grounds for flocks of bullocks, horses and ostriches. The towns
are much more vivid. Everything is to be found here even at the
smaller places--electric lights, telephone, all comforts of modern
civilization. The population, however, is not very sympathetic, a
combination of doubtful elements from all countries, striving to
become rich as soon as possible; corruption, fraud, theft, are the
order of the day.
“I have made the acquaintance of our Consul. The officer is a certain
Mikulicz, a cultured, most amiable man. The Honorary Consul is
Mihanovich, a man who--a few years ago was a porter--and now is a
millionaire. Social obligations have caused much loss of time, which
could have been better used for business affairs. Imagine that nothing
can be done in Ensenada, but we have always to go to Buenos Aires. And
we have to hurry. The unloading of the cargo, negotiations about a new
cargo, which I could have accepted if my merchant had not prevented
me, changes of the board staff, purchase of supplies, work on board,
the collection and despatch of money, &c., &c. The staff-officers have
all to be changed. I have the command. Capt. Sodich is offended by the
fact that I have sent away here in Plata a certain 'Sensal,’ toward
whom he was too indulgent and who was a man of bad reputation. He has
given me to understand, in the most impolite manner, that he could
not remain under such circumstances, that he did not permit himself
to be treated as a mere zero with regard to the business on land, and
therefore he resigned the command, &c. I, of course, accepted his
resignation, and also remained firm when he afterward returned to
excuse himself. The second lieutenant, Lucich, has shown the insolence
to deceive the consignee and by calculating forty-eight tons more
in favor of the ship, believing to do me a favor by such an action.
I have given to the consignee the necessary indemnification--and
to restore the compromised honor of the ship, have dismissed the
lieutenant. The third lieutenant, Leva, took fright of the sea and
quit voluntarily to seek his fortune on land. Also the boatswain
Giaconi asked for his dismissal, so much the fire had frightened
him.[3]
[3] There had been a fire on the _Santa Margarita_ on the way to Buenos
Aires.
“As present I have First Lieutenant, Jellecich, who acts as Captain
and has the command--a man of forty-five years, very quiet,
experienced and practical. Further, a Second Lieutenant, Mayer,
Austro-German, very fit for accounts and writings; a boatswain,
Vranich, who is a real jewel. Thus I hope--with the aid of God--to get
on at least as well as under the command of Sodich.
“Imagine: Sodich and Lucich were atheists, and Leva has been a
Spiritualist. I am happy to have made this change of personnel, with
whom alone I shall have intercourse for months and months.
“In the first days of July, when everything will be ready, the journey
will be continued. Now comes the most difficult part of the passage,
i. e., the sailing around the dreadful Cape Horn, which is always
exposed to howling storms. If all ends well, we shall be in two months
at Valparaiso, which has been so beautifully described by Ludwig. God
willing, we shall return from there in good health.
“I am very sorry to have received no news or, strictly speaking, no
letters of yours. Neither in Ensenada nor in La Plata nor in Buenos
Aires, neither poste restante nor in the Consulate, have I found
your letters, and still I believe that you have been so good as to
write me. I have found letters of Luise, that have been despatched
by a German steamer, and also letters from London, as well as of the
Swiss Bank, with which I am in communication, but not one letter from
Austria. Luise informed me that she has been in Rome, and your dear
telegram advised me that she has passed Salzburg. I was sorry to see
from the newspapers that Karl has been ill in Baden; I should be
happy if this were not true. Then I have read the many nonsensical
articles written about myself, and am glad that the Consul, who has
remained in communication with me, was able to state the truth. I am
also glad of the marriage of Franz, the dream of the young woman is
now likely to come to an end. I know nothing about Vienna and Gmünden.
But I repeat that I am disappointed at not having received your
letters. I hope to God you are well and remain in good health.
“My next stay will be at Valparaiso. I, therefore, ask you to address
letters: Giovanni Orth, Valparaiso (Chile) poste restante.
“Requesting you to give my kind remembrances to the whole family and
asking you for your blessing, I respectfully kiss your hands.
“Your tenderly loving son,
GIOVANNI.”
