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The Table of Contents is located at the [end].

Copyright, 1912, by Thomas Furlong.

FIFTY YEARS A DETECTIVE

BY

THOMAS FURLONG

Late Chief of the Secret Service of the Missouri Pacific Rail-
way, known as the Gould System; the Allegheny
Valley Railway of Pennsylvania,
and first Chief of Police of
Oil City, Pa.

35 REAL DETECTIVE STORIES

Hitherto unpublished facts connected with some of Mr. Fur-
long's greatest cases—Other interesting incidents of his
long and strenuous career which really began on
September 14, 1862, when he was detailed
from his company, (Co. G., 1st Penn-
sylvania Rifles, better known
as the Pennsylvania Buck-
tails)for special
service.

ILLUSTRATED

For sale by all reputable newsdealers, or can
be obtained by addressing

C. E. BARNETT, Chemical Building,
St. Louis, Mo.

Post Office Box 575 Price, $1.50

THOMAS FURLONG.

PREFACE.

This book was not published for the purpose of displaying any literary ability I may possess, as I have never aspired to win fame by the wielding of a pen. Within its pages, however, I have attempted, in my own way and in my own manner, to make clear to the reader the inside or hitherto unpublished facts about some of the big cases I have handled during the fifty years I have made the prevention of crime and the tracking and punishment of criminals my profession. How well I have succeeded, I will leave it to the reader to judge.

I am today, I believe, the oldest detective, in point of continuous service, in this or any other country. During my long career I have handled many important cases, of which the reading public knows nothing about, for the reason that the men, or corporations, by whom I was employed, did not hire me for the purpose of furnishing newspapers with the material with which to amuse or entertain their readers. Within these pages I tell how the work was done, and how the clues were found and put together. On the other hand, many cases referred to in this book have received much newspaper publicity, but in these articles the writers were not permitted to tell all the inside facts—how the work was really accomplished. These facts are made public for the first time.

In a few instances I have changed, or veiled, the names of the culprits about whom the articles were written. For doing this I do not propose to apologize, however. These men are alive today and are leading upright lives. They have paid the penalty demanded by the law and society, and I cannot see where it would do any good to again publish their early digressions to the world. I have no disposition to willfully malign any one, and names are only used in cases in which the facts are supported by documents in the archives of the courts of this country, Canada and Mexico, the scenes of my greatest activity.

In selecting material for this book I have only used cases which were out of the ordinary, or in the unraveling of which some original or unique detective work was done. No attempt has been made to enlarge on the facts at hand. The book is just a simple narration of real detective work done on real cases handled by me—no attempt having been made to color them as an experienced writer would do, or is done to the work or the deductions of the phantom detectives by the writers of fiction.

Hoping that the book will serve the purpose for which it is issued I am,

Yours truly,
THOS. FURLONG.

SIDE-LIGHTS ON THE BUSINESS.

ELEMENTS NECESSARY TO MAKE A GOOD DETECTIVE.
HONESTY AND TENACITY VALUABLE ASSETS.
THE PROFESSION HAS ITS PARASITES.

All professions have their parasites and crooks. Among the lawyers you will find men who will commit a felony for a few paltry dollars to clear a client of a charge of petty larceny—providing he does not think there is a chance of his being caught.

Among the doctors you will find men (and they have diplomas with larger red seals on them than has the commission of the President of the United States) who make a specialty of committing illegal operations, and doing other things that are not considered either lawful or ethical.

Among bankers you will find men who every day violate both the laws of the state and the government—high finance, they call it.

The general public, however, knows and freely admits there are honest, upright, truthful lawyers, doctors and bankers, and highly honor each of these professions.

But the aforesaid general public is not so charitable to detectives. The pettifogging lawyers and irresponsible penny liners of the press have educated it up to believing that all detectives are thieves, thugs and black guards, just because there are some men in the business who make the peddling of family secrets and the working up of evidence in divorce cases a specialty. I could never quite understand why this state of affairs should be true, for I know many men of as good moral character and just as honest and upright in the detective business as I have found in any of the other professions.

Detectives are born, not made—that is the successful ones—just as are the successful lawyers or doctors or mechanics or merchants. Education does not always make a man a success in his chosen profession or calling. Unless he really possesses the peculiar make-up, or fitness, for what he chooses to make his life work, he will never reach the top round of the ladder of fame. Education, however, will help develop these necessary qualities, but that is all.

In addition to all these qualifications there are others which the detective must possess.

He must be scrupulously honest at all times, with himself and with those with whom he has dealings.

He must be sober, truthful and reliable, and, in addition, at all times and under all circumstances, a gentleman.

Tenacity and nerve are other valuable assets. A lazy man, or a coward, has no business in the ranks. And he must at all times be firm.

To my mind, a real detective should possess all the elements within his general make-up, which would be necessary to make him a success at any of the leading professions. He should possess the keen perceptive abilities of a trained or successful journalist, be able to read between the lines, as it were, or recognize the value of a clue, as the journalist does the value of a bit of news. He must be well posted on the law, especially that part pertaining to criminals. He must have the foresight and judgment of the successful merchant or tradesman. He must be sympathetic and just to the same degree as is the beloved pastor of a large congregation. And he must be an actor, one of the versatile kind of actors, who can play any kind of a part or assume any character without month's of rehearsing. He should at all times act natural, even while assuming a character, for if he overdoes the part he assumes, it is more than likely to attract unusual attention to him, which a real detective should avoid at all times.

Remember another thing: All crimes, nine hundred and ninety-nine out of every thousand, have a motive. True, these motives are often veiled and are not discernable at a mere glance. You must be a good diagnostician to handle these veiled cases—to diagnose them, as it were, as a learned physician diagnoses his case when called to the bedside of a very sick patient—find the cause. When you have found the motive for a crime, the balance of the work is usually easy.

There is one more phase of the detective business that I want to refer to briefly. Many men believe they were created or born for the express purpose of becoming detectors of crime. They believe they have missed their calling—it makes no difference by what means they are making a living now—because they have not been "called" into the detective business and many of them actually put in all their leisure time trying to "catch on" to a job, either in some municipal department or with some private agency. The truth is, not one in ten thousand of these men would "make good" if the opportunity to do so was offered them.

The chief of a detective agency does not go among these men who are laboring under the delusion that they have been "called," when he wants men to do real detective work. He selects his recruits from among acquaintances in whom he has recognized the talents necessary for the making of good thief-catchers or investigators. These are found in all professions and trades. Among the men in my employ can be found men who are capable of running the mechanical end of almost any kind of business, from a boiler shop to a composing room in a large printing house, or who could easily find, because of their qualifications, a good job in any large commercial or mercantile establishment.

In conclusion, I will add that after the natural qualifications for a good detective have developed themselves, it takes more hard work and study to reach the pinnacle of fame than other professions require, and the remuneration is a great deal less, taking into consideration the hazardousness of the business.

THE PRELLER MURDER CASE.

TRUE STATEMENT AS TO HOW THE EVIDENCE WHICH HUNG
MAXWELL WAS OBTAINED PUBLISHED FOR THE
FIRST TIME.

The Preller murder occurred in the summer of 1885, in one of the rooms of the Southern Hotel, St. Louis, Mo. Clarence Preller was a young Englishman, as was also his slayer, Hugh M. Brookes. The discovery of the body, the apprehension of the murderer, his trial and execution, attracted the attention of the civilized world. The true story of the conviction of the perpetrator of this foul crime has never before been published.

Hugh M. Brookes was a native of Hyde Park, a suburb of London, England. His father and mother were respectable people, and school teachers by professions. The young man was about twenty-five or six years of age when he committed this crime. He had never done anything but go to school, consequently was well educated. The last school he attended was a law school. He ran away from this institution, after stealing a lot of property that belonged to fellow students. The plunder he secured consisted mostly of ornaments and bric-a-brac, which he pawned at Liverpool, England, to secure enough money with which to purchase a first-class ticket to Boston, Mass. After boarding the vessel he met and formed the acquaintance of Clarence Preller.

Preller was a trusted employee of a large export establishment of London. His duties required him to travel nearly all over the world, or, at least, to visit the principal cities of the world. He was a young man, being about thirty years of age, and finding Brookes, a fellow-countryman, an agreeable companion, took very kindly to him.

Brookes represented himself as being a titled nobleman, who had just finished his course at college, and was making a pleasure tour of America. He called himself Maxwell.

Hugh M. Brookes, Alias Maxwell

The young Englishman hung for murdering Arthur Preller in the
Southern Hotel.

During the voyage from Liverpool to Boston, Preller told Maxwell, as I will call him hereafter, that after he had attended to a matter of business for his firm at Boston he had to go to Toronto, Canada, where he would be detained but a day or two. Then he would leave Toronto for St. Louis, Missouri, where he also had some business to do for his firm, which would require but a short time, and that from there he would go through to San Francisco, California, and sail from there on the first steamship to Auckland, New Zealand. Maxwell told him that he believed he would go from Boston to St. Louis, where he (Maxwell) would await the arrival of Preller from Toronto, then accompany him to Auckland just for the trip. This proposition pleased Preller.

They arrived safely in Boston, where they remained two or three days together, and where Maxwell learned that Preller had in his possession seven one hundred dollar bills. After Preller had finished his business in Boston they settled their bills at the Adams House, where they had stopped, went to the depot together and separated, Preller going to Toronto and Maxwell to St. Louis. They had agreed that Maxwell was to stop at the Southern Hotel in St. Louis, there to await Preller. Maxwell arrived at that hotel and engaged a room, where Preller joined him a couple of days later. I think it was Saturday when he arrived, and they occupied the same apartments.

On the following Sunday, after they had eaten their dinner and returned to their room, Preller complained of suffering from stomach trouble. Maxwell claimed to have some knowledge of medicine, and administered an overdose of morphia, hypodermically. A short time after administering the drug, and when he saw that Preller was beginning to breathe his last, he poured more than half the contents of a four ounce bottle of chloroform into Preller's almost lifeless lips. When Preller was dead, Maxwell stripped the body and placed a suit of his own underwear on him. Maxwell was small in stature, being only about five feet five inches in height, while Preller was much larger and about six feet tall. Maxwell's clothing was marked with the name of Hugh M. Brookes, and they were entirely too small for the body of Preller.

In removing the underwear Maxwell used a candle snuffer, which is very much like a pair of scissors, only the cutting surface had a half-circle. He cut the undergarments the full length of the limbs so that he could easily strip them off. Then he managed to pull his own garments on the body. He emptied out the trunk belonging to Preller, and pressed the body into it. He had to almost double it into a circle to get it into the trunk, but he succeeded. Then strapping and locking the trunk, he put his own, as well as Preller's effects into his own trunk, and retired for the night.

The next morning, after breakfast, he called at the cashier's office, settled his bill, and stated to the clerk that his friend Preller had been obliged to make a short run out of town, and would be back to the hotel in two or three days, and desired that the room be held for him, as his trunk and effects would remain there until he called for them. Maxwell explained that he had to leave that morning and expected his friend Preller to join him later.

He instructed the head porter to bring his large trunk down into the corridor. The one he had ordered brought down contained the dead body, but, to his consternation, the porter brought down the one in which his and Preller's effects had been packed. He became very much alarmed, and had his trunk taken to Union Station and checked to San Francisco, buying a ticket for that place. He departed over the Frisco Road, and arrived in San Francisco, where he remained one night, and the following day bought a ticket for Auckland, New Zealand, and sailed that afternoon.

