I wired him that I would be in Chatham on the following morning. On my arrival there a post-mortem autopsy was made of the body of No. 2, and it developed that he had committed suicide by taking laudanum. The sheriff and the jailor have never been able to satisfy themselves as to how No. 2 got possession of the poison. He had friends and relatives who lived at Jackson, Michigan, who called at Chatham and identified the body, and took it to Jackson for burial.
I then returned to Dallas, Texas, so as to be present at the trial of No. 1 and No. 4, they being the only two of the swindlers left for trial.
When I had first arrested the swindlers and placed them in jail at Dallas, the Prosecuting Attorney called me to his office and told me that the defendants had employed a number of the most able attorneys at that bar to defend them, and he said that he thought that the railroad company ought to permit him to select an attorney to assist him in the prosecution of the defendants. I told him that I had no doubt but that General Solicitor Brown would do so if he would make the request of him.
He replied that as I was going direct to St. Louis that he wished me to make the request for him, which I did. When I delivered his request to Gov. Brown, he replied that Capt. Tom Brown, of Sherman, Texas, was the railroad company's attorney in that district, an able lawyer, and he would be glad to instruct him to assist the Prosecuting Attorney in every way that he could, or, he would furnish him any other of the company's attorneys in Texas, should he believe their assistance necessary, and that he would take it up with the Prosecuting Attorney at Dallas and make all the necessary arrangements.
I communicated these facts to the Prosecuting Attorney. Later Gov. Brown informed me that he (the prosecuting attorney) had selected a lawyer to assist him who was not in any way connected with the railroad service, and that he had suggested that this assistant should be paid a fee of five or six thousand dollars by the railroad company for his services. Gov. Brown further stated that the attorney selected for an assistant was not looked upon with favor by either himself or any of his assistants. Some of the assistants connected with the legal department of the railroad company, under General Solicitor Brown, refused to associate themselves with the cases if the man selected by the Prosecuting Attorney was connected in any way with them. His services were refused and Capt. Tom Brown went to Dallas for the purpose of assisting in the prosecution of the two remaining accused swindlers.
I had turned the duplicate bills of lading over to Capt. Brown and on the morning of the trial of No. 1 and No. 4, he placed these papers in his overcoat pocket with other documentary evidence. He was a little late and hastened into the dining room, leaving his coat and hat on a rack in the corridor of the hotel. When he finished his breakfast and returned to his overcoat he discovered the papers had been stolen. When the cases were called into court, the prosecuting attorney asked that a nolle prosequi be entered in the cases, thus letting two of the principals in the swindle go free.
Thus ended the cotton swindle, the most gigantic swindle of this kind that had ever taken place in the United States, or, I believe, in any other country up to that time.
Capt. Tom Brown was afterwards elected as Judge of the Supreme Bench of Texas, and was always esteemed as an able jurist and a thorough gentleman.