HOW THE CRIME WAS HANDLED BY THE POLICE—ON THE TRAIL
Now, let us follow the police story. We will begin at the very
beginning, watch the incidents and character unfold, and give quite a
little attention to the technical methods by which results were arrived
at. For the story is a study in clean, straightforward detective work,
and that work ought to be better known by the public, so that
intelligent public opinion may back up honest police effort.
The story starts with a burly, genial man, sitting in a big office at
Police Headquarters. The office is that of the Second Deputy Police
Commissioner, and the man is the Commissioner himself, George S.
Dougherty.
Commissioner Dougherty dominates the story. The taxicab robbers were
caught by his methods, plans and supervision, backed by the splendid
team work of the men under him. His own sources of information supplied
the clues, and his personal skill in examining criminals brought out the
confessions that saved the city the expense of trials with all but one
offender. It is far from the writer’s wish to indulge in hero-worship,
however, so these details will appear in their proper place in the
narrative.
George Dougherty has had nearly twenty-five years’ experience in
criminal work in New York, and over the whole country. Until his
appointment by Mayor Gaynor in May, 1911, he was connected with the
Pinkerton organization. Bank and financial crimes have long been his
specialty, so the taxicab case fell right into his own province. He
knows the ways of forgers, bank sneaks, swindlers, burglars and
“yeggmen,” and is personally acquainted with most of the criminals in
those lines in and out of prison. He has also had much to do with
protecting the crowds at races, ball games, aeronautic meetings and
other big gatherings. As executive head of the detective bureau, five
hundred plain-clothes policemen scattered over Greater New York cover
all crimes of a local and routine nature, and are subject to his call
when a special case like the taxicab robbery comes up for his personal
attention.
On an ordinarily quiet morning at Police Headquarters, there will be a
steady stream of people passing into Dougherty’s office. Several
assistants guard the doors leading from two ante-rooms, and marshal the
visitors. Now a group of detectives enters and hears a talk on methods.
Then two detectives come in, make a report and receive further
instructions. Then there will be an interruption, perhaps, while an
assistant soothes and sends away a crank who occasionally turns up with
a purely imaginary affair of his own, and two more detectives pass in
accompanied by a man and a woman who look just like the people one sees
dining at a fashionable uptown restaurant. The woman’s furs are
magnificent, and her hat a costly Fifth avenue creation.
“A couple of taxpayers?” speculates the group of reporters, waiting
outside to get a statement about some important case.
“Two of the cleverest check swindlers in the country,” corrects a
detective, and presently the reporters are called in, and Dougherty
recites names, dates and facts connected with the gang to which these
prosperous “taxpayers” belong, gazing reflectively out of the window as
details come back in memory, and chuckling with the delighted
journalists as the pithy slang and professional names of the underworld
are jotted down on their pads. They fire a scattering volley of
questions at him and depart, and then his secretary announces that the
saloon-keeper who knows a good deal about the Blind Puppy Café case is
outside, but refuses to talk to the police at all.
“Hullo!” is the Commissioner’s off-hand greeting as the cautious
saloon-keeper comes in, and in two minutes the latter is answering
questions freely.
“Why, say!” he exclaims, “I’ll tell _you_ anything.”
Then a humble little woman in a cheap hat and a long cloak is brought
in. For more than an hour she has been waiting outside, with her eyes
fixed patiently on the door leading to the inner office.
“Stand there,” says the Commissioner, with gruff kindness, and he makes
a formal statement about her husband, who has been arrested with a
criminal gang, and is pretty certain to go to prison. He tells her what
has been done in the case, and what will follow, and the little woman
listens mutely. When he finishes, her eyes fill with tears. But she
makes no reply, nor any sound. The Commissioner winks fast as he looks
out of the window again, and then says, sympathetically:
“That’s the best that can be done. But don’t you worry. Come in and see
me again. Keep in touch with me, and don’t worry yourself. Come in and
talk with me—come in to-morrow.” And she bravely wipes her eyes and goes
out with her trouble.
The procession continues.
Police captains and detectives in squads, prisoners and witnesses in
twos and threes, newspaper men in corps and singly, and occasionally a
cautious gentleman who wants to see the Commissioner alone, and is
anxious that nobody say anything about this visit to Police
Headquarters—for he is an informant.
_The First Alarm_
The taxicab robbery took place on a quiet morning like this.
Suddenly, around eleven o’clock on Thursday, February 15, a brief
message comes from the second precinct, stating that a robbery has been
committed in the financial district. A little later there is a fuller
report over police wires. The details are few, as will be seen by the
general alarm that presently goes out over the city:
_Police Department, City of New York_,
February 15, 1912.
To all, all Boroughs—notify the patrol platoon immediately.
Arrest for assault and robbery three men:
No. 1, about 35 years, five feet eight or nine inches in height,
160 or 170 pounds, small stubby dark mustache, dark complexion,
medium build, dark suit and cap, no overcoat.
No. 2, about 35 years, five feet ten inches in height, slender
build, dark hair, possibly smooth shaven, light brown suit, no
overcoat, wore a cap.
No description of No. 3.
Stole $25,000 in five and ten dollar bills, contained in a brown
leather telescope bag, 24 inches long, 16 inches square, from
two bank messengers in a taxicab about 11 this a. m., at Park
Place and Church Street, and escaped in a five or seven-seated
black touring car, top up. Look out for this car, bag and
occupants on streets, at ferry entrances, bridge terminals,
railroad stations. Inquire at all garages, automobile stands,
stables, etc.
If found, notify Detective Bureau.
Before noon, the Commissioner has postponed appointments, assigned
routine business, and is engaged in an investigation that will keep him
busy until that morning, twelve days later, when the first arrests are
made, and the case is, in police parlance, “broken.”
Where do the police begin in such a crime? What do they start with when
there is apparently so little to work upon?
In spite of the wide popular interest in police and criminal matters,
the average citizen has no very clear idea. Even the newspaper reporter,
following police activities every day, is not well informed in technical
details. Some information is necessarily withheld from him, and he is a
busy young man, with his own technical viewpoint, working hard to get
his own kind of information.
This lack of knowledge leads to a feeling of mystery, helplessness and
terror after a sensational crime, and to criticism of the police. They
are at work, skillfully, honestly, diligently. But results take time. It
would do little good to make arrests without evidence. The citizen’s
sympathies are aroused by brutal lawlessness, and he urges that somebody
be caught and punished. If results are not at once apparent, he jumps to
the conclusion that the police are “demoralized.” He would be startled
if he could see how quickly and persistently the underworld takes steps
to strengthen him in that conclusion, and use him to discredit the
police.
