PART I.

MANY of my readers will doubtless remember the robbery of the Jefferson Bank in New York in November, 1894. I was one of the directors of the bank at the time, and, in fact, continued to hold that office until the 1st of January of the present year, when, as the banking records show, the concern went into voluntary liquidation and closed its doors.

      The bank paid 100 cents on the dollar to its depositors, besides a respectable dividend to the shareholders, and all because of the wonderful shrewdness of one individual. I had a good deal to do with the affair, first and last, so that I know what I'm talking about, which is a great advantage over most historians, and I propose to give an account of it for the purpose of showing the shrewdness of this person, and also of removing the cloud which rested upon the reputation of a man whom I liked and esteemed.

      The Jefferson Bank was a small institute founded upon the old State banking laws. Its capital was not large, but it had, comparatively speaking, quite a good-sized surplus, and was considered sound and in good condition. The bank building was a small old-fashioned affair, quite a ways down on the East Side, near the river, on a short street running from Grand to Canal, and its business was mostly with the shipping interests in that locality.

      The cashier of the bank was Lewis McKeever, an old gentleman of Scotch descent and Scotch proclivities. He had been in the concern, man and boy, for forty years, and at the time of the disaster of last November was looked upon as the very embodiment of financial solidity and honesty. He was a queer old chap, rather short, and somewhat bald. He had gray, twinkling eyes, a rim of white whiskers under his chin, which was double, and his greatest girth was at that point where it should have been least — namely: at the waist. He was inclined to be near-sighted, was somewhat absent-minded, and was possessed of several very curious traits and harmless eccentricities, but perhaps he had no more than any other old bachelor of 58 or 60.

      He had got together a small property, adequate in every way to his wants, and lived most comfortably in a rented house on West Twenty-eighth street, between Sixth and Seventh avenues. His family was limited to a niece, Miss Agnes Warren, the daughter of a deceased sister. He was very much attached to her, and she, on her part, regarded him as a father. These two and the cook, or rather maid of all work, Maria Flanagan, composed the household of the old banker.

      The banking hours were from 10 in the morning to 4 in the afternoon. It was the cashier's custom to go home to lunch at 2 o'clock, whence he would return at 3; sometimes a little later. He never failed to be present at the closing hour, for he himself always closed and locked the door of the safe and vault.

      On the afternoon of Wednesday, the 28th of November, 1894, he returned from lunch at about half-past 3. He was accompanied by a stranger, a tall, dark man, who waited for him patiently outside of the railing, with the evident intention of accompanying him when he should leave the bank. It was afterwards found that this man had called on him at his house and had come with him from there to the office. The old cashier on this occasion in his intercourse with the employés acted and conversed very strangely. He made some ridiculous remarks concerning the prices of certain stocks and startled them all by talking excitedly about some great earthquake which had happened or was to happen. He then set the time lock on the safe, fastened the safe and the vault, and went out with the stranger.

      The next day was Thanksgiving, and, it being a national holiday, the bank was not opened. At 10 o'clock on the morning of Friday. Nov. 30, Mr. Curtis, the bookkeeper, the other minor employés being present, opened the safe and found that the bank had been robbed of currency to the amount of about $40,000.

      The cashier usually came in at 10 or fifteen minutes after 10. The bookkeeper waited for him a half hour, then sent one of the clerks to his house. In due time this messenger returned with the startling information that Mr. McKeever had not been seen at his home since he left there at 3 o'clock on the afternoon of the preceding Wednesday.

      The directors and President were immediately called in and the matter was without delay put into the hands of the police. Several of the ablest of the official detectives were detailed upon the case. The missing cashier was sought in every direction and the employés of the bank and the women of his household were subjected to the most minute cross-examination. The result of their lucubrations was what I knew it would be: was the only result possible with the facts as they were known: "Find your cashier," said they, "and you will have the man who took the $40,000."

      There was, in fact, no other supposition possible. The safe was guarded with a combination and a time lock and Mr. McKeever knew the combination and had himself set the time lock at the closing of the bank on Wednesday afternoon.

      For the benefit of those who have not seen a time safe lock I will explain briefly the mechanism of this, the greatest of all hindrances to the operations of the bank breaker.

      This time appliance is simply a very accurate and durable clock placed upon the inside of the safe door, and so connected with the bolts of the door that the said bolts cannot be drawn as long as the clock is running. In the very act of running down the movement of the clock lifts a small lever which frees the bolt, so that, the combination having been worked, they may be shot back and the safe opened. The clock, before the closing of the door, is wound to run to a certain number of hours. If and until the hand upon the dial points to the figure 42 the clock will run for forty-two hours, and it will be forty-two hours before the safe can be opened.

      On the Wednesday afternoon at 4 o'clock when the cashier last closed the safe he should have wound the time look to run for forty-two hours, as the next day was to be a holiday and the bank was to reopen at 10 on the morning or Friday, the 30th.

      The bank was entered and robbed at some time during the night of Wednesday, during Thursday, or the night of Thursday, which showed that Mr. McKeever had would the time lock not to run forty-two hours, but some shorter period — say fifteen, twenty-five, or thirty hours. This being the case, and it also being the fact that no one besides himself knew how long the clock would run, who could have entered the vault and taken the $40,000 but Lewis McKeever?

      There are two or three other matters which I have neglected to speak of and which, as they are necessary to a full understanding of the case, I will now mention. The safe from which the money had been taken stood inside and at the back end of the fireproof vault, the door of which last was fastened with an ordinary flat key lock. The lock had not been forced, but had been opened in the regular manner and had been locked again at the departure of the thief. The same was true of the lock of the outer door of the bank. Mr. McKeever of course had the keys of the bank building and of the vault in his possession. Here was another fact which did not add to the probability of his innocence.

      I have not spoken particularly about the combination of the safe, as this was of secondary importance when compared with the difficulty of the time lock. It was known by the employés that Mr. McKeever carried in his pocket a memorandum of the six figures of this combination as an assistance to his memory on the few occasions when, in the absence of his bookkeeper, he was called on to unlock the safe.

