Chapter VII: Preface (7)

The Wabash Railroad, at that time one of the Missouri Pacific properties, had rather large interests over on the east side of the river. It was a nightly occurrence for our cars to be broken open and looted. It was no trouble for us to locate the thief, or thieves, who did the work, but it was another thing to have them arrested by the officers who were receiving pay for protecting them. My activity in trying to cause the arrest and conviction of these car robbers, and in the other cases mentioned, earned for me the ill will of the police department. While they never attempted to harm me, the police would pick up my men and lock them up on trumped up charges, convict them in the police court, which was of the "kangaroo" type, and put them to work on the streets with a ball and chain attached to prevent them from +running away+. After the police over there had turned a few tricks of this kind, I decided to put a stop to it by "reforming" the police department. To do this I had to shut off the source of revenue from which the officials were being corrupted, for I knew, even at that date in life, that it took bribe money to create such a condition of affairs. The men higher up, in this case, were the proprietors of the gambling houses. They were paying $1,000 per week for protection. This was a nice little "bit" to be split up by a few aldermen and city officials and the heads of the police department.

I called on Prosecuting Attorney Holder at Belleville, and asked his co-operation in bringing about a change in the state of affairs. I was not very well acquainted with Mr. Holder at that time, but I knew he was honest and a man who would do his duty. After I had entered his office and introduced myself, a dialogue something like this, as I remember it, took place:

"Do you know that the gamblers of East St. Louis are putting up $1,000 per week for protection?" I asked.

"I have heard they were putting up money," he replied, "but I have no real evidence as to how much."

"Are you and the sheriff getting your part of it?" I continued.

The question had hardly left my lips before I saw the prosecuting attorney was beginning to make arrangements to throw me out of his office. Before he had time to begin the work, however, I explained that I was joking, and we both had a good laugh. Getting down to business again, Mr. Holder told me that he would "go after the gamblers with hammer and tongs" if he had the evidence.

"I will get you that evidence, and pay the expenses out of my own pocket," I replied.

The prosecuting attorney then assured me that the sheriff could be relied upon to do his part. I already knew this, for I had investigated both men's character before I had decided to make the move that I had. The sheriff was called upon, and he, too, promised to aid me in every manner possible. After asking both officials to keep the matter a secret until I had worked out the plans fully, I returned to St. Louis.

I sent a number of my men across the river, and it did not take long to get all the evidence needed. After arranging this evidence, I took it to Prosecuting Attorney Holder and secured the necessary warrants. Sheriff Ropiequet was called over to St. Louis and plans for raiding the houses simultaneously were made. I secured and paid for out of my own pocket an engine and two coaches from the Cairo Short Line Railway, and had them in readiness to take my men and the people we were to arrest from East St. Louis to the county seat at Belleville, after the raid. While there were over thirty open gambling establishments in East St. Louis, I knew I could not raid all of them at one time, so I decided to raid the four largest, the ones whose owners were the most active in bringing about the crooked state of affairs. On the afternoon preceding the raid, I sent four trusted men, all armed, over the big bridge, with instructions to separate on the other side, one going to each of the four houses to be raided. These men were instructed to stay in the houses until the raids were made, to prevent the gamblers from locking their vaults and thus hiding their tools and other evidence. I then hired a big moving van, in which I placed eighteen of my men. Sheriff Ropiequet and I occupied the seat, I doing the driving. We had a number of fishing poles in the wagon to give the outfit the appearance of a fishing party. On reaching the other side I divided the men into four squads, placing a captain in charge of each. The squad I was to lead stayed in the wagon. After giving the other squads time to reach their houses I drove the van to Colonel Claude Cave's famous resort. I handed the lines to the sheriff and ran up the stairs, followed by my men. We gained an entrance without any trouble and found the games running in full blast. The gamblers were taken completely by surprise, but submitted quietly to arrest. The spectators and players were not molested, but many of them became panic-stricken when it dawned upon them that a raid was being made, and sought to make their escape by jumping from the windows to the alley in the rear of the building, many of them actually making their escape in that manner. The gambling paraphernalia was taken down to the wagon, while the gamblers and their employes were marched to the waiting train. The wagon was then driven to the other houses, which had been raided at the same time by the other squads of my men, and the gambling tools found there hauled to the train. In making the raid every kind of gambling device known to the profession was captured, including faro boxes and layouts, dice, roulette wheels, sweat boards, keno balls and cards, and something like four bushels of poker and faro chips. All of this stuff was burned on the public square in Belleville after the conviction of the gamblers. Most of the men arrested pleaded guilty, and those who did not were convicted and the county was made some $22,000 richer by the fines.

The raid created a great sensation in East St. Louis. It was the biggest stunt of the kind that had ever been pulled off over there, and I received much praise from the law-loving people of the city for doing the job. As I had anticipated, it ended open bribery in East St. Louis, and later to the ousting of the crooked officials, for at the next election the good people triumphed and succeeded in electing men who would do their duty.

