Mrs. Clark arrived at Cooperstown to spend the summer only a few days
before the robbery, and placed the jewelry in a safe in the Clark
Estate building for safety. Investigation showed the thief had entered
this building, which in many respects resembles a bank, at the noon
hour, when all the employes were absent, opened the vault, the lock
of which had been left on the half-turn, taking therefrom a tin box,
which he carried to the cellar of the building and pried open with
tools found on the premises, taking therefrom all the jewelry and
also valuable papers. From descriptions of the thief we obtained from
witnesses who had seen him loitering in the vicinity of the Estate
office, and from the manner in which the robbery was committed,
we believed it bore the earmarks of Coleman's work. Subsequent
developments satisfied us that our conclusions were correct, and we
caused Coleman's arrest, two weeks after the robbery, in New York, by
Police Headquarters' detectives.
The tin box left by the thief in the cellar was covered with blood.
From this an incorrect inference was drawn, that the thief had cut
his hands with one of the instruments used to open the box. A careful
examination of Coleman showed no cuts or bruises of any kind, on any
part of his person, from which blood would have flowed. The grand
jury refused to indict him for the crime.
On his release, knowing that Coleman had most mysterious ways
of hiding the proceeds of his robberies, he was placed under
surveillance, which continued for some time without result, but
eventually he was traced and found quite early one morning, digging at
the side of a building through the snow into the ground, whereupon he
was re-arrested and, in uncovering the spot where he had been digging,
most of the stolen jewelry was found in an ordinary fruit jar, buried
in the ground about two feet.