Fifty Years a Detective: 35 Real Detective Stories. Thomas Furlong
I wanted to be sure and give him an opportunity of getting hold of Dingfelter. I went down all right, and in fact, was a little dazed from the effects of the blow. Dingfelter stumbled and fell, and the policeman made a dash (such as a heavily loaded ice wagon going up hill would make) and succeeded in reaching him, not, however, until he had arisen, and I also had got to my feet. He got to Dingfelter about the same time that I did. The latter made a good fight and tore off most of the uniform of the policeman and my coat, vest and collar. All of us went down in the street and rolled around in the mud. Our ears and faces were filled with mud, before we finally succeeded in subduing Dingfelter, but I am satisfied if he had tried his best he could have gotten away with both of us, as he was a powerful man.
My office was on Eighth street, just north of Pine, and this fight occurred just two blocks from my office, and after we had subdued Dingfelter I suggested that we take him there, so as to give us an opportunity of washing ourselves while we were waiting for a patrol wagon to take the prisoner to police headquarters. This we did, and on arriving at my office we turned the prisoner over to my chief clerk and one of my operatives, who happened to be there, while the policeman and myself began digging the mud out of our ears and washing our faces. After washing I found that my right eye was very much discolored, and where my face had come in contact with the pavement there were a number of small cuts and scratches, which were somewhat inflamed, and I really had a sore face.
The operative who I have mentioned before, whose name was Phillips, on seeing my face said to me, "Why, you sure ought to go and see a doctor at once. Your eye is in bad shape, and you need medical attention immediately. Let me go up to police headquarters with this fellow. I can attend to the matter for you."
I thanked him, and said that I wished he would do so. I told him what had occurred at the bank, and instructed him to make a complaint against Dingfelter accordingly. In due time the patrol wagon arrived and the police officer and Phillips escorted Mr. Dingfelter to police headquarters. At this time Hughie O'Neil was chief of detectives, and Major Lawrence Harrigan, was chief of police for the city of St. Louis.
As soon as Dingfelter was hustled into the detectives' office in the Four Courts, Chief O'Neil and a squad of his men immediately set about searching him. They found in one of his inside pockets a letter, addressed, sealed and stamped, but apparently which Dingfelter had forgotten to mail. It was directed to San Francisco. They also found about seventy-five or one hundred dollars, and some other articles, all of which were taken from him and placed in the police department archives for safe keeping. The letter was eagerly opened and read. This letter was quite lengthy, and was just such a letter as one crook would write to another. There was then, and had been for some time previous, a gang of bank swindlers working the cities of the Pacific Coast, and the newspapers had been printing a great deal about the operations of this gang several weeks prior to the time of which I write; and for this reason the detectives of St. Louis were led to believe by the finding of the letter that they had struck something which might lead to the capture of the bank swindlers. The contents of the letter appeared in the afternoon papers. Some of these papers censured me for having failed to discover this letter.
After reading the comments of the papers regarding this letter, I would have considered myself very stupid, indeed, for having missed the letter, were it not for the fact that I knew that I had not had an opportunity to search Mr. Dingfelter up to the time he assaulted me and the officer on Pine street, and then I also knew it had taken me about two hours to compose and dictate that same letter.
Dingfelter was locked up, of course, and the time was set for his preliminary hearing, to be several days later. In the meantime the St. Louis papers were devoting lots of space to Dingfelter and his alleged crime; a relief to the newspaper readers, as they had begun to grow tired of reading day after day about Maxwell and what his attorneys expected to do for him. From the time of Dingfelter's arrest up to the time of Maxwell's trial, the newspapers scarcely mentioned the latter's name. Some of them occasionally mentioned my name in rather a joking manner, because I had been stupid enough to miss that letter. When Dingfelter was called for his preliminary hearing he was promptly remanded to jail to await the action of the Grand Jury.
He was besieged by lawyers who were anxious to defend him, but he declined their offers, telling them when the time came he had lawyers selected to defend him, and steadfastly refused to divulge their names. The second day after his arrest Dingfelter was allowed to mingle with the other prisoners in what was called the "bull ring." An allotted time is given to the prisoners each day in this place for exercise. Maxwell noticed that almost immediately after his arrest the newspapers were giving Dingfelter all the notoriety, and had dropped himself, so he hastened to make the acquaintance of one so notorious when they met in the "bull ring." This was the only opportunity of meeting him, and from the first time that Maxwell saw Dingfelter he never lost an opportunity of talking with him, and he stuck to Dingfelter like the proverbial fly to the horse. The first time Maxwell approached Dingfelter he rushed up to him and said, "You are Dingfelter, I believe." Dingfelter replied that he was and Maxwell then said, "They seem to have a strong case against you." "You will have to excuse me, sir, I don't want to be considered impolite," Dingfelter replied, "but I must decline to talk to any one in this place about my case, as you call it. I don't believe it would be a good thing for me or any other person to talk about a charge that is pending against them in a place of this kind. I shall be glad to talk with you on any other subject, however, but I trust that you will hereafter refrain from asking me any questions regarding the charge now pending against me in court, and then, I don't know you."
Maxwell hastily said, "Oh, I am Maxwell. I am the fellow who is charged with the murder of that man Preller, who was killed in the Southern Hotel, and whose body was found in a trunk. I was arrested at Auckland, New Zealand, and brought back here to St. Louis to stand trial, but I have been assured by my attorneys that I will be acquitted. They have no proof against me, and just as soon as I can get a trial, why, of course, I will go free."
"So you are Maxwell," said Dingfelter. "I have been reading in the papers about you, and if you will pardon me for saying it, it seems to me that you have already been talking too much about your case. If you are not guilty of the crime with which you stand charged, why you ought to be acquitted, and I hope you will be."
After this first interview between Maxwell and Dingfelter, he and many other prisoners looked upon Dingfelter as being a wise and unusually smart prisoner. Dingfelter was in jail forty-seven days, and during all that time Maxwell never let an opportunity pass without talking to him. I received daily reports from my operative, a task which I found very difficult, and it became more difficult by reason of the Southwestern Railroad strike, which broke out on March 4, 1886, and continued during Dingfelter's stay in the St. Louis jail. Being Chief Special Agent for the Gould system, my time was occupied in protecting the railroad company's property, and in apprehending people who were continually committing illegal acts. I was occupied almost day and night in this work.
From Dingfelter's daily reports I learned that Maxwell had admitted that he had killed Preller for the purpose of obtaining seven one hundred dollar bills that he knew Preller to have, as he had shown him the money in the Adams House at Boston, before they separated there. He also had pawned the plunder for the money which had brought him to America, and that he had made Preller believe that he was connected with the titled family of Maxwell, that his right name was Hugh M. Brookes, and that he would like to place himself under the guidance and advice of an able crook, as he believed Dingfelter to be, when he gained his liberty, as he was sure he would, in the near future. He told Dingfelter in detail how he had killed Preller by administering an overdose of morphia, hypodermically; of how, after dinner on the fatal Sunday, Preller had complained of a pain in his stomach; that he, Maxwell, saw that was his opportunity for carrying out the plan he had already formed for taking Preller's life in order to secure the money; that he had provided himself with a large quantity of morphia and the hypodermic syringe, and that he had also procured four ounces of chloroform, for the purpose of administering it to Preller immediately before death, to prevent the body from becoming rigid, as it does immediately after death, "as," said Maxwell in his explanation to Dingfelter, "I had to conceal his long body in the trunk, which was so much shorter, and I did not want to cut off his limbs, fearing that the trace of the blood would betray me."
On receiving