Difficulties.—Blind Trails and False Scents.—A Series of Illustrations showing the Number of Officious People and Confidence Men that often seek Notoriety and Profit through important Detective Operations. The art of detecting crime cannot be learned in a day, nor can the man of business understand, without previous experience in the habits of criminals, the expedients which the boldest class of law-breakers adopt; hence none but skilled detectives can hope to cope with them. Yet often my clients insist on some certain method of procedure wholly contrary to my judgment and experience, until the total failure of their plan convinces them that there can be but one thoroughly successful mode of detection, namely, to submit the case to a skilled detective of character and standing, and allow him to act according to his judgment. The range of investigation in such a case as this robbery will often extend from New York to San Francisco, and unless one mind gathers up the clues, classifies the information, and determines the general plan, there will be continual error and delay. Such a state of affairs frequently occurred during this operation, and much time and money were spent upon matters too trifling even for consideration. The principal of a detective agency, from his long experience with criminals, learns the earmarks of different classes of men, and he is often able to determine the name of the guilty party in any given robbery by the manner in which the job was done. He can readily see whether a novice in crime was engaged, and also whether any collusion existed between the parties robbed and the criminals; and so, when he sees the traces of a bold, skillful, and experienced man, he knows that it is useless to track down some insignificant sneak-thief, simply because the latter happens to have been in the vicinity. Yet, neither will he slight the smallest clue if there is a bare chance that any valuable fact may be obtained from it. But the sine qua non is that he, and he alone, shall direct the whole affair. A divided responsibility simply doubles the criminal's opportunities for escape. Among the many difficulties of the detective's work, none are more embarrassing than the early development of false clues. In the stories heretofore published, the direct steps leading to the detection and arrest of the criminals have been related, without referring to the innumerable other investigations, which were progressing simultaneously, and which, though involving the expenditure of much thought, time, and money, proved after all to be of no value whatever in developing any evidence in the case. In this operation, such instances were of frequent occurrence, and I propose to mention a few of them to The plan of detection which alone can insure success, must be one which neither forgets nor neglects anything. In investigating any alleged crime, the first questions to be considered are: 1. Has any crime been perpetrated, and, if so, what? 2. What was the object sought thereby? The matter of time, place, and means employed must then be carefully noted, and finally we come to consider: 1. Who are the criminals? 2. Where are they now? 3. How can they be taken? The fact that a crime has been committed is generally apparent, though there have been cases in which the determination of that point requires as much skill as the whole remainder of the operation. Such was the case in the detection of Mrs. Pattmore's murder, related in my story of "The Murderer and the Fortune Teller." The object of a crime is also sometimes obscure, and, where such are the circumstances, the detection of the criminal is apt to be one of the most difficult of all operations. Having once solved these two difficulties satisfactorily, however, and having observed the relative bearings of time, In the course of a blind trail, such as we were obliged to travel in the case of this express robbery, it was impossible to know whence the men had come or whither they had gone; hence, I was forced to take up every trifling clue and follow it to the end. Even after I was satisfied in my own mind of the identity of the criminals, the agents and officers of the express company were continually finding mares' nests which they wished investigated, and the operation was sometimes greatly hindered on this account. As an example of the number of discouragements which the detective must always expect to encounter, I propose to mention some of the false scents which we were forced to follow during this operation. Three or four days after William's arrival in Union City, he was informed by the superintendent of the express company having charge of the operation, that there was a young man in Moscow who could give important information According to Carr, a man named John Witherspoon had visited him about six weeks before, and had asked him whether he would like to get a large sum of money. Carr replied affirmatively, of course, and wished to know how it could be obtained. Witherspoon had said that the express company could be robbed very easily by boarding a train at any water-tank, overpowering the messenger, and making him open the safe. Witherspoon also had said that he and several others had robbed a train at Moscow some weeks before, and that they had got only sixteen hundred dollars, but that they should do better next time. He had asked Carr to go to Cairo and find out when there would be a large shipment of money to the South; then Carr was to take the same train and give a signal to the rest of the party on arriving at the designated spot. On hearing Carr's story, William sent him back to Moscow with instructions to renew his intimacy with Witherspoon, and to report any news he might learn at once; in case it should prove to be of any value, the company would pay him