Sixty detectives are immediately called into the case. Five of them go
down to the scene of the robbery, with orders to work there until
further notice. They make a thorough search of the neighborhood,
following the route taken by Montani’s taxicab, and questioning
merchants, newsdealers, porters, truckmen and other persons likely to
have information as eye-witnesses. They go through the streets that may
have been taken by the escaping robbers, and work over the whole ground.
This search through one of the busiest sections of New York in a busy
hour, amid the excitement created by the crime, may appear like hopeless
business. But, as will be seen presently, it yields important results.
Other detectives search garages for the black automobile without a
license number in which the robbers are reported to have got away. Four
uniformed policemen on beats along the route taken by the taxicab are
questioned. Other detailed inquiries of the same nature are started.
But the most important work of the first day centers at Police
Headquarters, where a conference is held by Commissioner Dougherty and
his assistants, and in the examination of Montani, the taxicab driver.
Strip all the labels off a suit of clothes and lay it before a committee
of tailors. In a few moments certain points would be agreed upon. It may
be a new suit, or an old one, a fine piece of tailoring, or a cheap
hand-me-down. The committee could often identify the cheap suit and tell
the name of its manufacturer, while with a seventy-five-dollar suit it
might be possible to determine the maker’s name. This holds true of many
other lines of work, and it is particularly true of criminal
investigation.
Who cut and made that suit of clothes?
The conference sat down to determine this, judging the robbery strictly
as a piece of workmanship. Names of known bank criminals were brought
up, one by one, and details gone over. It soon became clear that none of
the men identified with bank crime were likely to have the brains, skill
or organization to plan and execute so complicated a robbery.
The criminals had known the habits of the bank in conveying cash uptown.
They knew the route, and were aware that the guard was only an elderly
man and a seventeen-year-old boy, both unarmed. They had boarded the cab
at the best point, and evidently made arrangements for stopping it.
There was team work in every detail. It showed marked insight, for
instance, to provide additional men to boost each assailant in at the
doors. For young Wardle, the bank employee, had made a plucky attempt to
shove his robber out and shut the door, and might have succeeded had
there not been an outside man. Robberies are committed under exciting
conditions. They sometimes fail because criminals balk. That outside man
was there not only to help his “slugger” into the cab, but to _force_
him in if he shrank, and make certain he did his work. Whoever planned
such details, it was agreed at the conference, possessed more cunning
than the ordinary bank criminal.
_Montani is Examined._
When Montani, the taxicab driver, arrived at Police Headquarters, he was
willing to talk, and seemed anxious to help the police in every way. He
knew suspicion might be directed toward himself, but did not resent
that. He talked like a man confident of the truth of his story, and
certain that he would be found blameless.
Montani is an Italian, from the northern part of Italy, about 30 years
old, five feet six inches high, rather stout and thick-set, with very
dark complexion. The striking feature of his countenance, his large,
intelligent brown eyes. Commissioner Dougherty found himself thinking of
Napoleon in connection with Montani.
The first examination lasted all afternoon, Montani going out to lunch
with the Commissioner. Hundreds of questions were asked bearing on the
robbery, the appearance of the criminals, and Montani’s past and
personal affairs. The story was gone over again and again, and different
questioners relieved each other. Yet the taxicab man never lost his
temper or patience, and did not contradict himself in any important
particular.
Montani had been in this country since the age of twelve, it appeared,
had a wife and two children, and was the owner of two taxicabs operated
from a stand at a hotel near the bank, whose money he regularly carried.
He had owned three cabs, but lost one through business reverses. In
fact, he had passed through money troubles, and his story excited
sympathy. Starting originally as a truckman for a salvage company, his
ambition and intelligence had won him such confidence that this company
lent him money to set up trucking for himself. Still more ambitious, he
had become a taxicab proprietor. Through the trickery of an ill-chosen
partner, however, he has lost some of his savings. He seemed a little
bitter about this, and it was a circumstance not likely to escape an
expert police examiner, for the loss of money through fraud, coupled
with temptation, is often the starting point in crime. The Italian’s
former employers spoke highly of his character when questioned by
detectives. He gave the names of chauffeurs who had worked for him
lately, and of business people who knew him, and careful investigation
failed to disclose any suspicious circumstances. Montani quite won the
newspaper men—so much so that, when he was discharged in court a few
days later for apparent lack of evidence, the newspapers criticised the
police for having held him at all.
And yet, before that first night, Montani himself, largely through
simple answers to questions, had become so involved that there was
ground for holding him under arrest.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Illustration:
EDWARD P. HUGHES
Inspector in Command of Detective Bureau
]
[Illustration:
DOMINICK G. RILEY
Lieutenant and Aide to Commissioner Dougherty
]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
In the questions and cross-questions, the checks and counter-checks of a
skillful examiner, there are possibilities little suspected by those not
familiar with that kind of work.
Montani had slowed down his cab at the point where the robbers boarded
it. He said that an old man had suddenly got in front, and he had
slackened speed to avoid running over him. But detectives along the
route found eye-witnesses who had seen the robbers board the cab, and
who could testify that there had been nobody in front of the vehicle.
Both of his cabs had stood in line near the bank that morning, the one
driven by himself being second, and the other, in charge of an employee,
was first. When the call came from the bank, Montani answered it himself
out of his turn, sending the other cab uptown, as he explained, to have
some tires vulcanized. But it was not a good explanation.
He said that as soon as the robbers left his cab he had raised a cry for
help. But eye-witnesses were found who denied this.
Instead of running north after the robbers’ automobile when he had taken
a policeman aboard his cab, he ran south, away from it. This action, he
maintained, was taken under orders from the policeman. But the latter
denied that.
He was not able to explain how the robbers had known where to post their
automobile so it would be waiting at the spot where they finished their
work.
Interest centered in this mysterious black automobile without a license
number. For, though Montani was an experienced chauffeur, and his
replies to other questions showed that he had seen both the rear and the
side of that car, he was unable to tell its make.
Meanwhile, it was learned that three men had hurriedly boarded an
elevated train near the scene of the robbery shortly after, not waiting
for change from a quarter. The ticket-seller was unable to describe
them, but connected them with the robbery when he heard about it.
Montani was held in the custody of the Commissioner that night, to be
put through further examination in the morning. But long before morning
the police were working on an entirely new development.
_The First Direct Clue_
The law-abiding citizen goes around New York with little knowledge of
the crowding underworld all about him. It is perhaps just as well that
he knows nothing of the lives and morals of hundreds of people who elbow
him on the streets, sit beside him in the cars, and scrutinize him with
a strictly professional eye in many places.
