The Man of Last Resort/Once in Jeopardy/Chapter 2
II
“IT is quite plain,” said Randolph Mason, “that you have fallen into the usual blunder of the common rogue. If you had wished to rob the insurance companies, you could easily have accomplished your end without perpetrating this crime, and thus assume the hazard of discovery and criminal prosecution.”
Robert Gilmore looked sharply at the counsellor.
“You mean that I am seeking advice late?”
“Precisely,” said Mason. “It is the characteristic error of the witless.”
“Well,” observed the coal operator, “in desperate positions one usually relies on one's-self; confederates are dangerous, and usually expert advice is difficult to obtain.” Then he laughed. “I could not advertise for sealed bids on how the thing should be done. I did the best possible under the circumstances, and I rather thought that I had made a clean job of it.”
“That delusion,” muttered Mason, “is common with the amateur. Indeed, it is the mark of him. This killing was useless. You could have gotten on as well without it.”
The keen, gray eyes of Robert Gilmore twinkled. “I should be interested to know how?” he said.
“At this late hour,” answered Randolph Mason, “my advice upon that point can be of no importance. Suggestions after the fact are of little interest and of no value. You have now to consider some method by which you may place yourself permanently beyond the reach of the law. This is no problem of slight moment, and, in order to meet it properly, I must know the details of this blundering business.”
The coal operator's face grew grave and thoughtful. “I presume,” he began, “that the priest and the attorney are accustomed to require details and accurate confessions. I am president of the Octagon Coal Company, as I have said, and reside in the city of Philadelphia, where I have been engaged in active business for several years. My life beyond that time cannot be a matter of any special importance. I may add, however, that I had been engaged with a foreign company as a fire insurance adjuster for the State of Illinois for some years before coming to the East. It was while acting as an adjuster of losses that I first met with Brown Hirst.
“An unusually large fire occurred in one of the suburban towns near Chicago, destroying almost an entire block, and I was sent out by my company to adjust the loss. Upon my arrival in the town I found what I believed to be evidence of a gigantic fraud. The block had been leased for a year by one John Hall for the purpose of doing a mammoth general business with a great number of different departments, and almost before Hall had opened his doors to the public this fire occurred. There was no explanation of how the fire originated. When first noticed by the police, about three o'clock in the morning, the building was blazing fiercely in a dozen places, and under such headway as to be impossible to control. The local fire department was unable to prevent the loss of the building, but fortunately a heavy rainstorm set in and prevented a total loss of the stock.
“In conversation with Hall, I discovered that not one domestic company had a dollar on the building or its stock, but that the entire insurance was carried in my company and a number of London companies usually associated with it, and for whom I acted as general adjuster. This was of itself a suspicious circumstance, since the insured would not be subject to the inquisition of numberless representatives of convenient local companies, and in a legal fight would have the prejudice against a remote company in his favor, and, further, he would have but one man to deal with.
“I observed immediately that Hall was a person of much shrewdness. He talked little, but what he had to say was exceedingly free from any suggestion of concealment or obscurity. When I came to examine the unburned stock, my suspicions were confirmed. It was composed entirely of bulky merchandise, evidently selected with a view to a fire.
“The manner of its arrangement in the building was exceedingly suspicious. The boxes had been piled up before the windows in such a manner as to prevent the firemen from entering the building even after the iron bars had been cut, and the arrangement was such that when the fire should gain headway and the windows be opened, the position of the boxes would act as a sort of flue and thereby greatly assist the fire. It was all exceedingly well planned, and if the building had been entirely consumed, detection would have been impossible. Nothing could have prevented this but the unforeseen storm, and had it not occurred just when it did, Hall's scheme would have proved a masterpiece of its kind.
“I gave the public no intimation of my conclusions concerning the incendiary nature of the fire, but when the investigation was concluded, I took Hall to the hotel, and told him frankly that my company would not pay the loss, as it was quite evident that it was all a shrewdly arranged scheme to defraud. I pointed out the suspicious circumstances, and the irresistible conclusion that flowed from them, and said plainly that Hall would do well to escape criminal prosecution.