The vessel was accordingly made ready at Ensenada, and on July 12,
1890, John Orth wrote what proved to be the last communication ever
sent by him. It was addressed to his attorney in Vienna and said that
he was leaving to join his ship for a trip to Valparaiso, which might
consume fifty or sixty days. His captain, Orth wrote, had been taken
ill, and his first officer had proved incompetent, so that it had been
necessary to discharge him. Accordingly Orth was personally in command
of his vessel, aided by the second officer, who was an experienced
seaman. This is a somewhat altered version, to be sure.
The apparent intention of the renegade archduke at this time was to
follow the sea. He had caused the _Santa Margarita_ to be elaborately
refitted inside, had insured her for two hundred and thirty thousand
marks with the Hamburg Marine Insurance Company, and he had written
his aged mother at Lake Gmünden of his determination to make his living
as a mariner and an honest man, instead of existing like an idler
on his comfortable private means. There is nothing in the record to
indicate that he intended to go into hiding.
[Illustration: ~~ ARCHDUKE JOHANN SALVATOR ~~]
The _Santa Margarita_ accordingly sailed on the thirteenth of July.
With good fortune she should have been in the Straits of Magellan the
first week in August, and her arrival at Valparaiso was to be expected
not later than the first of September. But the ship did not reach port.
The middle of September passed without word of her. When she had still
not been reported by the first week in October the alarm was given.
As the result of diplomatic representations from the Austrian minister,
the Argentine government soon made elaborate arrangements for a
search. On December the second the gunboat _Bermejo_, Captain Don
Mensilla, put out from Buenos Aires and made a four months’ cruise
of the Argentine coast, visiting every conceivable anchorage where
a vessel of the _Santa Margarita’s_ size might possibly have found
refuge. Don Mensilla found that, beginning the night of July 20, and
continuing intermittently for nearly a month, there had been storms of
the greatest violence in the region of Cape Blanco and the southern
extremity of Tierra del Fuego. More than forty vessels which had been
in the vicinity in this period reported that the disturbances had been
of unusual character and duration, more than sufficient to overwhelm a
sailing bark in the tortuous and treacherous Magellan Straits.
Continuing his search, Don Mensilla found that a vessel answering to
the general description of the _Santa Margarita_ had been wrecked off
the little island of Nuevo Ano, in the Beagle Canal, in the course
of a hurricane which lasted from August 3 to August 5, at which
dates the _Santa Margarita_ was very likely in this vicinity. The
Argentine commander could find no trace of the wreck and no clew to any
survivors. He continued his search for more than two months longer and
then returned to base with his melancholy report.
At the same time the Chilean government had sent out the small steamer
_Toro_ to search the Pacific coast from Cape Sunday to Cape Penas. Her
captain returned after several months with no word of the archduke or
any member of his crew.
These investigations, plus the study of logs and reports at the Hamburg
maritime observatory, soon convinced most authorities that John Orth
and his vessel were at the bottom of the Straits. But in this case, as
in that of Roger Tichborne,[4] an old mother’s fond devotion refused
to accept the bitter arbitrament of chance. The Grand Duchess Maria
Antonia could not bring herself to believe that winds and waves had
swallowed up her beloved son. She stormed the court at Vienna with
her entreaties, with the result that Franz Josef finally sent out the
corvette _Saida_, with instructions to make a fresh search, including
the islands of the South Seas, whither, according to a fanciful report,
John Orth had made his way.
[4] See page 82.
At the same time the grand duchess appealed to Pope Leo, and the
pontiff requested Catholic missionaries in South America and all over
the world to search for John Orth and send immediate news of his
presence to the Holy See.
The _Saida_ returned to Fiume at the end of a year without having
been able to accomplish anything beyond confirming the report of Don
Mensilla. And in response to the pope’s letter many reports came back,
but none of them resulted in the finding of John Orth.
Shortly after the return of the _Saida_ the Austrian heirs of John
Orth moved for the payment of his insurance, and the Hamburg Marine
Insurance Company, after going through the formality of a court
proceeding, paid the claim. In 1896 a demand was made on two banks,
one in Freiburg and the other in St. Gallen, Switzerland, for moneys
deposited with them by the archduke after his departure from Austria
in 1889. One of these banks raised the question of the death proof,
claiming that thirty years must elapse in the case of an unproved
death. The courts decided against the bank, thereby tacitly confirming
the contention that the end of the archduke had been sufficiently
demonstrated. About two million crowns were accordingly paid over to
the Austrian custodians.
