A Miss Van Tassand to the best of my knowledge I never saw. Certain it
is that I hired no fruit store in Chicago, nor did I have a person of
that name in my employ at any time.
A Mrs. Lee, said to have disappeared some time in 1893, I do not know
of ever having seen.
Cora Quinlin is said by the newspapers to be alive. No insurance of any
kind was ever caused to be placed upon the life of this child by me nor
did I know that such had been placed by others.
A Miss Cigrand was sent to me by the National Typewriter Exchange in
Chicago in May, 1892. She worked faithfully in my interests until
November, 1892, when, much against my wishes, she left my employ to
be married, as I understood at the time. Some days after going away
she returned for her mail, and at this time gave me one of her wedding
cards, and also two or three others for tenants in the building who
were not then in their rooms; and in response to inquiries lately made
I have learned that at least five persons in and about Lafayette,
Ind., received such cards, the post mark and her handwriting upon the
envelope in which they were enclosed showing that she must have sent
them herself after leaving my employ. While working for me she had
also acted as the secretary of the Campbell-Yates Co., a corporation
in which I was interested; and in 1893 certain papers relating to
the business of this company that had been overlooked required her
signature, and after considerable delay she came to the office in
November, which was about one year after she left my employ. She
accompanied me to lunch at Thompson’s restaurant, where I had eaten
regularly for years, and where during the previous year she had often
eaten with me. Here the man known as Henry, who for a long time has
been head usher in this establishment and knew us both well, remarked
to her, as he gave us our seats, “It is a long time since you were
here.” She replied, “About one year.” A few days later she met me
elsewhere in Chicago, at which time Arthur S. Kirk, a member of the
well-known soap manufacturers, Kirk & Co., and two employees were
present, and upon my recalling to Mr. Kirk’s memory certain business
transactions I had with him at about this time, he, as well as his
employees, will remember the circumstances, and be able to fix the
exact date and give an accurate description of Miss Cigrand.
Before leaving Chicago, she expressed a desire to re-enter my employ,
stating that unless more kindly treated she should not longer live with
her husband, but should either return to office work or re-enter the
convent, where she had been educated, or some other similar institution.
She also told me that she had written her people, but should not visit
them until she could give them financial aid, as she had been in the
habit of doing before her marriage, and I think she will let me know
her location and present name before I am made to suffer for her
disappearance.
Miss Mary and Miss Kate Dunkee are both acknowledged by the
Philadelphia authorities to be alive. Charles Cole is also known to be
alive.
The Redman family, the child or its abductress, I never saw, and know
nothing of the case save from the accounts published at the time.
Robert Latimer, a former janitor, a Mr. Brummager, once in my employ as
a stenographer, also a Miss Mary Horacamp, from Hamilton, Canada, are
alive, as shown by letters recently received from friends or relatives
of each.
Miss Anna Betz, formerly of Englewood, Ill., whose death I have been so
persistently charged with during the past year, the claims being made
that it had been caused by a criminal operation performed by me at the
instigation of ——, of Chicago, for which I received a release of the
sum of $2,500 that I owed him, I was but little acquainted with, and if
her death was occasioned in such a manner I certainly am not the cause
of it, and checks given upon my order by F. W. Devoe & Co., of New
York, will show when and how my indebtedness to Mr. —— was canceled.
The same charge concerning a domestic named Lizzie is untrue, although
I have no means of verifying it save that it has been proven that she
was alive and in Chicago some months after I left that city, early in
1894.