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A ROBBERY--ONE OF THE FEMALE ATTACHÉS OF THE GREAT KOSSUTH--A
WIDOW LADY OF RANK IN HUNGARY--KOSSUTH'S SISTER--A BOARDING
HOUSE AT NEWARK, N. J., AND ITS INMATES--SUNDRY FACTS AND
CONSIDERATIONS--BEAUTY WINS--AN INVESTIGATION--SERVANTS
EXAMINED--THE PATENT-ROOF MAKER--"TRACING" A MAN--A HOLLOW
WALKING-STICK WITH MONEY IN IT--NO CLEW YET--A PATHETIC
BLUNDER--REVELATIONS IN DREAMS--A BIT OF PAPER TELLS A
STORY--AN IDENTIFICATION--THIEF ARRESTED--A SETTLEMENT MADE,
WITH CONDITIONS--A TRIUMPHAL VISIT TO THE WIDOW--A "WHITE LIE,"
AND AN ANNOUNCEMENT--DOUBTING--PERFECT EVIDENCE SOMETIMES
IMPERFECT--THE UNSOLVED PROBLEM; WHO DID THE ROBBERY?
In August, 1858 (so the notes in my diary of that year say, but somehow
it seems to me as if it were more than ten years before), I was waited
upon by a beautiful Hungarian lady, residing at Newark, N. J., to see
if I could render her any aid in ferreting out the thief who had robbed
her of eight hundred and forty dollars. She was a most charming lady,
and with her pitiable story won all my sympathies. She came to the
country with the sister of the great Magyar leader, Kossuth, which
sister was at the time, as I understood the story, teaching a select
school in Newark, and the lady who called upon me had been a teacher
under her for a while.
She was very accomplished, but for some reason had left her vocation as
a teacher, and gone to making gold-lace goods for some firm in New
York, who were paying her larger wages than she could make at teaching.
(So much more ready is the world to pay well for the brilliants which
sparkle by the reflection of light from their surface, than for
brilliance of mind, which is a light unto itself, and betokens in its
possessor a wealth beyond that of rubies and pearls.) She was very
artistic, and in her happier days had beguiled her time in learning
many little arts, which, in her exile and poverty in America, she
turned to good practical account.
Her lace-work she did at home, and she kept two or three boarders
besides, generally, together with an Hungarian servant, a sort of
slave, or attaché of her father's house at home, and whom she felt
obliged to watch over, and an English girl. Her boarders were two
Hungarians at the time I made her acquaintance, and a middle-aged
American, from the West. One of the former was a lawyer, having his
office at No. 5 Beekman Street, New York, and "dragging along," doing a
little business in New York, and a little also in Newark; a man of
ability, and speaking the English language well. I think he had, at one
time, been Kossuth's confidential secretary; at any rate, he was quite
distinguished for something in the Hungarian revolution. It was at his
suggestion that the lady had called on me, and when she came to
describe him,--for I had never seen him, he having simply heard of me
through a brother lawyer, in whose office he occupied a desk,--I at
first suspected him of the theft in question. Another boarder was a
music teacher, who got on poorly enough, and who, had it not been that
some relative in Hungary occasionally sent him a remittance, would
hardly have been able to pay his board bill, which was, I believe, but
five and a half, or six dollars a week.
These were comparatively old boarders. The third one was a new comer;
that is, he had been with the widow about three months. He dressed
pretty well, and represented himself as the manufacturer of patent
roofs, and as having a business office on the corner of Bowery and
Second Street.
This was all the widow could then tell me about them. Her husband had
died about two years before, after some years of illness; and a little
daughter and a son had died before him, and not long after her arrival
in this country; and the burden of their and his illness and funeral
expenses had fallen upon her. Saddened by her misfortunes here, and
ever sighing for the "Fatherland," she had been resolutely at work,
since her husband's death, to accumulate enough to return to Hungary
with, and also to buy a little cottage where she had spent most of her
early childhood's hours with her nurse, and which was situated near the
confines of the great park in which stood her father's palace--a
romantic spot, which she seemed to worship with her whole soul, now
that her sweetest treasures were gone. Her description of the dear old
cottage and its surroundings was glowing, and even pathetic. Her father
had been a rebel officer, and his estates were confiscated and sold,
but sold in divisions, it seemed, and some relatives had succeeded to
the possession of the cottage. This, she was sure, she could buy for no
very large sum. There would she go, and live, and die. That was her
widowhood's ambition, and she cheerfully toiled, early and late, to
achieve its realization. She had paid some debts, which remained unpaid
at the death of her husband; had supported herself neatly and
comfortably, and aided, to considerable extent, not a few of her
unfortunate countrymen, the old attachés of Kossuth, but had saved
about eleven hundred dollars, inclusive of the eight hundred and forty
which had been stolen from her; and the loss of the latter was to her a
most heavy blow.
