"We know of a score of offenses equally glaring on your part. The Government needs you as a witness. Under the circumstances do you not think it would be advisable for you to go with me to the district attorney and make a complete statement of all you know about customs frauds?"
The man that the Government wanted usually came through with all he knew. So were thecases made absolute and so were all the methods of graft revealed. Eleven weighers and checkers were convicted and sent to the penitentiary. Many hundreds of thousands of dollars in duties that had been avoided were assessed against and paid by importers. The Government was lenient with most of these because of its chagrin over the part played by its representatives and because the initiative in the offending had usually been taken by Government agents.
Altogether the cleaning up of the customs scandals in the port of New York was a most complicated task. The work of Special Agent Gard is but a fragment of it, but was vastly important and decidedly typical of the problem in hand and its solution.
The Isla Dolorosa is in the Rio Grande River a few miles below El Paso. It is Mexican territory and is owned by an aged ranchman named Jose Encino. If one should start a camp fire anywhere on the island he would be running a monstrous risk, for so great is the quantity of ammunition that has been smuggled thus far on its way to revolutionary war and buried, that any such fire might cause a huge explosion.
It was in the moonshine of a clear November night in 1911 that a boat drifted down the Rio Grande from the American side, pulled up among the cattails of the north shore of the island and was beached beneath a great cottonwood tree that stood out against the sky as a landmark. Two men stepped ashore and waited in the shadows. Fifteen minutes later tworiders splashed into the water from the Mexican side, floundered through the stream that but came to the stirrups, and pointed the noses of their horses for the same huge tree. Nearing it they halted.
"Reyes," said a voice from the darkness.
"Gomez," responded a rider.
The test of this interchange seemed to have been satisfactory for a small, dark man emerged from the shadow of the cottonwood and helped the riders to dismount. One of these later proved to be a woman who was treated with great courtesy by the small man. When the horses were tied the four seated themselves beneath the tree in a spot where the underbrush shut out the world. From the fitful light of an occasional match that served to light the eternal cigarettes of these Mexicans, an observer, if it had been possible for one to have looked on, might have studied four interesting faces.
The bearer of news and evidently the leader of the party was the small, dark man already mentioned. As it afterward developed he was Dr. Rafael Flores of El Paso. Doctor Flores, as the flicker of a match revealed, was a man ofsome sixty years of age, a thin, wiry individual with refined and almost classic features. He was a practising physician, a citizen of means and repute in the border city. The man who had come with him in the boat was named Comacho. He was short, square built, deeply pock-marked. He was notorious along the border, particularly in Lower California. He was an anarchist and an expert with explosives and was suspected of having been connected with many dire deeds.
The man who came on horseback was huge and heavy and wore always a red flannel shirt. He it was who had led the assault on Juarez when the troops of Francisco Villa had captured that city early in the Madero campaign. He it was who inflicted some of the early atrocities upon prisoners, who plied the torch and who had to be discouraged in his activities by even his bandit associates. "Red Shirt" Pena he had since been called. His specialty was smuggling fire arms over the border. He had sixty loyal followers in the vicinity of El Carmen.
And the woman! Señorita Josefa Calderon was the name by which she was known. She was from the interior, was something of amystery never entirely understood, but the current belief was that she was a sister of General Orozco. That uncontrolled chief of rebels was even then stationed at Juarez in command of Madero troops and was vacillating between allegiance to the new president and the leading of a revolt against him. Señorita Calderon, veiled, dark-eyed, slim as a cactus, was thought to be his messenger.
"There is news," said Doctor Flores, as soon as the party had settled itself. "General Reyes is in San Antonio. He arrived at New Orleans a week ago, came on to San Antonio where he was given a great demonstration. He has opened revolutionary headquarters there and every mail brings letters and every train brings messengers assuring him of support in overthrowing Madero. He has arranged for money to finance the movement. The friends of Emilio Vasquez Gomez are busily at work along the border. The American financial interests in Mexico are back of us. We are to open headquarters in El Paso and begin the active organization of our forces."
"But the money," said "Red Shirt" Pena."We can do nothing until we have money with which to buy ammunition."
"The money," assured the doctor, "is to be immediately forthcoming. In that connection I have a mission for the Señorita Calderon. She is to go immediately to San Antonio to report to the chief and to get the money."
"When the money arrives," said Comacho, the anarchist, "all things will be possible. There is dynamite cached at Newman and more at Alamagordo. Ramon Sanchez has other stores of it at Phœnix. We can start action at half a dozen points and wake every dozing peon in Mexico. But provide the money, doctor, and I will guarantee to wake up two nations. There is little question of getting results either through the overthrow of Madero or intervention by the United States."
"Likewise will the arms begin to cross the river as soon as they may be bought," volunteered Pena. "I have many men ready to travel back and forth and each will carry a gun and a box of cartridges each trip."
"And the señorita?" asked Doctor Flores. "Can she go for us to San Antonio?"
"As the señor wishes," said that young woman. "But where shall I report on my return?"
"Back of my residence," said the doctor, "there is a small building opening into the alley. There are no windows. We will meet there."
After a long discussion of the details of the organization of the junta, this first gathering of the arch-conspirators broke up.
It was a week after this meeting in the Rio Grande that Archie Dobbs, special agent of the Department of Justice, assigned particularly to the Mexican border to look after violations of the neutrality laws, began to notice the frequency with which groups of Mexicans were to be seen engaged in earnest conversation in the streets of El Paso. About the Orndorff hotel there were in evidence groups of wealthy appearing grandees, such as own great ranches beyond the border. Idling about the Mexican saloons were many big-hatted vaqueros, such as make up the armies of any revolutionary movement when trouble starts across the line.
Dobbs went to see Juan Ortego. This young son of Chihuahua was one of the dependable men of Madero. Ortego was a member of thepersonal secret service of the new president and his station at El Paso was regarded as important as an outpost of trouble for the government.
"What is in the air?" asked the American special agent of Ortego.
"Revolution," said the Mexican.
"Whom have they got?"
"Reyes, Gomez, probably Orozco, possibly Villa," said Ortego.
"Have you got an informer among them?" Dobbs asked.
"No, I have failed in that respect," was the answer.
"Who is the one military leader that Madero can trust?" Dobbs wanted to know.
