True Stories of Crime From the District Attorney's Office. Arthur Cheney Train
hole?" asks Madame Reddon,
"Mais, voici une autre."
July 11, 1902.
M. Jean Lapierre.
My dear M. Lapierre: As soon as I could walk a little I began my research for the impostors of the inheritance Tessier. Without a doubt some person who is interested in the case has already advised them of my arrival in New York, and to take the necessary precautions to lead me astray in my researches.
Already I have discovered almost everything. I know even the house in which resided the deceased before his death. It is a house of twenty-five stories high, which resembles the Church of Saint Magdalene in Paris. To-day it is the biggest bank in New York. I have visited it from top to bottom, ascending and descending in steel elevators. This is a marvelous palace; it is worth more than five million dollars. The house itself has the numbers 100, 102, 104, 106, 108, 110, 112, 114, 116 and 118. In other words, it covers the ground of ten other houses made into one.
I have also visited six houses belonging to him, which are worth millions and are located around Central Park. …
As soon as the brothers Lespinasse knew that I had arrived in New York they immediately took their departure, one for Paris to find his father, Emmeric Lespinasse, the other to the city of Tuxpan, in Mexico, to visit the properties stolen from the heirs. I have come to an understanding with the Reverend Father Van Rensselaer, Father Superior of the Jesuits, and have offered him two millions for his poor, in recompense for his aid to recover and to enter into possession of the inheritance. He takes great pains, and is my veritable guide and confidant. …
I have visited Central Park, also a property of the deceased; this property alone is worth more than twenty million dollars. … I have great confidence in my success, and I am almost sure to reach the goal, if you are the heirs, for here there is a mix-up by all the devils. …
The wound of my leg has much improved, the consequences which I feared have disappeared, and I expect soon my complete convalescence, but the devil has bestowed upon me a toothache, which makes me almost crazy with pain. I shall leave, nevertheless, to begin my campaign.
Will you be kind enough to give my regards to your wife and son, and to our old friend, etc., etc.
PEDRO S. DE MORENO.
"May the devil bestow upon him five hundred million toothaches!" exclaims Lapierre, for the first time showing any sign of animation.
The other letters were read in their order, interspersed with Madame Reddon's explanations of their effect upon the heirs in France. His description of the elevators of steel and of the house that covered an entire block had caused a veritable sensation. Alas! those wonders are still wonders to them, and they still, I fancy, more than half believe in them. The letters are lying before me now, astonishing emanations, totally ridiculous to a prosaic American, but calculated to convince and stimulate the imagination of a petit bourgeois.
The General in glowing terms paints his efforts to run down the Lespinasse conspirators. Although suffering horribly from his fractured tibia (when he fell into the "hole"), and from other dire ills, he has "not taken the slightest rest." He has been everywhere—"New Orleans, Florida, to the city of Coney Island"—to corner the villains, who "flee in all directions." The daughter, Marie Louise, through whom the General expects to secure a compromise, has left for New Orleans. "Wonderful coincidence," he writes, "they were all living quietly and I believe had no intention whatever to travel, and two days after my arrival in New York they all disappeared. The most suspicious of it all is that the banker, his wife and children had left for Coney Island for the summer and to spend their holidays, and certainly they disappeared without saying good-by to their intimate friends. … I have the whole history of Tessier's life and how he made his fortune. There is a family for the use of whom we must give at least a million, for the fortune of Tessier was not his alone. He had a companion who shared his troubles and his work. According to the will they were to inherit one from the other; the companion died, and Tessier inherited everything. I do not see the necessity of your trip to New York; that might make noise and perhaps delay my negotiations." Then follows the list of properties embraced in the inheritance:
PROPERTY AND PERSONAL ESTATE OF THE HEIRS
1 The land of Central Park ceded to the
city of New York, of the value of $5,000,000.00
2 He had at the National Bank--United
States Bank--deposited in gold--twenty
to thirty million dollars. He
never withdrew anything; on the
contrary, he always deposited his income
there 25,000,000.00
3 The big house on Broadway, Nos. 100
to 118, of twenty-five stories, to-day
the largest bank in New York 5,000,000.00
4 The house on Fifth Avenue, No. 765,
facing Central Park, to-day one of
the first hotels of New York--Hotel
Savoy 8,000,000.00
5 House on Fifth Avenue, No. 767, facing
Central Park, to-day the biggest
and most handsomest of American
hotels, where the greatest people and
millionaires stop--Hotel Netherland 20,000,000.00
6 Two coal mines at Folkustung in Texas 9,000,000.00
7 A petroleum mine in Pennsylvania
(Mexican frontier) 6,000,000.00
8 Shares of silver mine at Tuxpan,
Mexico 10,000,000.00
9 The house at Tuxpan and its grounds,
Mexico 15,000.00
10 The pleasure home and grounds in
Florida (New Orleans) in the city of
Coney Island 500,000.00
11 The house which covers all the Esquare
Plaza (no number because it is all
alone). It is an immense palace,
with a park and gardens, and waters
forming cascades and labyrinths,
facing Central Park 12,000,000.00
12 The block of houses on Fifth and Sixth
Avenues, facing on this same Central
Park, which, as all these grounds belong
to him, he had put up. They
are a hundred houses, that is called
here a block 30,000,000.00
13 He is the owner of two railroads and
owns shares of others in Pennsylvania
and Canada 40,000,000.00
14 A line of steam and sail boats--Atlantic.
The Pennsylvania and the Tessier
and other names 100,000,000.00
15 A dock and a quay of eight hundred
meters on the Brooklyn River for
his ships 130,000,000.00
16 Several values and debts owed him and
which at his death had not been collected $40,000.00
----------------
$390,555,000.00
Which is in francs 1,952,775,000
Plus 5 per cent 976,388
--------------
Total in francs 1,953,751,388
"Do you blame us?" asks Madame Valoie, as I listen as politely as possible to this Arabian Nights' dream of riches.