Fifty Years a Detective: 35 Real Detective Stories. Thomas Furlong
to the marked sections before mentioned, which he carefully read. After he had finished I produced and read the telegram I had received from him, at the same time calling his attention to the question he had asked me to answer in his message.
He then compared his message with the one he had received from me in dignified silence, and then without a word handed the two messages to Mr. Hoxie, near whose chair he was standing. Mr. Hoxie read them and then looked up at the Governor and said, "Governor, what do you think of this matter?"
For answer Gov. Brown deliberately walked around the table to where I was sitting and extended his hand to me, and I arose and took it. He turned to Mr. Hoxie and said in a pleasant manner, "Furlong was right all the way through." Then turning to me he said, "Furlong, you ought to have been a lawyer. I was a little angry when I received your message yesterday, but I see that it was all right, as you only answered the questions I had asked you."
I left St. Louis for Dallas that night, and while there I arranged with the Chief of Police, Jim Arnold, and other well-known citizens, to accompany me to Chatham, Ontario, as witnesses in the case pending against No. 2. These witnesses had all known No. 2 for years, and were familiar with his reputation as to truth and veracity, his business connections, etc. The witnesses and myself arrived in Chatham in time for the hearing of No. 2.
The judge, after hearing the evidence, committed No. 2 to jail without bail to await extradition papers from the President of the United States and the Governor General of Canada. No. 2 was defended in the hearing by two noted barristers, who at once appealed to a higher court. In due time the appeal was argued and the action of the lower court sustained; whereupon No. 2's counsel had the case taken up to the Privy Court at Toronto. This court affirmed the action of the lower courts, and it being the highest tribunal in Canada its decision was final and No. 2 was committed without bail for extradition.
I immediately left Toronto for Washington, D. C., having already received the necessary papers from the state of Texas. I presented these to the Department of Justice in Washington, on the evening of my arrival there, and they were promptly approved and sent to President Cleveland for his signature. By the way, these papers were the first of their kind ever signed by President Cleveland, it being but four days after his inauguration for his first term as President of the United States. The papers were delivered to me and I left for Chatham, Ontario, for the purpose of taking No. 2 back to Dallas, Texas, for trial and bearing the commission of President Cleveland to do so.
The following day the train on which I was riding stopped twenty minutes at Canandaigua, New York, for dinner. As I was eating my dinner a messenger boy called out my name at the dining room door. I answered and he handed me a telegram, which was from the high sheriff of Chatham, and read as follows:
"When my jailor went to the cell occupied by No. 2 at twelve o'clock to day he found him dead. Had apparently been dead an hour. Cause of death yet unknown. Probably heart failure."
I wired him that I would be in Chatham on the following morning. On my arrival there a post-mortem autopsy was made of the body of No. 2, and it developed that he had committed suicide by taking laudanum. The sheriff and the jailor have never been able to satisfy themselves as to how No. 2 got possession of the poison. He had friends and relatives who lived at Jackson, Michigan, who called at Chatham and identified the body, and took it to Jackson for burial.
I then returned to Dallas, Texas, so as to be present at the trial of No. 1 and No. 4, they being the only two of the swindlers left for trial.
When I had first arrested the swindlers and placed them in jail at Dallas, the Prosecuting Attorney called me to his office and told me that the defendants had employed a number of the most able attorneys at that bar to defend them, and he said that he thought that the railroad company ought to permit him to select an attorney to assist him in the prosecution of the defendants. I told him that I had no doubt but that General Solicitor Brown would do so if he would make the request of him.
He replied that as I was going direct to St. Louis that he wished me to make the request for him, which I did. When I delivered his request to Gov. Brown, he replied that Capt. Tom Brown, of Sherman, Texas, was the railroad company's attorney in that district, an able lawyer, and he would be glad to instruct him to assist the Prosecuting Attorney in every way that he could, or, he would furnish him any other of the company's attorneys in Texas, should he believe their assistance necessary, and that he would take it up with the Prosecuting Attorney at Dallas and make all the necessary arrangements.
I communicated these facts to the Prosecuting Attorney. Later Gov. Brown informed me that he (the prosecuting attorney) had selected a lawyer to assist him who was not in any way connected with the railroad service, and that he had suggested that this assistant should be paid a fee of five or six thousand dollars by the railroad company for his services. Gov. Brown further stated that the attorney selected for an assistant was not looked upon with favor by either himself or any of his assistants. Some of the assistants connected with the legal department of the railroad company, under General Solicitor Brown, refused to associate themselves with the cases if the man selected by the Prosecuting Attorney was connected in any way with them. His services were refused and Capt. Tom Brown went to Dallas for the purpose of assisting in the prosecution of the two remaining accused swindlers.
I had turned the duplicate bills of lading over to Capt. Brown and on the morning of the trial of No. 1 and No. 4, he placed these papers in his overcoat pocket with other documentary evidence. He was a little late and hastened into the dining room, leaving his coat and hat on a rack in the corridor of the hotel. When he finished his breakfast and returned to his overcoat he discovered the papers had been stolen. When the cases were called into court, the prosecuting attorney asked that a nolle prosequi be entered in the cases, thus letting two of the principals in the swindle go free.
Thus ended the cotton swindle, the most gigantic swindle of this kind that had ever taken place in the United States, or, I believe, in any other country up to that time.
Capt. Tom Brown was afterwards elected as Judge of the Supreme Bench of Texas, and was always esteemed as an able jurist and a thorough gentleman.
A REMARKABLE CASE.
IDENTIFICATION OF A LITTLE GIRL FROM A DESCRIPTION GIVEN
OF HER FATHER, LEADS TO THE LATTER'S ARREST.
Identification of criminals from descriptions is not always an easy task, for two reasons. First, there are but few men who can intelligently describe a person from memory. This is an art within itself. The second reason is, it takes so little to change the general appearance of a man to such a degree that it is hard to pick him up from a mere description, that is, unless the man wanted has some peculiar feature or form that is very noticeable. The ordinary man, to change his general appearance, has to do but little. A change of shape or style of hat or clothing, the cutting off or growing of a mustache, or even a haircut or shave will often serve the purpose. I have never claimed to have what is today called "a camera eye" but I did a piece of identification work while special agent of the Allegheny Valley Railroad in the early '70s of which I have always been proud, for the reason that there has absolutely never been another case like it in the police annals of the entire country.
During the spring 1874, a man giving the name of Joseph Chalfont applied to Mr. Thomas M. King, the Division Superintendent of the Allegheny Valley Railroad, at Pittsburg, Pa., for a situation as locomotive engineer. This man, Chalfont, was a rather remarkable person, appearing to be about thirty-six years of age. He stood more than six feet in height, with extremely long arms and legs. His complexion was dark and sallow, and his hair coarse and black. His neck was very long, with a noticeable "Adam's Apple." His cheek-bones were high, and his nose straight and long. His eyes were beady and black, being set far back in his head and very close together; they were crowned with a bushy pair of eyebrows, which met above the ridge of his nose. Then to make the picture more complete, his forehead was low, giving his head a small, bullet-like appearance. The reader can see that a description of this man, if given accurately and with