      The President of the bank and my colleagues upon the board were of the opinion of the police. The cashier, however, had obliged and accommodated me on several occasions years before, when I needed it. I liked him and held, out as long as possible against the conclusion to which my associates had so quickly and so unanimously arrived. There was one idea to which I turned as a last resort. McKeever had acted in a very queer manner and had talked wildly, not to say incoherently, when he was in the office that last afternoon. May not this conduct have been the result of a temporarily disordered intellect? Was he not out of his mind, and consequently not responsible for his actions, when he took it into his head to wind the time lock short of the proper time and rob the bank?

      There was another thought which also struck me forcibly. Was it not a preposterous idea that this prosaic and respected banker should burglarize his own safe, when he might easily and securely and without fear of detection, at least for years, appropriate this sum or a greater amount by falsifying the books; as many another respectable church-going cashier and bank President has done and is doing today, under our very noses?

      Friday, Saturday, and Sunday passed and still no signs of the missing cashier. He was sought in every direction and with all the ingenuity which the authorities could devise. Telegrams were sent to every part of the country containing details of the robbery and minute descriptions of the criminal, but all to no purpose. He had disappeared as completely as if he had been translated to some other planet. All the newspapers published sensational accounts of the affair and spoke of McKeever as the last accession to the Canadian colony of bank officials.

      It was Sunday night and I was speaking of the matter to my friend Wolcot.

      "Why don't you try old Benjamin?" he asked.

      "Old Benjamin! who is he? some private detective?" I answered.

      "No! not exactly a detective, but an expert in crime; a sort of a consulting physician in all those peculiar maladies to which the social body is predisposed. I know of several cases where he succeeded when the police had failed absolutely. I would never think of putting a matter of this kind into the hands of the police detectives, anyway. They are all well enough in finding the perpetrator of some vulgar commonplace crime, where the motive is evident to all and where the criminal has left such traces that he who runs may read; but, in an affair of this kind, they are out of their class. They can put on false beards, feign drunkenness, consort with fellows of the baser sort in low saloons and dives, and comport themselves generally in the style of Hawkshawe; but when it comes to a case of this kind which requires thought and analysis they are altogether at fault. I don't blame them very much either. They are brought up and educated in the old and beaten path, and it's a hard thing for them to get out of the rut."

      "Then this Benjamin makes it his business to solve just such problems as this one of the bank robbery?" I asked.

      "No! you can't say that he makes it his business. In the first place he's too lazy to make a business of anything, and, in the second place, there really isn't quite enough of it to keep any one occupied. The old fellow was formerly in the postoffice; in that branch of it which is called the secret service; discovering thefts in the mails and all that sort of thing, you know. He has just about enough of an income to keep him alive, and he supplements his small stipend by obtaining, now and then, a fee of fifty or a hundred dollars for unraveling some curious and knotty point in regard to missing documents or securities."

      "I'd like to see him," I exclaimed. "It can't do any harm, anyway, and he may have some idea or suggest something which will throw some light on the subject. You know how much I thought of McKeever and it pains me to find no alternative but the common belief in his guilt."

      We talked the matter over further and agreed to call upon Mr. Benjamin and submit the case to him that very night.

      We found him in his rooms on the sixth floor of a dingy tenement in Ninth avenue. He didn't take the trouble to rise, when we knocked, but bade us come in with a voice which was hoarse and cracked and somewhat querulous. We found the room blue with the smoke of strong tobacco and old Benjamin engaged in the somewhat singular occupation of playing chess with himself.

HE LOOKED UP WITH AN AIR OF ANNOYANCE.

      He looked up with an air of annoyance and exclaimed hurriedly:

      "Take a chair, gentlemen, and wait a moment, till I've finished this game."

      There was only one chair. My friend Wolcot appropriated it, and I sat down upon a trunk, near the greasy stand upon which the game was going forward; so that I had a good opportunity of examining the appearance and manner of the professional gentleman whose acumen we were about to test. He was a man of slovenly appearance, with threadbare garments and shiny sleeves; a man somewhere between 50 and 60 years of age; of medium size, but very long armed, and with broad shoulders, and a very large head. His hair was scanty and of a reddish brown, mixed with gray. His forehead was high and wide; his face smooth shaven; or rather it had been shaven a week before we saw him. His ears and his nose and his mouth were of generous proportion, and his small, sharp eyes were overhung with shaggy reddish brows. As he sat there with his head bent over the chess men and his long arms and flabby hands extended upon the table and curved around the board he seemed to me to resemble nothing so much as an enormous crab.

      He soon finished his game, and, swooping the pieces off the table into the box where they belonged, he straightened himself up in his chair and asked us our business.

      I introduced myself and my friend and told him in a few words what had brought us there.

      "Tell me the history of the case from beginning to end," he said, "and be careful and leave out nothing."

      He lay back in his chair, closed his eyes, and twirled his thumbs while I detailed, as accurately as I could, the story of the robbery.

      When I had finished, he opened his eyes.

      "What do you want me to do?" he demanded, with no appearance of interest.

      I told him that I was a friend of McKeever, the missing cashier; that I could not bring myself to believe in his perpetrating such a crime, and that I wanted to sift the matter to the bottom and show, if possible, that he was not the guilty man.

      "You don t want much, do you?" he demanded pithily. "But, at the same time, I've seen cases which seemed as plain as this, which disappointed everybody, and turned out, exactly contrary to all appearances. I wish now that you would go over the whole matter again, and, if you have forgotten anything in your first account, be sure and remember it now."

      I complied with his request and managed to recollect two or three circumstances which I had, at first, omitted. He lay back again with closed eyes and heard me out. When I had finished, he surprised me with the question:

      "Do you play chess, Mr. Dennisson?"

      "I have played chess," I answered, "but not lately. I don't get much time for it."

      "You are wrong not to take time. There's nothing like playing chess for sharpening and developing one's reasoning powers, unless it's playing chess with one's self. Playing chess is the nearest like detective work of anything I know of. You are the man of the law and your antagonist is the criminal. You make this move and he makes this other. You put yourself in his place and reason out what move, under the circumstances, he would be likely to make, so that you know how he will move before he moves.

      "You can only win at chess by getting inside of the other fellow and arguing the game out from his point of view, from what you know of his acumen and sagacity; and you can only succeed as a detective by putting yourself in the place of the criminal and finding out how you would proceed under these or those circumstances. Do I make myself plain?"

      "You certainly do, Mr. Benjamin; but, to get down to this particular case; do you think you can make anything of it?"