The weather was quite warm in St. Louis, and after a few days decomposition set in upon the corpse in the trunk. The odor from the room attracted the attention of the servants. They reported to the office, the room was entered and the body found. The police were notified at once. A good description of Maxwell was furnished by the hotel people, and telegrams were sent in all directions, giving this description, and requesting Maxwell's arrest.

Capt. Leas, Chief of Police of San Francisco, received one of these telegrams, started his detectives to investigate, and succeeded in learning that the murderer had sailed for Auckland some three or four days before he had received the telegraphic description of him from St. Louis. Whereupon Chief Leas cabled the proper authorities of Auckland a full description of Maxwell, and even the number of the stateroom he occupied on the ship. Of course, Capt. Leas' telegram reached Auckland several days before the ship arrived.

When the ship arrived at Auckland, the police sent out two of their detectives with the pilot, who was to guide the steamer on which Maxwell had taken passage into port. They arrested him as soon as they boarded the ship, and when the vessel landed immediately notified the St. Louis authorities, in accordance with Capt. Leas' instructions to them. After obtaining proper extradition papers, the Chief of Police of St. Louis sent two of his detectives to Auckland to bring Maxwell back to St. Louis. They went to Auckland by way of San Francisco, found Maxwell in jail there and brought him back to St. Louis. It was a long and expensive trip, and cost the city of St. Louis a great deal of money.

On arriving in St. Louis the prisoner was locked up without bail, on the charge of murdering Preller. He immediately employed two lawyers to defend him. After having consulted with his lawyers, Maxwell became jubilant—so much so that he became obnoxious to his fellow prisoners. He was naturally inclined to be overbearing, and seemed to hold himself aloof from the other prisoners. He was rather inclined to braggadocia, and attracted a lot of attention. The daily papers devoted a great deal of space to him, which he seemed to enjoy immensely. In fact, the notoriety appeared to be very pleasing to him.

Marshall F. McDonald

The Famous Criminal Lawyer who prosecuted Brookes, alias Maxwell

A few days after he had been lodged in jail in St. Louis, Ashley C. Clover, Circuit Attorney of St. Louis, in company with Marshall F. McDonald, Assistant Circuit Attorney, drove out to my residence one night. I was then Chief Special Agent for the Missouri Pacific Railroad Company, and both Messrs. Clover and McDonald were personal friends of mine.

Mr. Clover stated that the object of their visit was in reference to the Maxwell case. He went on to state that although the arrest and returning of Maxwell from Auckland to St. Louis had cost the city of St. Louis a great deal of money, and the case had become one of international importance, yet he did not believe that the officers of the St. Louis police department had made any efforts to get at the real facts in the case. So far they had not found enough evidence to procure a conviction, in case the defendant went on the stand and testified that the giving of too much chloroform to Preller was an accident. Mr. Clover said that he wanted the real facts in the case. "For," he said, "while there is scarcely any doubt that Maxwell caused the death of Preller by an over-dose of chloroform, yet he may have done it innocently, and if such is the case, under our laws, he could not be convicted of the murder, and ought not to be, in my opinion. But, on the contrary, if he dosed him purposely and feloniously with forethought and malice, he ought to be convicted. If he did it innocently, and I could be assured of that, I would be pleased to ask the jury to acquit him, but, as I said before, if he is guilty it would be my duty as circuit attorney to insist on his conviction. And now, Tom, I want you to get the facts in this case for me."

To which I replied, "Mr. Clover, I really do not know anything about this case, except what I have read in the newspapers, and, of course, you know as well as I do that a man cannot base much of an opinion on a case of this kind on newspaper accounts, and, therefore, I wish you would give me a little time to think the matter over. I fully approve of the sentiments that you have expressed in connection with the case, and will be glad, indeed, to do all in my power to assist you."

Both gentlemen said they wished that I would take the matter under advisement until the following evening at eight o'clock, at which time they would again call at my house to talk the matter over with me.

The following evening at the appointed time they called and were both apparently anxious to learn what I thought I could do in the way of obtaining the facts pertaining to the case.

After the usual greeting, and when both had been seated, I said, "Gentlemen, I have been thinking about the case in question, and have become satisfied that there were but two people who knew the whole facts connected with the case, and the facts that you now desire to know. One of these persons is now in jail, and the other is dead. In my opinion Maxwell is the only living person who knows the facts, and, therefore, he is the only person from whom these facts can be obtained. I believe I can get those facts from him, but I want you gentlemen to understand that I am in the employ of the Missouri Pacific Railroad Company, and, of course, they are paying me for all my time, but if I were not in their employ I could not do this myself on account of my being so well known. For that reason it would be necessary for me to select a competent operative to do this work under my instructions. I shall be glad to do this, or anything else that I can do to assist you in unraveling this case, with the understanding that I am not to receive any compensation for what I may do myself, but I shall expect you gentlemen to pay the operative that I may use in this work the same amount of salary that we are paying him, and his actual expenses. As I said before, I will do all that I can, but will neither expect nor receive any remuneration for my services."

"Tom," replied Mr. Clover, "There is no fund provided by the city for the employment of outside talent for such work as this in question, but I expect to pay the expense out of my own pocket, and I shall insist on paying you for your services in connection with this matter."

I answered, "I will receive nothing for any work that I may do in the matter."

At this point in the conversation Mr. McDonald, who had been sitting quietly, listening to Mr. Clover and myself, said, "Tom, how do you expect to obtain the facts in this case? That's what I would like to know."

"Mr. McDonald," I responded, "I feel that it would be easier for me to go ahead and do this work, than it would be for me to undertake to tell you how I propose to do it."

Mr. Clover then said, "Tom, I am going to place this matter in your hands. I want you to go ahead and get this thing started as soon as possible, as the defendant's attorneys are clammoring for a speedy trial, and I do not wish to keep them waiting any longer than I can help. You do this work in your own way and I will pay the bills."

I said, "All right."

The next day I telegraphed to Philadelphia to an operative in my employ there. He was an entire stranger in St. Louis. I wired him to come at once, and not to stop at my office, but to come direct to my house on his arrival in the city, which he did.

His name was John McCulloch. He was about thirty-five years of age, about five feet, ten inches in height, and weighed about two hundred pounds. He was well built, had a sandy complexion, and was rather a good-looking fellow. He was wearing side-whiskers, or burnsides, as they were called, and a blonde mustache, and looked very much like an Englishman. He was truthful and honest, and of sober habits, but a little thick-headed, or, in other words, dull of comprehension. In instructing him it was necessary to explain each detail fully, and sometimes it would seem as if it were necessary to take a hammer and pound the instructions into his head, but when he once understood thoroughly what you wanted him to do he would carry out instructions to the letter.

Right here it might be well to take the reader into my confidence. I had decided to get my operative (McCulloch) into jail, where he could meet Maxwell, without the knowledge of the local police officers.

After explaining the nature of the case to him, I instructed him to procure the leading daily papers of St. Louis, dating back to the time of the murder, and to read every line that had been published relative to the case. This he did, and it took him about three weeks. I met him each evening during the time and rehearsed with him what I wanted him to do, from the time he was arrested, and how he should act after his arrest and incarceration.

Early in February, 1886, I succeeded in getting possession of a few blank checks from the office of D. S. H. Smith, who was local treasurer of the Missouri Pacific Railroad Company in St. Louis. Being Chief Special Agent of the road I had occasion to visit the local treasurer's office frequently, and being well known, not only to the local treasurer, but to all of his office force as well, I had no difficulty in obtaining the blank checks without the knowledge of Dr. Smith, as the local treasurer was called by most of the people who knew him, or any of his clerks.

My chief clerk was a good penman, and was familiar with the signature of Dr. D. S. H. Smith. I had him practice for some time on imitating Dr. Smith's signature, and found that he could imitate it so clearly that it would have been accepted as genuine by any bank teller. While I wanted a fairly good imitation of the signature, I did not want it to be so good that it would be received at the bank. After practicing for a time he succeeded in making a signature which I thought would answer my purpose. I had him fill out one of the blank checks for the amount of one thousand one hundred and eighty-eight dollars and ten cents. I then gave this check to McCulloch, with instructions to him to present it to the paying-teller of the Mechanics Bank, which was then on Fourth street. He was to present this check at 9:45 sharp, the following morning. I had received a check, a day or two before this, which bore the signature of Dr. Smith, and had purposely held this out, and was waiting across the street from the bank when I saw McCulloch, whom I will hereafter call Frank Dingfelter, as this was the name he assumed, and was the name to which the check had been made payable.

On entering the bank Dingfelter went to the window of the paying-teller, Mr. Warner, and presented the check. Warner examined the check very carefully, and by reason of its being for so large an amount, and Dingfelter being an entire stranger to him (I, having allowed Dingfelter time enough to have reached the paying-teller's window, entered the bank with my check in my hand), held the check that Dingfelter had presented, and when he saw me he excitedly motioned to me to come to his window. On reaching the window Warner commanded me, in an excited manner, to arrest that man, pointing to Dingfelter.

I said, "What do you want him arrested for?"

Warner, holding up the check said, "Why he has presented a large fake check bearing the name of Dr. Smith, for nearly twelve hundred dollars. Why, you know Dr. Smith's signature?"

I replied, "Yes, here is one of Dr. Smith's checks. I know this is genuine, for I saw the doctor sign it."

He compared the fake check with mine, and I said to Mr. Warner, "While I am not an expert on hand-writing, I do not believe that Dr. Smith wrote that signature."

Mr. Warner exclaimed, "I am positive he did not." Then turning to Mr. Dingfelter I asked, "Where did you get this check?"

"I got it from Dr. Smith," was his reply.

"Does Dr. Smith know you?" I asked.

In rather a gruff manner he answered, "Yes, he knows me."

"Will you go with me and see Dr. Smith?" I asked.

"Well, I do not know whether I will or not. I don't know who you are," he replied. Whereupon I laid my hand on his shoulder and said, "You will either accompany me to Dr. Smith's office, or I will send for a patrol wagon, take you to police headquarters and have you locked up."

"Are you an officer?" he asked.

To which I replied, "Yes, I am the Chief Special Agent of the Missouri Pacific Railroad Company."

"Oh, well," said he, "that is different. I will go with you and see Dr. Smith."

It was drizzling rain the morning of this occurrence, was quite chilly and the streets and sidewalks were wet and slippery and dirty, as the streets of St. Louis were not kept as clean at that time as they are now. I took the fake check and Dingfelter and myself started for Dr. Smith's office, which at that time was in the Missouri Pacific general office building on the corner of Sixth and Locust streets. We walked west on Pine from Fourth. When we reached the corner of Sixth and Pine streets I gave Dingfelter a signal, which had been pre-arranged. This signal was for him to hit me a good, stiff punch, as the fighters call it. There was a large, clumsy patrolman, wearing a raincoat, standing under an awning near the corner saloon. I was walking on the left-hand side of Dingfelter, and when I gave him the signal he cut loose with his right hand, which landed just over my right eye and a little back of it. I had instructed him to hit me hard, and if he succeeded in knocking me down and I became groggy from the blow he was to stumble and fall himself, so as to give the big, clumsy police officer time to reach us. The officer was standing about ten feet from us when Dingfelter struck me, but I knew how slow he was and I wanted to be sure and give him an opportunity of getting hold of Dingfelter. I went down all right, and in fact, was a little dazed from the effects of the blow. Dingfelter stumbled and fell, and the policeman made a dash (such as a heavily loaded ice wagon going up hill would make) and succeeded in reaching him, not, however, until he had arisen, and I also had got to my feet. He got to Dingfelter about the same time that I did. The latter made a good fight and tore off most of the uniform of the policeman and my coat, vest and collar. All of us went down in the street and rolled around in the mud. Our ears and faces were filled with mud, before we finally succeeded in subduing Dingfelter, but I am satisfied if he had tried his best he could have gotten away with both of us, as he was a powerful man.