She was one of those brave, unflinching souls, who do and dare on
forever, without giving up in despair to, no matter how untoward a
fate; but while she uttered no childish complaint, I could see that the
loss oppressed her very seriously. She said to me, indeed, that it was
very discouraging, and that she sometimes thought that she would give
up the further struggle of earning her way back to her old home and
purchasing the cottage, but settle down here, and only visit the old
spot sometime--but to do so would be distasteful.
This was all enigmatic to me, and of course I did not ask her to
explain; but I learned afterwards, what I presume was its solution,
that a wealthy widower, of some political distinction as well as
literary character, and living at Morristown, N. J., had offered the
widow his hand, and heart perhaps: but such men do not often give away
their hearts. They buy wives with their money, and treat them as their
goods and chattels thereafter; which is a convenient way of doing
things, and does not wear upon the purchaser's soul.
But Madame K. (the widow), who admired the man in some respects, had
learned the value of a great, noble love too well to even trifle with
her soul in this regard, and could not consent to accept the wealthy
widower's offer. In view of the fact of this offer, she suffered from
the loss of her money more than she otherwise would have done; for she
was proud to have the widower, as well as everybody else, know that she
was self-reliant and successful; and to be successful, it is necessary
to be cautious and prudent in all things; and the widow had not been
prudent in the disposal of her money. Indeed, she had lost it through a
sort of unpardonable carelessness, or rather lack of caution, and this
vexed her not a little.
My sympathies were greatly enlisted in behalf of the beautiful widow;
and without being willing to acknowledge that my heart was touched by
her facial beauty (for where is the man in the world who would not
scorn to be thought susceptible to such a "trifle"?), I do confess that
the widow's charming address and manners won me over to her cause with
a force which I thought a little peculiar, and I resolved to do all I
could to hunt up the thief, and find the money, and perhaps not charge
the beautiful widow a cent for my services (if I _must_ confess the
whole right here).
Armed with such high resolve, I went over to Madame K.'s house the next
day to tea, the time when she would have returned from her necessary
business trip that day to the gold-lace house for which she wrought;
and found her there ready to receive me, and point out the place where
she had kept the money stolen. I should say here, that the theft had
been committed five days before, and some effort had been made on the
part of Madame K. to discover a clew to the thief.
Madame K. had, in her sitting-room, a curious old "secretary," which
had been brought out from Hungary by some exiles, and which--since it
exactly resembled one in her father's library or studio, and at which
she had so often sitten and wrought out her lessons, written her
school-girl "compositions," and made her early efforts in epistolary
graces--she had bought. This secretary had close-locking double doors,
in each of which was, as if it were itself a panel, a mirror, as a
middle piece, with plates of deftly chased glass above each mirror; and
the glasses were opaque, so that the doors might, in one sense, have
been said to be solid. Indeed, I think the whole mirror and ornamental
glass plates were backed by a panel of wood.
The secretary was a queer compound of strength, and more or less bad
taste, as well as about the same quantity of good taste. The inner work
was all curious,--sly boxes; boxes within boxes, etc., and the faces of
each carved with the heads of lions, tigers, and so forth, of the
natural order, as well as with all sorts of things of a mystic nature,
as well as some never thought of before save by the special carver of
these special faces. Everything about it looked secure, but, alas! it
would not protect its contents against a cunning thief. But I saw that
it must have been somebody who was somewhat acquainted with the
interior of the secretary to have readily abstracted any of its
contents without disturbing things, in the short space of time between
the discovery of the loss and the fact of the presence of the money
there, just a little before; for I had determined matters so far as to
learn this point, namely, that the money had been taken from a purse in
a certain drawer, and the purse itself left.
The money consisted of bank bills principally, with fifty dollars in
gold--two tens and six five-dollar pieces. This drawer had a peculiar
lock, a part of which turned around three times before the key could
drive the bolt, so that the person unlocking it must have had time to
study this, or had known it before. There was the outer key, too, the
key of the secretary's doors. On inquiry, I found that this key was
hung up on a little tack at the back of the secretary. It might almost
as well have been left in the lock. The lock of the doors, too, was
peculiar, and only the smallest of keys could open it, and it would
have been difficult to pick. Probably somebody who knew where to find
the key had opened it.
