an exclusive privilege. At the time of his arrest Holmes had three
wives, each ignorant of the others' existence. He had married the first
in 1878, under the name of Mudgett, and was visiting her at Burlington,
Vermont, when the Pinkerton detectives first got on his track. The
second he had married at Chicago, under the name of Howard, and the
third at Denver as recently as January, 1894, under the name of Holmes.
The third Mrs. Holmes had been with him when he came to Philadelphia to
identify Pitezel's body. The appearance of Holmes was commonplace, but
he was a man of plausible and ingratiating address, apparent candour,
and able in case of necessity to "let loose," as he phrased it, "the
fount of emotion."
The year 1895 opened to find the much enduring Holmes still a prisoner
in Philadelphia. The authorities seemed in no haste to indict him for
fraud; their interest was concentrated rather in endeavouring to find
the whereabouts of Miss Williams and her children, and of one Edward
Hatch, whom Holmes had described as helping him in arranging for
their departure. The "great humiliation" of being a prisoner was very
distressing to Holmes.
"I only know the sky has lost its blue,
The days are weary and the night is drear."
These struck him as two beautiful lines very appropriate to his
situation. He made a New Year's resolve to give up meat during his close
confinement. The visits of his third wife brought him some comfort. He
was "agreeably surprised" to find that, as an unconvicted prisoner, he
could order in his own meals and receive newspapers and periodicals. But
he was hurt at an unfriendly suggestion on the part of the authorities
that Pitezel had not died by his own hand, and that Edward Hatch was but
a figment of his rich imagination. He would like to have been released
on bail, but in the same unfriendly spirit was informed that, if he
were, he would be detained on a charge of murder. And so the months
dragged on. Holmes, studious, patient, injured, the authorities puzzled,
suspicions, baffled--still no news of Miss Williams or the three
children. It was not until June 3 that Holmes was put on his trial for
fraud, and the following day pleaded guilty. Sentence was postponed.
The same day Holmes was sent for to the office of the District Attorney,
who thus addressed him: "It is strongly suspected, Holmes, that you have
not only murdered Pitezel, but that you have killed the children. The
best way to remove this suspicion is to produce the children at once.
Now, where are they?" Unfriendly as was this approach, Holmes met it
calmly, reiterated his previous statement that the children had gone
with Miss Williams to England, and gave her address in London, 80 Veder
or Vadar Street, where, he said, Miss Williams had opened a massage
establishment. He offered to draw up and insert a cipher advertisement
in the New York Herald, by means of which, he said, Miss Williams and he
had agreed to communicate, and almost tearfully he added, "Why should I
kill innocent children?"
Asked to give the name of any person who had seen Miss Williams and the
children in the course of their journeyings in America, he resented
the disbelief implied in such a question, and strong was his manly
indignation when one of the gentlemen present expressed his opinion that
the story was a lie from beginning to end. This rude estimate of
Holmes' veracity was, however, in some degree confirmed when a cipher
advertisement published in the New York Herald according to Holmes'
directions, produced no reply from Miss Williams, and inquiry showed
that no such street as Veder or Vadar Street was to be found in London.
In spite of these disappointments, Holmes' quiet confidence in his
own good faith continued unshaken. When the hapless Mrs. Pitezel was
released, he wrote her a long letter. "Knowing me as you do," he said,
"can you imagine me killing little and innocent children, especially
without any motive?" But even Mrs. Pitezel was not wholly reassured. She
recollected how Holmes had taken her just before his arrest to a house
he had rented at Burlington, Vermont, how he had written asking her to
carry a package of nitro-glycerine from the bottom to the top of the
house, and how one day she had found him busily removing the boards in
the cellar.
II THE WANDERING ASSASSIN
The District Attorney and the Insurance Company were not in agreement
as to the fate of the Pitezel children. The former still inclined to the
hope and belief that they were in England with Miss Williams, but the
insurance company took a more sinister view. No trace of them existed
except a tin box found among Holmes' effects, containing letters
they had written to their mother and grandparents from Cincinnati,
Indianapolis, and Detroit, which had been given to Holmes to dispatch
but had never reached their destination. The box contained letters from
Mrs. Pitezel to her children, which Holmes had presumably intercepted.
