Eventually there appeared among death notices in New York the name of Edward T. Walls. Subsequently Mrs. Walls went from her boarding house in Boston and took charge of the body. Suspecting that this might be a trick to throw them off their guard, the special agents took every precaution to identify the body. Eventually they were convinced that the man they had pursued so diligently was dead. The case was closed.
The three principals in this case, Tollman, Kelliner and Mansfield, were given 15, 18 and 10 years respectively. After their conviction both Tollman and Kelliner talked freely to Billy Gard of the whole case and threw some interesting sidelights upon it. Kelliner told particularly of the inception of the plans of the faro gang. He said it came into being at Atlantic City where he and Mansfield and Walls happened to be spending a week-end. Kelliner at that time already had a line on Tollman, and other possible victims were deemed ready for the plucking.
With these prospective victims in mind the faro gang was organized. Money had to be raised for the fitting up of the establishment in Twenty-eighth Street, which was only used when victims were in tow. This alone cost $2,000. Then there was the necessary expense money of the members of the gang while they were developing their victims. There must be cash in the bank to be won when those victims made their first appearance. Altogether it was a business that had to be capitalized for something like $20,000 before it could begin operations. But, as it afterwards turned out, it was a profitable investment if viewed from the standpoint of Tollman alone; and there were other victims.
XII PUTTING UP THE MASTER BLUFF
Did you ever go among strangers and pretend to be a more important personage than you really are? Yes? So have I. There are many of us who habitually take a taxicab when we go into a strange city on a modest piece of business. Yet at home we would walk six blocks to save a nickel in car fare. I would not acknowledge to the hotel clerk, nor would you, that an inside room, price one dollar, is what, in my heart, I would like to ask for when I say that three-fifty will be about right. And we tip the waiter, you and I, although we know that he makes twice the money we do, and we let the haberdasher's clerk sell us a shirt for three dollars when we should pay one, and the barber bulldozes us into taking a shampoo when there is a perfectly good bar of soap at home and not working.
For, to ourselves, upon occasion, we like to be the dream people, to see ourselves as the great and dominant of the land, to step out of the everyday commonplace of our existence. We pay the price of our temporary emancipation. We may feel a bit foolish when the bellboy is gone and we are alone with the pitcher of ice water, but in our hearts it is worth the money.
Admitting this tendency to dissemble, how large a front of false pretense could you put up, how important a personage do you think you could make of yourself, if you should find all the gates open and were invited to do your durndest? And if you should, in a moment of abandon, summon courage to introduce yourself as the King of Spain or Anthony Comstock or Lillian Russell, and if you did this in a gathering that you knew to be made up of selected master minds, how well do you think you would be able to sustain the part?