      I may be able to and I may not. You must recollect that I know comparatively very little of it. It will be necessary, first, to examine the premises thoroughly, as well as the characters and habits of all the personages who have been in any way connected with the case. These data are the foundation for my theory, and it will be essential to get all the data obtainable, or my fabric will be like the house that is built upon the sands. I am very glad to hear that your first move was to put the matter into the hands of the police."

      "You surprise me," I answered. "I took it for granted that you esteemed the capabilities of the official detectives very lightly."

      "On the contrary, the police are often most serviceable. They have been engaged upon this case now for three days. The papers say that they are following up every clew with their accustomed energy and shrewdness. Nothing could be better. The real criminal, whoever he is, hears that the police are after him. He knows from experience their thick headedness and their propensity to blundering; consequently he will be lulled into security and we will be able to come upon him when he least expects it."

      I laughed at the old man's sarcasm and at this open exhibition of contempt for his official colleagues.

      "They are all very well," he continued, "except when they have to use their brains, and then they are at fault, for the reason that they are deficient in the article. You hear often about the police having unraveled this or that mystery, but if you look it up you will find that it was no mystery at all. When they come to a downright mystery it never is unraveled. When they encounter a criminal, man or woman, who has brains and who deliberately sets to work to conceal his or her crime, they fail. The reason they fail is that they are deficient in the power of observation and analysis. They may have one, but they haven't the other.

      "The great secret of success in the detection of criminals is the skill with which one is able to reason backwards from the effect to the cause. We usually reason that if certain causes exist, they will produce such and such effects; we very seldom have occasion to take an effect, an existing state of things, and reason back to the unknown cause which produced it; and yet, this manner of reasoning should be, and is, with practice, fully as easy as the other. Now I will bet you anything that you never saw an effect which preceded its cause."

      I acknowledged that I had not and doubted if there could be such a thing.

      "Why, a man pushing a wheelbarrow, of course; ho! ho! ho! You can't dispute that. The cause is the man and the effect is the wheelbarrow, which precedes the cause. But I think I've heard enough of the business for tonight. I'll sleep on it, and will go over the ground tomorrow. Can you meet me in the office of the bank tomorrow morning at 10?"

      I assured him that we would be on hand and we were about to take our departure, when it occurred to me that I had not asked him about his terms.

      "I forgot," said I, "to ask you about terms for an investigation of this sort, and whether it is customary to pay something in advance."

      "My terms depend a good deal upon the result. If we are successful I shall charge you considerably more than if we are not and, as regards an advance payment, you may as well give me $10 now."

      I handed him a bill of the denomination he asked for. He looked at it carefully, as if to be sure of its genuineness, and then stuffed it into his pocket.

      "Can't you give me some sort of an opinion now?" I asked. "Does it seem possible to you, from what I have told you, that this thing may have been done by someone besides Mr. McKeever?"

      "Yes. I can give you an opinion now. It won't be worth much, as there are many details which are still lacking, and which I must get hold of before I can get to the bottom of the affair; but it will be worth, anyway, as much as the sum you nave paid me. I will say that it is just possible that Mr. McKeever was not the criminal; that, if he was not, he is or has been in great danger of bodily injury and needs or needed your assistance; and, finally, that the thief or thieves got into the bank before daylight on Thanksgiving and that the safe was robbed at or near 10 o'clock on the same morning."

      When we were on our way home that night I remarked to Wolcot:

      "Well! I don't know how it strikes you; but it seems to me that your friend Benjamin is a good deal of a charlatan and that I've thrown away $10."

      "Why do you think that?" he demanded rather testily.

      "It seemed to me that a great deal that he said was said for effect. To use a slang and very apt expression, he seemed to be playing to the galleries. All that talk of his about reasoning back from the effect to the cause, and about observation and analysis and all that sort of claptrap made me think of Sherlock Holmes and of the Chevalier Dupin, and, as regards his opinion, I could have given as good an opinion myself. What he said about the time of the robbery was a good guess and nothing more; and as to Mr. McKeever having been in danger of bodily injury and needing our assistance, anybody would have known that, to be sure, because if he was innocent his keys must have been taken from him and his pocket rifled for the combination. Not only that, but he must have met with foul play, have been kidnaped, perhaps murdered."

      "The fact of the matter is," answered Wolcot, "that the thing seems easy enough to you after Benjamin has said it. You are like the Spanish courtiers who concluded that it was the simplest thing in the world to make an egg stand on end after Columbus had shown them that they could do it by smashing in one end of the egg."

      "The cases are not parallel," I said, and there the matter rested.

      On the next morning, promptly at 10 o'clock, Mr. Wolcot and I met at the office of the bank. Old Benjamin had preceded and was waiting for us.

      He had improved his appearance wonderfully since we had last seen him. He wore an overcoat which, I thought at the time, was borrowed, for it seemed to have been made for some one else. He had a new hat and a pair of new, ill-fitting gloves. I estimated the cost of them, mentally, and concluded that he could not have more than $7 remaining of my $10 bill.

      He examined the safe and the vault carefully, as well as the windows and the doors of the bank building. He then questioned Curtis, the bookkeeper, about the appearance of the stranger who had come to the bank with McKeever on Wednesday afternoon, and who had afterwards gone away with him. He asked Curtis if he thought he would know the man if he should see him again. Curtis was positive he would.

      "Now, Mr. Curtis," said the old fellow, and for the first time he acted as if he was coming to something important, "please tell me exactly what it was in Mr. McKeever's conduct and language that Wednesday afternoon that made you think that he had either had a drop too much or that there was a bee in his bonnet."

      "Well, he seemed to be in a hurry," said Curtis, "and to be quite nervous, but it was what he said, more than what he did, that seemed so singular. He commenced by saying: 'Dear me! that was quite an earthquake we had yesterday. I thought I felt something last night. I thought I was railing out of bed. It was a great deal worse, though, over in Boston and Vermont and through Canada. I hope yesterday was the last of it. It makes me nervous to think of these tall buildings all around us!"

      "Hum! Hum! What did you say to that?" asked the old investigator.

      "Why, I knew it was nonsense, that there hadn't been any earthquake; but he don't like to be contradicted, so I simply agreed with him.

      "Then he began to talk about Distillers' stock. 'There's been a great boom in Distillers this morning,' he said, 'up to 27⅝. I want you to send that Distillers put up by Tallman as collateral down to our broker's tomorrow morning and have it sold at the opening.'"