It was decided to make a final attempt to resolve all doubts by sending
an experienced detective over the route taken by the children in
America. He was to make exhaustive inquiries in each city with a view to
tracing the visits of Holmes or the three children. For this purpose a
detective of the name of Geyer was chosen. The record of his search is a
remarkable story of patient and persistent investigation.
Alice Pitezel had not seen her mother since she had gone with Holmes
to identify her father's remains in Philadelphia. From there Holmes had
taken her to Indianapolis. In the meantime he had visited Mrs. Pitezel
at St. Louis, and taken away with him the girl, Nellie, and the boy,
Howard, alleging as his reason for doing so that they and Alice were to
join their father, whose temporary effacement was necessary to carry out
successfully the fraud on the insurance company, to which Mrs. Pitezel
had been from the first an unwilling party. Holmes, Nellie and Howard
had joined Alice at Indianapolis, and from there all four were believed
to have gone to Cincinnati. It was here, accordingly, on June 27, 1895,
that Geyer commenced his search.
After calling at a number of hotels, Geyer found that on Friday,
September 28, 1894, a man, giving the name of Alexander E. Cook, and
three children had stayed at a hotel called the Atlantic House. Geyer
recollected that Holmes, when later on he had sent Mrs. Pitezel to the
house in Burlington, had described her as Mrs. A. E. Cook and, though
not positive, the hotel clerk thought that he recognised in the
photographs of Holmes and he three children, which Geyer showed him, the
four visitors to the hotel.
They had left the Atlantic House the next day, and on that same day, the
29th, Geyer found that Mr. A. E. Cook and three children had registered
at the Bristol Hotel, where they had stayed until Sunday the 30th.
Knowing Holmes' habit of renting houses, Geyer did not confine his
enquiries to the hotels. He visited a number of estate agents and learnt
that a man and a boy, identified as Holmes and Howard Pitezel, had
occupied a house No. 305 Poplar Street. The man had given the name of A.
C. Hayes. He had taken the house on Friday the 28th, and on the 29th had
driven up to it with the boy in a furniture wagon. A curious neighbour,
interested in the advent of a newcomer, saw the wagon arrive, and was
somewhat astonished to observe that the only furniture taken into the
house was a large iron cylinder stove. She was still further surprised
when, on the following day, Mr. Hayes told her that he was not going
after all to occupy the house, and made her a present of the cylinder
stove.
From Cincinnati Geyer went to Indianapolis. Here inquiry showed that
on September 30 three children had been brought by a man identified as
Holmes to the Hotel English, and registered in the name of Canning.
This was the maiden name of Mrs. Pitezel. The children had stayed at the
hotel one night. After that Geyer seemed to lose track of them until he
was reminded of a hotel then closed, called the Circle House. With some
difficulty he got a sight of the books of the hotel, and found that the
three Canning children had arrived there on October 1 and stayed until
the 10th. From the former proprietor of the hotel he learnt that Holmes
had described himself as the children's uncle, and had said that Howard
was a bad boy, whom he was trying to place in some institution. The
children seldom went out; they would sit in their room drawing or
writing, often they were found crying; they seemed homesick and unhappy.
There are letters of the children written from Indianapolis to their
mothers, letters found in Holmes' possession, which had never reached
her. In these letters they ask their mother why she does not write to
them. She had written, but her letters were in Holmes' possession. Alice
writes that she is reading "Uncle Tom's Cabin." She has read so much
that her eyes hurt; they have bought a crystal pen for five cents which
gives them some amusement; they had been to the Zoo in Cincinnati the
Sunday before: "I expect this Sunday will pass away slower than I don't
know--Howard is two (sic) dirty to be seen out on the street to-day."
Sometimes they go and watch a man who paints "genuine oil paintings"
in a shoe store, which are given away with every dollar purchase of
shoes--"he can paint a picture in one and a half minutes, ain't that
quick!" Howard was getting a little troublesome. "I don't like to tell
you," writes Alice, "but you ask me, so I will have to. Howard won't
mind me at all. He wanted a book and I got 'Life of General Sheridan,'
and it is awful nice, but now he don't read it at all hardly." Poor
Howard! One morning, says Alice, Mr. Holmes told him to stay in and wait
for him, as he was coming to take him out, but Howard was disobedient,
and when Mr. Holmes arrived he had gone out. Better for Howard had he
never returned! "We have written two or three letters to you," Alice
tells her mother, "and I guess you will begin to get them now." She
will not get them. Mr. Holmes is so very particular that the insurance
company shall get no clue to the whereabouts of any member of the
Pitezel family.
