was palpably an enormous one. He went to England, familiarized himself
with the places Roger Tichborne had visited, studied French without
managing to learn it, practiced the handwriting of the young Tichborne
heir till it deceived even the experts, and likewise learned, in spite
of his own lack of schooling, to imitate the English of Tichborne, and
to misspell just those words on which the original Roger was weak. He
crammed his memory with incidents and details picked up at every hand.
He learned to talk almost like a gentleman. He worked with his voice
until he got out of it most of the earthy harshness that belonged to
it by nature. He cultivated good manners, courtly behavior, gentle
ways, and a certain charming deference which went far toward convincing
those who took him seriously and gave him their support. In short, he
was able to perform an absolute prodigy of adaptiveness, but he could
not, with all his talent, quite project himself into the personality
and mentality of another and very different man. That, perhaps, is a
simulation beyond human capacity.
So Arthur Orton, after all, the hero of this magnificent impersonation,
went to prison for fourteen years, having made quite too grand a
gesture and much too sad a failure. He served nearly eleven years and
was then released in view of good conduct. Thereafter he wrote several
confessions and retracted them all in turn. Finally, toward the end of
his life, he changed his mind once more and prepared a final and fairly
complete account of his life and misdeeds, from which some of the facts
here used have been taken. He died in April, 1898.
The extent to which he had moved the public may be judged from an
incident the year following Orton’s conviction and imprisonment. His
chief counsel at the criminal trial had been Doctor Edward Kenealy,
who was himself scathingly denounced by the court in connection with
a misdirected attempt to have Orton identified as a castaway from the
_Bella_ by a seaman who swore he had performed the rescue, but was
shown to be a perjurer. After the trial Doctor Kenealy was elected to
Parliament, so great was his popularity and that of his client. When
Kenealy, soon after taking his seat, moved that the Tichborne case
be referred to a royal commission, the House of Commons rejected the
motion unanimously. This action inflamed the populace. There were angry
street meetings, inflammatory speeches, and symptoms of a general riot.
The troops had to be called and kept in readiness for instant action.
Fortunately the sight of the soldiers sobered the mob, and the matter
passed off with only minor bloodshed.
But ten years later, when Orton emerged from prison, there was almost
no one to greet him. The fickle public, that had once been ready to
storm the Houses of Parliament for him, had utterly forgotten the man.
Nor was there any sign of public interest, when he died in obscurity
and poverty fourteen years later. A few of his persistent followers
gave him honorable burial as “Sir Roger Tichborne.”
The original enigma of the fate of Roger Tichborne, upon which this
colossal structure of fraud and legal intricacy was founded, received,
to be sure, not the slightest clarification from all the pother and
feverish investigating. If ever there had been any good reason to doubt
that the young Hampshire aristocrat went helplessly down with the
stricken _Bella_ and her fated crew, none remained after the trials and
the stupendous publicity they invoked.
VI
THE KIDNAPPERS OF CENTRAL PARK
On the afternoon of Sunday, May 14, 1899, Mrs. Arthur W. Clarke,
the young wife of a British publisher’s agent residing at 159 East
Sixty-fifth Street, New York, found this advertisement in the _New York
Herald_, under the heading, “Employment Wanted:”
GIRL (20) as child’s nurse; no experience in city. Nurse, 274
_Herald_, Twenty-third Street.
The following Tuesday Mrs. Clarke took into her employment, as
attendant for her little daughter, Marion, twenty months old, a pretty
young woman, who gave the name of Carrie Jones and said she had come
only two weeks before from the little town of Deposit, in upper New
York State. The fact explained her lack of references. Mrs. Clarke, far
from being suspicious because of the absence of employment papers, was
impressed with the new child’s maid. She seemed to be a well-schooled,
even-tempered young woman, considerably above her station, devoted
to children, and, what was particularly noted, gentle in voice and
demeanor--a jewel among servants.