The Mexican secret service man recommended General Herrera at Chihuahua. He also stated that Doctor Flores was the Reyes representative at El Paso.
Archie Dobbs acted at once. The Department of Justice has its special agents who will fit into almost any condition that is likely to arise. Billy Gard, for instance, had been assigned to this work on the Mexican border because of his knowledge of Spanish. As hewas growing up his father had served for many years in the consular service and Billy had become as a native of the Latin countries. It had been his pride as a lad to assume every characteristic of the land to which his father was assigned and it was probably this dissembling that led him into the detective game. With a bit of a Mexican touch to his wearing apparel and a covering of alkali dust he now became a typical son of the land of the south.
Such was the appearance presented by Gard when, two days after the talk between the secret service men of two nations, he came into El Paso from the South. He bore credentials from General Herrera which it had been possible for him to get through Madero's secret service man, Juan Ortego. He appeared much worn and dust-covered when he began a search of El Paso for Doctor Flores. Having found that gentleman in consultation with a party of ranch owners at the Orndorff hotel, he presented himself and asked for a word in private with the junta chief.
"I am from General Herrera," said Gard. "I bring to you his greetings and these credentials which will assure you that you maytreat with me in confidence. He bids me say that he holds General Reyes in a deferential respect which he gives to no other living Mexican. He awaits an opportunity to cooperate with you."
This news was, to Flores, the best he had heard since he organized the junta. He was a visionary enthusiast such as would accept such a declaration without further confirmation. Assurances had come from many sources of support to Reyes who, in reality, occupied an enviable position in the hearts of the Mexican people. But Herrera, the Madero general, who had been regarded as firmly against them! His coming over was too good to believe. The doctor embraced the young man, according to the Mexican custom, and kissed him first on one cheek and then on the other.
Thus did a special agent of the United States become a member of a Mexican revolutionary junta.
Through Gard the Department of Justice soon had all the particulars of the Reyes revolution as far as they were known to the El Paso junta. It knew that the aged general had been promised support from many sources, that hehad been provided with considerable sums of money, that arms had been bought in hundred lots from dealers all along the border, that these were being doled out to individuals who were to cross over the border at a given time and form the nucleus of the revolution. In El Paso some two hundred men had already been thus provided. These men were being maintained at boarding houses about town and were being handed regularly small sums of money. Gard met every day with the members of the junta and talked over the details of these matters.
In the little building which had no windows and which stood back of Doctor Flores' house, Gard also met the individuals who were the firebrands of the revolution. "Red Shirt" Pena was always there and was steadily engaged in smuggling ammunition across the border. The pock-marked anarchist, Comacho, was maturing his spectacular plans. Señorita Josefa Calderon, slim as a cactus, came now and then, with a message from Reyes or Orozco. Often she brought large sums of money. Gard once accompanied her to Juarez and used all his charms in an effort to developa love affair with her, but in vain. He afterward learned that she was mourning a sweetheart who had died in fighting Madero and was devoting herself to this cause in hope of revenge.
Toward the end of December the plans for the revolution grew near maturity. General Reyes was to slip out of San Antonio and across the Rio Grande where he was to pick up his recruits enlisted on the American side and those on the Mexican side who had promised to join with him. At the psychological moment Pena of the red shirt, and Comacho, the anarchist, were to put on performances so spectacular as to attract the attention of the world.
Comacho had his dynamiting plans well developed. Personally he intended to place a bomb under the international bridge at El Paso. An associate was to perform the same service with relation to the American customs house at Nogales, and the consulate at Laredo was to be blown up.
While Comacho was performing these outrages, "Red Shirt" Pena was to be busied in the fine art of murder. The sheriff of El Paso,Juan Ortego, and Archie Dobbs were the men against whom the capacities of Pena as a killer were to be directed. But failing these he was to run amuck and do whatever damage he could. Any representative of the American army, any Madero official, was to be regarded as a fair mark. The object was to at least create a great sensation to advertise the new revolution, and possibly to bring about intervention. At any rate the border should be awakened.
With all this information in hand the United States authorities were ready to act. They wanted, however, to time their coup in such a way as to have the most discouraging effect possible upon the revolutionists. With this idea in mind they postponed making arrests until the last moment.
The revolutionists were to be taken into custody by Captain Hughes of the Texas Rangers. There were some fifteen of the active plotters that should be arrested and the Ranger force was the best fitted agency on the border to cope with these. Every man was known to the Rangers and all were being kept pretty well located.
The manner of making these arrests was peculiar to this cowboy police of the Southwest.The plan was that, when the time to strike should come, operations should begin at the little building without windows where the ringleaders of the revolutionists gathered. These should be arrested, none being allowed to escape and give the alarm. They should all be put into a wagon, inclosed with white canvas, such as is common in the Southwest and which would attract no attention in passing through the streets. This wagon, with two or three Rangers aboard and others riding carelessly near it, should then drive about El Paso, picking up a man here and another there until all those wanted were under the white canvas. So was it planned that a clean sweep of the revolutionists should be made in a manner of raid that might seem queer to those accustomed to the methods of metropolitan police but which was intended to accomplish its purpose.
But as far as Billy Gard was concerned, the raid came near coming too late. The position of Gard, the American special agent, in revolution headquarters as a Mexican conspirator, was never one of especial security. There was the danger of his identity being found out, which would not only spoil his case but mightresult in personal violence being done him, as his associates were not men to trifle with. There was the difficulty of getting his information to Archie Dobbs and thence to the department at Washington without his connection being discovered. Finally there was his part to be played in the arrests.
Eventually the time came to strike. General Reyes had disappeared from San Antonio and was believed to be fleeing for the Mexican border. The order was issued from Washington to intercept and arrest any of the Reyes party that might be found at any border points. The trap was to be sprung at El Paso.
On that morning, December 22, 1911, Billy Gard reported at the windowless building at ten o'clock. Doctor Flores was there and was soon joined by Comacho, the dynamiter. Presently a ranchman from Sonora was admitted. Señorita Calderon was expected from San Antonio with additional funds, and Pena and other moving spirits were to drop in.
"Is there any news from General Herrera?" Doctor Flores asked Gard.