My office was on Eighth street, just north of Pine, and this fight occurred just two blocks from my office, and after we had subdued Dingfelter I suggested that we take him there, so as to give us an opportunity of washing ourselves while we were waiting for a patrol wagon to take the prisoner to police headquarters. This we did, and on arriving at my office we turned the prisoner over to my chief clerk and one of my operatives, who happened to be there, while the policeman and myself began digging the mud out of our ears and washing our faces. After washing I found that my right eye was very much discolored, and where my face had come in contact with the pavement there were a number of small cuts and scratches, which were somewhat inflamed, and I really had a sore face.

The operative who I have mentioned before, whose name was Phillips, on seeing my face said to me, "Why, you sure ought to go and see a doctor at once. Your eye is in bad shape, and you need medical attention immediately. Let me go up to police headquarters with this fellow. I can attend to the matter for you."

I thanked him, and said that I wished he would do so. I told him what had occurred at the bank, and instructed him to make a complaint against Dingfelter accordingly. In due time the patrol wagon arrived and the police officer and Phillips escorted Mr. Dingfelter to police headquarters. At this time Hughie O'Neil was chief of detectives, and Major Lawrence Harrigan, was chief of police for the city of St. Louis.

As soon as Dingfelter was hustled into the detectives' office in the Four Courts, Chief O'Neil and a squad of his men immediately set about searching him. They found in one of his inside pockets a letter, addressed, sealed and stamped, but apparently which Dingfelter had forgotten to mail. It was directed to San Francisco. They also found about seventy-five or one hundred dollars, and some other articles, all of which were taken from him and placed in the police department archives for safe keeping. The letter was eagerly opened and read. This letter was quite lengthy, and was just such a letter as one crook would write to another. There was then, and had been for some time previous, a gang of bank swindlers working the cities of the Pacific Coast, and the newspapers had been printing a great deal about the operations of this gang several weeks prior to the time of which I write; and for this reason the detectives of St. Louis were led to believe by the finding of the letter that they had struck something which might lead to the capture of the bank swindlers. The contents of the letter appeared in the afternoon papers. Some of these papers censured me for having failed to discover this letter.

After reading the comments of the papers regarding this letter, I would have considered myself very stupid, indeed, for having missed the letter, were it not for the fact that I knew that I had not had an opportunity to search Mr. Dingfelter up to the time he assaulted me and the officer on Pine street, and then I also knew it had taken me about two hours to compose and dictate that same letter.

Dingfelter was locked up, of course, and the time was set for his preliminary hearing, to be several days later. In the meantime the St. Louis papers were devoting lots of space to Dingfelter and his alleged crime; a relief to the newspaper readers, as they had begun to grow tired of reading day after day about Maxwell and what his attorneys expected to do for him. From the time of Dingfelter's arrest up to the time of Maxwell's trial, the newspapers scarcely mentioned the latter's name. Some of them occasionally mentioned my name in rather a joking manner, because I had been stupid enough to miss that letter. When Dingfelter was called for his preliminary hearing he was promptly remanded to jail to await the action of the Grand Jury.

He was besieged by lawyers who were anxious to defend him, but he declined their offers, telling them when the time came he had lawyers selected to defend him, and steadfastly refused to divulge their names. The second day after his arrest Dingfelter was allowed to mingle with the other prisoners in what was called the "bull ring." An allotted time is given to the prisoners each day in this place for exercise. Maxwell noticed that almost immediately after his arrest the newspapers were giving Dingfelter all the notoriety, and had dropped himself, so he hastened to make the acquaintance of one so notorious when they met in the "bull ring." This was the only opportunity of meeting him, and from the first time that Maxwell saw Dingfelter he never lost an opportunity of talking with him, and he stuck to Dingfelter like the proverbial fly to the horse. The first time Maxwell approached Dingfelter he rushed up to him and said, "You are Dingfelter, I believe." Dingfelter replied that he was and Maxwell then said, "They seem to have a strong case against you." "You will have to excuse me, sir, I don't want to be considered impolite," Dingfelter replied, "but I must decline to talk to any one in this place about my case, as you call it. I don't believe it would be a good thing for me or any other person to talk about a charge that is pending against them in a place of this kind. I shall be glad to talk with you on any other subject, however, but I trust that you will hereafter refrain from asking me any questions regarding the charge now pending against me in court, and then, I don't know you."

Maxwell hastily said, "Oh, I am Maxwell. I am the fellow who is charged with the murder of that man Preller, who was killed in the Southern Hotel, and whose body was found in a trunk. I was arrested at Auckland, New Zealand, and brought back here to St. Louis to stand trial, but I have been assured by my attorneys that I will be acquitted. They have no proof against me, and just as soon as I can get a trial, why, of course, I will go free."

"So you are Maxwell," said Dingfelter. "I have been reading in the papers about you, and if you will pardon me for saying it, it seems to me that you have already been talking too much about your case. If you are not guilty of the crime with which you stand charged, why you ought to be acquitted, and I hope you will be."

After this first interview between Maxwell and Dingfelter, he and many other prisoners looked upon Dingfelter as being a wise and unusually smart prisoner. Dingfelter was in jail forty-seven days, and during all that time Maxwell never let an opportunity pass without talking to him. I received daily reports from my operative, a task which I found very difficult, and it became more difficult by reason of the Southwestern Railroad strike, which broke out on March 4, 1886, and continued during Dingfelter's stay in the St. Louis jail. Being Chief Special Agent for the Gould system, my time was occupied in protecting the railroad company's property, and in apprehending people who were continually committing illegal acts. I was occupied almost day and night in this work.

From Dingfelter's daily reports I learned that Maxwell had admitted that he had killed Preller for the purpose of obtaining seven one hundred dollar bills that he knew Preller to have, as he had shown him the money in the Adams House at Boston, before they separated there. He also had pawned the plunder for the money which had brought him to America, and that he had made Preller believe that he was connected with the titled family of Maxwell, that his right name was Hugh M. Brookes, and that he would like to place himself under the guidance and advice of an able crook, as he believed Dingfelter to be, when he gained his liberty, as he was sure he would, in the near future. He told Dingfelter in detail how he had killed Preller by administering an overdose of morphia, hypodermically; of how, after dinner on the fatal Sunday, Preller had complained of a pain in his stomach; that he, Maxwell, saw that was his opportunity for carrying out the plan he had already formed for taking Preller's life in order to secure the money; that he had provided himself with a large quantity of morphia and the hypodermic syringe, and that he had also procured four ounces of chloroform, for the purpose of administering it to Preller immediately before death, to prevent the body from becoming rigid, as it does immediately after death, "as," said Maxwell in his explanation to Dingfelter, "I had to conceal his long body in the trunk, which was so much shorter, and I did not want to cut off his limbs, fearing that the trace of the blood would betray me."

On receiving Dingfelter's report relative to the use of the morphia in the murder, I at once reported the fact to Messrs. Clover and McDonald, who immediately arranged with two of the most prominent doctors in St. Louis to examine the body of Preller for traces of the morphia. Messrs. Clover, McDonald, the doctors, an official of Bellefontaine Cemetery, and myself, went to the cemetery, where Preller's body had been buried, exhumed the body, and the doctors made the necessary examination, keeping what they discovered to themselves, and they did not divulge anything about it until called on to testify at Maxwell's trial, when they said that the traces of the hypodermic syringe were plainly visible on the arm, and that traces of morphia were found. When Maxwell was arrested a quantity of morphia was found among his effects, and also the hypodermic syringe, but up to this discovery neither had been considered in connection with the murder, as it had been taken for granted that Preller's death had been caused by chloroform. Of course, the exhuming of the body, and the arrangement that had been made were known to no one but Messrs. Clover, McDonald, the two doctors, the cemetery official and myself, and was treated as a profound secret.

Meanwhile, after Dingfelter had been in jail and had obtained the information we wanted from Maxwell, I decided that it was unnecessary to keep him there longer, so I arranged to have Dingfelter released on bail, which had been fixed at three thousand five hundred dollars. I had ex-Judge Henry D. Laughlin, of St. Louis, sign Dingfelter's bond. I did this without Judge Laughlin's knowledge that I even knew who Dingfelter was. Upon his release I immediately sent him to New York, where he entered into correspondence with friends of Maxwell's. Just before being released he asked Maxwell if he could keep a secret, and Maxwell said that he could, whereupon Dingfelter said:

"I expect to leave this place soon."

"How are you going to get out?" asked Maxwell.

"Ah," said Dingfelter, "that is none of your business. You said you could keep a secret, and the first thing you are doing is to pry into my business by asking how I am going to get out. After I am gone from here, of course, you will know it, but if you do not know how I propose to get out it will be impossible for you to tell any one about it. For that reason it is better that you should not know anything further than what I have already said."

Maxwell apologized and promised not to be so inquisitive again. Dingfelter then said:

"Now, Maxwell, after I am on the outside and away from this place, if I can do anything for you consistently I shall be glad to do it."

"You can do a whole lot for me," Maxwell answered, "by getting two of your friends to come here when my trial is called and have them testify that they met Preller and myself in Boston, and that they accompanied us to the depot when we were leaving Boston; that at the depot I proposed that the party take a parting drink; that Preller, these two men and myself, went to a cafe, and that I ordered two bottles of champagne, and that when I paid for it I displayed a roll of seven one hundred dollar bills; that I explained that I wanted to change one of these hundred dollar bills so that I might have some smaller change to pay expenses on my way to St. Louis. If they will testify to this it will account for the six one hundred dollar bills I took from Preller."

Dingfelter asked, "Are you sure that your lawyers will not get these friends of mine into trouble or let the police get next to them if I can get them to come?"

Maxwell assured Dingfelter that his friends would be perfectly safe in coming to St. Louis, and that the police would not get next to them, providing, of course, that the parties were not already known to the police. He took a card bearing his name from his pocket and tore it in two halves, giving one half to Dingfelter and retaining the other himself, saying, "Be sure and give these witnesses half of the card, which will serve to identify them to my attorneys when they arrive here, as that half of the card will match the half that I will retain, the edges of the torn card will match and will answer the purpose of an introduction."