Nor has he any clear conception of the relations that a good police
officer maintains with members of this underworld. It is a world just as
complete as that of business or society, however, and much of the time
of a detective or police official is spent keeping track of people in
it, forming acquaintances and connections in various ways, and
establishing the organization of informants that will help in the
detection and prevention of crime. A good detective is like a good
salesman—he keeps track of his “trade.”
Shortly after midnight of the first day, Commissioner Dougherty received
a message over the telephone that sent him uptown to meet an informant.
At two o’clock in the morning of Friday, February 16, he and this person
had a talk at a fashionable uptown hotel. Indeed, most of the meetings
with informants during this case were held at two well-known hotels,
perhaps the last places in the city that anybody would connect with such
conferences.
Informants are not always right, nor always possessed of useful
information. But this one had the first real clue.
On the afternoon of the robbery, it was learned, a fellow known as
“Eddie Collins” had come to his rooming house, on the lower West Side,
told a woman with whom he lived, known as “Swede Annie,” to pack up and
be ready to leave the city in a hurry, and presently disappeared with
her. He was also reported to have a large roll of money. With a rough
estimate of the size of this roll, given by the informant, and a dummy
roll of “stage money” made up for the purpose, the police were able to
judge that Collins must have had between $3,000 and $5,000. That would
have been his probable share in a division of the stolen currency among
five men.
The house where Collins had lived was kept by a Mrs. Sullivan. Steps
were at once taken to “surround” this woman, as the operation is known
technically. For before a possible source of information like Mrs.
Sullivan is followed up, it is necessary to know something about it. The
person in question may be criminal, or in league with the underworld. On
the other hand, he or she may be quite innocent, and willing to aid the
police. The “surround” is an interesting operation. It is often made
without the knowledge of the person investigated. In many cases it takes
time.
Mrs. Sullivan came through the ordeal handsomely.
She proved to be a wholesome, hard-working landlady, keeping a house
that sheltered occasional suspicious characters, but entirely honest
herself. She was not only able to furnish information about her late
lodgers, but willing.
“Sure, it’s a good deal I know about that Collins, as he calls himself,”
she said, “and mighty little that’s good.”
It seems that about two weeks previously Collins had offered to pay the
landlady if she would appear in a Brooklyn court and testify to the good
character of a criminal named Molloy, who was being held for trial on a
charge of robbery.
“They’re paying fifteen to twenty dollars for ‘character’ witnesses,”
said her lodger.
“And do you think I’d take the stand and perjure myself swearing for a
man I never heard of?” asked the indignant landlady.
“Oh, that’s nothing to some of the things we do,” was the reply.
Several days later, while she was putting some laundry into Collins’
bureau drawer the landlady caught sight of two new blackjacks. She asked
Collins what he was doing with such weapons.
“Aw, we use them in our business,” he said. Then, with the confidence
often bred in criminals by success, he told her he knew a gang that was
planning to rob a taxicab that carried money uptown to a bank every
week. Mrs. Sullivan questioned him as to details, and he assured her it
would be an easy job.
“For we’ve got it all fixed with the chauffeur,” he said.
At that point, however, like many an honest person who might aid the
police with information, Mrs. Sullivan let the matter drop out of her
mind. It is a simple thing to mail a letter or telephone to Police
Headquarters, giving such information, and the experience of the
Detective Bureau is such that the information can be investigated
without involving innocent persons. But perhaps Mrs. Sullivan concluded
that, in a big city like New York, it is well for people to keep their
mouths shut. Or maybe she decided that Collins was merely boasting.
On Friday, less than twenty-four hours after the robbery, a “network
investigation” was begun.
Sixty detectives searched that part of the city where Collins and Annie
had lived, seeking further information. Photograph galleries and other
places were investigated on the chance of finding pictures. Denizens of
the underworld were talked with casually. Professional criminals,
prostitutes, dive-keepers, receivers of stolen goods and other shady
characters were brought before Commissioner Dougherty in couples and
half-dozens for quick cross-examination. By Saturday evening the police
had some highly important information.
It was learned that Annie had been seen going away on the afternoon of
the robbery in a taxicab, accompanied by two men, one of whom was
Collins, and the other unknown. Good descriptions were secured of Annie
and her sweetheart, especially of her hat, which was a cheap affair, but
conspicuous by reason of a row of little red roses. It was also
discovered that Collins had been a boxer, that he hailed from Boston,
and that his real name was Eddie Kinsman. Finally, the police secured
two photographs, one an indifferent picture of Kinsman, and the other an
excellent portrait of Annie. These were quickly put through the
department’s photograph gallery, where there are facilities for making
duplicates in a hurry, and more than a hundred copies were soon ready
for work which will be described in its proper place.
The trail now seemed to lead to Boston. At all events, further
information was to be secured there. And here came in a little
refinement imparted by Commissioner Dougherty’s experience with the
Pinkerton forces. For where this private detective organization works
unhampered over the whole country, the official police forces in most
cities confine their searches to their own territory. When it is
believed that criminals have left town, as in this case, a general
description is telegraphed to other cities. Dougherty’s method, however,
is always to send a man from his own staff, with detailed instructions.
There are no local boundaries for him.
Late on Saturday night Inspector Hughes, of the Detective Bureau,
slipped out of headquarters with Detective O’Connell, and took a train
for Boston. Their departure was kept strictly secret. They bid good
night to associates, saying that they expected to be up and at work
again early next morning, and until their return on Monday everybody who
asked for the Inspector was told that “he is usually around the building
somewhere.”
_Montani Points Out “King Dodo”_
All through Friday and Saturday, while the network investigation was
going on, Commissioner Dougherty continued his examination of Montani.
Some important information against him now came from outside.
It developed that Montani had been involved several months before in an
insurance case, claiming indemnity for a burned automobile under a
policy. He had presented, as part of its value, a bill for repairs
amounting to $1,348. The insurance company, however, had found that this
bill was fraudulent, that the repairs had never been made, and had
obtained a statement to that effect from the Italian chauffeur. Out of
pity for his wife and two children the case was not pressed against him.
Now that he was involved in another crime, however, the insurance people
came forward and laid the facts before the police.
Of course, Montani knew nothing about this new development.
For two days the chauffeur was questioned at intervals, and the inquiry
centered chiefly on the knotty points in his story of the crime. He was
particularly pressed for better explanations of the slackening of his
cab when the robbers boarded it, but stuck to his original statement
about a man getting in front of the vehicle. He described this person as
an old man, and said he must have been in league with the criminals. As
the police had good evidence that there had been nobody in front of the
taxicab, however, this point was returned to again and again, and toward
night on Saturday, February 17, the little chauffeur began to feel the
strain.
On his way to supper that evening with men from the Detective Bureau,
Montani was taken through the Bowery. Suddenly he stopped, dramatically,
and exclaimed:
“There! That is the old man who got in front of my cab!”