That young man reported that the Herrera troops would go over to General Reyes assoon as his forces started into the interior.
"And is señor, the dynamiter, ready to perform his service to the cause of liberty?" asked the doctor of Comacho.
"The noise we will make will be heard from Tia Juana to Brownsville," responded that inflammatory and enthusiastic individual.
"Pena is now on the street ready to strike," stated the leader. "This afternoon Reyes will cross the Rio Grande and, pish! the powder will be ignited."
At this moment a careful knock was heard at the one entrance to the rendezvous, and the doctor, who always sat with his back against this door, opened it an inch. He recognized the man outside and welcomed him. He ushered him inside and began his presentation to those already assembled. He was a revolutionist from Los Angeles who had but just arrived.
The entrance of the visitor would have been of no great importance to the detective but for one fact—he was from Los Angeles. Gard had done much work in Los Angeles and a few of the members of the revolutionary junta there had learned his identity. The visitor was oneof that few. If Gard were recognized he would be exposed and in this desperate company would be in a delicate position.
The light in the windowless building was very dim and the stranger had come in from the sunlight. His eyes were not adjusted to the darkened apartment and he therefore did not recognize the special agent when presented to him. Appreciating the reason for this lack of recognition, Gard made an excuse for going out and approached the door. Flores again sat with his back against it. When the young man gave his excuse for wanting to go the doctor waved him aside and stated that he desired that he should hear the report of the man from Los Angeles. Gard dared insist only to a reasonable extent. Doctor Flores would not hear of his departure. Quietly he settled into the remotest and darkest corner.
The man from Los Angeles began to tell of the part he had played in lighting the fuse that was about to start a revolution. His remarks were addressed to Doctor Flores and to Comacho, the dynamiter, an associate of his. The man in the corner was given little attention. But as the talker's vision became adjusted tothe darkened room, he turned his glance occasionally in the direction of the special agent.
That young man sat as one hypnotized with the possibilities of the situation. He felt very sure that, as time passed, the visitor's eyesight would adjust itself and he would be recognized. His mind ran ahead and saw the scene that would then be precipitated. The thrill of it held him taut, ready for any emergency.
It was the third time that the eye of the visitor passed him that it lingered a moment questioningly, and passed on. He looked at the dynamiter during a long explanation of some detail of bomb making before his glance again returned to Gard. By this time his eyesight had become entirely readjusted.
He started forward, mouth agape. He sprang to his feet. He pointed an accusing finger at the special agent and fairly screamed: "By the Holy Virgin, a spy, a traitor! He is an agent of the perfidious United States. He is a detective, an informer. I knew him in Los Angeles. He peeped into our windows and stole our papers. He has already betrayed you and the cause."
A vile oath was ripped from the throat ofthe pock-marked dynamiter. The Mexican ranchman stood agape. The nervous little doctor sprang to his feet and started as if to spring at the throat of the special agent. But as he advanced he found himself looking into the muzzle of a big American pistol. He recoiled.
"Don't make a great mistake," said Gard. "What this man says may be true and it may not. Granting that it is true I am then in the best position right now I could hope to be in. If one of you advances a step toward me I will fire. None of you dare fire upon me, as the shots that would follow would expose you. Now sit tight and talk business. What do you propose to do about it?"
IF ONE OF YOU ADVANCES A STEP TOWARD ME I WILL FIRE
"'IF ONE OF YOU ADVANCES A STEP TOWARD ME I WILL FIRE'"—Page 188
"Gringo pig of a spy, you shall die and be fed to the buzzards!" hissed the dynamiter.
"Mother of Mary, we have been betrayed!" almost sobbed the little doctor.
"It may not be as bad as it seems," argued Gard, talking against time. "The four of you should be able to get me if you insist on shooting it out. I will get one or two of you, however, and the police will get the rest. I would suggest that it would be wiser for you to let meback slowly out of that door and that you all beat it for Mexico."
The little doctor stiffened stubbornly against the one exit, but before his proposition could be seriously considered there came a loud rapping at the door. The noise of it sounded as though it were made with the butt of a revolver. The Mexicans present stood transfixed with fear. The knocking was repeated with greater vigor. Then a drawling Texas voice sang out:
"Oh, you greasers, lift the latch. This ain't no way to treat visitors."
"Break it in, Captain," called out Gard, who recognized the voice of the Ranger chief. "This bunch is half captured already."
Then came the creaking of door hinges as though a great weight was being thrown against them and, finally, a mighty crash. As the door came in nothing could be seen but the blank side of a thick cotton mattress. Few other things will stop bullets like a cotton mattress and it is therefore an excellent breastwork in an attack which is likely to be met by bullets fired through a door. This was not the first time such an object had been used in Ranger strategy.
Presently the head of a Ranger peered cautiously around the mattress and a request for a parley was made. The Mexicans decided upon discretion and surrendered without a fight. Gard was thus relieved of a very delicate situation.
The four prisoners from the windowless house were loaded into the white-topped wagon. It moved on unostentatiously to other parts of the city and around it the Ranger dragnet tightened. "Red Shirt" Pena was found in the act of boarding a street car to cross the bridge into Juarez. He made fight but a Ranger floored him with a blow from a big forty-five six-shooter. In two hours fifteen of the ringleaders of the El Paso revolutionists were behind prison bars and any expedition that might have been launched in this vicinity was leaderless.
At Brownsville a similar dragnet had operated at about the same time. General Reyes himself succeeded in getting across into Mexico. But the leaders from the American side had been discouraged and failed to follow him even where they were not under arrest. The Mexicans did not rally to the aged general's causeafter he entered his native land, as had been expected. Discouraged and heartbroken he surrendered to the Madero authorities a few days later at the little town of Linares, and his revolution was at an end.
When one individual in a great world goes forth secretively to hide himself and a second man starts forth to find him, it would appear that all the advantage was with the fugitive. Particularly would this seem to be the case when the man in flight is of a high degree of intelligence and is thoroughly informed as to the methods that will be employed in the pursuit.