Five days later pretty Carrie Jones and Baby Marion Clarke had become
the center of one of the celebrated abduction cases and, for a little
while, the nucleus of a dark and appalling mystery. To-day, after
the lapse of twenty-five years, the effects of this striking affair
are still to be read in the precautions hedging the employment
of nursemaids in American cities and in the timidity of parents
everywhere. It was one of those occasional and impressive crimes which
leave their mark on social habits and public behavior long after the
details or the incidents themselves have been forgotten.
The home of Marion Clarke’s parents in East Sixty-fifth Street is about
two squares from the city’s great playground, Central Park, a veritable
warren of children and their maids on every sunny day. Here Marion
Clarke went almost every afternoon with her new nurse, and here the
first scene of the ensuing drama was played.
At about ten thirty o’clock on the morning of the next Sunday, May 21,
Carrie Jones went to Mrs. Clarke and asked if she might not take the
little girl to the Park then, as the day was warm, and the sunshine
inviting. In the afternoon it might be too hot. Mrs. Clarke and her
husband consented, and the maid set off a little before eleven o’clock
with Baby Marion tucked into a wicker carriage. She was told to return
by one o’clock, so that the child might have her luncheon at the usual
hour.
At twelve o’clock Mr. Clarke set off for a walk in the Park, also
tempted from his home by the enchantments of the day. Mrs. Clarke did
not accompany him, since she had borne a second baby only two or three
months before, and she was still confined to the house.
Mr. Clarke entered the Park at the Sixty-sixth Street entrance and
followed the paths idly along toward the old arsenal. Without
especially seeking his daughter and her nurse, he nevertheless kept
an eye out. A short distance from the arsenal he saw his child’s cart
standing in front of the rest room; he approached, expecting to see the
child. Both baby and nurse were gone, and the attendant explained that
the child’s vehicle had been left in her care, while the nurse bore the
baby to the menagerie.
“She said she’d be back in about an hour. Ought to be here any minute
now,” prattled the public employee.
The father sat down to wait. Then he grew impatient and went off to
wander through the animal gardens. In half an hour he was back at the
rest room to find the attendant about to move the cart indoors and make
her departure, her tour of duty being over.
Beginning to feel alarmed, Mr. Clarke resorted to the nearest
policeman, who smiled, with the confidence of long experience, and
advised him to go home. It was a common thing for a green country
girl to get lost among the winding drives and walks of Central Park.
No doubt the nurse would find her way home with the child in a little
while.
Clarke went back to his house and waited. At two o’clock he went
excitedly back to the Park and consulted the captain of police, with
the same results. The officers were ordered to look for the nurse and
child, but the alarm of the parent was not shared. He was once more
told to go home and wait. At the same time he was rather pointedly
told not to return with his annoying inquiries. Such temporary
disappearances of children happened every day.
The harried father went home and paced the floor. His enervated wife
wept and trembled with apprehension. At four o’clock the doorbell rang,
and the father rushed excitedly to answer.
A bright-eyed, grinning boy stood in the vestibule and asked if Mr.
Clarke lived here. Then he handed over a letter in a plain white
envelope, lingering a moment, as if expecting a tip.
Clarke naturally tore the letter open with quaking fingers and read:
“MRS CLARK: Do not look for your nurse and baby. They are safe in our
possession, where they will remain for the present. If the matter is
kept out of the hands of the police and newspapers, you will get your
baby back, safe and sound.
“If, instead, you make a big time about it and publish it all over, we
will see to it that you never see her alive again. We are driven to
this by the fact that we cannot get work, and one of us has a child
dying through want of proper treatment and nourishment.
“Your baby is safe and in good hands. The nurse girl is still with
her. If everything is quiet, you will hear from us Monday or Tuesday.
“THREE.”
The letter was correctly done, properly paragraphed, punctuated,
and printed with a fine pen in a somewhat laborious simulation of
writing-machine type. It also bore several markings characteristic of
the journalist or publisher’s copy reader, especially three parallel
lines drawn under the signature, “Three,” evidently to indicate
capitals. The envelope was the common plain white kind, but the sheet
of paper on which the note had been penned was of the white unglazed
and uncalendared kind known as newsprint and used in all newspaper
offices as copy paper. Accordingly it was at once suspected that the
kidnapper must have been a newspaper man, printer, reader, or some one
connected with a publishing house.