The new Mayor was Col. M. M. Stevens, and as he had the co-operation of an honest Board of Aldermen, it did not take him long to finish the cleaning of the police department I had begun. My men were then enabled to go about their work of arresting car thieves without being interfered with by the police.

If my memory serves me right, Mayor Stevens served six or seven terms, and did much to make East St. Louis the city it is today. But this work was not accomplished without much hard labor on his part and on the part of those who assisted him, for the gamblers and crooks did not give up without a struggle. Mayor Stevens, however, made it as law-abiding a place during his administration as any other city in the country of its size.

No man deserves more credit for the ending of gang rule in East St. Louis at that time, however, than does J. W. Kirk, editor of the Signal. This paper fearlessly exposed all of the gang's methods, and to this fact was really due the awakening of the public conscience over there.

THE ROHAN EXPRESS ROBBERY.

THE THIEVES ARE TAKEN AFTER A FOUR MONTHS CHASE, AND ALL PLEAD GUILTY--THE MESSENGER DUPED.

The Rohan Pacific Express robbery occurred near Rohan, Indiana, on what was then a part of the Wabash Railroad. The Pacific Express Company had one of their cars attached to the Wabash train, which was running between Detroit, Michigan, and Indianapolis, Indiana. It left Detroit in the evening and should have arrived at Indianapolis at about two o'clock the following morning.

One night in October, 1883, the train stopped at Rohan, a small, local station, and the train was boarded by two men. They entered by the front door of the express car, and overpowered Bert Lumas, the express messenger, stuffing a large roll, consisting of two handkerchiefs, into his mouth. After tying another handkerchief around his face, and then tying his hands behind his back, he was leashed with a rope to the express company's safe. They took the keys to the safe from the messenger, after overpowering him, and looted the safe of its contents. There were, besides much jewelry and other valuables, about $4,100.00 in the safe. They left the car at a point between Rohan and Peru, Indiana.

When the train halted at Peru station the expressman rapped on the car door, and receiving no reply, he and others forced entrance into the car door, where they found Lumas lying on his back with his arms and shoulders tied to the safe, and unconscious. They found indications of a struggle. There were three or four bullet holes in the side and roof of the car, the shots evidently having been fired from within. They discovered the safe open and the contents gone. Medical aid was summoned, and the doctor, after considerable trouble, succeeded in restoring Lumas to consciousness. He bore no marks of violence other than what he had suffered from the gag that had been forced into his mouth. This gag had almost cost him his life, as the ball was so large that it had prevented him from breathing hardly at all. When restored to consciousness he stated that as the train was leaving Rohan he was busy writing out his report, and while thus engaged he was pounced upon by two powerful men who were wearing masks. They felled him to the floor, gagged him and bound him as he had been found, and took his keys and robbed the safe. While they were doing this he became unconscious from the effect of the gag. He said that they had taken his pistol, which was lying on a table in front of him, and fired two or more shots at him, but none of the shots took effect. I was Chief Special Agent for the Wabash Railroad, which was a part of the Gould System. The case was reported to me by wire the following morning. I went to Rohan at once, and was unable to obtain any information. It seemed that the robbers had not been seen by any one in or near Rohan. They had probably been in hiding and boarded the train unobserved, just as it was leaving the station. I then went to Detroit, where I saw and interviewed Lumas, the express messenger. Lumas was a young man about twenty-six years of age, fine looking, about six feet tall, and weighed about one hundred and eighty pounds. He was born and raised in Vermont. He had an older brother, who was a passenger conductor on the main line of the Wabash Railroad, who had been in the service of the company for many years, and afterwards remained in the service about thirty years, or until his death. They had a widowed mother, who resided in Vermont. Bert, the messenger, had always lived with his mother until he took service with the Pacific Express. His standing with that company was first-class.

While I was making my investigation at Detroit, I met Mr. Brazee, superintendent for the Pacific Express Company of the Wabash division, with headquarters at Decatur, Illinois. Mr. Brazee told me of Lumas' good standing with the company, and spoke of him in the highest terms. I told Mr. Brazee that I was inclined to believe that Lumas might have been connected with the robbery. He vigorously discredited the idea. "Why," he said, "Lumas, you should remember, was almost dead when he was found in his car at Peru. The robbers, doubtless, tried to kill him, and would have succeeded had it not been for the timely assistance rendered by the doctors, and, of course, if he had been connected with the robbery in any way the robbers would not have tried to kill him."

