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Title: The Great Taxicab Robbery - A True Detective Story
Author: Collins, James H.
Language: English
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------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE GREAT
TAXICAB ROBBERY
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Illustration:
RHINELANDER WALDO
Commissioner of Police, New York City
]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE GREAT
TAXICAB ROBBERY
_A True Detective Story_
BY
JAMES H. COLLINS
WRITTEN FROM RECORDS AND PERSONAL ACCOUNTS
OF THE CASE FURNISHED BY THE NEW
YORK POLICE DEPARTMENT
NEW YORK
JOHN LANE COMPANY
MCMXII
------------------------------------------------------------------------
COPYRIGHT, 1912, BY
JOHN LANE COMPANY
------------------------------------------------------------------------
This book has something to say about practical
results of wiser police administration in New
York. It is respectfully dedicated to
HON. WILLIAM J. GAYNOR
MAYOR OF NEW YORK CITY
the official who took the initiative in improving
conditions
------------------------------------------------------------------------
PREFACE
There are several reasons for this little book, but the best of all is
the main reason—that it is a cracking good story, and right out of life.
The characters will be found interesting, and they are real people,
every one of them. The incidents are full of action and color. The plot
has mystery, surprise, interplay of mind and motive—had a novelist
invented it, the reader might declare it improbable. This is the kind of
story that is fundamental—the kind Mr. Chesterton says is so necessary
to plain people that, when writers do not happen to write it, plain
people invent it for themselves in the form of folk-lore.
But apart from the story interest there are other reasons.
When the New York police department had run down all the threads of the
plot, and accounted for most of the characters by locking them up, they
had become so absorbed in the story themselves, as a story, that they
thought the public would enjoy following it from the inside.
While the crime was being dealt with, the police were subjected to
pretty severe criticism. They felt that the facts would make it clear
that they knew their trade and had been working at it diligently.
The story gives an insight into real police methods. These are very
different from the methods of the fiction detective, and also from the
average citizen’s idea of police work. They ought to be better known.
When the public understands that there is nothing secret, tyrannical or
dangerous in good police practice, and that our laws safeguard even the
guilty against abuses, there will be helpful public opinion behind
officers of the law, and we shall have a higher degree of order and
security.
The directing mind in this case was that of Commissioner George
Dougherty, executive head of the detectives of the New York Police
Department. Thousands of clean, ambitious young fellows are constantly
putting on the policeman’s uniform all over the country, and rising to
places as detectives and officials. The manufacturer or merchant may
find himself in the police commissioner’s chair. Even the suburbanite,
with his bundles, may be, out at Lonesomehurst, a member of the village
council, and thus responsible for the supervision of a police force
that, though it be only two patrolmen and a chief, is important in its
place. So in writing the story there has been an effort to show how a
first-rate man like Commissioner Dougherty works. His methods are plain
business methods. Most of his life he has earned his living following
the policeman’s trade as a commercial business. What he did in a case of
this kind, and how, and why, are matters of general interest and
importance.
Finally, the story throws some useful light on criminals. It shows the
cunning of the underworld, and also its limitations. To free the
law-abiding mind of romantic notions about the criminal, and show him as
he is, is highly important in the prevention of crime.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
FACING
PAGE
Rhinelander Waldo, Commissioner of
Police, New York City
_Frontispiece_
George S. Dougherty, Second Deputy 20
Police Commissioner
Edward P. Hughes, Inspector in Command 40
of Detective Bureau, and Dominick G.
Riley, Lieutenant and Aide to
Commissioner Dougherty
Geno Montani, Eddie Kinsman, Gene 60
Splaine, “Scotty the Lamb” and John
Molloy
James Pasquale, Bob Delio, Jess 80
Albrazzo, and Matteo Arbrano
“Scotty” Receives Final Instructions 110
“The Brigands” “Stick-up” the Hold-up 126
Men for Theirs
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE CAST
GENO MONTANI, a taxicab proprietor.
WILBUR SMITH, an elderly bank teller.
FRANK WARDLE, a seventeen-year-old bank office boy.
EDDIE KINSMAN, alias “Collins,” alias “Eddie the Boob,” a hold-up man.
BILLY KELLER, alias “Dutch,” a hold-up man.
GENE SPLAINE, a hold-up man.
“SCOTTY THE LAMB,” a thieves’ helper, or “stall.”
JOE PHILADELPHIA, alias “The Kid,” a runner for thieves, or “lobbygow.”
JAMES PASQUALE, alias “Jimmy the Push,” keeper of shady resorts known
as “208” and “233.”
BOB DEILIO, partner of “Jimmy the Push.”
JESS ALBRAZZO, a middleman, formerly keeper of the Arch Café, pal of
Montani, “Jimmy the Push” and Bob Deilio.
MATTEO ARBRANO, }
PAULI GONZALES, } The “Three Brigands.”
CHARLES CAVAGNARO, }
“KING DODO,” a Bowery character.
RHINELANDER WALDO, Police Commissioner of New York.
GEORGE S. DOUGHERTY, Second Deputy Police Commissioner, executive head
of detectives.
INSPECTOR EDWARD P. HUGHES, in command of Detective Bureau.
POLICE LIEUTENANT DOMINICK G. RILEY, Aide of Commissioner Dougherty’s
staff.
DETECTIVE SERGT JOHN J. O’CONNELL, Official Stenographer.
THE DETECTIVES on “Plants,” “Trailing,” “Surrounding,” “Arresting,”
etc.:
John P. Barron, Edward Boyle, Frank Campbell, James Dalton, James J.
Finan, John W. Finn, Joseph A. Daly, Daniel W. Clare, John Gaynor,
Anthony Grieco, John P. Griffith, Daniel F. Hallihan, Edward Lennon,
Henry Mugge, Richard Oliver, Gustavus J. Riley, James F. Shevlin,
Joseph Toner, George Trojan, James A. Watson.
“SWEDE ANNIE,” Kinsman’s sweetheart.
MYRTLE HORN, a pal of Annie.
ROSE LEVY, a newcomer in Thompson street, Jess Albrazzo’s girl.
MRS. ISABELLA GOODWIN, a police matron.
MRS. SULLIVAN, keeper of a West Side rooming house.
“JOSIE,” a lady of the Levee district, Chicago.
Detectives, policemen, informants, witnesses, denizens of the
underworld, newspaper reporters, trainmen, ticket sellers, etc.,
etc.
* * * * *
PLACE—Chiefly in New York, with Scenes in Chicago, Albany, Memphis,
Boston and Montreal.
TIME—February and March, 1912.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The
Great Taxicab Robbery
CHAPTER I
WHAT THE PUBLIC HEARD ABOUT THE CRIME
On Thursday, February 15, 1912, the New York evening papers had a
startling news story.
Between ten and eleven o’clock that morning two messengers were sent in
a taxicab from the East River National Bank, at Broadway and Third
street, to draw $25,000 in currency from the Produce Exchange National
Bank, at Broadway and Beaver street, in the downtown financial district,
and bring it uptown. This transfer of money had been made several times
a week for so long a period without danger or loss that the messengers
were unarmed. One of them, Wilbur F. Smith, was an old man who had been
in the service of the bank thirty-five years, and the other was a mere
boy, named Wardle, seventeen years old. The taxicab man, an Italian
named Geno Montani, seemed almost a trusted employee, too, for he
operated two cabs from a stand near the bank, and was frequently called
upon for such trips.
While the cab was returning uptown through Church street with the money,
five men suddenly closed in upon it. According to the chauffeur’s story,
a sixth man forced him to slacken speed by stumbling in front of the
vehicle. Immediately two men on each side of the cab opened the doors.
Two assailants were boosted in and quickly beat the messengers into
insensibility, while their two helpers ran along on the sidewalk. The
fifth man climbed onto the seat beside the chauffeur, held a revolver to
his ribs, and ordered him to drive fast on peril of his life. This
fellow seemed to be familiar with automobiles, and threatened the driver
when he tried to slacken speed. That is a busy part of the city. Yet
nobody on the sidewalks seemed to notice anything out of the ordinary.
The cab dodged vehicles, going at high speed for several blocks. At Park
Place and Church street, after a trip of eleven blocks, at a busy
corner, the chauffeur was ordered to stop the cab, and the three robbers
got down, carrying the $25,000 in a leather bag, ran quickly to a black
automobile without a license number which was waiting for them, and in a
few moments were gone.
That was the substance of the story.
Information came chiefly from the chauffeur, because the two bank
employees had been attacked so suddenly and viciously that they lost
consciousness in a moment. When the chauffeur looked inside his cab
after the crime, he said, he saw them both lying senseless and bleeding.
They could give no description of the assailants. Eye-witnesses were
found who had seen men loitering in the neighborhood where the cab was
boarded shortly before the crime, but their descriptions were not very
useful.
That night the New York evening papers published accounts of the crime
under great black headlines, and on the following morning every news
item of a criminal nature was grouped in the same part of the papers to
prove that the city had entered one of its sensational “waves of crime.”
And for more than a week the public read criticism and denunciation of
the police force.
It was charged that the police had become “demoralized,” and various
changes of administrative policy introduced into the department within
the past eight months were blindly denounced.
The most important of these changes was that devised by Mayor Gaynor.
Eight or ten years ago, every uniformed policeman in New York carried a
club, and often used it freely in defending himself while making
arrests. Abuses led to the abolition of this means of defense except for
officers patrolling the streets at night. There were still undoubted
abuses, however, and when Mayor Gaynor came into office, bringing
well-thought-out opinions of police administration from his experience
as a magistrate on the bench, he took a determined stand for more humane
methods of making arrests, and strict holding of every policeman to the
letter of the laws. Every case of clubbing was prosecuted, the plain
legal rights of citizens or criminals upheld, and the Police Department
began teaching its men new ways of defending themselves by skillful
holds in wrestling whereby prisoners may be handled effectually and
without doing them harm. Sentiment against the use of the club began to
grow in the Police Department itself, it being recognized that clubbing
was an unskillful means of defense, and that special athletic devices
were more workmanlike.
Now, however, the newspapers published every chance opinion of
discharged, retired and anonymous police officers who objected to the
new regulations. It was alleged that criminals had got out of bounds
because policemen no longer dared club them into good behavior, and the
editors, without paying much attention to the many good points of the
new regulations, or trying to understand the merits of a settled policy
applied to an organization of more than ten thousand men, set up a cry
for the presumably “good old days” of Inspector So-and-So and Chief
This-and-That, when every known criminal was promptly struck over the
head on sight and thereby taught to know his place. If the files of New
York journals for those days following the robbery are examined they
will reveal a curious exhibition of pleading for official lawlessness
and autocracy.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Illustration:
GEORGE S. DOUGHERTY
Second Deputy Police Commissioner
]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Another point of criticism centered on a new method adopted in the
distribution of the detective force. This comprises more than five
hundred men. For years they were all required to report at Police
Headquarters every day, coming from distant precincts, and had an
opportunity to see whatever professional criminals were under arrest.
Then they went back to different precincts to work. This took too much
time, it was found, and the old-fashioned “line-up” of criminals was
chiefly a spectacle, the same offenders dropping into the hands of the
police with more or less regularity. So detectives were re-distributed
on a plan that attaches a proper number of plain-clothes policemen to
each precinct, according to its needs, and in those precincts the men
live and become acquainted with local criminals. Many of them work in
sections where they were born, and detectives speaking foreign languages
are assigned to foreign quarters.
The newspapers charged that red-tape had brought the Police Department
to such a low state that young detectives had no idea what a real
criminal looked like, and urged the restoration of the old system, with
its picturesque “line-up.”
In the days of Inspector Byrnes, when practically all the banking of the
city was done around Wall Street, the police established a “dead line”
beyond which criminals were supposed not to operate. In its day, the
“dead line” was real enough, undoubtedly. But it was not necessarily an
ideal police measure, and the growth of the city has long made it a mere
memory, living only in newspaper tradition. To-day, banking extends as
far north as Central Park, and millions upon millions of dollars are
being carried about daily by people of every sort. Despite the fact that
the last loss of money from a New York bank through professional
criminals (apart from fraud and forgery) dated back some fifteen or
eighteen years, the newspapers seemed to agree that life and property
were no longer safe in the city because this purely mythical “dead line”
had been disregarded by the robbers.
There was other comment of the same character, and it had an immediate
and grievous effect.
