for Poland. Nicholas I, weary of what he termed the obstinacy of the
people, began a series of the most dire repressions, including the
closing of the Polish universities, the revocation of the constitution,
the persecution of the Roman priests and a general effort to abolish
the Polish language and national culture. The old nobility, made up of
devout Roman Catholics and chauvinistic patriots, was especially sought
out for the reactionary discipline of the czar, and a family like that
of Barbara Ubrik, whose chief had been sent to Siberia for treason, was
naturally among the worst afflicted.
The attempt from St. Petersburg to uproot the church of Rome was the
cause of an intense devotionalism among the Poles, with the result
that many men and women of distinguished families gave themselves up
to the religious life and entered the monasteries and convents. This
passion touched the Ubriks as well as others and Barbara, naturally of
a passionate and enthusiastic nature, decided as a girl that she would
retire from the world and devote herself to her forbidden faith. Her
mother, Elka Satorin-Ubrik, once a ward of the Jewish family in Kiev
and later the prisoner of the Gypsies, strongly opposed such a course,
but in 1844, when she was 16 years old, the girl could no longer be
restrained. She presented herself to the Carmelite cloister of St.
Theresa in Warsaw in the spring of that year and was admitted to the
novitiate.
From the beginning, however, the spirited young noblewoman seems to
have been most ill-adapted to the stern regulations hedging life in
a monastery of the unshod cenobite Carmelites. She had brought into
the austere atmosphere of the nunnery something that has played havoc
with rules and good intentions under far happier environments than
that of the cloister; namely, young beauty. The older and less favored
nuns saw it first with misgiving and soon with envy, a sin which seems
not altogether foreign to the holiest places. What was more directly
in line with evil consequences, Father Gratian, the still youthful
confessor of the cloister, also saw and appraised the charms of the
youthful sister and was quite humanly moved.
The official story is silent as to details but it appears that in 1846
Sister Jovita, as Barbara Ubrik had been named in the convent, bore a
child. Very naturally, she was called before the abbess, who appears
in the accounts as Zitta, confronted with her sin and sentenced to
the usual and doubtless severe punishments. In the progress of her
chastisement she seems to have declared that Father Gratian was the
guilty man.
This was the beginning of the young man’s troubles. Detective
Masilewski, in his report on the investigation of the case, says that
the motivation of the nun’s subsequent mistreatment was complex. Father
Gratian naturally wanted to defend himself from the serious charge. The
abbess, Zitta, was quite as anxious both to discipline the nun and to
prevent the airing of a scandal, especially in times of suspicion and
persecution, when the imperial attitude toward the holy orders was far
from friendly and any pretext might have been seized for the closing of
a nunnery and the expropriation of church property. Masilewski says,
also, that Sister Jovita possessed a considerable property which was
to belong to the cloister and that there was, thus, a further material
motive.
But, whatever else may have actuated either the priest or the abbess,
Sister Jovita aggravated matters by her own conduct. The severity of
her punishment led her to desire liberty and she sought to renounce her
vows and return to her family. Such a course would probably have been
followed by a public repetition of the charges made by the young nun,
and every effort was accordingly made to prevent her from leaving the
order. She was locked into her cell, loaded with penances and almost
unbelievably severe punishments and prevented from communicating with
her mother and sisters.
Not long afterwards love again intruded itself into the story of
Sister Jovita and further complicated the situation. This was in the
last months of 1847. It appears that a young lay brother whose worldly
name was Wolcech Zarski happened about this time to meet the beautiful
young nun, while occupied at the convent with some official duties, and
straightway fell in love with her. She told him of her experiences and
sufferings and he, a spirited young man and not yet a monk, immediately
laid plans to elope. Owing to the stringent discipline and the careful
watch kept over the offending sister, this departure was not quickly
or easily accomplished. Finally, however, on the night of May 25th,
1848, Zarski managed to pull his beloved to the top of the convent wall
by means of a rope. In trying to descend outside, she fell and was
injured, with the result that flight was impeded.