His finger indicated a Bowery character as typical as anything ever seen
in melodrama—a ragged little old figure with an amazing set of whiskers,
engaged in picking up cigar butts along the gutters. He was immediately
taken to headquarters.
No detail of his work interests Commissioner Dougherty more keenly than
his study of the many picturesque characters who turn up as an important
case unfolds. He has a ready appreciation of everybody who appears, from
the society lady who lost her jewels to the typical Bowery loafer. He is
as ready to look at facts from a criminal’s point of view as that of an
honest man. He has often gone half across the country to get acquainted
with a good burglar, and in this warm human interest lies the basis of
his skill as an examiner of suspects. These details are set down, not in
glorification of Dougherty, but for the guidance of every police officer
interested in his methods.
The moment Dougherty laid eyes on this new character, with his
magnificent whiskers, he gave him a nickname.
“King Dodo!” said the Commissioner, and that by that name he was known
in so far as he figured in the case at all. “King Dodo” proved to be
entirely innocent, and nothing more than the victim of a chance move of
Montani’s, who evidently thought that he ought to produce something
tangible to back up his assertion that the cab had been intercepted by
an old man. “King Dodo” established a perfect alibi, proving that he had
been elsewhere at the time of the robbery, and after being questioned
and the truth of his story established, he was released, there being no
reason for holding him.
“I feel safe,” said the Commissioner solemnly, “in paroling you on your
own responsibility, to appear again if wanted.”
That may have been a heavier responsibility than had been put on his
shoulders in years. But he rose to it. Two days later a decently
dressed, clean shaven, elderly gentleman came in and asked for the
Commissioner. He was “all dolled up,” in police parlance, and looked
like a retired small shopkeeper. The staff did not recognize him for a
moment. But it was “King Dodo,” doing his best to fill the part of a
minor figure in the great taxicab mystery. There being nothing for him
to do, he dropped back into private life.
On his Sunday visit to Boston Inspector Hughes talked with Chief
Inspector Watts of that city, learned where Kinsman lived, and that his
family was a respectable one; found a bright patrolman named Dorsey who
knew Kinsman, and gave more information about his personal appearance,
habits and career as a boxer, desertion from the Navy, and so forth, and
made arrangements to have the Kinsman home watched so that news of his
return would be secured immediately. It was clear that Kinsman had not
returned to Boston.
_Discovery of Kinsman’s Trail_
As soon as Inspector Hughes returned from Boston, on Monday morning, the
Commissioner took steps to question the crews of every train that had
left New York since one p. m. on the day of the robbery.
Just the other afternoon the writer sat with a squad of young detectives
at Police Headquarters and heard a talk on methods given by Dougherty,
and one point clearly brought out was the usefulness to the
thief-catcher of routine information.
He began by relating an amusing incident. Some days before a detective
had turned up at headquarters for instruction, and naïvely asked the
Commissioner to lend him a pencil and a slip of paper, so he could make
some notes. Another detective was found who had only a hazy idea of the
location of New York’s telephone exchanges. Taking these as his text,
the Commissioner explained the value to every police officer of what
might be called “time-table” information—knowing the depots and ferries,
what roads run out of them, the cities reached, the number and character
of trains, the general methods of dispatching trains, and so forth. The
Commissioner himself is as well informed on such matters as any railroad
man, and thoroughly familiar with routine methods in many other lines of
work and business. How such knowledge can be employed was shown by the
next move in the taxicab case.
Detectives were sent to every railroad terminal to secure lists of
trains, learn the names of the crews, and make out schedules of the time
when each crew would be back in the city. Then each man was found and
carefully questioned. His memory could be helped by pictures of Kinsman
and Annie, and by intimate details of personal appearance and manner.
The search bore fruit, though it took time.
On Wednesday Detective Watson, who was a railroad engineer before he
joined the police, found that Train No. 13 on the New York Central had
taken on three passengers answering the descriptions on the afternoon of
the robbery. They had boarded the train at Peekskill, the town to which,
as it was subsequently learned, they had ridden in a taxicab. The
conductor’s attention had been drawn to Annie by her smoking a cigarette
on the sly in the toilet of the day coach. He remembered her high cheek
bones, and the black velvet hat with its little roses, and the athletic
build of her men companions, who both appeared to be boxers. It was also
established that the trio had gone to Albany, for one of the trainmen
distinctly remembered helping Annie down at that station.
_“Plant 21” Is Established_
Monday, February 19, was an important day in more ways than one.
While the train investigation was going on, it was learned that a woman
known as “Myrtle Horn,” an intimate of Annie’s, had moved to a lower
West Side rooming house, taking Annie’s trunk with her, as though Annie
expected to return to the city. After a preliminary survey, this house
was visited by Commissioner Dougherty in person. He explained that he
was a contractor, about to build a section of the new subway, and that
he was looking for a quiet room at a reasonable price where he might
have some of the comforts of home. After a little talk with the landlady
it became clear that she was honest and trustworthy, with no information
of the new lodger who had taken her front room in the basement.
Arrangements were quickly made to put this house, inside and outside,
under constant surveillance.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Illustration: GENE SPLAINE]
[Illustration: EDDIE KINSMAN]
[Illustration: GENO MONTANI]
[Illustration: “SCOTTY THE LAMB”]
[Illustration: JOHN MOLLOY]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Along in the evening Mrs. Isabella Goodwin, a police matron, was
installed there. The Commissioner brought her, and carried her bundle.
The landlady and the matron had never seen each other in their lives,
but kissed ostentatiously, and made considerable fuss on the chance of
being overheard. Mrs. Goodwin was “planted” as the landlady’s “sister,”
who had come from Montreal to live with her and help in the housework
until she could find a position in New York. The Commissioner grumbled a
little about her stinginess in refusing to pay an expressman to bring
her bundle, and then took his departure, explaining that the train had
been late, and the baby was not well, and his wife, Aggie, would be
worried about him, and so forth. Mrs. Goodwin established herself in a
room at the rear of the basement, handy to that occupied by Myrtle Horn,
and kept her eyes and ears open as she went about the housework,
slipping out to report when she had any information, and receiving
instructions.
Outside surveillance on this house was conducted from an empty store
across the street. Arrangements for the use of such property are usually
made by the police without difficulty, though occasionally a
close-fisted owner expects rent. Blinds were put up over the windows,
peep-holes made, and a few hammers provided, with some nails and boards.
Then six of the best “shadow men” in the Detective Bureau were stationed
there. They made a little noise occasionally, in “getting the store
ready for a big firm moving up from downtown,” and watched the house day
and night. Whenever Myrtle went out she was followed. If she had
visitors, they were investigated. This store was known by the code term
of “Plant 21,” so that reports could be sent without disclosing police
information.