In 1909 the court marshal in Vienna was asked to hand over the property
of John Orth to his nephew and heir, and this high authority then
declared that the missing archduke had been dead since the hurricane
of August 3-5, 1890. He, however, asked the supreme court of Austria
to pass finally upon the matter, and a decision was handed down on May
9, 1911, in which the archduke was declared dead as of July 21, 1890,
the day on which the heavy storms about the Patagonian coasts began.
His property was ordered distributed, and his goods and chattels were
sold. The books, instruments, art collection and furniture, which had
long been preserved in the various villas and castles of the absent
prince, were accordingly sold at auction in Berlin, during the months
of October and November, 1912.
In spite of the great care that was taken to discover the facts in
this case, and in the face of the various official reports and court
decisions, a great romantic tradition grew up about John Orth and his
mysterious destiny. The episodes of his demotion, his marriage, his
abandonment of rank, and his exile had undoubtedly much to do with the
birth of the legend. Be that as it may, the world has for more than
thirty years been feasted with rumors of the survival of John Orth and
his actress wife. In the course of the Russo-Japanese war the story
was widely printed that Marshal Yamagato was in reality the missing
archduke. The story was credited by many, but there proved to be no
foundation for it beyond the fact that the Japanese were using their
heavy artillery in a manner originally suggested by the archduke in
that old monograph which had got him disciplined.
Ex-Senator Eugenio Garzon of Uruguay is the chief authority for one
of the most plausible and insistent of all the John Orth stories.
According to this politician and man of letters, there was present
at Concordia, in the province of Entre Rios, Argentine Republic, in
the years 1899 to 1900 and again from 1903 to 1905, a distinguished
looking stranger of military habit and bearing, who had few friends,
received few visits, always spoke Italian with a Señor Hirsch, an
Austrian merchant of Buenos Aires, and generally conducted himself in
a secretive and suggestive manner. Señor Hirsch treated the stranger
with marked respect and deference.
Senator Garzon presents the corroborative opinion of the _Jefe de
Policia_ of Concordia, an official who firmly believed the man of
mystery to be John Orth. On the other hand, Señor Nino de Villa Rey,
the closest friend and sometime host of the supposed imperial castaway,
denied the identity of his intimate and scoffed at the whole tale.
At the same time, say Garzon and the chief of police, Señor de Villa
Rey tried to conceal the presence of the man, and it was the activity
of the police authorities, executing the law authorizing them to
investigate and keep records of the identity of all strangers, that
frightened the “archduke” away. He went to Paraguay and worked in a
sawmill belonging to Villa Rey. Shortly before the outbreak of the
Russo-Japanese war he left for Japan.
This is evidently the basis of the Yamagato confusion. Senator Garzon’s
book is full of doubtful corroboration and too subtle reasoning, but
it is rewarding and entertaining for those who like romance and read
Spanish.[5]
[5] See Bibliography.
The missing John Orth has likewise been reported alive from many
other unlikely parts of the world and under the most incredible
circumstances. Austrian, German, British, French, and American
newspapers have been full of such stories every few years. The much
sought man has been “found” mining in Canada, running a pearl fishery
in the Paumotus, working in a factory in Ohio, fighting with the Boers
in South Africa, prospecting in Rhodesia, running a grocery store in
Texas--what not and where not?
One of the most recent apparitions of John Orth happened in New York.
On the last day of March, 1924, a death certificate was filed with the
Department of Health formally attesting that Archduke Johann Salvator
of Austria, the missing archduke, had died early that morning of
heart disease in Columbus Hospital, one of the smaller semi-public
institutions. Doctor John Grimley, chief surgeon of the hospital,
signed the certificate and said he had been convinced of the man’s
identity by his “inside knowledge of European diplomacy.”
Mrs. Charlotte Fairchild, “a well-known society photographer,”
confirmed the story, and said she had discovered the identity of the
man the year before and admitted some of her friends to the secret.