The Clarkes recalled that the nurse had been alone the preceding Friday
evening and had been writing. Evidently she had prepared the note at
that time and had been planning the abduction with foresight and care.
People at once reached the conclusion that she was one of the agents of
a great band of professional kidnappers. Accordingly every child and
every mother in the city stood in peril.
To indicate the nature of the official search, we may as well reproduce
Chief of Police Devery’s proclamation:
“Arrest for abduction--Carrie Jones, twenty-one years of age, five
feet two inches tall, dark hair and eyes, pale face, high check bones,
teeth prominent in lower jaw, American by birth; wore a white straw
sailor hat with black band, military pin on side, blue-check shirt
waist, black brilliantine skirt, black lace bicycle boots, white
collar and black tie.
“Abducted on Sunday May 21, 1899, Marion Clarke, daughter of Arthur
W. Clarke, of this city, and described as follows: twenty months
old, light complexion, blue eyes, light hair, had twelve teeth,
four in upper jaw, four in lower jaw, and four in back. There is
a space between two upper front teeth, and red birthmark on back.
Wore rose-colored dress, white silk cap, black stockings, and black
buttoned shoes.
“Make careful inquiry and distribute these circulars in all
institutions, foundling asylums, and places where children of the
above age are received.”
A photograph of the missing child accompanied the description.
So the quest began. It was, however, by no means confined to Carrie
Jones and the child. The New York newspaper reporters were early
convinced that some one else stood behind the transaction, and they
sought night and day for a man or woman connected either directly or
distantly with their own profession. It was the day when the reporter
prided himself especially on his superior acumen as a sleuth, with the
result that every effort was made to give a fresh demonstration of
journalistic enterprise and shrewdness.
Several days of the most feverish hunting, accompanied by a sharp rise
in public emotionalism and the incipience of panic among parents,
failed, however, to produce even the most shadowy results. Rumors and
suspicions were, as usual, numerous and fatuous, but there came forth
nothing that had the earmarks of the genuine clew. The arrests of
innocent young women were many, and numerous little girls were dragged
to police stations by the usual crop of fanatics.
Similarly, little Marion Clarke was reported from all parts of the
surrounding country and even from the most distant places. One report
had her on her way to England, another showed her as having sailed for
Sweden, a third report was that she had been taken to Australia by a
childless couple. All the other common hypotheses were, of course,
entertained. A bereaved mother had taken little Marion to fill the void
of her own loss. A childless woman had stolen the little girl and was
using her to present as her own offspring, probably to comply with the
provisions of some freak will.
But the hard fact remained that a letter had come within four hours
after the abduction of the child, and before there had been the
first note of alarm or publicity. Such an epistle could only have
been written by the actual kidnapper, since no one else was privy to
the fact that the girl was gone. In that communication the writer
had stated his or her case very definitely and, while not actually
demanding ransom or naming a sum, had clearly indicated the intention
of making such a subsequent demand.
Theorizing was thus a bit sterile. The police, be it said to their
credit, bothered themselves with no fine-spun hypotheses, but clung to
the main track and sought the kidnappers. The _New York World_ offered
a reward of a thousand dollars and put its most efficient reportorial
workers into the search. The other newspapers also kept their men
going in shifts. Every possible trail was followed to its end, every
promising part of the city searched. Even the most inane reports were
investigated with diligence.
Hundreds of persons had gone to the police with bits of information
which they, no doubt, considered suggestive or important. The
well-known Captain McClusky, then chief of detectives, received these
often wearisome callers, read their mail, directed the investigation of
their reports, and often remained at his desk late into the night.
Among a large number of women who reported to the detective chief was a
Mrs. Cosgriff, a sharp and voluble Irishwoman, who maintained a rooming
house in Twenty-seventh street, Brooklyn. Mrs. Cosgriff asserted that
two women with a little girl of Marion Clarke’s age and general
appearance had rented a room from her on the evening of the eventful
Sunday and spent the night there. The next morning one of them had got
the newspapers, gone to her room, remained secluded with the other
woman and child for a time, and had then come out to announce that
they would not remain another day. Mrs. Cosgriff thought she detected
excitement in the manner of both women, but she had to admit that the
child had made no complaint or outcry. Nevertheless, she felt that
these were the wanted people.