On the day after the robbery a chance remark about a safe in an East
Side bank, coupled with the general excitement, led to a run of its
depositors, chiefly people of foreign birth. The bank was solvent, and
the run was undoubtedly stimulated by gossip started by criminals for
their own ends. But the frightened depositors insisted on drawing out
their money, and exposing themselves to danger of robbery and assault.
The situation was met by careful police co-operation.
About six months before the taxicab robbery, the New York legislature
put into force a measure known as the “Sullivan law,” providing
penalties for the carrying of pistols and concealed weapons. This is
unquestionably a wise measure fundamentally, and one that was badly
needed for police administration and public safety. It is perhaps open
to certain modifications, to be made as actual conditions are
encountered in practical working of the law. Newspaper opinion drew a
connection between this law and the “wave of crime,” and its repeal was
urged, so that every citizen might arm himself as he pleased. Hundreds
of persons who had felt safe in going about their business unarmed now
applied for permits to carry pistols.
Fortunately, a sensation does not last long in New York.
Though the Police Department felt this criticism keenly, and was
hampered by it, pressure began to slacken in about a week. Other
sensations came along. There was nothing to publish about the taxicab
case, as police information was withheld for good official reasons.
Presently the town ventured to joke about the case. At an elaborate
public dinner one night, among other topical effects, a dummy taxicab
suddenly scooted out before the guests, held up a dummy police
commissioner, took his watch, and scooted away again. The diners
laughed, and that was fairly representative of the town, which was now
ready to have its joke about the crime, too. Had there never been any
further action by the police, the case would have quietly dropped out of
sight. But fortunately there was police action, and with that we shall
now deal.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER II
HOW THE CRIME WAS HANDLED BY THE POLICE—ON THE TRAIL
Now, let us follow the police story. We will begin at the very
beginning, watch the incidents and character unfold, and give quite a
little attention to the technical methods by which results were arrived
at. For the story is a study in clean, straightforward detective work,
and that work ought to be better known by the public, so that
intelligent public opinion may back up honest police effort.
The story starts with a burly, genial man, sitting in a big office at
Police Headquarters. The office is that of the Second Deputy Police
Commissioner, and the man is the Commissioner himself, George S.
Dougherty.
Commissioner Dougherty dominates the story. The taxicab robbers were
caught by his methods, plans and supervision, backed by the splendid
team work of the men under him. His own sources of information supplied
the clues, and his personal skill in examining criminals brought out the
confessions that saved the city the expense of trials with all but one
offender. It is far from the writer’s wish to indulge in hero-worship,
however, so these details will appear in their proper place in the
narrative.
George Dougherty has had nearly twenty-five years’ experience in
criminal work in New York, and over the whole country. Until his
appointment by Mayor Gaynor in May, 1911, he was connected with the
Pinkerton organization. Bank and financial crimes have long been his
specialty, so the taxicab case fell right into his own province. He
knows the ways of forgers, bank sneaks, swindlers, burglars and
“yeggmen,” and is personally acquainted with most of the criminals in
those lines in and out of prison. He has also had much to do with
protecting the crowds at races, ball games, aeronautic meetings and
other big gatherings. As executive head of the detective bureau, five
hundred plain-clothes policemen scattered over Greater New York cover
all crimes of a local and routine nature, and are subject to his call
when a special case like the taxicab robbery comes up for his personal
attention.
On an ordinarily quiet morning at Police Headquarters, there will be a
steady stream of people passing into Dougherty’s office. Several
assistants guard the doors leading from two ante-rooms, and marshal the
visitors. Now a group of detectives enters and hears a talk on methods.
Then two detectives come in, make a report and receive further
instructions. Then there will be an interruption, perhaps, while an
assistant soothes and sends away a crank who occasionally turns up with
a purely imaginary affair of his own, and two more detectives pass in
accompanied by a man and a woman who look just like the people one sees
dining at a fashionable uptown restaurant. The woman’s furs are
magnificent, and her hat a costly Fifth avenue creation.
“A couple of taxpayers?” speculates the group of reporters, waiting
outside to get a statement about some important case.
“Two of the cleverest check swindlers in the country,” corrects a
detective, and presently the reporters are called in, and Dougherty
recites names, dates and facts connected with the gang to which these
prosperous “taxpayers” belong, gazing reflectively out of the window as
details come back in memory, and chuckling with the delighted
journalists as the pithy slang and professional names of the underworld
are jotted down on their pads. They fire a scattering volley of
questions at him and depart, and then his secretary announces that the
saloon-keeper who knows a good deal about the Blind Puppy Café case is
outside, but refuses to talk to the police at all.
“Hullo!” is the Commissioner’s off-hand greeting as the cautious
saloon-keeper comes in, and in two minutes the latter is answering
questions freely.
“Why, say!” he exclaims, “I’ll tell _you_ anything.”
Then a humble little woman in a cheap hat and a long cloak is brought
in. For more than an hour she has been waiting outside, with her eyes
fixed patiently on the door leading to the inner office.
“Stand there,” says the Commissioner, with gruff kindness, and he makes
a formal statement about her husband, who has been arrested with a
criminal gang, and is pretty certain to go to prison. He tells her what
has been done in the case, and what will follow, and the little woman
listens mutely. When he finishes, her eyes fill with tears. But she
makes no reply, nor any sound. The Commissioner winks fast as he looks
out of the window again, and then says, sympathetically:
“That’s the best that can be done. But don’t you worry. Come in and see
me again. Keep in touch with me, and don’t worry yourself. Come in and
talk with me—come in to-morrow.” And she bravely wipes her eyes and goes
out with her trouble.
The procession continues.
Police captains and detectives in squads, prisoners and witnesses in
twos and threes, newspaper men in corps and singly, and occasionally a
cautious gentleman who wants to see the Commissioner alone, and is
anxious that nobody say anything about this visit to Police
Headquarters—for he is an informant.
_The First Alarm_
The taxicab robbery took place on a quiet morning like this.
Suddenly, around eleven o’clock on Thursday, February 15, a brief
message comes from the second precinct, stating that a robbery has been
committed in the financial district. A little later there is a fuller
report over police wires. The details are few, as will be seen by the
general alarm that presently goes out over the city:
_Police Department, City of New York_,
February 15, 1912.
To all, all Boroughs—notify the patrol platoon immediately.
Arrest for assault and robbery three men:
No. 1, about 35 years, five feet eight or nine inches in height,
160 or 170 pounds, small stubby dark mustache, dark complexion,
medium build, dark suit and cap, no overcoat.
No. 2, about 35 years, five feet ten inches in height, slender
build, dark hair, possibly smooth shaven, light brown suit, no
overcoat, wore a cap.
No description of No. 3.
Stole $25,000 in five and ten dollar bills, contained in a brown
leather telescope bag, 24 inches long, 16 inches square, from
two bank messengers in a taxicab about 11 this a. m., at Park
Place and Church Street, and escaped in a five or seven-seated
black touring car, top up. Look out for this car, bag and
occupants on streets, at ferry entrances, bridge terminals,
railroad stations. Inquire at all garages, automobile stands,
stables, etc.
If found, notify Detective Bureau.
Before noon, the Commissioner has postponed appointments, assigned
routine business, and is engaged in an investigation that will keep him
busy until that morning, twelve days later, when the first arrests are
made, and the case is, in police parlance, “broken.”
Where do the police begin in such a crime? What do they start with when
there is apparently so little to work upon?
In spite of the wide popular interest in police and criminal matters,
the average citizen has no very clear idea. Even the newspaper reporter,
following police activities every day, is not well informed in technical
details. Some information is necessarily withheld from him, and he is a
busy young man, with his own technical viewpoint, working hard to get
his own kind of information.
This lack of knowledge leads to a feeling of mystery, helplessness and
terror after a sensational crime, and to criticism of the police. They
are at work, skillfully, honestly, diligently. But results take time. It
would do little good to make arrests without evidence. The citizen’s
sympathies are aroused by brutal lawlessness, and he urges that somebody
be caught and punished. If results are not at once apparent, he jumps to
the conclusion that the police are “demoralized.” He would be startled
if he could see how quickly and persistently the underworld takes steps
to strengthen him in that conclusion, and use him to discredit the
police.
Sixty detectives are immediately called into the case. Five of them go
down to the scene of the robbery, with orders to work there until
further notice. They make a thorough search of the neighborhood,
following the route taken by Montani’s taxicab, and questioning
merchants, newsdealers, porters, truckmen and other persons likely to
have information as eye-witnesses. They go through the streets that may
have been taken by the escaping robbers, and work over the whole ground.
This search through one of the busiest sections of New York in a busy
hour, amid the excitement created by the crime, may appear like hopeless
business. But, as will be seen presently, it yields important results.
Other detectives search garages for the black automobile without a
license number in which the robbers are reported to have got away. Four
uniformed policemen on beats along the route taken by the taxicab are
questioned. Other detailed inquiries of the same nature are started.
But the most important work of the first day centers at Police
Headquarters, where a conference is held by Commissioner Dougherty and
his assistants, and in the examination of Montani, the taxicab driver.
Strip all the labels off a suit of clothes and lay it before a committee
of tailors. In a few moments certain points would be agreed upon. It may
be a new suit, or an old one, a fine piece of tailoring, or a cheap
hand-me-down. The committee could often identify the cheap suit and tell
the name of its manufacturer, while with a seventy-five-dollar suit it
might be possible to determine the maker’s name. This holds true of many
other lines of work, and it is particularly true of criminal
investigation.
Who cut and made that suit of clothes?
The conference sat down to determine this, judging the robbery strictly
as a piece of workmanship. Names of known bank criminals were brought
up, one by one, and details gone over. It soon became clear that none of
the men identified with bank crime were likely to have the brains, skill
or organization to plan and execute so complicated a robbery.
The criminals had known the habits of the bank in conveying cash uptown.
They knew the route, and were aware that the guard was only an elderly
man and a seventeen-year-old boy, both unarmed. They had boarded the cab
at the best point, and evidently made arrangements for stopping it.
There was team work in every detail. It showed marked insight, for
instance, to provide additional men to boost each assailant in at the
doors. For young Wardle, the bank employee, had made a plucky attempt to
shove his robber out and shut the door, and might have succeeded had
there not been an outside man. Robberies are committed under exciting
conditions. They sometimes fail because criminals balk. That outside man
was there not only to help his “slugger” into the cab, but to _force_
him in if he shrank, and make certain he did his work. Whoever planned
such details, it was agreed at the conference, possessed more cunning
than the ordinary bank criminal.
_Montani is Examined._
When Montani, the taxicab driver, arrived at Police Headquarters, he was
willing to talk, and seemed anxious to help the police in every way. He
knew suspicion might be directed toward himself, but did not resent
that. He talked like a man confident of the truth of his story, and
certain that he would be found blameless.
Montani is an Italian, from the northern part of Italy, about 30 years
old, five feet six inches high, rather stout and thick-set, with very
dark complexion. The striking feature of his countenance, his large,
intelligent brown eyes. Commissioner Dougherty found himself thinking of
Napoleon in connection with Montani.
The first examination lasted all afternoon, Montani going out to lunch
with the Commissioner. Hundreds of questions were asked bearing on the
robbery, the appearance of the criminals, and Montani’s past and
personal affairs. The story was gone over again and again, and different
questioners relieved each other. Yet the taxicab man never lost his
temper or patience, and did not contradict himself in any important
particular.
Montani had been in this country since the age of twelve, it appeared,
had a wife and two children, and was the owner of two taxicabs operated
from a stand at a hotel near the bank, whose money he regularly carried.
He had owned three cabs, but lost one through business reverses. In
fact, he had passed through money troubles, and his story excited
sympathy. Starting originally as a truckman for a salvage company, his
ambition and intelligence had won him such confidence that this company
lent him money to set up trucking for himself. Still more ambitious, he
had become a taxicab proprietor. Through the trickery of an ill-chosen
partner, however, he has lost some of his savings. He seemed a little
bitter about this, and it was a circumstance not likely to escape an
expert police examiner, for the loss of money through fraud, coupled
with temptation, is often the starting point in crime. The Italian’s
former employers spoke highly of his character when questioned by
detectives. He gave the names of chauffeurs who had worked for him
lately, and of business people who knew him, and careful investigation
failed to disclose any suspicious circumstances. Montani quite won the
newspaper men—so much so that, when he was discharged in court a few
days later for apparent lack of evidence, the newspapers criticised the
police for having held him at all.
