he would not have written at length.
That the writer is extremely nervous and anxious to have the thing done
at once.
That he is a man without formal education, who has read a good deal,
especially romances and inferior verse.
That, judging from the chirographic fluctuations, he is a man between
thirty-five and forty-five years of age.
That the kidnappers are anxious to have the money intrusted to some
man known to them, to whom they repeatedly refer and whom they believe
likely to be selected by Conway.
That the child is in no danger, since the letter writer doth threaten
too much.
That the search for the kidnappers should begin close at home.
Lest I be accused of deducing with the aid of what the dialect calls
hindsight, it may be well to say that these conclusions were made from
the facsimile of the letter by an associate who is not familiar with
the case and does not know the subsequent developments.
The detective sciences had, however, reached no special developments
in Albany thirty years ago and little of this vital information was
extracted from the tell-tale letter. Instead of making some deductions
from it and going quietly to work upon them, the officers chose the
time-honored methods. They decided to send a man to the big tree with
a package of paper, meantime concealing some members of the force near
by to pounce upon any one who might call for the decoy. The whole
proceeding ended in a bitter comedy. The police went to the place at
night and used lanterns, which must have revealed them to any watchers.
They were not careful about concealing their plan and they even chose
the wrong tree for the deposition of the lure!
So the second day of the kidnapping mystery opened upon prostrated
parents, who were only too willing to believe that their boy had been
done away with, an excited community which locked the doors and feared
to let its children go to school, and a thoroughly discomfited and
abused police department.
The child had been stolen on Monday. Tuesday, the police made a fresh
start. For one thing they searched the country round about the big
tree on the Troy road, which may have been good training for adipose
officers. Otherwise it was an empty gesture, such as police departments
always make when the public is aroused. For another thing, they spread
the dragnet and hauled in all the tramps and vagrants who chanced to
be stopping in Albany. They also searched the known criminal resorts,
chased down a crop of the usual rumors, and wound up the day in
breathless and futile excitement.
Not so, however, with the newspaper reporters. These energetic young
men, whose repeated discomfitures of the police were one of the
interesting facts of American city government in the last generation,
had gone to work on the Conway case themselves. A young man named
John F. Farrell, employed on one of the Albany papers, began his
investigations by interviewing the father of the missing child. One of
the things the reporter wanted to know was whether any one had ever
tried to borrow or to extort money from Conway. The train dispatcher
replied with some reluctance that his brother-in-law, Joseph M. Hardy,
husband of one of Conway’s older sisters, had repeatedly borrowed small
amounts from the railroad man and once made a demand for a thousand
dollars, which he failed to get, though he used threatening tactics.
The reporter said nothing, but set about investigating Hardy. He found
that the man was in Albany, that he was showing no signs of fright, and
that he was indeed going about with much energy, apparently devoting
himself to the quest for the stolen boy and threatening dire vengeance
upon the kidnappers. Reporter Farrell and his associates took this
business under suspicion and investigated Hardy’s connections and
financial situation. They found the latter to be precarious. They also
discovered that Hardy was the bosom friend of a man named H. G. Blake,
who had operated a small furniture store in Albany, but was known
to be an itinerant peddler and merchant, a man of no very definite
social grade, means of livelihood, or character. In the middle of the
afternoon, when this connection was first discovered, Blake could not
be found in Albany, but late in the evening he was discovered, and the
reporters took him in hand.
At the time they had nothing to go upon except Blake’s firm friendship
with Hardy, the relative of the missing child, who had once tried to
extort a thousand dollars and presumably knew the money affairs of
his brother-in-law. The reporters had only one other detail. In the
course of the day they had canvassed all the livery stables in and
about Albany. They found that early on Monday morning a man had rented
a horse and light wagon at a suburban stable and signed for it. This
signature was compared with that of Blake, taken from a hotel register
and some tax declarations. The handwriting seemed to be identical, and
the reporters suspected that Blake had rented the rig under an assumed
name.