“To my utter astonishment, the man expressed no surprise whatever. When I had finished, he asked me a few searching questions intended to determine the thoroughness of my investigation, and when he was satisfied upon that point, he drew his chair up near to the table at which I was seated, and quietly proposed to divide the insurance if I would join with him and make the proper sort of report to my company.
“In handling this proposition, Hall was marvellously skilful. He assumed to treat the matter purely as a business arrangement. He said that the loss, although big to us, was a very small matter to the wealthy companies which I represented, and would not be felt by them, and would cause no man any appreciable hurt; that he had gone to infinite pains and no little expense to perfect his plan, and nothing but the unfortunate storm could have prevented its complete success; that he had never intended to divide with any one, but accident against which he could not guard had placed me in a position to secure a portion of the very considerable sum which he had gone to so much trouble and expense to obtain, and, appreciating this new necessity, he was quite willing to allow me an equal division of the gain. At no time during his entire conversation was there any suggestion of danger or any allusion to any risk, criminal or otherwise.
“It is unnecessary, I judge, to weary you with further details. Under the remarkable handling of this man, the element of substantial wrong seemed to disappear from the transaction, and the result was that I finally consented to join with him. He claimed two hundred thousand dollars. I reported to the company a complete loss, but advised a settlement at not more than one half of the sum claimed. This finally led to an adjustment at about one hundred and twenty thousand dollars, without the least suspicion of a community of interests between us.
“It would not be quite true to assume that I easily fell in with Hall's plan, although in point of time it would seem so. Financially, I was in a bad way; from childhood I had been poor; always poor. In money matters, things invariably went wrong. Every hazard I had taken, every speculation in which I had entered, had always lost, no matter how substantial it seemed. At this time I was rather desperate, I presume. At any rate, I joined with the scheme, and it succeeded without a jar.
“Thus I came to know Brown Hirst under his alias. We divided the money and deposited it with a trust company in Philadelphia until such time as we might safely join in some one of the numerous ventures which Brown Hirst was continually planning. But he was no dreamer, this Hirst. He knew fully the great virtue of deliberation, and insisted that I remain with the insurance company for at least a year, and then secure employment with another company on some reasonable pretext, and then by some error be discharged from this company, and if possible join with another, until finally I should drift out of the business without being subject to speculative comment.
“These suggestions of Hirst I followed to the letter, and they resulted as he anticipated. I had now great confidence in the ability of this remarkable man. The details of his plans were as accurate as the pieces of a machine, and they seemed never capable of failure.”
The coal operator paused and rested his hands on the arms of his chair.
“Even now,” he said, “I consider Brown Hirst to have been the ablest man I ever saw.”
Randolph Mason was silent. His face indicated rather more of weariness than of interest. Perhaps the story in its substance was very old to him.
“On the first day of September, 1893, I joined Brown Hirst in Philadelphia, and here he unfolded a number of gigantic plans, among others one for defrauding life insurance companies, which we finally decided to attempt. I do not now recall that I felt any real repugnance to the moral obliquity of these ventures. The mastermind of Hirst seemed to sweep out any moral consideration, by simply ignoring it utterly. When Hirst planned, it was all business, and, according to the ethics of business, quite as right as any. Indeed, the man was so phenomenally successful where I had always failed, that I never once dreamed of objecting to any plan which he deemed wise.
“As I have said, Brown Hirst was as practical as a blue print. He used to assert that of all vices haste was the most abominable, and that before seeking to effect our venture it would be the part of wisdom to engage in some legitimate business for a few years in order to establish a reputation as a substantial business firm. Then our plans would be rid of the suggestion of adventurers. Besides, it would give us financial rating and substantial standing in the community in which we should begin our fraudulent operations, and as well, in the meantime, we could prepare our motives, which, Hirst asserted, should always be furnished ready-made to the public when investigation began.