And yet, before that first night, Montani himself, largely through
simple answers to questions, had become so involved that there was
ground for holding him under arrest.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Illustration:
EDWARD P. HUGHES
Inspector in Command of Detective Bureau
]
[Illustration:
DOMINICK G. RILEY
Lieutenant and Aide to Commissioner Dougherty
]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
In the questions and cross-questions, the checks and counter-checks of a
skillful examiner, there are possibilities little suspected by those not
familiar with that kind of work.
Montani had slowed down his cab at the point where the robbers boarded
it. He said that an old man had suddenly got in front, and he had
slackened speed to avoid running over him. But detectives along the
route found eye-witnesses who had seen the robbers board the cab, and
who could testify that there had been nobody in front of the vehicle.
Both of his cabs had stood in line near the bank that morning, the one
driven by himself being second, and the other, in charge of an employee,
was first. When the call came from the bank, Montani answered it himself
out of his turn, sending the other cab uptown, as he explained, to have
some tires vulcanized. But it was not a good explanation.
He said that as soon as the robbers left his cab he had raised a cry for
help. But eye-witnesses were found who denied this.
Instead of running north after the robbers’ automobile when he had taken
a policeman aboard his cab, he ran south, away from it. This action, he
maintained, was taken under orders from the policeman. But the latter
denied that.
He was not able to explain how the robbers had known where to post their
automobile so it would be waiting at the spot where they finished their
work.
Interest centered in this mysterious black automobile without a license
number. For, though Montani was an experienced chauffeur, and his
replies to other questions showed that he had seen both the rear and the
side of that car, he was unable to tell its make.
Meanwhile, it was learned that three men had hurriedly boarded an
elevated train near the scene of the robbery shortly after, not waiting
for change from a quarter. The ticket-seller was unable to describe
them, but connected them with the robbery when he heard about it.
Montani was held in the custody of the Commissioner that night, to be
put through further examination in the morning. But long before morning
the police were working on an entirely new development.
_The First Direct Clue_
The law-abiding citizen goes around New York with little knowledge of
the crowding underworld all about him. It is perhaps just as well that
he knows nothing of the lives and morals of hundreds of people who elbow
him on the streets, sit beside him in the cars, and scrutinize him with
a strictly professional eye in many places.
Nor has he any clear conception of the relations that a good police
officer maintains with members of this underworld. It is a world just as
complete as that of business or society, however, and much of the time
of a detective or police official is spent keeping track of people in
it, forming acquaintances and connections in various ways, and
establishing the organization of informants that will help in the
detection and prevention of crime. A good detective is like a good
salesman—he keeps track of his “trade.”
Shortly after midnight of the first day, Commissioner Dougherty received
a message over the telephone that sent him uptown to meet an informant.
At two o’clock in the morning of Friday, February 16, he and this person
had a talk at a fashionable uptown hotel. Indeed, most of the meetings
with informants during this case were held at two well-known hotels,
perhaps the last places in the city that anybody would connect with such
conferences.
Informants are not always right, nor always possessed of useful
information. But this one had the first real clue.
On the afternoon of the robbery, it was learned, a fellow known as
“Eddie Collins” had come to his rooming house, on the lower West Side,
told a woman with whom he lived, known as “Swede Annie,” to pack up and
be ready to leave the city in a hurry, and presently disappeared with
her. He was also reported to have a large roll of money. With a rough
estimate of the size of this roll, given by the informant, and a dummy
roll of “stage money” made up for the purpose, the police were able to
judge that Collins must have had between $3,000 and $5,000. That would
have been his probable share in a division of the stolen currency among
five men.
The house where Collins had lived was kept by a Mrs. Sullivan. Steps
were at once taken to “surround” this woman, as the operation is known
technically. For before a possible source of information like Mrs.
Sullivan is followed up, it is necessary to know something about it. The
person in question may be criminal, or in league with the underworld. On
the other hand, he or she may be quite innocent, and willing to aid the
police. The “surround” is an interesting operation. It is often made
without the knowledge of the person investigated. In many cases it takes
time.
Mrs. Sullivan came through the ordeal handsomely.
She proved to be a wholesome, hard-working landlady, keeping a house
that sheltered occasional suspicious characters, but entirely honest
herself. She was not only able to furnish information about her late
lodgers, but willing.
“Sure, it’s a good deal I know about that Collins, as he calls himself,”
she said, “and mighty little that’s good.”
It seems that about two weeks previously Collins had offered to pay the
landlady if she would appear in a Brooklyn court and testify to the good
character of a criminal named Molloy, who was being held for trial on a
charge of robbery.
“They’re paying fifteen to twenty dollars for ‘character’ witnesses,”
said her lodger.
“And do you think I’d take the stand and perjure myself swearing for a
man I never heard of?” asked the indignant landlady.
“Oh, that’s nothing to some of the things we do,” was the reply.
Several days later, while she was putting some laundry into Collins’
bureau drawer the landlady caught sight of two new blackjacks. She asked
Collins what he was doing with such weapons.
“Aw, we use them in our business,” he said. Then, with the confidence
often bred in criminals by success, he told her he knew a gang that was
planning to rob a taxicab that carried money uptown to a bank every
week. Mrs. Sullivan questioned him as to details, and he assured her it
would be an easy job.
“For we’ve got it all fixed with the chauffeur,” he said.
At that point, however, like many an honest person who might aid the
police with information, Mrs. Sullivan let the matter drop out of her
mind. It is a simple thing to mail a letter or telephone to Police
Headquarters, giving such information, and the experience of the
Detective Bureau is such that the information can be investigated
without involving innocent persons. But perhaps Mrs. Sullivan concluded
that, in a big city like New York, it is well for people to keep their
mouths shut. Or maybe she decided that Collins was merely boasting.
On Friday, less than twenty-four hours after the robbery, a “network
investigation” was begun.
Sixty detectives searched that part of the city where Collins and Annie
had lived, seeking further information. Photograph galleries and other
places were investigated on the chance of finding pictures. Denizens of
the underworld were talked with casually. Professional criminals,
prostitutes, dive-keepers, receivers of stolen goods and other shady
characters were brought before Commissioner Dougherty in couples and
half-dozens for quick cross-examination. By Saturday evening the police
had some highly important information.
It was learned that Annie had been seen going away on the afternoon of
the robbery in a taxicab, accompanied by two men, one of whom was
Collins, and the other unknown. Good descriptions were secured of Annie
and her sweetheart, especially of her hat, which was a cheap affair, but
conspicuous by reason of a row of little red roses. It was also
discovered that Collins had been a boxer, that he hailed from Boston,
and that his real name was Eddie Kinsman. Finally, the police secured
two photographs, one an indifferent picture of Kinsman, and the other an
excellent portrait of Annie. These were quickly put through the
department’s photograph gallery, where there are facilities for making
duplicates in a hurry, and more than a hundred copies were soon ready
for work which will be described in its proper place.
The trail now seemed to lead to Boston. At all events, further
information was to be secured there. And here came in a little
refinement imparted by Commissioner Dougherty’s experience with the
Pinkerton forces. For where this private detective organization works
unhampered over the whole country, the official police forces in most
cities confine their searches to their own territory. When it is
believed that criminals have left town, as in this case, a general
description is telegraphed to other cities. Dougherty’s method, however,
is always to send a man from his own staff, with detailed instructions.
There are no local boundaries for him.
Late on Saturday night Inspector Hughes, of the Detective Bureau,
slipped out of headquarters with Detective O’Connell, and took a train
for Boston. Their departure was kept strictly secret. They bid good
night to associates, saying that they expected to be up and at work
again early next morning, and until their return on Monday everybody who
asked for the Inspector was told that “he is usually around the building
somewhere.”
_Montani Points Out “King Dodo”_
All through Friday and Saturday, while the network investigation was
going on, Commissioner Dougherty continued his examination of Montani.
Some important information against him now came from outside.
It developed that Montani had been involved several months before in an
insurance case, claiming indemnity for a burned automobile under a
policy. He had presented, as part of its value, a bill for repairs
amounting to $1,348. The insurance company, however, had found that this
bill was fraudulent, that the repairs had never been made, and had
obtained a statement to that effect from the Italian chauffeur. Out of
pity for his wife and two children the case was not pressed against him.
Now that he was involved in another crime, however, the insurance people
came forward and laid the facts before the police.
Of course, Montani knew nothing about this new development.
For two days the chauffeur was questioned at intervals, and the inquiry
centered chiefly on the knotty points in his story of the crime. He was
particularly pressed for better explanations of the slackening of his
cab when the robbers boarded it, but stuck to his original statement
about a man getting in front of the vehicle. He described this person as
an old man, and said he must have been in league with the criminals. As
the police had good evidence that there had been nobody in front of the
taxicab, however, this point was returned to again and again, and toward
night on Saturday, February 17, the little chauffeur began to feel the
strain.
On his way to supper that evening with men from the Detective Bureau,
Montani was taken through the Bowery. Suddenly he stopped, dramatically,
and exclaimed:
“There! That is the old man who got in front of my cab!”
His finger indicated a Bowery character as typical as anything ever seen
in melodrama—a ragged little old figure with an amazing set of whiskers,
engaged in picking up cigar butts along the gutters. He was immediately
taken to headquarters.
No detail of his work interests Commissioner Dougherty more keenly than
his study of the many picturesque characters who turn up as an important
case unfolds. He has a ready appreciation of everybody who appears, from
the society lady who lost her jewels to the typical Bowery loafer. He is
as ready to look at facts from a criminal’s point of view as that of an
honest man. He has often gone half across the country to get acquainted
with a good burglar, and in this warm human interest lies the basis of
his skill as an examiner of suspects. These details are set down, not in
glorification of Dougherty, but for the guidance of every police officer
interested in his methods.
The moment Dougherty laid eyes on this new character, with his
magnificent whiskers, he gave him a nickname.
“King Dodo!” said the Commissioner, and that by that name he was known
in so far as he figured in the case at all. “King Dodo” proved to be
entirely innocent, and nothing more than the victim of a chance move of
Montani’s, who evidently thought that he ought to produce something
tangible to back up his assertion that the cab had been intercepted by
an old man. “King Dodo” established a perfect alibi, proving that he had
been elsewhere at the time of the robbery, and after being questioned
and the truth of his story established, he was released, there being no
reason for holding him.
“I feel safe,” said the Commissioner solemnly, “in paroling you on your
own responsibility, to appear again if wanted.”
That may have been a heavier responsibility than had been put on his
shoulders in years. But he rose to it. Two days later a decently
dressed, clean shaven, elderly gentleman came in and asked for the
Commissioner. He was “all dolled up,” in police parlance, and looked
like a retired small shopkeeper. The staff did not recognize him for a
moment. But it was “King Dodo,” doing his best to fill the part of a
minor figure in the great taxicab mystery. There being nothing for him
to do, he dropped back into private life.
On his Sunday visit to Boston Inspector Hughes talked with Chief
Inspector Watts of that city, learned where Kinsman lived, and that his
family was a respectable one; found a bright patrolman named Dorsey who
knew Kinsman, and gave more information about his personal appearance,
habits and career as a boxer, desertion from the Navy, and so forth, and
made arrangements to have the Kinsman home watched so that news of his
return would be secured immediately. It was clear that Kinsman had not
returned to Boston.
_Discovery of Kinsman’s Trail_
As soon as Inspector Hughes returned from Boston, on Monday morning, the
Commissioner took steps to question the crews of every train that had
left New York since one p. m. on the day of the robbery.
Just the other afternoon the writer sat with a squad of young detectives
at Police Headquarters and heard a talk on methods given by Dougherty,
and one point clearly brought out was the usefulness to the
thief-catcher of routine information.
He began by relating an amusing incident. Some days before a detective
had turned up at headquarters for instruction, and naïvely asked the
Commissioner to lend him a pencil and a slip of paper, so he could make
some notes. Another detective was found who had only a hazy idea of the
location of New York’s telephone exchanges. Taking these as his text,
the Commissioner explained the value to every police officer of what
might be called “time-table” information—knowing the depots and ferries,
what roads run out of them, the cities reached, the number and character
of trains, the general methods of dispatching trains, and so forth. The
Commissioner himself is as well informed on such matters as any railroad
man, and thoroughly familiar with routine methods in many other lines of
work and business. How such knowledge can be employed was shown by the
next move in the taxicab case.
