IT is quite plain,” said Randolph Mason, “that you have fallen into
the usual blunder of the common rogue. If you had wished to rob the
insurance companies, you could easily have accomplished your end without
perpetrating this crime, and thus assume the hazard of discovery and
criminal prosecution.”
Robert Gilmore looked sharply at the counsellor.
“You mean that I am seeking advice late?”
“Precisely,” said Mason. “It is the characteristic error of the
witless.”
“Well,” observed the coal operator, “in desperate positions one usually
relies on one's-self; confederates are dangerous, and usually expert
advice is difficult to obtain.” Then he laughed. “I could not advertise
for sealed bids on how the thing should be done. I did the best possible
under the circumstances, and I rather thought that I had made a clean
job of it.”
“That delusion,” muttered Mason, “is common with the amateur. Indeed, it
is the mark of him. This killing was useless. You could have gotten on as
well without it.”
The keen, gray eyes of Robert Gilmore twinkled. “I should be interested
to know how?” he said.
“At this late hour,” answered Randolph Mason, “my advice upon that
point can be of no importance. Suggestions after the fact are of little
interest and of no value. You have now to consider some method by which
you may place yourself permanently beyond the reach of the law. This is
no problem of slight moment, and, in order to meet it properly, I must
know the details of this blundering business.”
The coal operator's face grew grave and thoughtful. “I presume,” he
began, “that the priest and the attorney are accustomed to require
details and accurate confessions. I am president of the Octagon Coal
Company, as I have said, and reside in the city of Philadelphia, where
I have been engaged in active business for several years. My life beyond
that time cannot be a matter of any special importance. I may add,
however, that I had been engaged with a foreign company as a fire
insurance adjuster for the State of Illinois for some years before
coming to the East. It was while acting as an adjuster of losses that I
first met with Brown Hirst.
“An unusually large fire occurred in one of the suburban towns near
Chicago, destroying almost an entire block, and I was sent out by my
company to adjust the loss. Upon my arrival in the town I found what I
believed to be evidence of a gigantic fraud. The block had been leased
for a year by one John Hall for the purpose of doing a mammoth general
business with a great number of different departments, and almost before
Hall had opened his doors to the public this fire occurred. There was
no explanation of how the fire originated. When first noticed by the
police, about three o'clock in the morning, the building was blazing
fiercely in a dozen places, and under such headway as to be impossible
to control. The local fire department was unable to prevent the loss of
the building, but fortunately a heavy rainstorm set in and prevented a
total loss of the stock.
“In conversation with Hall, I discovered that not one domestic company
had a dollar on the building or its stock, but that the entire insurance
was carried in my company and a number of London companies usually
associated with it, and for whom I acted as general adjuster. This was
of itself a suspicious circumstance, since the insured would not be
subject to the inquisition of numberless representatives of convenient
local companies, and in a legal fight would have the prejudice against a
remote company in his favor, and, further, he would have but one man to
deal with.
“I observed immediately that Hall was a person of much shrewdness. He
talked little, but what he had to say was exceedingly free from any
suggestion of concealment or obscurity. When I came to examine the
unburned stock, my suspicions were confirmed. It was composed entirely
of bulky merchandise, evidently selected with a view to a fire.
“The manner of its arrangement in the building was exceedingly
suspicious. The boxes had been piled up before the windows in such a
manner as to prevent the firemen from entering the building even after
the iron bars had been cut, and the arrangement was such that when the
fire should gain headway and the windows be opened, the position of the
boxes would act as a sort of flue and thereby greatly assist the fire.
It was all exceedingly well planned, and if the building had been
entirely consumed, detection would have been impossible. Nothing could
have prevented this but the unforeseen storm, and had it not occurred
just when it did, Hall's scheme would have proved a masterpiece of its
kind.
“I gave the public no intimation of my conclusions concerning the
incendiary nature of the fire, but when the investigation was concluded,
I took Hall to the hotel, and told him frankly that my company would
not pay the loss, as it was quite evident that it was all a shrewdly
arranged scheme to defraud. I pointed out the suspicious circumstances,
and the irresistible conclusion that flowed from them, and said plainly
that Hall would do well to escape criminal prosecution.