“We accordingly determined to purchase and operate a coal plant in West Virginia. This business was suited to our purpose rather better than any other, because men were continually coming and going in this business. Unknown companies were formed in remote cities and operated merely with an agent. The firm was rarely investigated to any very great degree, if it promptly met its obligations, and there being little opportunity for fraud, a good business standing could be easily secured by any manager who was reasonably expeditious in his transactions.
“We secured a charter for the Octagon Coal Company, purchased a plant on the Norfolk and Western Railroad in the county of McDowell, and began to operate with Brown Hirst as manager and myself president of the presumed Philadelphia company.
“Hirst was, as I have said, a man of fine business sense, and very shortly began to make money. We enlarged the plant, and soon came to be considered a firm of importance. When it grew apparent that we could succeed at a legitimate business, I began to urge Hirst to abandon his dangerous venture entirely, and devote his splendid abilities to the development of the coal industry; but he only laughed, and bade me remember that all this required work, and it was not his intention to spend his life at work.”
“Sir,” said Randolph Mason, interrupting, “you are overlooking the important matter in your disclosure. What was this insurance scheme?”
“Oh. yes,” said the coal operator, “I was coming to that. It was our plan to secure heavy insurance on the life of Hirst, making his wife the beneficiary, and later have him disappear under circumstances indicating suicide.”
“That plan,” said Mason, drawing down the heavy muscles of his mouth, “is ancient, and infantile, and trite; worthy of blunderers—children and blunderers.”
Gilmore looked at the lawyer for a moment critically, then he continued. “I presume the scheme is not new, but I rather think Hirst's plan for carrying it into effect was somewhat novel and unusually practical. At the time Hirst proposed this scheme he was unmarried, and, as a cold business proposition, he said that I should select some woman—any woman agreeable to me, whom I should like as a wife, then he would marry her, insure his life for her benefit, make his exit, and afterwards I should marry the woman and send half of the insurance money to him in Spain or Italy, where he had determined to take up his permanent residence.
“He urged that it would be best to keep the woman totally ignorant of our plan, so that if anything should go wrong, she could not be implicated in a conspiracy, and, therefore, could not be prevented from obtaining the insurance as, she being the sole beneficiary and no fraud on her part being possible, any suspected or even assured fraud on my part would not void the policy payable to her, provided he, Hirst, could not be found within seven years.
“Hence, two considerations were necessary in selecting the woman. First, she must be so situated as to reduce suspicion of her to the minimum. And, second, she must be one whom I could marry as Hirst's widow and thereby obtain the money. This part of the plan was allotted to me to complete. You will now see with what a remarkable man I was associated, and how little regard he entertained for the customs of human society.
“In leaguing myself with this man's fortune I blundered fatally. My nature was entirely different. I could not shut out the natural emotions. I could not crowd out the human in me. I was no calculating machine like this man Hirst, and in carrying out my portion of the venture I made a frightful mistake.
“I am not now going into the details of that mistake. It will be sufficient for the purposes of this interview to say that the woman whom Hirst finally married was a good woman, the daughter of a venerable churchman residing in one of the suburban towns of Philadelphia,—such a good woman that no sooner had the ceremony taken place than I began to regret having associated her with such a cold-blooded villain as Brown Hirst, and as the days ran by, that regret grew into a very passion of remorse.”
The man paused for a moment, raised his elbows up on the arms of his chair and locked his fingers.
“I guess it was a sort of Providential judgment,” he continued, “if such things are supposed to be in this practical time. I avoided the woman as far as possible, and strove to conceal my terrible regret, but it was quite useless. Hirst knew almost before I realized the feeling myself, and harshly bade me remember that this was business, and no matter of maudlin sentiment. He had no feeling whatever for the woman, and if I could wait for a little time the plan would very shortly give her to me. He warned me against what he was pleased to call 'nonsense,' and I must admit that the powerful personality of this man forced me into a sort of stolid subjection to his will. But the feeling for the woman remained, and I hated Hirst.”
Randolph Mason put out his hand as though to interrupt the speaker, but, appearing to reconsider, suddenly withdrew it and nodded to the coal operator to continue. The young man took no notice of the interruption.