Detectives were sent to every railroad terminal to secure lists of
trains, learn the names of the crews, and make out schedules of the time
when each crew would be back in the city. Then each man was found and
carefully questioned. His memory could be helped by pictures of Kinsman
and Annie, and by intimate details of personal appearance and manner.
The search bore fruit, though it took time.
On Wednesday Detective Watson, who was a railroad engineer before he
joined the police, found that Train No. 13 on the New York Central had
taken on three passengers answering the descriptions on the afternoon of
the robbery. They had boarded the train at Peekskill, the town to which,
as it was subsequently learned, they had ridden in a taxicab. The
conductor’s attention had been drawn to Annie by her smoking a cigarette
on the sly in the toilet of the day coach. He remembered her high cheek
bones, and the black velvet hat with its little roses, and the athletic
build of her men companions, who both appeared to be boxers. It was also
established that the trio had gone to Albany, for one of the trainmen
distinctly remembered helping Annie down at that station.
_“Plant 21” Is Established_
Monday, February 19, was an important day in more ways than one.
While the train investigation was going on, it was learned that a woman
known as “Myrtle Horn,” an intimate of Annie’s, had moved to a lower
West Side rooming house, taking Annie’s trunk with her, as though Annie
expected to return to the city. After a preliminary survey, this house
was visited by Commissioner Dougherty in person. He explained that he
was a contractor, about to build a section of the new subway, and that
he was looking for a quiet room at a reasonable price where he might
have some of the comforts of home. After a little talk with the landlady
it became clear that she was honest and trustworthy, with no information
of the new lodger who had taken her front room in the basement.
Arrangements were quickly made to put this house, inside and outside,
under constant surveillance.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Illustration: GENE SPLAINE]
[Illustration: EDDIE KINSMAN]
[Illustration: GENO MONTANI]
[Illustration: “SCOTTY THE LAMB”]
[Illustration: JOHN MOLLOY]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Along in the evening Mrs. Isabella Goodwin, a police matron, was
installed there. The Commissioner brought her, and carried her bundle.
The landlady and the matron had never seen each other in their lives,
but kissed ostentatiously, and made considerable fuss on the chance of
being overheard. Mrs. Goodwin was “planted” as the landlady’s “sister,”
who had come from Montreal to live with her and help in the housework
until she could find a position in New York. The Commissioner grumbled a
little about her stinginess in refusing to pay an expressman to bring
her bundle, and then took his departure, explaining that the train had
been late, and the baby was not well, and his wife, Aggie, would be
worried about him, and so forth. Mrs. Goodwin established herself in a
room at the rear of the basement, handy to that occupied by Myrtle Horn,
and kept her eyes and ears open as she went about the housework,
slipping out to report when she had any information, and receiving
instructions.
Outside surveillance on this house was conducted from an empty store
across the street. Arrangements for the use of such property are usually
made by the police without difficulty, though occasionally a
close-fisted owner expects rent. Blinds were put up over the windows,
peep-holes made, and a few hammers provided, with some nails and boards.
Then six of the best “shadow men” in the Detective Bureau were stationed
there. They made a little noise occasionally, in “getting the store
ready for a big firm moving up from downtown,” and watched the house day
and night. Whenever Myrtle went out she was followed. If she had
visitors, they were investigated. This store was known by the code term
of “Plant 21,” so that reports could be sent without disclosing police
information.
_Montani Goes Free_
On Monday, too, Montani was arraigned in court, and discharged for what
appeared to be lack of any evidence against him.
At this point the Commissioner took the liberty of fooling the newspaper
men for the good of his case.
Newspaper criticism for three days had been particularly severe. Editors
made many charges, and were fertile in suggestions as what ought to be
done to reorganize the presumably “demoralized” police department. The
present writer feels confident, however, that a careful search of the
files for those days will disclose hardly any suggestions likely to be
at all helpful to public servants in the discharge of duty. Many
questions with no real bearing on the case had been brought up by the
journalists, and the Commissioner, who was patient in answering the
newspaper men, began to be a little tired.
On Sunday night his big office was filled with reporters. They sat about
everywhere. He had admitted them because he wanted them to see that he
was working. From time to time they quizzed him in this fashion:
“Is it true that you and Commissioner Waldo have quarrelled?”
“Is Waldo going to resign?”
“Do you favor the Sullivan law against pistols?”
“Will the ‘dead line’ be maintained now?”
“Hadn’t the daily ‘line up’ of criminals ought to be restored so that
detectives will know crooks when they see them?”
“Hasn’t Mayor Gaynor tied the hands of the police?”
And so forth, and so forth, and so forth.
Suddenly, on Sunday night, Dougherty turned and read the newspaper men a
lecture. He said that he wanted them to understand that he was no spring
chicken at his business, that he was working eighteen hours a day, and
that he knew he would show results if the people would only be patient,
and give him time. His only recommendation in the way of new laws or
reforms was for a statute that would enable the police to put known
criminals, without occupation or visible means of support, at work
mending roads. He outlined a plan which, rather strangely, did not get
any attention in the newspapers at all. His idea of dealing with idle
criminals, he said, was to have a cart, with commissary and sleeping
quarters for twelve men. As soon as twelve idle criminals with records
had been sentenced, they would pull this cart out of town themselves,
under guard, and go to work repairing roads. If that plan were adopted,
New York would not only be as free from criminals as the District of
Columbia, where a similar measure is enforced, but the roads all around
the city would be so well cared for that they could be used as
roller-skating rinks.
The newspapers next morning were quite certain that Commissioners Waldo
and Dougherty had quarrelled, and when the journalists went down to
report Montani’s examination in court they were decidedly partial to the
taxicab man.
Dougherty had told the newspaper men beforehand that he had evidence
enough to have Montani held for trial. He had made very positive
statements about this. Montani would be arraigned, he predicted, and if
discharged on one count, would be immediately arrested on something
else. If he was discharged on that, he would still be arraigned on
further charges.
It needs no very brilliant imagination, therefore, to picture the effect
upon the newspapers when Montani, after being arraigned on the doubtful
points in his own account of the crime, and those not too vigorously
pressed, was discharged, with comment by the court upon the flimsiness
of the police case. There was one striking discrepancy in the evidence
presented at that examination which, if pressed, should have resulted in
the holding of Montani for trial. He still insisted that he had stopped
his cab because an old man had got in front of it, but this was denied
by a witness. That point was permitted to pass by Lieutenant Riley, who
appeared for the police. Montani could have been re-arrested on charges
based upon his attempt to defraud the insurance company. But he was
permitted to go free. That course had been decided on at Police
Headquarters after some difference of opinion.
The newspapers were now more pessimistic than ever in their comment.
They contrasted this outcome with Dougherty’s promises that the
chauffeur would be re-arrested. It was taken as a confession of police
incompetency and bewilderment—which, as will be seen in its proper
place, was very useful in its way. Montani went free, and was jubilant,
calling on the Commissioner next morning to thank him. But from the
moment he left court until he was arrested again the Italian chauffeur
never got out of sight of the Police Department.
_What Developed on a Busy Tuesday_
It was on the day after Montani’s release that Commissioner Dougherty
began to uncover more interesting characters in the taxicab drama.
Bit by bit, through points supplied by informants and persons who had
come in contact with him in various ways, a very good working knowledge
of the fugitive Kinsman was pieced together. It appeared that he had
come to New York the previous summer, from Boston, and after a brief
career as a boxer, had gone to work in a Sixth avenue resort known as
the “Nutshell Café,” where he was a waiter. Among his associates there
had been two characters who invited further inquiry.
The first of these was a fellow called “Gene,” described as having a
“parrot nose,” and a criminal record. He had been a close pal of
Kinsman, and had also introduced another intimate, a wily little Italian
called “Jess,” who had formerly owned a thieves’ resort which he called
the “Arch Café.” A good description of Jess was secured.
There was some delay while the Commissioner “surrounded” this
last-mentioned resort to find out if it was a place where any
information might be obtained openly. The question was decided in the
negative. So a plain-clothes man was quietly “planted” there to pick up
information.
When a criminal is arrested (or “falls”) it is customary in the
underworld to raise a fund for his defense. The Arch Café was a center
for the deposit of such “fall money.” It was learned that a hundred
dollars had been raised for the defense of a man named Clarke, alias
“Molloy,” under arrest in Brooklyn for robbery. This was the same Molloy
to whose fine character Kinsman had asked his landlady to swear in
court. The Italian named Jess had taken charge of Molloy’s defense fund,
but squandered it in a spree. Later, making it good, he had sent it over
to Molloy’s relief by Kinsman’s pal, “Dutch,” and an Italian known as
“Matteo.”
District inspectors of police were then called upon to find a detective
who knew Jess, and an Italian plain-clothes man, Antony Grieco, who had
grown up in that part of New York where Jess had kept a café, and who
knew the latter well, was detailed with another detective to look him up
and keep him under surveillance. They found that Jess, whose last name
was Albrazzo, had headquarters in a tough resort in Thompson street,
kept by an Italian named James Pasqualle, better known as “Jimmie the
Push.” From that time Jess was kept “on tap,” to await further
developments.
Then the Commissioner undertook to find out more about the character
called “Gene.” Working in New York, as waiters and bartenders, were many
members of a criminal band known as the “Forty Thieves of Boston.” The
Commissioner called in all of them that he could find, and sounded each
for information about this “Gene.” After the time of day had been
passed, the talk would turn on members of the band and criminals in
general, and after curiosity had been excited, “Gene” would be referred
to casually. If the party interviewed said he knew “Gene,” the
Commissioner would probably be sceptical, ask his last name, press for
details of appearance and habits, and then pass to some other subject.
It was found that “Gene’s” last name was Splaine, that he had served a
term in prison in Boston as a boy, and that, by his general description,
he must be the third fugitive accompanying Kinsman and Annie. When
Detective Watson got better descriptions of the third man at Albany, and
comparisons were made with sources of information in New York, it became
practically certain that Gene Splaine was with Kinsman.
_Annie Shows at “Plant 21”_
It was on this day, too (Tuesday, February 20), that “Swede Annie”
suddenly stepped into police view, _wearing a new hat_. She turned up
quietly at the house where Myrtle Horn had moved with her trunk, and
began living in the front basement room. Matron Goodwin and “Plant 21”
immediately reported her presence, and from that time the shadow men
across the street had something to do besides driving nails. For
whenever Annie or Myrtle went out of the house they were followed.
Shadowing is a highly interesting kind of police work, at which some men
have exceptional ability.
The general conception is that of a detective following closely behind
the suspected person, with his eyes glued to him, and cautiously
crouching behind lamp-posts and trees when the victim turns suddenly.
But that is far from the real thing. The work is done in ways altogether
different. Shadow men operate in pairs, as a rule, and keep track of
their party from vantage points not likely to be suspected. They dress
according to the character of the case, always in quiet clothes, changed
daily, and with absolutely no colors that will attract attention or lead
to recognition through the memory. They know how to follow when the
person under surveillance rides in cabs, cars or trains, to cover the
different exits from a building into which he or she may have gone, and
to loiter several hours around a given neighborhood, if need be, without
attracting the attention of honest citizens.
This work is done by shifts. The operators relieve each other almost as
regularly as office employees, no matter how far the trail may have
taken them. They are in constant touch with headquarters for the purpose
of making reports and receiving instructions.
In this branch of detective work, as in many others, the chief requisite
is resourcefulness. The detective of fact wears little disguise apart
from clothes that fit the surroundings he moves in. But he has an
instant knack at accounting for himself as a normal character who has
happened quite naturally into the scene. Ready wits do the trick—not
false whiskers. Thus it came about that whenever Annie and Myrtle were
hungry, and sat down in a restaurant, what they said was noted by a
couple of fellows at another table, who quickly made a party of the
chance patrons they found there, discussing wages or the suffragettes.
Or if Annie used the telephone in a drug store, a polite young man
turning over the directory said to her, “Go ahead, lady—I’m in no
hurry,” and listened.
At the same time, Matron Goodwin was reporting conversation from inside
the house. It appeared that Kinsman had sent Annie back to the city
after buying her a new hat and giving her $125. He promised to write
soon, but did not tell her where he was going. Toward the end of the
week, as no letter arrived, Annie began worrying, and was talkative. She
feared that Eddie no longer loved her. She reproached herself for
letting him go without taking her along, and spoke of setting out to
find him.
_The Trail Is Taken Up_
It was now Wednesday, February 21, and all the careful detail work began
to come together.
