Auditorium but four days earlier, but the porters were unable to recall
any of the details of his going away. The special agent asked to see the
room Berliner had occupied. It was taken by another guest, but Gard was
allowed to explain himself to the successor of the fugitive and was
given permission to search the room. A close examination of it developed
but one clue. Sticking inside a waste basket were three fragments of a
letterhead that had been torn into small pieces. One of these fragments
showed part of the picture of another hotel. An arrow, drawn in ink,
pointed to a certain window.
Gard took the fragments of the picture of the hotel to a traveler's
guide and searched for the house that would compare with it. Eventually
he found the duplicate, and it was a Chicago hostelry. He hurried to it.
After showing his credentials to the house detective, information was
freely supplied. The room in question was occupied by a woman and had
been so occupied for two weeks. She was a handsome and stylish
red-haired woman of thirty-five. She had been carefully watched for a
reason that presently developed.
"Has she received any callers?" asked the special agent.
"But one person, a man, has visited her," answered the house detective.
"What sort of a man?" asked Gard.
"A large man with gray hair," said the house detective. "He is in her
room now."
"Will you go up with me immediately?" ejaculated the special agent. "I
must not fail to see this man."
"Assuredly," was the response, and they caught the next elevator.
The car they took was an express and was not to stop until it reached
the eleventh floor. The next to it was a local, stopping at all floors.
The express, going up with the detectives aboard, slackened its speed at
the eighth floor while its operator gave some message to the boy on the
local which had stopped there to take on a passenger. The cars were of
an open-work structure and the passengers in one could see quite plainly
those on the other as they passed. As the express passed Gard looked
through at those riding on the other car. Imagine his consternation
when, not two feet from him, he saw the man for whom he had been
searching for months. As he gazed through the checked steel slats of the
car side he was close enough to have put out his hand and laid it on his
man had nothing intervened. Berliner faced him and, as the car paused,
he and the special agent gazed directly into the eyes of each other.
This was for but an instant and both cars were in motion again. The
detective was being borne rapidly toward the top of the building and the
fugitive less rapidly toward the ground.
"There is my man on the other elevator," Gard whispered hurriedly to the
house detective. "Have the boy reverse and run down again."
The message was given to the operator, who obeyed instantly and some
excuse was made to the passengers on the car. The local had been
stopping at each floor and the express passed it and barely reached the
ground floor first. There the two detectives stepped out and waited for
the coming of the other car.
A moment later it arrived, much crowded, and began to disgorge itself.
The two officers waited in instant readiness to capture the man whom
they had seen at the eighth floor. But the car was emptied and he was
not among the passengers.
"Where did the big gray-haired man get off?" the boy was asked.
"Third floor, sir," he replied.
"You bar the exits," Gard said to the house detective, "and I will get
back to the third."
On that floor the hallman said that the white-haired gentleman had run
down the steps to the second. Gard followed, but was able to find no one
on that floor who had seen the fugitive. He ran hastily about looking
for possible exits, and then instituted a thorough search. He
investigated every possible avenue of escape and hastened downstairs to
his ally to help cut off the line of retreat. Every possible barrier was
put up and the house was well gone over. The gray-haired fugitive had,
however, eluded pursuit.
Gard immediately called upon the Chicago police to throw out a dragnet
and a general alarm, and this was done. All railway stations were
watched with particular care. But none of these efforts were of any
avail, as Berliner was never reported to have been seen again in
Chicago. Nor was Gard able to get so much as the glimmer of a trace of
him nor a suggestion as to where he might have gone.
It was a task of infinite patience that brought Special Agent William H.
Gard to London two months later on the trail of a woman whom he had
traced half around the world. The Titian-haired guest of the Chicago
hotel, the wife of the fugitive broker, here installed herself for a
while and lived in a manner that amounted to absolute seclusion.
Then she went to Paris. There she took rooms in a quiet side street and
seemed to settle down with some idea of permanence. There was nothing in
her mode of life that would indicate that she lived differently from any
other woman who was alone in the world and sought quiet. She went out
for a long walk every afternoon, purchased the necessities of her
establishment, or books, of which she seemed to read great numbers.
Special Agent Gard established a close watch over the house in which she
lived. This was easy because there was but a front entrance and
apartments opposite looked out upon the street. He determined that
nobody should enter this house without being observed. He asked the
Paris police to provide him with two reliable men who could watch with
him in shifts from the quarters he rented across the street.
A vigil of two weeks revealed absolutely nothing. With the exception of
the servant who came at noon each day and remained not more than four
hours, no living creature entered the house. In all that two weeks the
postman left no mail. Billy Gard seemed to be up against a blank wall.
He held, however, that if a man kept awake on the most hopeless job for
a sufficient length of time some clue was sure to develop or some idea
present itself that would lead toward results.
