The Devil throws double sixes when he turns genius heliward.
The next morning after the events last narrated I was utterly dumfounded
by an article which met my gaze the instant I took up my paper. It was
several moments before I sufficiently recovered my faculties to read
it aloud to Gwen, Alice, and Jeannette, all of whom had noticed my
excitement, and were waiting with such patience as they could command.
I read the following article through from beginning to end without pause
or comment:
M. Godin Anticipates the Law.--The Real Murderer of John Darrow
Writes His Confession and Then Suicides in His Cell.--Contrived
to Mix His Own Poison Under the Very Nose of His Jailer!--
The Dorchester Mystery Solved at Last.--Full Description of the
Life of One of the Cleverest Criminals of the Century.
At 4.30 this morning M. Godin was found dead in his cell, No. 26, at
Charles Street Jail. The manner of his death might still be a mystery
had he not left a written confession of his crime and the summary manner
of his taking off. This was written yesterday afternoon and evening,
M. Godin being permitted to have a light on the ground that he had
important legal documents to prepare for use on the morrow. We give
below the confession in full.
“I am beaten at a game in which I did my own shuffling. I never believe
in trying to bluff a full hand. Had I had but ordinary detectives
with whom to deal, I make bold to say I should have come off rich and
triumphant. I had no means of knowing that I was to play with a chemist
who would use against me the latest scientific implements of criminal
warfare. It is, therefore, to the extraordinary means used for my
detection that I impute my defeat, rather than to any bungling of my
own. This is a grim consolation, but it is still a consolation, for I
have always prided myself upon being an artist in my line. As I propose
to put myself beyond the reach of further cross-examination, I take this
opportunity to make a last statement of such things as I care to have
known. After this is finished I shall sup on acetate of lead and bid
good-night to the expectant public.
“Lest some may marvel how I came by this poison, and even lay suspicions
upon my jailers, let me explain that there is a small piece of lead
water-pipe crossing the west angle of my room. This being Sunday, I was
permitted to have beans and brown bread for breakfast. I asked for a
little vinegar for my beans, and a small cruet was brought to me. I had
no difficulty in secreting a considerable quantity of the vinegar in
order that I might, when occasion served, apply it to the lead pipe.
This I have done, and have now by me enough acetate of lead to kill a
dozen men. This form of death will not be particularly pleasant, I am
aware, but I prefer it to its only alternative. So much for that.
“I was horn in Marseilles, and my right name is Jean Fouchet. My father
intended me for the priesthood, and gave me a good college education in
Paris. His hopes, however, were destined to disappointment. In college I
formed the habit of gambling, and a year after my graduation found me
at Monte Carlo. While there I quarrelled with a gambling accomplice and
ended by killing him. This made my stay in France dangerous for me,
and I took the first opportunity which presented itself to embark for
America.
“Familiarity with criminals had made me familiar with crime, and I added
the occupation of detective to my profession of gambling. These two
avocations had now become my sole means of support, and I plied my
trades in New York, Boston, and Philadelphia for several years, during
which time I became a naturalised citizen of the United States.
“When the Cuban rebellion broke out I could not restrain my longing for
adventure, and joined a filibustering expedition sailing from New York.
I did this from no love I bore the Cuban cause, but merely for the
excitement it promised. While handling a heavy shot during my first
engagement I accidentally dropped it upon my left foot, crushing that
member so badly that it has never regained its shape. This deformity has
rendered it impossible for me to conceal my identity. Three months after
this accident I was taken prisoner by the Spanish and shipped to Spain
as a political malefactor. A farce of a trial was granted to me, not
to see whether or not I was guilty, but simply to determine between the
dungeon and the garrote. It would have been far better for me had I been
sentenced to the latter instead of the former.