He had lately been receiving some code cables from Europe which came
collect, and his friends had obligingly supplied the money with
which to pay for these mysterious messages. The dead man, said Mrs.
Fairchild, had been living as O. N. Orlow, a doctor of philosophy, a
lecturer in Sanscrit and general scholar.
“He was a marvelous astrologer and even lectured on Sanscrit,” she
recounted. “In his delirium he talked Sanscrit, and it was very
beautiful.”
According to the same friend of the “missing archduke,” he had
furnished her with the true version of his irruption from the Austrian
court in 1889. The emperor Franz Josef had applied a vile name to
John Salvator’s mother, whereupon the archduke had drawn his sword,
broken it, cast it at his ruler’s feet, ripped off his decorations
and medals, flung them into the imperial face and finally blacked the
emperor’s eye. Striding from the palace to the barracks, the archduke
had found his own cavalry regiment turned out to cry “Hoch!” and offer
him its loyalty. He could have dethroned the emperor then and there, he
said, but he elected to quit the country and have done with the social
life which disgusted him.
This is the kind of story to appeal to romantics the world over. Aside
from the preposterousness of the yarn as a whole, one needs only to
remember that Johann Salvator was an artillery officer and never held
either an active or honorary cavalry command; that he was, at the
time of his final exit from Austria, long dismissed from the army and
without military rank, and that striking the emperor would have been
an offense that must have landed him in prison forthwith. Also, it
is obvious that the “missing archduke” was pulling the legs of his
friends a bit in the matter of the collect cablegrams. Except in cases
where special prearrangements have been made, as in the instances of
great newspapers, large business houses, banks, and the departments
of government, cablegrams are never sent unless prepaid. An imperial
government would hardly thus impose on a wandering scion. The imposture
is thus apparent.
On the day after the death of the supposed archduke, however, a note of
real drama was injected into the case. Mrs. Grace E. Wakefield, who was
said to have been the ward, since her fourteenth birthday, of the dead
“archduke,” was found dead in her apartment on East Fifty-ninth Street
that afternoon. She had drowned her two parrots and her dog. Then she
had got into the bath tub, turned on the water, slashed the arteries
of both wrists with a razor, and bled to death. Despondency over “John
Orth’s” death was given as the explanation.
These tales have all had their charm, much as they have lacked
probability. Each and all they rest upon the single fact that the man
was never seen dead. There is, of course, no way of being sure that
John Orth perished in the hurricane-swept Straits of Magellan, but it
is beyond reasonable question that he did not survive. For he would
certainly have answered the pitiful appeals of his old mother, to whom
he was devoted, and to whom he had written every few days whenever he
had been separated from her. He would have been found by the papal
missionaries in some part of the world, and the three vessels sent upon
his final course must surely have discovered some trace of the man. It
should be remembered that, except for letters that were traced back to
harmless cranks, nothing that even looked like a communication was ever
received from Orth or Ludmilla Stübel, or from any member of the crew
of the _Santa Margarita_.
In the light of cold criticism this great enigma is not profound. All
evidence and all reason point to the probability that Johann Salvator
and his ship went down to darkness in some wild torment of waters and
winds, leaving neither wreck nor flotsam to mark their exit, but only a
void in which the idle minds of romantics could spin their fabulations.
IV
THE STOLEN CONWAY BOY
At half past ten o’clock on the morning of August 16, 1897, a small,
barefoot boy appeared in Colonia Street, in the somnolent city of
Albany, the capital of New York State. He carried a crumpled letter in
one grimy hand and stopped at one door after another, inquiring where
Mrs. Conway lived. The Albany neighbors paid so little attention to
him that several of them later estimated his age at from ten years to
seventeen. Finally he rang the bell at No. 99 and handed his note to
the woman he sought, the wife of Michael J. Conway, a railroad train
dispatcher. With that he was gone.