Gard investigated the maid who worked the daily short shift in the
quarters of the red-haired woman from America. He found her a placid and
stupid creature who knew nothing nor had intelligence sufficient for his
purpose. Incidentally he found that she had secured her place through an
employment agency located at a considerable distance. He immediately
made use of this information.
The special agent, through the Paris police force, secured the
cooperation of the employment bureau. A position that paid much better
was offered to the servant of Mrs. Berliner. It was, quite naturally,
accepted. That lady, finding herself without a servant, returned to the
agency that had formerly provided her with one who was entirely
satisfactory. She asked for a second maid.
The employment bureau immediately supplied her demand. The woman who was
sent was, in secret, more than she seemed to be. She was connected with
the Paris police department and was a detective of some cleverness.
Almost immediately she took up her new activities.
Three days later she reported to Agent Gard from America. She had found
in her red-haired mistress a woman who led a quiet life that seemed in
no way irregular, who followed a normal routine of housekeeping,
walking, shopping. She seemed to have no acquaintances. But one thing
irregular appeared in the whole establishment. There was one room in the
rear of the suite which remained locked. The mistress had stated that it
was a storage room. This seemed somewhat strange, as it must look out
upon the interior court and therefore be the most attractive room of
them all. It seemed peculiar that such a room should be used for
storage and, even so, that it should be locked up.
Gard put together the two facts--the locked room and the short hours of
the servant--and drew a conclusion. It was as the result of this
conclusion that he asked the woman detective to install a dictagraph
beneath the table in the sunny little dining room just off the apartment
of the locked door. This was easy of accomplishment during the hour of
the afternoon stroll of the mistress of the house. The wires of the
dictagraph were run across the street and into the watch-tower rooms of
the special agent.
When the dinner hour approached that evening Billy Gard sat patiently
with the headpiece of the dictagraph securely in place. The first sound
that he caught from across the street was that of feet, supposedly those
of the woman of the Titian hair, passing back and forth about the room,
then an occasional snatch of a song while she worked. He gathered that
she was arranging for the evening meal, the servant having gone home
hours before.
Ten minutes passed and then there came over the wire a sound that might
have been a bit surprising to the observer of this ultra quiet
household, the watcher at the entrance through which none had passed
unseen since the day it was rented, had not the listener already
developed a theory.
"Well, Margaret," said a full-throated man's voice, as transmitted by
the dictagraph, "this is not so bad. I never dreamed that you had the
housewifely instincts that would make it possible for you to arrange
with your own hands the dainty dinners we are having. I am beginning to
think that the man is lucky who cannot afford servants."
"And don't you know," said a woman's voice, "I never enjoyed anything
more in my life. For almost the only time I can remember I have a
definite occupation. I have to provide our creature comforts. I haven't
been so happy in years. I really don't care how long they keep us cooped
up."
"I will confess," said the man, "that the novelty has worn off of the
view into the courtyard. But it might be worse. For a while they had me
thinking quite regularly of striped suits and the lockstep which are
part of a life even more confining than this. And here I have you. I am
quite content to wait for the atmosphere to clear."
"But I am very sure we are still being watched," said the woman. "I
always feel that I am being followed when I go out."
"Very likely," said the man. "But no detective will pursue fruitless
quests indefinitely. Even though they know you are here, they will
ultimately lose interest in a surveillance that yields nothing. We can
afford to wait. The time will come when we can steal away in safety."
"When it is all over," she responded, "I do wish that we could find a
way to let those detectives know that you were here under their very
noses all the time."
Billy Gard, it may here be set down, was most anxious to learn how this
had been possible. He had followed Margaret Berliner to the house when
she had first come to see it. He had been notified immediately when she
had rented it. From that moment he had watched every detail of her
taking possession; had, with the aid of his men, seen everything that
had gone into the house. Yet Berliner had installed himself without his
knowledge and had been living there all the time.
"It would have been impossible without Archie," Berliner was saying. "A
man in a position like mine needs, upon occasion, some one he can trust
to do little things for him. We may quarrel with blood relatives all our
lives, but they have the advantage of being safe to trust in time of
trouble. It is a very small thing to send a man to a rent agent for a
key to inspect lodgings and to send him back with the key after they are
inspected. But had I not been able to trust Archie absolutely I would
not have been able to get in here a day ahead of you and this snug
little arrangement would not have been possible."
It was because of what he here overheard that Special Agent Gard,
assisted by Coleman of the Paris office and the police of that city,
considerately waited until Mrs. Berliner went shopping the following day
and were admitted by the woman detective, who was at the time washing
the accumulated dishes of the household. They so surrounded the locked
door as to make escape impossible and then announced their presence.
Gard told Berliner, through the locked door, of the situation that
existed on the outside. He suggested that the easiest way was to unbolt
the entrance, thereby saving the necessity of breaking it down.