      "Well, what was there singular about that?"

      "I didn't think there was anything out of the way about it at the time, but when I came to talk it over with Mr. Haswell, the teller, we found that the highest point whisky had touched that day was 9¾. So, you see, he must have been away off in his mind."

      "Hum! He may have been, and he may not. What else did he say?"

      "He commenced to talk about John Y. McKane. 'Here's that rascal McKane out of prison again,' he exclaimed. 'That man ought to be kept in jail, and not allowed to go around the country presiding over Sunday-schools. If one of you fellows gets to presiding over a Sunday-school there will be a vacancy in the bank.'"

      "Ho! Ho! and yet they thought this man McKeever was crazy," muttered Benjamin to himself; then, in a louder tone:

      "Gentlemen! this is the most important thing that I have heard. That earthquake settles the business. My mind is about made up. Hurrah for the earthquake!"

      "What in thunder do you mean by that?" I demanded, with annoyance; for his words sounded most silly and preposterous.

      "I mean that that earthquake is the key to the whole matter. Without that earthquake there wouldn't have been any robbery; or no, I won't say that; but it had a good deal to do with bringing about the robbery. Hurrah! I say, for the earthquake."

      "Perhaps you think," I exclaimed indignantly, "that it was this earthquake that made the vault and safe fly open. You are trying to mystify us with a lot of rubbish which you don't believe yourself. Get down and talk common sense. We have neither the time nor inclination for any such tomfoolery."

      Old Benjamin looked at me with what seemed a glance of superiority and of commiseration.

      "Wait till we are through, young man, and we will see who is talking rubbish. You can't understand me, consequently you think it is tomfoolery. It is the way with every one when they are brought before something which is beyond their comprehension. I will tell you this: Since hearing about this earthquake it is settled in my mind that Mr. McKeever was innocent of the robbery of the bank. But I am through here, and now, if you like, we will go to McKeever's house."

      When we got to the house we were received by McKeever's niece, Miss Agnes Warren. She had her street garments on when we arrived, as she was just on the point of going over to Brooklyn to stay with some relatives for a day or two. She took us into the library, or sitting-room, and obligingly remained with us that she might give us any information we wanted about her uncle.

      She was a tall, rather slender and very good-looking girl of about 24. She had a modest and engaging air, and there was a look of sadness in her face, which showed how much the recent occurrences had grieved and crushed her.

      She spoke of her uncle in terms of the greatest affection, and the tears were in her eyes when she asked old Benjamin if he, too, thought him capable of such an action. He answered her in an indifferent and heartless tone, which made me quite indignant. In fact, his manner with her all through made me feel uncomfortable and ashamed of the company I was in.

      Nothing could nave been clearer or more concise than her account or the day which preceded that of the robbery. Her story was so straightforward and tier manner of telling it so winning that it was a pleasure to listen to her. It all seemed to produce very little effect, nevertheless, on the expert, as he broke in on her narrative twice or thrice at inopportune moments with strange questions about things which had nothing to do with what she was at the moment saying, just as if the old brute were trying to set a trap for her. She was so ready and quick, however, with her answers that he seemed to gain nothing at all by it.

      He questioned her particularly about the stranger who had called on Mr. McKeever and who had accompanied him to the bank. She had never seen him before and had heard very little of the conversation. She remembered that this man had talked about getting a loan of $10,000 on a shipment of agricultural implements, and her impression was that her uncle had gone away with him to look into the matter.

      The servant, whose name, as I have mentioned, was Maria Flanagan, had come into the room towards the close of our conversation to bring some coals for the grate fire. As she was going out she lingered in the doorway, with feminine curiosity, to hear something of our talk. She was a good-natured, green-looking Irish girl, and there was nothing peculiar about her but her freckles. I never saw in my life before such a freckled face. She stood with the scuttle in her hand and her eyes and mouth open, looking as though she meant to have her say about the matter until she was admonished by her mistress in a severe but lady-like tone to attend to her work, when she suddenly disappeared from view.

      Miss Agnes told us that she had gone over to Brooklyn on Wednesday, an hour or so after her uncle's departure, to spend Thanksgiving with her relatives, and had not returned till Friday morning at 0 o'clock. This was the reason that his absence from home had not been noticed at his house.

      "I've found out everything here that I want to know," said Benjamin; "and I've found it out very quickly and with very little trouble, thanks to you, Miss Warren. It's a great pleasure to be able to do business with one who has such intelligence and sense. With an ordinary person I would have used up twice the time and wouldn't have learned half as much. You were just going to Brooklyn as we came in. Doubtless to visit those same relatives. I may wish to see you again about this matter. Have you any objection to letting me know your address?"

      "Not the slightest," she answered sweetly. "My relative is Mrs. Marten, and she lives at No. 220½ Hicks street, on the heights."

      She went to the door with us, and, when we had got two blocks away, we looked back and saw her already tripping down the street in the direction opposite to the one we were taking. When we had walked about two blocks more Benjamin suddenly stopped short and exclaimed:

      "Drat it all! I've forgotten my glasses. We'll have to go back."

      I was not in the best of humors. My teeth had been set on edge by the old man's manner with Agnes Warren and, besides that, it didn't seem to me that we were accomplishing anything. I walked along with my two companions in moody silence.

      "I want to see that girl again," said Benjamin, chuckling to himself. "That one with the freckles. She's so freckled that it's absolutely a pleasure to look at her."

      I was glad, at that moment, that I had not been foolish enough to give the old fellow more than $10.

      Maria Flanagan let us in and Mr. B. soon found his glasses, lying upon the library table, where, I now think, he must have purposely left them.

      While he was wiping his spectacles and adjusting them he turned to the maid of all work.

YOU, I SUPPOSE, ARE MISS MARIA FLANAGAN. from The Los Angeles Herald, (1896-may-24) p17

      "You, I suppose, are Miss Maria Flanagan."

      "Yis, sor!" answered she, with an awkward reverence.

      "We've had strange goings on here, Maria! Mr. McKeever gone away, no one knows where, and the bank robbed. I suppose you've heard of it all; but he was too good a man to have anything to do with it."

      "That's just what I do be telling ivery wan. He robbing his own bank! it's not to be believed and he, for ought we know, lying dead this day. It's a sorry time, that it is, and he that was the nice, raal gintleman."