While Hardy, Conway’s brother-in-law, was lulled into the belief that
he was under no suspicion and allowed to go to his home and to bed,
Blake was taken to the newspaper office by the reporters and there
asked what he knew about the Conway kidnapping. He denied all knowledge
until he was assured that the paper wished to score a “scoop” on the
story and was willing to pay $2,500 cash for information that would
lead to the recovery of the boy.
A large wallet was shown him, containing a wadding of paper with
several bank notes on the outside. Apparently the man was a bit
feeble-minded. At any rate, he fell into the trap, abandoning all
caution and reaching greedily for the money. He said, of course, that
he knew nothing directly about the affair, but that he could find out.
Later, when the money was withdrawn from his sight he began to boast of
what he could do. Under various incitements and provocations he talked
along until it became apparent that he was one of the kidnappers. When
it was too late the man realized that he had talked too much, and then
he tried to retract. When he attempted to leave the office he was met
by two officers who had been quietly summoned by the reporters and
appeared disguised as drivers. The wallet was once more held out to
Blake, and his greed so far overcame him that he agreed to guide the
reporters to the spot where the boy was hidden, hold a conference with
his captain, and see that the child was delivered.
The little party, consisting of two reporters, the two disguised
officers, and Blake set out late at night and arrived at a place on
the Schenectady road, about eight miles from Albany, shortly before
midnight. Blake here demanded the cash, but was told that it would not
be handed over until he produced the boy. He then said that he thought
the purse did not contain the money. A long argument followed. Once
more the glib talking of the reporters prevailed, and Blake went into
the dense woods, accompanied by one of the officers, ostensibly to find
the boy.
After proceeding some distance, Blake told the officer, whom he still
believed to be a driver, to remain behind, and proceeded farther into
the forest. More than an hour passed before he returned, and the party
was about to drive off, thinking the man had played a clever trick.
Blake, however, came back querulous and suspicious. He demanded once
more to see the money, and being refused, said the trick was up. One of
the men, however, persuaded him to take him to the other members of the
gang, promising that the money would be delivered the moment the boy
was seen alive. Apparently Blake was once more befooled, for he allowed
the supposed driver to accompany him and made off again into the heart
of the woods. One of the reporters and the other disguised policeman
followed secretly.
When the two pairs of men had proceeded about three hundred yards, the
second lurking in the van of the first, not daring to strike a light,
slashed by the underbrush and in evident danger of being shot down, the
smoky light of a camp fire appeared suddenly ahead. In another minute a
childish voice could be heard, and the gruff tones of a man trying to
silence it. Blake and his companion made for the fire and were met by
a masked man with a leveled revolver who informed them that they were
surrounded and would be killed if they made a false move. There was a
parley, which lasted till the second pair came up.
Just what happened at this interesting moment is not easy to say.
The witnesses do not agree. Apparently, however, the little boy,
momentarily released by his captor, ran away. The three hunters
thereupon made a rush for him and there was an exchange of shots in
the darkness. One of the officers pounced upon the boy and dragged him
to the road, closely followed by the reporter and the other officer,
leaving Blake, the masked man, and whatever other kidnappers there
might be to flee or pursue. The boy was quickly tossed into the wagon,
the reporter and officers sprang in after him, and the horses were
lashed into a gallop. Apparently, the midnight adventure had been a
little trying on the nerves of the party.
After the rescuers had driven a mile or two at furious speed, it became
apparent that there was no pursuit on part of the kidnappers and
the drive was slowed to a more comfortable pace while the reporters
questioned the child.
Johnny Conway recited in a childish prattle that he had been playing in
the street before his father’s house when a dray wagon came by. He had
run and caught on to the rear of this for a ride down the block. As he
dropped off the wagon, he had been met by a stranger who smiled, patted
his head and offered to buy him candy. The child was readily beguiled
and taken to the light wagon in which he was driven several miles into
the country. Here he was concealed for a time in a vacant cabin. The
next night he and his captors spent in a church until they moved out
into the woods and began to camp. At this spot the rescuers had found
him.
