A citizen of New York called on me and stated that recently, just as the night train was starting from the depot in Canal Street, he handed this same baggage-master a letter containing money, which he asked him to take charge of, not having time to carry it to the post-office. He at first declined, on the ground that the conveyance of letters out of the mail was illegal, but finally proposed to receive it, and, if possible, to get it into the proper bag through one of the small openings between the staples. This was the last that was ever seen of the letter by the sender or his correspondent. The former having called on the baggage-master, had been told that, the letter was crowded into the right mail-bag, as promised; but the statement was not believed, and the circumstance happening in the midst of other troubles on the same line, seemed to constitute an important step in the progress of discovering the author of all this mischief.
A very shrewd acquaintance of the man of trunks, in Boston, was confidentially employed to ascertain something of his habits, and the state of his finances. After a fair and faithful trial, he reported to me, that the aforesaid superintendent of baggage was "as steady as a model deacon, and as poor as a country editor within fifty miles by railroad, of a large city." And that "although always ready, like many other clever fellows, to partake of the hospitality of his friends when strongly urged, yet you might as well try to get a smile out of a dead man without the use of a galvanic battery, as to induce him to spend a dollar unnecessarily."
The justice of this report was speedily confirmed, and the problem for the thousandth time satisfactorily worked out, that suspicion never yet injured a really honest man, although seemingly well founded in the outset.
Connected with the mailing of one of the large money packages already described, were circumstances which made it necessary, as is often the fact in a series of robberies, to investigate it as an isolated case, unconnected with the theft of the other packages and letters, none of which would go into or pass through the office in which this one was deposited.
The statement of the cashier went to show that he took the package to the post-office himself, and handed it to a clerk who happened to be alone in the office, and but a short time before the mail left for New York. This was confirmed by the clerk's own statement, and by his entry in a book kept for the registry of valuable letters and parcels. About the habits of this clerk, and his manner when examined, there was nothing which appeared in the least to implicate him. The cashier thought it out of the question that anything could be wrong there. The young clerk was a member of his sabbath-school class, from which he was never absent, and he believed him to be "all right."
And yet he had an excellent opportunity to have kept back the package, and the temptation would indeed have been a dangerous one to older and more strongly fortified persons than he was. I determined, therefore, to put him to the test of a direct charge of having purloined the package, which I lost no time in doing, intimating that a confession and restoration of the money was his first duty. But he met the charge fearlessly, and firmly asserted his innocence as to the important remittance in question. The faithful monitor within, however, would not let him rest there. Believing, probably, that I knew more about other transactions of his than the one I had accused him of, he addressed me as follows:—
"I mailed that bank package, and know that it left our office. What could I have done with so much money, if I had been bad enough to have taken it? And I was just had enough! I am willing to tell you all I have done, and will very gladly restore the ill-gotten funds, for they have made me miserable."
I will omit the details of this unexpected confession, but the first case owned was the $40 letter that had been handed to the through baggage-master, to be crammed into the locked mail-pouch, the failure of which letter, as has been already shown, had given so much force to suspicions against him!
By way of corroborating this part of his admissions, at my request, he described the address of the letter, the kind of money it contained, and to complete the identity, he mentioned that it came there loose in the mail-bag.
This discovery relieved the baggage-man amazingly, and at the same time aided me in deciding at what point the heavy losses had occurred; for if the large package started from this office, and was not disturbed on the cars, it must have been stolen in the New York or Philadelphia office, where it was destined.