Fifty Years a Detective: 35 Real Detective Stories

by Thomas Furlong

The Master Mechanic told me that he had discharged Chalfont, previous to his going to Pittsburg, because of failure to pay his grocery bills and his rent. The grocers and landlords were garnisheeing his wages, and as the company did not tolerate such things, he was discharged. He also said that Chalfont's family was somewhere in Buffalo, but he did not know their whereabouts because they had moved so often. I thanked him for this information and then decided to see the Superintendent of Police.

I called at the office of Superintendent Phillips, and asked him to give me an officer who was more familiar with the haunts and dwellings of railroad men in Buffalo than I was. He gladly assented and assigned Detective Tony Collins to assist me. We started out by canvassing the grocers, butchers and milkmen in the neighborhood where the Lake Shore Railway men resided. During the forenoon we found many who knew of Chalfont's family, but did not know where they were at present. About 3:00 P. M., as Collins and I were going down a side street called Hayward St., I noticed a group of six or eight children playing before a row of wooden cottages, or more properly, shacks. One little girl in a dirty blue dress attracted my attention because of the likeness she bore to Chalfont, according to my description of him. I also noticed a grocery on the corner below us. When we got to the grocery I told the man with me, Detective Collins, to go back to the group and ask the little girl in the blue dress to deliver a package to his wife. He was to tell her that he lived in the large white house down the street. I then told him to return to the grocery with the girl so that I could get a chance to speak to her without exciting her. He returned in a few moments with the little girl, who looked uncommonly like a little Indian squaw, and who proved to be the living image of her father. While Collins was inside the store examining the vegetables I said to the girl, "Why, hello, sis, where is your uncle Charlie now?" She smiled and said, "Oh, do you know Uncle Charlie?" I said, "Oh, sure; I know him well." She then said, "He is down in Pennsylvania firing on a railroad." (Uncle Charlie was Chalfont's brother-in-law, and had gotten a position as fireman at the same time Chalfont got his job as engineer.) I then said to her, "Is your father home now?" She looked up and said, "Yes, he got home a couple of days ago, but he is sick, and—oh, he said I mustn't tell any one." I said, "That's all right, but tell me which one of those houses do you live in?" She said, "We live in that middle one, with the bunch of rags stuffed in the window."

"Oh, do you know Uncle Charlie?"

I attracted Collins' attention, and told him to send the girl away on some pretext. We then went up to the house the girl had pointed out. I sent Collins around to the back door and I went to the front door and knocked. Mrs. Chalfont opened the door, and when I asked for Joe Chalfont she attempted to slam the door in my face. I pushed the door open and entered the house. Seeing no one in the front room I walked through it to the door of the back room. Here I saw Chalfont seated before a window with his head and neck all swathed in bandages. As I entered the room he said, without moving, "Well, Mr. Furlong, you have got me." I answered, "Yes, Joe, I am sorry to say I have." This showed conclusively that I had been pointed out to him while he was on the road without my knowledge. Here I will state that up to the time I entered that room I had never seen Joe Chalfont himself, nor a picture or photograph of him. He had seen me and had heard me speaking so that he knew my voice. I had suspected from the first that Chalfont might know me, so when I saw the little girl, whom I believed was his daughter, I did not stop in front of the houses in which I supposed the children lived, but kept on to the grocery store.

This is the only case of its kind on record in which an officer picked out a child from a group of children and recognized her from a description of her father, whom the officer had never seen.

I arrested Chalfont and took him to Katanning, as Mr. King had ordered. I then went to Pittsburg and reported in detail to General Superintendent J. J. Lawrence. Meanwhile it dawned upon me that I had done a rather commendable thing in arresting this man Chalfont, and I was expecting a little praise from the General Superintendent. Imagine my surprise, upon being ushered into his office, at his beginning to reprimand me for arresting Chalfont. He said, "Furlong, you have gotten this company into a lot of trouble by arresting this man."

To this I replied, "Why sir, Mr. King ordered me to get him at all hazards, and I simply carried out his orders."

He then went on, in a most bitter tone, "Well, you should not have done it. I think I shall be forced to discharge you for so doing. From your reports from Buffalo I see that Chalfont was not an engineer, and, therefore, an incompetent employe. That makes this company liable to damages for the lives lost, and for all the property destroyed in that wreck. Don't you see what you have done?"