next morning Hatch took the two girls, Alice and Nellie, to the train and they made the journey to the same city alone twenty-four hours later, and over the same road I had come, while Hatch came to Toronto by the way of Buffalo, where he stopped to see Miss Williams.
I reached Toronto early Thursday evening, October 18th, and went at once to the Walker House. After taking dinner, I went to the station and met Mrs. Pitezel, taking her to a hotel near by, and returned to the Walker House for the night. Next morning we breakfasted at about 8.30. I visited Mrs. Pitezel at her hotel about a half hour, and then with my wife visited several fur stores, purchasing a fur cape and returned with her to the Walker House for the mid-day meal. Immediately thereafter we went for a long country drive, and did not return until about 6 p. m. I ate dinner and then, as upon the preceding evening, went to the station. This time I met the two girls, Alice and Nellie, with whom Hatch had started from Detroit that morning, as stated.
NELLIE PITEZEL