Zarski seems, however, to have had the strength to carry his precious
burden to the nearest inn. Here friends and human nature failed
him. The friends did not appear with a coach and change of feminine
clothing, as they had promised, and the superstitious dread of the
innkeeper’s wife led her to send immediate word to the convent. Before
he could move from the neighborhood, Zarski was overcome by a bevy of
stout friars and Sister Jovita carried back to the nunnery.
The monasteries and nunneries of Poland had still their own judicial
jurisdiction, so Zarski could not enter St. Theresa’s by legal means.
He tried again and again to communicate with his beloved by stealth,
but the Abbess Zitta was now fully awake to the danger and every effort
was defeated. The young lover tried one measure after another, appealed
to ecclesiastical authorities, consulted lawyers, besieged officials.
At length he was told that the object of all this devotion was no
longer in St. Theresa’s but had been removed to another Carmelite seat,
the name of which was, of course, refused.
Here political events intervened. Nicholas I had grown slowly but
surely relentless in his attitude toward the Roman clergy in Poland,
whom he considered to be the chief fomenters and supporters of the
continued Polish resistance. Nicholas simply closed the monasteries
and cloisters and drove the clergy out of Poland. It was the kind
of drastic step always taken in the past in response to religious
interference in political matters.
Now the unfortunate Zarski was at his dark hour. The nuns were
scattered into foreign lands where he, as a foreigner, could have
little chance of either legal or official aid, where he knew nothing of
the ways, was acquainted with no one, could count on no encouragement.
Worse yet, he was not rich. He had to stop for months and even years at
a time and earn more money with which to press his quest. His tenacity
seems to have been heroic; his faith tragic.
One evening in the summer of 1868, twenty years after Sister Jovita
had last been seen, Detective Masilewski was driving homeward toward
Warsaw, after a day’s hunt, when an old peasant stepped before the
horse, doffed his hat and asked:
“Are you the secret detective, Mr. Masilewski?”
On being answered affirmatively he handed the investigator a letter,
explaining that an unknown man had handed it to him with a tip to pay
for its delivery. The note said simply:
“Dear Sir: In the convent of St. Mary of the Carmelites at Cracow, a
nun by the name of Jovita, her real name being Barbara Ubrik, has been
held a captive for twenty years, which imprisonment has made her a
lunatic. I do not care to mention my name but vouch for the truth of
my assertion. Seek and you will find.
“Your correspondent.”
Masilewski drove on in silence, puzzled and not a little incredulous.
True, he had heard of this nun and her disappearance, but she had
vanished long ago and surely death had sealed the lid of this mystery,
as of others. No doubt this was another of those romantic reappearances
of the famous missing. Still--what if there were truth in it. But no,
it must be a figment, else why had the informant hidden himself? It was
an attempt to make a fool of an honest detective.
So Masilewski hesitated and waited, but the remote possibility of
something grotesque and extraordinary plagued him and drove him at
last to action. Even when he had determined to move, however, he knew
that he must act with caution. If he were to go to the bishop of the
diocese, for instance, and ask for permission to search the nunnery
of St. Mary’s, the very possible result might be the transfer of the
unfortunate nun to some new hiding place and the infliction of worse
penalties and tortures.
If he appealed to the Austrian civil authorities (Austria having
annexed the province of Cracow in 1846), he might enter the convent and
find himself the victim of a hoax, which is, after all, the ultimate
humiliation for a detective. There was no possible course except
cautious investigation.
So Masilewski went to work. Carefully and slowly he traced back the
stories of Barbara Ubrik’s mother, the exchanged babies, the theft
by the old Jew and the captivity with the Gypsies. He discovered the
record of Barbara’s parents’ marriage, got the young nun’s birth
certificate, learned about her admittance to the convent, the part
played in her life by Father Gratian and the early chastisement. How
he did these things one needs hardly to recount, but unrelenting care
and watchful judgment were necessary. He must never let the enemies of
the nun know that a detective was at work. All he did had to be handled
through intermediaries. Probably it would even be a thankless job, but
it was an enigma, a temptation. He went ahead.