_Montani Goes Free_
On Monday, too, Montani was arraigned in court, and discharged for what
appeared to be lack of any evidence against him.
At this point the Commissioner took the liberty of fooling the newspaper
men for the good of his case.
Newspaper criticism for three days had been particularly severe. Editors
made many charges, and were fertile in suggestions as what ought to be
done to reorganize the presumably “demoralized” police department. The
present writer feels confident, however, that a careful search of the
files for those days will disclose hardly any suggestions likely to be
at all helpful to public servants in the discharge of duty. Many
questions with no real bearing on the case had been brought up by the
journalists, and the Commissioner, who was patient in answering the
newspaper men, began to be a little tired.
On Sunday night his big office was filled with reporters. They sat about
everywhere. He had admitted them because he wanted them to see that he
was working. From time to time they quizzed him in this fashion:
“Is it true that you and Commissioner Waldo have quarrelled?”
“Is Waldo going to resign?”
“Do you favor the Sullivan law against pistols?”
“Will the ‘dead line’ be maintained now?”
“Hadn’t the daily ‘line up’ of criminals ought to be restored so that
detectives will know crooks when they see them?”
“Hasn’t Mayor Gaynor tied the hands of the police?”
And so forth, and so forth, and so forth.
Suddenly, on Sunday night, Dougherty turned and read the newspaper men a
lecture. He said that he wanted them to understand that he was no spring
chicken at his business, that he was working eighteen hours a day, and
that he knew he would show results if the people would only be patient,
and give him time. His only recommendation in the way of new laws or
reforms was for a statute that would enable the police to put known
criminals, without occupation or visible means of support, at work
mending roads. He outlined a plan which, rather strangely, did not get
any attention in the newspapers at all. His idea of dealing with idle
criminals, he said, was to have a cart, with commissary and sleeping
quarters for twelve men. As soon as twelve idle criminals with records
had been sentenced, they would pull this cart out of town themselves,
under guard, and go to work repairing roads. If that plan were adopted,
New York would not only be as free from criminals as the District of
Columbia, where a similar measure is enforced, but the roads all around
the city would be so well cared for that they could be used as
roller-skating rinks.
The newspapers next morning were quite certain that Commissioners Waldo
and Dougherty had quarrelled, and when the journalists went down to
report Montani’s examination in court they were decidedly partial to the
taxicab man.
Dougherty had told the newspaper men beforehand that he had evidence
enough to have Montani held for trial. He had made very positive
statements about this. Montani would be arraigned, he predicted, and if
discharged on one count, would be immediately arrested on something
else. If he was discharged on that, he would still be arraigned on
further charges.
It needs no very brilliant imagination, therefore, to picture the effect
upon the newspapers when Montani, after being arraigned on the doubtful
points in his own account of the crime, and those not too vigorously
pressed, was discharged, with comment by the court upon the flimsiness
of the police case. There was one striking discrepancy in the evidence
presented at that examination which, if pressed, should have resulted in
the holding of Montani for trial. He still insisted that he had stopped
his cab because an old man had got in front of it, but this was denied
by a witness. That point was permitted to pass by Lieutenant Riley, who
appeared for the police. Montani could have been re-arrested on charges
based upon his attempt to defraud the insurance company. But he was
permitted to go free. That course had been decided on at Police
Headquarters after some difference of opinion.
The newspapers were now more pessimistic than ever in their comment.
They contrasted this outcome with Dougherty’s promises that the
chauffeur would be re-arrested. It was taken as a confession of police
incompetency and bewilderment—which, as will be seen in its proper
place, was very useful in its way. Montani went free, and was jubilant,
calling on the Commissioner next morning to thank him. But from the
moment he left court until he was arrested again the Italian chauffeur
never got out of sight of the Police Department.
_What Developed on a Busy Tuesday_
It was on the day after Montani’s release that Commissioner Dougherty
began to uncover more interesting characters in the taxicab drama.
Bit by bit, through points supplied by informants and persons who had
come in contact with him in various ways, a very good working knowledge
of the fugitive Kinsman was pieced together. It appeared that he had
come to New York the previous summer, from Boston, and after a brief
career as a boxer, had gone to work in a Sixth avenue resort known as
the “Nutshell Café,” where he was a waiter. Among his associates there
had been two characters who invited further inquiry.
The first of these was a fellow called “Gene,” described as having a
“parrot nose,” and a criminal record. He had been a close pal of
Kinsman, and had also introduced another intimate, a wily little Italian
called “Jess,” who had formerly owned a thieves’ resort which he called
the “Arch Café.” A good description of Jess was secured.
There was some delay while the Commissioner “surrounded” this
last-mentioned resort to find out if it was a place where any
information might be obtained openly. The question was decided in the
negative. So a plain-clothes man was quietly “planted” there to pick up
information.
When a criminal is arrested (or “falls”) it is customary in the
underworld to raise a fund for his defense. The Arch Café was a center
for the deposit of such “fall money.” It was learned that a hundred
dollars had been raised for the defense of a man named Clarke, alias
“Molloy,” under arrest in Brooklyn for robbery. This was the same Molloy
to whose fine character Kinsman had asked his landlady to swear in
court. The Italian named Jess had taken charge of Molloy’s defense fund,
but squandered it in a spree. Later, making it good, he had sent it over
to Molloy’s relief by Kinsman’s pal, “Dutch,” and an Italian known as
“Matteo.”
District inspectors of police were then called upon to find a detective
who knew Jess, and an Italian plain-clothes man, Antony Grieco, who had
grown up in that part of New York where Jess had kept a café, and who
knew the latter well, was detailed with another detective to look him up
and keep him under surveillance. They found that Jess, whose last name
was Albrazzo, had headquarters in a tough resort in Thompson street,
kept by an Italian named James Pasqualle, better known as “Jimmie the
Push.” From that time Jess was kept “on tap,” to await further
developments.
Then the Commissioner undertook to find out more about the character
called “Gene.” Working in New York, as waiters and bartenders, were many
members of a criminal band known as the “Forty Thieves of Boston.” The
Commissioner called in all of them that he could find, and sounded each
for information about this “Gene.” After the time of day had been
passed, the talk would turn on members of the band and criminals in
general, and after curiosity had been excited, “Gene” would be referred
to casually. If the party interviewed said he knew “Gene,” the
Commissioner would probably be sceptical, ask his last name, press for
details of appearance and habits, and then pass to some other subject.