According to the child, the kidnappers had not been cruel or
threatening. They had provided plenty of food. They had even played
games with the little boy and tried to keep him amused. The only
complaint Johnny Conway had to make was against the mosquitoes, which
had cruelly bitten him and tortured him incessantly for the two nights
and one day he and his captors spent in the woods.
Very early on the morning of August 19th, just three days after the
kidnapping, a dusty two-seated wagon turned into Colonia Street and
proceeded slowly up that quiet thoroughfare toward the Conway house. In
spite of the unseasonable hour there was a crowd in the street, some
of whose members had been on watch all night. Albany had been seized
with terror and morbid curiosity. The Conway house was never without a
few straggling watchers, eager for the first news or crumbs of gossip.
Reporters from the New York newspapers were on the scene, and special
officers from the great city were on their way. Everything was being
prepared for another breathless, nation-wide sensation. The two-seated
wagon spoiled it all in the gray light of that early morning.
As the vehicle came close to the Conway house, and some of the
stragglers ran out toward it, possibly sensing something unusual, one
of the reporters rose in the rear and lifted a small and sleepy boy in
his arms.
“Is it him? Is it the bhoy?” an Irish neighbor called anxiously.
“It’s Johnny Conway!” called the triumphant newspaper sleuth.
There was a cheer and then another. Sleeping neighbors came running
from their houses in night garb. The Conways came forth from a
sleepless vigil and caught the child in their arms. So the mystery of
the boy’s fate came to an abrupt end, but another and more lasting
enigma immediately succeeded.
Hardy, the boy’s conspiring relative, was immediately seized at his
home and dragged to the nearest station house. The rumor of his
connection with the kidnapping got abroad within a few hours, and the
police building was immediately besieged by a crowd which demanded
to see the prisoner. The police drove the crowd off, but it returned
after an hour, much augmented in numbers and provided with a rope for a
lynching. After several exciting hours, the mob was finally cowed and
driven away by the mayor of Albany and a platoon of police with drawn
revolvers.
One of the conspirators was thus safely in jail, but at least two
others were known, Blake and the man in the mask. Several posses set
out at once and surrounded the woods in which the child had been found.
After beating the brush timidly all day and spending a creepy night
in the black forest, fighting the mosquitoes, the citizenry lost its
pallid enthusiasm and returned to Albany only to find that the police
of Schenectady had arrested Blake in that city late the preceding
evening and that the man was lodged in another precinct house where he
could not communicate with Hardy. Another abortive lynching bee was
started. Once more the mayor and the police drove off the howling gangs.
The man in the mask, however, was still at large. Both Hardy and Blake
at first refused to name him, and the police were at sea. Then a
curious thing happened.
William N. Loew, a New York attorney, reading of the kidnapping affair
at Albany, which appeared in the metropolitan newspapers under black
headlines, went to the office of one of the journals and said he
believed he could give valuable information.
On July 15th, a little more than a month earlier, Bernard Myers, a
clothing merchant of West Third Street, New York, had flirted on a
Broadway car with a handsome young woman, who had given him her name
and address as Mrs. Albert Warner, 141 West Thirty-fourth Street, and
invited him to write her. Myers, more avid than cautious, wrote the
woman a fervid letter, asking for an appointment. A few days later two
men appeared in the Myers store. One of them, who carried a heavy cane,
said that he was the husband of Mrs. Warner, brandished the guilty
letter in one hand, the cane in the other, and demanded that Myers
give him a check for three hundred dollars on the spot or take the
consequences. Myers, after some argument, gave a check for one hundred
dollars, and then, as soon as the men had left his store, rushed to his
bank and stopped payment. He then visited the district attorney and
caused the arrest of Warner, who was now arraigned and released on bail.
Loew had been summoned to act as attorney for Warner. He now told the
newspapers of disclosures his client had made to him in consultation.