It was about five o'clock in the evening when Dingfelter was released from jail on bond, and at that hour the courts in the building had adjourned for the day, and the newspaper correspondents and all others had left the building except the few attaches who were on duty. Thus Dingfelter left the jail unobserved. On his release from the jail he came to my house by a circuitous route, where he remained until a late hour that night, when he left to take a train for New York. I instructed him to open a correspondence with Maxwell on his arrival in New York, so as to get positive instructions from Maxwell as to what the witnesses were to testify to when they appeared on the stand in his defense. He carried out these instructions to the letter. His letters reached Maxwell through his attorneys, and Maxwell's letters reached him through the same source, and in due time, all the letters were sent to me with his report. They kept up this correspondence at intervals until Maxwell's trial was called. I told Dingfelter to appear in St. Louis on the morning of the trial, which he did. On arriving here he went to a private lodging house, and being a stranger in the city, his presence was unknown to any person but himself and the circuit attorneys, Clover and McDonald.

When his trial was called, Maxwell took the stand in his own defense, and testified that he had administered chloroform to his friend Preller on the fatal evening at the Southern Hotel for the purpose of allaying the pain that he was suffering from, as both Messrs. Clover and McDonald had predicted he would testify. Maxwell went on to state that Preller's suffering was caused by an acute attack of stricture, from which he had been suffering more or less for some time.

On hearing this testimony from Maxwell, it was decided to again exhume the body of Preller so that the two doctors could make another examination of the remains, and either corroborate or disprove Maxwell's testimony, as this was one of the most vital points in the trial. When the body was exhumed the doctors removed the organs, taking them to their laboratory, where the examination was made, and they later came into court and testified that their examination had shown beyond a doubt that Preller had never suffered from stricture.

Frank Dingfelter was among the first witnesses called by the prosecution. In answer to his name, he entered the court room from the private office of the circuit attorney, and after being duly sworn, took his seat on the witness stand. After sitting down he turned his face towards Attorney McDonald, who was conducting the prosecution for the state. Maxwell got a full view of Dingfelter for the first time since he had seen him in the jail. From where I was sitting I could get a good view of Maxwell's countenance. I was watching him closely, and when he saw Dingfelter he recognized him instantly. He turned ashy pale and nearly fainted, and would have fallen out of his chair were it not that he was partly supported by one of his attorneys who was sitting beside him. He hurriedly communicated to his attorney that he had recognized Dingfelter, whereupon the attorneys for the defense became very much excited. Dingfelter was asked by Attorney McDonald the following questions:

Question: What is your name? A. John F. McCulloch.

Q. Where were you born? A. Wilmington, Delaware.

Q. How old are you? A. Thirty years.

Q. What is your business? A. Detective.

Q. By whom are you employed? A. Thomas Furlong.

Q. Do you know the defendant in this case (pointing to Maxwell)? A. Yes, sir.

Q. Where did you first become acquainted with him? A. In the city jail.

Q. Were you a prisoner in the jail? A. Yes, sir.

Q. What were you charged with? A. I believe it was forgery.

Q. When and where were you arrested? A. I was arrested at the Mechanics Bank on the corner of Fourth and Pine streets, this city, by Thomas Furlong, who was afterwards assisted by a police officer, whose name I do not know.

Q. Why did Furlong arrest you? A. He was commanded to do so by the paying teller of the Mechanics Bank.

Q. Why did the teller cause your arrest? A. Because I presented a check bearing what purported to be the signature of D. S. H. Smith, local treasurer of the Missouri Pacific Railroad Company. The paying teller told Furlong, in my presence, that the signature was a forgery.

Q. Did you know it to be a forgery? A. I did not.

Q. Where did you get this check? A. Mr. Furlong gave me the check and instructed me to present it at the bank, as I did, and told me that he would be at the bank when I presented it.

Q. Was Mr. Furlong there? A. Yes, he came into the bank while I was at the teller's window. That was when Mr. Warner, as I believe the teller's name is, told him to arrest me.

Q. Then you do not know whether the check was a forgery or not? A. No, sir. I was only obeying the instructions of my employer, Mr. Furlong. I guess he can tell you all about that check.

The court room was crowded, and as soon as Dingfelter stated that he was a detective one of the city detectives rushed out of the court, pellmell, to the office of the Chief of Police, which was in the opposite end of the building, and informed the Chief of what had occurred. The Chief rushed into the court room, and from that time on consternation seemed to prevail among all the authorities around the Four Courts building.

Dingfelter was kept upon the witness stand for about two days, and during his entire direct testimony, nearly every question asked him by the prosecuting attorney was objected to by the attorneys for the defense. After McCulloch, as I will call him by his right name hereafter, had been excused from the witness stand, I was called. After being duly sworn and the preliminary questions asked, I was told, by the prosecuting attorney, to state to the court and jury how I had been approached by Mr. Clover and himself, and what I had done in connection with the case. I gave a detailed account of my work from the start up to that moment, being interrupted occasionally by an objection from the defendant's counsel. When I had finished my direct testimony, all of which has already been related, the counsel for the defense began to cross-examine me. My cross-examination consumed nearly a day and a half.

The defendant's counsel first wanted to know how long I had been in the detective business. I answered that I had first become engaged in the business in September, 1862. The attorney said, "Then you have had a great deal of experience?" I answered that I had, and then he said, "Where did you get this check?" exhibiting the check in question. I asked permission to examine the check, which was granted by the court, and after looking at it carefully I answered, "This is one of the blank checks that I took from Dr. Smith's office in the manner already described."

Question: Then you stole this check from Dr. Smith's office? A. I took that blank check from Dr. Smith's office without his knowledge or consent.

Q. Who filled out this check and signed Dr. Smith's name to it? A. That check was filled out by one of my employes. I stood alongside of him while he filled it out. He did it under my instructions, and if he had refused to do it I would have discharged him and he knew it; and if the law has been violated in any way I am responsible for it.

The attorney for the defense insisted that I give the name of the person who filled out the check, but the court overruled the question on the ground that I had assumed the responsibility. The counsel for the defense then said, "You know that you were violating the law by having this check made out as you did, did you not?"

I replied, "Under certain conditions, it might have been a violation of the law."

Counsel for the defense asked, "You know that it was a forgery and forgery is a crime under the law?" My answer was the same as before, that it would have been forgery under certain conditions. But he insisted on me answering him direct "yes" or "no." At this Prosecuting Attorney McDonald appealed to the court, stating that the witness could not answer the question with a direct "yes" or "no" unless permitted to explain what the certain conditions referred to were. The court permitted me to explain under what conditions the making of the check would not be considered forgery. To which I replied that inasmuch as that intent is the essence of crime, and that as there was no intent to obtain money or other valuables by means of this check on my part, who was responsible for the making of it, and that I was at the bank on the morning that McCulloch presented the check for the purpose of preventing the teller from cashing the check, if he, perchance, had not noticed that the signature of Dr. Smith was not genuine, and for the further reason that I had promptly apprehended the man who had presented the check at the bank for having done so. This was all a matter of court record.

Here I wish to say that almost every person in the courtroom, after hearing my testimony as to my obtaining the blank checks and causing one to be filled out and presented at the bank, were of the opinion that I had gotten myself into serious trouble. Many clung to that opinion until they heard my explanation, and the competent court attorneys saw at a glance that I was safe when I explained that intent was what constituted a crime.

I have been asked many, many times since the arrest of McCulloch and my tussle with him, why I caused him to knock me down and to strip the policeman and myself, leaving us in almost a nude condition, and which compelled me to go around several days with my right eye and one side of my face discolored—as some of them said, "in mourning"—and my answer has always been that I had decided everything I did in connection with the case was absolutely necessary so that I might obtain the true facts of the case, which were very essential for the proper prosecution of the perpetrator of this heinous crime, as he was the only living person who knew the real facts. I knew that Maxwell was enjoying the notoriety the newspapers were giving him, and I also knew that the public was growing tired of reading about him, and, therefore, believed that if I could paint my operative as a more desperate criminal for the time being, by the notoriety he would obtain through the papers, it would have the effect of attracting Maxwell's attention to him, so that he might bask in the light that was being attracted to McCulloch. And, as it turned out, my predictions proved true. I deemed it necessary to have McCulloch slug me and make the fight that he did with the police officer and myself in order to allay any suspicion that might arise in the mind of the Chief of Police or any of his men. The Chief was an alert and experienced officer, and if he suspected for a moment that McCulloch was not what he represented himself to be, or that he was connected with me, he would have undoubtedly exposed our scheme, and thereby destroyed our efforts, which were for the honest purpose of serving the ends of justice.

Both McCulloch and myself were acting parts, and from the result it seems that the parts were acted well. I could have gotten the blank check from Dr. Smith, I have no doubt, merely by asking for it, but he, of course would have wanted an explanation from me, and if I had explained why I wanted them he would have been obliged to state the facts on the witness stand when called before the Grand Jury, and this would have been fatal to my scheme. Had I told my operative Phillips, who lodged the first complaint against McCulloch, or Dingfelter, as he called himself, he would have been compelled, under oath, to have stated the truth. This, too, would have been fatal. My keeping the matter a secret, resulted in every person telling the truth, or what they believed to be the truth. I myself, did not appear either at police headquarters or at the preliminary hearing, nor before the Grand Jury, and was not called upon to testify until Maxwell was on trial.

Marshall F. McDonald was sitting in his office one day alone, about a month after Dingfelter had been in jail and had made such good progress with Maxwell, when William Marion Reedy, better known then as Billy Reedy, entered his office. Reedy was, at that time, a reporter for the Globe-Democrat, and was very popular. He knew every official around the Four Courts and in fact, every man in St. Louis who was worth knowing. He was a warm friend and great admirer of Mr. McDonald, and on entering his office and noting that he was alone, he said, "Mac, why don't you select the right kind of a fellow and have him locked up in Jail with Maxwell. He might succeed in getting the facts as to Preller's murder from him."

Mr. McDonald was startled to hear this suggestion from Mr. Reedy, but, being a man of steady nerves, he managed to conceal his surprise. He told Reedy that he did not believe that anything could be accomplished by locking a man up in jail for that purpose. "For," said Mac, "there are nearly four hundred prisoners in that jail and a man might be there for months before he could get to Maxwell, and then it is quite likely that his attorneys have already advised him not to talk to any person about his case."

Reedy said, "It occurred to me that it might be a good thing to do, and I therefore made the suggestion to you for what it is worth, but, as you do not think it worth while to try it, just let it go."

He left the office, and just as soon as McDonald could don his hat and coat and leave his office unobserved, he hastened to me. I saw at a glance that he was excited and believed something unusual had happened. I greeted him and asked him to be seated, and then said, "Mac, what is the matter?" He extended his long right arm and exclaimed, "Why, the whole thing is up."

"What's up?" I asked, "Mac, what do you mean?"

"Why, Billy Reedy came into my office a little while ago and suggested that I pick out the right kind of a fellow and have him locked up in jail so that he might work on Maxwell," he said.

"Is that all Reedy said?" I asked.

He then went on and detailed as nearly as he could recollect just what Reedy had said. I asked him what he had said to Reedy and he told me. I then said, "Do you think that Reedy noticed your excitement when he made the suggestion to you?"

"No, he could not have," he replied, "I was not excited, I never get excited."

"You were excited when you came in here, and if Billy Reedy noticed it when he made that suggestion it might set him to thinking, and inasmuch as you did not take kindly to the suggestion, he might possibly make the suggestion to Chief Harrigan," I said.

