capital, to cover all telegraphic points, and, if possible, have
Crawford and his companion arrested on some trivial charge. The day
after he reached San Pedro, on March 22, he received a telegram saying
that Crawford and Neiland had been arrested and taken before the
governor at Santa Barbara. They had been searched, and about
thirty-two thousand dollars had been found on Crawford's person. The
money was in old and worn bills that in every way resembled those in
the stolen package. Whether they were the identical bills or not it
was impossible to say, as the bank had not recorded the numbers.
On receipt of this news, Hotchkiss, accompanied by Jack Hall, a guide,
set out across the country for Santa Barbara. The journey was
accomplished, but only after the most terrible suffering and many
privations and dangers. Moreover, the fever got its deadly clutches
upon detective Hotchkiss; and when he had finally dragged himself into
Santa Barbara, he cabled the New York office: "Crawford and money held
for extradition. Am sick. Cannot remain. Coming on steamer Tuesday. My
associate takes charge."
Before sailing for New Orleans detective Hotchkiss had an interview
with Crawford, in the presence of the Spanish officials, and obtained
from him a written confession of his guilt. While admitting that he
had been a party to the robbery, the absconder tried to lessen his own
crime by declaring that the plan to plunder the bank had been
suggested to him by two men, named Brown and Bowen, whom he had met
accidentally on a railway-train in New York, and with whom he had
afterward become very friendly. These men had taken him to Brown's
house on Thirty-eighth Street, somewhere between Eighth and Ninth
avenues (Crawford could not locate the place more precisely), and
introduced him to a fine-looking woman presented as Mrs. Brown, who
was also in the conspiracy. They told him that he was earning very
little money for a man in such a responsible position, and that he
might easily make a fortune if he would put his interests in their
hands and be guided by their advice.
The outcome of several conversations was a plan to get possession of a
valuable money package on some day when Crawford should know a large
sum was to be sent away from the bank. He claimed that on the day of
the robbery one of his fellow-conspirators, Bowen, followed behind
himself and Earle after they entered the Adams express offices, and
managed to substitute a bogus package for the real one while the two
messengers were going up the stairs. He did not make this attempt
until he saw the bank detective McDougal turn back up Broadway.
Crawford said that he managed it so as to precede Earle in going up
the stairs, which gave Bowen, who was standing at the first turn, in
the shadow, an opportunity to open the satchel and quickly make the
substitution. Crawford declared that the conspirators gave him only
twenty-five hundred dollars as his share of the booty, although
promising him more. This sum he put in two envelops and sent to his
aunt, the one to whom he afterward intrusted the package supposed to
contain gloves.
Crawford stated further that Brown and Bowen, having been forced to
flee the country, sent him word from Paris, some time later, in a
letter written by Mrs. Brown, that the greater part of the stolen
money had been buried in a flower-bed in the southeast corner of a
yard on West Thirty-eighth Street, and asked him to dig it up and send
it to them. A remarkable fact in this connection is that the yard
referred to on West Thirty-eighth Street belonged to the house of the
friend and benefactor with whom Crawford was living at the time of the
robbery.
Crawford claimed to have carried out these instructions, and deposited
the package of money taken from the flower-bed in the safe-deposit
vaults in the Fifth Avenue Hotel building, where, as a matter of fact,
he was known to have rented a box. He gave as his reason for not
sending the money to Paris that he was in trouble himself, being under
constant surveillance, and thought it best to keep the money secreted
for the time. He admitted that he had carried this money with him to
Honduras, and that it was the same found on his person by the
detectives. By his description of Brown and Bowen, the former was a
man about twenty-five years old, of slight build and light complexion,
while the latter was ten years older, two or three inches taller, with
a sandy mustache and very fat hands. Mrs. Brown Crawford described as
about twenty-five years old, a blonde, with regular features. He had
no idea what had become of these people since he left America, having
had no further communication with them. None of the alleged
conspirators has ever been found, and they are believed to be purely
mythical.
Detective Hotchkiss also had an interview with "Mike" Neiland,
Crawford's companion in flight, who described his first meeting with
Crawford at his boarding-house in San Pedro, and acknowledged that he
had deliberately frightened Crawford into running away by his story of
the pursuing detectives. He described their adventures and hardships
in trying to escape over the rough country, the difficulties they
experienced in buying mules, their sufferings from exposure in the
swamps, and finally their capture by the soldiers. Neiland said that
Crawford gave him three thousand dollars in fifty-dollar bills, and
also allowed him to carry, a part of the time, a large package wrapped
in oil-cloth paper and sewed up tightly. Crawford had told him to
throw this package away rather than let any one capture it; for, he
said, it contained money which would send him to prison if found upon
him.