Warner, who was himself an attorney with an office at 1298 Broadway,
had told Loew that he was interested in a plot to organize kidnapping
on a commercial scale, and that the first jobs would be attempted in
up-State New York. He gave Loew many details and talked plausibly
of the ease with which parents could be stripped of considerable
sums. Loew, who considered his client and fellow attorney slightly
demented, had paid little attention to this sinister talk at the time.
Now, however, he felt sure that Warner had told the truth and that he
probably was the man in the mask.
Faced with these revelations, in his cell, the pliant Blake admitted
that he was a friend of Warner’s, that they had indeed been schoolmates
in their youth. He also admitted that he had been in New York a few
days before the abduction of Johnny Conway and had then visited Warner.
So the chase began.
The police discovered that Warner had been at his office a day ahead
of them and slipped out of New York again. They also found that he had
been at Albany the three days that Johnny Conway had been detained.
Their investigations showed also that Warner, though he had the
reputation of being a particularly shrewd and energetic counselor, had
never adhered very closely to the law himself, but had again and again
been implicated in shady or criminal transactions, though he had always
escaped prison, probably through legal acumen.
It was soon apparent that the man had got well away, and an alarm was
sent across the country. The police circulars that went out to all
parts of America and the chief British and continental ports, described
a man between forty and forty-five years old, more than six feet tall,
slender, dark, with hair of iron gray over a very high forehead. That
Warner was a bicycle enthusiast was the only added detail.
The quest for Warner was one of the most exciting in memory. The
first person sought and found was the Mrs. Warner who had given her
name and address to Bernard Myers on the Broadway car and figured in
the subsequent blackmail charges. She was found living quietly at a
boarding house in one of the adjacent New Jersey towns and said that
she had not seen Warner for some weeks, a claim which turned out to
be very near the truth. He had, in fact, visited her just before he
started to Albany, but it is doubtful whether he confided to the girl,
who was not in truth his wife, any of his plans or intentions.
It was then discovered that Attorney Warner was married and had a wife,
from whom he had long been separated, living in a small town in upper
New York. The detectives also visited this woman, but she had not seen
her husband in years and could supply no information.
Then the rumor-starting began. Warner was seen in ten places on the
same day. His presence was reported from every corner of the country.
Clews and reports led weary officers thousands of miles on empty
pursuits. Finally, when no real information as to the man developed,
the public wearied of him, and news of the case dropped out of the
papers.
Meantime Hardy and Blake came up for trial. Blake made an attempt
to mitigate his case by turning State’s evidence, and Hardy pleaded
that he had only been an intermediary, whose motivation was his
brother-in-law’s closeness and reproof. In view of the fact that the
evidence against the two men seemed conclusive, even without the
admissions of either one, the prosecutor decided to reject their
pleas and force them to stand trial. The cases were quickly heard and
verdicts of guilty reached on the spot. The presiding justice at once
sentenced both men to serve fourteen and one half years in the State
prison at Dannemora, and they were shortly removed to that gloomy house
of pain in the Adirondack Mountains.
All this happened before the first of October. The prisoners, having
been sentenced and sent to the penitentiary, and the kidnapped boy
being safely in his parents’ home, the whole affair was quickly
forgotten.
But a little after seven o’clock on the evening of December 12, two men
entered the farm lot of William Goodrich near the little village of
Riley in central Kansas, about two thousand miles from Albany and the
scene of the kidnapping. It was past dusk and the farm hand, one George
Johnson, was milking in the cow stable by lantern light.
As the rustic, clad in overalls, covered with dirt and straw, horny of
hand and tanned by the prairie winds, rose from his stool and started
to leave the stable with his buckets, the two strangers stepped inside
and approached him. One of them laid a rough hand on the farmer’s
shoulder and said soberly:
“Warner, I want you. Come along.”
“Must be some mistake,” said the milker in a curious Western drawl. “My
name is Gawge Johnson.”
“Out here it may be,” said the officer, “but in New York it’s Albert S.
Warner. I have a warrant for your arrest in connection with the Conway
kidnapping. You’ll have to come.”