Geyer knew that from Indianapolis Holmes had gone to Detroit. He
ascertained that two girls, "Etta and Nellie Canning," had registered
on October 12 at the New Western Hotel in that city, and from there had
moved on the 15th to a boarding-house in Congress Street. From Detroit
Alice had written to her grandparents. It was cold and wet, she wrote;
she and Etta had colds and chapped hands: "We have to stay in all the
time. All that Nell and I can do is to draw, and I get so tired sitting
that I could get up and fly almost. I wish I could see you all. I am
getting so homesick that I don't know what to do. I suppose Wharton
(their baby brother) walks by this time, don't he? I would like to have
him here, he would pass away the time a good deal." As a fact little
Wharton, his mother and sister Dessie, were at this very moment in
Detroit, within ten minutes' walk of the hotel at which Holmes had
registered "Etta and Nellie Canning."
On October 14 there had arrived in that city a weary, anxious-looking
woman, with a girl and a little baby. They took a room at Geis's Hotel,
registering as Mrs. Adams and daughter. Mrs. Adams seemed in great
distress of mind, and never left her room.
The housekeeper, being shown their photographs, identified the woman
and the girl as Mrs. Pitezel and her eldest daughter Dessie. As the same
time there had been staying at another hotel in Detroit a Mr. and Mrs.
Holmes, whose photographs showed them to be the Mr. Holmes in question
and his third wife. These three parties--the two children, Mrs. Pitezel
and her baby, and the third Mrs. Holmes--were all ignorant of each
other's presence in Detroit; and under the secret guidance of Mr. Holmes
the three parties (still unaware of their proximity to each other), left
Detroit for Canada, arriving in Toronto on or about October 18, and
registering at three separate hotels. The only one who had not to all
appearances reached Toronto was the boy Howard.
In Toronto "Alice and Nellie Canning" stayed at the Albion Hotel.
They arrived there on October 19, and left on the 25th. During their
stay a man, identified as Holmes, had called every morning for the two
children, and taken them out; but they had come back alone, usually in
time for supper. On the 25th he had called and taken them out, but they
had not returned to supper. After that date Geyer could find no trace
of them. Bearing in mind Holmes' custom of renting houses, he compiled a
list of all the house agents in Toronto, and laboriously applied to each
one for information. The process was a slow one, and the result seemed
likely to be disappointing.
To aid his search Geyer decided to call in the assistance of the Press.
The newspapers readily published long accounts of the case and portraits
of Holmes and the children. At last, after eight days of patient and
untiring investigation, after following up more than one false clue,
Geyer received a report that there was a house--No. 16 St. Vincent
Street--which had been rented in the previous October by a man answering
to the description of Holmes. The information came from an old Scottish
gentleman living next door. Geyer hastened to see him. The old gentleman
said that the man who had occupied No. 16 in October had told him that
he had taken the house for his widowed sister, and he recognised the
photograph of Alice Pitezel as one of the two girls accompanying
him. The only furniture the man had taken into the house was a bed, a
mattress and a trunk. During his stay at No. 16 this man had called on
his neighbour about four o'clock one afternoon and borrowed a spade,
saying that he wanted to dig a place in the cellar where his widowed
sister could keep potatoes; he had returned the spade the following
morning. The lady to whom the house belonged recognised Holmes' portrait
as that of the man to whom she had let No. 16.
At last Geyer seemed to be on the right track. He hurried back to St.
Vincent Street, borrowed from the old gentleman at No. 18 the very
spade which he had lent to Holmes in the previous October, and got the
permission of the present occupier of No. 16 to make a search. In the
centre of the kitchen Geyer found a trap-door leading down into a small
cellar. In one corner of the cellar he saw that the earth had been
recently dug up. With the help of the spade the loose earth was removed,
and at a depth of some three feet, in a state of advanced decomposition,
lay the remains of what appeared to be two children. A little toy wooden
egg with a snake inside it, belonging to the Pitezel children, had been
found by the tenant who had taken the house after Holmes; a later tenant
had found stuffed into the chimney, but not burnt, some clothing that
answered the description of that worn by Alice and Etta Pitezel; and by
the teeth and hair of the two corpses Mrs. Pitezel was able to identify
them as those of her two daughters. The very day that Alice and Etta had
met their deaths at St. Vincent Street, their mother had been staying
near them at a hotel in the same city, and later on the same day Holmes
had persuaded her to leave Toronto for Ogdensburg. He said that they
were being watched by detectives, and so it would be impossible for her
husband to come to see her there.