It was found that “Gene’s” last name was Splaine, that he had served a
term in prison in Boston as a boy, and that, by his general description,
he must be the third fugitive accompanying Kinsman and Annie. When
Detective Watson got better descriptions of the third man at Albany, and
comparisons were made with sources of information in New York, it became
practically certain that Gene Splaine was with Kinsman.
_Annie Shows at “Plant 21”_
It was on this day, too (Tuesday, February 20), that “Swede Annie”
suddenly stepped into police view, _wearing a new hat_. She turned up
quietly at the house where Myrtle Horn had moved with her trunk, and
began living in the front basement room. Matron Goodwin and “Plant 21”
immediately reported her presence, and from that time the shadow men
across the street had something to do besides driving nails. For
whenever Annie or Myrtle went out of the house they were followed.
Shadowing is a highly interesting kind of police work, at which some men
have exceptional ability.
The general conception is that of a detective following closely behind
the suspected person, with his eyes glued to him, and cautiously
crouching behind lamp-posts and trees when the victim turns suddenly.
But that is far from the real thing. The work is done in ways altogether
different. Shadow men operate in pairs, as a rule, and keep track of
their party from vantage points not likely to be suspected. They dress
according to the character of the case, always in quiet clothes, changed
daily, and with absolutely no colors that will attract attention or lead
to recognition through the memory. They know how to follow when the
person under surveillance rides in cabs, cars or trains, to cover the
different exits from a building into which he or she may have gone, and
to loiter several hours around a given neighborhood, if need be, without
attracting the attention of honest citizens.
This work is done by shifts. The operators relieve each other almost as
regularly as office employees, no matter how far the trail may have
taken them. They are in constant touch with headquarters for the purpose
of making reports and receiving instructions.
In this branch of detective work, as in many others, the chief requisite
is resourcefulness. The detective of fact wears little disguise apart
from clothes that fit the surroundings he moves in. But he has an
instant knack at accounting for himself as a normal character who has
happened quite naturally into the scene. Ready wits do the trick—not
false whiskers. Thus it came about that whenever Annie and Myrtle were
hungry, and sat down in a restaurant, what they said was noted by a
couple of fellows at another table, who quickly made a party of the
chance patrons they found there, discussing wages or the suffragettes.
Or if Annie used the telephone in a drug store, a polite young man
turning over the directory said to her, “Go ahead, lady—I’m in no
hurry,” and listened.
At the same time, Matron Goodwin was reporting conversation from inside
the house. It appeared that Kinsman had sent Annie back to the city
after buying her a new hat and giving her $125. He promised to write
soon, but did not tell her where he was going. Toward the end of the
week, as no letter arrived, Annie began worrying, and was talkative. She
feared that Eddie no longer loved her. She reproached herself for
letting him go without taking her along, and spoke of setting out to
find him.
_The Trail Is Taken Up_
It was now Wednesday, February 21, and all the careful detail work began
to come together.
It was this day that Detective Watson found the crew of Train No. 13, on
the New York Central, which had taken Kinsman, Annie and Splaine aboard
at Peekskill the afternoon of the robbery after they had ridden out of
New York in a taxicab to avoid possible police surveillance at the
railroad stations. Commissioner Dougherty dispatched Watson to Peekskill
and Albany with thorough instructions. His motto in working out a case
is, “Supervision is half the battle.”
“When you get to Albany,” he said, “go to that big hat store on Broadway
near the station. I’ll bet that’s where Annie’s new hat was bought—they
sell the best millinery in the country outside of New York.”
Nothing important was learned at Peekskill, but at Albany, sure enough,
Detective Watson found the saleswoman right in “that big hat store” who
had sold the new hat, and secured Annie’s discarded headgear. The new
hat had cost twenty-five dollars. The old one looked as though it might
have cost ninety-five cents—a “Division Street Special.” Its black
velvet was of the cheapest grade, the famous little red roses proved to
be, on close inspection, nothing more than little loops of pink cotton
cloth, and the general state of the hat indicated that it was about time
Annie had a new one. This interesting “bonnet,” however, seemed just
then more handsome than any costly article of millinery ever smuggled
over from Paris. It was immediately sent to New York by express, with a
copy of the sales slip covering the purchase. The saleswoman was able to
add one or two details of description, and remembered how, after the
woman had selected a hat, the two men had joked about who was to pay for
it.
“She’s your girl,” said Splaine, and so Kinsman had paid the bill with
five five-dollar bills.
Nothing could be learned as to the direction in which the two men meant
to travel. Detective Watson now began a search among train crews running
out of Albany, and Commissioner Dougherty, in New York, got the Albany
ticket-sellers by long-distance telephone. His knowledge of how railroad
tickets are sold, accounted for, taken up, cancelled and checked by the
auditing department made it possible to sift matters down to the
strongest kind of probability. After considerable telephoning, aided by
Detective Watson on the spot, it was determined that Kinsman and Splaine
had been the purchasers of two consecutively numbered tickets for
Chicago sold together on Friday morning, twenty-four hours after the
robbery, and that they had gone west on Train No. 3, leaving Albany at
12:10 p. m. Their tickets were available for that train, and the
conclusion was strengthened by calculating Annie’s movements. For it was
found that she had come back to New York the same day, between four and
five in the afternoon. She had kept out of sight until she appeared at
Myrtle Horn’s lodging and was reported by Matron Goodwin and “Plant 21”
on Tuesday. But she must have taken a train from Albany about the time
that the men were starting for Chicago, reaching New York at 3:45 p. m.
Commissioner Dougherty felt that the chances of finding his men in
Chicago were so good that, without wasting time in an investigation of
the crew of Train No. 3, he put Detectives Daly and Clare aboard a
Chicago train that same night. Kinsman and Splaine would both find
congenial company among the pugilists in Chicago.
These detectives were given names to conceal their identity, and ordered
to report under the code term of “Orange Growers” to eliminate all
flavor of police business. They received detailed instructions about
where to go and what to do. Again the Commissioner covered the trail
when it led out of New York by sending capable assistants, instead of
merely wiring the police in other cities. Before the “Orange Growers”
departed, the “boss” gave them a little talk about expenses.
The detective attached to a municipal police force is very often
hampered by fear of making unusual expenditures. Accounting routine is
strict. Telegrams are often limited to the minimum of ten words where a
hundred are needed to send a working description or report. The
long-distance telephone is used as a luxury, and in many instances where
the plain-clothes man can get valuable information through an informant
he pays the shot out of his own pocket because there is no other way of
paying it, and trusts to the chance that this private investment out of
his salary will help him “break” a knotty case.