Yet the detective who knows his business and who sticks to the trail month after month nearly always turns up his man. He may do this by following out, one after another, the probabilities in the case. There is almost no man who will refrain from performing some one of those everyday actions that it is but natural he should take. There is almost no man who will flee without leaving a trail behind himself. If he is the criminal genius who succeeds in doing allthese things, there is the element of chance that will turn up some bit of information which will put the vigilant sleuth on his track. For there are many pulses upon which the detective finger may rest long after the criminal gets to feel so secure as to become careless. Particularly is this true of the sleuths of the Federal Government, whose instructions are never to abandon the pursuit of an escaped criminal.
There is the case of Alexander Berliner, for instance. He was a prince of frauds, a man of exceptional ability, a cosmopolitan, one who knew detective methods, a man with money. He had a month the start of Billy Gard of the Federal Department of Justice. He knew that the special agent was after him. He appreciated the danger of a long term in prison if he were caught.
Would you think, under the circumstances, that the detective in the case could make sufficient splash among the tides of humanity that surge around a great world to disturb the tranquillity of Berliner? Let us see how the case developed.
Gard had the advantage of having got "a spot" on Berliner. That is to say, he had seenhim. Berliner was a customs broker. His business was to act as agent for American purchasers and European dealers. He knew his Europe and he knew New York. The details of customs regulations and duties to be paid were an open book to him. He spoke many languages and had customers among the wealthiest people in America.
It was when a mere suspicion arose as to the fidelity with which he was paying his duties that Billy Gard, on some pretext, went to see him. A large, upstanding, white-haired man he was—unusually handsome and dominant.
"May I ask," said Gard, "if you think table linens of good quality could be procured from Ireland within six weeks? My sister is opening an establishment at that time and is not satisfied with the offerings here."
"Who is your sister?" asked Berliner, rather more directly than a customer would expect to be questioned by a broker.
"Mrs. Jonathan Moulton," said the special agent glibly, giving the name of a woman friend. "She lives in Seventy-second Street."
"Do you mind if I call her for aconfirmation of your inquiry?" said the broker, still noncommittal.
"Such a request is not usually addressed to a prospective customer," said Gard, appearing a bit nettled, "but I have no objection whatever."
As a matter of fact the special agent was very much disconcerted. He had foreseen the possibility of having to use the name of some individual who might afterward be called upon to verify the genuineness of his interest in linens. Mrs. Moulton was a good friend who would be entirely willing to help him in a little deception of this sort, but he had not as yet coached her as to the part she might be called upon to play. He had thought there would be plenty of time later if it became necessary to identify the supposed customer. But Berliner was evidently suspicious of bright young men who called upon him. He evidently knew that he was under investigation. Gard's particular hope, if the broker insisted on calling his alleged sister, was that he would find that she was not at home.
But luck was not with him. Mrs. Moulton herself answered the telephone.
"May I ask," said the broker, "if you will give me the name of the young man whom you have commissioned to buy linens for you?"
The manner in which the question was put, Gard realized, gave Mrs. Moulton no intimation of the situation. He knew she was sufficiently clever to be entirely noncommittal if the broker mentioned his name. But Berliner was too shrewd for this.
"You have authorized no one to buy for you?" the broker was saying. "You are not in the market for linens at all? I see. There must have been some mistake."
Berliner turned to his caller.
"Young Mr. Detective," he said, urbanely, "your work is a bit amateurish. May I present you with your hat? I trust there will be no occasion for our acquaintance to develop further."
The case against Berliner did not come to a crisis immediately. It was two months later that the customs agents reported that he was gone and that they had evidence that he had long resorted to undervaluing the imports of his clients. By getting an article through thecustoms house at less than its value, he would defraud the Government of just the difference between the amount paid and the amount that should have been paid. But this money was not saved for his customer. That individual was charged the full amount due and the broker pocketed the difference. There was evidence that the Government had lost $100,000 through these operations.
Because Gard had seen the customs broker he was assigned to the capture of the fugitive. He set about the task methodically.
The special agent diligently searched out every one of Berliner's intimates. There was a wife and brother to begin with. It is the A, B, C of fugitive catching that every man will communicate with some one of his relatives or intimates. It is not human nature to break off every tie. Against the possibility of this fugitive writing Gard established a close watch over the mail of each of the fugitive's relatives and close friends. The postman who delivered mail to each was given samples of Berliner's handwriting, was instructed to report the arrival of any letter that might be suspected ofcoming from him, to have tracings made of its envelope, to note its postmark, before it was delivered.
But a month passed and no suspicious letter arrived.
In the meantime every possibility of getting directly on the trail was exhausted. Even in a great city like New York it is difficult for anybody to take a train without having fixed the attention of somebody else. An expressman must be called to get a truck to the station. A taxicab may be used. Servants are aware of a departure. Tickets must be bought. Conductors on trains must take up those tickets.
It is a tedious task to interview innumerable expressmen and ask each if he had had a summons from a certain apartment. The taxicab records of calls are equally confusing, but each may be traced to a driver and that individual may be questioned. Every ticket seller in a city may be seen in a day or two, the photograph of the man wanted may be shown and a recollection of him developed. If the fugitive is of striking appearance, as was Berliner, the chances of his being remembered are increased. If the trail is once crossed the going is easier.
Yet all these and many other devices failed in this case, and chance first pointed the way. The goddess of coincidence made her appearance in a modest motion picture theater where Gard and a friend were killing a bit of time. Among the reels shown was one which portrayed a visit of the President to New York. It began with the arrival at the station, among throngs of people.
"By the Lord Harry!" suddenly exclaimed the special agent. "Would you pipe that gray-haired gent in the foreground. I have been looking for him for a month."
It was Berliner. He had chosen the moment when the station was most crowded to make his getaway. Oblivious to the presence of the motion picture operator, he had stopped for a moment to say good-by to another man, his brother, as Gard thought. The two had spoken a few words and parted.
"I wonder," soliloquized Gard, "what those two men said to each other."
Then he thought of Jane Gates, the Lily Maid, the deaf copyist at headquarters, the cameo-faced girl, best loved of the special agents.
"The Lily Maid might read the lips of thoseunconscious motion picture actors," he thought. "They are right out in front."
So it happened that the deaf typist got a half-holiday and she and Gard spent it at the picture show, where her lack of the sense of hearing in no way detracted from her enjoyment.
The scene at the station came on. Gard pointed out the two men in the foreground, who, fortunately, were facing the machine. The deaf girl picked their words from their lips and repeated them in the hollow tones of those who have learned to talk without hearing.
