Fifty Years a Detective: 35 Real Detective Stories. Thomas Furlong
and probably stolen. If this were true the railroad company would be responsible for the loss of the cotton to the buyers and would probably have to pay additional damages. Thus the loss of this cotton was a serious matter for the company.
After I had worked at Sherman for about ten days, as hard and earnestly as I had ever worked on a case in my life, I succeeded in obtaining information that led me to believe that there were three other men connected with No. 4, the missing agent, in this swindle. I had also succeeded in locating the family and friends of No. 4, and the other three suspects, whose names I withhold for the reason that some of them were connected with respectable families and have near relatives living today, who were in no way responsible for the wrong-doing of these men and ought not to be subjected to the humiliation which the publication of these names might inflict upon them.
During my investigation I learned that one of these men (whom in mentioning I will call No. 1) had a brother living in New Orleans. (I will call the other two confederates No. 2 and No. 3, withholding their names for the reasons I have already given.) I had decided to go to New Orleans direct from Sherman and there quietly investigate the brother of No. 1. I had also telegraphed to my office at St. Louis, Mo., instructing George W. Herbert, one of my assistants, to meet me in New Orleans, which he did.
We located No. 1's brother in New Orleans very easily, and after I had previously obtained information that No. 1's wife might be stopping temporarily with her brother-in-law's family, who were living in a large and rather pretentious mansion in that city, I began to watch the mansion for the purpose of learning, if possible, whether or not No. 1's wife was staying there. I had a photograph of No. 1 and also of his wife. She was a beautiful woman. She was born and raised in the state of Tennessee, where her mother and other near relatives resided.
I had learned that a man answering the description of No. 1 in all respects had registered at the then leading hotel of Sherman under the name of J. D. Dillard, Jr. This man had reached the hotel at a late hour at night, was assigned to a room and remained in it all the following day, ordering his meals sent to the room, explaining to the hotel people that he was ill. During the day No. 4 called at the hotel and quietly visited the room occupied by Dillard, where he (No. 4) had remained an hour or more. He went to Dillard's room without making any inquiries at the office, merely consulting the register.
Dillard, who was really No. 1, left his room about midnight the following night, and took a north-bound train from Sherman. Nobody had seen the supposed Dillard during the time of his stay at Sherman, except the night clerk, who had not noticed him particularly when he assigned him to his room, and a chamber-maid, a mulatto, who had charge of the room of No. 1, or Dillard, as he called himself, had waited on him while he was there. She had become familiar with his features and stated to me that she would know him on sight any place. She described Dillard accurately, after which I exhibited No. 1's photograph. She instantly identified it as a good picture of Mr. Dillard. This is what caused me to place No. 1's brother's house in New Orleans under surveillance. I also traced Dillard from Sherman, Texas, to Emporia, Kansas, where the photographs of himself and wife were identified by the proprietor of the hotel and the employes there, at which the Dillards had stopped for a period of a month prior to Dillard's recent visit to Sherman. Mrs. Dillard had remained at Emporia during her husband's absence, and he joined her at Emporia on his return from Sherman, and they departed from there immediately for parts unknown. I traced them to Topeka, Kansas, where the trail was lost.
My assistant and myself kept up a steady watch on the home of the brother of No. 1, in New Orleans, day and night, for about three weeks. We divided the time into eight hour watches, one of us sleeping while the other was on duty. It was one of the most difficult tasks of the kind I had ever undertaken, for the reason that I was personally known to the chief of police of New Orleans, who was a friend of mine. I was also known to a number of police detectives of that city, and owing to the prominence of the family and connections of No. 1 I did not deem it expedient to meet any of the police authorities, as by so doing I, of course, would feel compelled to explain to them the cause of my presence in their city. I had no doubt that some of them would render me all the assistance they could, but I was afraid that some of them might talk about my presence in the city, and the friends of No. 1 might hear of it, and thereby be the means of hindering me in my efforts to locate the whereabouts of No. 1. For this reason it required more vigilance on my part to keep out of sight of the police, who knew me, than what I was bestowing to the watching of the house in question.
During the long vigil many humorous incidents occurred. One morning, after we had been on watch several days, I hit upon a plan to find if there were any women about the big house, as we had seen none up to this time, hoping thereby to locate the wife of No. 1. A few blocks down the street a couple of good-looking young Italian girls were playing a hand organ. The instrument was a fine new one and of exceedingly loud tone. I quietly bargained for their services to take up their station in front of the house I was watching, telling them to play there as long as the police would permit them. The music and the performance of the monkeys brought several women from the house to the veranda, but to my disappointment, the much wanted woman was not among them. The performance was repeated several mornings, with the same results. Mrs. Dillard was not in the house, as we afterwards learned.
Meanwhile the brother, a gentleman of leisure, was in the habit of strolling each morning from his house to the postoffice, where he usually mailed several letters. He always dropped these letters in the general receptacle, which had an opening in the main corridor at least a foot in length and three inches wide, and led to a large box in the basement below the main floor. This box would hold probably a wagon load of letters and packages, and when a letter was dropped in this mass it was almost impossible to find it again.
No. 1's brother was a man middle-aged, rather slow in his movements, and very deliberate in everything that he did. He carried these letters in an inside pocket of his dress coat, and walked with a cane. He would approach the general mail box, placing his cane under his left arm and carefully removing his snug-fitting glove from his right hand, would take the letters, consisting of three or more, and in an exasperatingly deliberate and slow manner deposit them in the box with the other mail. He would watch them until they had disappeared down the chute and out of sight. This operation was repeated by him daily, except Sundays, during the three weeks, and witnessed each time by either Herbert or myself, and had grown very tiresome to both of us. Finally I concluded that we would prepare two letters and address them to ourselves, stamp them properly and then cover the back of each envelope with a thick coating of mucilage. Herbert was given one of the letters, I keeping the other. Herbert placed himself on one side of the chute, while I took my position on the other side, each of us being some distance away from the receptacle.
The main corridor of the postoffice, in the forenoon, was generally crowded with people passing to and fro, between the hours of ten and twelve o'clock; for this reason we attracted no special attention. We knew about the time that No. 1's brother was in the habit of visiting the postoffice, and, therefore, we were not kept waiting but a few moments for his appearance. He approached the mail box in his usual manner, and was as painfully deliberate as he had been on previous occasions, and after he had gone through the customary maneuvers, but before he had time to drop the three letters from his hand, Herbert rushed up to the receptacle from the left side and I from the right, and we both reached out our hands at the same time with the letters we held having the mucilaged surface, in such a way that they came in contact with the three letters he had in his hand, and forcing the letters into the chute with ours, the mucilage sticking the bunch of five letters together. All slid into the chute. No. 1's brother became very indignant and muttered something about rudeness and awkwardness. I attempted a hasty apology and disappeared around the corner to the office of the Assistant Postmaster, whose acquaintance I had previously formed. I told him that I had just deposited two letters in the main repository and that I had discovered that I had placed the letters in the wrong envelopes, and wished to get them so that I might rectify my mistake. He at once conducted me to the main mail box below, where there were at least a half a wagon load of letters and general mail matter. I at once found the bunch of five letters which were stuck together with the mucilage, and in separating them had ample time to note the different addresses on the three envelopes mailed by No. 1's brother. One of these was addressed to a relative of Mrs. Dillard, to her home in Tennessee.