Whereupon the customs broker walked out and surrendered, and a very
tedious fugitive case was brought to a successful conclusion.
XI
THE BANK BOOKKEEPER
A twelve-dollar-a-week bookkeeper in a prim New England town, without
access to the funds of the bank for which he worked, stole nearly a half
million dollars and so juggled the books as to hide the shortage from
the directors and from the national bank examiner for a period of two
years.
The "faro gang," a band of master crooks, as well organized as though
for the development of a mining venture, financed in advance for many
thousands of dollars, took the money from the bookkeeper as regularly as
he took it from the bank--took it all, but never aroused his suspicion.
The detectives of the bureau of investigation, Department of Justice,
unraveled the whole tangled skein and revealed the ramifications of one
of the completest schemes for the illicit acquisition of other people's
money that the history of the crime of the nation has ever developed.
The first incident that led to the discovery of this monster plot to
defraud took place when two most staid and dignified of the solid
citizens of Bainbridge, Mass., happened to meet outside the First
National bank of that serene suburb of Boston one sunshiny afternoon.
Their conversation led to an argument as to whether there was $186,000
or $187,000 in the endowment of an orphanage, of which they were
directors. To settle this argument they decided to have a look at the
books which contained the record of deposits and withdrawals.
So these dignified guardians of this endowment fund approached the
cashier's window in the First National bank and asked for the balance in
the given account. The official turned automatically to the ledger
containing the inactive accounts of the bank, glanced at the balance and
automatically reported the figures there revealed.
"Four thousand five hundred dollars," he said.
So was obtained the first revealing flash into the affairs of this
institution which had stood as the conservative financial bulwark of the
community for a hundred years. Yet a week later, when the principal pass
books had been called in, and the experts had completed their
examination, the bank was shown to be but a financial shell. Each of
those large inactive accounts that lent the institution its strength was
found to have melted away. A bank of a capital of but $100,000, it was
soon shown that it had been looted for more than $400,000 of the
depositors' money.
As soon as the shortage was evident a report was made to the Department
of Justice, in Washington, which has charge of the prosecution of
violators of the national banking laws. Expert accountants and Special
Agent Billy Gard of the Bureau of Investigation of that department were
immediately hurried to the scene. When they arrived they found that one
event had just transpired which came near establishing the facts as to
the immediate responsibility of the shortage. The bookkeeper of the bank
had disappeared.
The bank was an institution which employed but three men; a cashier, an
assistant cashier, and a bookkeeper. The disappearance of the
bookkeeper, Robert Tollman, fixed attention on him, and it was
ultimately demonstrated that he was the only individual inside the bank
who had anything to do with its misfortunes.
Special Agent Gard, who handled the outside work of the investigation,
found Tollman to be a youngster of twenty-three, a mild-eyed, likable
chap, who made friends easily. He was a member of one of those old New
England puritanical families that have become institutions in the
community in which they reside. Back of him were a dozen generations of
repression, of straight-edged righteousness. At the age of eighteen he
had entered the bank, and at twenty-three was receiving a salary of but
$12 a week. There had been no chance for advancement. At twenty-one he
had come into $20,000 as an inheritance from an aunt and this had been
the one event of his life, up to that time.
The government's expert accountant immediately established the manner in
which the funds of the bank had been taken. As bookkeeper, Tollman did
not have access to the cash or securities, and was therefore not
considered as being in a position of trust. He was not even bonded. But
beneath his eye there constantly passed those large accounts of the bank
which represented its wealth.
It was about six months after Tollman came of age that irregular charges
began to appear against the inactive accounts. At first they were modest
and infrequent. Steadily they strengthened and grew in size. Eventually
it was shown that charges averaging $5,000 a day were being regularly
placed against these accounts. There were weeks during which the
bookkeeper had succeeded in abstracting such amounts every day.
The bank accountants were soon able to demonstrate the method of these
abstractions. The bookkeeper would give a check against his own account
to some individual in Boston and that individual would deposit it for
collection. It would be sent through the clearing house and eventually
reach the bank in Bainbridge. The bookkeeper was always early at the
bank when any such checks were expected from the clearing house. He
opened the letters transmitting them, turning the statement of the total
amount represented over to the cashier, that a check might be sent by
him to the clearing house. It was the province of the bookkeeper to
enter the individual checks against the accounts represented. When he
reached his own personal check, he charged it to some one of the
inactive accounts instead of his own and destroyed it. So had he taken
$400,000.
But the immediate task in hand fell to Billy Gard. It was the
apprehension of the fugitive and the recovery, if possible, of all or
part of the money taken. It was in the course of the performance of this
duty that the ramifications of this case which give it a place among the
most unique and complete crimes of the age were developed.
