M^CKENNA TAKES UP THE TRAIL AT TAMAQUA.
The wounding of Thomas, and subsequent murder of Yost, were enough to
assure me that more work of the same character would speedily follow,
unless earnest endeavors were put forth to prevent. Do the best I could,
the Mollie Maguires would cause blood to flow. Their thirst had been
excited by the sight of the crimson tide, and other victims must be
struck down before the appetite was appeased. Maddened by the goadings
of the few turbulent spirits in their midst, I knew they would never
stop until they found the unavoidable avenger on their track and the
outraged law strong enough to punish, blood for blood, life for life,
“eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.” It was my
duty to commence the work, upon the small foundation furnished, in
building up a force which should withstand the efforts of the league and
successfully battle with the midnight foe. My plans were quickly formed,
as quickly transmitted to Philadelphia, and Mr. Franklin gave them, as
far as was thought advisable, to the operatives engaged in the mining
country. Linden, laboring somewhat openly—though not ostensibly for
me—was secretly to co-operate with McParlan, _alias_ McKenna, who was by
no means to be acknowledged by any one as in the most distant manner
connected with the Agency. On the contrary, everything was to be done to
keep down a suspicion, should one arise, ever so faintly foreshadowing
any such relation. McParlan must be depended upon to perform the
principal service, in keeping track and securing the arrest of the men
who had attacked Thomas, as well as those who were guilty of
assassinating policeman Yost. The substantial chain of circumstances,
and the testimony, must be so direct, unequivocal and convincing as to
leave no chance loophole for the escape of the murderers, no scope for
an _alibi_, before a single guilty man could be captured and brought to
the prisoner’s box. Never had a defendant, a member of this thoroughly
organized association for murder and all sorts of crime, received
punishment through the verdict of a jury, and many good men despaired of
ever accomplishing such a work; but I truly considered that, if given
plenty of time and saved from the intermeddling of others, I could
surmount the trouble, and after a while drive the Mollie Maguires from
their strongholds. I would not be spurred on to take precipitate action.
My plans must all be brought to their proper denouement.
Assuming such safeguards as he might think for the best, McParlan was
directed to go to Tamaqua and learn, if possible, who had killed Yost,
and there lay the groundwork of a superstructure upon which the
prosecution of the assassins might be founded. He was to obtain such
information as he could, using his official relation with the order, as
far as it might go, and any other artifice, or detective scheme, which
should appear useful in gaining the desired results.
The command for a change of his base of operations reached McKenna on
the fifteenth of July, and he at once prepared to obey.
Linden also received instructions to second McKenna, but to refrain from
making his appearance in Tamaqua until requested by the other detective
to do so.
The Superintendent’s letter to McKenna did not find him in the enjoyment
of the best of spirits for a most dangerous and difficult undertaking,
from reasons which I will proceed to explain. The previous day, Frank
McAndrew having moved into a house at Indian Ridge Breaker—or Davis’
Breaker, as it was familiarly called—engaged with a number of Mollies in
a great carousal, which lasted until midnight, and, having inveigled
McKenna into the affair, succeeded in keeping him up and employed, there
and elsewhere, all night. This, with a return of a chronic sore throat,
from which he was suffering, made him almost ill again.