“As a political offender I was doomed to imprisonment at Ceuta, an old
Moorish seaport town in Morocco, opposite Gibraltar and upon the side of
the ancient mountain Abyla. This mountain forms one of the ‘Pillars
of Hercules,’ the Rock of Gibraltar being the other. It is almost
impregnable, and is used by Spain as Siberia is used by Russia, only it
is far, far more horrible. The town was built by the Moors in 945, and
nowhere else on earth are there to be found an equal number of devices
for the torture of human beings. If anyone thinks the horrors of the
Inquisition are no longer perpetrated let him get sent to Ceuta: I have
good cause to believe that the Inquisition itself is far from dead in
Spain. Alas for the person who is sent to Ceuta! The town is small,
and, to guard against possible attack, the Moors constructed a chain of
fortresses around it. It is in the black cellars of these disintegrating
fortresses that the dungeons are located. They are in tiers to the depth
of fifty or sixty feet, and are hewn out of the solid rock. They are
reached through narrow openings in the stone floors of the fortresses,
and when one of these horrible holes is opened the foul odor of filth
and decomposition is utterly overpowering. Some of these dungeons
contain as many as thirty or forty men. I was placed in a cell reserved
for solitary confinement. I have never been a man who regarded life
seriously, or feared to risk it upon sufficient occasion, but my heart
froze within me when the horror of my situation was revealed to me. A
stone box perhaps eight feet square--as I lay upon the floor I could
touch its opposite sides with my hands and feet--had been prepared for
my entrance by cutting a slit in one of its walls just large enough for
the passage of my body. Through this narrow opening I was dropped into
the total darkness within. A blacksmith followed and welded my fetters,
for locks and keys are never used. A chain having a heavy weight pendant
from it was riveted to my ankle, and an iron band was similarly fastened
to my waist. This band was fastened by a chain to an iron ring deeply
sunk in the solid rock. When these horrible preparations were completed
the blacksmith left me and a mason bricked up the slit through which
I had entered, leaving only a hand-breadth of space for air and the
thrusting through of such scraps of food as were to be allowed me.
Language is powerless to describe the feelings of a man in such a
position. He realises that his only hope is in disease--disease bred of
the darkness, the dampness, the starvation, and the horrible filth.
He says to himself: ‘How long, O God! how long?’--For hours I remained
prone and inert--how long I do not know; night and day are all one in
the dungeons of Ceuta. Then I began to think. Could I escape? I felt
that all power of thought, all cleverness would soon desert me, and I
said to myself: ‘If anything is to be done, it must be done at once.’ I
knew not then what long-drawn horrors a mortal could endure. Whenever
I attempted to walk the iron mass fastened to my leg would ‘bring me up
short,’ often, in my early forgetfulness of it, throwing me prone upon
my face. After a little I learned to move with a halting gait, striding
out with the free limb and pausing to pull my burden after me with the
other. This habit, learned in the squalor and darkness of the dungeon
hells of Ceuta, I have never been able to unlearn.
“It was many days before I could see how anything short of a miracle
could enable me to escape. I tried to calmly reason it all out, and
every time came to the same horrible conclusion, viz.: I must rot there
unless help came to me from without. This seemed impossible, and all the
horrors of a lingering death stared me in the face. Every two or three
days one of the jailers would come to the slit in the masonry and leave
there a dish of water and a few crusts of bread. I tried on one occasion
to speak with him, but he only laughed in my face and turned away.
Finally I hit upon a plan which seemed to offer the only possible means
of escape. In my college days I was well acquainted with M. Charcot, and
even assisted in some of his earlier hypnotic experiments. The subject
interested me, and I followed it closely till I became something of
an adept myself. There were in those days but few people I could not
mesmerise, provided sufficient opportunity were allowed me for hypnotic
suggestion. I determined to see if any of this old power still remained
with me, and, if so, to strive to render my jailer subservient to my
will. But how should I keep him within ear-shot long enough to work upon
him? Clearly all appeals to pity were useless. I must excite his greed,
nothing else would reach him. This was not an easy thing to do without
a sou in my possession, yet I did it. When I heard his step I crawled
to the opening in the wall and mumbled in a crazy sort of a way about a
hidden treasure. At the word ‘treasure’ I saw him pause and listen, but
I pretended not to be aware of his presence and rambled on, in a loose,
disjointed fashion, about piracies committed by me and the great amount
of booty I had secreted. My plan worked perfectly. The jailer came to
the aperture in the wall and called me to him. Muttering incoherently,
I obeyed. He asked me what offence brought me there, and I, with a good
deal of intentional misunderstanding, told him I was a pirate and a
smuggler. He asked me where the treasure I had been talking about
was hidden. My reply,--I remember the exact words in which I couched
it,--made him mine completely. I said: ‘We buried it near Fez--
Treasure? I don’t know anything about any treasure.’