"Oh, no," replied Mac, "Billy would not make any suggestions to the chief. He is my friend and I appreciate the feeling that prompted him to make the suggestion, but confound it, I wish he had not thought of it."

I said, "Mac, we know that Billy Reedy is a bright young fellow, and a great news gatherer, and a loyal friend of yours. I do not believe he will say anything more about it, and now I think the best thing to do is to quietly await developments."

My advice was followed, and I do not believe that William Marion Reedy, who is now proprietor and editor of the St. Louis Mirror, has ever known just how much that friendly suggestion of his worried his friend Marshall F. McDonald. I have told in my story how McCulloch remained in jail and got the facts from Maxwell, and our scheme was not spoiled by Mr. Reedy's suggestion, for he never repeated it to any other person.

The testimony at the trial was overwhelming against Maxwell, and the jury before whom this case was tried quickly returned a verdict of guilty of murder in the first degree, and Hugh M. Brookes, alias Maxwell, was hung for one of the most cold-blooded murders of the age.

The St. Louis police department had an exhibit in the Educational Building during the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, St. Louis, which consisted of photographs and police records of criminals, burglars, tools and various weapons. This exhibit also had the noose with which Brookes, alias Maxwell, was hung, and his photograph and the picture of the two St. Louis officers who brought him back from Auckland, New Zealand. There were thousands of people who viewed this exhibit, and I deem it proper to tell the public that the police department had positively nothing to do with obtaining the evidence that convicted Maxwell. They had really nothing to do with his arrest, other than sending out his description. He was arrested through the efforts of Capt. Leas, Chief of Police of San Francisco, Cal. His conviction was due to my efforts and the work of my operative, McCulloch, and to Messrs. Clover and McDonald. Mr. Clover paid the expenses from his own pocket and Mr. McDonald deserved a great deal more credit that he was accorded for the masterful way in which he handled the prosecution, but not one of these names were mentioned in the exhibit at the World's Fair. Mr. Clover paid about six hundred dollars out of his own personal funds for the expenses incurred in obtaining the evidence, and I got a black eye and a swollen jaw as my compensation.

Dingfelter, while in the jail, also made the acquaintance of two brothers by the name of Johnston, who had been arrested in New Orleans and brought to St. Louis for safe keeping by the United States authorities, on the charge of having had a large number of Brazilian bonds printed. These bonds were counterfeit, utterly worthless to any one who purchased them. The government secret service had captured a lot of these spurious bonds and had brought the prisoners to St. Louis until they could be tried in the Federal Court.

The Johnstons took a liking to Dingfelter and told him all about their scheme, where they had gotten the printing done, by whom, and all the other facts of their crime. Dingfelter did not solicit any confidences, but they, supposing him to be a shrewd crook, thought their secret was safe, until Maxwell was on trial and Dingfelter, as he was known to them, took the stand and testified, giving his right name, John F. McCulloch, and his business, that of a detective. As soon as the Johnston brothers learned who and what Dingfelter was, they sent word to the United States authorities that they had admitted to Detective Dingfelter everything pertaining to their guilt, and they were willing to plead guilty to the charges pending against them in the Federal Court. This they did when they were arraigned for trial.

THE BIG COTTON SWINDLE.

TRAGIC ENDING OF A BIG CASE ON WHICH A GREAT DEAL OF
REAL DETECTIVE WORK HAD BEEN DONE.

The cotton swindle occurred at Sherman, Texas, on the Texas & Pacific Railroad, early in the fall of 1883. It was in the cotton shipping season, and Sherman was a point from which a very large amount of cotton was shipped annually, it being the principal shipping point, or outlet, for one of the largest cotton producing districts in the state. For this reason the eastern cotton buyers and cotton mill owners were represented by agents at these shipping points. These agents were really brokers. It was the practice of these brokers, as soon as they had purchased cotton, to have it delivered at once to the railroad company for shipment, when they would receive from the railroad company's agent a bill of lading, setting forth the number and weight of each bale. This bill of lading, when signed by the railroad agent, was negotiable at any bank in the cotton producing district. The bank would take the bill of lading, allowing the depositor ninety per cent cash on the face value and would hold ten per cent back until the exact value of the cotton was ascertained by the proper officials. The practice of cashing these bills of lading was then general in the cotton-growing country, and, I presume, it is at the present time.

It was early in the month of January, 1884, when I was suddenly called to the office of Capt. C. G. Warner, who was then General Auditor for the Gould Railway System. The Texas & Pacific was one of the many Gould lines. I occupied the position of Chief Special Agent for that system.

On my arrival at Capt. Warner's office, he informed me that he had just received from Sherman, Texas, a long telegraph message from one of his traveling auditors, which stated that a large amount of cotton, which had been shipped from that station, had undoubtedly been diverted in transit, as the cotton had not reached its proper destination. Capt. Warner instructed me to go to Sherman at once, where I would find the traveling auditor, Mr. Finby, and make a thorough investigation.

I left St. Louis on the first train, and arrived at Sherman in due time, where I found Mr. Finby, who informed me that the company's agent, in charge at Sherman (whom I will call No. 4) had left there on the Saturday night previous, since which time not one word had been heard from him. He further stated that No. 4 had told his assistant on Saturday evening, that he was going to take a run down to Galveston on personal business, and expected to return on the following Monday. It then being Wednesday, and No. 4 not having returned, Mr. Finby had become aroused and wired the head of his department at St. Louis, which accounted for my appearance in Sherman. I at once began my investigation, with a view of locating No. 4, the missing agent. I remained in and about Sherman several days, during which time the traveling auditor was busily engaged, with some of his assistants, in auditing and trying to straighten out the accounts of the station.

In the meantime, telegraph messages of inquiry were pouring into Sherman from parties in New York, Philadelphia, Fall River, Mass., and Providence, Rhode Island. These parties had purchased and paid for large quantities of cotton, the total amount aggregating $121,000, and they wanted to know why they had not received it. Messages of this kind had been pouring into Sherman for a month or six weeks prior to the time Mr. Finby had been called there.

The officers of the railroad became alarmed, believing from the facts learned up to this time, that the cotton for which the eastern buyers were inquiring, had been shipped and had been diverted, and probably stolen. If this were true the railroad company would be responsible for the loss of the cotton to the buyers and would probably have to pay additional damages. Thus the loss of this cotton was a serious matter for the company.

After I had worked at Sherman for about ten days, as hard and earnestly as I had ever worked on a case in my life, I succeeded in obtaining information that led me to believe that there were three other men connected with No. 4, the missing agent, in this swindle. I had also succeeded in locating the family and friends of No. 4, and the other three suspects, whose names I withhold for the reason that some of them were connected with respectable families and have near relatives living today, who were in no way responsible for the wrong-doing of these men and ought not to be subjected to the humiliation which the publication of these names might inflict upon them.

During my investigation I learned that one of these men (whom in mentioning I will call No. 1) had a brother living in New Orleans. (I will call the other two confederates No. 2 and No. 3, withholding their names for the reasons I have already given.) I had decided to go to New Orleans direct from Sherman and there quietly investigate the brother of No. 1. I had also telegraphed to my office at St. Louis, Mo., instructing George W. Herbert, one of my assistants, to meet me in New Orleans, which he did.

We located No. 1's brother in New Orleans very easily, and after I had previously obtained information that No. 1's wife might be stopping temporarily with her brother-in-law's family, who were living in a large and rather pretentious mansion in that city, I began to watch the mansion for the purpose of learning, if possible, whether or not No. 1's wife was staying there. I had a photograph of No. 1 and also of his wife. She was a beautiful woman. She was born and raised in the state of Tennessee, where her mother and other near relatives resided.

I had learned that a man answering the description of No. 1 in all respects had registered at the then leading hotel of Sherman under the name of J. D. Dillard, Jr. This man had reached the hotel at a late hour at night, was assigned to a room and remained in it all the following day, ordering his meals sent to the room, explaining to the hotel people that he was ill. During the day No. 4 called at the hotel and quietly visited the room occupied by Dillard, where he (No. 4) had remained an hour or more. He went to Dillard's room without making any inquiries at the office, merely consulting the register.

Dillard, who was really No. 1, left his room about midnight the following night, and took a north-bound train from Sherman. Nobody had seen the supposed Dillard during the time of his stay at Sherman, except the night clerk, who had not noticed him particularly when he assigned him to his room, and a chamber-maid, a mulatto, who had charge of the room of No. 1, or Dillard, as he called himself, had waited on him while he was there. She had become familiar with his features and stated to me that she would know him on sight any place. She described Dillard accurately, after which I exhibited No. 1's photograph. She instantly identified it as a good picture of Mr. Dillard. This is what caused me to place No. 1's brother's house in New Orleans under surveillance. I also traced Dillard from Sherman, Texas, to Emporia, Kansas, where the photographs of himself and wife were identified by the proprietor of the hotel and the employes there, at which the Dillards had stopped for a period of a month prior to Dillard's recent visit to Sherman. Mrs. Dillard had remained at Emporia during her husband's absence, and he joined her at Emporia on his return from Sherman, and they departed from there immediately for parts unknown. I traced them to Topeka, Kansas, where the trail was lost.

My assistant and myself kept up a steady watch on the home of the brother of No. 1, in New Orleans, day and night, for about three weeks. We divided the time into eight hour watches, one of us sleeping while the other was on duty. It was one of the most difficult tasks of the kind I had ever undertaken, for the reason that I was personally known to the chief of police of New Orleans, who was a friend of mine. I was also known to a number of police detectives of that city, and owing to the prominence of the family and connections of No. 1 I did not deem it expedient to meet any of the police authorities, as by so doing I, of course, would feel compelled to explain to them the cause of my presence in their city. I had no doubt that some of them would render me all the assistance they could, but I was afraid that some of them might talk about my presence in the city, and the friends of No. 1 might hear of it, and thereby be the means of hindering me in my efforts to locate the whereabouts of No. 1. For this reason it required more vigilance on my part to keep out of sight of the police, who knew me, than what I was bestowing to the watching of the house in question.

During the long vigil many humorous incidents occurred. One morning, after we had been on watch several days, I hit upon a plan to find if there were any women about the big house, as we had seen none up to this time, hoping thereby to locate the wife of No. 1. A few blocks down the street a couple of good-looking young Italian girls were playing a hand organ. The instrument was a fine new one and of exceedingly loud tone. I quietly bargained for their services to take up their station in front of the house I was watching, telling them to play there as long as the police would permit them. The music and the performance of the monkeys brought several women from the house to the veranda, but to my disappointment, the much wanted woman was not among them. The performance was repeated several mornings, with the same results. Mrs. Dillard was not in the house, as we afterwards learned.

Meanwhile the brother, a gentleman of leisure, was in the habit of strolling each morning from his house to the postoffice, where he usually mailed several letters. He always dropped these letters in the general receptacle, which had an opening in the main corridor at least a foot in length and three inches wide, and led to a large box in the basement below the main floor. This box would hold probably a wagon load of letters and packages, and when a letter was dropped in this mass it was almost impossible to find it again.