Commissioner Dougherty told the “Orange Growers” that they would be kept
on this trail if it led all around the world. They must not consider
expenditure when there was vital information to put on the wire. He
expected them to turn to the long-distance telephone whenever they
needed new instructions in a hurry. Briefly, he took the blinders and
shackles off them, and sent them out to do good work, and the outcome
justified this far-sightedness.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Illustration: JESS ALBRAZZO]
[Illustration: MATTEO ARBRANO]
[Illustration: JAMES PASQUALE]
[Illustration: BOB DELIO]
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At that period of the winter trains were delayed everywhere by storms,
so the “Orange Growers” had opportunities to make inquiries at stations
and railroad restaurants all along the line to Buffalo. They were in
search of their “brother,” who was described in terms of Kinsman’s
personal appearance, and was supposed to be on his way somewhere with
another man. At Syracuse an observant waitress remembered their
“brother” distinctly, having served both the men when their train
stopped for supper. Finally, the two “Orange Growers” got snowed up in
Michigan for a time, and there we will leave them for the present.
_Montani Quizzed Once More_
By Thursday many loose ends of the case were being brought together so
effectually that the outlook seemed exceedingly bright.
But only to the executive circle in Dougherty’s office.
Outside, all was dark. Newspaper criticism had become more caustic than
ever, and the public, after the ingrained habit of New York, was turning
its attention to fresher news sensations.
At a big annual dinner of police officials held that evening, February
22, the atmosphere of gloom resting upon the department was most
tangible. The fourteen hundred guests, who were chiefly police
inspectors, captains and lieutenants, felt that a stigma lay upon the
service with which they were identified. They had no means of knowing,
of course, that one week from that night the gloom would have lifted,
criticism be turned to praise, and that policemen generally would be, as
a witty lieutenant put it, “back to our official standing again—which
never was so very high.”
Montani had called at Police Headquarters repeatedly, accompanied by his
unseen shadowers. He professed to be anxious to furnish further
information, if it lay in his power, and the Commissioner chatted with
him cordially, leading him to believe that he no longer rested under the
slightest suspicion.
On Friday Dougherty made an interesting effort to “break” Montani.
He now had a minute physical description of Kinsman, as well as two
photographs of him. The chauffeur was asked to describe once more the
man who had sat upon the cab seat with him. The questions went over
details from head to foot, and were prompted by details of Kinsman’s
real appearance.
Montani said the man had large brown eyes, which was true.
He remembered that he had talked with a good American accent, and used
words not common to the criminal, which was also more or less true.
He suddenly recalled a gold-filled tooth in the robber’s upper
right-hand jaw, a point already furnished by informants.
In fact, as this new examination went on, it became clear to the
Commissioner that Montani was actually describing Kinsman, changing only
one detail. He said that the robber had had a dark mustache, while it
was certain that Kinsman had been smooth-shaven.
Suddenly the Commissioner tried what is known as a “shot.”
The examiner in such an inquiry is often in possession of incriminating
evidence. Instead of producing it bluntly as evidence, however, he will
perhaps let it slip out bit by bit, as though by awkwardness, meanwhile
maintaining an appearance of absolute confidence in the suspect’s
integrity. A classic example of this device is found in the Russian
writer Dostoieffsky’s “Crime and Punishment.” The skillful “shot” is
usually far more disconcerting than evidence produced openly to
overwhelm. For the suspect assumes that the examiner really knows
nothing, and has merely blundered. So he is on his guard outwardly. But
he also worries inwardly, and this trying conflict between inner doubt
and the need for keeping up outer calm will often break him down
completely.
Dougherty’s “shot” was a photograph of Kinsman.
By pre-arrangement an assistant came into the office and began turning
over some papers on the Commissioner’s desk. The photo of Kinsman popped
out where Montani could see it plainly, and then was hurriedly put out
of sight again. The Commissioner scolded his assistant, and the latter
stood shamefaced and silent.
But in this instance the device failed.
Montani not only betrayed no interest in Kinsman’s picture, but took the
awkward assistant’s part, and asked the Commissioner not to scold him.
Montani had planned his crime, fitted the plan with men, laid out every
detail in his mind, and arranged his story beforehand. He expected to be
arrested, and said so. He admitted that there were inconsistencies in
his story, but hoped to clear them up. He had discussed the crime with
Jess and Dutch, and had not been seen in the company of the other
criminals. So, having settled on his story, Montani stuck to it without
variation under every form of pressure. Others forgot what they had
arranged as their defense, or departed from it, or broke down and
confessed. But not Montani. He alone went to trial, and stuck to his
story until the end.
_The “Orange Growers” in Chicago_
When Daly and Clare, the two New York detectives working as the “Orange
Growers,” arrived in Chicago, they went to Police Headquarters in that
city, made inquiries about Kinsman and Splaine, and secured the aid of
Chicago detectives. Then they put up at a hotel where, by arrangements
with the house detective, they occupied a room on the second floor handy
to a little-used stairway leading to a side street, which would make it
easy to slip in and out without going through the lobby. On the trip
from New York both of them had neglected shaving, and Daly was an
especially tough-looking citizen, for his beard grows out stiff and
bristly, with black and red intermixed, and a little green to help the
general effect. With suits of old clothes and sweaters they were so
little like their official selves that for several days, though they
went rather freely around resorts frequented by crooks who knew them in
New York, they were not recognized.
The “Orange Growers” now became a pair of hardened “yeggmen,” or bank
robbers, and for three days were busy visiting thieves’ haunts all over
the city, from the Levee district to the Stockyards. It was found that
Kinsman and Splaine had put up at a high-class boarding house in a
fashionable residence section. Kinsman seemed to be doubtful about the
impression Splaine might make there, though in the opinion of the police
Splaine was by far the more intelligent of the pair. So he took the
landlady aside and asked her, privately, if she had objections to a
prize-fighter in her house. The landlady replied, “Why, no! if he is a
gentleman—many prize-fighters are just like other people!” Thereupon,
Kinsman undertook that Splaine should behave himself. He also wanted to
know if valuables were safe there, and the astonished landlady assured
him that her house was like a home, that the guests were like one big
family and seldom locked their doors, and that Mr. Smith, well known as
an officer in one of the leading banks, had lived there for years.
The pair had spent considerable time in criminal haunts, but had now
disappeared. Kinsman, as it was learned later, had returned to New York.
Splaine was apparently in Chicago still, spending his money, but the two
“Orange Growers” seemed never to catch up with him. Their man had always
gone around the corner within the past hour.
Finally they planned a ruse with the aid of two Chicago detectives.
Splaine had been intimate with a certain woman of the underworld, known
as “Josie.” Clare went to her, represented himself as a “stick-up man,”
said he and his partner were after that guy with all the money and
diamonds, meaning Splaine, and that they meant to rob him. If Josie
worked with them, like a good girl, she would come in for her third of
the plunder.