It was this day that Detective Watson found the crew of Train No. 13, on
the New York Central, which had taken Kinsman, Annie and Splaine aboard
at Peekskill the afternoon of the robbery after they had ridden out of
New York in a taxicab to avoid possible police surveillance at the
railroad stations. Commissioner Dougherty dispatched Watson to Peekskill
and Albany with thorough instructions. His motto in working out a case
is, “Supervision is half the battle.”
“When you get to Albany,” he said, “go to that big hat store on Broadway
near the station. I’ll bet that’s where Annie’s new hat was bought—they
sell the best millinery in the country outside of New York.”
Nothing important was learned at Peekskill, but at Albany, sure enough,
Detective Watson found the saleswoman right in “that big hat store” who
had sold the new hat, and secured Annie’s discarded headgear. The new
hat had cost twenty-five dollars. The old one looked as though it might
have cost ninety-five cents—a “Division Street Special.” Its black
velvet was of the cheapest grade, the famous little red roses proved to
be, on close inspection, nothing more than little loops of pink cotton
cloth, and the general state of the hat indicated that it was about time
Annie had a new one. This interesting “bonnet,” however, seemed just
then more handsome than any costly article of millinery ever smuggled
over from Paris. It was immediately sent to New York by express, with a
copy of the sales slip covering the purchase. The saleswoman was able to
add one or two details of description, and remembered how, after the
woman had selected a hat, the two men had joked about who was to pay for
it.
“She’s your girl,” said Splaine, and so Kinsman had paid the bill with
five five-dollar bills.
Nothing could be learned as to the direction in which the two men meant
to travel. Detective Watson now began a search among train crews running
out of Albany, and Commissioner Dougherty, in New York, got the Albany
ticket-sellers by long-distance telephone. His knowledge of how railroad
tickets are sold, accounted for, taken up, cancelled and checked by the
auditing department made it possible to sift matters down to the
strongest kind of probability. After considerable telephoning, aided by
Detective Watson on the spot, it was determined that Kinsman and Splaine
had been the purchasers of two consecutively numbered tickets for
Chicago sold together on Friday morning, twenty-four hours after the
robbery, and that they had gone west on Train No. 3, leaving Albany at
12:10 p. m. Their tickets were available for that train, and the
conclusion was strengthened by calculating Annie’s movements. For it was
found that she had come back to New York the same day, between four and
five in the afternoon. She had kept out of sight until she appeared at
Myrtle Horn’s lodging and was reported by Matron Goodwin and “Plant 21”
on Tuesday. But she must have taken a train from Albany about the time
that the men were starting for Chicago, reaching New York at 3:45 p. m.
Commissioner Dougherty felt that the chances of finding his men in
Chicago were so good that, without wasting time in an investigation of
the crew of Train No. 3, he put Detectives Daly and Clare aboard a
Chicago train that same night. Kinsman and Splaine would both find
congenial company among the pugilists in Chicago.
These detectives were given names to conceal their identity, and ordered
to report under the code term of “Orange Growers” to eliminate all
flavor of police business. They received detailed instructions about
where to go and what to do. Again the Commissioner covered the trail
when it led out of New York by sending capable assistants, instead of
merely wiring the police in other cities. Before the “Orange Growers”
departed, the “boss” gave them a little talk about expenses.
The detective attached to a municipal police force is very often
hampered by fear of making unusual expenditures. Accounting routine is
strict. Telegrams are often limited to the minimum of ten words where a
hundred are needed to send a working description or report. The
long-distance telephone is used as a luxury, and in many instances where
the plain-clothes man can get valuable information through an informant
he pays the shot out of his own pocket because there is no other way of
paying it, and trusts to the chance that this private investment out of
his salary will help him “break” a knotty case.
Commissioner Dougherty told the “Orange Growers” that they would be kept
on this trail if it led all around the world. They must not consider
expenditure when there was vital information to put on the wire. He
expected them to turn to the long-distance telephone whenever they
needed new instructions in a hurry. Briefly, he took the blinders and
shackles off them, and sent them out to do good work, and the outcome
justified this far-sightedness.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Illustration: JESS ALBRAZZO]
[Illustration: MATTEO ARBRANO]
[Illustration: JAMES PASQUALE]
[Illustration: BOB DELIO]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
At that period of the winter trains were delayed everywhere by storms,
so the “Orange Growers” had opportunities to make inquiries at stations
and railroad restaurants all along the line to Buffalo. They were in
search of their “brother,” who was described in terms of Kinsman’s
personal appearance, and was supposed to be on his way somewhere with
another man. At Syracuse an observant waitress remembered their
“brother” distinctly, having served both the men when their train
stopped for supper. Finally, the two “Orange Growers” got snowed up in
Michigan for a time, and there we will leave them for the present.
_Montani Quizzed Once More_
By Thursday many loose ends of the case were being brought together so
effectually that the outlook seemed exceedingly bright.
But only to the executive circle in Dougherty’s office.
Outside, all was dark. Newspaper criticism had become more caustic than
ever, and the public, after the ingrained habit of New York, was turning
its attention to fresher news sensations.
At a big annual dinner of police officials held that evening, February
22, the atmosphere of gloom resting upon the department was most
tangible. The fourteen hundred guests, who were chiefly police
inspectors, captains and lieutenants, felt that a stigma lay upon the
service with which they were identified. They had no means of knowing,
of course, that one week from that night the gloom would have lifted,
criticism be turned to praise, and that policemen generally would be, as
a witty lieutenant put it, “back to our official standing again—which
never was so very high.”
Montani had called at Police Headquarters repeatedly, accompanied by his
unseen shadowers. He professed to be anxious to furnish further
information, if it lay in his power, and the Commissioner chatted with
him cordially, leading him to believe that he no longer rested under the
slightest suspicion.
On Friday Dougherty made an interesting effort to “break” Montani.
He now had a minute physical description of Kinsman, as well as two
photographs of him. The chauffeur was asked to describe once more the
man who had sat upon the cab seat with him. The questions went over
details from head to foot, and were prompted by details of Kinsman’s
real appearance.
Montani said the man had large brown eyes, which was true.
He remembered that he had talked with a good American accent, and used
words not common to the criminal, which was also more or less true.
He suddenly recalled a gold-filled tooth in the robber’s upper
right-hand jaw, a point already furnished by informants.
In fact, as this new examination went on, it became clear to the
Commissioner that Montani was actually describing Kinsman, changing only
one detail. He said that the robber had had a dark mustache, while it
was certain that Kinsman had been smooth-shaven.
Suddenly the Commissioner tried what is known as a “shot.”
The examiner in such an inquiry is often in possession of incriminating
evidence. Instead of producing it bluntly as evidence, however, he will
perhaps let it slip out bit by bit, as though by awkwardness, meanwhile
maintaining an appearance of absolute confidence in the suspect’s
integrity. A classic example of this device is found in the Russian
writer Dostoieffsky’s “Crime and Punishment.” The skillful “shot” is
usually far more disconcerting than evidence produced openly to
overwhelm. For the suspect assumes that the examiner really knows
nothing, and has merely blundered. So he is on his guard outwardly. But
he also worries inwardly, and this trying conflict between inner doubt
and the need for keeping up outer calm will often break him down
completely.
Dougherty’s “shot” was a photograph of Kinsman.
By pre-arrangement an assistant came into the office and began turning
over some papers on the Commissioner’s desk. The photo of Kinsman popped
out where Montani could see it plainly, and then was hurriedly put out
of sight again. The Commissioner scolded his assistant, and the latter
stood shamefaced and silent.
But in this instance the device failed.
Montani not only betrayed no interest in Kinsman’s picture, but took the
awkward assistant’s part, and asked the Commissioner not to scold him.
Montani had planned his crime, fitted the plan with men, laid out every
detail in his mind, and arranged his story beforehand. He expected to be
arrested, and said so. He admitted that there were inconsistencies in
his story, but hoped to clear them up. He had discussed the crime with
Jess and Dutch, and had not been seen in the company of the other
criminals. So, having settled on his story, Montani stuck to it without
variation under every form of pressure. Others forgot what they had
arranged as their defense, or departed from it, or broke down and
confessed. But not Montani. He alone went to trial, and stuck to his
story until the end.
_The “Orange Growers” in Chicago_
When Daly and Clare, the two New York detectives working as the “Orange
Growers,” arrived in Chicago, they went to Police Headquarters in that
city, made inquiries about Kinsman and Splaine, and secured the aid of
Chicago detectives. Then they put up at a hotel where, by arrangements
with the house detective, they occupied a room on the second floor handy
to a little-used stairway leading to a side street, which would make it
easy to slip in and out without going through the lobby. On the trip
from New York both of them had neglected shaving, and Daly was an
especially tough-looking citizen, for his beard grows out stiff and
bristly, with black and red intermixed, and a little green to help the
general effect. With suits of old clothes and sweaters they were so
little like their official selves that for several days, though they
went rather freely around resorts frequented by crooks who knew them in
New York, they were not recognized.
The “Orange Growers” now became a pair of hardened “yeggmen,” or bank
robbers, and for three days were busy visiting thieves’ haunts all over
the city, from the Levee district to the Stockyards. It was found that
Kinsman and Splaine had put up at a high-class boarding house in a
fashionable residence section. Kinsman seemed to be doubtful about the
impression Splaine might make there, though in the opinion of the police
Splaine was by far the more intelligent of the pair. So he took the
landlady aside and asked her, privately, if she had objections to a
prize-fighter in her house. The landlady replied, “Why, no! if he is a
gentleman—many prize-fighters are just like other people!” Thereupon,
Kinsman undertook that Splaine should behave himself. He also wanted to
know if valuables were safe there, and the astonished landlady assured
him that her house was like a home, that the guests were like one big
family and seldom locked their doors, and that Mr. Smith, well known as
an officer in one of the leading banks, had lived there for years.
The pair had spent considerable time in criminal haunts, but had now
disappeared. Kinsman, as it was learned later, had returned to New York.
Splaine was apparently in Chicago still, spending his money, but the two
“Orange Growers” seemed never to catch up with him. Their man had always
gone around the corner within the past hour.
Finally they planned a ruse with the aid of two Chicago detectives.
Splaine had been intimate with a certain woman of the underworld, known
as “Josie.” Clare went to her, represented himself as a “stick-up man,”
said he and his partner were after that guy with all the money and
diamonds, meaning Splaine, and that they meant to rob him. If Josie
worked with them, like a good girl, she would come in for her third of
the plunder.
Josie professed ignorance. She was sure, so help her Mike, cross her
heart, that she knew nothing about no gent with any money or diamonds—no
such a party had been near the house in months, worse luck. Clare argued
awhile with no results, and then said he would come back a little later
and bring his pal. Then Daly was introduced to Josie as the extremely
undesirable citizen who would do the strong-arm work. But Josie still
insisted that she had no idea what they were talking about.
They went out, and within a few minutes the two Chicago detectives,
Dempsey and McFarland, known by Josie as officers, came in, described
the disguised Clare and Daly as two of the most desperate “yeggmen” in
the country, said that they had warrants for them, and asked if they had
been seen. Josie crossed her heart again, and said that there had been
nobody around there all evening—believe her, it was like living the
simple life, and if things kept on bein’ so quiet she’d blow the town
and go back to Keokuk.
Then, enter the two “Orange Growers” once more, to be warned by the fair
Josie.
“Say, the bulls are after you boys, an’ you better pull your freight,
‘cause if you stay around here they’re goin’ to _get_ you.”
“Aw, hell!” was the reply, “We’d just as lieve kill a cop or anybody
else. We stick in this house till you tell us where we can reach that
guy with the money and the diamonds—understand?”
Then Josie broke down, and told them Splaine had been there early in the
evening, but had gone away to take a train out of town. She did not know
the railroad, and urged them to leave. This was evidently the truth, so
they hurried to Police Headquarters, telegraphed descriptions to other
cities with a request that arriving trains be watched, and went to bed
to get a little sleep, so that they could be at work early the next
morning.
But in the morning word came from the Memphis Police that Splaine had
been arrested there on alighting from a train, and they thereupon
notified New York, went to Memphis, secured Splaine on extradition
papers, and brought him back to the metropolis.
_The Traps Are Sprung_
On Saturday afternoon, February 24, while most of the energy of the
Detective Bureau was centered on the taxicab case, a brutal murder was
committed in Brooklyn.