“To my utter astonishment, the man expressed no surprise whatever.
When I had finished, he asked me a few searching questions intended
to determine the thoroughness of my investigation, and when he was
satisfied upon that point, he drew his chair up near to the table at
which I was seated, and quietly proposed to divide the insurance if I
would join with him and make the proper sort of report to my company.
“In handling this proposition, Hall was marvellously skilful. He assumed
to treat the matter purely as a business arrangement. He said that
the loss, although big to us, was a very small matter to the wealthy
companies which I represented, and would not be felt by them, and would
cause no man any appreciable hurt; that he had gone to infinite
pains and no little expense to perfect his plan, and nothing but the
unfortunate storm could have prevented its complete success; that he
had never intended to divide with any one, but accident against which he
could not guard had placed me in a position to secure a portion of the
very considerable sum which he had gone to so much trouble and expense
to obtain, and, appreciating this new necessity, he was quite willing
to allow me an equal division of the gain. At no time during his entire
conversation was there any suggestion of danger or any allusion to any
risk, criminal or otherwise.
“It is unnecessary, I judge, to weary you with further details. Under
the remarkable handling of this man, the element of substantial wrong
seemed to disappear from the transaction, and the result was that I
finally consented to join with him. He claimed two hundred thousand
dollars. I reported to the company a complete loss, but advised a
settlement at not more than one half of the sum claimed. This finally
led to an adjustment at about one hundred and twenty thousand dollars,
without the least suspicion of a community of interests between us.
“It would not be quite true to assume that I easily fell in with Hall's
plan, although in point of time it would seem so. Financially, I was
in a bad way; from childhood I had been poor; always poor. In money
matters, things invariably went wrong. Every hazard I had taken, every
speculation in which I had entered, had always lost, no matter how
substantial it seemed. At this time I was rather desperate, I presume.
At any rate, I joined with the scheme, and it succeeded without a jar.
“Thus I came to know Brown Hirst under his alias. We divided the money
and deposited it with a trust company in Philadelphia until such time
as we might safely join in some one of the numerous ventures which Brown
Hirst was continually planning. But he was no dreamer, this Hirst. He
knew fully the great virtue of deliberation, and insisted that I
remain with the insurance company for at least a year, and then secure
employment with another company on some reasonable pretext, and then by
some error be discharged from this company, and if possible join with
another, until finally I should drift out of the business without being
subject to speculative comment.
“These suggestions of Hirst I followed to the letter, and they resulted
as he anticipated. I had now great confidence in the ability of this
remarkable man. The details of his plans were as accurate as the pieces
of a machine, and they seemed never capable of failure.”
The coal operator paused and rested his hands on the arms of his chair.
“Even now,” he said, “I consider Brown Hirst to have been the ablest man
I ever saw.”
Randolph Mason was silent. His face indicated rather more of weariness
than of interest. Perhaps the story in its substance was very old to
him.
“On the first day of September, 1893, I joined Brown Hirst in
Philadelphia, and here he unfolded a number of gigantic plans, among
others one for defrauding life insurance companies, which we finally
decided to attempt. I do not now recall that I felt any real repugnance
to the moral obliquity of these ventures. The mastermind of Hirst seemed
to sweep out any moral consideration, by simply ignoring it utterly.
When Hirst planned, it was all business, and, according to the ethics
of business, quite as right as any. Indeed, the man was so phenomenally
successful where I had always failed, that I never once dreamed of
objecting to any plan which he deemed wise.
“As I have said, Brown Hirst was as practical as a blue print. He used
to assert that of all vices haste was the most abominable, and that
before seeking to effect our venture it would be the part of wisdom to
engage in some legitimate business for a few years in order to establish
a reputation as a substantial business firm. Then our plans would be rid
of the suggestion of adventurers. Besides, it would give us financial
rating and substantial standing in the community in which we should
begin our fraudulent operations, and as well, in the meantime, we could
prepare our motives, which, Hirst asserted, should always be furnished
ready-made to the public when investigation began.
“We accordingly determined to purchase and operate a coal plant in West
Virginia. This business was suited to our purpose rather better than any
other, because men were continually coming and going in this business.
