detective when a crime is committed: "Find the woman." The results
obtained indicate that there may be much in the theory. In the case of
Tollman the connection with the Gatewood woman was soon established. She
was not about her old haunts in New York. No trails were immediately
found. It was developed that she had originally lived in Kansas City.
When any individual has got into trouble there is always a strong
probability that he will return to his old home, another detective
theory to which Billy Gard subscribed. It is particularly true with
reference to such serious crimes as murder, but it is to a material
extent true in all cases that necessitate flight.
Upon this theory Gard went to Kansas City to look for the woman in the
Tollman case. It required some weeks to find her. When she was located
it was found that Tollman was not with her. He had been there until the
night before. They had quarreled and he had gone away. The cause of
their quarrel was the fact that Tollman had no money. She had cast him
off as a dead husk. She did not know his whereabouts.
In practically every case of otherwise well executed crime there
develops some element of unexpected folly--the criminal does some one
thing that seems, from what would be supposed to be his standpoint,
inexcusably stupid. Gard was therefore not surprised when it developed
that Tollman had not so much as a thousand dollars out of all he had
taken from the bank. He had made no provision for the time which he must
have known would inevitably come when he should be detected. This,
however, was not the crowning folly from a criminal standpoint. Despite
the dash and cunning and the determination he had evinced in his
lootings, he lost his nerve when his woman threw him out. He purchased,
with the proceeds of pawned jewelry, a ticket to Bainbridge, Mass., went
there, and gave himself up to the police. His nerve was broken.
The theory of "find the woman" was applied in the case of the third of
the offenders, John R. Mansfield, the Boston gambler. The apartment of
Mrs. Siddons where the faro game was, upon occasion, set up, and the
woman herself, who was suspected of being particularly intimate with
Mansfield, were watched. The watch was not effective, however, for the
woman disappeared with no one seeing her.
The janitor at the apartment house reported that in going she had taken
a particularly heavy trunk. Special Agent Stephens undertook to follow
that trunk. He canvassed half the expressmen of Boston before he found
the man who had taken the trunk away. This man stated that he had taken
it to the Back Bay station at a certain time, and that it had been
weighed and found to be in excess of the baggage a passenger might carry
free of charge. This singled it out from the mass of trunks. The
expressman remembered that it weighed 225 pounds, and that the
baggageman had marked it for 60 cents excess. According to the rate book
this would have been the excess charge for that weight to New York. The
trunk was thus located with sufficient definiteness that its number was
procured.
In New York it was found that the excess trunk had been sent on to North
Philadelphia with the charge C. O. D. Here the record showed that the
trunk had been called for by a Mrs. Price, living at an address on Broad
Street, and the agent remembered that she had been accompanied by a man.
At this address a Mr. and Mrs. Price were found to be living. Special
Agent Stephens watched the Broad Street house until Price came out. He
was none other than Mansfield. He was placed under arrest.
With confidence in the old detective theory of the woman, the special
agents applied it again in the case of Walls, the one-time gambler on
transatlantic liners. This was not done, however, until several
suspected individuals in different cities had been shown not to be the
man wanted, and many other schemes for the apprehension of the gambler
had failed. For Walls was married to a very attractive and respectable
woman, who supported herself by keeping a boarding house after his
flight. It could not be discovered that she was in communication with
her husband. Finally, there was developed another woman with whom Walls
was known to have been friendly, and who had a part in the activities of
the faro gang. This woman's correspondence was watched, and it was soon
discovered that she was sending letters to and receiving letters from a
man in Detroit, Michigan. Tracings of the man's handwriting were made as
the letters came through the post office, and when compared with that of
Walls, the resemblance was convincing.
The writer of these letters gave his address as a lock box. A special
agent went to Detroit, but the box had been given up. Two months later
more letters came to the same woman from Grand Junction, Colorado, and
also from a lock box. The postmaster was able to describe the man
holding the box and the description suited Walls. But he moved again
before a detective got there to identify and arrest him. There was a
chase of six months on such clues, always through the same woman, but
Walls was still at large.
Eventually there appeared among death notices in New York the name of
Edward T. Walls. Subsequently Mrs. Walls went from her boarding house in
Boston and took charge of the body. Suspecting that this might be a
trick to throw them off their guard, the special agents took every
precaution to identify the body. Eventually they were convinced that the
man they had pursued so diligently was dead. The case was closed.
The three principals in this case, Tollman, Kelliner and Mansfield, were
given 15, 18 and 10 years respectively. After their conviction both
Tollman and Kelliner talked freely to Billy Gard of the whole case and
threw some interesting sidelights upon it. Kelliner told particularly of
the inception of the plans of the faro gang. He said it came into being
at Atlantic City where he and Mansfield and Walls happened to be
spending a week-end. Kelliner at that time already had a line on
Tollman, and other possible victims were deemed ready for the plucking.
