When we were seated in my private room, I said to Erfert, "Fred, what have you in those two packages?"
He answered, "They are two clocks, which were sent over to the auction store by mistake. They are expensive clocks and I will not sell them at auction, and intended to take them home tonight and return them to the main store in the morning, before I opened the auction store."
"What other stock have you on your person which was sent over to the auction store by mistake?" I asked.
He replied, "I have only a few stick pins, and a few other small articles of jewelry."
I said, "Put them on my desk."
He did so, and the articles that he had concealed in his pockets, according to the prices marked on them, amounted in all to nearly four hundred dollars. There were gold rings, stick pins, and other small pieces of good jewelry. Thinking that possibly he had not emptied his pocket, I inspected them myself. I found a memorandum book, in which he had kept an accurate account of all articles that had been taken from the jewelry company, the cost price of each article to the company, and the price he had received for a large lot of articles that had already been disposed of. This book was written in cipher. I also found a key to a safe deposit vault that he had in some safe deposit company.
I then informed him that thousands of dollars' worth of stuff had been stolen from his employers, that he had been practically raised by them, having been in their service nearly all his life, and that the company had always treated him well and justly; all of which he admitted, and that now, as he had been caught red-handed, I thought that it was his duty, and to his interest, to tell the whole truth as to what he had taken, and do all in his power to return as much of the property as possible.
At this time my office was on the fourteenth floor of the Chemical Building. My private office fronted on Olive Street, and Erfert made a sudden lunge for the window and attempted to jump out. I prevented him from doing this, and after talking to him for a few moments, he admitted that he had been stealing from the company for the past two years. Recently he had been assisted by another of the employes. His grandfather was conducting a jewelry and novelty store in South St. Louis, and nearly all the stock in this store had been stolen by himself and his confederate from the Bolland establishment. He also stated that he had a quantity of the stolen property concealed in the attic of his mother's house, where he lived, and agreed that he would go with one of my men at once and deliver all the stolen goods that he could to me, and he faithfully kept his word. At the conclusion of his statement, I sent a messenger to Mr. Bolland, telling him that I wished him to come to my office at once, as I had succeeded in capturing the culprit. (It should be remembered that the above all took place on the second day that I was working on the case).
Mr. Bolland arrived at my office about ten o'clock, accompanied by his wife and Clarence White. I met them in the front office.