“Hirst,” he went on, “like the master spirit that he was, proceeded to put the details of his plan into operation. From time to time he applied to the best companies in the country for insurance, and as he was considered a good risk, a man of fine physique, and in charge of a substantial business, he presently secured about two hundred thousand dollars on his life. These policies he carried for two years in order to avoid the suicide clause, and in order to render them as nearly incontestable as possible.
“Finally, every arrangement having been completed, the time drew near when Brown Hirst determined to make the final movement in his scheme. But during these two years my hate of this man had not been idle. I don't know just what possessed me. I had no good reason to hate him. It was all, as he said, a business matter,—details in a pure business matter. But I did hate him, and, unconsciously, one does not know just how. I determined to take a part in his plan. I determined to make the play real. This determination was no sudden resolve; it seemed rather to evolve slowly until it finally became a fixed purpose. The motive for the supposed suicide, Hirst had by no means overlooked. It was to be impending financial ruin, and during the past year immediately preceding his death Brown Hirst drew great sums from the business, and finally mortgaged and remortgaged the entire coal plant and applied the money to the payment of his heavy insurance, so that at the time of his disappearance the business would be in a state of financial collapse, and the motive for his rash deed would be adequate and thoroughly apparent.
“During all this time, Hirst operated in McDowell near the county seat of Welch, his wife remaining for the most part with her father, while I maintained a city office in Philadelphia. On the day set apart for the disappearance of Brown Hirst, there was a stockholders' meeting of our company at its principal office in West Virginia. It was a sham, but it was rumored that the purpose of this meeting was to discuss some measure that would relieve our business from impending ruin. This was the purpose made public. The real purpose was to account for my presence in McDowell. It was a part of Hirst's plan that I should remain behind after his disappearance in order to see that everything was properly arranged, and then take a night train for the East.
“The preliminary details of that night's work were splendidly managed. We met together at the office of the company. Here Hirst wrote a letter explaining that he was about to take his own life, and placed it in the pocket of his coat.
“Then he took a bundle of men's clothing, in which he intended to make his escape from the country. This bundle consisted of a grimy coat such as the ordinary miner wears, in the pockets of which he had placed a package of bank notes, a pocket-book containing a New York draft and a memorandum of his insurance policies.
“The trousers, shoes, and other articles of this disguise Hirst wore when he left the office, it being his intention to leave his usual coat and vest on the bridge over Tug River, as evidence of the suicide, and then, assuming the remainder of his disguise, slip out to Cincinnati on the night freight.
“From the office we went directly to the bridge over Tug River, for the reason, as Brown Hirst always maintained, that in order to leave perfect circumstantial evidence it was absolutely necessary to actually do as far as possible the things which one desired the public to believe one had done.
“It was perhaps two o'clock, and very dark and wet. It had been raining for almost a week. This was largely in our favor, since the river at flood is deep and rapid, and a body lost in it when the water was running high would not probably be recovered at all, as we had noticed was the case with lumbermen not infrequently drowned; hence we had selected the time of heaviest rains in this region in order that the loss of the body should not seem a matter of unusual moment.
“It might be as well to explain that when Tug River is swollen by rains its channel beneath the bridge is very deep and rapid nearest its east shore, while near the west shore its bed is higher and covered with immense bowlders; thus anything thrown into this river on its east side would probably be carried away and lost, while if dropped from the bridge on the west side it would probably lodge among the bowlders, and remain after the high water had subsided.
“As I have said, it was very dark, and the roar of the waters was something frightful, but we were quite familiar with the bridge, and, becoming accustomed to the darkness, presently came to see sufficiently for our purposes.
“Hirst went directly to the span of the bridge nearest the east shore, and, removing his coat and vest, placed them across one of the girders. Then he began to undo the bundle in order to put on the miner's clothing which he had brought with him.