“To all the many questions he then asked me I returned only incoherent
replies, but I was careful to be again raving about buried riches upon
the next visit. In this way I kept him by me long enough to influence
him, and in less than a month he was completely subject to my will.
I tested my power over him in divers ways. Any delicacy I wished I
compelled him to bring me. In this way I was enabled to regain a portion
of my lost strength. When I concluded the time had come for me to make
good my escape, I caused him to come to my cell at midnight and remove
the bricks from the slit while I put on the disguise he had brought
me. Once out of my stone tomb we carefully walled it up again and then
departed to find my imaginary hidden treasure. We made our way without
trouble to Algiers, for my companion had money, and sailed thence via
Gibraltar for England. During the trip my companion jumped overboard and
was drowned in the Bay of Biscay. Thus I was completely freed from Ceuta
and its terrible pest-hole.
“From England I sailed to New York, reaching America penniless and in
ill health. Things not going to my liking in New York, I came to Boston
and took up my old callings of gambler and detective. It was at this
time that I saw John Darrow’s curious notice in the newspaper, offering,
in the event of his murder, a most liberal reward to anyone who would
bring the assassin to justice.
“Mon Dieu! How I needed money. I would have bartered my soul for a tithe
of that amount. It was the old, old story, only new in Eden. Ah! but how
I loved her! She must have money, money, always money! That was ever her
cry. When I could not supply it she sought it of others, and this drove
me mad. If, I said to myself, I could only get this reward! This was
something really worth working for, and if I could but get it, she
should be mine only. I at once set to work upon the problem.
“It was not an easy thing to solve. I might be able to hire a man to do
the deed for me, but he would hardly be willing to hang for it without
disclosing my part in the transaction. It was at this time that I first
met M. Latour on Decatur Street. He at once impressed me as being just
the man I wanted, and I began to gradually subdue his will. In this
circumstances greatly aided me. When I found him he was in very poor
health and without any means of sustenance. His daughter was able to
earn a little, but not nearly enough to keep the wolf from the door. Add
to this that he had a cancer, which several physicians had assured him
would prove fatal within a year, that he was afflicted with an almost
insane fear that his daughter would come to want after his death, and
you have before you the conditions which determined my course. My first
thought was to influence him to do the deed himself, but, recalling the
researches of M. Charcot in these matters, I came to the conclusion
that such a course would be almost certain to lead to detection, since
a hypnotic subject can only be depended upon so long as the conditions
under which he acts are precisely those which have been suggested to
him. Any unforeseen variations in these conditions and he fails to act,
exposes everything, and the whole carefully planned structure falls to
the ground. When, therefore, the time came which I had set for the deed,
I found it possible to drug M. Latour, abduct him from his home, and
to keep him confined and unconscious until I had killed Mr. Darrow in
a manner I will describe in due course. As soon as I had committed the
murder and established what I fondly believed would be a perfect alibi
in my attendance at the examination, I secretly conveyed the
still unconscious M. Latour to his rooms and awaited his return to
consciousness. I then asked him how he came in such a state and what
he was doing in Dorchester. He was, of course, ignorant of everything.
Little by little I worked upon him till he came to believe himself
guilty of John Darrow’s murder.
“I had availed myself of his interest in the subject of cancer to get
him to the library. It is one of my maxims never to take an avoidable
risk, for which reason I made Latour apply for the books I wanted,
as well as for the medical works he desired to peruse. As he was
ambidextrous, I suggested the use of the two names Weltz and Rizzi, the
former to be written with his right and the latter with his left hand.
I was actuated in all this by two motives. First, I was manufacturing
evidence which might stand me in good stead later, as well as minimising
somewhat my own risk in getting the information I needed; and, secondly,
I was getting Latour into a good atmosphere for my hypnotic influence.
Not a word of all these matters did he relate to his daughter, whom he
loves with a devotion I have never seen equalled. Indeed, it was this
very affection that made my plan feasible. When I had convinced him he
was a murderer I showed him Mr. Darrow’s curious advertisement offering
a reward, should he be assassinated, to anyone bringing about the
conviction of his assailant.
“‘In a year,’ I said to him, ‘you will die of cancer, if your crime
be not previously discovered and punished. Your daughter will then
be penniless. How much better for you to permit me in a few months
to accuse you of the murder. You then confess; I claim and secure
the reward and secretly divide with you; you are sentenced; but as
considerable time will transpire between this and the date set for your
execution, you in the meantime will die of cancer, leaving Jeannette
well provided for.’