As they pushed along in their flight, Crawford declared repeatedly
that he would put an end to his life rather than be taken prisoner;
and when the soldiers surrounded them he drew his revolver and tried
to blow his brains out. One of the soldiers, however, was too quick
for him, and struck the weapon out of his hand. After the capture
Crawford vainly tried to bribe the guards to let him escape, offering
them as much as ten thousand dollars. When the large package was
opened, it was found to contain bundles of bills sewed together with
black thread, and with about a dozen rubber bands wrapped around them,
and a stout covering of buckskin under the oiled paper. The money
amounted to thirty-two thousand five hundred dollars, all in United
States bills--fives, tens, twenties, fifties, and hundreds, but mostly
fives. Ultimately the money was returned to the American Exchange
Bank.
When organizing the pursuit of Crawford, detective Hotchkiss had
arranged with the Honduras government that any letters and telegrams
that might come addressed to the absconder should be delivered to him.
Several letters were thus secured from the young man about town in New
York who had befriended Crawford so constantly in the past, and who
seemed now disposed to stand by him even in adversity and disgrace.
The letters contained counsel and reproaches, and seemed to indicate
that relations of unusual familiarity had existed between the two men.
Besides these letters, two cablegrams were intercepted from the same
source, both being sent through an intermediary. The first was dated
March 15, 1890, and read: "Tell Crawford go back. Papers bluff. No
treaty exists." The second, sent two days later, read: "Inform
Crawford will meet him in Puerto Cortes."
It is needless to say that the young man did not carry out his
intention of joining Crawford in Honduras, for the same mail which
would have brought him Crawford's reply carried the startling news
that his protege and friend was under arrest in Santa Barbara, a
self-confessed bank robber.
The government of Honduras consented, thanks to their friendly
relations with the Pinkertons, to deliver Crawford over to one of the
representatives of the agency, and superintendent E. S. Gaylor, who
had meantime replaced detective Hotchkiss, took him in charge. A guard
of Spanish soldiers brought the prisoner to Puerto Cortes, where he
was placed in a hotel pending his transfer to a vessel sailing for the
United States. Superintendent Gaylor himself was present to see that
everything was managed properly, and he was seconded in his oversight
by the former Pinkerton employee, the head of the secret police in
Honduras. The final arrangements had been made, the government having
taken advantage of a law authorizing the expulsion of "pernicious
foreigners" in order to get rid of Crawford. The superintendent had
actually taken passage for himself and Crawford, and selected berths,
on an American vessel that was to sail on the morning of May 2, 1890;
but the night before Crawford made his escape from the hotel, going
without the money, which remained in the detective's keeping. How he
escaped is still a matter of conjecture. The hotel stood on the
water's edge, and from a balcony to which Crawford had access he may
have managed to spring down to a wall built on piles. From there he
may have reached the hotel yard at the back, and escaped over one of
the picket fences that separated the hotel from the adjoining
property. There is also a possibility that the Spanish soldiers were
bribed; but this has never been proved, and is scarcely probable, as
Crawford at the time of his escape had not more than seventy-five
dollars in Honduras bills in his possession.
During the following days and weeks untiring efforts were made to
recapture him. The swamps were searched for miles, and soldiers were
sent out in all directions. Mr. Gaylor believed that Crawford
succeeded in making his escape into Guatemala, which was only thirty
miles distant. He was undoubtedly assisted in his escape by the fact
that people in the surrounding region sympathized strongly with him
and would have done anything in their power to conceal him from his
pursuers. At any rate, the man was never recovered.
Seven years have passed since Crawford's escape, and all this time he
has been left undisturbed in Central America, where he has been
frequently seen by people who know him, and where he seems to be
thriving. At last accounts he and his brother were engaged in business
on one of the islands in the Mosquito Reservation of Nicaragua, where
they were regarded as dangerous men by the government, likely to
incite revolution. So strong was this feeling on the part of the
Nicaraguan officials that some years ago advances were made to the
United States government to have Crawford surrendered, the Nicaraguan
officials declaring that they would gladly give him up if a demand for
his extradition was made by the proper authorities in Washington. For
some reason the demand has never been made, and probably never will
be.
Immediately after Crawford had made confession, the American Exchange
Bank, realizing that there was no longer any doubt that the robbery
was committed by one of its employees, voluntarily refunded to the
Adams Express Company the forty-one thousand dollars that had
previously been paid to it by the company, together with interest
thereon for two years, and a large part of the expenses. Therefore the
only complainant in the case now available would be the bank
officials, who, for some reason, have seen fit to let the matter drop.