"Send Margaret to London in three months," the customs broker was saying. "I shall not write."
"But how shall we know of your whereabouts?" the brother asked.
"You will not know. I take no chances," was the answer.
"But where are you going?"
"First to Montreal, eventually to Europe. There I will hide and live in peace."
This much of the talk of the brothers was definitely made out. A return for three performances thoroughly confirmed the conversation.
"You are the best detective on the force," Gard told the deaf girl with his lips, thereby making her very happy, for she was full of the enthusiasm of the service.
"But more remarkable than this," he continued, watching for the flush of pink which such sallies always drew to her cheeks, "is that the best detective in the great city should, at the same time, be its very prettiest girl."
The next day the special agent was on the cold trail in Montreal. The fact that a fugitive must eat and sleep is a great help to a detective. All the hotels in a city may be canvassed and are likely to yield results. It was at a little family hostelry in the suburbs that a gray-haired man of distinction had passed a week. He had been gone nine days. Yes, he had a trunk. The porter knew that it had gone to a certain station. The ticket agent thought he remembered selling the man whose picture was shown him a ticket to Chicago. Dave White was the conductor on the train to that point on the day in question and remembered the gray-haired man.
In Chicago the trail grew warmer. The fugitive had been at the Auditorium but four daysearlier, but the porters were unable to recall any of the details of his going away. The special agent asked to see the room Berliner had occupied. It was taken by another guest, but Gard was allowed to explain himself to the successor of the fugitive and was given permission to search the room. A close examination of it developed but one clue. Sticking inside a waste basket were three fragments of a letterhead that had been torn into small pieces. One of these fragments showed part of the picture of another hotel. An arrow, drawn in ink, pointed to a certain window.
Gard took the fragments of the picture of the hotel to a traveler's guide and searched for the house that would compare with it. Eventually he found the duplicate, and it was a Chicago hostelry. He hurried to it. After showing his credentials to the house detective, information was freely supplied. The room in question was occupied by a woman and had been so occupied for two weeks. She was a handsome and stylish red-haired woman of thirty-five. She had been carefully watched for a reason that presently developed.
"Has she received any callers?" asked the special agent.
"But one person, a man, has visited her," answered the house detective.
"What sort of a man?" asked Gard.
"A large man with gray hair," said the house detective. "He is in her room now."
"Will you go up with me immediately?" ejaculated the special agent. "I must not fail to see this man."
"Assuredly," was the response, and they caught the next elevator.
The car they took was an express and was not to stop until it reached the eleventh floor. The next to it was a local, stopping at all floors. The express, going up with the detectives aboard, slackened its speed at the eighth floor while its operator gave some message to the boy on the local which had stopped there to take on a passenger. The cars were of an open-work structure and the passengers in one could see quite plainly those on the other as they passed. As the express passed Gard looked through at those riding on the other car. Imagine his consternation when, not two feetfrom him, he saw the man for whom he had been searching for months. As he gazed through the checked steel slats of the car side he was close enough to have put out his hand and laid it on his man had nothing intervened. Berliner faced him and, as the car paused, he and the special agent gazed directly into the eyes of each other. This was for but an instant and both cars were in motion again. The detective was being borne rapidly toward the top of the building and the fugitive less rapidly toward the ground.
"There is my man on the other elevator," Gard whispered hurriedly to the house detective. "Have the boy reverse and run down again."
The message was given to the operator, who obeyed instantly and some excuse was made to the passengers on the car. The local had been stopping at each floor and the express passed it and barely reached the ground floor first. There the two detectives stepped out and waited for the coming of the other car.
A moment later it arrived, much crowded, and began to disgorge itself. The two officers waited in instant readiness to capture the manwhom they had seen at the eighth floor. But the car was emptied and he was not among the passengers.
"Where did the big gray-haired man get off?" the boy was asked.
"Third floor, sir," he replied.
"You bar the exits," Gard said to the house detective, "and I will get back to the third."
On that floor the hallman said that the white-haired gentleman had run down the steps to the second. Gard followed, but was able to find no one on that floor who had seen the fugitive. He ran hastily about looking for possible exits, and then instituted a thorough search. He investigated every possible avenue of escape and hastened downstairs to his ally to help cut off the line of retreat. Every possible barrier was put up and the house was well gone over. The gray-haired fugitive had, however, eluded pursuit.
Gard immediately called upon the Chicago police to throw out a dragnet and a general alarm, and this was done. All railway stations were watched with particular care. But none of these efforts were of any avail, as Berliner was never reported to have been seen again inChicago. Nor was Gard able to get so much as the glimmer of a trace of him nor a suggestion as to where he might have gone.
It was a task of infinite patience that brought Special Agent William H. Gard to London two months later on the trail of a woman whom he had traced half around the world. The Titian-haired guest of the Chicago hotel, the wife of the fugitive broker, here installed herself for a while and lived in a manner that amounted to absolute seclusion.
Then she went to Paris. There she took rooms in a quiet side street and seemed to settle down with some idea of permanence. There was nothing in her mode of life that would indicate that she lived differently from any other woman who was alone in the world and sought quiet. She went out for a long walk every afternoon, purchased the necessities of her establishment, or books, of which she seemed to read great numbers.
Special Agent Gard established a close watch over the house in which she lived. This was easy because there was but a front entrance and apartments opposite looked out upon the street. He determined that nobody should enter thishouse without being observed. He asked the Paris police to provide him with two reliable men who could watch with him in shifts from the quarters he rented across the street.
A vigil of two weeks revealed absolutely nothing. With the exception of the servant who came at noon each day and remained not more than four hours, no living creature entered the house. In all that two weeks the postman left no mail. Billy Gard seemed to be up against a blank wall. He held, however, that if a man kept awake on the most hopeless job for a sufficient length of time some clue was sure to develop or some idea present itself that would lead toward results.
Gard investigated the maid who worked the daily short shift in the quarters of the red-haired woman from America. He found her a placid and stupid creature who knew nothing nor had intelligence sufficient for his purpose. Incidentally he found that she had secured her place through an employment agency located at a considerable distance. He immediately made use of this information.