I knew Mr. Brazee personally, and I knew him to be a kind-hearted man and a thorough gentleman, and I appreciated very much the stand he had taken for one of his subordinates. I interviewed Mr. Fuller, the general superintendent of the Pacific Express Company, and all the other officers who would have been likely to know anything about Lumas. They all spoke of him in the highest terms, and of his brother they spoke equally as well. I did not know that Lumas was connected with the robbery in any way, and they speaking of him in such high terms, I did not deem it advisable for me to inform the express authorities that I believed the express messenger was implicated, so I decided to put a shadow on Lumas' movements on each end of his route. I placed two of my operatives on the work; one at Indianapolis, and one at Detroit. The operative at Detroit was told to take up Lumas when he left his train at Detroit, and not to lose sight of him until he left on his train for Indianapolis. The operative at Indianapolis was likewise instructed; thus Lumas was kept under observation at each end of the road. This was kept up continually for about four months. The operative at Detroit had discovered that Lumas was drinking heavily while in that city, and that he was a habitual frequenter of saloons and places of ill repute. Our operative at Indianapolis reported that Lumas, while there, would leave his train and go direct to his rooming house, retire almost immediately and remain there until time to leave for Detroit. I explained this to myself in this way: He needed the sleep and rest after his carousing in Detroit. My operative secured a room adjoining the room occupied by Lumas at Indianapolis, and the other one in Detroit was just as fortunate, and in a short time my Detroit man made the acquaintance of Lumas, became his chum, and was with him almost continually in Detroit, and in that way became acquainted with most of Lumas' friends.

At this time there was a private detective in Detroit, whose name was Pat O'Neal. O'Neal was a widower and lived with a widow sister who kept a rooming house, and Lumas and my operative both roomed with this widow. O'Neal did not know either of them personally, but doubtless learned from his sister that Lumas was employed by some express company, and that my operative was, as he represented himself, connected with some advertising concern of the east. There was also a noted thief known as Jim O'Neal, who was no relation to Pat O'Neal, but one being a thief and the other a detective, they knew each other.

One night, while my man in company with Lumas was sitting at a table in a beer garden in Detroit, they were approached by a man about medium size and plainly dressed. He appeared to be about forty years of age, five foot eight inches tall, and weighed about 145 or 150 pounds. He was light complexioned, sandy haired and smooth shaven. He evidently knew Lumas well, for he sat down at their table, and after they had had several drinks they engaged in a conversation in an undertone, evidently not intended for the operative's ears. However, the operative managed to hear a good deal of what was said. The stranger was evidently trying to convince Lumas that everything would be all right. Lumas was heard to say, "I have not been treated right, and this is why I have been drinking so much of late." The other man was heard to caution him about drinking so much, and to keep quiet, telling him that "everything would be all right later on." After hearing this conversation, my operative located the intruder and found that his name was Denny Downer, a barkeeper at a prominent saloon on Griswold Street, Detroit.

While the above conversation was going on between Lumas and Downer, Jim O'Neal, the thief, was seated at a table very close to our party, with some of his friends. O'Neal knew Lumas to be an express messenger, and knew that he lived at the house of Pat O'Neal's sister, and hearing a part of the conversation he concluded that possibly Lumas was implicated in the robbery of his car, and when he met his namesake, Pat, the private detective, he told the conversation he had overheard between Lumas and Downer, whom Jim O'Neal did not know.

On the evening of the following day I received a report telling me of the happening, and on the next day I received a report from the operative, telling me that he had located the intruder and learned what his name was. On receipt of this report I at once decided that Denny Downer, whom I had known for years as a thief, was undoubtedly one of the parties who had participated in the Rohan robbery. I had known Downer in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. In fact, I was in criminal court in Pittsburg on one occasion when Downer was convicted of burglary, and received a sentence of five years. I knew his criminal record. The description I had received tallied perfectly with that of Denny Downer, of Pittsburg memory, therefore I felt sure of my man.

I decided to go to Indianapolis and take with me all of the daily reports received from my two operatives. I notified Mr. Brazee of my intention, and requested him to accompany me to Indianapolis, telling him that I expected important developments there. He wired that he would join me at Decatur, Illinois, and go with me to Indianapolis. On arrival there we secured adjoining rooms at the Spencer House, which is just across the street from the Union Station, Indianapolis. We arrived there in the evening, and Lumas' train was to arrive at two o'clock the next morning. I instructed my operative at Indianapolis to be at the Union Station when Lumas' train arrived and to bring him from his car over to my room just as soon as he arrived. I had had one of my operatives meet him at his train several times before and take him to see different parties for the purpose of identifying them as one of the express robbers, but Lumas, on each of these occasions, failed to identify them, and he had always declared that he could not identify any person, nor give any accurate description of the men who had attacked him in his car at Rohan. I never expected him to identify any one, but he had been told by the express company to go with me or any of my men any time that we might need him for the purpose of identification, so I knew the operative would have no trouble in getting him to come to the hotel.

On this particular morning I learned from the dispatcher that Lumas' train would arrive on time, and I prepared my room for his reception. I set a table in the middle of the room and spread the daily reports of my two operatives over the top of this table. They filled it completely. I told the operative to tell Lumas that he had a party that he wanted him to see, in my room.