Mr. Pinkerton's theory of the way in which this robbery was committed
is that Crawford had an accomplice who had previously prepared the
bogus package, and who, by previous appointment, was standing on the
stairs in the express office when the two messengers arrived. It has
always been a question in Mr. Pinkerton's mind whether the old man
Dominie Earle told the exact truth in his testimony before the bank
officials. Not that he suspected Earle of having been implicated in
the crime, but he has wondered whether Earle might not have been
simply negligent to the extent of leaving Crawford in sole possession
of the valise at some time after they entered the office. There is no
doubt that Earle was very anxious to catch a four-o'clock train at one
of the New Jersey ferries, in order to get home early. He may, in his
haste, have allowed Crawford to go up-stairs with the valise
unaccompanied.
This would explain how Crawford found opportunity to open the valise
and make substitution of the bogus for the genuine package. Assuming
that the accomplice was standing at a turn of the stairs, which are
winding and rather dusky, it is perfectly conceivable that such a
change of packages might have been effected with scarcely a moment's
delay.
But consenting that Earle told the exact truth, he admitted that he
lingered behind Crawford a little in ascending the stairs, and in so
doing he may have furnished sufficient opportunity for the
substitution. An old man going up rather steep stairs naturally bends
his head forward to relieve the ascent, and in such position he might
fail to see what a man close in front of him even was doing. The
trouble with this theory is that it supposes the label on the bogus
package to have been a forgery.
There is still another theory suggested by Mr. Pinkerton to account
for the presence of the bogus money package in the valise when the two
messengers reached the counter of the receiving department. It is that
Crawford's confederate had provided himself with a second valise,
similar in all respects to the one used by the bank, and that in this
had been placed the bogus package with a forged label, making the
substitution a matter of merely changing valises, which could have
been accomplished in a second. It has also been suggested that
Crawford might have managed the whole scheme himself, by having
prepared a valise like the one he carried daily, arranged with two
compartments, in one of which was placed the genuine package received
from the paying-teller at the bank, while out of the other compartment
was taken at the express office a bogus package previously placed
there. What makes it the more reasonable to suppose that Crawford
accomplished the theft single-handed is the fact that when arrested in
Honduras the bulk of the stolen money was found on his person, while
it was known that, in addition to the thirty-two thousand dollars then
recovered, he had previously spent considerable sums in various ways.
His voyage, for instance, must have been expensive; and it was found
that he had given at various times to members of his family sums
ranging from twenty to fifty dollars. This would have left out of the
original forty-one thousand dollars a very meager remuneration for a
confederate.
Perhaps the most reasonable explanation of the robbery lies in the
assumption that Dominie Earle, honest, but simple-minded, did not go
up-stairs at all with Crawford, but left him at the foot of the
stairs, influenced by his eagerness to get home. Granting this
supposition, what would have been easier than for Crawford, left alone
at the foot of the stairs, to have turned back with the valise and
gone into the back room of some neighboring saloon, or other
convenient place, where he could manipulate the label and substitute
the bogus package? There is reason to think that the bogus package had
been prepared weeks before, which would have accounted in a measure
for its worn and slovenly appearance. The time occupied in doing all
this need not have been over fifteen minutes, which would not have
been noticed at the bank, especially as the robbery occurred after
banking hours. It is highly improbable, however, that Crawford could
have accomplished the substitution on the stairs of the express
office; for, while these are winding and somewhat in the shadow, they
are by no means dark, and are plainly in view of clerks and officials
who are constantly passing. Besides that, Crawford could not have
carried the dummy package concealed about his person without
attracting attention, for the original package was quite bulky, being
about twenty inches long, twenty inches wide, and fourteen inches
thick. The bogus package was not quite so thick, and more oblong, but
could not easily have been hidden under a man's coat. Finally, even
supposing Crawford did carry the bogus package with him in some
manner, he would never have dared to expose himself to almost certain
detection by cutting off the label from the genuine package, pasting
it on the bogus package, placing the latter in the valise, and hiding
the genuine one in his clothes--and doing all this on the busy stairs
of an express office where at that hour of the day a dozen men are
going up and down every minute.
The sum of all these theories is, however, that, in spite of the fact
that the author of the robbery is known and the bulk of the money has
been recovered, the manner of the robbery is to this day a mystery.
* * * * *
End of Project Gutenberg's True Detective Stories, by Cleveland Moffett