But the problem was not yet wholly solved. What had become of Howard? So
far Geyer's search had shown that Holmes had rented three houses, one in
Cincinnati, one in Detroit, and one in Toronto. Howard had been with his
sisters at the hotels in Indianapolis, and in Detroit the house agents
had said that, when Holmes had rented a house there, he had been
accompanied by a boy. Yet an exhaustive search of that house had
revealed no trace of him. Geyer returned to Detroit and again questioned
the house agents; on being pressed their recollection of the boy who had
accompanied Holmes seemed very vague and uncertain. This served only to
justify a conclusion at which Geyer had already arrived, that Howard
had never reached Detroit, but had disappeared in Indianapolis. Alice's
letters, written from there, had described how Holmes had wanted to take
Howard out one day and how the boy had refused to stay in and wait for
him. In the same way Holmes had called for the two girls at the Albion
Hotel in Toronto on October 25 and taken them out with him, after which
they had never been seen alive except by the old gentleman at No. 18 St.
Vincent Street.
If Geyer could discover that Holmes had not departed in Indianapolis
from his usual custom of renting houses, he might be on the high way
to solving the mystery of Howard's fate. Accordingly he returned to
Indianapolis.
In the meantime, Holmes, in his prison at Philadelphia, learnt of the
discovery at Toronto. "On the morning of the 16th of July," he writes
in his journal, "my newspaper was delivered to me about 8.30 a.m., and I
had hardly opened it before I saw in large headlines the announcement
of the finding of the children in Toronto. For the moment it seemed
so impossible that I was inclined to think it was one of the frequent
newspaper excitements that had attended the earlier part of the case,
but, in attempting to gain some accurate comprehension of what was
stated in the article, I became convinced that at least certain bodies
had been found there, and upon comparing the date when the house was
hired I knew it to be the same as when the children had been in Toronto;
and thus being forced to realise the awfulness of what had probably
happened, I gave up trying to read the article, and saw instead the two
little faces as they had looked when I hurriedly left them--felt the
innocent child's kiss so timidly given, and heard again their earnest
words of farewell, and realised that I had received another burden to
carry to my grave with me, equal, if not worse, than the horrors of
Nannie Williams' death."
Questioned by the district attorney, Holmes met this fresh evidence by
evoking once again the mythical Edward Hatch and suggesting that Miss
Minnie Williams, in a "hellish wish for vengeance" because of Holmes'
fancied desertion, and in order to make it appear probable that he,
and not she, had murdered her sister, had prompted Hatch to commit the
horrid deed. Holmes asked to be allowed to go to Toronto that he might
collect any evidence which he could find there in his favour. The
district attorney refused his request; he had determined to try Holmes
in Philadelphia. "What more could, be said?" writes Holmes. Indeed,
under the circumstances, and in the unaccountable absence of Edward
Hatch and Minnie Williams, there was little more to be said.
Detective Geyer reopened his search in Indianapolis by obtaining a list
of advertisements of houses to let in the city in 1894. Nine hundred
of these were followed up in vain. He then turned his attention to the
small towns lying around Indianapolis with no happier result. Geyer
wrote in something of despair to his superiors: "By Monday we will
have searched every outlying town except Irvington. After Irvington, I
scarcely know where we shall go." Thither he went on August 27, exactly
two months from the day on which his quest had begun. As he entered the
town he noticed the advertisement of an estate agent. He called at
the office and found a "pleasant-faced old gentleman," who greeted him
amiably. Once again Geyer opened his now soiled and ragged packet of
photographs, and asked the gentleman if in October, 1894, he had let
a house to a man who said that he wanted one for a widowed sister. He
showed him the portrait of Holmes.