Mr. Brazee was occupying a room next to and opening into mine, and I arranged to leave the door partly open, and he was to sit alongside of the door in such a manner that he could hear everything that was said. He considered the whole thing would be a failure, as he firmly believed in Lumas' innocence, as did all the other officers of the express company.

The train arrived, and the operative got Lumas, who grumbled a little about going to a room at that hour of the morning, but nevertheless he came over. The operative rapped at my door, and I bade him enter. I was sitting at the table containing the reports when he opened the door and came in accompanied by Lumas. I asked Lumas to be seated, and told the operative to retire to the hall until I might need him.

I began by saying, "Lumas, I want to call your attention to these reports that are spread out on this table. They are the daily reports of my operatives who have shadowed you and those associated with you, for the past four months. These reports set forth everything you have done in those four months, and every one you have associated with. I can tell you how many cigars you have smoked, how many drinks you have taken, whom you have talked with, and what you talked about. I find that your mother is a fine old lady and stands high in the community where she resides, in Vermont. I find that you have respectable connections, and that you were well raised. I know all about your brother and his high standing on the Wabash Road, and that your character heretofore has been good. Also that the officers of the Pacific Express Company have had the highest regard for you and your integrity, and for these reasons I have taken it upon myself to give you the opportunity of telling the whole truth about this express robbery, but I want you to understand distinctly that if you do not tell the truth, if you say one word that is not the truth, I shall stop you and turn you over to the officers of the law. But, if you do tell the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, I will do all that I can to secure the extension of leniency to you for your part in the crime. I can also say that if you tell the whole truth, that Mr. Brazee and the other officers will be as lenient with you as the law will allow. So now I want you to answer my questions truthfully or not at all. Now, sir, I want you to tell me how much money you received from the proceeds of that robbery."

He said, unhesitatingly, "Mr. Furlong, I only received ten dollars."

Long before I asked this question I could see moisture in Lumas' eyes, and he finally began to cry. When he stated that he had received but ten dollars, I said to him, "Now, Lumas, wait a moment until I call in Mr. Brazee, who is your friend."

Mr. Brazee had heard every word, and I went to the door and asked him to come into my room. As he entered I also noticed moisture in his eyes. I asked Mr. Brazee to write down what Lumas said, and he complied.

"Lumas," I said, "who were the two men who robbed your car?"

He replied, "Denny Downer and a friend of his whom he called Little Al. I never did know his real name." Lumas went on and stated that he had met Denny Downer in a saloon in Detroit and that Downer had evidently known that he was an express messenger; that as he had gotten well acquainted with him and had got to drinking considerable, Downer had induced him to let him know when he would be carrying a large sum of money, or what they called a "big run," and that Downer had explained that he would have a party with him and would board his car at an out-of-the-way station and bind him, without injuring him, and shoot a few bullets through the side of the car so as to make it appear that he had made a fight, and that they would divide the spoils and nobody would even suspect him (Lumas) by reason of his good standing with the company. He finally agreed to enter the plot, and learned that there was to be a safe containing a sum of money, nearly four thousand one hundred dollars, and some other valuables, on the day of the robbery, shipped over on his train. This might not be considered a big prize, but it was above the average. He notified Downer, and he and Little Al took a train from Detroit and reached Rohan a little ahead of his train. After the robbery, and he had returned to Detroit, Downer sent him a letter containing ten dollars, with the understanding that he would give him more later on, but that he had never received any more. He had become sorry that he had gone into the plot, and had begun drinking. He further stated that he was now positive they had tried to kill him by strangling him with the gag.

Mr. Brazee and the express company officials were all surprised at Lumas' confession. I turned Lumas over to my operative, and took the first train for Detroit, where I arrested Denny Downer. On being arrested Downer acknowledged his connection with the robbery, and told me that Little Al was Al Perry of Boston, Mass., a noted porch climber and thief.

I lodged Downer and Perry in the county jail at Wabash, Indiana, where in the course of time both were put on trial, pleaded guilty, and were sentenced to six years in the penitentiary at Michigan City, Indiana.

Their sentences were made lighter by reason of their having pleaded guilty. Lumas also pleaded guilty and was used as a witness before the Grand Jury against Downer and Perry, and it having developed that Lumas, who was much younger than the other two, being inexperienced in crime, was persuaded by them to do this thing, sentence on him was suspended.

After the robbery the express company offered a reward for the arrest and conviction of each of the robbers, and after they had been arrested and convicted Pat O'Neal, the private detective, filed a claim against the express company to recover the reward. He had nothing whatever to do with the obtaining of the information which led to the arrest and conviction of these two men, and, therefore, his claim for the reward was nothing more than an attempt to obtain money under false pretense.

ARREST OF LAWRENCE POYNEER.

A CROOKED YARDMASTER'S CRIME--BOLD ATTEMPT TO THROW HIS CAPTOR OVERBOARD FROM A STEAMER.--HIS CONVICTION, SENTENCE AND A LATER ESCAPADE.