The farm hand was taken to the house, permitted to change his clothes,
and loaded upon the next eastbound train. When he reached Kansas City
he refused to go farther without extradition formalities. After the
officers had telegraphed to New York, the man changed his mind again
and proceeded voluntarily back to Albany, where he was placed in
jail and soon brought to trial. He was sentenced to fifteen years’
imprisonment, the maximum penalty, as the leader of the kidnappers.
The captor of Warner had been Detective McCann of the Albany police
force. He had trailed the man about five thousand miles, partly on
false scents. In his wanderings he had gone to Georgia, Tennessee,
Minnesota, New Mexico, Missouri, and finally to Kansas, where he had
satisfied himself that Warner was working on the Goodrich farm. McCann
had then called a Pinkerton detective to his aid from the nearest
office and made the arrest as already described.
The truth about the Conway kidnapping case seems to have been that
Hardy, the boy’s uncle by marriage, had been scheming for some time
to get a thousand dollars out of his brother-in-law. He had confided
his ideas to Blake, his chum. Blake had suggested the inclusion of his
friend, Warner, whom he rated a smart lawyer and clever schemer. Warner
had then acted as organizer and leader, with what success the reader
will judge.
V
THE LOST HEIR OF TICHBORNE
On the afternoon of the twentieth of April, 1854, the schooner _Bella_
cast off her moorings at the Gamboa wharves in Rio, worked her way down
the bay, and stood out to sea, bound for her home port, New York. She
was partly in ballast, because of slack commerce, and carried a single
passenger. About the name and fate of this solitary voyager grew up a
strange mystery and a stranger history.
When the last glint of the _Bella’s_ sails was seen from Rio’s island
anchorages, that vessel passed forever out of worldly cognizance. She
never reached any port save the ultimate, and of those that rode in
her, nothing came back but rumor and doubt. Her end and theirs was
veiled in a storm and hidden among unknown waters. The epitaph was
written at Lloyd’s in the familiar syllables: “Foundered with all
hands.”
Of the _Bella’s_ master, or the forty members of her crew, there is
no surviving memory, and only a grimy hunt through the old shipping
records could avail in the discovery of anything concerning them. But
the lone passenger happened to be the son of a British baronet and heir
to a great estate--Roger Charles Doughty Tichborne. The succession and
the inheritance of the Tichborne wealth depended upon the proof of
this young man’s death. There was, accordingly, some formal inquiry
as to the _Bella_ and her wreck. The required months were allowed to
pass; the usual reports from all ports were scanned. On account of the
insistence of the Tichborne family, some additional care was taken. But
in July, 1855, the young aristocrat was formally declared lost at sea,
his insurance paid, and the question of succession taken before the
court in chancery, which determined such matters.
Here, no doubt, the question as to the fate of young Tichborne would
have ended, had it not been for the peculiar insistence of his mother.
Lady Tichborne would not, and probably could not, bring herself to
believe that her beloved elder son had met his end in this dark and
mysterious manner. In the absence of human witnesses to his death
and objective proofs of the end, she clung obstinately to hope and
continued to advertise for the “lost” young man for many years after
the courts had solved the problem--or believed they had.
There had already been the cloud of pathos about the head of Roger
Tichborne, whose detailed story is necessary to an understanding
of subsequent events. Born in Paris on January 5, 1829--his mother
being the natural daughter of Henry Seymour of Knoyle, Wiltshire, and
a beautiful French woman--Roger was the descendant of very ancient
Hampshire stock. His father, the tenth baronet, was Sir James Tichborne
and his grandfather was the once-celebrated Sir Edward of that line.
Because of her antipathy to her husband’s country, Lady Tichborne
decided that her son should be reared as a Frenchman, and the lad spent
the first fourteen years of his life in France, with the result that
he never afterward became quite a Briton. Indeed, his brief English
schooling at Stonyhurst never went far enough to get the young man out
of the habit of thinking in French and translating his Gallic idioms
into English, a fault that appears in his letters to the very end, and
one that caused him considerable suffering as a boy in England.