The special agent, through the Paris police force, secured the cooperation of theemployment bureau. A position that paid much better was offered to the servant of Mrs. Berliner. It was, quite naturally, accepted. That lady, finding herself without a servant, returned to the agency that had formerly provided her with one who was entirely satisfactory. She asked for a second maid.
The employment bureau immediately supplied her demand. The woman who was sent was, in secret, more than she seemed to be. She was connected with the Paris police department and was a detective of some cleverness. Almost immediately she took up her new activities.
Three days later she reported to Agent Gard from America. She had found in her red-haired mistress a woman who led a quiet life that seemed in no way irregular, who followed a normal routine of housekeeping, walking, shopping. She seemed to have no acquaintances. But one thing irregular appeared in the whole establishment. There was one room in the rear of the suite which remained locked. The mistress had stated that it was a storage room. This seemed somewhat strange, as it must look out upon the interior court and therefore be the most attractive room of them all.It seemed peculiar that such a room should be used for storage and, even so, that it should be locked up.
Gard put together the two facts—the locked room and the short hours of the servant—and drew a conclusion. It was as the result of this conclusion that he asked the woman detective to install a dictagraph beneath the table in the sunny little dining room just off the apartment of the locked door. This was easy of accomplishment during the hour of the afternoon stroll of the mistress of the house. The wires of the dictagraph were run across the street and into the watch-tower rooms of the special agent.
When the dinner hour approached that evening Billy Gard sat patiently with the headpiece of the dictagraph securely in place. The first sound that he caught from across the street was that of feet, supposedly those of the woman of the Titian hair, passing back and forth about the room, then an occasional snatch of a song while she worked. He gathered that she was arranging for the evening meal, the servant having gone home hours before.
Ten minutes passed and then there came over the wire a sound that might have been a bitsurprising to the observer of this ultra quiet household, the watcher at the entrance through which none had passed unseen since the day it was rented, had not the listener already developed a theory.
"Well, Margaret," said a full-throated man's voice, as transmitted by the dictagraph, "this is not so bad. I never dreamed that you had the housewifely instincts that would make it possible for you to arrange with your own hands the dainty dinners we are having. I am beginning to think that the man is lucky who cannot afford servants."
"And don't you know," said a woman's voice, "I never enjoyed anything more in my life. For almost the only time I can remember I have a definite occupation. I have to provide our creature comforts. I haven't been so happy in years. I really don't care how long they keep us cooped up."
"I will confess," said the man, "that the novelty has worn off of the view into the courtyard. But it might be worse. For a while they had me thinking quite regularly of striped suits and the lockstep which are part of a life even moreconfining than this. And here I have you. I am quite content to wait for the atmosphere to clear."
"But I am very sure we are still being watched," said the woman. "I always feel that I am being followed when I go out."
"Very likely," said the man. "But no detective will pursue fruitless quests indefinitely. Even though they know you are here, they will ultimately lose interest in a surveillance that yields nothing. We can afford to wait. The time will come when we can steal away in safety."
"When it is all over," she responded, "I do wish that we could find a way to let those detectives know that you were here under their very noses all the time."
Billy Gard, it may here be set down, was most anxious to learn how this had been possible. He had followed Margaret Berliner to the house when she had first come to see it. He had been notified immediately when she had rented it. From that moment he had watched every detail of her taking possession; had, with the aid of his men, seen everything that had gone intothe house. Yet Berliner had installed himself without his knowledge and had been living there all the time.
"It would have been impossible without Archie," Berliner was saying. "A man in a position like mine needs, upon occasion, some one he can trust to do little things for him. We may quarrel with blood relatives all our lives, but they have the advantage of being safe to trust in time of trouble. It is a very small thing to send a man to a rent agent for a key to inspect lodgings and to send him back with the key after they are inspected. But had I not been able to trust Archie absolutely I would not have been able to get in here a day ahead of you and this snug little arrangement would not have been possible."
It was because of what he here overheard that Special Agent Gard, assisted by Coleman of the Paris office and the police of that city, considerately waited until Mrs. Berliner went shopping the following day and were admitted by the woman detective, who was at the time washing the accumulated dishes of the household. They so surrounded the locked door as to make escape impossible and then announced their presence.Gard told Berliner, through the locked door, of the situation that existed on the outside. He suggested that the easiest way was to unbolt the entrance, thereby saving the necessity of breaking it down. Whereupon the customs broker walked out and surrendered, and a very tedious fugitive case was brought to a successful conclusion.
A twelve-dollar-a-week bookkeeper in a prim New England town, without access to the funds of the bank for which he worked, stole nearly a half million dollars and so juggled the books as to hide the shortage from the directors and from the national bank examiner for a period of two years.
The "faro gang," a band of master crooks, as well organized as though for the development of a mining venture, financed in advance for many thousands of dollars, took the money from the bookkeeper as regularly as he took it from the bank—took it all, but never aroused his suspicion.
The detectives of the bureau of investigation, Department of Justice, unraveled the whole tangled skein and revealed the ramifications of oneof the completest schemes for the illicit acquisition of other people's money that the history of the crime of the nation has ever developed.
The first incident that led to the discovery of this monster plot to defraud took place when two most staid and dignified of the solid citizens of Bainbridge, Mass., happened to meet outside the First National bank of that serene suburb of Boston one sunshiny afternoon. Their conversation led to an argument as to whether there was $186,000 or $187,000 in the endowment of an orphanage, of which they were directors. To settle this argument they decided to have a look at the books which contained the record of deposits and withdrawals.
So these dignified guardians of this endowment fund approached the cashier's window in the First National bank and asked for the balance in the given account. The official turned automatically to the ledger containing the inactive accounts of the bank, glanced at the balance and automatically reported the figures there revealed.
"Four thousand five hundred dollars," he said.
So was obtained the first revealing flash intothe affairs of this institution which had stood as the conservative financial bulwark of the community for a hundred years. Yet a week later, when the principal pass books had been called in, and the experts had completed their examination, the bank was shown to be but a financial shell. Each of those large inactive accounts that lent the institution its strength was found to have melted away. A bank of a capital of but $100,000, it was soon shown that it had been looted for more than $400,000 of the depositors' money.