While accountants were revealing methods used inside the bank in getting
hold of the money, Gard was busy outside. Tollman, having disappeared,
was to be traced. The first step was to establish his habits, to find
his associates. To the experienced special agent the groundwork of a
case of this sort unfolds almost of itself. There were the people who
knew him best in Bainbridge, for instance. They told Gard that the
youngster had broken away, of late, from the friends of his youth. He
was believed to have gone to Boston for his pleasures. He had a big red
automobile which, it was supposed, he had bought with the money of his
inheritance and in which he drove away practically every night. Through
the whole of the last year of his peculations, Tollman, the
twelve-dollar-a-week clerk, drove regularly to his work at the bank in
this car.
In Boston Gard picked up the clues. Tollman was well known at certain
hotels and cafés. At one hotel which was rendezvous for sporting people
he regularly called upon a very dashing young woman who was registered
as Laura Gatewood. It was at this same hotel that he became acquainted
with an accomplished individual known as John R. Mansfield, who was well
known about McDougal's Tap, in Columbia Avenue, and whose livelihood was
secured through alleged games of chance. Miss Gatewood also introduced
Tollman to a Mrs. Siddons, an especial friend of Mansfield, who
maintained a cozy little apartment in a respectable part of Boston, and
who had, in a dress suit case, a portable faro outfit which could be set
up in her rooms upon occasion. There was also Edward T. Walls, a large
and dominant man, who had, of late, found poker playing on
transatlantic liners a rather precarious calling. But, finally, Miss
Gatewood arranged meetings between Tollman and "Big Bill" Kelliner, who
lived in Winthrop, not far away, was in the wholesale liquor business,
in politics, and, as afterward developed, was a dominating spirit in the
"faro gang."
With the development of the friendship with Kelliner began the trips to
New York. These two would meet two or three times a week at the Back Bay
station and together take the train for New York. So frequent were these
trips that the members of the train crews came to be well acquainted
with the men, and to know something of their movements. They gave clues
to the hotels in New York at which these travelers stayed, and this led
to their identification by hotel clerks and other facts as to their
associates. Eventually all this led to a certain house in West
Twenty-eighth Street and a consultation with the New York police as to
its character.
It developed that in this house there was always running, on evenings
when Kelliner and Tollman came to New York, a faro game. Here Kelliner
gambled and at first won and induced Tollman to try his luck. The
youngster was allowed to win prodigiously. Again he would lose, but not
enough to frighten him away. So was the craze for gambling developed in
the bookkeeper. But eventually he lost what was left of his inheritance.
Up to this time he was honest. But at the suggestion of Kelliner he
stole from the bank to make good his losses. He lost again, and was in
the mill. There was no chance of escape but through stealing more of the
bank's funds and gambling in the hope of eventually winning out. The
bookkeeper had entirely lost his head. He became consumed with the
recklessness of desperation.
In the meantime the Gatewood woman had moved to New York. Also Tollman
had become deeply enamored with her. So fond was he of her company, as a
matter of fact, that he would often turn over to Kelliner and Mansfield
and other of their friends the money with which to gamble, while he
visited with Miss Gatewood. The members of the gang would go to some
gilded restaurant and dine sumptuously and return to Tollman and report
that luck had been against them, and that they had lost all their
money. On such occasions the profits of the evening were almost clear to
the gang. On such occasions, so the members of the train crew back to
Boston reported, "Big Bill" Kelliner would sob out his apparent grief,
because of his losses, on the shoulder of Tollman. The latter was thus
placed in the rôle of comforter. Kelliner would swear never to gamble
again and make his protestations so earnestly that Tollman would become
the aggressor and urge his associate on and paint pictures of luck
ahead. So adroitly did Kelliner play this game that Tollman had been
heard to threaten to break with him because he was a piker.
For two years this arrangement continued. Kelliner, Mansfield, Walls,
the Gatewood woman, and other accomplices, maintained themselves as
decoys that induced the young bookkeeper to draw ever more checks
against his personal account and always extract these and charge them
where they were least likely to be missed. Despite his long carouses at
night Tollman never failed to be at the bank in time to open the mail
and extract the checks that would have betrayed him. Despite the loss of
sleep he was never so dull that he neglected any detail of his
bookkeeping that would have caused his accounts to fail to balance or to
show any irregularities that would have caused the bank examiner to grow
suspicious. Unsuspectingly the stern old bank of Bainbridge stood with
unruffled front until it became but a financial skeleton, its last spark
of vitality wasted away.
But this young bookkeeper of the gambling mania! What became of him?
Those other aiders and abetters to his crime! What action was taken in
their case?
Special Agent Billy Gard eventually had in hand a complete understanding
of the individuals and the methods that were associated with this case.
He had reached the necessity of making arrests.
Kelliner was taken into custody. He indignantly protested that he was
innocent of any criminal wrongdoing. Mansfield, Walls and Tollman had
disappeared. The capture of the latter was of first importance.