Indian Ridge Breaker is situated on the road by Lanagan’s Patch, leading
to Mahanoy City, from Shenandoah, and not far from the shebeen shop of
Mrs. Bridget Monaghan, twice a widow, but far from ancient at that,
although “fat, fair, and forty” was applicable as an imperfect
description of the lady. She occupied the stone basement of a
tumbledown, three-story wooden building, the upper floors of which were
devoted to the midnight gambols of predatory cats and daily incursions
of migratory rats—the hallways filled with webs of spiders that, with
the mice, made nests in the corners of the vacant rooms—and her
subterranean abode was, like that of handsome Micky Cuff, the habitation
of geese, ducks, chickens, goats, and pigs, among which Mrs. Bridget
walked, “monarch of all she surveyed.” This was a favorite and frequent
place of resort for McAndrew and other Mollies, and the stories that
gained circulation concerning the flitting of spirits, clad all in
white, through the upper corridors of the structure, at the dead hour of
night, and the gleams of an occasional flame—burning pale, sickly, blue
and ghastly, as some benighted miner was fain to report to his
superstitious household—all may have been due to the meetings of the
society in the otherwise untenanted place, and the failure of the
impromptu janitor to put up a curtain close enough to prevent a ray of
the single candle, lighting their deliberations, from escaping. It was a
famous place for the telling of ghost stories, and McKenna, who was an
adept at the relation of mysterious events, as well as singing songs and
dancing flings and jigs, frequently held the Mollies spell-bound for
hours, while he chronicled the scenes he had seen and the ghosts and
ghouls he had heard about in the old country. His legends were in great
demand, and sometimes he indulged in the narration of one in the
presence of the widow, who, meanwhile, would draw herself up close to
the story-teller—story-teller in more respects than one, it is to be
feared—and declare that the company positively should not leave her
“hotel” until daylight, if she had to supply the drinks and other
comfortables at her own expense. It was not difficult to win over the
Mollies to remain and “keep off the _banshee_,” if she only put out the
overflowing noggin with a generous hand. And this she did. To the credit
of the widow be it said, the love of drink and indulgence in gossip were
among the worst of her failings. In every other regard she was
considered a respectable and honorable member of her kind of society.
During the repetition of these hair-raising and blood-curdling
fabrications, given in the detective’s best vein, the Mollies habitually
and involuntarily threw off reserve and spoke boastfully of their own
adventures, not forgetting deeds they had recently participated in.
Through this action McKenna received many a hint that he could use and
improve upon when the time came. It was easy, under such circumstances,
to obtain the confidence of the most hardened of the brotherhood.
The night spoken of, McAndrew, Ed Ferguson, and McKenna, with several
more of the gang, were at Wiggan’s Patch, and, returning to Shenandoah,
the proposition was made to wake up the widow and take a drink in her
shop. Accordingly, Ferguson knocked loudly at the rickety door.
“Who’s there?” asked a woman’s voice from within.
“Sure, it’s Ed Ferguson, and some friends! Let us in, Mrs. Monaghan!”
“All right!” said the lady, and in a few moments the fastenings of the
entrance were undone and the party entered, warmly welcomed by the
landlady, who, from the prevalent heat of the night and sudden advent of
her visitors, had not donned any perceptible amount of clothing, but
proceeded to help them to liquor with the grace of a mermaid in its
native element, without even unfastening the strings of her dingy
night-cap.
There was a feebly-burning lamp on the counter, which illuminated the
room, for it was by no means a large place, showing the simple array of
bottles on the shelves, the bed, and other scanty furniture. But there
was more in the apartment than, at first glance, the operative was
willing to believe. Seeing that Ferguson was moving uneasily about, Mrs.
Monaghan said:
“Have a care, Ed Ferguson! Mind where ye put down your two big fate, and
don’t step on me chickens, plaze!”
Having taken their drinks and paid for them, the men were in for a lark,
and Ferguson, knowing some of the peculiarities of the widow, proceeded
to make a search for curiosities—and he found them. At the same time the
detective was nearly dead with the foul and fetid atmosphere filling the
unventilated basement.
“What have we here?” said Ferguson, who, while groping around where
Bridget said “he had no business”—under the bed—had caught somebody by
the naked feet. “A human being, as I live! And a woman at that!”
He first dragged out in this ungraceful way a female—Mollie Williams by
name—who, stopping accidentally with the landlady over night, had been
frightened by the noise the visitors made before entering and secreted
herself beneath the low bedstead with a part of the widow’s portable
property. An inventory of other things discovered in the apartment would
read as follows:
1 Widow Bridget Monaghan—very angry and flushed as to face and
scantily clad.
1 maiden lady, of uncertain age, ditto as to raiment, and badly
scared.
5 goats, scattered about the floor very promiscuously.
37 chickens—including one plucky game-cock.
1 collection of new-washed female raiment, hanging damp on the line.
5 ducks and a drake.
1 goose and a gander.
1 demijohn—contents, whisky.
2 tin pots for drinking purposes—of tin.
1 stove and furniture—badly cracked in places.
1 section of a log, for a chair—not cushioned.