“I think my influence over him would have been sufficient to have
compelled him to all this, could he have reasoned out no benefit
accruing to himself or daughter by such a course, but with circumstances
thus in my favour my task was an easy one. The public knows all it need
know of what occurred after this. This man, Maitland, was in the next
room to Latour’s, overheard our conversation, and even phonographed our
words and photographed our positions. It has always been a matter of
pride with me to gracefully acknowledge that three aces are not so good
as a full house, therefore I confess myself beaten, though not subdued.
“I consider this the very best tribute I can pay to the genius of the
man who has undone me. I take my punishment, however, into my own hands.
“In my haste to have done with all this and to start on my long and
chartless journey, I had well-nigh forgotten to tell just how I killed
Mr. Darrow. No hypodermic syringe had anything to do with it. The while
plan came to me while reading that fatal page upon which I left my
telltale thumb-signature in my search for some feasible plan of
making away with my victim. I need not go into particulars, for I know
perfectly well that this Maitland knows to a nicety how the thing was
done. The Daboia Russellii, or Russell’s viper, is one of the best known
and most deadly of Indian vipers. I procured one of these reptiles at
the cost of great delay and some slight risk. That is the whole story.
On the night of the murder I took the viper in a box and went down to
the water-front, near the Darrow estate. Here I cut a small pole from a
clump of alders, made a split in one end of it, and thrust it over the
tail of the viper. It pinched him severely and held him fast despite his
angry struggles to free himself and to attack anything within his reach.
All that remained to be done was to thrust this through the window into
the darkened room and to bring the viper within reach of Mr. Darrow.
This I did, being careful to crouch so as not to obstruct the light of
the window. When I heard my victim’s outcry I withdrew the pole, and
with it, of course, the viper, and made good my escape. That the reptile
bit Mr. Darrow under the chin while his back was toward the window was
mere chance, though I regarded it as a very lucky occurrence, since it
seemed to render the suicide theory at first inevitable.
“I had had some fear lest the hissing of the viper might have been
heard, for which reason I hazarded the only question I asked at the
examination, and was completely reassured by its answer. I should
perhaps state that my purpose in keeping in the background at this
examination was my desire to avoid attracting attention to my deformed
foot and my halting gait. This latter I had taken pains to conceal at my
entrance, but I knew that the first step I took in forgetfulness would
expose my halting habit. I had no fear of either Osborne or Allen, but
there was something about this Maitland that bade me at once be on my
guard, and, as I have said before, I never take an avoidable risk.
For this reason I sat at once in the darkest corner I could find and
remained there throughout the examination. I thought it extremely
unlikely, though possible, that an attempt might be made to track the
assassin with dogs, yet, since that is precisely the first thing I
myself would have done, I decided that the risk was worth avoiding. I
accordingly set the boat adrift to indicate an escape by water, and then
waded along the beach for half a mile or so, carrying the pole, boards,
etc., with me. As I kept where the water was at least six inches deep I
knew no dog could follow my trail. At the point where I left the water
I sat down upon a rock and put on my stockings and shoes, thoroughly
saturating them at the same time with turpentine, and pouring the
remainder of the bottle upon the rock where I had sat. As I had known
prisoners escaped from Libby Prison to pass in this way undetected
within twenty feet of bloodhounds upon their trail, I felt that my
tracks had been well covered, and made all possible haste to get ready
to attend the examination with the special detail.
“And now I have finished. Before this meets any other eye than mine
I shall be dead--beyond the punishment of this world and awaiting
the punishment of the next. Lest some may fancy I do not believe
this,--thinking that if I did I could not so have acted,--let me
say there is no moral restraining power in fear. Fear is essentially
selfish, and selfishness is at the bottom of all crimes, my own among
the rest. I leave behind me none who will mourn me, and have but one
satisfaction, viz.: the knowledge that I shall be regarded as an
artist in crime. I take this occasion to bid the public an adieu not
altogether, I confess, unmixed with regrets. I am now on that eminence
called ‘Life’; in a few minutes I shall have jumped off into the
darkness, and then---all is mystery.”
When I had finished reading this article we all remained silent for a
long time. Gwen was the first to speak, and then only to say slowly, as
if thinking aloud: “And so it is all over.”