Word came that a Flatbush merchant had been found dead in his store,
shot by unknown criminals whose motive was robbery. They had taken his
watch and five safety razors.
Inspector Hughes was sent to the scene of the crime, and Commissioner
Dougherty quickly followed. The murder occurred about one p. m. By six
o’clock the same day the number of the watch had been learned through a
canvass of jewelers in the neighborhood, it being on record by one of
them who had repaired it, and the watch and two of the safety razors had
been found in pawnshops. Descriptions of the murderers were obtained,
and by three o’clock Sunday, the following day, their identity had been
established. Within thirty hours after the crime these men had been
arrested, positively identified as the pawners of the stolen articles,
and completely tied up in their own statements.
At half-past nine Sunday night, while the Commissioner, Inspector Hughes
and Captain Coughlin, in charge of Brooklyn detectives, and Lieutenant
Riley were winding up their work on this murder case, word suddenly came
over the telephone to Commissioner Dougherty from an informant that
Eddie Kinsman had been seen in New York with “Swede Annie,” and that he
was accompanied by an unknown man, wearing a red necktie, supposed to be
Gene Splaine. At the same time Matron Goodwin, stationed inside Annie’s
lodgings, telephoned that she had information indicating that Kinsman
had returned to the city.
When the Commissioner motored over to New York, he found his men
covering a hotel on Third avenue, not far from 42d street. Kinsman and
Annie were inside.
The Commissioner hurried to the 18th precinct police station and sent
out a call for twenty-five detectives. Team work on the case had
developed to such a degree by this time that, though the men came from
many stations, they were all on hand in record time, a matter of twenty
or thirty minutes. Then a squad of these plain-clothes men was sent to
watch every railroad station and ferry house, each accompanied by one of
the men from “Plant 21,” familiar with Annie from having followed her
movements for a week. Surveillance on the hotel was strengthened, and
steps taken to ascertain whether the unknown man in the red tie was
really Splaine.
While making these arrangements, a curious incident occurred, showing
how small is New York, after all, with its five million people. As
Dougherty sat in the 18th precinct station, Detective Rein brought in a
prisoner arrested for shooting a citizen. He was drunk and extremely
disagreeable, and gave his name as “Steigel,” living at 98 Third avenue.
Something in this address echoed to something in Dougherty’s memory—a
keen one for names, dates, addresses and facts generally. He
investigated further, and found that this prisoner was no other than the
criminal Molloy, whose urgent need of “character witnesses” had played
so important a part in furnishing the first information in the taxicab
case.
By some mischance, these operations came to the ears of the newspaper
men. Word went about, beginning in Brooklyn, that important arrests were
to be made. The reporters followed the Commissioner in a crowd when he
refused to make a statement. They not only hampered the work, but
greatly endangered the outcome. On the following day, Monday, the papers
published information about the police activities of the night before.
The hazard here may be appreciated when the reader is told that Kinsman
had been a persistent reader of newspapers from the day of the robbery,
and that it was largely the pessimistic newspaper comment upon Montani’s
release in court that led him to return to New York. Deceived by the
newspaper chorus of “police demoralization,” and the easy way in which
Montani had got free, he concluded that the taxicab investigation had
been given up as hopeless.
Kinsman was arrested in the Grand Central Station at half-past eleven
Monday morning, with Swede Annie and the unknown in the red tie. They
were about to set out for Boston.
There were some amusing circumstances in the arrest.
Kinsman’s immunity over night, and police precaution in deferring the
arrest until the last moment, on the chance that other persons would
join the party, gave him a false confidence. He afterward admitted that
ideas of a “pinch” at that time were far from his mind.
When a criminal thought to be dangerous is to be arrested in a crowded
place like the Grand Central Station, police officers operate by methods
that prevent a struggle. As two detectives closed in on the party,
Kinsman watched one of them out of the corner of his eye. While a waiter
at the “Nutshell Café” he had often thrown objectionable guests out onto
the sidewalk. He now fancied that one of the detectives resembled a man
he had once “bounced,” and was ready to fight if attacked.
“I was just folding it up,” he said, referring to his fist, “and getting
ready to land on him when one had me from behind and the other in front.
Then I knew they were cops.”
Annie was gorgeously dressed in a new blue suit and fine fur coat,
bought out of the taxicab money. The unknown man proved to be Kinsman’s
brother, who had come down from Boston with him. Kinsman had visited his
native city before returning to New York, but had escaped the police net
there by stopping at a hotel and sending for his brother. He sent a grip
home by this brother, and it was afterward found to contain three
packages of bills of $250 each in the original wrappers of the bank.
As soon as word of these arrests was telephoned to Police Headquarters,
the other traps were sprung. Detectives brought in Montani, Jess
Albrazzo and Myrtle Horn, the latter, with Annie, being held as
witnesses.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER III
HOW THE CRIME WAS HANDLED BY THE POLICE—THE CONFESSIONS
Now begins some of the most interesting work connected with the taxicab
case—the examination of the first prisoners, which led to confessions,
the implication of other guilty persons not yet under arrest, and the
voluntary pleas of guilty in court which saved costly trials in all but
Montani’s case.
This sort of work is familiar under the term of “third degree.” It is
popularly supposed to be accompanied by force and sometimes
brutality—and in wrong hands often is. Commissioner Dougherty’s
experience with a commercial detective agency, however, has led him to
develop intelligent methods. The commercial detective organization has
none of the authority of an official police force, and at the same time,
through its national operations and the general character of its work,
deals chiefly with the most accomplished criminals. Therefore, tact and
legal subtilty are depended upon in examining suspects, and the
Commissioner long ago learned to get his results mainly by straight
question and answer. He puts his own wits against those of the suspect,
backed by experience in many other cases. He has a practical grasp of
criminal psychology, as well as many ingenious ways of using evidence to
the best purpose, overwhelming the suspect, and breaking down stolidity
and deception. Dougherty is not only opposed to force in the “third
degree,” but knows that it is of absolutely no use.
The first prisoner examined was Eddie Kinsman.
When he was brought to Police Headquarters Kinsman appeared to be
thoroughly satisfied with himself, and confident that no policeman would
get anything out of _him_. He proved to be a good-looking young fellow,
of athletic build, and by no means a fool.
Methods of examination are never twice alike, for they depend upon the
case and the suspect. As a rule, however, when the criminal first sits
down to answer Commissioner Dougherty he is astonished by that
gentleman’s apparent lack of guile, and ignorance of worldly knowledge.
When Dougherty composes himself for an inquiry, he is rather a
heavy-looking citizen, not unlike a country magistrate, and his first
questions, put for the purpose of determining the suspect’s character
and previous surroundings, usually relate to bald routine matters, such
as name, age, residence, education, family, and so on.
“Gee!” thinks the suspect, “This guy is the biggest lobster I ever got
up against! I wonder how he ever got to be a police commissioner. He
must have a strong political pull.”
Kinsman was ushered into a large, quiet office, where this bureaucratic
official began by asking his name, birthplace and other details.
“Will you kindly stand up a minute while I get your height?” asked the
questioner, and Kinsman did so in a patronizing way. Then the
dull-looking gentleman turned back Kinsman’s coat and looked at the
little label sewed in the inside pocket.
“I see that you have been in Chicago recently,” he observed. “This suit
was made by a tailor there. You ordered it February 17th, two days after
the robbery.”
He looked into Kinsman’s hat.
“That was bought in Chicago, too.”
He examined the label on Kinsman’s tie.
“This was also bought in Chicago.”
He turned up the label at the back of the neck of the new silk
underclothes worn by the prisoner.
“Those were bought in State street, Chicago, and from a very good store,
too—I know it well.”
Kinsman now began to be pugnacious and defiant.
“See here!” he said, “You must take me for a boob.”
“Yes, I think you are a boob,” replied the Commissioner. “You might as
well have made your getaway with a brass band as to take Swede Annie
with you to Albany, attracting attention all the way, and then send her
back to New York with a hundred dollars to tell the police where you had
gone.”
Suddenly Lieutenant Riley, personal aide, walked into the Commissioner’s
office carrying a cheap article of millinery—a shabby black velvet hat
with a row of little red roses across the front. Commissioner Dougherty
apparently grew very angry.
“What do you mean by bringing that thing in here now?” he exclaimed. “I
am not ready for that—take it away.”
This “shot” had been previously arranged, of course, but Riley pretended
to be injured when called by his superior.
“Cripes!” exclaimed Kinsman. “Annie’s old hat. How did you get that so
quick?”
“Oh, that is only one thing we’ve got on you,” replied the Commissioner.
“We know that you went to Peekskill in a taxicab with Annie and Splaine
on the afternoon of the robbery. We know that you took Train 13 to
Albany, and where you stopped that night, and where you bought Annie’s
new hat, and how much you paid for it, and what train you took to
Chicago Friday noon. Suppose you tell me something more about your
movements?”
Kinsman became scornful.
“If you know all that,” he said, “maybe you know more about where I went
and what I did than I do myself. So what would be the use of me telling
_you_ anything?”
While certain people were being found outside, the Commissioner worked
upon the prisoner along another line. Enough of Kinsman’s personality
was now disclosed to show that he was vain and egotistical. This side of
his nature was therefore fed with flattery. He was assured that the
taxicab robbery had been a wonderful “stick-up.” Everybody in New York
had been astonished. The whole country was talking about it, and about
him. He must be an awfully bright, cunning fellow to have planned and
carried out such a piece of crime.
Kinsman warmed up genially under this admiration, and seemed to be more
confident than ever that so shrewd a young man as himself would have
little difficulty in fooling the police.
But presently self-satisfaction was subjected to shock after shock.
Detectives were bringing in Montani, Myrtle Hoyt, Rose Levy, Mrs.
Sullivan, the landlady with whom Kinsman had lived, and her housekeeper.
Jess Albrazzo was under arrest. Kinsman’s brother was there for
examination, and Inspector Hughes and Lieutenant Riley were bringing in
startling intelligence every few minutes.
The housekeeper was ushered in, and told how Kinsman had given her five
dollars from a huge roll of bills before leaving for Peekskill.
Commissioner Waldo came in and sat while Mrs. Sullivan told what she
knew about her late lodger.
Kinsman’s brother gave information about the former’s movements from the
time he had arrived in Boston until he brought him to New York to have a
good time, and Kinsman knew that at the home of his parents in Boston
the police would surely find money in the original wrappers of the bank.
The prisoner was put under pressure to explain how a man like himself,
known to be working as a waiter in a cheap resort, could suddenly have
come into possession of such sums. Statements from the women in the case
had been secured, and were produced, and finally Kinsman was brought to
detailed admissions, one by one. He agreed that it was true he had gone
to Peekskill in a taxicab with Annie and Splaine, that he had gone to
Albany, had bought Annie a hat there, had gone to Chicago, and so forth.
Opportunities were given him to see Montani and Jess, under arrest.
Nothing but the truth was told him, yet by degrees he was led to see
himself surrounded on all sides by evidence and confessing accomplices.
At last he broke down completely, his vain self-confidence destroyed,
and made a detailed confession.
Kinsman’s story brought up fresh circumstances and new actors in the
taxicab case.
He told how he had come to New York nine months before, to have a good
time and make money, and how, after going penniless and hungry, and
getting a few dollars for taking part in a boxing match, he had become a
waiter at the “Nutshell Café.” There he soon made the acquaintance of
criminals, meeting Gene Splaine, “Dutch” Keller, “Joe the Kid,” “Scotty
the Lamb” and other characters who were afterward to assist in the taxi
robbery. There he also met “Swede Annie” and became her sweetheart, and
finally, Jess Albrazzo, a dark little Italian who seemed to exert marked
influence over all the others. It was from Jess that Kinsman first heard
about the plan to rob a taxicab carrying money to a bank. This “swell
job” was discussed, and Jess told him he had a friend named Montani who
carried the bank’s cash, and would cooperate in stealing it. The job
would be easy, because Montani would run the cab through a side street,
and the only guard was an old man and a boy, neither of them armed.
One Sunday night, two weeks before the crime, Jess took Kinsman and
other accomplices over the route, after all had drunk themselves into
optimistic mood, and pointed out the bank from which the money was
drawn, the streets through which Montani would run, the place where the
gang could board the cab, and the point at which they could leave it and
escape uptown. Details were discussed. There was a difference of opinion
as to methods, and the plotters parted that night with the understanding
that each would submit his own ideas of how the robbery could be most
effectively and safely carried out. Eventually there was a definite
agreement as to boarding the cab, preventing an outcry, making the
getaway and splitting up the money.
