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- Herausgeber: DigiCat
- Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
- Sprache: Englisch
In "The Greatest Cases of Pinkerton National Detective Agency," Allan Pinkerton masterfully chronicles the riveting escapades of one of America's foremost detective agencies during the 19th century. The book combines a gripping narrative style with meticulous detail, presenting accounts of high-profile cases involving theft, murder, and political intrigue. Pinkerton's prose reflects the vivid realism of the era, capturing the ethos of a nation grappling with crime and corruption, while also employing a somewhat sensationalist approach characteristic of popular literature of the time. This work not only serves as an enthralling read but also offers insights into the early development of detective work in America. Allan Pinkerton, a Scottish immigrant and a pioneer in the field of private investigation, founded the Pinkerton National Detective Agency in 1850. His personal experiences as a law enforcement officer, coupled with a profound understanding of criminal psychology, shaped his methods of detection and surveillance. His accomplishments and the agency's involvement in numerous landmark cases established Pinkerton not only as a formidable detective but also as an influential figure in American law enforcement history. For readers captivated by the allure of mystery and crime, "The Greatest Cases of Pinkerton National Detective Agency" is a compelling dive into the annals of detective work, illuminating the complexities of human nature and justice. Through Pinkerton's firsthand accounts, modern readers will gain a new appreciation for the historical roots of crime-solving, making this book an essential addition to the library of any true crime enthusiast.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022
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The Greatest Cases of Pinkerton National Detective Agency
Table of Contents
Introduction
This collection gathers nine of Allan Pinkerton’s book-length detective narratives under a single cover to present a sustained portrait of the investigative ethos associated with the Pinkerton National Detective Agency. The selection brings together complete works that Pinkerton authored and issued as self-contained case histories, each centered on a distinct investigation and its surrounding social world. The purpose is twofold: to preserve representative texts that shaped popular understandings of detection, and to allow readers to trace recurring methods, ethical claims, and narrative strategies across multiple cases. Read together, these volumes reveal a coherent body of work rather than isolated curiosities.
The writings assembled here are prose narratives that present themselves as detailed accounts of specific cases. They belong to a tradition often described as detective case histories and true-crime reportage, written in a sustained, book-length form rather than as short stories or essays. The volumes do not include plays, poems, letters, or diaries; they are continuous narratives that blend scene-setting, character study, and procedural description. Their documentary tone is integral to their effect, as Pinkerton develops investigations step by step, explaining decisions, constraints, and turning points with the deliberation of an after-action report shaped into compelling storytelling.
Across these works, recurring themes and stylistic hallmarks emerge with clarity. Pinkerton emphasizes patience, discipline, and the quiet labor of gathering facts over dramatic confrontation. Undercover operations, discreet observation, and the piecing together of everyday traces form the essence of progress. Morally, the narratives assert that deception is to be countered by methodical truth-seeking and that the law’s protection depends on coordination, caution, and resolve. Stylistically, Pinkerton favors lucid exposition, measured pacing, and close attention to routine, using suspense not to sensationalize crimes but to illuminate how small details, persistently pursued, can culminate in decisive insight.
The Expressman and the Detective turns on losses connected with an express service and the complex web of trust, access, and routine that surrounds the movement of money and valuables. The narrative begins with suspicion falling within an organization whose operations depend on punctuality and discretion. Pinkerton’s agents, confronted with overlapping duties and plausible alibis, map workflows and test vulnerabilities without alerting those under scrutiny. The case showcases the method of quiet surveillance, the use of decoy strategies, and the careful logging of times and places, illustrating how institutional knowledge becomes the key to isolating error, negligence, or intent.
The Somnambulist and the Detective opens with a household in distress and a subject whose reported sleepwalking unsettles both judgment and procedure. The premise forces investigators to weigh medical testimony, reputation, and behavior observed at odd hours. Without privileging fear or conjecture, Pinkerton constructs a program of unobtrusive watching and verification designed to separate involuntary action from deliberate scheme. In this narrative, apparent mystery arises not from hidden rooms or arcane ciphers, but from the difficulty of interpreting conduct that occupies a gray area between habit, disorder, and responsibility.