With these prospective victims in mind the faro gang was organized.
Money had to be raised for the fitting up of the establishment in
Twenty-eighth Street, which was only used when victims were in tow. This
alone cost $2,000. Then there was the necessary expense money of the
members of the gang while they were developing their victims. There must
be cash in the bank to be won when those victims made their first
appearance. Altogether it was a business that had to be capitalized for
something like $20,000 before it could begin operations. But, as it
afterwards turned out, it was a profitable investment if viewed from the
standpoint of Tollman alone; and there were other victims.
XII
PUTTING UP THE MASTER BLUFF
Did you ever go among strangers and pretend to be a more important
personage than you really are? Yes? So have I. There are many of us who
habitually take a taxicab when we go into a strange city on a modest
piece of business. Yet at home we would walk six blocks to save a nickel
in car fare. I would not acknowledge to the hotel clerk, nor would you,
that an inside room, price one dollar, is what, in my heart, I would
like to ask for when I say that three-fifty will be about right. And we
tip the waiter, you and I, although we know that he makes twice the
money we do, and we let the haberdasher's clerk sell us a shirt for
three dollars when we should pay one, and the barber bulldozes us into
taking a shampoo when there is a perfectly good bar of soap at home and
not working.
For, to ourselves, upon occasion, we like to be the dream people, to
see ourselves as the great and dominant of the land, to step out of the
everyday commonplace of our existence. We pay the price of our temporary
emancipation. We may feel a bit foolish when the bellboy is gone and we
are alone with the pitcher of ice water, but in our hearts it is worth
the money.
Admitting this tendency to dissemble, how large a front of false
pretense could you put up, how important a personage do you think you
could make of yourself, if you should find all the gates open and were
invited to do your durndest? And if you should, in a moment of abandon,
summon courage to introduce yourself as the King of Spain or Anthony
Comstock or Lillian Russell, and if you did this in a gathering that you
knew to be made up of selected master minds, how well do you think you
would be able to sustain the part?
This is the story of a modest employee of the Government, drawing $2,500
a year, who walked into a convention of millionaire manufacturers and
with no basis in fact for his claim, virtually spoke to these dominant
and successful princes of industry as follows:
"Gentlemen, you are mere children playing at the factory business. I am
the master here. Please be nice to me and tell me all your secrets or I
will cut off your supply of raw material."
It was such an assignment as this that one morning came over to New York
in the mail from Washington and fell to the lot of Special Agent Billy
Gard. The instructions said:
"The Northern Pulp and Paper Manufacturers' Association will hold its
convention at the Waldorf on the 19th, 20th, 21st and 22nd. It is
suspected of being a conspiracy in restraint of trade. Its deliberations
are in secret and the membership is unknown. Ascertain all action of the
convention and procure a list of the members of the association."
This action on the part of the Government was occasioned by complaints
from publishers of newspapers throughout the country which seemed to
indicate that there was an understanding among manufacturers as to
prices that should be charged for white paper. If there was such an
agreement that prevented competition, it was probably reached through
some association of which all were members. There was the Northern Pulp
and Paper Manufacturers' Association. Its deliberations and its
membership were secret. This fact put it under suspicion. Was it fixing
prices?
To answer this question, Special Agent Billy Gard went on his
vain-glorious debauch of assuming an importance that was not his due. He
unleashed that tendency that is within us all and let it run riot to the
limit. But back of the dissembling there was an object to be
accomplished.
"You are President Van Dorn of the association, I believe?" said Gard as
he presented himself to that individual on the morning the convention
was to be opened. "My name is William H. Gard. I am most anxious to
attend your meetings."
"Are you a member?" asked the president, an incisive and businesslike
man of affairs whose factories produced 40 per cent. of the white paper
used by the daily press of the nation.
"No," acknowledged Gard, "I do not belong to the association, but I
nevertheless believe that the membership would be glad to have me
present."
"If you are a manufacturer you may become a member and attend," said
President Van Dorn.
"I am not a manufacturer," smiled the special agent. "I am the man back
of the manufacturer. I come to you to-day, but in the near future you
will all come to me. It is in the interest of the manufacturers that I
want to attend."
"I do not understand," said the president.
"You of course know of the Canadian Northwest Timber Company," said the
special agent. (As a matter of fact there was no company of exactly that
name.) "I am the representative of that company. You may also know that
we have been accumulating lands covered with spruce timber for twenty
years. Our holdings now amount to areas equal to the whole of the States
of Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont. It is not necessary that I should
call your attention to the exhaustion of the spruce of New England, nor
of other areas in the United States that have, in the past, been your
source of supply for pulp from which to make your paper. The timber
supply heretofore available for this purpose is approaching exhaustion.