Finally Masilewski stumbled upon the fact that the convent of St.
Mary’s contained a celebrated ecclesiastical library. The inspiration
came to him at once. He or someone else must play the part of a
learned student of religious and local ecclesiastical matters and
get permission to use the library in St. Mary’s. After some seeking,
Masilewski came upon a renegade theological student and sent this man
first to the bishop and then to the Abbess Zitta. Since the head of the
diocese apparently approved the student, he was permitted to enter and
use the rare old books and records.
Under instructions from Masilewski, the man worked with caution. The
detective invented a subject with which the man busied himself for
days before a chance question, skillfully introduced into his research
problem, called for an inspection of the old church law records of the
convent. There was a moment of suspense and the investigator feared
that he had been suspected or that the abbess would rule against any
such liberty. But no suspicion had been aroused and the abbess decided
that so holy and studious a young man might well be permitted to see
the secret papers.
Once the records were in his hands, the mock student turned immediately
to the date of the nun’s escape and found under date of June 3, 1848,
this remarkable record:
“Barbara Ubrik, known under the name of Jovita, is accused of
immoral actions, continued disturbances in the convent, manifold
irregularities and trespasses of the rules of the convent, even
of theft and cunningly plotted crime; she has refused the mercy
of baptism and given her soul to the devil, for which cause she
was unworthy of the holy Lord’s Supper, and by this act she has
calumniated God; she has clandestinely broken the vows of purity, in
so far that she held a love correspondence with the novice, Zarski,
and allowed herself to elope with him; at last she has offended
against the law of obedience of poverty and seclusion, and on the 25th
of May, 1848, she has accomplished an escape from the convent.”
Trial was held before the abbess and judgment was thus rendered:
“The criminal has to do three days’ expiation of sins in the church,
afterwards she will be lashed by all the sisters of the order and be
forfeited of her clerical dignity; she herself will be considered as
dead and her name will be taken from the list of the order. At last,
she has forfeited the right to the holy Mass and the Lord’s Supper,
and is condemned to perpetual imprisonment.”
The reader is warned not to take this as a sample of monastic life
or justice as it might be discovered to-day or even as it generally
existed then. Sister Jovita had simply got herself involved in one of
those sad tangles of scandal which had to be kept hid at any and every
price. She was the victim not of monasticism or of any form of religion
but of a political situation and of her relations with other men and
women, some of whom have been hard and evil from the beginning of the
world, respectless of vows or trust.
In one particular, however, her treatment was a definite result of
certain religious beliefs then prevalent in all strict churches. She
was accused of being devil ridden or possessed by the fiend and many
of her cries of anguish, screams of madness and acts of defiance were
attributed to such a possession. It was then customary in certain parts
of Europe to drive the devil out by means of torture. This was in no
sense a belief peculiar to Catholics. Martin Luther held it, and so did
John Wesley, as any historian must tell you. Therefore many of Jovita’s
sufferings were the result of beliefs general in those days except
among the exceptionally enlightened.
With this record copied and safely in his hand, Masilewski moved
immediately and directly. One morning he and a squad of Gallician
gendarmes appeared before the convent of St. Mary’s and demanded
admittance in the name of the emperor. The abbess, certain what was
about to happen, tried to temporize, but Masilewski entered, arrested
the abbess with an imperial warrant and commanded a search of the
place. The mother superior, seeing that there was nothing to be gained
by resistance led the company down to the lowest cellars of the
building and turned over to Masilewski a key to a damp cell.
The detective opened the door, felt rats run across his shoes as he
stepped inside and found, crouched in a corner on a pile of wet straw,
the shrunken form of what had been the beautiful Barbara Ubrik. She was
brought forth to the light of day, to see the sheen upon the autumn
trees once more and the clouds sailing in the skies. Alas, she was no
Bonnivard. Life had lost its colors and symmetries for her. She had
long been hopelessly mad.