As soon as the shortage was evident a report was made to the Department of Justice, in Washington, which has charge of the prosecution of violators of the national banking laws. Expert accountants and Special Agent Billy Gard of the Bureau of Investigation of that department were immediately hurried to the scene. When they arrived they found that one event had just transpired which came near establishing the facts as to the immediate responsibility of the shortage. The bookkeeper of the bank had disappeared.
The bank was an institution which employed but three men; a cashier, an assistant cashier,and a bookkeeper. The disappearance of the bookkeeper, Robert Tollman, fixed attention on him, and it was ultimately demonstrated that he was the only individual inside the bank who had anything to do with its misfortunes.
Special Agent Gard, who handled the outside work of the investigation, found Tollman to be a youngster of twenty-three, a mild-eyed, likable chap, who made friends easily. He was a member of one of those old New England puritanical families that have become institutions in the community in which they reside. Back of him were a dozen generations of repression, of straight-edged righteousness. At the age of eighteen he had entered the bank, and at twenty-three was receiving a salary of but $12 a week. There had been no chance for advancement. At twenty-one he had come into $20,000 as an inheritance from an aunt and this had been the one event of his life, up to that time.
The government's expert accountant immediately established the manner in which the funds of the bank had been taken. As bookkeeper, Tollman did not have access to the cash or securities, and was therefore not considered as being in a position of trust. He was not even bonded.But beneath his eye there constantly passed those large accounts of the bank which represented its wealth.
It was about six months after Tollman came of age that irregular charges began to appear against the inactive accounts. At first they were modest and infrequent. Steadily they strengthened and grew in size. Eventually it was shown that charges averaging $5,000 a day were being regularly placed against these accounts. There were weeks during which the bookkeeper had succeeded in abstracting such amounts every day.
The bank accountants were soon able to demonstrate the method of these abstractions. The bookkeeper would give a check against his own account to some individual in Boston and that individual would deposit it for collection. It would be sent through the clearing house and eventually reach the bank in Bainbridge. The bookkeeper was always early at the bank when any such checks were expected from the clearing house. He opened the letters transmitting them, turning the statement of the total amount represented over to the cashier, that a check might be sent by him to the clearing house. Itwas the province of the bookkeeper to enter the individual checks against the accounts represented. When he reached his own personal check, he charged it to some one of the inactive accounts instead of his own and destroyed it. So had he taken $400,000.
But the immediate task in hand fell to Billy Gard. It was the apprehension of the fugitive and the recovery, if possible, of all or part of the money taken. It was in the course of the performance of this duty that the ramifications of this case which give it a place among the most unique and complete crimes of the age were developed.
While accountants were revealing methods used inside the bank in getting hold of the money, Gard was busy outside. Tollman, having disappeared, was to be traced. The first step was to establish his habits, to find his associates. To the experienced special agent the groundwork of a case of this sort unfolds almost of itself. There were the people who knew him best in Bainbridge, for instance. They told Gard that the youngster had broken away, of late, from the friends of his youth. He was believed to have gone to Boston for hispleasures. He had a big red automobile which, it was supposed, he had bought with the money of his inheritance and in which he drove away practically every night. Through the whole of the last year of his peculations, Tollman, the twelve-dollar-a-week clerk, drove regularly to his work at the bank in this car.
In Boston Gard picked up the clues. Tollman was well known at certain hotels and cafés. At one hotel which was rendezvous for sporting people he regularly called upon a very dashing young woman who was registered as Laura Gatewood. It was at this same hotel that he became acquainted with an accomplished individual known as John R. Mansfield, who was well known about McDougal's Tap, in Columbia Avenue, and whose livelihood was secured through alleged games of chance. Miss Gatewood also introduced Tollman to a Mrs. Siddons, an especial friend of Mansfield, who maintained a cozy little apartment in a respectable part of Boston, and who had, in a dress suit case, a portable faro outfit which could be set up in her rooms upon occasion. There was also Edward T. Walls, a large and dominant man, who had, of late, found poker playing ontransatlantic liners a rather precarious calling. But, finally, Miss Gatewood arranged meetings between Tollman and "Big Bill" Kelliner, who lived in Winthrop, not far away, was in the wholesale liquor business, in politics, and, as afterward developed, was a dominating spirit in the "faro gang."
With the development of the friendship with Kelliner began the trips to New York. These two would meet two or three times a week at the Back Bay station and together take the train for New York. So frequent were these trips that the members of the train crews came to be well acquainted with the men, and to know something of their movements. They gave clues to the hotels in New York at which these travelers stayed, and this led to their identification by hotel clerks and other facts as to their associates. Eventually all this led to a certain house in West Twenty-eighth Street and a consultation with the New York police as to its character.
It developed that in this house there was always running, on evenings when Kelliner and Tollman came to New York, a faro game. Here Kelliner gambled and at first won and inducedTollman to try his luck. The youngster was allowed to win prodigiously. Again he would lose, but not enough to frighten him away. So was the craze for gambling developed in the bookkeeper. But eventually he lost what was left of his inheritance.
Up to this time he was honest. But at the suggestion of Kelliner he stole from the bank to make good his losses. He lost again, and was in the mill. There was no chance of escape but through stealing more of the bank's funds and gambling in the hope of eventually winning out. The bookkeeper had entirely lost his head. He became consumed with the recklessness of desperation.
In the meantime the Gatewood woman had moved to New York. Also Tollman had become deeply enamored with her. So fond was he of her company, as a matter of fact, that he would often turn over to Kelliner and Mansfield and other of their friends the money with which to gamble, while he visited with Miss Gatewood. The members of the gang would go to some gilded restaurant and dine sumptuously and return to Tollman and report that luck had been against them, and that they had lost all theirmoney. On such occasions the profits of the evening were almost clear to the gang. On such occasions, so the members of the train crew back to Boston reported, "Big Bill" Kelliner would sob out his apparent grief, because of his losses, on the shoulder of Tollman. The latter was thus placed in the rôle of comforter. Kelliner would swear never to gamble again and make his protestations so earnestly that Tollman would become the aggressor and urge his associate on and paint pictures of luck ahead. So adroitly did Kelliner play this game that Tollman had been heard to threaten to break with him because he was a piker.