The result of my investigation was the conviction that some resident of
the house, or some frequent visitor, had taken the money; so I asked
Madame K. to call up the younger servant. The old one was beyond all
possible suspicion; and I convinced myself that either the servant was
guiltless, or that if guilty we could never prove her so, unless by
chance we should find the money on her; so I had arranged, before her
coming in, to be writing at a table, and while in conversation with
her, of such a style that she could not possibly conceive that we had
the remotest suspicion of her, I asked her, in a careless way, to hand
me some writing paper out of the desk, and the bungling mode in which
she managed the key of that peculiar lock convinced me that she did not
take the money, unless when the door had been carelessly left open; but
Madame K. was very sure that she was never guilty of such carelessness,
and I was disposed to accredit her self-judgment.
I took possession of everything in the drawer, a purse, some old
papers, some letters; one letter particularly attracting my attention,
a corner or strip of it having been torn off. I asked Madame K. about
this torn letter. She could give me no information about it. It was a
business letter written to her late husband, and dated back some three
years. It was written in English, but by a German friend of the late
Mr. K., residing then at Cincinnati, Ohio. There was the unmistakable
German form of the letters; and I know not what should have "come over"
me just then, for I am not a believer in the interference of
intelligent spirits, and I fear I do not believe more than is necessary
of ancient or modern "inspiration," but I said to the widow,--
"Madame K., I feel as though we were going to find out, sooner or
later, who took the money, and I hope we shall get the money back, too."
Of course her eyes sparkled a little with sudden hope, excited by my
confident manner of speaking, but they dropped before she replied,--
"But, sir, _I_ dare not hope so, for the disappointment, if you should
not find the money, would be worse than the loss original" (for madame
still transposed some of her English words according to her native
idiom). "But you will be a vary ex_cee_-lent man if you do find it,"
added she, with a most provoking smile of encouragement.
I searched the boarders' and servants' rooms, with madame, most
thoroughly, but unavailingly, and told her she must keep quiet, and
wait for some circumstance to develop itself which might put us on the
right track; and that, meanwhile, I would trace out the patent
roof-maker in his quarters in New York.
From something which madame told me, and from the fact of seeing an
old, and pretty well worn pack of marked-back playing cards, and some
other indications of a sporting man, I expected to find this fellow's
"work," not so much _on_ roofs as under them. But I found he had really
an ostensible business, and had an office,--a very small one,--in which
he had three or four little houses, of the size of small dog kennels,
the roofs of which were covered with his patent composition, and he had
also some four men at work; but he did not work much. He hardly took
the trouble to supervise his men's work, but charged so much a day for
their time, and paid them less, living on the difference, and thus
keeping up appearances, while he was trying to sell out his "right" to
somebody who might be found stupid enough to give him as much as he
paid for it.
I found that some of his associates were gamblers and other kinds of
sporting men, and that he kept his best suit of clothes in a wardrobe
at his office, and dressed more elegantly in New York than he did in
Newark, where the clothes he wore were whole, neat, and good enough.
This flashy dressing in New York not only suggested vanity, but some
cunning, I thought, showing the man to be capable of some secrecy and
diplomacy. I pursued my investigations into his character, not only in
New York, but in Ohio, where he was born, and raised. He came from the
beautiful town of Dayton, and his parentage, and relationship there,
were highly respectable. The young man's countenance was in his favor.
He looked honest and good-hearted, and I found that he dealt with his
men as he agreed. But he would be a sorry fool who should trust much to
appearances in a large city like New York, where the greatest
scoundrels are the most fascinating men and women.
But I confess my mind oscillated considerably between suspicions of
this young man's guiltiness and the inclination to believe him
innocent. I found he spent considerable money, and I found, too, where
he sometimes made a good deal in gambling. He was one of those
unfortunate beings who enjoy good luck enough, now and then, to
constantly whet their hopes, and make their severest losses only
prompters to more earnest trials of the "fickle goddess."
I continued to trace him back and forth between Newark and New York,
which I was enabled to do almost daily, through the kindness of a
friend who resided in Newark, and came daily to New York to his
business. This man talked with him about the widow's loss, for which
the young roof-maker expressed great regret; said Madame K. was a fine
lady, worked hard, and he wished he was able to make up her loss to her
in some way.
When asked if he suspected anybody, the poor music teacher in
particular, he expressed himself as unwilling to suspect anybody, and
declared that he could never believe the music teacher guilty, except
under the most positive evidence. He was too simple a man, he said, to
do anything of the sort; a man who had no bad habits to indulge, and
one of that stamp whom the possession of eight hundred dollars, however
he might have obtained it, would have driven crazy.
I managed to get entrance into the young man's office in New York, and
make careful examination of everything there, such clothes as he had in
the wardrobe, and everything else, even to a hollow cane, or
walking-stick, in which, to my surprise, I found money--good money, but
nothing corresponding with any of the bills lost by the widow, which
were nearly all large ones, with a few small ones,--all the latter the
issue of a Newark bank. Finding the money in this hollow cane made me
suspicious of the man's general character. Why carry good money in such
a "purse"? It would be a convenient thing to conceal counterfeit money
in, I thought; and then I said to myself, "Why not good to keep stolen
money in too?" and finally I answered, "Yes, and good money too;" for
not one person in ten thousand would ever think to look in such a place
for money. Besides, the young man's name was engraved upon the silver
head of the cane, and that fact ought rather to ward off suspicion
against him.