well for his services. It is hardly necessary to add that Mr. Carr, having failed to get, as he had hoped, a roving commission as detective at the company's expense, was not heard from again, his bonanza of news having run out very quickly on discovering that no money was to be paid in advance. The next case was a more plausible one, and William began its investigation with the feeling that something might be developed therefrom. It was learned that a former express messenger named Robert Trunnion, who had been discharged several months before, had been hanging around Columbus, Kentucky, ever since. While in conversation with the clerk of a second-class hotel, Trunnion had spoken of the ease with which a few determined men could board an express car, throw a blanket over the messenger's head, and then rob the safe. The clerk said that Trunnion had made the suggestion to him twice, and the second time he had given Trunnion a piece of his mind for making such a proposition. Trunnion had then said he was only fooling, and that he did not mean anything by it. William learned that Trunnion was then engaged in selling trees for a nursery at Clinton, Kentucky, and that he was regarded as a half-cracked, boasting fool, On the nineteenth of November, when the identity of the robbers had been fully established, William was called away to Iuka, Mississippi, on information received from Mr. O'Brien, the general superintendent of the express company, that a man named Santon had seen the leader of the party in that place, just a week before. Santon represented that he knew the man well, having been acquainted with him for years in Cairo, and that he could not be mistaken, as he had spoken with him on the day mentioned. William found Perhaps the most impudent of all the stories brought to the express company's officers was that of a man named Swing, living at Columbus, Kentucky. He sent a friend to Union City to tell them that he could give them a valuable clue to the identity of the robbers, and William accompanied this friend back to Columbus. On the way, William drew out all that Swing's friend knew about the matter, and satisfied himself that Swing's sole object in sending word to the officers of the company was to get them to do a piece of detective work for him. It appeared that his nephew had stolen one of his horses just after the robbery, and he intended to tell the company's officers that this nephew had been engaged in the robbery; then if the company captured the nephew, Swing hoped to get back his horse. A truly brilliant scheme it was, but, unfortunately Another peculiar phase of a detective's experience is, that while following up one set of criminals, he may accidentally unearth the evidences of some other crime; occasionally it happens that he is able to arrest the criminals thus unexpectedly discovered, but too often they take the alarm and escape before the interested parties can be put in possession of the facts. About two weeks after the Union City robbery, in the course of my extended inquiries by telegraph, I came across a pair of suspicious characters in Kansas City, Missouri. I learned that two fine-looking women had arrived in that city with about eight thousand dollars in five, ten, and twenty dollar bills, which they were trying to exchange for bills of a larger denomination. The women were well dressed, but they were evidently of loose character, and the possession of so much money by two females of that class excited suspicion instantly in the minds of the bankers to whom they applied, and they could not make the desired exchange. One of the women was a blonde and the other was a brunette. They were about of the same height, and they dressed in such marked contrast as to set each other off to the best advantage; indeed, The most important of all the false clues brought out in this investigation was presented by a noted confidence man and horse-thief named Charles Lavalle, alias Hildebrand. I call it the most important, not because I considered it of any value at the time, but because it illustrates one of the most profitable forms of confidence operation, and because the express company, by refusing to accept my advice in the matter, were put to a large expense with no possibility of a return. Very shortly after the Union City robbery, a letter was received from a man in Kansas City, calling himself Charles Lavalle. The writer The plausibility of his story was such that he obtained quite a large sum from the express company to enable him to follow up and remain with the gang of thieves with whom he professed to be associated. No news was received from him, however, and at length I was requested to put a "shadow" upon his track. My operative followed him to St. Joseph, Missouri, and thence to Quincy, Illinois, but, during two weeks of close investigation, no trace of the villains in Lavalle's company could be found, and he was never seen in the society of any known burglars or thieves. It was soon evident that he was playing upon the express company a well-worn confidence game, which has been attempted probably every time a large robbery has occurred in the last fifteen years. He became very importunate for more money while in Quincy, as he stated that the gang to which he belonged were ready to start for New Orleans; but, finding that his appeals were useless, and that no more money would be advanced until some of his party were actually discovered and trapped through his agency, he soon ceased writing. The foregoing are only a few of the instances in which our attention was diverted from the real criminals; and, although the efforts of my operatives were rarely misdirected in any one affair for any length of time, still these false alarms were always a source of great annoyance and embarrassment. |