Unknown companies were formed in remote cities and operated merely with
an agent. The firm was rarely investigated to any very great degree, if
it promptly met its obligations, and there being little opportunity for
fraud, a good business standing could be easily secured by any manager
who was reasonably expeditious in his transactions.
“We secured a charter for the Octagon Coal Company, purchased a plant on
the Norfolk and Western Railroad in the county of McDowell, and began to
operate with Brown Hirst as manager and myself president of the presumed
Philadelphia company.
“Hirst was, as I have said, a man of fine business sense, and very
shortly began to make money. We enlarged the plant, and soon came to
be considered a firm of importance. When it grew apparent that we could
succeed at a legitimate business, I began to urge Hirst to abandon his
dangerous venture entirely, and devote his splendid abilities to the
development of the coal industry; but he only laughed, and bade me
remember that all this required work, and it was not his intention to
spend his life at work.”
“Sir,” said Randolph Mason, interrupting, “you are overlooking the
important matter in your disclosure. What was this insurance scheme?”
“Oh. yes,” said the coal operator, “I was coming to that. It was our
plan to secure heavy insurance on the life of Hirst, making his wife the
beneficiary, and later have him disappear under circumstances indicating
suicide.”
“That plan,” said Mason, drawing down the heavy muscles of his mouth,
“is ancient, and infantile, and trite; worthy of blunderers--children
and blunderers.”
Gilmore looked at the lawyer for a moment critically, then he continued.
“I presume the scheme is not new, but I rather think Hirst's plan for
carrying it into effect was somewhat novel and unusually practical. At
the time Hirst proposed this scheme he was unmarried, and, as a cold
business proposition, he said that I should select some woman--any woman
agreeable to me, whom I should like as a wife, then he would marry her,
insure his life for her benefit, make his exit, and afterwards I should
marry the woman and send half of the insurance money to him in Spain or
Italy, where he had determined to take up his permanent residence.
“He urged that it would be best to keep the woman totally ignorant
of our plan, so that if anything should go wrong, she could not be
implicated in a conspiracy, and, therefore, could not be prevented from
obtaining the insurance as, she being the sole beneficiary and no fraud
on her part being possible, any suspected or even assured fraud on my
part would not void the policy payable to her, provided he, Hirst, could
not be found within seven years.
“Hence, two considerations were necessary in selecting the woman. First,
she must be so situated as to reduce suspicion of her to the minimum.
And, second, she must be one whom I could marry as Hirst's widow and
thereby obtain the money. This part of the plan was allotted to me to
complete. You will now see with what a remarkable man I was associated,
and how little regard he entertained for the customs of human society.
“In leaguing myself with this man's fortune I blundered fatally.
My nature was entirely different. I could not shut out the natural
emotions. I could not crowd out the human in me. I was no calculating
machine like this man Hirst, and in carrying out my portion of the
venture I made a frightful mistake.
“I am not now going into the details of that mistake. It will be
sufficient for the purposes of this interview to say that the woman
whom Hirst finally married was a good woman, the daughter of a venerable
churchman residing in one of the suburban towns of Philadelphia,--such
a good woman that no sooner had the ceremony taken place than I began to
regret having associated her with such a cold-blooded villain as Brown
Hirst, and as the days ran by, that regret grew into a very passion of
remorse.”
The man paused for a moment, raised his elbows up on the arms of his
chair and locked his fingers.
“I guess it was a sort of Providential judgment,” he continued, “if such
things are supposed to be in this practical time. I avoided the woman
as far as possible, and strove to conceal my terrible regret, but it was
quite useless. Hirst knew almost before I realized the feeling myself,
and harshly bade me remember that this was business, and no matter of
maudlin sentiment. He had no feeling whatever for the woman, and if I
could wait for a little time the plan would very shortly give her to me.
He warned me against what he was pleased to call 'nonsense,' and I must
admit that the powerful personality of this man forced me into a sort of
stolid subjection to his will. But the feeling for the woman remained,
and I hated Hirst.”
Randolph Mason put out his hand as though to interrupt the speaker, but,
appearing to reconsider, suddenly withdrew it and nodded to the coal
operator to continue. The young man took no notice of the interruption.