No. 1's brother was a man middle-aged, rather slow in his movements, and very deliberate in everything that he did. He carried these letters in an inside pocket of his dress coat, and walked with a cane. He would approach the general mail box, placing his cane under his left arm and carefully removing his snug-fitting glove from his right hand, would take the letters, consisting of three or more, and in an exasperatingly deliberate and slow manner deposit them in the box with the other mail. He would watch them until they had disappeared down the chute and out of sight. This operation was repeated by him daily, except Sundays, during the three weeks, and witnessed each time by either Herbert or myself, and had grown very tiresome to both of us. Finally I concluded that we would prepare two letters and address them to ourselves, stamp them properly and then cover the back of each envelope with a thick coating of mucilage. Herbert was given one of the letters, I keeping the other. Herbert placed himself on one side of the chute, while I took my position on the other side, each of us being some distance away from the receptacle.

The main corridor of the postoffice, in the forenoon, was generally crowded with people passing to and fro, between the hours of ten and twelve o'clock; for this reason we attracted no special attention. We knew about the time that No. 1's brother was in the habit of visiting the postoffice, and, therefore, we were not kept waiting but a few moments for his appearance. He approached the mail box in his usual manner, and was as painfully deliberate as he had been on previous occasions, and after he had gone through the customary maneuvers, but before he had time to drop the three letters from his hand, Herbert rushed up to the receptacle from the left side and I from the right, and we both reached out our hands at the same time with the letters we held having the mucilaged surface, in such a way that they came in contact with the three letters he had in his hand, and forcing the letters into the chute with ours, the mucilage sticking the bunch of five letters together. All slid into the chute. No. 1's brother became very indignant and muttered something about rudeness and awkwardness. I attempted a hasty apology and disappeared around the corner to the office of the Assistant Postmaster, whose acquaintance I had previously formed. I told him that I had just deposited two letters in the main repository and that I had discovered that I had placed the letters in the wrong envelopes, and wished to get them so that I might rectify my mistake. He at once conducted me to the main mail box below, where there were at least a half a wagon load of letters and general mail matter. I at once found the bunch of five letters which were stuck together with the mucilage, and in separating them had ample time to note the different addresses on the three envelopes mailed by No. 1's brother. One of these was addressed to a relative of Mrs. Dillard, to her home in Tennessee. Another was addressed to another brother of No. 1, who resided in Atlanta, Georgia. The third letter was addressed to J. D. Dillard, Jr., Ocean Springs, Mississippi. I knew of the relatives in Tennessee and of the brother in Atlanta, Georgia, and also that J. D. Dillard, Jr., was the man I wanted to locate, and for the first time learned that he was at Ocean Springs, Mississippi. Ocean Springs was then a small winter resort located on the Louisville & Nashville Railroad, between Montgomery and New Orleans. It was also an harbor on Mobile Bay and near Biloxi, Mississippi.

Upon the receipt of this information I went to Ocean Springs, Miss., arriving there about midnight on the night that I had seen the letter addressed by No. 1's brother to this place. There I found that the postoffice of the town was kept in a grocery store, which was part of the principal hotel of the town. I learned that the landlord, who was a very genial, clever man, and proprietor of the grocery store, was postmaster. I quietly showed him the photograph of No. 1 and his wife, and he immediately identified them as Mr. and Mrs. Dillard, Jr. He told me that Dillard had represented himself to him as a rich iron manufacturer from Chattanooga, Tenn., that his wife was in ill health and that they had been there for the past month or more and had rented a beautiful cottage known as the Montgomery Cottage, where they were living. This cottage was situated on a small peninsula, which extended from the main land, dividing Biloxi Bay from Mobile Bay. It was about two miles from the postoffice at Ocean Springs. The positive and ready manner in which the postmaster identified the photographs satisfied me beyond any doubt that I had succeeded in locating No. 1. I gave the postmaster to understand that No. 1 had fallen heir to a sum of money and property, and that neither he nor his wife had become aware of the fact, and that I was very desirous of apprising him of his good fortune as a surprise, and before doing so, I desired to have all necessary papers prepared, which would require a week or ten days, and, therefore, I was anxious to have the matter kept a profound secret until everything was ready. The postmaster readily promised me that he would not mention the matter to any person until I gave him permission to do so, and after making these arrangements I felt perfectly safe in not arresting No. 1 until I had secured the proper papers authorizing the same.

It was necessary for me to obtain requisition papers from the Governors of Mississippi and Texas. It would take about eight or ten days to accomplish this, as proper complaint had to be lodged at Sherman, Texas, request for the requisition had to be sent from Sherman to Austin, Texas, and the request of the Governor of Texas to the Governor of Mississippi for the extradition papers, at Jackson, Miss., where the agent for the state of Texas had to appear in person to receive the papers. I had myself appointed as the agent for the state of Texas.

At the conclusion of my understanding with the postmaster of Ocean Springs, I took a night train to New Orleans, where I met George Herbert, and instructed him to go on the first train to Ocean Springs, and on arriving there to represent himself as an invalid and to act the part. He was naturally thin and had a sallow complexion, usually without any color.

He represented himself as having just passed through a severe attack of rheumatism, and claimed that he had been advised by his physician to come to Ocean Springs, where he should spend at least a month during his convalescence. He equipped himself with two heavy walking canes, which he carried continuously during his stay at Ocean Springs, and while he made good progress walking, he seemed to bystanders to do so with some difficulty, but the balmy climate of the resort seemed to benefit him greatly, and he appeared to improve daily while there. He was instructed by me to meander around and to get to the Montgomery Cottage, providing, of course, if he could succeed in so doing without arousing any suspicion, and if he did succeed in getting inside of the cottage, that he was to make a diagram of the place and surroundings, which Herbert could do nicely, as he was a good draftsman. He succeeded admirably. He formed the acquaintance of No. 1, whom he met at the postoffice on the second day after his arrival. He also met him again the following day at the same place, when No. 1 gave him an invitation to come over to the cottage and take a sail on the bay, as he (No. 1) had a very nice sailing yacht, which he kept anchored in front of the cottage. Herbert accepted the invitation and visited the cottage the following day, when No. 1 introduced him to his wife, mother-in-law and brother-in-law, who happened to be at the cottage making a visit. He belonged in Tennessee. Herbert was also introduced to a young woman, about thirty years of age, who was rather good-looking, a brunette and of medium size. This woman was introduced to him under an assumed name, as we learned within a few days thereafter that she was really the wife of the missing agent.

Herbert was invited to luncheon at the cottage, and took a short sail with No. 1, No. 1's wife and the brunette lady before mentioned. The yacht was a schooner-rigged, of about twenty tons burden, and was skillfully manned by a man about thirty-five years of age, black curly hair, a little bald, about five feet, five or six inches in height, weighing probably one hundred and thirty or thirty-five pounds, dark complexioned, and inclined to be slender, hollow cheeked, and had somewhat of a consumptive appearance. Herbert was not introduced to this man by his host, but thought nothing of the matter, believing the sailing master, who was always in uniform, to be simply an employe of No. 1.

Herbert made a good diagram of the interior of the cottage, as well as the entrances and the grounds and outbuildings. After that he made daily visits to the cottage, when the weather permitted, the occupants seeming to enjoy and encourage his visits. He had made arrangements with the livery stable for the services of an old, but gentle horse, and an old-fashioned buggy, in which he drove around every day.

Herbert forwarded the diagram to me along with his daily reports during my absence from Ocean Springs. All this time I was busily engaged in procuring the necessary papers and making arrangements to effect the arrest of both No. 1 and No. 4, as upon receipt of Herbert's accurate description of the sailing master of the yacht, I had become satisfied that the sailing-master was none other than No. 4, the much wanted agent.

In due time I procured the papers and proceeded to Canton, Miss., which was the county seat for Ocean Springs. I there found Sheriff Clark of that county. As sheriff he was commanded in the requisition papers to render me, as agent for the state of Texas, all assistance I needed in making the arrests. I found Sheriff Clark to be a fine, affable gentleman of the "old school." He was an ex-Confederate captain, having served through the Civil War, had been elected sheriff of his county at the close of that conflict, and had succeeded himself in office up to the time of which I write. I requested the sheriff to go with me himself and furnish one of his deputies.

We left Canton, which was about twenty miles north of Ocean Springs, about ten o'clock at night, and arrived at a station five miles north of the Springs an hour later, where we left the train, as we did not deem it safe to get off the train at Ocean Springs. I had been informed by Herbert, with whom I was in daily communication, that No. 1's brother-in-law visited the depot at Ocean Springs at night so as to see everybody who got off the night trains at that station. He also stated that all passenger trains passing that station were seen by some person connected with the cottage.

I omitted stating heretofore that both No. 1 and No. 4 were good telegraph operators, and Herbert, while inspecting the premises, had noticed two tiny copper wires running into the cottage, and had followed them from the cottage to the Louisville and Nashville Railroad, and later discovered that these wires were connected with the commercial wire of the Western Union Telegraph Co., that ran between New Orleans and the north. He also found that they had a telegraph office fixed up in one of the rooms of the cottage where they could find out all that was passing over the wires of the Western Union Co., and take their ease.

The peninsular upon which the cottage was situated was thickly covered with pine and cedar trees, and the wires were entirely hidden and could not have been discovered by any person unless one who was engaged as Herbert was, so that these gentlemen could while away their time listening to what was going over the wires.

After leaving the train, Sheriff Clark, his deputy and myself leisurely walked down the tracks to within a quarter of a mile of Ocean Springs, and then making a detour around the station, we reached the peninsula south from Ocean Springs, at which point I had arranged to meet Herbert.

It began raining the evening before we had left Canton, and continued to rain all night. It was in the month of February, and was a cold and chilly rain. The night was inky dark.

When we reached the peninsula we were sheltered by the dense foliage of the trees, and we approached the cottage to within about one thousand feet, and then decided to remain quietly among the trees until we could see daylight begin to appear in the east. At the first appearance of daylight Herbert and myself reconnoitered, circling the cottage, he going one way and I the other. We found that every one was apparently asleep. We then went back and reported to Sheriff Clark and his deputy. We surrounded the place, Herbert and the deputy covering the rear of the cottage, and the sheriff and myself going to the front door and rapping for admission, which was denied. After we had rapped for admission we could hear the window shutters being pushed open and the inmates peered out of the windows and discovered that the place was surrounded, or rather guarded, on each side. Finally Sheriff Clark told the occupants that unless they opened the door that we would force it. After some parleying the front door was opened. The door was a double door and only one-half of it was opened, and very suddenly No. 1's brother-in-law, a very tall and slender individual, appeared in the open door with a double-barreled shotgun in his hands, but before he had time to raise the gun to a shooting position, he found himself covered with two double-barreled guns, one in the hands of the sheriff and the other in my hand. Upon being ordered to drop the gun he did so promptly. The sheriff took possession of him and I started down the wide hall, which ran directly through the center of the cottage. As I was passing the second door from the front door No. 1 stepped out of the room into the hall with a pistol in his hand. I recognized him and promptly arrested him.

I said to him, "Where is No. 4?"

He answered, "In the room across the hall."

I went to the room indicated and rapped, but was refused admission. I then forced the door and found No. 4 standing in the middle of the room partly dressed. After some trouble with No. 4 and his wife, we took them all to Ocean Springs. We walked over there, a distance of about two miles. It was breakfast time when we reached there, and the rain had stopped. We went to the hotel and got something to eat, and the landlord learned for the first time the true nature of the surprise that I had in store for No. 1.