In these and like ways I was always fluctuating in my mind regarding
the young roof-maker; and as I had pursued matters under the
inspiration of my sympathy for the widow in her loss (with a slight
prompting, I confess, on the score of her bewitching ways and her
delicate beauty) quite beyond what I would have felt warranted in doing
in another case under like circumstances; so I told the madame one day,
when she called at my office, as she not unfrequently did, that I
thought we must give up the search; that probably nothing but the
death-bed repentance of the thief would ever disclose who took the
money, and that all had been done which could possibly be done, I
thought, to ferret out the thief. It was easy for him to get the larger
bills changed to small ones in New York, and get the Newark money out
of his hands, and as for the gold, there was no way to identify that;
that either one of the boarders, or some visitor, had probably taken
the money; and so much time having passed since it was taken, that we
might as well expect the dead to rise that day in Greenwood as to
expect to find the thief or the money.
At this madame burst into tears over the loss of the money, as I
supposed, and I tried to calm her; but she wept quite frantically. I
had never seen her before save in a calm, dignified state, and knew not
what to make of it; but she said,--
"Not for the gone money, I weep, sir; but what you said of the dead in
Greenwood: there are all mine."
I had known that her children and husband were buried in an obscure
quarter of Greenwood, but forgot that fact when I spoke, and stupidly
made allusion to that cemetery. The madame's tears re-strengthened my
sympathy; and she told me a dream, too, which she had had three or four
nights before, with such unction, that while I laughed in my sleeve at
it, I could not, for the life of me, but express in my face believing
astonishment. She said at the same time that she did not believe in
dreams at all, yet this one was so startlingly realistic in its
personages, localities, etc., that it seemed to her more a veritable
history of facts than the shadowings of a disordered imagination in
semi-sleep. The substance of the dream was, that I had been over to her
house again, had made another search, and in the room occupied by the
music teacher and the young roofer (for they occupied the same room,
the largest in the little house, but had separate beds); and that while
I was shaking some clothes belonging to one of them, she could not tell
which, down fell a five dollar gold piece, and dropped on the carpet at
a point exactly equidistant from the two beds, after rolling on the
carpet in a small curve. Madame derided the dream while she told it,
yet it evidently had made some impression on her mind; discovering
which, together with my re-aroused sympathies for her over her
widowhood and the loss of the money, I assured myself that I ought to
make further trial, and thought I would revisit her house and make
further search.
I did so two days afterwards, at my first leisure, and reviewed the
whole affair there. In searching the roof-maker's room again, which I
did out of a sort of deference to the widow's dream, but without the
slightest expectation that I should find any clew to the thief, I came
across a garment which I had not seen before, either in his closet
there or in the wardrobe at his office in New York. It was an old vest,
and, strange to say, madame did not remember to have ever seen the
roof-maker wear it. Yet there it hung with his clothes. Perhaps it was
the music teacher's; but at any rate we, in a sort of listless way,
examined it; finding nothing but a few cloves and spices in it, such as
too many young men carry in their pockets in order to draw therefrom
disguises of a bad liquor-smelling breath; and a crumpled piece of
letter paper, quite black on one side, which I was inclined to throw
aside; and I should have done so, except from my habit (rather than
judgment, in this case) of examining everything.
Unfolding this, which proved to be a strip of nearly triangular form,
about two and a half inches wide on the line of one "leg," by four or
five inches by the other "leg," I noticed some letters and words on the
piece. It was evidently a part of a letter torn off; and I reflected
that I had seen writing of that same style somewhere, and turning up
the left-hand upper corner of the piece, to flatten it out more, I
discovered the letters "ati," upon it, and it flashed into my mind at
once where that piece came from. I made no remark to the widow at this
point, but told her we would now take the vest in charge, and go down
and look into the secretary again. She withdrew from the drawer the
letters and papers she had shown me on my first visit, and which I had
charged her to keep safe, and I was not long in finding the proper
letter (the one I have described heretofore), and adjusting the torn
piece to it, it fitted exactly, and the rest of the word--Cincinn--was
added to the "ati," and place of date; and then I called Madame K.'s
attention to it. My conclusion was, that the thief had, in some way, by
accident torn that letter at the time he took the money, and that
somehow the piece had gotten into his pocket and he had forgotten it.
But it was carefully folded, as I saw, when I essayed to fold it back
to the shape I found it in.