1 collection of miscellaneous articles, on the shelves, intended for
sale.
His comrades drank several times, but McKenna could not stomach the
liquor in that den, and, taking a tin dinner pail, which he found, he
washed it out and milked one of the goats, swallowing the warm fluid
with a relish.
[Illustration: “_He sung, sitting beside the widow, on her bed, with
Mollie Williams nigh, perched on the wooden excuse for a chair._”]
As a natural consequence of the time, place, and opportunity, McKenna
was importuned for songs, which he sung, sitting beside the widow, on
her bed, with Mollie Williams nigh, perched on the wooden excuse for a
chair, and the equally interested men, sitting on their haunches, and in
various extraordinary attitudes, around the room. The few following
hours until morning were consumed in the relation of sundry
soul-harrowing tales of ghosts, haunted houses and church-yards,
hobgoblins and spirits, to which all listened in silence, only excepting
an occasional interruption by the widow when proffering more liquor,
until the young man’s throat and tongue fairly gave out from too much
exercise, and he was constrained to beg for a season of rest. The sun
was rising when the company, very well soaked in bad liquor, oozed out
of Mrs. Monaghan’s cellar and started on a serpentine trail for home. As
a consequence of inhaling so much bad air, and from protracted
confinement in foul gases, the operative was so ill that, when he
received Mr. Franklin’s instructions to leave for Tamaqua, he felt more
like keeping his bed and sending for a physician.
The uninitiated reader may be inclined to think my description of Mrs.
Monaghan’s groggery an exaggeration. The thought is pardonable, but I
assure those who have followed me thus far in this recital, that,
instead of being overcolored, the whole truth, in all its details, has
not been told. It could not well be revealed without giving offense.
Mrs. Monaghan subsequently married a man by the name of Breyer, is yet
living, and can, if she will, substantiate every point I have given in
reference to this night’s adventure in her residence.
To make matters more complicated, a letter came with Mr. Franklin’s,
from Linden, warning McKenna to look out, as he was suspected by one of
the principal bankers of Shenandoah, of being a professional burglar,
hanging about the city for no good purpose. So firmly fixed was the man
of money and bonds in his belief, that he made the journey to
Pottsville, interviewed a city detective, and tried hard to induce the
officer to go to Shenandoah, see McKenna, and keep close watch of his
movements. The capitalist said he could not tell when his vault might be
attacked, and was fearful its valuable contents would fall, easy-made
plunder, into the lap of that dreadful Irishman. Linden informed the
Pottsville policeman that, although McKenna was rogue enough for almost
anything, charged with a brutal murder in Buffalo, where he formerly
knew him, and, as he believed, even then closely leagued with
counterfeiters, yet he did not believe he would, or could, burst a
burglar-proof safe. Linden further promised the banker’s friend that he
would take the matter in hand, go over to Shenandoah, and see what
McKenna really did intend. He “knew _he_ could worm the secret out of
him.” Here the matter dropped.
It was, after all, quite fortunate that this information met the
detective when it did, as through it a plan was suggested to his sick
brain by which he might easily depart from Shenandoah without
engendering suspicion in the minds of the Mollies as to the real object
in view. Dressing himself in his rougher attire, and packing a supply of
better clothing in his valise, ready for starting, McKenna called on
Frank McAndrew, in the afternoon, found a number of his friends present,
and, taking the Bodymaster aside, held a short whispered consultation
with him.
“Faix, I hev very bad news this mornin’,” said the operative, assuming a
solemn air, greatly in contrast with his usually radiant countenance.
“Phat is it?”
“I’ve got a letther from me sisther, an’, would ye belave it? them
beggarly Buffalo detectives hev been to her house, in Philadelphia,
watchin’ an’ spyin’ about, an’ finally axin’ fur me an’ me whereabouts!”
“Indade? But I make sure your sister didn’t tell them?”
“But she did, then!” And McKenna put on an appearance of much anger.