There was an early train to New Orleans, and Herbert and I took the two prisoners and left on this train for that city. I telegraphed ahead to have a carriage meet us outside of New Orleans, and we left the train a short distance from that city. Here we entered the carriage, which conveyed us to the ferry boat at New Orleans. We took the ferry and went across to Algiers. Our object in doing this was that I wished to avoid newspaper notoriety. The newspaper men we were sure to meet in the main station at New Orleans had we gone there.

At Algiers we boarded a Southern Pacific train for Houston, Texas. At Houston we took a Houston & Texas Central train, which took us through to Dallas, Texas.

The prisoners were lodged in jail before the newspapers had mentioned the capture or arrest, for the reason that I knew that there were two others connected with the swindle, who resided in Dallas, and had not yet been arrested, who were not even suspected of having any connection with the swindle or any other crime by the people of Dallas.

We arrived at Dallas at night with the prisoners. The following morning the Chief of Police, Jim Arnold, and myself picked up and arrested the other two accomplices. These men were Hebrews. One of them had been a respectable and prominent cotton buyer up to his connection with the swindle. The other was an educated man and somewhat noted for having been mixed up in crooked dealings. He was a lawyer, but was not practicing law for a livelihood.

The reader should remember that No. 1 was an ex-railroad agent and telegraph operator, and had been employed as such up to about one year and a half before he became engaged in this cotton swindle. He had become thoroughly familiar with the railroad system of receiving and handling cotton.

No. 2, who lived in Dallas, was also familiar with the buying and selling, and value of cotton, as well as the customary way of obtaining cash from the banks on bills of lading for the same.

No. 3 was the reputable cotton buyer, or broker, before mentioned in this story. He also lived in Dallas.

The arrests at Dallas added greatly to the excitement which was caused by the incarceration of No. 4 and No. 1 the night before.

The prisoners all waived preliminary hearings and were committed to jail in default of bail to wait the action of the Grand Jury, which convened a month or six weeks later. In the meantime, three of the defendants succeeded in getting bonds and were released from jail. My recollection now is that the bonds were fixed at $10,000 each.

No. 3 was taken sick immediately after his arrest and continued to steadily grow worse until he died, which was about two months after he was arrested.

No. 1 and No. 2 almost immediately after they had been released on bonds fled the country, No. 1 going to Old Mexico, and No. 2 seeking refuge in London, Ontario, Canada.

When the cases were called for trial in court at Dallas, Texas, No. 1 and No. 2 failed to appear, and their bonds were declared forfeited. No. 3, having died, his bond, of course, was not forfeited.

No. 4, it appears either did not try to procure bail, or if so, did not succeed, as he remained in jail. Meanwhile I was employed in procuring duplicates of the bills of lading, which had been issued and sold to the purchasers of the cotton, which caused me to visit the cities of Philadelphia, New York, Providence, Rhode Island and Fall River, Mass. The procuring of these duplicates proved no easy task, but I finally obtained certified copies of all of them. These duplicates were to be used as evidence at the trial.

I was at Dallas on the date set for the trial, and, on learning of the absence of the defendants, and that the court had postponed the trial of No. 4, he being the only one within the reach of the court, I at once reported the situation to the railroad officials at St. Louis, in reply to which I received instructions by wire from Vice-President Hoxie, of the Missouri Pacific to proceed at once to locate and arrest the fugitives and take them back to Dallas, and there to turn them over to the proper authorities, so that they might be dealt with according to law.

Upon receipt of these instructions, I detailed operatives Bailey and Herbert of my staff to locate and arrest No. 1, which they succeeded in doing after a lot of hard and good work. They arrested him at Guymas, Old Mexico. This city is located on the Pacific Coast. They brought their prisoner back to Dallas and lodged him in jail.

I had assumed the task of locating No. 2. After considerable work I discovered that he was in London, Canada, which is just one hundred miles east of Detroit, Michigan. I visited London, where I saw No. 2, without being seen by him. He would have known me at sight, as it was I who had arrested him in Dallas.

I found that he had surrounded himself with a number of sympathizing friends in London, many of whom were fugitives from justice from the United States, as he was. Many of them, he among them, had money and felt safe while on Canadian soil.

The extradition treaty then in force between Great Britain and the United States was known as the Ashburton and Webster Treaty, and was passed, I believe, in 1844. This treaty only permitted the extradition of fugitives charged with one of seven crimes; murder, felonious assault with intent to murder, arson, rape, forgery, uttering of forged paper and perjury.

After I had seen No. 2 in London, I communicated the facts by wire code to Mr. Hoxie, he giving my report to ex-Governor John C. Brown, the General Solicitor for the Gould System of railroads. His headquarters were in the same building with Mr. Hoxie's at St. Louis.

Governor Brown was thoroughly conversant with this case, and had a national reputation as a lawyer, and when told by Mr. Hoxie of the whereabouts of No. 2, he at once wired me, by code, to try my best to induce No. 2 to accompany me across the line of Canada into either Michigan or New York state. If I succeeded in getting him across the boundary line I could hold him in either state until extradition papers could be secured from the Governor of Texas.

From the instructions Gov. Brown had wired me, I was satisfied that the Governor was not familiar with the statutes of Canada pertaining to extradition. If I had attempted to induce the fugitive across the Canada line for the purpose of arresting him without legal authority I would be subjecting myself to prosecution for kidnapping. If convicted of that charge under the Canadian statutes, I would have been sent to prison for a term of from two to seven years. Knowing that it was impossible for me to obey Gov. Brown's instructions, I employed a young attorney, or barrister, as they are called in Canada, whose name was McBride, and while he had been practicing law but a few years, he was recommended to me very highly for his ability and integrity.

During my consultation with him I explained to him fully that the bills of lading, which had been used in the cotton swindle, had been signed by the company's agent in blank and then turned over by the agent to No. 2 in blocks. No. 2 had then filled out each blank for various numbers of bales of cotton, setting forth the number of bales and the weight of each bale in the regular way. He then turned the bills of lading thus prepared by him over to No. 3, whom the reader will remember was a cotton buyer. No. 3 placed these bills of lading in various banks at Sherman, Dallas and other Texas towns. He drew cash from the banks for the face value, less ten per cent, for the purpose heretofore stated. After explaining all this to Mr. McBride, I asked him what crime these men had committed under the statutes of Canada. He promptly answered without even referring to the statutes, that under the Canadian law, they were all guilty of forgery and having uttered and published forged paper, including the company's agent who had signed each of these bills as agent.

I said, "Supposing these men had fled from the United States and were found in Canada, could they be arrested and extradited back to the United States for trial?"

"Yes," he said, "they surely could, under the provisions of the Ashburton and Webster Treaty, which provides for the extradition of fugitives who are legally charged with the crime of forgery, or of uttering and publishing forged paper."

"But," I said, "Mr. McBride, the company's agent signed these bills of lading."

He replied, "I understand from you that the agent had received no cotton. Am I right?"

I answered, "Yes, he received no cotton."

"Then," said Mr. McBride, "the agent signed the bills of lading for fraudulent purposes, and therefore his signature was unauthorized by the company who employed him, and under the Canadian law he is a forger, while the other conspirators would be guilty of uttering and publishing forged paper. The penalty would be just as severe for the latter offense, under the Canadian law, as it would be for forgery."

I neglected to state that after I had located No. 2, at London, Ontario, the railroad company's attorneys were informed by the judge who presided over the criminal court at Dallas, Texas, that in his opinion the fraudulent bills of lading heretofore described were not forgeries, as they had been signed by the company's agent, and for this reason, I presume, Gov. Brown instructed me as he did, he knowing that the fugitive, No. 2, could not be extradited from Canada unless we could substantiate a charge for forgery against him. No doubt, at the time, Gov. Brown believed the ruling of the Texas judge was correct. All of which I fully explained to Mr. McBride, to which he replied, "A Texas judge has no jurisdiction in Canada, and his opinion or construction of our law would amount to nothing here. And if you find any fugitive from the United States in Canada, who has been connected with the swindle, you will have to identify them as being the right parties, and then set forth the manner in which the swindle was enacted and the amount of money or property secured by the swindlers, and it does not make any difference what name the Texas statutes or the Texas judge gives the crime committed in the manner you have described to me, it would be forgery here. You must understand that you must comply with the requirements of the Canadian laws in order to extradite a fugitive from Canada. If you should find your fugitive here in London you can, if you desire, go to any other county or city in the province of Ontario and make your complaint, have a warrant issued for the arrest of the fugitive, bring an officer from that county or city to serve the warrant, arrest him here and take him immediately before the magistrate who issued the warrant, and have the prisoner committed to jail for two weeks without bail. At the expiration of the two weeks, should you desire an additional two weeks, you can secure same by convincing the magistrate that you were unable to secure the presence of the necessary witnesses to substantiate the identity of the prisoner, and his connection with the swindle; our law will allow you these continuances. After the prisoner had had his preliminary hearing, if the testimony offered should be sufficient to satisfy the magistrate, he would then fix the bond at the amount of four times the amount involved in the swindle, which would be in this case nearly one-half million dollars."

After McBride had finished the foregoing advice to me, I thanked him and paid him his fee, which was only $10.00, and went to Chatham, Ontario. Chatham is the county seat, about fifty miles west of London, and just half way between London and Detroit, Michigan.

I found the queen's counsel at Chatham, to whom I fully explained my case. Whereupon, he verified and approved the advice I had received from Mr. McBride of London. I at once filed the necessary complaint, and procured a warrant for the arrest of No. 2. The warrant was addressed and given to the chief of police of Chatham, who accompanied me back to London, where I pointed out the fugitive to him.

We arrested him immediately and took him to Chatham, where he was locked up as a fugitive, and his hearing set for two weeks later in accordance with the Canadian law.

The reader will remember that when I first located No. 2 in London he was surrounded by newly found friends there, a number of whom were fugitives like himself. For this reason I felt it prudent to begin legal proceedings against him in a country where both he and I were strangers and avoid the annoyance and trouble which his sympathizing fugitive friends were sure to cause.

As soon as No. 2 was safely lodged in jail I wired Gov. Brown at St. Louis, Missouri, stating that I had arrested and locked up No. 2 on the charge of being a fugitive from the state of Texas, United States of America, that the hearing was set for two weeks later and that while passing through St. Louis on my way to Texas, I would stop over long enough to report in person to him. In about two hours I received his reply, which was a severe reprimand, and read as follows: "Why did you disobey my instructions when you knew that I had instructed you as to what the Texas judge had decided, and therefore, the fugitive could not be extradited from Canada under the existing treaty, nor in accordance with the act of Congress, which provides for said treaty. Answer." (Signed) John C. Brown.

To which I answered as follows:

"Hon. John C. Brown, General Solicitor, Missouri Pacific Railroad Co., St. Louis, Missouri:—I disregarded your instructions, finding them erroneous, and that you did not understand the law pertaining to this case. Have also learned that a Texas Judge's ruling are not considered in Canada, as I find that I can legally extradite the fugitive from Canada under the present law." (Signed) Thomas Furlong.

After sending the above message, I borrowed a copy of the revised statutes of Canada from the Crown Counsel, who would be called prosecuting attorney in the United States. He marked each section of the statutes which pertained to our case. I at once put the law book in my grip, and started for St. Louis, arriving there the following morning.