“Hirst,” he went on, “like the master spirit that he was, proceeded to
put the details of his plan into operation. From time to time he applied
to the best companies in the country for insurance, and as he was
considered a good risk, a man of fine physique, and in charge of a
substantial business, he presently secured about two hundred thousand
dollars on his life. These policies he carried for two years in order
to avoid the suicide clause, and in order to render them as nearly
incontestable as possible.
“Finally, every arrangement having been completed, the time drew near
when Brown Hirst determined to make the final movement in his scheme.
But during these two years my hate of this man had not been idle. I
don't know just what possessed me. I had no good reason to hate him.
It was all, as he said, a business matter,--details in a pure business
matter. But I did hate him, and, unconsciously, one does not know just
how. I determined to take a part in his plan. I determined to make the
play real. This determination was no sudden resolve; it seemed rather
to evolve slowly until it finally became a fixed purpose. The motive
for the supposed suicide, Hirst had by no means overlooked. It was to be
impending financial ruin, and during the past year immediately preceding
his death Brown Hirst drew great sums from the business, and finally
mortgaged and remortgaged the entire coal plant and applied the money
to the payment of his heavy insurance, so that at the time of his
disappearance the business would be in a state of financial collapse,
and the motive for his rash deed would be adequate and thoroughly
apparent.
“During all this time, Hirst operated in McDowell near the county seat
of Welch, his wife remaining for the most part with her father, while I
maintained a city office in Philadelphia. On the day set apart for the
disappearance of Brown Hirst, there was a stockholders' meeting of our
company at its principal office in West Virginia. It was a sham, but it
was rumored that the purpose of this meeting was to discuss some measure
that would relieve our business from impending ruin. This was the
purpose made public. The real purpose was to account for my presence
in McDowell. It was a part of Hirst's plan that I should remain behind
after his disappearance in order to see that everything was properly
arranged, and then take a night train for the East.
“The preliminary details of that night's work were splendidly managed.
We met together at the office of the company. Here Hirst wrote a letter
explaining that he was about to take his own life, and placed it in the
pocket of his coat.
“Then he took a bundle of men's clothing, in which he intended to make
his escape from the country. This bundle consisted of a grimy coat such
as the ordinary miner wears, in the pockets of which he had placed a
package of bank notes, a pocket-book containing a New York draft and a
memorandum of his insurance policies.
“The trousers, shoes, and other articles of this disguise Hirst wore
when he left the office, it being his intention to leave his usual coat
and vest on the bridge over Tug River, as evidence of the suicide, and
then, assuming the remainder of his disguise, slip out to Cincinnati on
the night freight.
“From the office we went directly to the bridge over Tug River, for the
reason, as Brown Hirst always maintained, that in order to leave perfect
circumstantial evidence it was absolutely necessary to actually do as
far as possible the things which one desired the public to believe one
had done.
“It was perhaps two o'clock, and very dark and wet. It had been raining
for almost a week. This was largely in our favor, since the river
at flood is deep and rapid, and a body lost in it when the water was
running high would not probably be recovered at all, as we had noticed
was the case with lumbermen not infrequently drowned; hence we had
selected the time of heaviest rains in this region in order that the
loss of the body should not seem a matter of unusual moment.
“It might be as well to explain that when Tug River is swollen by rains
its channel beneath the bridge is very deep and rapid nearest its east
shore, while near the west shore its bed is higher and covered with
immense bowlders; thus anything thrown into this river on its east
side would probably be carried away and lost, while if dropped from the
bridge on the west side it would probably lodge among the bowlders, and
remain after the high water had subsided.
“As I have said, it was very dark, and the roar of the waters was
something frightful, but we were quite familiar with the bridge, and,
becoming accustomed to the darkness, presently came to see sufficiently
for our purposes.
“Hirst went directly to the span of the bridge nearest the east shore,
and, removing his coat and vest, placed them across one of the girders.
Then he began to undo the bundle in order to put on the miner's clothing
which he had brought with him.
“This was my opportunity, and I suggested that we first walk to the
other side in order to make sure that the bridge was entirely clear.