When it is gone you will all turn to the forests that are next most
accessible. We have those forests. I therefore say to you that all of
you will come to me within the next decade. I am coming to you in
advance."
As the young man who claimed to be from the Canadian Northwest talked,
the brusk manner of the president of the paper manufacturers gradually
relaxed. He stroked his luxuriant, close-cropped whiskers in each
direction from the distinct part down his chin and listened with
undivided attention. The Canadian timber lands were at that time the
matter of greatest interest in the pulp and paper world. These lands had
been something of a mystery, for their owners were evidently sitting
tight and biding their time.
"I had depended on my subject to interest you," said Gard. "I came all
the way from Canada to get acquainted with the men who are going to
consume my product. I would like to attend your convention and address
it."
Gard's preparation for this approach and bid for a seat on the floor of
the convention, had been most thorough. Upon receipt of his orders he
had found himself with a week in which to make ready. His first step had
been to get in touch with the publisher of a great New York daily who
had reported to the Department his belief that there was a white paper
trust. That publisher spent hundreds of thousands of dollars every year
for paper. He had therefore carefully studied the paper situation. He
had all the facts as to the supply of pulp timber. He knew just the
crisis that the paper manufacturers faced. These facts he imparted to
Gard and the special agent saw, through them, his opportunity to reach
the confidence of the manufacturers and get all the facts with relation
to their organization.
The convention was yet a week off. Gard had time to accumulate a sunburn
and he went fishing down the bay three afternoons in succession, wore no
hat and rolled up his sleeves. He was a young man of a lobster red for a
day or two but of a deep bronze at the end of the week. With a touch or
two of the woods such as a stout pair of shoes and a hunting knife which
he found occasion to produce, just the right impression was created.
"There is nobody that the convention would rather hear talk," President
Van Dorn was saying. "There is nobody who has a subject of more
interest. But admission to the convention is provided for in the
constitution and by-laws. Only members may be admitted. Our work is
strictly confidential."
"However, nothing is impossible," insisted Gard. "A constitution can be
amended."
"The manner in which it can be amended is also provided for in the
by-laws. It cannot be done in four days."
The special agent saw himself bound to fail to get himself admitted to
the convention. There was the advantage, however, of having been denied
a courtesy to which he had a strong claim and this left the way open to
the asking of other important favors.
"Even though you cannot attend the meetings," Van Dorn suggested, "I
want to see that you meet all our leading people and in this way you may
accomplish practically as much. I would be glad if you would dine with
me to-night."
"I shall be very glad to do so," said the special agent. "In the
meantime you can probably provide me with a list of your members. In
that way I can at least communicate with them all."
"That list is quite confidential," said the president. "I have no copy
of it myself."
"But your permanent headquarters in Fourth Avenue will have it,"
suggested Gard. "Can you give me a note to the secretary?"
To this the president assented somewhat hesitatingly. The note he wrote
was also a bit indefinite. It was not instructions to give a copy of the
list. It might be so interpreted if the secretary were inclined to be
friendly.
So Gard went for his list with some inward trepidation, although the man
who pretended to hold the fate of the paper manufacturers of a nation in
his hand could afford to show no outward manifestation of it.
The secretary of the Northern Pulp and Paper Manufacturers' Association
was a most courteous young Virginian bearing the name of Randolph. The
special agent knew the secretary was a Southerner as soon as he met him.
The former had originated in Baltimore. After the manner of Southerners
the two discussed names and families. The special agent knew a great
deal about the Randolph family. In fact, he said, his family had married
into the Randolphs in one of its branches. The lines were followed
until it seemed that the men might well believe that they were cousins
several times removed. Incidentally they had started to be friends in
the way most accredited among Southerners.
Gard delivered his note from President Van Dorn and took great pains to
explain the position of the Canadian Northwest Timber Company. He made
it clear that his people were on the eve of playing a large part in the
paper pulp world. He wanted to ask Randolph's advice about certain
matters and he wanted to get in touch with some enterprising young man
who knew the manufacturers. To such a young man he might offer an
enviable business opportunity. In the meantime he would like a copy of
the membership list of the association.
It developed that there was but one such list in existence. It had to be
dug up from the association's safe and copied. But the secretary was
friendly to this one-time Southerner, now of the north woods; he was a
young man who knew the manufacturers, and who would take a look at a
business opportunity; he had the note of instruction, somewhat
indefinite to be sure, from the president of the association.
Gard secured his list of members. As fast as a taxicab could carry him,
he was away to his office, from which requests for prices of paper were
dispatched to every firm on the list, in the name of the New York
publisher who was helping the Government.
That night the special agent dined with President Van Dorn and other men
high in the counsels of the Pulp and Paper Manufacturers' Association.