“This was my opportunity, and I suggested that we first walk to the other side in order to make sure that the bridge was entirely clear. He immediately put down the bundle and came up to me. I do not now know whether there was in his mind any trace of suspicion, but I do know that at this suggestion the man seized my arm and tried to look into my face, and I am certain that had it been light he would have discovered the treachery which I was contemplating. But it was dark, and the man said nothing except to curse the night. He was exceedingly profane, this Hirst, and as we walked the length of the bridge, he holding my arm and damning the night in half whispers, I somehow felt that this man appreciated in a vague way the doom that was impending. But I presume that this was simply an impression arising from the intense strain under which I was laboring.
“As we were about to return, I pointed to the white surf, breaking on the bowlders below. The man, still holding my arm, stopped, leaned over the low railing, and peered down into the water. This was the position into which I had hoped to trap him, and, wrenching my arm loose suddenly, I struck him heavily between the shoulders. The man plunged forward over the railing, clutching wildly at the air, but he uttered no cry. and his body whirled downward into the blackness below.
“I clung to the railing and strove to see where the body would strike, but it was folly. The bridge was high above the rough stream, and I heard only the dull splash that told of his death.”
The eyes of the coal operator seemed to stretch at the corners, and a dull gray spread over his face.
“I should like to be rid of that scene,” he continued after a moment. “It is frightfully vivid. Every detail of it seems to have been photographed on my brain, and it runs before me like the pictures in a vitascope. Men sometimes forget such things, it is said, but, in the name of Heaven, how? Why, I can see him any moment in the dark. I can see his strained white face mad with horror, I can see his clutching hands, I can feel in my own throat just how the terror of death choked in his, and I know, I know”
Randolph Mason struck his clenched fist heavily on the table. “Sir,” he said sharply, “you will kindly omit this drivel. Give me the facts just as they occurred. You may reserve your melodrama for the purposes of a copyright.”
Gilmore started and threw up his head as though some one had suddenly dashed ice-water in his face. He put his hand up to his forehead and pressed his fingers hard against the skin; then he straightened in his chair and seemed to gain his self-control.
“Well,” he went on, “I went back to the east side of the bridge, threw the bundle over into the river, slipped through to the Chesapeake and Ohio on one of the night freights, and by noon of the same day I was in Philadelphia.
“That afternoon the city office was advised of Brown Hirst's suicide. We immediately wired the prosecuting attorney for details, and were informed that he had jumped from the bridge, leaving a note in his pocket which explained that he had taken his own life. The body was shipped to Philadelphia, as his wife directed. Almost immediately I began to close the affairs of the Octagon Coal Company, and very shortly after the funeral I called upon Mrs. Hirst in order to take the preliminary steps looking toward the collection of her husband's insurance.
“Here my plan struck and went to pieces like a vapor. The wife of Brown Hirst was a good woman, and I had failed to foresee what she would do under circumstances of this nature. To my utter astonishment, she informed me that the representatives of the insurance companies had been to see her and had asked time in which to investigate the case, and that she had gladly concurred in their request. And then, like a woman, she declared that there was no reason why her husband should commit suicide, and that she did not believe he had done so, but that, if he had deliberately taken his own life, she would not touch one dollar of the insurance money; that she would have nothing bought with life. If it could be shown that her husband was murdered, as she believed, then she saw no reason why she should not claim the insurance; but if, on the other hand, it proved true that he had planned to defraud the life insurance company for her benefit, and, pursuant to that awful plan, had hurled himself into eternity, then she would starve in an almshouse before she would touch a penny of the money.
“This statement struck me with the crushing power of an axe stroke. The world seemed to pass out from under me. I saw every hope of the future vanish. I realized in a flash, as one is said to do at the grave's edge, in what a prodigious error I had been engaged.”
There must have been some suggestion of annoyance on the counsellor's face, for the coal operator stopped short and moved uneasily in his chair.
“I was about to forget your instructions,” he explained, with a shade of apology in his voice; “it is rather hard to crowd one's emotions out of a desperate, personal narrative like this, although, of course, it is all nonsense to rant about it.