Had she noted anything of special interest about the child, any
peculiarity by which the parents might recognize her? Or had she heard
the women mention any town or place to which they might have gone?
The lodging-house keeper considered a moment, confessed that her
curiosity had led her to do a little spying, and recalled that she had
heard one of the women mention a town. Either she had not heard the
name distinctly, or she had forgotten part of it, but it was a name
ending in berg or burg. She was certain of that. Fitchburg, Pittsburg,
Williamsburg, Plattsburg--something like that. She did not know the
reason for her feeling, but she was sure it was a place not very far
from New York.
As to a peculiarity of the child, she had noted nothing except that
it seemed good-humored, healthy, and clever. She had heard one of the
women say: “Come on, baby! Show us how Mrs. Blank does.” Evidently the
little girl had done some sort of impersonation.
Captain McClusky was inclined to place some credence in Mrs. Cosgriff’s
account, but he saw no special promise in her revelations till he
repeated the details to the agonized parents. At the mention of the
childish impersonation, Mrs. Clarke leaped up in excitement.
“That was Marion!” she cried. “That’s one of her little tricks!”
It developed that the nurse, Carrie Jones, had spent hours playing
with the child, teaching it to walk and pose like a certain affected
woman friend of its mother. Undoubtedly then, Marion Clarke, Carrie
Jones, and another woman had been in South Brooklyn the evening after
the abduction and spent the night and part of the next day at Mrs.
Cosgriff’s, leaving in the afternoon for a town whose name ended in
burg or berg.
Now the chase began in earnest. The detectives made a list of towns
with the burg termination, and one or two men were sent to each, with
instructions to make a quiet, but thorough, search. Information of
a confidential kind was also forwarded to the police departments of
other cities, near and far. As a result a number of suspected young
women were picked up. Indeed, the mystery was believed solved for a
short time when a girl answering to the description of Carrie Jones
was seized in Connecticut and held for the arrival of the New York
detectives, when she began to act mysteriously and failed to give a
clear account of herself. It was found, however, that she had other
substantial reasons for being cryptic, and that she was, moreover,
enjoying her little joke on the officials.
Again, in Pennsylvania a girl was held who would neither affirm nor
deny that she was Carrie Jones, but let the local police have the very
definite impression that they had in hand the much-hunted kidnapper.
She turned out to be an unfortunate pathologue of the self-accusatory
type. Her one real link with the affair was that her name happened
to be Jones, a circumstance which got the members of this large and
popular family of citizens no little discomfort during the pendency of
the Clarke mystery.
Meantime no further communication had been received from the abductors.
They had said, in the single note received from them, that they would
communicate Monday or Tuesday, “if everything is quiet.” Everything,
far from being quiet, had been in a most plangent uproar, which
circumstances alone should have been recognized as the reason for
silence. But, as is usual, the clear and patent explanation seemed not
to contain enough for popular acceptance. More fanciful interpretations
were put forward in the usual variety of forms. The note had been sent
merely to misguide, and one might be sure the abductors did not intend
to return Baby Marion. If the abductors were looking for ransom, why
had no more been heard? Why had they chosen the daughter of a man who
had slender means and from whom no large ransom could be expected? No,
it was something more sinister still. Probably Little Marion was dead.
As the days dragged by, and there were still no conclusive
developments, the public sympathy toward the stricken couple became
expressive and dramatic. Crowds besieged the house in East Sixty-fifth
Street in hope of catching sight of the bereaved mother. The father was
greeted with cheers and sympathetic expressions whenever he came or
went. Many offers of aid were received, and some came forward who
wanted to pay whatever ransom might be demanded.
[Illustration: ~~ MARION CLARKE ~~]
In these various ways the Marion Clarke case came to be a national and
even an international sensation in the brief course of a week. Sympathy
with the parents was instant and widespread, and passion against the
abductors filled the newspaper correspondence columns with suggestions
in favor of more stringent laws, plans for cruel vengeance on the
kidnappers, complaints against the police, fulminations directed at
quite every one connected with the unfortunate affair--all the usual
expressions of helplessness and bafflement.