His position was explained and regrets were generally expressed that he
might not be present at the meeting. Only the constitution stood in the
way. There was no other reason why one so vitally interested in the
welfare of the manufacturers should not be a member. Information of a
most exhaustive nature should be given him. Even the minutes of the
meeting and copies of addresses should be put at his disposal. He should
meet all present.
So Agent Gard loafed about the Waldorf for four days. He was regarded,
not merely as a master of finance who was the equal of any of the
manufacturers attending the convention, but as the man of them all who
held the whip hand. Morning and night he cultivated these men, talked
business with them, asked them questions. They told him all that went on
in the convention, allowed him to read its minutes. He was the most
courted man at the hotel when the word got well circulated that he was
the pulp king of the Canadian Northwest.
Gard, of course, had an average number of acquaintances scattered about
the country and many of these knew of his association with the
Department of Justice. In a New York hotel there is always a chance of
meeting friends from any place in the world. Gard was therefore not
surprised, on the evening of the manufacturers' banquet which brought
the convention to a close, to pass in a corridor two old-time friends,
men whom he had known in college. They hailed him vociferously as "Gard,
old man." It was against just such an emergency that he had used his own
name.
The special agent was at the time going in to dinner with Randolph, the
secretary, and a member from Buffalo. Nothing would have come of this
chance greeting had it not been that a paper manufacturer was standing
beside the two friends of Gard when the latter passed. One of these
young men turned to the other and asked:
"What is Gard doing now? I haven't seen him since I left college."
"He is with the Department of Justice," said the second friend. "He is a
special agent, a detective working on big trust investigations."
And the manufacturer heard it all. He immediately communicated his
information to President Van Dorn. That official lost his urbane
equanimity and fluttered about in much confusion, consulting with others
in authority. He did not approach Gard, and that young man was all
unsuspicious that anything had gone wrong until the time came for
after-dinner speeches.
"Before we proceed with the toasts on the program," said President Van
Dorn, who was master of ceremonies, "I should like to call the attention
of the members present to one matter not regularly scheduled. We have
all met, during the week, Mr. Gard, of the Canadian Northwest. Mr. Gard
has furnished many of us with facts that seemed to be vital to the
interests of wood pulp business. We, in exchange, have given to Mr.
Gard much information with relation to the pulp and paper business. I
should like to present Mr. Gard to this gathering, if I may."
President Van Dorn paused and looked expectantly in the direction of the
young man in question. The situation was such that Gard was required to
arise and receive the introduction and, as he expected, make a bit of a
speech. He rose to his feet.
"This, gentlemen," continued Van Dorn, "is Mr. Gard. As the
representative of the Canadian Northwest Timber company you have
unbosomed yourselves to him. He is, in reality, a detective of the
Department of Justice. You, gentlemen, are under investigation. Will Mr.
Gard be so good as to tell us whether or not we are a trust in restraint
of trade?"
The young representative of Uncle Sam was taken completely by surprise.
He had gone so far with his work without being suspected that he had
thought he would get all the way through. But he had all the time
discounted the possibility of being found out and was therefore entirely
prepared.
"I plead guilty as charged," he said, bowing profoundly and grinning
somewhat sheepishly and boyishly. "You, gentlemen, have been, as we say
in sleuth circles, 'roped.' You have told your secrets to the
investigator unknowingly.
"I most humbly apologize for the imposition. I was working under
instructions. Unless it can be shown that your association is in
restraint of trade nothing will come of the investigation. If you are a
conspiracy you will deserve what you get.
"If I may be pardoned for talking shop I will tell you just your
position with relation to the Government. What the Department of Justice
wants to do with such people as you is to go to you frankly and ask you
to lay your cards on the table--to open your books to the examination of
our experts. Before this is done it is sometimes wise to get a look
behind the screens before the stage is set for the play. I have been
taking that peep.
"Four days ago, for instance, I secured a list of the membership of this
association. That night, in the name of a certain newspaper publisher,
letters were written to every member asking for quotations of prices.
The price lists are in the mail by this time and coming back to us.
Now, if there is a great similarity in those prices, suspicion will be
aroused. It is better that this and other tests be put upon
manufacturers before they are aware that an investigation is on.
"But now we are in the open. To-morrow I will call upon the association
to produce its books. It need not respond to that call, but if it is
honest there is no reason why it should not. It may be that I will ask
individual members to show their accounts and correspondence. In the end
we will be very well acquainted. I trust that we may then be as friendly
as we have been during your convention and my deception. I will now bid
you good-night."
Gard's work "under cover" was completed. It was but an incident in the
relations between a great industry and the Government. The next week the
books of the association were thrown open to the Government. President
Van Dorn, whose factory was the largest of them all, volunteered access
to his records and others followed suit. So was an era of fair dealing
inaugurated.