“To be brief, I was totally unable to shake this woman's purpose, and I returned to the city knowing that a tireless investigation was about to begin. I have not waited to see the result of this investigation. I know that the insurance companies and this unusual woman will leave no stone unturned in order to discover just how Hirst came to his death, and I am not fool enough to think that they will eventually fail. I don't believe any of the bosh about murder crying from the ground, but I am entirely convinced that it is almost impossible to cover a crime so that human ingenuity cannot trail down the man who committed it.
“I judge that I was not intended for business of this sort. I cannot fight out in good order. With me a retreat is a rout. I have abandoned everything. I have thrown away every plan. I am trying now to save myself from the hangman, or at least the penitentiary. I have not waited to be caught; I have come to you at once.” The man seemed to relax and settle back in his chair.
“Now,” he added, with the utter dependence of a patient stretched upon the table of the surgeon, “you must save me.”
The eyes of Randolph Mason flattened as though they were being pressed down from above, and the lines of his face deepened and widened into rugged furrows.
“There are two methods of evading the law,” he said. “The escape ipso jure planned before the fact; and the escape ipso jure after the fact. The first is a matter of no great difficulty, and may easily be prepared by any man reasonably conversant with the law of the place of his intended act, and if skilfully arranged need contain no element of hazard whatever. The latter is far more difficult, and must be handled with some care in order to reduce the element of peril to its minimum. In the first, one constructs the facts to suit the defects in the law, and if executed with any degree of intelligence, the criminal actor has nothing whatever to fear, and the law is as harmless as a painted devil.
“In the latter, the expert must take the facts as circumstance and the blundering criminal agent have made them, and strive to adapt these prepared facts to the law as it stands, which is a far more difficult proceeding, and not infrequently attended with disastrous results. Hence the skill of certain criminal lawyers, and the long technical legal battles with which the books are crowded.
“As for you, sir, the scheme in which you have been an actor was abominably planned, and more abominably executed. The most drivelling intelligence should have seen peril staring out from every infantile move made by you and this stupendous blunderer Hirst. You You have taken an old, time-worn plan, teeming with dangers, and, not content with its frightful hazards, you and this witless Hirst have added one complicated peril after another until you have finally constructed a masterpiece of idiocy that in its complex nonsense approaches the sublime.
“I wonder, sir, that you have not gone to the authorities and requested an execution. It would be a fitting sequel to your atrocious errors.”
The face of the counsellor was ugly with a sneer.
“Your seeking counsel at once stands out as your one intelligent act. It is marvellous discretion, Judged by your narrative; marvellous and unexpected. Let us hope that your period of mental aberration is past.”
Then he arose and stood looking down at the man who, like many another, had striven to throw the machinery of human justice out of its proper gear, and had simply succeeded in tangling himself in its complicated wheels.
“In order to save you now,” said Randolph Mason, “we must move quickly. These great insurance companies have the ablest detective service of the world. With such a bungle as you have made, it is merely a question of a few weeks until they will succeed in fastening this murder upon you, not directly perhaps, but sufficiently to warrant your arrest, and then you must take your hazards with a jury. The man who to-day hopes to cover his crime well enough to baffle the keen and tireless search of a great life insurance company must be governed by something vastly nearer to an intelligence than that upon which you and the decedent Hirst depended.
“At this stage of your blunder there are but two ways by which it is possible to put you absolutely beyond the reach of the law. Death is one way, and we will pass that. The other I am now going to bring to your aid. With it the greatest care and haste are vital. At nine to-night you must be here prepared to put yourself wholly in my hands. I shall have every arrangement complete by that time.”
Mason stopped short, and put his hand down heavily upon the table.
“Now, sir,” he said, bluntly, “it will be entirely useless for me to attempt the drastic measures necessary in your case unless you are prepared to act under my fingers like a machine. Can you do that?”
“Yes,” said the man, wiping the perspiration from his face.
“Then,” said Randolph Mason, opening the door of his private office, “go down to your hotel and sleep; and if you please, sir, do not think, or, to be more accurate, do not attempt to think. Your thoughts, as has been demonstrated, are of no value to you, and I assure you, sir, they will be quite useless to me.”
Then he closed the door after the departing criminal and went back to his desk.