There is still a detail of this famous case of mystery and detection
to be told. Father Gratian had disappeared when Russia drove out the
clergy. Masilewski was determined to complete his work and bring the
malefactor back to answer for his crimes. After the ruin of Barbara
Ubrik had been lodged in an asylum, Masilewski set out to find the
priest. After seven months of wandering through Austria, Prussia and
Poland, the detective was rewarded with the information that Father
Gratian had gone to Hamburg. He went immediately to the great German
seaboard town, searched there for months and found that the man he
sought had gone to London years before.
The quest began anew in the British capital. It was like seeking a flea
in a hayloft, but success came at last. Masilewski was passing through
one of the obscure streets when he noticed a man with the peculiar gait
and bearing of priests, which seems to mark them apart to the expert
eye, no matter what their physique or dress, going into a bookstall
where foreign books were sold.
The detective, who was, of course, totally unknown to Father Gratian,
followed into the shop and found to his delight that the priestly
person was the owner of the shop. Many of the books dealt in were
German or Polish. Masilewski rummaged for a long time, made a few
purchases and ingratiated himself with the bibliophile. When he left he
went directly to the first book expert he could find, stuffed himself
with the terms and general knowledge of the book dealer and soon
returned to the little shop.
On his second visit he let drop a few Polish terms which made the
shopkeeper prick up his ears. As Masilewski learned more and more of
the new rôle he was to play he gradually revealed that he was himself
a great continental expert. Later he informed the shopkeeper of a huge
sale of famous libraries that was about to be held in Hamburg and
invited the London dealer to accompany him. The priestly man was too
much interested and beguiled to refuse a man who could speak his own
language and loved his own subject.
On the trip to Hamburg the London bookseller told, after skillful
questioning, that he had once been a priest, that he had lived in
Warsaw, that a love affair had driven him from the church--in short,
that he was Father Gratian.
Masilewski waited until he got his man safely on the continent and
then, knowing the extradition agreements in force between Austria and
the various German states, placed his man under arrest, not without
a feeling of pain and regret. Father Gratian, like one relieved of a
strange weight, immediately accompanied Masilewski to Cracow and faced
his accusers without denying the facts. He could offer no extenuation
save that nature had not ordained him to be a priest and “the devil
had been too strong for his weak flesh.” He confessed his part in the
whole transaction and even added that he had given the unfortunate nun
drugs to bereave her of her reason. He made every attempt to shield the
abbess, but she, too, face to face with the authority of the empire and
the church, refused to deny or extenuate.
For once the courts were more merciful than their victims. Mother Zitta
was sentenced to expulsion from the order, imprisonment for five years
and exile from the empire. Father Gratian was likewise expelled from
the church, which he had long deserted, put to prison for ten years and
exiled.
XII
THE RETURN OF JIMMIE GLASS
In the early spring of 1915, Charles L. Glass, long employed as an
auditor by the Erie Railroad and living in Jersey City, was grievously
ill. In May, when he had recovered to the point of convalescence, it
was decided he should go to the country to recuperate. For several
years he and his family had been spending their vacations in the
little hamlet of Greeley, five miles from Lackawaxen, Pennsylvania, in
the pleasant hill country. So Glass bundled his wife and three small
children to a train and shortly arrived at Greeley and the Frazer farm,
where he had arranged for rooms and board. This on May eleventh.
The Frazer farmhouse was one of those country establishments which
take boarders for the season. Before it ran the main road leading to
the larger towns along the line. Beside and behind it were fields, and
beyond the road began the tangle of wild woods and hilly ground rising
up to the wrinkle of mountains.
Breakfast done, the children were dressed for play, and Mrs. Glass
started for the post office, about two hundred yards up the road, to
mail some post cards to her parents, noting the safe arrival of the
family. She called to her eldest child, Jimmie, but he shook his head
and went out into the field beside the house, interested in a hired man
who was plowing in the far corner. The elder girl went with her up
the road. The baby was romping indoors. Glass himself sat on the porch
watching his son. The little boy, just past four years old, was running
about in the young green of the field.