I immediately reported to Vice-President Hoxie, whom I found in his office. After the usual greeting Mr. Hoxie said to me, "Tom, Gov. Brown showed me a message that he had received from you yesterday. He appeared to be quite angry."

To which I replied, "I am here to explain my actions fully, and I wish you would kindly request Gov. Brown to come to your office at his convenience, as I think my explanation should be made to him in your presence so that one explanation may serve both. My time is limited, as I must go to Texas and procure certain witnesses and return with them to Chatham, Ontario, within two weeks, the time set for the hearing."

Whereupon, Mr. Hoxie sent for Gov. Brown, who appeared in a few moments. After the usual salutation, I repeated the instructions I received from him. I then stated that I had found it impossible for me to have carried out the instructions in Canada without subjecting myself to prosecution, and probably a sentence to the penitentiary, and I, therefore, concluded to do the next best thing, which was to employ a competent attorney, who advised me as to my rights and how to proceed legally under the laws of that country. I then produced the copy of the statutes, which I had borrowed from the crown counsel, and directed Gov. Brown's attention to the marked sections before mentioned, which he carefully read. After he had finished I produced and read the telegram I had received from him, at the same time calling his attention to the question he had asked me to answer in his message.

He then compared his message with the one he had received from me in dignified silence, and then without a word handed the two messages to Mr. Hoxie, near whose chair he was standing. Mr. Hoxie read them and then looked up at the Governor and said, "Governor, what do you think of this matter?"

For answer Gov. Brown deliberately walked around the table to where I was sitting and extended his hand to me, and I arose and took it. He turned to Mr. Hoxie and said in a pleasant manner, "Furlong was right all the way through." Then turning to me he said, "Furlong, you ought to have been a lawyer. I was a little angry when I received your message yesterday, but I see that it was all right, as you only answered the questions I had asked you."

I left St. Louis for Dallas that night, and while there I arranged with the Chief of Police, Jim Arnold, and other well-known citizens, to accompany me to Chatham, Ontario, as witnesses in the case pending against No. 2. These witnesses had all known No. 2 for years, and were familiar with his reputation as to truth and veracity, his business connections, etc. The witnesses and myself arrived in Chatham in time for the hearing of No. 2.

The judge, after hearing the evidence, committed No. 2 to jail without bail to await extradition papers from the President of the United States and the Governor General of Canada. No. 2 was defended in the hearing by two noted barristers, who at once appealed to a higher court. In due time the appeal was argued and the action of the lower court sustained; whereupon No. 2's counsel had the case taken up to the Privy Court at Toronto. This court affirmed the action of the lower courts, and it being the highest tribunal in Canada its decision was final and No. 2 was committed without bail for extradition.

I immediately left Toronto for Washington, D. C., having already received the necessary papers from the state of Texas. I presented these to the Department of Justice in Washington, on the evening of my arrival there, and they were promptly approved and sent to President Cleveland for his signature. By the way, these papers were the first of their kind ever signed by President Cleveland, it being but four days after his inauguration for his first term as President of the United States. The papers were delivered to me and I left for Chatham, Ontario, for the purpose of taking No. 2 back to Dallas, Texas, for trial and bearing the commission of President Cleveland to do so.

The following day the train on which I was riding stopped twenty minutes at Canandaigua, New York, for dinner. As I was eating my dinner a messenger boy called out my name at the dining room door. I answered and he handed me a telegram, which was from the high sheriff of Chatham, and read as follows:

"When my jailor went to the cell occupied by No. 2 at twelve o'clock to day he found him dead. Had apparently been dead an hour. Cause of death yet unknown. Probably heart failure."

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.

A REMARKABLE CASE.

IDENTIFICATION OF A LITTLE GIRL FROM A DESCRIPTION GIVEN
OF HER FATHER, LEADS TO THE LATTER'S ARREST.

Identification of criminals from descriptions is not always an easy task, for two reasons. First, there are but few men who can intelligently describe a person from memory. This is an art within itself. The second reason is, it takes so little to change the general appearance of a man to such a degree that it is hard to pick him up from a mere description, that is, unless the man wanted has some peculiar feature or form that is very noticeable. The ordinary man, to change his general appearance, has to do but little. A change of shape or style of hat or clothing, the cutting off or growing of a mustache, or even a haircut or shave will often serve the purpose. I have never claimed to have what is today called "a camera eye" but I did a piece of identification work while special agent of the Allegheny Valley Railroad in the early '70s of which I have always been proud, for the reason that there has absolutely never been another case like it in the police annals of the entire country.

During the spring 1874, a man giving the name of Joseph Chalfont applied to Mr. Thomas M. King, the Division Superintendent of the Allegheny Valley Railroad, at Pittsburg, Pa., for a situation as locomotive engineer. This man, Chalfont, was a rather remarkable person, appearing to be about thirty-six years of age. He stood more than six feet in height, with extremely long arms and legs. His complexion was dark and sallow, and his hair coarse and black. His neck was very long, with a noticeable "Adam's Apple." His cheek-bones were high, and his nose straight and long. His eyes were beady and black, being set far back in his head and very close together; they were crowned with a bushy pair of eyebrows, which met above the ridge of his nose. Then to make the picture more complete, his forehead was low, giving his head a small, bullet-like appearance. The reader can see that a description of this man, if given accurately and with any care could be almost as good as a photograph.

Chalfont presented a letter of recommendation from the Master Mechanic of the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern Ry., at Buffalo, N. Y. The letter was very good, and stated that Chalfont had been in the employ of that company for a couple of years, and that he had left its service of his own accord, because he hoped to benefit himself by a change of climate. Supt. King was a close observer, and a good judge of human nature. He was badly in need of men at the time, and being rather impressed with Chalfont's appearance and manner, he examined him as to the rules governing the movement of trains. He stood a fair examination and was engaged. It is usual for an engineer who has not been promoted on a road, or who comes from another road, to spend several weeks in riding on the engines back and forth over the portion of the road on which he is expected to run. In this way a man could become familiar with all the grades, switches, side-tracks, curves, signals and so forth. Chalfont was given a copy of the company's rules and an order to learn the road. When he had done this he was given freight engine No. 42 to haul freight between South Oil City and Pittsburg. One day he was given a train of empty oil tanks at Pittsburg, and started for South Oil City with them. He arrived there in due time and turned the cars in safely. The following evening he was given a train of forty-five full oil tanks with orders to take them to Pittsburg. When he reached Sarah's Furnace, about half the distance to Pittsburg, he received orders to run upon the side-track there and allow a north-bound freight to pass him. He took the siding as he had been ordered, and in due time the first section of the freight met and passed him there. The engine on this section carried two red lights, which is the warning to railroad men that another section is following the first one, and it has the same roadway privileges as the first section. It therefore became the duty of Chalfont to remain upon the siding until the second section had passed him. Instead of doing this, however, Chalfont pulled out on the main line and started for Pittsburg. About one and a half miles south of Sarah's Furnace there is a curve known as Hard Scrabble Curve, which is one of the shortest and most dangerous curves on the road. Here on this curve Chalfont's train collided with the second section which was going north. Both engines were about the same size and weight, so when they met the force of ninety-five empty cars going north and forty-five loaded cars going south caused the engines to rear up in front, crushing the machinery of both. The fire from the boilers immediately spread, and soon the oil tanks were a mass of flame. As the heat grew greater the tanks exploded, scattering the blazing oil over the surface of the Allegheny River. The current was quite strong and it carried the blazing oil down-stream for miles, spreading destruction as it went. The heat from the oil changed the wreckage into a mass of molten metal. Chalfont's fireman was crushed to death, as was his front brakeman. The same fate overtook the engineer, fireman and brakeman of the north-bound train. The bodies were cremated in the blazing oil.

At this time oil was worth from $7.00 to $8.00 per barrel. The amount of oil lost totals up to nearly $200,000 in value. The company's loss in property was not less than $500,000, besides being responsible for the loss of the five lives. All this destruction was caused by the incompetency of Chalfont and the negligence of his conductor.

Chalfont luckily, or rather unluckily, escaped with his life by springing from his engine cab out upon the bluff side of the track. Here he climbed an almost perpendicular cliff about 400 feet high. The blaze from the oil had burned nearly all the clothing from his back, and had singed the back of his head and neck into a blister. He escaped into the hills.

The officers of the company at Pittsburg were notified immediately by wire, and a wrecking train and crew were sent to the scene post haste, in charge of Supt. King. They arrived at the wreck early the following morning. Here Supt. King learned what facts he could as to the cause of the wreck. He then wired to me to come to the wreck on the first train. I was at Oil City at the time, and left immediately, arriving at the wreck about noon. On my arrival Mr. King walked a little distance down the track, out of earshot from the noise of the wrecking crew, and sat down upon a log. He then told me what he had learned and as to the cause of the wreck. He also proceeded to describe Chalfont to me. He was so deliberate and careful in this description that it took him nearly an hour to do it. He had that rare faculty of being able to describe one person to another with accuracy. He then said, "Tom, do you think you could recognize this man from the description I have given you?" I answered, "Yes, I believe I could. The description you have given me reminds me very much of 'Morg' Erwin, a passenger engineer on the road." At this Mr. King, usually very quiet and sedate, grew very excited and clapped his hands as if in joy, exclaiming, "Why didn't I think of that before? He looks like 'Morg' Erwin."

I then said, "No, Mr. King, he looks very much like Erwin, but not exactly like him. He is very much like him in some respects, though, being taller than Erwin. Chalfont's neck is longer and his 'Adam's Apple' is much larger and more prominent. His eyes are not so large and are set back farther in his head than Erwin's. Chalfont's cheek-bones are much higher, while his hair is more coarse and much like horse hair. In short, Erwin is a more refined man than Chalfont."

To this Mr. King replied, "Tom, I feel sure that you will be able to identify that man on sight, and I want you to get him at all hazards. Spare no time or trouble, but 'GET HIM.' Take him to Katanning (the county seat of Westmoreland Co., Pa., where this wreck occurred) and lodge him in jail."

Mr. King then told me that I would find the letter of recommendation Chalfont had given him on file in his office at Pittsburg. I took the first train for Pittsburg, where I applied to Mr. Joe Reinhart, Mr. King's chief clerk, who was later President of the great Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe System, and he turned the letter over to me. I then concluded to go to Buffalo and see the Master Mechanic of the Lake Shore, from whose office the letter purported to come. At Buffalo I found the Master Mechanic and showed him Chalfont's letter. After reading the letter he told me that the letter head was genuine, but the letter itself, with stamp, seal and signature, were forgeries. He had neither written the letter nor authorized it, but he identified Chalfont's hand-writing. I learned that Chalfont had been a country school teacher earlier in his life, and that he received such small pay as such that he could not support his wife and children. He came to Buffalo, where he applied for work in the round-house of the Lake Shore shops there. He was given a position at wiping engines in the round-house. Here also his salary was too small to support his family and pay rent at the same time, so he was forced to move once a month to avoid paying rent. One day he got into the Master Mechanic's office and stole a part of a block of the official letter heads of the company. He then wrote himself a letter of recommendation which he had shown to Mr. King, and when the chance offered he stamped and sealed the letter, after stealing the stamp one night from the office. About this time he became so lazy and indolent that he was reprimanded by the Master Mechanic.

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?"