      "I suppose you recollect that day when he was last here, Maria! That Wednesday afternoon, when that man called and went to the bank with him?"

      "Winsday was it? and I was thinking it was Chusday, but it may have been Winsday. Yis! I remimber the day; but I'm thinking it was Chusday."

      "What makes you think it was Tuesday, Maria?"

      "For the raison that we had diviled lobster that day; which same we have only wance a week and on a Chusday."

      "What did Mr. McKeever usually do after eating lunch, Maria?"

      "Picked his teeth, sor."

      "Yes, but after that. Didn't he ordinarily sit down by the fire and talk, or, perhaps, read something or other?"

      "Yis! For the most, he smoked his pipe a trifle and read the papur."

      "What paper did he usually read?"

      "The Post; which same I'm thinking a strange name for a papur. 'T was fetched at half-past 2 ivery day, and if it didn't come he was that vexed."

      "Do you recollect his reading the paper that afternoon, Maria?"

      "That I do, sor! But he hadn't been long at it whin that tall, foine-looking felly came; so I don't belave he half read it."

      "Did you go to the door when that gentleman came?"

      "I did not, sor! I was after going, whin the mistress called me back and wint hersilf."

      "I'd like to see that paper that Mr. McKeever was reading that Wednesday afternoon. Don't you usually save all the papers?"

      "Yis. They were all put by and kept in the attic; for the raison that the mister wanted thim for riference; though I'm thinking that if I wished mesilf for a riference it's little good thim ould papurs would do me. The papur the mister was reading that day I'd show ye sor, only for the raison it was burned, bad luck to it! And it happened like this: Mr. McKeever was just after laving the house with the strange gintleman and I was in here claning up a trifle, whin I saw the papur and stopped a moment to see what the latest stoiles might be. Thin in comes Miss Agnes; which same couldn't abide that any one should stand idle a minute; so she tells me to mind my wurruk and takes the papur and jams it up and sticks it in the foire; but, by this same token! I was as good as she, for the bell rung just thin, which made her run as quick as ever she could to answer it; so, between whiles, I plucked a piece of the papur out of the grate, and good luck it was, for I saved the words I wanted."

      "What was it you saw in the paper that you wanted to save so much?"

      For answer Miss Flanagan hung her head, but in a moment she recovered her aplomb, and said, though with an air of conscious embarrasment:

      "I don't know as I mind telling you, sor, for there's no harrum in it. I have the papur in the kitchen and I'll fetch it for you this same minute."

      Saying this. Miss Flanagan dived into the lower regions, from which she shortly afterwards reappeared and held forth for Benjamin's inspection a triangular piece of newspaper, with torn and blackened edges, about six inches one way and eight or ten the other.

      Mr. Benjamin took it from her and read as follows: "Fordham's phenomenal freckle exterminator. One bottle guaranteed to cure the worst case of freckles in one week or money refunded. Price 25 cents."

      He turned the bit of paper over and over and looked at it closely for a minute or two, then folded it, put it away carefully in his vest pocket, and said:

"THE FRECKLE EXTERMINATOR . . . IS THE MOST IMPORTANT PIECES OF EVIDENCE."

      "Great Scott! This freckle exterminator is, by all odds, the most important piece of evidence which I have come across. If there was no other clew this thing alone would serve to unlock the whole mystery and bring us to the bottom of the matter. I'll give this back to you, Maria, when I'm through with it; and now, gentlemen, I have to tell you that my business is almost done. I have made up a complete case; though there are still some details lacking which I will have to look up. Mr. McKeever is certainly innocent of the bank robbery, and I believe that I will shortly put my hands upon the guilty parties. And, furthermore, the whole thing has been brought about by the earthquake, the freckle exterminator, and the deviled lobster."

title used in two part syndication; from The Los Angeles Herald, (1896-may-31) p17

---

PART II.

      Wolcot and I looked at each other in amazement. His thoughts were mine and mine his. This man whom we had brought with us into the case was either a driveling idiot or he thought we were.

      "Mr. Benjamin," I said. "Either you are a fool or you think that we are. This is the worst kind of nonsense I ever heard. We are not children and this weak effort at mystification, this objectless attempt to impose on us by a string of ridiculous nothings won't go down any longer."

      "I don't take you for children," he answered. "You are men, as I think, of intellect above the ordinary; but, allowing this, it is not surprising that you do not understand this business. I will say now that this is an extraordinarily singular case. There probably never has been anything like it in the annals of crime. In fact, it is the most ingenious example of chicanery that it has ever been my luck to run across. Do you mean to say that, at the present moment, you haven't an inkling, just a slight inkling, of the means which were used to rob the Jefferson Bank?"

      Wolcot and I looked at each other and acknowledged in terms of mockery that we had not.

      I wish to say before going further, that subsequent events showed that Benjamin was right; that every word he had spoken was true. And yet Wolcot and I, who had witnessed the whole of the investigation up to that time, could not, for the life of us, perceive any clew, any shadow of a clew to the mystery; notwithstanding that it seems so simple to me now.

      I will ask my readers right here to think hard and see if they cannot come to a faint perception of the truth.

      "As I said before," continued Benjamin. "I think that I can soon put my hands upon the criminals, though there is such a thing as their escaping me after all. It is now 12 o'clock. I will be very busy this afternoon, but I would like to see you this evening, say at half-past 7. Where will you be at that time?"

      "If you have anything of importance to communicate," I answered, "that is to say, something of greater weight than all this stuff about earthquakes and freckle exterminators, you can see me at the Manhattan club at the time you name."

      "Very well," said he, "I won't call unless I have some news that will please you."

      With this we separated, Wolcot and I going off together and discussing as we went the mysterious words and ways of our singular associate. I was firmly of the opinion that he was utterly incompetent for the business which he had undertaken; but my friend, feeling it necessary to vindicate himself, in some measure, for having induced me to employ him, insisted that he might be on the right track after all.

      At half-past 7 that night I was summoned to the visitors' room of the club and found Benjamin waiting for me. He seemed to be in great good humor. He was somewhat excited and chuckled to himself with satisfaction.

      "If you want to assist personally in the capture of the person or persons who robbed the Jefferson bank," said he, "get your things on and come at once. I have a carriage waiting and not a minute is to be lost."