Lawrence Poyneer was a young man about twenty-eight years of age in 1881. He was a railroad man and was employed as yardmaster by the Texas & Pacific Railroad Company at New Orleans, La., where he had performed the duties of his position in a satisfactory manner for about two years. He finally went crooked and formed a conspiracy with the proprietor of a cotton pickery in New Orleans to defraud his employers. There are a large number of cotton pickeries in that city. Their business is to buy up damaged cotton, such as has been through a fire and has been water-soaked, or otherwise damaged. They pick this cotton over very carefully, eliminating the parts that have been damaged by fire, or some like cause, and sell the salvage for a good price. In other words, these cotton pickeries conduct a business similar to that of junk dealers in other cities.

Poyneer ran a car load of cotton into one of these pickeries and sold it much below its market value. It was promptly unloaded by the pickery men, who destroyed the marks on the bales. The empty car was located after some time and trouble, by me, but it took a long time to locate the cotton.

After I had ascertained what had become of the cotton and who had bought it, I set about to find Poyneer, who had stolen it. I learned that he had left the service of the company of his own accord, about three weeks after the cotton in question was missed. I tracked him from New Orleans to Palmyra, New York, where his parents resided. In Palmyra I succeeded in obtaining a good photograph and a good description of him. He was almost a giant in stature, being nearly six feet, six inches in height, splendidly built, weighed two hundred twenty-five pounds, and wore a number eight shoe. He was a fine looking fellow and an expert railroad train service man.

From Palmyra I traced him to Buffalo, New York, from there to St. Paul, Minn., from St. Paul I traced him to Portland, Oregon, and from Portland to Wallah-Wallah, Washington. From Wallah-Wallah back to Ladales, Washington, which is about midway between Portland and Wallah-Wallah, and on the Columbia River. Here I found him in the service of the Northern Pacific Railroad Co., engaged in painting box cars. I obtained the necessary requisition papers from the Governors of Louisiana and Oregon, and arrested him at Ladales, took him to Portland (the head of navigation on the Willamette River), where I took passage for myself and prisoner on the steamship Columbia for San Francisco.

There was no one on the steamer, not even the officers, who knew that Poyneer was a prisoner. He had promised me that he would go with me quietly and I did not place him in irons. I could not have hand-cuffed him with any ordinary hand-cuffs for the reason of the enormous size of his wrists.

The giant switchman who attempted to hurl Furlong from the deck of an ocean steamer.]

After we had left Astoria and were out several miles on the Pacific, we were taking a walk for exercise on the upper deck, and when we were nearing the stern end of the vessel, and there were no other passengers, or even any sailors, Poyneer suddenly seized me by the neck and body and attempted to throw me over the rail into the sea. I grabbed him tightly around his neck and under one of his arms so tightly that he could not shake me off. I lustily called for help and one of the cabin boys heard me, gave the alarm, and the captain and officer on the lookout in front of the vessel came rushing to my assistance. When he heard them coming, he let go and tried, in vain, to make it appear that he had been joking. I explained the situation to the captain, who promptly placed Poyneer in irons and placed him below in what is called the brig in a ship, where he remained until we arrived in San Francisco. There I had him taken to the city jail, where I kept him for two or three days until I had gotten thoroughly rested. I borrowed a set of irons from Chief of Police Crowley, placed these irons on Poyneer, and took him on board a Southern Pacific Railroad train, and in due time lodged him safely in the Old Parish Prison in New Orleans.

He was tried, convicted and sentenced to four years in prison in Baton Rouge, where he served his term out. After this I lost track of him until about ten years ago, just before the Olive Street Cable was changed to an Electric Street Car Line, in St. Louis. I boarded a grip car on Olive Street one morning, and to my surprise, I recognized Lawrence Poyneer, acting as gripman on the car I had boarded. Poyneer recognized me on sight, but he did not speak and seemed to be very much confused. I left the car near the turning point. Later I was informed that "Jones" had left his grip car at the foot of Olive Street that morning. "Jones" was the name that Poyneer had given when he had secured the position from the company as gripman about three weeks prior to my having recognized him. He left St. Louis and has not been heard from since, to my knowledge.

TICKET FORGERS RUN DOWN.

ARREST OF LOUIS RICE AND TOM LANDS AFTER A LONG CHASE--THE FORGERS ACQUIRED ALMOST A FORTUNE.

During the early '80s the officials of the passenger department of several Western trunk lines made the discovery that they had been defrauded out of thousands of dollars by the means of forged railroad tickets. These tickets had been distributed or put on the market by ticket scalpers, who then thrived in all the large cities.

These tickets were gotten up on what appeared to be regular paper and in regular form, with the exception of the serial and form numbers, which were necessarily duplicated. The tickets read from Boston, New York, Chicago, Philadelphia and other prominent points on the east to the principal points on the Pacific Coast in the west. The forms were pronounced perfect and the signature of the various railroad officials were imitated admirably on them.