Charles Glass got up from the porch and went inside for a glass of
water. He stayed there a minute or two. When he came out he saw his
wife and little girl coming back down the road from the post office.
They had been gone from the house not more than ten minutes.
Mrs. Glass came up to the porch, took one look about, and asked:
“Where’s Jimmie?”
Glass looked out into the field, saw its vacancy, and surmised: “Maybe
he went up the road after you.”
The road was scanned and then the field. Then the farm hand was called
and questioned. He had seen the youngster crawling through a break in
the fence a few minutes before, but had paid no attention.
One of the strangest of all hunts for the strangely missing of recent
history had begun. This hunt, which extended over years and covered a
continent, taking advantage of several modern inventions never before
employed in the quest of a human being, started off with alarmed calls
on neighbors and visits to the more adjacent woods, gullies, and
thickets. In the course of the evening, however, the organized quest
began. It is interesting to note some of the confusion that overcame
the people most concerned and the little town of a hundred souls. The
suspicion of abduction was not slow in forming, and the question as
to who might have done the deed immediately followed. Mrs. Glass was
sure that no vehicle of any sort had passed on the road going to
or coming from the post office. William Losky, the farm hand who was
plowing in the field, and Fred Lindloff, who was working on the road,
felt sure they had seen a one-seated motor car pass down the road,
occupied by one man and one woman who had a plush lap robe pulled up
about their knees to protect them from the May breezes.
[Illustration: ~~ JIMMIE GLASS ~~]
Going a little farther, to the village of Bohemia, three miles down the
road, a Mrs. Quick, whose house stands all of seven hundred feet back,
saw a one-seated car stop, heard a child screaming, and thought she
might be of assistance to some sick travelers. But the people in the
car saw her approaching and at once drove off.
Still farther on, at the town of Rowlands, a Mrs. Konwickie noted a
one-seated motor car with a sobbing child, a woman and two men inside,
the child crouching on the floor against the woman’s knees and being
covered with the same black plush lap robe.
All these testimonies came to naught, as we shall see, and I cite them
only to show how unreliable is the human mind and how quickly panic
and forensic imagination get hold of people and cause them to see the
unseen.
On the afternoon of the twelfth a bloodhound was brought from near
by--just what kind of bloodhound the record does not show. The dog was
given a scent of the child’s clothing. It trailed across the field, out
through the break in the fence to the far side of the road, passed a
little distance into the woods, and there stopped still, whined, and
quit.
The following morning word of the disappearance or kidnapping had
been flashed to surrounding towns and many came to aid in the search.
A committee was formed of forty men familiar with the surrounding
terrain. These men labored all the thirteenth and all the fourteenth.
On the fifteenth of May a much larger committee undertook the work and
the surrounding mountains were searched foot after foot. This work took
several days. Then a cordon was thrown all about, whose members worked
slowly inward, covering all the ground as they came to a center at
Greeley. This maneuver also failed to yield hail or trail of the child.
At last the weary and foot-sore hunters gave it up.
The search was now begun in a more methodical way. The State
constabulary took charge of a systematic review of the ground. Ponds
were drained, culverts blown up, wells cleaned out, the dead leaves
of the preceding autumn raked out of hollows or from the depths of
quarries--all in vain.
Meantime, the mayor and director of public safety in Jersey City,
appealed to by the distracted parents, began the official quest.
Descriptions of the boy were broadcast. He was four years old, blond,
with blue eyes, had good teeth, a double crown or cowlick in his hair,
weighed about thirty-five pounds, and wore new shoes, tan overalls
with a pink trimming, but no hat. Every town and hamlet in the United
States, Canada, and the West Indies was sooner or later placarded with
the picture and description of the boy. The film distributors were
prevailed upon to assist in the search and, for the first notable
occasion, at least, the movies were used to search for a missing
person, more than ten thousand theaters having shown Jimmie Glass’
lineaments and flashed his description.
A few years later the radio broadcasting stations spread through
the air the story of his disappearance and the particulars of his
description.