      "You are sure you are not on the wrong track?" I asked incredulously.

      "I will risk my life and reputation on it. There is some danger in the business, though; and it's right you should know it before you go. Do you want to take the risk?"

      I didn't think there could be any great amount of risk for the reason that I doubted his having discovered the criminals; so I told him I would go and, getting on my coat, we went out to the hack.

      There was a man on the box beside the driver and two others inside the vehicle on the front seat. I was surprised to find that one of these was the bookkeeper, Curtis. His neighbor and the man beside the driver, as I was informed by Benjamin, were officers in plain clothes.

      We drove down to Thirtieth street and along that thoroughfare to a point just east of Eighth avenue. Here the carriage stopped and its five passengers alighted.

      "We are going," said the old man to me, "to a restaurant on Eighth avenue, in the middle of the block above us. The rest of these people have their instructions. All you have to do is to go into the place with these two officers, sit down at a table, and call for something to eat or drink. Curtis and I will precede you by about three minutes. When you are in the restaurant you must not appear to know us."

      The two officers and I waited at the corner the necessary length of time, and then followed Benjamin and Curtis into the building. It was an ordinary Eighth avenue saloon and restaurant. A number of small tables were placed about the room, at one end of which we took our places, ordering at the same time some refreshments.

      The place contained besides the usual resplendent bar, with its mirrors and its cut glass, three or four small rooms, each furnished with a table and chairs for the accommodation of parties who wished for privacy. At a table quite near us sat the old man and the bookkeeper. They did not look at us, and I have no doubt that to the other patrons of the place, and there were probably half a dozen of these present, our two parties appeared to have no connection with each other and our presence there to have no meaning beyond the ordinary one.

      At about ten minutes past 8 two men came into the restaurant, and as they did so I saw Curtis start suddenly and whisper to Benjamin. The new arrivals were both men of 28 or 30. One was tall and dark — a good-looking individual, but with a rather sinister face. The other was a trifle shorter, a handsome blonde fellow with rosy cheeks and a fluffy yellow mustache. Both were well dressed and would pass ordinarily for gentlemen.

      They went into one of the small private rooms or alcoves already mentioned and called for something to drink.

      Benjamin arose and motioned to my two companions and the three quickly stepped to the door of the apartment. I heard the old man say:

A SCUFFLE AND A PISTOL SHOT.

      "Gentlemen! I have a warrant here for your arrest." Then there were several oaths, a scuffle, and a pistol shot. You may imagine that all this created a great uproar in the place. We all crowded around the entrance to the small room and found that the two strangers were already handcuffed. The dark one would have shot the detective. had not the pistol been knocked out of his hand as he fired.

      After accompanying our captives to the nearest police station and leaving them safely fastened under lock and key, I took Benjamin with me to my house, and, having seated him before the fire in my library and having given him a good cigar, I said:

      "Now then, Benjamin! This thing has gone far enough, and it's time for you to explain yourself. You have arrested two men who, judging from their demeanor, the way they resisted arrest, et cetera, are criminals of some kind or another. Who are these men? And why do you suppose them to be the persons who robbed the bank? Curtis, the bookkeeper, I acknowledge, identifies one of them — the dark one — as the man who left the bank on last Wednesday afternoon with the cashier; but how could they have opened the safe and bow did you get upon their track? Above all, I want you to tell me what on earth you meant by saying all that rubbish about the earthquake and the deviled lobster. Now is the time to show me that you still have your senses about you."

      The old man laughed silently before he answered:

      "You are right, Mr. Dennisson, in demanding an explanation, and I wonder that you have been patient as long as you have. The whole thing must have seemed without head or tail to you, and I must confess that I have enjoyed very much the mystification which you and your friend Wolcot have labored under. I will now explain the whole matter from first to last and make every point so plain to you that you will wonder you did not understand it before."

      At that moment the door bell ran and a servant brought me a telegram. I opened it and read as follows:

"Havana, Cuba, Dec. 3, 1894.      

      "George E. Dennisson — Have been drugged and kidnaped. Arrived here this afternoon. Return next steamer. Is bank all right?

LEWIS MCKEEVER."      

      "There you are!" exclaimed Benjamin. "That's about the thing that I expected. That finishes the case. Everything is now accounted for."

      "Rather say," said I, "that it makes everything more complicated."

      "Not at all, as you will soon see. I will now commence at the very beginning, and, in five minutes, will make everything as clear as crystal. This has been a very singular, in fact, an extraordinary case, and for that reason it has been far from a difficult one. Your difficult cases are the ones which do not possess any singularity, which are perfectly plain and ordinary, and whose circumstances present nothing which would excite attention. This case has so many things about it which were queer and bizarre that one was immediately furnished with an abundance of clews for getting at the truth. When I say that it was not difficult I mean that it was not difficult when a man approached the problem who had a fair modicum of brains and a respectable amount of reasoning power. Though, I dare say, that this very strangeness of the data, which gives me such an advantage, would offer to the muddled brains of the official detectives the greatest obstacle.

      "When you first detailed the matter to me and told me that you sought my services with the wish to show that McKeever was innocent of the crime. I decided in the first place to take the cashier's innocence for granted, and to work the matter out with that idea settled in my mind. If I failed to establish this there was no harm done, and what was the use of showing him to be the culprit, when I was hired for something else? You will see that in this way the extent of my field of operations was cut down and narrowed considerably, and that I could work to much better advantage and accomplish more in a certain length of time.

      "The first question was: how could the safe have been robbed without connivance of Mr. McKeever, he having set the time lock on that Wednesday afternoon? There was nothing gained in supposing that he wound the time look short of the proper time while he was temporarily deranged.

      "That would have been simply a palliating circumstance, but would not have disproved his agency in the robbery. My conclusion was, necessarily, that some person or persons caused him to wind the time lock as he did. If he had wound the time lock improperly, in a fit of abstraction, or while out of his head, how could another party have known it and taken advantage of it? It was settled in my mind, then, that he had been influenced by another person or persons, and that he had acted as he did while under this influence.

