“I feel safe,” said the Commissioner solemnly, “in paroling you on your own responsibility, to appear again if wanted.”
That may have been a heavier responsibility than had been put on his shoulders in years. But he rose to it. Two days later a decently dressed, clean shaven, elderly gentleman came in and asked for the Commissioner. He was “all dolled up,” in police parlance, and looked like a retired small shopkeeper. The staff did not recognize him for a moment. But it was “King Dodo,” doing his best to fill the part of a minor figure in the great taxicab mystery. There being nothing for him to do, he dropped back into private life.
On his Sunday visit to Boston Inspector Hughes talked with Chief Inspector Watts of that city, learned where Kinsman lived, and that his family was a respectable one; found a bright patrolman named Dorsey who knew Kinsman, and gave more information about his personal appearance, habits and career as a boxer, desertion from the Navy, and so forth, and made arrangements to have the Kinsman home watched so that news of his return would be secured immediately. It was clear that Kinsman had not returned to Boston.
Discovery of Kinsman’s Trail
As soon as Inspector Hughes returned from Boston, on Monday morning, the Commissioner took steps to question the crews of every train that had left New York since one p. m. on the day of the robbery.
Just the other afternoon the writer sat with a squad of young detectives at Police Headquarters and heard a talk on methods given by Dougherty, and one point clearly brought out was the usefulness to the thief-catcher of routine information.
He began by relating an amusing incident. Some days before a detective had turned up at headquarters for instruction, and naïvely asked the Commissioner to lend him a pencil and a slip of paper, so he could make some notes. Another detective was found who had only a hazy idea of the location of New York’s telephone exchanges. Taking these as his text, the Commissioner explained the value to every police officer of what might be called “time-table” information—knowing the depots and ferries, what roads run out of them, the cities reached, the number and character of trains, the general methods of dispatching trains, and so forth. The Commissioner himself is as well informed on such matters as any railroad man, and thoroughly familiar with routine methods in many other lines of work and business. How such knowledge can be employed was shown by the next move in the taxicab case.
Detectives were sent to every railroad terminal to secure lists of trains, learn the names of the crews, and make out schedules of the time when each crew would be back in the city. Then each man was found and carefully questioned. His memory could be helped by pictures of Kinsman and Annie, and by intimate details of personal appearance and manner.
The search bore fruit, though it took time.
On Wednesday Detective Watson, who was a railroad engineer before he joined the police, found that Train No. 13 on the New York Central had taken on three passengers answering the descriptions on the afternoon of the robbery. They had boarded the train at Peekskill, the town to which, as it was subsequently learned, they had ridden in a taxicab. The conductor’s attention had been drawn to Annie by her smoking a cigarette on the sly in the toilet of the day coach. He remembered her high cheek bones, and the black velvet hat with its little roses, and the athletic build of her men companions, who both appeared to be boxers. It was also established that the trio had gone to Albany, for one of the trainmen distinctly remembered helping Annie down at that station.