According to Montani’s information, the bank messengers usually carried
between $75,000 and $100,000. When the day for the robbery had been set,
word suddenly came that there would not be so large a sum. This was
disappointing, but the gang decided to put their project through,
nevertheless. Kinsman was busy at the café, where he worked until four
o’clock on the morning of February 15, and “Dutch” called for him
several times, asking if he was going to “lay down on the job.” Finally
Kinsman got away, went to a room in a lodging house taken by “Dutch,”
and found the gang all there smoking and drinking. At five o’clock they
all went to sleep. At eight everybody was awakened. “Dutch” and Splaine
took blackjacks, and offered Kinsman a revolver, which he refused,
saying he could take care of himself with his hands, being a boxer.
There were six in the party—Kinsman, “Dutch,” Splaine, “Joe the Kid,”
Jess and “Scotty the Lamb,” whose part was to stumble in front of
Montani’s cab at the place selected for the boarding, and thus give the
chauffeur a colorable reason for slackening speed if eye-witnesses
afterward called his honesty into question. The gang had breakfast in a
cheap restaurant, stopped for a drink at the saloon of “Jimmie the Push”
in Thompson street, where the booty was to be divided, and proceeded
downtown, after parting with Jess. The latter was the organizer, and
took no part in the robbery; as he explained, he was known as a friend
of Montani’s, and wanted to arrange so that he could prove an alibi if
suspected, proving that he had not been near the scene of the crime when
it was committed.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Illustration: “Scotty” Receives Final Instructions]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
At that saloon they had met a trio of Italian criminals known as the
“Three Brigands,” who said they were not to take part in the robbery,
but would be on hand to see that it was vigorously put through.
Arrived upon the ground, at Church street and Trinity Place, Splaine and
Kinsman waited on the west side of the thoroughfare, while “Dutch” and
“Joe the Kid” stood on the opposite side. “Scotty the Lamb” posted
himself fifty feet off.
As Montani’s cab came speeding along, “Dutch” raised his hat as a
signal. “Scotty the Lamb” did not have time to step in front of the
vehicle before it slackened, and the robbers were aboard. “Dutch” opened
one door and struck the old bank teller, Wilbur Smith, and “Joe the Kid”
boosted Splaine in on the other side, where he assaulted young Wardle.
Kinsman mounted the seat beside Montani, and the latter put on full
speed, telling Kinsman to point his finger at his side as though he had
a revolver. The cab slipped past trucks and dodged pedestrians. Kinsman
said he seemed to see policemen everywhere, and was dazed when the
vehicle stopped at Park Place and Church street. All the criminals got
off there, “Dutch” lugging the brown bag containing the money. Splaine
and “Dutch” were both covered with the bank guards’ blood. Taking
Kinsman, they jumped aboard a street car. It was crowded. Several
passengers noticed the bloody men, but were told that there had been a
fight, and the occurrence was not reported to the police. After riding
two or three blocks they got off, boarded an elevated train, rode to
Bleeker street, and went to a back room in “Jimmie the Push’s” saloon,
where the money was to be divided. Here they found Jess and the “Three
Brigands,” and the latter now set up a claim for a share in the booty.
Matteo, leader of the trio, pulled out a revolver, and there was a
discussion. Finally the bag was opened, and found to contain $25,000.
There were three packages of $5,000 each and one of $10,000. Matteo
grabbed the latter package, saying that his gang was to get $3,000
apiece, and that the odd $1,000 would go for “fall money” to get Molloy
out of jail in Brooklyn. The robbers then divided the remainder, Jess
taking $3,000 for himself and another $3,000 for Montani, Splaine
getting $3,000, Kinsman $2,750, “Joe the Kid” $250 and “Scotty the Lamb”
nothing. Kinsman then told how he had called for Swede Annie, and left
town in a taxicab, going as far as Peekskill, to avoid the police at the
Grand Central Station.
_Jess Confesses and Assists_
The next prisoner examined was Jess Albrazzo, a dark little Italian, who
appeared to be somewhat ignorant.
In this examination the Commissioner had ample outside proof, and he
also employed what he calls his “psychological study.” Years ago, in
dealing with negro suspects in Southern crime, Dougherty devised a
little instrument which he dubbed his “lie watch.” This was a dial with
a needle, hung round the suspect’s neck. If the latter told the truth,
the needle presumably pointed to “Truth,” and if he didn’t, it pointed
to “Lie.” Being out of the suspect’s sight, it had a strong effect.
From that, Dougherty went into studies of the mental states of suspects
under examination, and found rough physiological indications which he
uses as a guide to the integrity of the suspect. Investigations of
European criminal experts like Professor Hans Gross amply demonstrate
that there is a real scientific basis for such methods.
Dougherty took it a little easier with Jess. They sat down, and the
Commissioner went over the Italian’s movements for the past few months,
showing him how thoroughly he was implicated. Jess had worked for
Montani, and been intimate with the rest of the taxicab “mob.” He and
Montani were confronted with each other, and points brought out in
Kinsman’s confession were skillfully used.
At one point in this examination the Commissioner rose from his desk,
took the lobe of Jess’s ear between his thumb and finger, pinched it
slightly, looked at the ear closely, and then walked out of the room.
Jess was all on edge with curiosity.
“Why did he pinch my ear?” he asked of Lieutenant Riley.
“To see if you are telling the truth,” was the answer, and in a moment
the Commissioner came back and examined that ear again.
“Yes, he’s lying,” he declared. “Look at his ear—can’t you see it
yourself?” Others were invited to look at Jess’s ear, and the little
Italian became so curious that he actually tried to look around the side
of his skull and see his own ear!
This psychological study was backed up with abundant proof that Jess had
not told the whole truth. Presently he weakened and confessed. He told
how he had handed $2,000 in a collar box to “Jimmie the Push” on the day
of the robbery, which was to be taken to a Bowery bank and put in a
safe-deposit vault for Montani. He agreed to accompany the police to
Jimmie’s place in Thompson street, and late that evening a party made up
of Commissioner Dougherty, Inspector Hughes and Lieutenant Riley went
there, taking Jess along.
“Jimmie the Push’s” place is one of the most picturesque thieves’
resorts in lower New York.
“Typical of the old village,” as Dougherty puts it. “In fact, this whole
case has a strong flavor of the little old village of New York.”
Jimmie was out when they got there, but this saloon was in charge of the
biggest, swarthiest Italian bartender in town, a tough Hercules weighing
somewhere around three hundred pounds. The room was crowded with motley
characters, drinking beverages known to the neighborhood as “shocks” and
“high hats.” For their edification, a tramp magician was taking coins
out of his ears, his nose and the air.
Jess was not known to be under arrest, and immediately sent a boy called
“Reddy” to fetch the proprietor, who had known the three police officers
for years. Presently Reddy came back and said that Jimmie would come in
about half an hour, as he was playing cards and had a fine hand.
Reddy was sent back to impress upon Jimmie that Jess wanted to see him
right away—it was very important. In about two minutes, just as the
Commissioner had bought a “high hat” for everybody in his party, Jimmie
appeared. He was told that Jess had got into trouble in connection with
the taxicab robbery, and asked about the money in the safe deposit
vault. “Jimmie the Push,” with his partner, Bob Deilio, had by this time
been implicated themselves, for it was clear that the money had been
divided in their resort, and that probably they had taken part in the
planning, and the decidedly one-sided division of the spoils. Jimmie was
led to believe that he did not rest under suspicion, however, and that
he was only asked to aid the police. He said Jess had handed him a
collar box on the day of the robbery, asking him to put it in a vault in
his own name, but that he had had no idea what the box contained, and
had left it lying behind the bar for a couple of days before he got a
chance to go to the bank with it. He readily promised to appear at
Police Headquarters the following morning, bring the key to the safe
deposit box, and help recover the money. Thereupon the police officials
bade him good night and went away. But no chances were taken on “Jimmie
the Push.” From that moment he was shadowed.
That Monday was a busy day in many other ways.
Developments came thick and fast.
Kinsman’s home in Boston was visited, and $750 of the bank money
recovered in the original wrappers. It had laid in his grip, unknown to
the honest Kinsman family.
Swede Annie, Myrtle Horn and a girl named Rose Levy were examined,
quickly broke down, and made tearful statements to be used in evidence.
These women were held only as witnesses, and as the case cleared up
after a few days’ detention, were released.
The girl, Rose Levy, greatly attracted the Commissioner. She was only
nineteen years old, a mild-mannered little Jewess with jet black hair
and very remarkable eyes. The Commissioner went into details of her
personal story. It seems that she had left her home in Brooklyn two
months before, after a quarrel with her mother, and had come to New York
looking for a position. But she quickly fell into the lower world,
became known as Jess’s girl, and was ambitious to be “one of the gang.”
After a fatherly talk she was persuaded to return to her home and live a
decent life. But within a week she was back in New York again, in her
old haunts, trying to raise money to help Jess, for whom, she told the
Commissioner, she would willingly work for the rest of her days.
Before visiting Jimmie’s saloon the Commissioner called up the “Orange
Growers” in Chicago, had a long talk with them, told what progress was
being made, and put new life into them.
_More Money Recovered_
True to his word, “Jimmie the Push” walked into Police Headquarters at
nine o’clock Tuesday morning, February 27, closely followed by his
unseen shadowers. He produced the key of the safe-deposit vault, and
went with officers to see the money recovered. There was $2,000, as Jess
had stated, still in the wrappers of the bank. Jimmie was still
permitted to go free, under the impression that he had come through the
ordeal “clean,” while fresh evidence was being obtained against him.
That morning the Commissioner also took Kinsman down over the route of
the robbery, to have him explain it in his own way. This was done to
strengthen the case against Montani, and upset his story in court.
Then “Scotty the Lamb” was located, arrested, brought to headquarters
and led to confess. “Scotty the Lamb” was in some respects a pathetic
figure in the case, and also a humorous one. He had been in charge of
the lunch kitchen at the Arch Café when Jess owned it, and later worked
as a dishwasher in a Washington Square hotel. A Scotch youth, from
Glasgow, he had been in this country about four years, and while no
criminal record appeared against him, he was plainly in the company of
thieves most of the time. According to his statement, he had been
promised $25 for doing some work for Jess, and without inquiring into
the nature of it at all, had shown up with the gang and gone along to do
his minor part of a “stall,” stumbling in front of the cab. But before
he could get out into the street, the cab had been boarded. So poor
“Scotty the Lamb,” without a nickel for carfare, plodded all the way
uptown again to the saloon where the money was to be divided, and got
nothing whatever. He was a cheerful soul, however, and the life of the
party when the gang was locked up, cracking jokes, and taking the view
that, as sentences ought to be proportioned to the amount of money each
member of the gang had got in the division, and he had got nothing, he
might be let off with six months’ imprisonment.
“Scotty, haven’t you got any overcoat?” asked Inspector Hughes,
sympathetically, as they were going to court one brisk morning. “Did you
_ever_ have an overcoat, Scotty?”
“No, sir, I never had an overcoat,” replied Scotty, and then as he
thought of his prospects for going to prison, added drolly, “And now I
don’t expect, sir, that I ever will!”
_The Fine Italian Hand_
The next step in the case was that of arresting “Jimmie the Push” and
his partner, Bob Deilio.
Another phase of the robbery now began to come out plainly.
Up to the present time the main burden of proof pointed to the four
“hold-up” men of American birth as the chief actors in the crime.
Montani and Jess, the two Italians, appeared to be accessories.
But as the tangled threads were unravelled, one by one, it was found
that the Italians involved outnumbered the American thugs, and that
furthermore they had outwitted them.
When Bob Deilio was arrested he drew $215 in five-dollar bills out of
his pocket and handed it to the police, admitting that it was part of
$5,500 of the stolen money. The rest, he asserted, had just been paid
for rent of the two resorts operated by “Jimmie the Push” and himself.
Jimmie and Bob were taken to Police Headquarters and examined, with Jess
present. Commissioner Dougherty played one against the other so
skillfully, with cross-questions and counter pressure, that in a little
while each was excitedly telling tales on his two companions with the
desperate hope of clearing himself, and denunciations flew back and
forth among the trio as evidence came out that was likely to send them
all to prison. Their confessions were obtained, and used in a new effort
to break down Montani. But this was without results. The little Italian
chauffeur still stuck doggedly to his original story.