On the morning of Thursday, June 1st, eleven days after the
disappearance, a woman with a little girl entered the general store at
the little hamlet of St. John, N. Y., where Mrs. Ada B. Corey presided
as postmistress to the community. The child was a little petulant and
noisy; the woman very annoyed and nervous. Both were strangers. The
woman gave her name as Beauregard and took one or two letters which had
come for her. With these and the little girl she made a quick departure.
Because of the great excitement and wide publicity of the Clarke case,
nothing of the sort could happen so near the city of New York without
one inevitable result. The postmistress immediately notified Deputy
Sheriff William Charleston of Rockland County, who had his office in
St. John. Charleston was able to locate the woman and child before
they could leave town, and he covertly followed them to the farmhouse
of Frank Oakley, in the heart of the Ramapo Mountain region, near
Sloatsburg, about nineteen miles from Haverstraw, on the Hudson River.
The rural officer discovered, by making a few inquiries, that this Mrs.
Beauregard had been known in the vicinity for some months, and she had
been occupying the Oakley house with her husband. Ten days previously,
however, she had appeared with another woman and the little girl.
The dates tallied; the town was Sloatsburg; there were, or had been,
two women; the place was ideal for hiding, and the child was of the
proper age and description. Sheriff Charleston quickly summoned some
other officers, descended on the place, seized the woman, the child,
and the husband, locked them into the nearest jail, and sent word to
Captain McClusky.
New York detectives and reporters arrived by the next train, and Mr.
Clarke came a short time later. As soon as he was on the ground,
the party proceeded to the jail, and the weeping father caught his
wandering girl into happy arms. She was indeed Marion Clarke. Within
ten minutes every available telephone and telegraph wire was humming
the triumphant message back to New York.
But, in the recovery of the child, the inner mystery of the case only
began to unfold itself. The woman seized at Sloatsburg was not Carrie
Jones. Neither had the Clarkes ever seen her before. She gave the name
of Mrs. George Beauregard, and, when questioned about this matter,
later “admitted” that she was really Mrs. Jennie Wilson. Her story
was that a couple had brought the child to her, saying that it needed
to remain in the mountains for the summer. They had paid her for the
little girl’s board and care. She declared she did not know their
address, but they would certainly be on hand in the fall to reclaim
their baby.
The man arrested at the farmhouse said that he was James Wilson; that
he had no employment at the time, except working on the farm, and that
he knew nothing of the baby beyond what his wife had revealed. He
didn’t interfere in such affairs.
Both were returned to New York after some slight delay. The detectives
and the newspapers at once went to work on the problem of discovering
who they were, and what had become of Carrie Jones.
Meantime the abducted child was being brought home to her distracted
mother. A crowd of several thousand persons had gathered in Sixty-fifth
Street, apprised of the little girl’s impending return by the evening
newspapers. She was greeted with cheers, loaded with presents, saluted
by the public officials, and treated as the heroine that circumstance
and good police work had made her. Photographs of her crowded the
journals, and she was altogether the most famous youngster of the day.
Her parents later removed to Boston with her, and they were heard of in
the succeeding years when attempts were made to release the imprisoned
kidnappers, or whenever there was another kidnapping or missing-child
case. In time they passed back into obscurity, and Marion Clarke
disappeared from the glare of notoriety.
The work of identifying the man and woman caught in the Sloatsburg
farmhouse proceeded rapidly. Freddy Lang, the boy who had brought the
note to the Clarke door on that painful Sunday afternoon, immediately
recognized Mrs. Beauregard-Wilson as the woman who had handed him
the missive and a five-cent piece in Second Avenue and asked him to
deliver the note to Mrs. Clarke. Mrs. Cosgriff came from Brooklyn and
said that the prisoner was one of the two women who had stayed at
her house on that Sunday night. It was apparent then that one of the
active kidnappers, and not an innocent tool, had been caught. The woman
and her husband, however, denied everything and refused to give any
information about themselves.