The discovery of the forgeries were first made by one of the assistants of C. G. Warner, general auditor of the Missouri Pacific Railroad at St. Louis. The assistant auditor discovered the forgeries, he having noticed the numbers on the tickets were irregular.

At this time I was Chief Special Agent for the Missouri Pacific, and the case was placed in my hands for investigation, by General Auditor Warner.

After a lot of tedious work, the details of which would not interest the reader, I, with the help of some of my assistants, learned that Rice and Lands were railroad ticket scalpers and had offices in several cities in the middle west, from which they had supplied other scalpers with large quantities of these forged tickets. I also learned that Rice and Lands had established a private printing office in a small town in western Illinois, in which the counterfeit tickets were printed; the forms of which had been arranged by Rice, who had been a chief clerk for a number of years for a General Passenger and Ticket Agent of one of the large railroad systems of the West, and was, therefore, thoroughly conversant with the details of all of the ticket business.

Lands was a crooked lawyer, who had married into an eminently respectable family of the State of Indiana. Rice was a single man, but was engaged to a young lady, whose family was of considerable prominence. He was also of a good family and had always borne an excellent reputation, and was considered a bright, affable young business man.

After learning all of these facts and reporting them to the proper officials of the Missouri Pacific System, I was instructed to locate and arrest Rice and Lands, charging them with having made and issued the counterfeit railroad tickets. I had but little trouble in locating Lands, but, as I considered Rice the principal, knowing that he was the man who had gotten up the forms of the counterfeit tickets, I decided to quietly place Lands under surveillance, by one of my operatives, and then took up the search for Rice, as I desired to arrest him first, being very sure that I could apprehend Lands any time that I wanted to do so.

I traced Rice from Kansas City to Denver, Salt Lake City, San Francisco to Portland, Oregon, but lost trace of him there, and after consuming several days with no results, I decided to return to St. Louis, and to visit the town in Iowa where Rice's betrothed resided with her parents, which I did.

After spending several days near the home of this young lady, I was finally rewarded by learning the alias that Rice had assumed, and his whereabouts at that time, and I immediately, as the traveling men say, "doubled back" to the Pacific Coast, boarding a steamship at San Francisco for Victoria, B. C., and from there went overland to a camp in the Kassiar Mountains, British Columbia, which is about 357 miles from Victoria.

On arriving there I learned that Rice had left but a few days before my arrival, and that he had undoubtedly passed me on my way to Kassiar. He had left word with friends there that he was going back to Portland, Oregon. He had been prospecting in the mountains for gold and had been unsuccessful, and had exhausted his funds, so he had concluded to go back to Portland and seek employment there.

I, therefore, returned to Victoria and boarded a vessel for Seattle and from there I went to Portland, where I succeeded in locating Rice. He was working as a day laborer in a bed-spring factory. He was clad in a suit of greasy overalls, when I found him, needed a haircut and a shave, and did not in any way resemble the dapper and stylishly dressed Louis Rice, whose photograph I had in my possession.

I brought Rice back to St. Louis, and while en route he made a full confession to me as to his and Lands' connection with the counterfeit tickets. He told me about the printing office and gave me the names of various scalpers throughout the country who were engaged with them in handling the bogus tickets.

On arriving in St. Louis I secured a lodging house for Rice in the suburbs of the city, placed him there, by his consent, in charge of one of my operatives. I did this so that the scalpers who were in collusion with the fraudulent scheme would not become aware of his capture until I would have time to arrange for indictments and arrest all the parties connected with the fraud. I also wanted to arrest and bring Lands to St. Louis before he had learned his partner was in custody, and proceeded to Indiana and took him in charge. His relatives, who were well-known and influential, immediately applied for a writ of habeas corpus, which prevented me from removing Lands from the state until permitted to do so by due process of law.

The judge before whom this writ of habeas corpus was returnable was a lifelong personal friend of the family of Lands' wife, and the judge, therefore, released Lands from custody on the grounds that forged railroad tickets had no intrinsic value.

This was the first and only prisoner that I have ever had released by such a procedure. However, Lands was sick at the time of his arrest, and lingered along for a few months after his release, and died, which was the ending of his part of the crime.

In due time Rice's trial was called in St. Louis, and the judge before whom the case was tried decided the same in this case as had the judge in Indiana on the Lands case; and, therefore, the ticket forgers went unpunished.

The state laws in nearly every state in the Union have since been revised so as to make the forgery of railroad tickets a felony, with the same penalty attached as that of forging any other document or valuable paper.

The farcical termination of the case also caused the passage of laws which have put the ticket scalpers out of business in almost the entire country. Prior to that time, every city of any size was infested with numerous ticket scalping offices. The men engaged in the business were usually of the unscrupulous kind, and their crookedness caused the railroads no little amount of trouble.

In working up this case and apprehending Lands and Rice, I personally traveled, in all, about eighteen thousand four hundred miles, and consumed nearly six months' time, did a lot of hard work and incurred considerable expense.