For two years this arrangement continued. Kelliner, Mansfield, Walls, the Gatewood woman, and other accomplices, maintained themselves as decoys that induced the young bookkeeper to draw ever more checks against his personal account and always extract these and charge them where they were least likely to be missed. Despite his long carouses at night Tollman never failed to be at the bank in time to open the mail and extract the checks that would have betrayed him. Despite the loss of sleep he was never so dull that he neglectedany detail of his bookkeeping that would have caused his accounts to fail to balance or to show any irregularities that would have caused the bank examiner to grow suspicious. Unsuspectingly the stern old bank of Bainbridge stood with unruffled front until it became but a financial skeleton, its last spark of vitality wasted away.
But this young bookkeeper of the gambling mania! What became of him? Those other aiders and abetters to his crime! What action was taken in their case?
Special Agent Billy Gard eventually had in hand a complete understanding of the individuals and the methods that were associated with this case. He had reached the necessity of making arrests.
Kelliner was taken into custody. He indignantly protested that he was innocent of any criminal wrongdoing. Mansfield, Walls and Tollman had disappeared. The capture of the latter was of first importance.
The special agent turned first to that primary command of the old-school detective when a crime is committed: "Find the woman." The results obtained indicate that there may bemuch in the theory. In the case of Tollman the connection with the Gatewood woman was soon established. She was not about her old haunts in New York. No trails were immediately found. It was developed that she had originally lived in Kansas City. When any individual has got into trouble there is always a strong probability that he will return to his old home, another detective theory to which Billy Gard subscribed. It is particularly true with reference to such serious crimes as murder, but it is to a material extent true in all cases that necessitate flight.
Upon this theory Gard went to Kansas City to look for the woman in the Tollman case. It required some weeks to find her. When she was located it was found that Tollman was not with her. He had been there until the night before. They had quarreled and he had gone away. The cause of their quarrel was the fact that Tollman had no money. She had cast him off as a dead husk. She did not know his whereabouts.
In practically every case of otherwise well executed crime there develops some element of unexpected folly—the criminal does some onething that seems, from what would be supposed to be his standpoint, inexcusably stupid. Gard was therefore not surprised when it developed that Tollman had not so much as a thousand dollars out of all he had taken from the bank. He had made no provision for the time which he must have known would inevitably come when he should be detected. This, however, was not the crowning folly from a criminal standpoint. Despite the dash and cunning and the determination he had evinced in his lootings, he lost his nerve when his woman threw him out. He purchased, with the proceeds of pawned jewelry, a ticket to Bainbridge, Mass., went there, and gave himself up to the police. His nerve was broken.
The theory of "find the woman" was applied in the case of the third of the offenders, John R. Mansfield, the Boston gambler. The apartment of Mrs. Siddons where the faro game was, upon occasion, set up, and the woman herself, who was suspected of being particularly intimate with Mansfield, were watched. The watch was not effective, however, for the woman disappeared with no one seeing her.
The janitor at the apartment house reportedthat in going she had taken a particularly heavy trunk. Special Agent Stephens undertook to follow that trunk. He canvassed half the expressmen of Boston before he found the man who had taken the trunk away. This man stated that he had taken it to the Back Bay station at a certain time, and that it had been weighed and found to be in excess of the baggage a passenger might carry free of charge. This singled it out from the mass of trunks. The expressman remembered that it weighed 225 pounds, and that the baggageman had marked it for 60 cents excess. According to the rate book this would have been the excess charge for that weight to New York. The trunk was thus located with sufficient definiteness that its number was procured.
In New York it was found that the excess trunk had been sent on to North Philadelphia with the charge C. O. D. Here the record showed that the trunk had been called for by a Mrs. Price, living at an address on Broad Street, and the agent remembered that she had been accompanied by a man. At this address a Mr. and Mrs. Price were found to be living. Special Agent Stephens watched the BroadStreet house until Price came out. He was none other than Mansfield. He was placed under arrest.
With confidence in the old detective theory of the woman, the special agents applied it again in the case of Walls, the one-time gambler on transatlantic liners. This was not done, however, until several suspected individuals in different cities had been shown not to be the man wanted, and many other schemes for the apprehension of the gambler had failed. For Walls was married to a very attractive and respectable woman, who supported herself by keeping a boarding house after his flight. It could not be discovered that she was in communication with her husband. Finally, there was developed another woman with whom Walls was known to have been friendly, and who had a part in the activities of the faro gang. This woman's correspondence was watched, and it was soon discovered that she was sending letters to and receiving letters from a man in Detroit, Michigan. Tracings of the man's handwriting were made as the letters came through the post office, and when compared with that of Walls, the resemblance was convincing.
The writer of these letters gave his address as a lock box. A special agent went to Detroit, but the box had been given up. Two months later more letters came to the same woman from Grand Junction, Colorado, and also from a lock box. The postmaster was able to describe the man holding the box and the description suited Walls. But he moved again before a detective got there to identify and arrest him. There was a chase of six months on such clues, always through the same woman, but Walls was still at large.
Eventually there appeared among death notices in New York the name of Edward T. Walls. Subsequently Mrs. Walls went from her boarding house in Boston and took charge of the body. Suspecting that this might be a trick to throw them off their guard, the special agents took every precaution to identify the body. Eventually they were convinced that the man they had pursued so diligently was dead. The case was closed.
The three principals in this case, Tollman, Kelliner and Mansfield, were given 15, 18 and 10 years respectively. After their conviction both Tollman and Kelliner talked freely to BillyGard of the whole case and threw some interesting sidelights upon it. Kelliner told particularly of the inception of the plans of the faro gang. He said it came into being at Atlantic City where he and Mansfield and Walls happened to be spending a week-end. Kelliner at that time already had a line on Tollman, and other possible victims were deemed ready for the plucking.
With these prospective victims in mind the faro gang was organized. Money had to be raised for the fitting up of the establishment in Twenty-eighth Street, which was only used when victims were in tow. This alone cost $2,000. Then there was the necessary expense money of the members of the gang while they were developing their victims. There must be cash in the bank to be won when those victims made their first appearance. Altogether it was a business that had to be capitalized for something like $20,000 before it could begin operations. But, as it afterwards turned out, it was a profitable investment if viewed from the standpoint of Tollman alone; and there were other victims.