Josie professed ignorance. She was sure, so help her Mike, cross her
heart, that she knew nothing about no gent with any money or diamonds—no
such a party had been near the house in months, worse luck. Clare argued
awhile with no results, and then said he would come back a little later
and bring his pal. Then Daly was introduced to Josie as the extremely
undesirable citizen who would do the strong-arm work. But Josie still
insisted that she had no idea what they were talking about.
They went out, and within a few minutes the two Chicago detectives,
Dempsey and McFarland, known by Josie as officers, came in, described
the disguised Clare and Daly as two of the most desperate “yeggmen” in
the country, said that they had warrants for them, and asked if they had
been seen. Josie crossed her heart again, and said that there had been
nobody around there all evening—believe her, it was like living the
simple life, and if things kept on bein’ so quiet she’d blow the town
and go back to Keokuk.
Then, enter the two “Orange Growers” once more, to be warned by the fair
Josie.
“Say, the bulls are after you boys, an’ you better pull your freight,
‘cause if you stay around here they’re goin’ to _get_ you.”
“Aw, hell!” was the reply, “We’d just as lieve kill a cop or anybody
else. We stick in this house till you tell us where we can reach that
guy with the money and the diamonds—understand?”
Then Josie broke down, and told them Splaine had been there early in the
evening, but had gone away to take a train out of town. She did not know
the railroad, and urged them to leave. This was evidently the truth, so
they hurried to Police Headquarters, telegraphed descriptions to other
cities with a request that arriving trains be watched, and went to bed
to get a little sleep, so that they could be at work early the next
morning.
But in the morning word came from the Memphis Police that Splaine had
been arrested there on alighting from a train, and they thereupon
notified New York, went to Memphis, secured Splaine on extradition
papers, and brought him back to the metropolis.
_The Traps Are Sprung_
On Saturday afternoon, February 24, while most of the energy of the
Detective Bureau was centered on the taxicab case, a brutal murder was
committed in Brooklyn.
Word came that a Flatbush merchant had been found dead in his store,
shot by unknown criminals whose motive was robbery. They had taken his
watch and five safety razors.
Inspector Hughes was sent to the scene of the crime, and Commissioner
Dougherty quickly followed. The murder occurred about one p. m. By six
o’clock the same day the number of the watch had been learned through a
canvass of jewelers in the neighborhood, it being on record by one of
them who had repaired it, and the watch and two of the safety razors had
been found in pawnshops. Descriptions of the murderers were obtained,
and by three o’clock Sunday, the following day, their identity had been
established. Within thirty hours after the crime these men had been
arrested, positively identified as the pawners of the stolen articles,
and completely tied up in their own statements.
At half-past nine Sunday night, while the Commissioner, Inspector Hughes
and Captain Coughlin, in charge of Brooklyn detectives, and Lieutenant
Riley were winding up their work on this murder case, word suddenly came
over the telephone to Commissioner Dougherty from an informant that
Eddie Kinsman had been seen in New York with “Swede Annie,” and that he
was accompanied by an unknown man, wearing a red necktie, supposed to be
Gene Splaine. At the same time Matron Goodwin, stationed inside Annie’s
lodgings, telephoned that she had information indicating that Kinsman
had returned to the city.
When the Commissioner motored over to New York, he found his men
covering a hotel on Third avenue, not far from 42d street. Kinsman and
Annie were inside.
The Commissioner hurried to the 18th precinct police station and sent
out a call for twenty-five detectives. Team work on the case had
developed to such a degree by this time that, though the men came from
many stations, they were all on hand in record time, a matter of twenty
or thirty minutes. Then a squad of these plain-clothes men was sent to
watch every railroad station and ferry house, each accompanied by one of
the men from “Plant 21,” familiar with Annie from having followed her
movements for a week. Surveillance on the hotel was strengthened, and
steps taken to ascertain whether the unknown man in the red tie was
really Splaine.
While making these arrangements, a curious incident occurred, showing
how small is New York, after all, with its five million people. As
Dougherty sat in the 18th precinct station, Detective Rein brought in a
prisoner arrested for shooting a citizen. He was drunk and extremely
disagreeable, and gave his name as “Steigel,” living at 98 Third avenue.
Something in this address echoed to something in Dougherty’s memory—a
keen one for names, dates, addresses and facts generally. He
investigated further, and found that this prisoner was no other than the
criminal Molloy, whose urgent need of “character witnesses” had played
so important a part in furnishing the first information in the taxicab
case.
By some mischance, these operations came to the ears of the newspaper
men. Word went about, beginning in Brooklyn, that important arrests were
to be made. The reporters followed the Commissioner in a crowd when he
refused to make a statement. They not only hampered the work, but
greatly endangered the outcome. On the following day, Monday, the papers
published information about the police activities of the night before.
The hazard here may be appreciated when the reader is told that Kinsman
had been a persistent reader of newspapers from the day of the robbery,
and that it was largely the pessimistic newspaper comment upon Montani’s
release in court that led him to return to New York. Deceived by the
newspaper chorus of “police demoralization,” and the easy way in which
Montani had got free, he concluded that the taxicab investigation had
been given up as hopeless.
Kinsman was arrested in the Grand Central Station at half-past eleven
Monday morning, with Swede Annie and the unknown in the red tie. They
were about to set out for Boston.
There were some amusing circumstances in the arrest.
Kinsman’s immunity over night, and police precaution in deferring the
arrest until the last moment, on the chance that other persons would
join the party, gave him a false confidence. He afterward admitted that
ideas of a “pinch” at that time were far from his mind.
When a criminal thought to be dangerous is to be arrested in a crowded
place like the Grand Central Station, police officers operate by methods
that prevent a struggle. As two detectives closed in on the party,
Kinsman watched one of them out of the corner of his eye. While a waiter
at the “Nutshell Café” he had often thrown objectionable guests out onto
the sidewalk. He now fancied that one of the detectives resembled a man
he had once “bounced,” and was ready to fight if attacked.
“I was just folding it up,” he said, referring to his fist, “and getting
ready to land on him when one had me from behind and the other in front.
Then I knew they were cops.”
Annie was gorgeously dressed in a new blue suit and fine fur coat,
bought out of the taxicab money. The unknown man proved to be Kinsman’s
brother, who had come down from Boston with him. Kinsman had visited his
native city before returning to New York, but had escaped the police net
there by stopping at a hotel and sending for his brother. He sent a grip
home by this brother, and it was afterward found to contain three
packages of bills of $250 each in the original wrappers of the bank.
As soon as word of these arrests was telephoned to Police Headquarters,
the other traps were sprung. Detectives brought in Montani, Jess
Albrazzo and Myrtle Horn, the latter, with Annie, being held as
witnesses.
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