I will say here that the attorneys of the legal department for the Missouri Pacific Railroad Company were fully advised as to all the facts connected with this case and they advised that the parties be located and apprehended: and the work involved in the location and arrest of Rice and Lands was as good as any work ever done by any one in a similar case. Under the laws then existing the cases of Rice and Lands could not be reached.

After Rice's final release he went to the state of Iowa, where he engaged in the insurance business. He was successful and finally married the young lady he was engaged to, and when last heard of by the writer, was a prosperous general insurance agent, raising a nice family and respected in the community in which he lived.

CONVICTION OF JOHN COLLINS.

HOW THE CLUES, WHICH LEAD TO THE ARREST OF THE YOUNG MAN FOR HIS FATHER'S MURDER, WERE OBTAINED--KANSAS' MOST SENSATIONAL MURDER CASE.

No crime committed in the West in recent years was surrounded with more mystery than was the murder of J. S. Collins, which occurred in Topeka, Kansas, in the spring of 1898. Mr. Collins was slain while asleep beside his wife in their home. The weapon used was a shotgun, and one or two of the shot struck the shoulder of the wife, making slight, though painful wounds.

The murdered man had been a prominent insurance and real estate man of the Kansas capitol, where he had lived for many years, and was well and favorably known to the citizens of that city, as well as throughout the entire state; in fact, he was considered one of the state's most prominent citizens. At the time of his murder he was about fifty-five years of age, had a wife, one daughter and a son, John.

The Collins' occupied a comfortable home in Topeka. John, the only son, was a student at the State University at Lawrence, Kansas, where he was being prepared for the ministry. He had been a student at Lawrence for two or three years before his father's murder. He boarded at the school and occasionally visited his home in Topeka, usually on Sundays and holidays. The Collins home, which was one of the best on one of the capitol's most prominent residential thoroughfares, was disturbed early one morning by the discharge of a gun in the sleeping room occupied by Mr. Collins and his wife, which was situated on the ground floor. Mr. Collins had been shot and died instantly, and his wife, as stated above, received one or two grains of coarse shot in her shoulder. Other occupants of the house that morning were Miss Collins, a young lady about eighteen years of age, and John Collins, Jr. Both of them occupied rooms on the second floor of the house. There was also a servant girl in the house. It was in the early part of the summer and the windows were all screened with wire. John, apparently aroused by the shot which killed his father, dressed himself hastily and aroused the nearest neighbors. It was at an early hour in the morning, but after daylight.

The police were sent for, and on their arrival ascertained that the doors of the house were all intact and carefully locked; but a window screen in the rear of the house on the second floor was found to have been cut, leaving a hole large enough for the passage of a human body. This window was immediately above a one-story addition to the main building in the rear. After the police authorities had finished their investigation of the premises they arrived at the conclusion that the murderer must have entered the house by means of a key, and after having shot Mr. Collins escaped, going up the main stairs from the lower hall to the second floor and then gone to the hall at the end of which they found the window before described, had cut the wire screen and jumped out of the window onto the roof of the one-story addition, and then to the ground, a distance of about ten or twelve feet, and in that way made his escape.

The murder created a great sensation by reason of Mr. Collins' high standing in the community. A number of the more influential citizens of Topeka who were friends of his, formed a committee for the purpose of locating the murderer and causing him, or them, to be brought to justice. These gentlemen wired me at St. Louis, asking me to come to Topeka to investigate the case. I went to Topeka at once, arriving there, if I remember aright, the third day after the murder had been committed. I reported to the gentleman who was chairman of the committee, and at once began my investigation, by examining the premises at which the murder had been committed. I interviewed the widow, who, by the way, was Mr. Collins' second wife, her step-daughter and step-son, John Collins. Mrs. Collins was a woman between thirty-six and forty years of age, of the brunette type, rather above the medium height and inclined to be slender. She was very attractive and considered a good-looking woman, intelligent and refined.

Miss Collins was also above the medium height, nice-looking, well educated and intelligent.

John Collins had just passed his twenty-first birthday, was about five feet, eight or nine inches tall, light brown hair, fair complexioned, well built, pleasing in manner and a very fine looking young man.

After I had consumed about four days in my investigation, I became satisfied in my own mind that the murder had been committed by some person who belonged in the house, and that the house had not been entered by an outsider. I had discovered that Mr. Collins had been killed with his own shotgun, a high priced firearm, which he always kept in a leather case, and usually placed on the upper shelf of a clothes closet in his bedroom. This closet was unusually large and extended from the floor to the ceiling. The ceiling being very high, an ordinary sized man could not reach the shelf where the gun was kept without the aid of a step-ladder, or possibly it could have been reached by a tall person while standing on a high table.