From these new confessions it appeared that the Italians had planned the
crime, enlisted the American hold-up men to carry out the dirty work,
and laid a counter-plot for holding them up in turn when the money was
divided. The “Three Brigands” were ostensibly offered a chance to take
part in the actual robbery, but refused on the plea that it would be too
risky, and that they did not believe Montani could carry it out
successfully. On the morning of the crime they walked north over the
route. When they met the taxicab coming south, with a policeman on the
seat beside Montani and two unconscious bank messengers inside, they
knew that the project had succeeded. So the “Three Brigands” hurried
uptown to “Jimmie the Push’s” saloon. They got there so quickly that
they were ahead of the robbers. Jess made a rehearsed protest when they
insisted in sharing in the plunder, but the “Three Brigands” drew
revolvers, threatened to make a disturbance that would bring in the
police, and finally helped themselves to $10,000. When the thugs who had
done the actual work left the saloon, they had only $8,000 all told. The
Italians, who had “played safe” at every point, had $17,000.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Illustration: “The Brigands” “Stick-up” the Hold-up Men for Theirs]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
_One of the Brigands Comes In_
The actual whereabouts of the “Three Brigands” was not known to the
police then. But there were certain channels through which news might
reach at least one of them. Word was sent through those channels,
therefore, that it might be best for them to appear and give an account
of themselves, and on Friday, March 1, just at the time Splaine had been
brought back from Memphis, the little leader of the brigands, Matteo
Arbrano, an undersized Italian wearing spectacles, who had carried out
the job of robbing the hold-up men, surrendered himself to the District
Attorney.
Arbrano said that he had divided his $10,000 with his two companions,
Gonzales and Cavaquero, and immediately left New York, taking a steamer
for Mexico by way of Havana. At the latter city he stopped over night,
met a woman and accompanied her to a resort, was drugged and robbed of
$2,700, and woke on the Prado with only $100 left, a single bill that
had been concealed in his shoe. With that he returned to New York. The
story is regarded by the police as more picturesque than convincing. It
is probable that Matteo’s share of the plunder, with that of other
Italians involved, has been carefully “planted.”
Pauli Gonzales, another of the brigands, was traced to Vera Cruz,
Mexico. In the present state of that country, however, it was found
impossible to arrest and extradite him upon the evidence at hand.
Three other persons concerned in the robbery are still at large at this
writing—“Dutch” Keller, “Joe the Kid,” and an “unknown” whose identity
is concealed for police reasons.
Montani pleaded “Not guilty,” and stood trial. After two days, exactly a
month and a day subsequent to the robbery, he was convicted by a jury,
and sentenced to not less than ten years and not more than eighteen
years and two months in prison, with hard labor.
A word must be said about the prompt action of the District Attorney’s
office in the taxicab case. Where crime has had such publicity there is
an opportunity to make a demonstration of great value by pressing the
prosecutions. It was not lost. Under Assistant Charles C. Nott, Jr.,
evidence was succinctly laid before judges and juries, the trials
finished in a matter of hours, and convictions and sentences secured
within six weeks after the robbery. Furthermore, the various sentences
were just, being carefully graded according to the part played by each
offender, his character and previous record, and his individual effort
in facilitating justice.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
_Name_ _Arrested_ _Pleaded_ _Sentenced_ _Sentence_
MONTANI, GENO Feb. 26,’12 Feb. 29,’12 Mch. 16,’12 Not less than
10 yrs. nor
more than 18
yrs. 2 mos.
Judge
Seabury.
KINSMAN, EDW. Feb. 26,’12 Mch. 1,’12 April 9,’12 Not less than 3
yrs. nor more
than 6 yrs.
Judge Crain.
SPLAINE, EUGENE Mch. 2,’12 Mch. 4,’12 Mch. 25,’12 Not less than 7
yrs. 6 mos.
nor more than
14 yrs. 6
mos. Judge
Seabury.
DELIO, ROBERT Feb. 28,’12 Mch. 4,’12 Mch. 29,’12 Not less than 2
yrs. 6 mos.
nor more than
4 yrs. 2 mos.
Judge
Seabury.
PASQUALE, JAMES Feb. 28,’12 Mch. 4,’12 April 8,’12 6 mos.
(“Jimmie the Penitent’ry.
Push”) Judge Davis.
LAMB, JOSEPH Feb. 27,’12 Mch. 18,’12 Mch. 29,’12 Indeterminate
(“Scotty the sentence,
Lamb”) Elmira. Judge
Seabury.
ARBRANO, MATTEO Mch. 2,’12 April 3,’12 2 to 4 years.
Judge Davis.
ALBRAZZO, JESS Mch. 26,’12 Mch. 18,’12 3 to 6 years.
Judge Davis.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
FINAL
A WORD ABOUT THE NEW YORK POLICE
It has been the writer’s good fortune to look into the work of both the
London and the New York policemen recently, within the same year.
A somewhat embarrassing point arose.
In London, the “bobby” was anxious to know which police force the writer
considered best. The “bobby” gets his ideas of the New York “cop” from
such accounts as filter through the cable dispatches from our
newspapers. He hears chiefly the worst, and pictures the “cop” as a
lawless individual, wielding pistol and club indiscriminately, with whom
it is not safe to pass a civil word. So, when he puts his little
question about the respective merits of the two organizations, he
reserves the right to keep his opinion that the London force is best
anyway.
In New York, it is much the same. The “cop” has heard just enough about
the “bobby” to regard him with mild tolerance. He pictures him as a
policeman servile to the last degree, thankfully accepting sixpenny tips
from pedestrians, and occupied chiefly with unarmed thieves and harmless
political offenders.
When one has good friends in both forces, the question “Which do you
think best?” is to be met with tactful evasions. And the more one thinks
it over, the more it becomes clear that there is really little
difference at bottom. Both police organizations are made up of good men,
following the same trade along the same lines, and dealing with about
the same general conditions.
The London “bobby,” however, enjoys excellent leadership, is governed by
a definite administrative policy, has the backing of the courts, and
therefore comes in for a general public good will which is exceedingly
useful to him in the performance of duty.
The New York “cop” rather lacks public good will. Administrative policy
has not been well defined in the past. The courts do not always accept
his evidence, much less back him up, and he has been made the scapegoat
for various shortcomings in leadership.
But to-day the New York policeman is working on an entirely new basis.
Before long his public is certain to understand and like him as
thoroughly as London does its “bobby.”
The change began with Mayor Gaynor, who insisted that both policeman and
citizen have plain legal rights—until the citizen has committed a crime
the policeman may not arrest him. The policeman has plain rights—the law
empowers him to use all necessary force in making arrests in grave
cases. But force must not be used for minor offenses. Confusion existed
on these points to such a degree that when the Mayor began insisting
upon them, many people thought he was putting into effect some of his
personal whims. But they are all in the statute books, and many of them
were there before the Mayor was born, because they are constitutional.
The present Police Commissioner, Rhinelander Waldo, is not only
administering the department along the strict legal line pointed out by
the Mayor, but is effecting improvements of organization and method that
must favorably alter the whole future of the service.
Commissioner Waldo is a soldier, with a record of service in the United
States Army, and the Army’s fine standards to guide him.
In some ways the administration of the New York Police Department is a
soldier’s job. If the ten thousand members were mobilized, they would
make quite an impressive little standing army, with eight or ten full
regiments of patrolmen, a brigade of cavalry, a small transport corps, a
little navy, and so forth. As in an army, too, the men are enlisted, and
may only be discharged for serious offenses. It is a force scattered
over three hundred square miles of territory. The leader must be
skillful in laying down regulations, and handling men in the mass rather
than by personal contact. He must define duty plainly, hold everybody to
it, eliminate departmental politics and abuses. Every man, wherever he
is stationed, must feel that the general knows his business, that he
lays down regulations for good reasons, and that day by day he is taking
the organization somewhere.
For years, every Police Commissioner has asked for more men to keep pace
with the growing city. When Waldo took charge he asked, too. While he
was waiting, however, he overhauled the organization and got one
thousand additional patrolmen by cutting off men detailed for clerical
and other special duty. Every large working force tends to create
superfluous routine work. The useless routine was eliminated by better
accounting methods, and the men sent back to do the street duty for
which they originally enlisted.
Then Waldo’s system of “fixed posts” was introduced. Complaints that
policemen were hard to find at night had become common. So the platoon
on duty from 11 p. m. to 7 a. m. was distributed by a plan under which
the men work in pairs, one patrolling a given beat and the other
standing on a street intersection. Each hour they change places, or
oftener in severe weather. The fixed posts are about a thousand feet
apart all over Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn. The system has been
indiscriminately criticised, but produces its results. Fire losses were
cut down the first six months, night crime has decreased, and many
notable arrests are due to the fact that policemen stand all over town
like checkers through the night. The exposure is no greater than that
endured by traffic men. The men have better opportunities to advance
themselves by making meritorious arrests, and the Commissioner knows
that, as citizens see the police on duty, night after night, and crime
decreases, there will be a growing good will for the department.
The Detective Bureau has not only been reorganized so that plain-clothes
men are distributed over the whole city, but a new spirit has been
introduced. Formerly, when the patrolman rose to detective rank, he felt
that he had “arrived.” No longer wearing the uniform or keeping
scheduled hours, he was in danger of going to sleep. To-day, however,
the detective has, not a job, but an opportunity. He must maintain his
rank by results, or be reduced. To help him do this, he is taught
methods in the school for detectives. But he knows that hundreds of
ambitious men in brass buttons are working to attain that rank.
In an organization of ten thousand men, it would be strange if there
were not some intriguing and politics. New York policemen are
exceptionally shrewd, and occasionally they will try to “put one over”
on the Commissioner, going around his authority. But Commissioner Waldo
has proved singularly resourceful. He meets such an emergency with the
quickness, certainty and impartiality of a natural force like gravity,
and the department has found it out.
He has laid out a clear path for advancement all through the department.
The newest uniformed patrolman understands that, for meritorious work,
he will have a chance of promotion. If he makes a commendable arrest, he
is sent to the Detective Bureau, given instruction, and tried at
detective work. If he makes good, he stays. If unfitted for
plain-clothes duty, he has still had his chance. What is just as
important, the Detective Bureau has had a chance to see him.
Under Commissioner Waldo and Deputy Commissioner Dougherty, the
so-called “Black Hand” crimes among Italians have been checked, and will
be stopped. Many of these cases were traced to sensational reporting of
ordinary quarrels and assaults, and others to business rivalries. In the
serious cases, arrests have been made and convictions secured.
Another well-known form of law-breaking in New York is gambling. This is
particularly difficult to check because of ingenuity in concealing
evidence, developed by long experience on the part of the law-breakers,
and also the strong political alliances of gambling-house keepers. But
after several experiments in dealing with it, the Commissioner now feels
confident that he has a method which will result in the suppression of
gambling, and that, as he says, “When you put a crimp into things of
that sort they don’t generally come back.”
In other directions red tape has been abolished and economies brought
about; the way has been opened for individual merit in all ranks; steps
have been taken to develop and teach better methods; the work of the
department has been brought closer to the public. There is a new spirit
in the New York Police Department to-day—a spirit certain to develop the
public good will and appreciation that is so necessary to the best order
of public service.
* * * * *
SOME INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT THE POLICE
DEPARTMENT OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK
The Police Department of the City of New York is made up as follows:
Commissioner and four Deputy Commissioners
19 Inspectors
25 Surgeons
95 Captains
624 Lieutenants
586 Sergeants
8,585 Patrolmen
191 Doormen
69 Matrons
1 Superintendent of Telegraph
2 Assistant Superintendents of Telegraph
1 Chief Lineman
5 Linemen
2 Boiler Inspectors
------
10,207 Total uniform force
Of this number, 500 are detectives in civilian dress.
In addition, there are over 247 civilians employed in clerical capacity.
There are 6 automobiles and 161 other vehicles, including patrol wagons,
used by the Department. Also 679 horses for mounted patrolmen.
The Harbor Squad numbers: 1 Captain, 7 Lieutenants, 9 Sergeants, 36
Patrolmen, 2 Doormen, besides civilians employed as engineers, firemen,
oilers, deck-hands, etc.
It is provided with one vessel of 235 tons, five launches, two dories,
and six boats.
These boats patrol about 340 miles of water front.
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