      "The next question was: In what way could an outsider cause the cashier to so wind the time lock that it would run down on Thursday? I thought this matter over a long time. There were a number of hypotheses which presented themselves and which, one after the other, I put away as impossible. After I had got rid of everything that was utterly impossible there was one supposition left, and, as is my invariable custom, I accepted this as the true one. By inducing Mr. McKeever to think that the Wednesday upon which he last closed the safe was not Wednesday, but Tuesday, you would cause him to wind the time lock to run eighteen hours instead of forty-two, and the door of the safe might be opened at 10 o'clock Thanksgiving morning. You will recollect that I gave you my opinion that the bank had been robbed at about that time.

      "I started out, then, with the idea that upon that Wednesday afternoon McKeever supposed that it was Tuesday. Therefore when I heard this morning in the bank that he had talked about an earthquake happening the day before, that he had mentioned Distillers' stock as at 27⅝, and had spoken of John Y. McKane as being at liberty, my mind was in just the proper receptive and assimilating state: and these utterances, which to you seemed those of a disordered intellect, opened up an immense vista to my imagination. It was at that moment, if you remember, I told you that I had no doubt of being able to prove Mr. McKeever's innocence.

      "We will now come to our perquisition at the cashier's house. It appeared to me to be altogether reasonable that, if such a fraud were practiced upon him it must have been done at his house, and, furthermore, that it must have been done on Wednesday noon, when he was last there. Any other idea, on the contrary, was unreasonable and improbable. Therefore, the conspirators must have had an accomplice, an ally in the banker's own home. I make it a point to enter upon these investigations without any bias whatever; to approach them, as far as possible, with a perfectly judicial mind. And so, when I got to the house and we saw these two women I immediately proceeded upon the basis that this Miss Agnes Warren was the accomplice in question. I noticed, as well as you, her sad and modest demeanor and the dark rings under the handsome, black eyes of hers; but I have seen such things before, and how, let me ask you, could this deceit as to the day of the week have been practiced upon McKeever without the concurrence and help of his niece, who was with him that noon at lunch, as well as before and after?

      "I was borne out in my theory by the very straightforwardness and smoothness of her story, and the readiness with which she answered me when I suddenly broke in upon her narrative with inconvenient and impertinent inquiries. Her manner, probably, to you, looked like innocence. To me she seemed too glib and altogether too well prepared for my questions. I noticed, also, that she showed an anxiety that we should not talk with the servant, and, for this very reason, I devised the expedient of the mislaid spectacles, in order that I might interview Miss Flanagan while her mistress was absent.

      "We are now coming to a clew of greater value than anything I have mentioned — namely: To the deviled lobster and the freckle exterminator, the importance of which you and your friend were so disposed to ridicule.

      "You will recollect that Maria Flanagan thought that it was on Tuesday and not Wednesday when McKeever was last at his house. Why did she think so? Because they had deviled lobster for lunch that day, and they never had it except on Tuesdays. Miss Flanagan was led into the same error as her master, and Miss Warren, who ordered the dish prepared, was the cause of it.

      "Mr. McKeever was reading a newspaper that day when he was interrupted by a stranger calling upon him. It was the Evening Post and it came regularly to the house at half-past two. After her employer's departure the servant picked up this paper and was looking at it, when Miss Agnes suddenly came in, snatched the paper away, crumpled it up and threw it in the grate. When her mistress' back was turned Maria saved a portion of the paper from the flames; the fragment which she showed me this morning. On looking it over I saw the advertisement of Fordham's phenomenal freckle exterminator; but, at the same time, I saw something else, which almost made me shout with exultation. It was part of an account of an earthquake which had happened the day before the paper was published. I say part of an account, because the most of it was torn away and had been burned.

MISS AGNES SUDDENLY CAME IN, AND SNATCHED THE PAPER AWAY. from The Los Angeles Herald, (1896-may-31) p17

      "I then knew about where I stood. The rest was a matter merely of detail and exertion. I left you, if you remember, shortly after this. I went at once to the office of the Post and looked over their files of old papers. The piece of newspaper which I had got of Maria had the date of Nov. 28 printed upon it in several places. From several items of news which were still legible on the fragment I knew that this newspaper had not been printed on Nov. 28, 1894. I looked over the files until I came to the issue of Nov. 28, 1893, and I found the newspaper from which this scrap had been torn. In that paper I read the account of the earthquake which happened Nov. '27, 1893. From the stock reports I saw that at the first board that morning, Nov. 28, 1893, Distillers' had sold at 27⅝. I also read an account of John Y. McKane having presided over the Sunday-school of the Methodist church at Gravesend on the Sunday preceding. The most important, however, was the fact that Nov. 28, 1893, was on Tuesday, whereas Nov. 28. 1894, came on Wednesday. I immediately returned to McKeever's house, having stopped on the way at Macy's to buy Maria a purple and green silk handkerchief, with which, by the way, she was so pleased that she grinned from one ear to the other. I asked her who brought the paper in that day from the steps. She answered that she had not done so and there was no one else who could have done so but Miss Agnes. When you and Mr. Wolcot and I were in McKeever's library this morning I noticed that there was a small calendar standing upon the mantel. It was one of those perpetual calendars which you change from day to day, and this calendar bore the date Tuesday, Nov. 28. You probably didn't see it, but I, having an eye to all these small matters, took it in at once.

      "After asking Maria who brought in the paper I asked her why she hadn't fixed the calendar as it should be. She answered that she knew nothing about it and never touched it. I then asked her to show me the files of old papers in the attic. She did so, and on examining them I found they had been systematically arranged and kept for years. As near as I could see the issues of 1893 were all there, with the exception of that of Nov. 28, which had been taken from its place. The whole case was now as plain as the nose on your face. The old cashier had been given a paper to read which, while it bore the proper month and day of the month, Nov. 28, gave the day of the week as Tuesday instead of Wednesday. By this, as well as by the other device, no less ingenious, of the deviled lobster and the calendar, he had been led to think that it was Tuesday, and not Wednesday, and had, when he closed the safe, wound the time lock to run eighteen instead of forty-two hours.

      "It is the commonest thing in the world for any one to mistake the day of the week. We are all doing it frequently. It is also a common thing for one to pick up an old newspaper and read it for ten or fifteen minutes before discovering one's mistake. Think how many times you have done the same thing yourself. And how have you finally discovered your error? The items probably seemed strange to you, but you didn't find out that you were reading stale news until your eye caught the date of the paper. In this case you must recollect that the date, as far as the month and the day of the month were concerned, was correct. You must also recollect that Mr. McKeever, on this occasion, only read the paper for a few minutes before he was interrupted by the arrival of the stranger. And also the fact that the items were a year old, that they had passed out of his memory and seemed new to him.