Mr. Collins had not used his gun for months before the murder, and it had always been his custom after using the weapon to clean it thoroughly, take it apart and pack it in the case. It was, therefore, necessary for the murderer to take this gun case from the shelf, put it together and load it with the ammunition, which was also kept on the high shelf. All of this could not have been accomplished by any outside person without having been discovered by some one of the inmates of the house.

I also learned that John Collins had left his lodgings at Lawrence on the evening preceding the murder, going to Topeka and directly to his home, where, he claimed, he retired for the night at an early hour. He also claimed that he remained there until aroused by the shot that killed his father. I also learned that the young man had formed the acquaintance of a very estimable and wealthy young lady at Lawrence, with whom he had become infatuated. He had paid much attention to her for months, and finally she had informed him that her mother had decided to purchase or lease a cottage at Long Branch, in which to spend the summer months. I surmised that when he learned that she intended to accompany her mother to Long Branch for the summer, young Collins decided that his sweetheart was liable to meet some of the many fortune hunters who frequent the resort during the summer months, thus endangering his chances of winning her, so he had made up his mind that he would arrange, if possible, to spend the season at Long Branch too, so that he might guard the affections of his good-looking, or I might truthfully say, beautiful young lady friend.

Superintendent of the St. Louis Office of the Furlong Secret Service Company who did some clever work on the Collins case.]

The elder Mr. Collins had been considered to be more wealthy than he really was at the time of his death. He had met with financial reverses, and really had but little more than his home in Topeka when he was murdered, but he was carrying thirty thousand dollars insurance on his life, ten thousand to his wife and ten thousand to each of his children.

Having secured the above information I sent one of my operatives, J. S. Manning, to Lawrence, Kansas, with instructions to quietly ascertain all that he could as to the habits of the young man Collins and his associates. Mr. Manning's investigation there developed that young Collins had been spending considerable money in buying flowers, carriage hire and entertainments. He had no means of defraying these expenses other than twenty-five dollars a month allowed him by his father for that purpose. Mr. Manning also learned that there were a couple of colored hack drivers in Lawrence, who had been patronized by the younger Collins. Upon receipt of this information from Mr. Manning, I sent D. F. Harbaugh, who was then in my employ, to Lawrence. Mr. Harbaugh had lived in Lawrence, Kansas, for a number of years before he entered my service. He had been in the livery business there, and had been a hack driver. He was personally acquainted with the colored drivers before mentioned, but these men did not know that he was in the secret service work. For this reason Mr. Harbaugh found it easy to find out everything that the hack drivers knew about John Collins. After renewing their acquaintance Harbaugh learned from them that Collins had approached them and entered into a verbal contract to kill his father for a certain sum of money, part of which he had paid at the time the agreement was made, he agreeing to pay the balance after the murder had been committed.

They told Harbaugh that they had no intention of attempting to murder Mr. Collins, but had promised John they would do so to work him for what money they could get out of him, knowing, as they did, that he dare not expose them when they failed to carry out their agreement. The murder was to have been committed on or before a certain date. The date passed and Mr. Collins still lived, whereupon, John became anxious and expostulated with the colored drivers. They told him that they were entitled to more money than what he had agreed to pay them, and he gave them an additional one hundred dollars, as well as a gold watch his father had presented to him on his twenty-first birthday. This money young Collins had secured by borrowing from his friends and through drafts he had drawn on his father, as we afterwards learned. There was then another date set for the murder to be committed by the hack drivers. When that day arrived and passed young Collins again remonstrated with the drivers for not having carried out their agreement, and they coolly informed him that they had concluded that if his father had to be killed that he had better do the killing himself, that they positively would not commit the crime, and that they had never intended to do so. Learning this, young Collins became desperate and left Lawrence and went to Topeka, as before stated, and without doubt killed his father with his own gun.

When this evidence was obtained I reported it to the gentlemen who had employed me, and they then decided to hand my report over to the prosecuting attorney at Lawrence. At the request of the prosecuting attorney the county commissioners at Topeka employed me to complete the evidence, so that Collins might be arrested and prosecuted for the murder of his father.

John Collins was immediately arrested, placed in jail without bond, and in due time the case came to trial. The trial caused a great deal of interest in the community, by reason of the fact that the elder Mr. Collins was so well known, and the killing had been done in such a mysterious manner. The trial attracted great attention throughout the entire country. All of the leading western papers had special reporters present, and all the sensational features were "played up" (as newspaper men call it) as they developed. The court room was crowded, and many noted lawyers were also in attendance to watch the legal battle, which at times waxed very warm, as all the counsel on both sides were very able men. Prosecuting Attorney Jetmore was at his best, making one of the greatest fights I ever saw to get his evidence before the jury. Among the spectators during almost the entire trial was the late Justice Brewer, of the United States Supreme Court at Washington, who was visiting his daughter, who was the wife of the prosecuting attorney, Mr. Jetmore, in Topeka at the time the trial was on. At the close of the case Mr. Justice Brewer complimented me very highly for my work in solving the mystery.