The old man put on his glasses and looked at the photograph for some
time. Yes, he said, he did remember that he had given the keys of
a cottage in October, 1894, to a man of Holmes' appearance, and he
recollected the man the more distinctly for the uncivil abruptness with
which he had asked for the keys; "I felt," he said, "he should have had
more respect for my grey hairs."
From the old gentleman's office Geyer hastened to the cottage, and
made at once for the cellar. There he could find no sign of recent
disturbance. But beneath the floor of a piazza adjoining the house he
found the remains of a trunk, answering to the description of that which
the Pitezel children had had with them, and in an outhouse he discovered
the inevitable stove, Holmes' one indispensable piece of furniture. It
was stained with blood on the top. A neighbour had seen Holmes in the
same October drive up to the house in the furniture wagon accompanied
by a boy, and later in the day Holmes had asked him to come over to the
cottage and help him to put up a stove. The neighbour asked him why he
did not use gas; Holmes replied that he did not think gas was healthy
for children. While the two men were putting up the stove, the
little boy stood by and watched them. After further search there were
discovered in the cellar chimney some bones, teeth, a pelvis and the
baked remains of a stomach, liver and spleen.
Medical examination showed them to be the remains of a child between
seven and ten years of age. A spinning top, a scarf-pin, a pair of shoes
and some articles of clothing that had belonged to the little Pitezels,
had been found in the house at different times, and were handed over to
Geyer.
His search was ended. On September 1 he returned to Philadelphia.
Holmes was put on his trial on October 28, 1895, before the Court of
Oyer and Terminer in Philadelphia, charged with the murder of Benjamin
Pitezel. In the course of the trial the district attorney offered to put
in evidence showing that Holmes had also murdered the three children of
Pitezel, contending that such evidence was admissible on the ground
that the murders of the children and their father were parts of the same
transaction. The judge refused to admit the evidence, though expressing
a doubt as to its inadmissibility. The defence did not dispute the
identity of the body found in Callowhill Street, but contended that
Pitezel had committed suicide. The medical evidence negatived such a
theory. The position of the body, its condition when discovered,
were entirely inconsistent with self-destruction, and the absence of
irritation in the stomach showed that the chloroform found there must
have been poured into it after death. In all probability, Holmes had
chloroformed Pitezel when he was drunk or asleep. He had taken the
chloroform to Callowhill Street as a proposed ingredient in a solution
for cleaning clothes, which he and Pitezel were to patent. It was no
doubt with the help of the same drug that he had done to death the
little children, and failing the nitro-glycerine, with that drug he had
intended to put Mrs. Pitezel and her two remaining children out of the
way at the house in Burlington; for after his trial there was found
there, hidden away in the cellar, a bottle containing eight or ten
ounces of chloroform.
Though assisted by counsel, Holmes took an active part in his defence.
He betrayed no feeling at the sight of Mrs. Pitezel, the greater part of
whose family he had destroyed, but the appearance of his third wife as a
witness he made an opportunity for "letting loose the fount of emotion,"
taking care to inform his counsel beforehand that he intended to perform
this touching feat. He was convicted and sentenced to death on November
2.
Previous to the trial of Holmes the police had made an exhaustive
investigation of the mysterious building in Chicago known as "Holmes'
Castle." The result was sufficiently sinister. In the stove in the
cellar charred human bones were found, and in the middle of the room
stood a large dissecting table stained with blood. On digging up the
cellar floor some human ribs, sections of vertebrae and teeth were
discovered buried in quicklime, and in other parts of the "castle" the
police found more charred bones, some metal buttons, a trunk, and a
piece of a watch chain.
The trunk and piece of watch chain were identified as having belonged to
Miss Minnie Williams.
Inquiry showed that Miss Williams had entered Holmes' employment as a
typist in 1893, and had lived with him at the castle. In the latter part
of the year she had invited her sister, Nannie, to be present at her
wedding with Holmes. Nannie had come to Chicago for that purpose, and
since then the two sisters had never been seen alive. In February in the
following year Pitezel, under the name of Lyman, had deposited at Fort
Worth, Texas, a deed according to which a man named Bond had transferred
to him property in that city which had belonged to Miss Williams, and
shortly after, Holmes, under the name of Pratt, joined him at Fort
Worth, whereupon the two commenced building on Miss Williams' land.