      "The rest of the affair was a very simple thing and might have been done with ease, by even my official colleagues. Of course I knew that Agnes Warren would not have done this thing on her own account. She would only have done it for a lover. I immediately adopted a very flattering tone with the fair but freckled Miss Flanagan. I joked with her about her admirers and I think that I even made love to her myself. From that I went to the love affairs of her mistress and found out, in no time, that the demure and prim Miss Warren had her own little affair; furthermore, that it was a clandestine one; that, on account of some cloud which rested upon the reputation of her hero, she had never brought the matter to the notice of her uncle, but was in the habit of meeting her friend at the home of her relatives in Brooklyn. Maria Flanagan, though an ignorant Irish servant, had been enough of a woman to find out all about it.

      "There were two little things that I still wanted. One was to find out the man's name, and the other to get hold of his photograph. Before I left the invaluable Maria helped me to both one and the other.

      "I might now have hunted the man down in the stereotyped way. But I knew one that was a great deal quicker; a way in which I also might get some valuable evidence about his being really the person I wanted. I immediately started out for Brooklyn, picking up as I went towards the bridge a dirty and undersized district messenger boy named Johnny Carey; a boy who has aided me in many an affair like this, and who, when it comes to shadowing or watching people and making accurate account of what he sees, is equal to any paid member of the force.

      "When we arrived in the vicinity of No. 220½ Hicks street I stationed Mr. Carey around the corner, and approaching the house alone rang the bell, and was shown into a respectable looking drawing-room, where I was soon joined by Miss Warren.

      "She expressed no surprise or concern at seeing me. I asked her a few unimportant questions to throw her off her guard, then I turned away and, while pretending to look at some ornament in the further end of the room, I said:

      "'I've got some news that I think will please you. We've found the man who robbed the bank.'

      "'I'm very glad of it,' she responded, coolly. 'Are you sure of it, and who is he?'

      "'O! we're sure enough of it,' I answered. 'And we expect to nab him this very night. His name is — you must keep this to yourself, you know — his name is George Carton.'

AS I SPOKE I COULD SEE HER IN THE MIRROR.

      "As I spoke, I could see her in the mirror, though my back was towards her. She turned as white as chalk. She swayed backwards and almost fell, and her hands caught at her throat as if she were choking. I gave her time to got over her attack; then, making as if I had noticed nothing of her agitation, took leave of her and left the house. I stationed John Carey and myself in positions where we could watch the house without being ourselves seen. I believed that she would attempt to warn him, and I was right. In twenty minutes she came to the door of the house, dressed for going out, and, after looking up and down the street, as if she were afraid of being followed she came down the steps and walked hurriedly in the direction of Atlantic avenue. When she reached this latter thoroughfare she went a few steps and disappeared in the door of a drug store.

from The Chicago Sunday Tribune, (1896-may-17), pt 06, p46

      "I thought that she was either going to telephone or send for a messenger. It was the latter. In a few minutes I saw a boy with a blue cap and a badge strolling leisurely in the direction of the pharmacy. I intercepted him and asked if he was sent to the drug store, and, on his answering in the affirmative, I gave him 10 cents and told him that it was a mistake and that he wasn't wanted. I waited until he had disappeared and then, after summoning Mr. Carey and giving him his instructions, sent him in as a substitute to Miss Warren. In two minutes he came out and joined me around the corner, gave me the note which she had confided to him and told me what she had said. And the thing was done.

      "Her orders were to go, at eight o'clock in the evening, to the restaurant which we have just visited, to ask for George Herbert, and if the gentleman were not there to wait until he came and give him the note. Here is the note. You can read it for yourself."

      I took the missive from Benjamin and read as follows:

      "'I write this to tell you that everything is known and that you may surely expect a call to-night. I have risked everything for you and you have deceived me. I am not so sorry for what I have done as I am at having to give up faith in you. I will never see you again but, for the sake of the past, I put you on your guard. Take advantage of my warning at once. A. W.'"

      "There is little more to tell," said old Benjamin. "George Carton, alias George Herbert, was the blonde fellow with the yellow moustache. His confederate, the tall swarthy fellow, is called Simon Cartier, and it remains to be shown what he did with Mr. McKeever, after they left the bank together.

      "I haven't spoken about the difficulty of their getting the combination of the safe, because it has, all along, seemed of secondary importance. The girl probably found it for them by going through the old gentleman's pockets."

      So ended Benjamin's story. In the course of a few days, Mr. McKeever returned and though none the worse in health for his experience he had a wonderful tale to tell. Cartier, it seems, with the pretence of negotiating a loan of $10,000 from the bank, on a consignment of agricultural implements for Havana, Induced him to go down to the wharves of the New York and Cuba Mail Steamship Company at Pier 17 East River. He got him to go on board the steamship Yucatan, which was lying at the dock, about ready to steam out, and to enter what purported to be Cartier's cabin; a cabin which he must have secured beforehand. While there he had persuaded the cashier to take a glass of drugged wine with the result that he became insensible and, on recovering consciousness, found himself some two or three hundred miles on the way to the Island of Cuba.

      I must now conclude my story in a very few words, for I find that it has spun out to a length twice what I imagined necessary when I commenced it.

      The two prisoners, George Carton and Simon Cartier, were never convicted. The evidence against them was so fantastic that our lawyer advised us not to push the matter, but to get what we could out of them in the way of a compromise. We secured $25,000 from them and let them go, and we did it in a way, too, that did not make us liable for compounding a felony.

      I never knew what became of the girl, Agnes Warren, beyond the fact that she never went back to live with her uncle. It is to be hoped that she saw the folly of her deeds and made all atonement possible by repentance.

      In conclusion, I have two points to make. First, if those two rascals who developed such an extraordinary and wonderful ingenuity in their plan to rob the bank had employed the same invention and genius in a legitimate direction they would in time have become the rulers of the earth. Lastly, I have to say that, though some of the incidents in this narrative may seem improbable and unreasonable there is not one of them which is not strictly possible. And it is also true and not to be gainsaid that truth is often stranger than the strangest fiction.

(THE END)