He immediately put down the bundle and came up to me. I do not now know
whether there was in his mind any trace of suspicion, but I do know that
at this suggestion the man seized my arm and tried to look into my face,
and I am certain that had it been light he would have discovered the
treachery which I was contemplating. But it was dark, and the man said
nothing except to curse the night. He was exceedingly profane, this
Hirst, and as we walked the length of the bridge, he holding my arm
and damning the night in half whispers, I somehow felt that this man
appreciated in a vague way the doom that was impending. But I presume
that this was simply an impression arising from the intense strain under
which I was laboring.
“As we were about to return, I pointed to the white surf, breaking on
the bowlders below. The man, still holding my arm, stopped, leaned over
the low railing, and peered down into the water. This was the position
into which I had hoped to trap him, and, wrenching my arm loose
suddenly, I struck him heavily between the shoulders. The man plunged
forward over the railing, clutching wildly at the air, but he uttered no
cry. and his body whirled downward into the blackness below.
“I clung to the railing and strove to see where the body would strike,
but it was folly. The bridge was high above the rough stream, and I
heard only the dull splash that told of his death.”
The eyes of the coal operator seemed to stretch at the corners, and a
dull gray spread over his face.
“I should like to be rid of that scene,” he continued after a moment.
“It is frightfully vivid. Every detail of it seems to have been
photographed on my brain, and it runs before me like the pictures in
a vitascope. Men sometimes forget such things, it is said, but, in the
name of Heaven, how? Why, I can see him any moment in the dark. I can
see his strained white face mad with horror, I can see his clutching
hands, I can feel in my own throat just how the terror of death choked
in his, and I know, I know----”
Randolph Mason struck his clenched fist heavily on the table. “Sir,” he
said sharply, “you will kindly omit this drivel. Give me the facts just
as they occurred. You may reserve your melodrama for the purposes of a
copyright.”
Gilmore started and threw up his head as though some one had suddenly
dashed ice-water in his face. He put his hand up to his forehead and
pressed his fingers hard against the skin; then he straightened in his
chair and seemed to gain his self-control.
“Well,” he went on, “I went back to the east side of the bridge, threw
the bundle over into the river, slipped through to the Chesapeake and
Ohio on one of the night freights, and by noon of the same day I was in
Philadelphia.
“That afternoon the city office was advised of Brown Hirst's suicide.
We immediately wired the prosecuting attorney for details, and were
informed that he had jumped from the bridge, leaving a note in his
pocket which explained that he had taken his own life. The body was
shipped to Philadelphia, as his wife directed. Almost immediately I began
to close the affairs of the Octagon Coal Company, and very shortly after
the funeral I called upon Mrs. Hirst in order to take the preliminary
steps looking toward the collection of her husband's insurance.
“Here my plan struck and went to pieces like a vapor. The wife of Brown
Hirst was a good woman, and I had failed to foresee what she would
do under circumstances of this nature. To my utter astonishment, she
informed me that the representatives of the insurance companies had been
to see her and had asked time in which to investigate the case, and that
she had gladly concurred in their request. And then, like a woman, she
declared that there was no reason why her husband should commit suicide,
and that she did not believe he had done so, but that, if he had
deliberately taken his own life, she would not touch one dollar of the
insurance money; that she would have nothing bought with life. If it
could be shown that her husband was murdered, as she believed, then she
saw no reason why she should not claim the insurance; but if, on the
other hand, it proved true that he had planned to defraud the life
insurance company for her benefit, and, pursuant to that awful plan,
had hurled himself into eternity, then she would starve in an almshouse
before she would touch a penny of the money.
“This statement struck me with the crushing power of an axe stroke. The
world seemed to pass out from under me. I saw every hope of the future
vanish. I realized in a flash, as one is said to do at the grave's edge,
in what a prodigious error I had been engaged.”
There must have been some suggestion of annoyance on the counsellor's
face, for the coal operator stopped short and moved uneasily in his
chair.
“I was about to forget your instructions,” he explained, with a shade of
apology in his voice; “it is rather hard to crowd one's emotions out of
a desperate, personal narrative like this, although, of course, it is
all nonsense to rant about it.