Mrs. Conway, a little puzzled at the receipt of a letter by a special
messenger, tore open the envelope, sat down in the big rocking chair in
her front room, and began to read this appalling communication:
“Mr. Conway: Your little boy John has been kidnaped and when you
receive this word, he will be a safe distance from Albany and where he
could not be found in a hundred years. Your child will be returned to
you on payment of _three thousand dollars_, $3000, _provided_ you pay
the money _to-day and strictly obey the following directions_:
“put the money in a package and send it by a man you can depend on to
the lane going up the hill a few feet south of the _Troy road first
tollgate_, just off the road on this lane here is a tree with a big
trunk have the man put the package on the _south_ side of the tree and
_at once come away and come back to your house_.
“We want the money left at this spot at _exactly 8:15 o’clock
to-night_.
“See that no one is with the man you send and that no one follows him
or you will _never look upon your little boy again_
“If you say a word of this to any one outside _your_ family and the
man you send with the money or if you take any steps to bring it to
the attention _of the police you will never see your child_ again, for
if _any one_ knows of it we will not take the risk of returning him,
but will leave him _to his fate_.
“If you obey our instructions in every point you will have word
_within two hours_ after the money has been left where you can go and
get your boy safe and sound
“We have been after this thing for a _long time_ we _know our
business_ and can beat all the police in America
“we are after the money and if you do what you are _told_, _no harm
will come to your little boy_. but if you fail to do what we tell you
or do what we tell you not to do _you will never look upon your child
again as sure as there is a god in heaven we know you have the money
in the bank_ and that the bank closes at 2 o’clock and we _must_ have
it _to-night so get in time_. don’t tell them why you draw it out. You
can say you are buying property if you wish for this thing must be
_between you and us_ if you want your boy back alive.
“_Remember_ the case of _Charley Ross_ of Philadelphia. His father
_did not do_ as _he was told_ but went to the police and then spent
five times as much as he could have got him back for but never saw his
little boy _to the day of his death a word to the wise man is enough_
“_Now understand us plainly_ get the money from the bank _in time_
don’t open your lips to any one and send the money by a trusty man to
the place we say at 8:15 a _quarter past eight to-night_ He wants to
_be sure that no one else sees him put the package there_, so there is
no possible danger of any one _else_ getting it, then within two hours
you shall have word from us where your boy is.
“Every move you make will be known to us and if you attempt _any
crooked work_ with us _say good-by to your boy_ and look out for
_yourself_ for we will _meet you again when you least expect it_ Do as
we tell you and all will be well and we will deal straight with you if
you make the _least crooked move_ you will _regret it to the day of
your death_.
“If you want to have your little boy back _safe and sound_. Keep your
lips closed and do _exactly as you are told_
“If you fail to obey _every direction_ you will have _one child less_.
“Yours truly
“The Captain of the Gang.”
Mrs. Conway threw down the letter before she had got past the first few
sentences and ran into the street, screaming for her boy. He did not
answer. None of the neighbors had seen him since eight o’clock, when he
had been let out to play in the sun. It was true.
The distracted mother, clutching the strange epistle in her hand, ran
to summon her husband. He read the letter, set his jaw, and sent for
the police. No one was going to extort three thousand dollars from him
without a fight.
Two of the Albany detectives were detailed to ask questions in the
neighborhood and see whether there had been any witnesses to the
abduction. The others began an examination of the strange letter in
the hope of recognizing the handwriting. This attempt yielded nothing
and the letter was temporarily cast aside. Here the first blunder was
made, for I have yet to examine a kidnapper’s letter more revealingly
written.
The letter is remarkable in many ways. It is long, prolix, and
anxiously repetitive. It is without punctuation in part, wrongly
punctuated at other points, miscapitalized or not capitalized at all,
strangely underlined, curiously paragraphed, often without even the
use of a capital letter, wholly illiterate in its structure and yet
contradictory on this very point. The facsimile copy which I have
before me shows that in spite of all the solecisms and blunders, there
is not a misspelled word in the long missive, a thing not always to be
said in favor of the writings of educated and even eminent men. Also,
there are several cheap literary echoes in the letter, such as “never
look upon your child again” and “leave him to his fate.”
The following deductions should have been made from the letter:
That it was written or dictated by some one familiar with Albany and
with the affairs of the Conways, since the writer knows Conway has
the money in the bank, knows the closing hour, is familiar with the
surrounding terrain, is precise in all directions, and knows there are
other and older children, since he constantly refers to “your little
boy” and says that Conway will have “one child less.”