“She just said to them the last they heard of me I was at Shenandoah,
but didn’t belave I wor there now! That was enough, I’m sure, fur
they’re as sharp as the edge of a razor, an’ I expect they’ll quickly be
here afther me. Me sisther sent a letther, warnin’ me, if I had raison
to fear them, jist to make meself scarce! An’ now I must go! I shall
only tell you where I’m really goin’. If ye want me particular like,
I’ll be in Mahanoy City, or Pottsville occasionally, an’ ye may write me
at these places—but holt! perhaps ’twould be betther not to send me
anything until ye hear from me! As soon as I’m settled a bit I’ll let ye
know. In the meanwhile kape dark! If anybody inquires for the address,
say that ye don’t know where I am—but I tould ye I wor goin’ to see some
friends in Canada—that’ll put them on a false trail!”
“I’ll mind all ye say,” answered McAndrew, and he pulled a long face,
when he thought how he would manage the division without his Secretary’s
assistance.
Taking a few drinks of beer with the persons in the room—for McAndrew
kept a liquor supply by this time—the detective left the house, moved
deliberately to his boarding-place, told a similar story to Cooney and
his family, put his satchel in the hands of an Irish lad that he could
trust, to be taken to him at the depot, and then appeared as usual among
the remainder of his companions. A more despondent detective never was
seen. He was sick; his head ached, and his whole system needed rest.
Despite all, however, he managed to keep up a fair external demeanor,
joked with his Mollie friends, and even sung a laughter-provoking ditty.
When the time for the departure of the train arrived, he excused
himself, walked rapidly to the depot, found his satchel and his
messenger, tipped the boy a quarter of a dollar, seized the baggage,
mounted the car, just as it started out, and, in a few moments, was
trundling over the hills in the direction of Tamaqua. He fell
asleep—after half an hour’s uneasiness, fearing he might be recognized
by some one, but discovered he was unknown to all about him—and was in a
sound slumber when he reached the place of his destination. “Tamaqua!”
shouted in a loud voice, by the brakeman, awoke him, and he alighted at
the depot as the locomotive gave a preparatory shriek and glided, with
its serpent-like string of cars, along and around the mountain.
Notwithstanding the fact that McKenna had tasted nothing stronger than
water, coffee, and Cronk beer, throughout the day—in truth during
several days—he was so much overpowered, apparently with liquor, when he
reached the front door of the Columbia House, the same night, that he
fell sprawling across the threshold, his satchel flying in one direction
and his hat in another. His old acquaintance, Marks, the landlord, was
compelled to fly to his assistance, gather up his scattered goods and
chattels, lead him to a seat, and finally escort him safely to a room
and bed, the besotted guest all the while muttering to himself almost
unintelligible Irish jargon, about some “_dawshy-dawshy, allana
machree_, all the way from auld Erin,” that he had been to call upon,
and the “bastely _calliagh_, her mother, had forbidden him the house,
bad cess to her night-cap!” In truth, he was maudlin over some one that
be named his “_colleen bawn_, wid the _rucket_ head!” Marks left him
upstairs, without a lamp, stretched on the bed to find the way under the
covers as best he might.
No sooner had the landlord made an exit than the detective ceased his
mutterings, arose, ran lightly and soberly to the entrance, turned the
key in the lock, and hung his hat cautiously over the knob, as was his
custom. Then, weary and worn, and as sick as a man well could be and
still retain his senses, he undressed himself and retired.
The few of McKenna’s Tamaqua acquaintances who recognized him as he
staggered up the street had no desire to trouble the man in his
evidently advanced state of intoxication, and either turned off into
by-streets and avoided his presence, or failed to look in his direction.
The word was passed about the city, during the evening, that “that wild
Irishman, from Shenandoah, Jim McKenna, was in town again, on a rousing
spree, and would probably make things uncommon lively the ensuing day.”
Meanwhile the overtasked operative was sleeping calmly and peacefully,
and sweetly dreaming that he sat once more in his home, by the western
shore of Lake Michigan, hearkening to the soft sound of the waves as
they broke ripplingly upon the sandy beach, whispering tales of other
days, that in his waking hours were almost effaced from remembrance. The
morning sun shone brightly when the agent awoke, donned his miserable
attire, and prepared to continue the simulated debauch, which, he knew,
would serve as a veil for his real object in visiting Tamaqua, and in
the end, he hoped, bring him in communication with the murderers of
Yost.
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