“To be brief, I was totally unable to shake this woman's purpose, and I
returned to the city knowing that a tireless investigation was about to
begin. I have not waited to see the result of this investigation. I know
that the insurance companies and this unusual woman will leave no stone
unturned in order to discover just how Hirst came to his death, and I am
not fool enough to think that they will eventually fail. I don't believe
any of the bosh about murder crying from the ground, but I am entirely
convinced that it is almost impossible to cover a crime so that human
ingenuity cannot trail down the man who committed it.
“I judge that I was not intended for business of this sort. I cannot
fight out in good order. With me a retreat is a rout. I have abandoned
everything. I have thrown away every plan. I am trying now to save
myself from the hangman, or at least the penitentiary. I have not waited
to be caught; I have come to you at once.”
The man seemed to relax and settle back in his chair.
“Now,” he added, with the utter dependence of a patient stretched upon
the table of the surgeon, “you must save me.”
The eyes of Randolph Mason flattened as though they were being pressed
down from above, and the lines of his face deepened and widened into
rugged furrows.
“There are two methods of evading the law,” he said. “The escape _ipso
jure_ planned before the fact; and the escape _ipso jure_ after the
fact. The first is a matter of no great difficulty, and may easily be
prepared by any man reasonably conversant with the law of the place of
his intended act, and if skilfully arranged need contain no element of
hazard whatever. The latter is far more difficult, and must be handled
with some care in order to reduce the element of peril to its minimum.
In the first, one constructs the facts to suit the defects in the law,
and if executed with any degree of intelligence, the criminal actor has
nothing whatever to fear, and the law is as harmless as a painted devil.
“In the latter, the expert must take the facts as circumstance and the
blundering criminal agent have made them, and strive to adapt these
prepared facts to the law as it stands, which is a far more difficult
proceeding, and not infrequently attended with disastrous results. Hence
the skill of certain criminal lawyers, and the long technical legal
battles with which the books are crowded.
“As for you, sir, the scheme in which you have been an actor was
abominably planned, and more abominably executed. The most drivelling
intelligence should have seen peril staring out from every infantile
move made by you and this stupendous blunderer Hirst. You have taken
an old, time-worn plan, teeming with dangers, and, not content with its
frightful hazards, you and this witless Hirst have added one complicated
peril after another until you have finally constructed a masterpiece of
idiocy that in its complex nonsense approaches the sublime.
“I wonder, sir, that you have not gone to the authorities and requested
an execution. It would be a fitting sequel to your atrocious errors.”
The face of the counsellor was ugly with a sneer.
“Your seeking counsel at once stands out as your one intelligent act.
It is marvellous discretion, Judged by your narrative; marvellous and
unexpected. Let us hope that your period of mental aberration is past.”
Then he arose and stood looking down at the man who, like many another,
had striven to throw the machinery of human justice out of its proper
gear, and had simply succeeded in tangling himself in its complicated
wheels.
“In order to save you now,” said Randolph Mason, “we must move quickly.
These great insurance companies have the ablest detective service of the
world. With such a bungle as you have made, it is merely a question of a
few weeks until they will succeed in fastening this murder upon you, not
directly perhaps, but sufficiently to warrant your arrest, and then you
must take your hazards with a jury. The man who to-day hopes to cover
his crime well enough to baffle the keen and tireless search of a great
life insurance company must be governed by something vastly nearer to an
intelligence than that upon which you and the decedent Hirst depended.
“At this stage of your blunder there are but two ways by which it is
possible to put you absolutely beyond the reach of the law. Death is one
way, and we will pass that. The other I am now going to bring to your
aid. With it the greatest care and haste are vital. At nine to-night you
must be here prepared to put yourself wholly in my hands. I shall have
every arrangement complete by that time.”
Mason stopped short, and put his hand down heavily upon the table.
“Now, sir,” he said, bluntly, “it will be entirely useless for me to
attempt the drastic measures necessary in your case unless you are
prepared to act under my fingers like a machine. Can you do that?”
“Yes,” said the man, wiping the perspiration from his face.
“Then,” said Randolph Mason, opening the door of his private office, “go
down to your hotel and sleep; and if you please, sir, do not think, or,
to be more accurate, do not attempt to think. Your thoughts, as has been
demonstrated, are of no value to you, and I assure you, sir, they will
be quite useless to me.”
Then he closed the door after the departing criminal and went back to
his desk.