In The Murderer and the Fortune Teller, a homicide inquiry intersects with the realm of prophecy and the informal authority of a local diviner. Pinkerton traces how rumor can amplify fear and distort recollection, and how investigators must secure facts while acknowledging that witnesses may be influenced by suggestion. The case begins with stark facts of death and proximity, then moves through testimony colored by superstition and convenience. The response is not to debate belief, but to stabilize the investigation through corroborated timelines, controlled conversations, and corroboration that can withstand the pressure of speculation.
The Spiritualists and the Detectives addresses the circulation of spiritualist claims and the investigative challenges posed when séances and purported communications influence money, loyalty, or decisions. Pinkerton’s agents attend demonstrations and test conditions, recording what is seen, what is said, and what can be independently verified. The narrative treats credulity as a practical problem for public order, showing how performance can be entangled with fraud. Rather than dwelling on spectacle, the account returns to the basics of procedure: access control, comparison of statements, and the exposure of mechanics that convert wonder into leverage for deception.
Mississippi Outlaws and the Detectives follows a pursuit across varied terrain, where the distances between towns, the rhythms of travel, and the constraints of jurisdiction shape the tempo of the hunt. The premise is straightforward—armed offenders at large—but execution is anything but simple. Communication delays, local loyalties, and unfamiliar routes complicate coordination. Pinkerton’s narrative underscores the value of patient reconnaissance, the cultivation of reliable contacts, and the willingness to adapt when plans meet the contingencies of weather, geography, and rumor. The work renders pursuit as logistics as much as bravery.
Don Pedro and the Detectives centers on a matter involving an international figure identified as Don Pedro, requiring tact, discretion, and the careful management of appearances. The investigation is framed by hospitality and protocol, demanding that protection and inquiry proceed without public disturbance. Pinkerton presents the case as an exercise in quiet competence, where agents anticipate risks, control access, and respond to sensitive circumstances in concert with officials. The narrative highlights professional bearing—measured speech, controlled curiosity, and an emphasis on prevention—over any display of force.
Poisoner and the Detectives begins with unexplained illness and the sober recognition that circumstances may point to deliberate harm. Pinkerton’s approach stresses what, in his time, could be documented: symptoms that recur in patterned ways, points of access to food or medicine, and the opportunities afforded by domestic routine. The method hinges on careful chronology, observation of small changes, and the tracking of procurement. The narrative uses these materials to demonstrate how a case can be advanced despite the limited laboratory resources available to investigators, relying on consistency of evidence and thorough elimination of alternatives.
Bucholz and the Detectives unfolds around a suspicious death that raises questions of inheritance, expectation, and influence. The premise allows Pinkerton to examine how motive can be inferred from financial pressures, past statements, and the management of opportunity. The inquiry proceeds by testing alibis against physical possibility and witness reliability, seeking convergence rather than spectacle. The narrative does not rush to dramatic revelation; it builds a record that holds together under scrutiny, illustrating the agency’s preference for patient accumulation of proof over theatrical accusation.
The Burglar’s Fate and the Detectives traces a sequence of break-ins that call for vigilance, pattern recognition, and the discreet handling of informants and goods in transit. Beginning with a community unsettled by nocturnal thefts, the case highlights how fences, false names, and shifting territories complicate recovery and arrest. Pinkerton’s narrative returns to the core values that unify this collection: diligence, proportion, and the belief that method—carefully taught and rigorously applied—can counter predation. Read collectively, these volumes show why Pinkerton’s case narratives continue to matter: they codify a procedural imagination that has influenced detective storytelling ever since.
Author Biography
Allan Pinkerton (1819–1884) was a Scottish-born American detective, entrepreneur, and author whose career helped define modern private investigation and popular crime writing in the United States. After emigrating from Glasgow to the American Midwest in the 1840s, he founded a firm that became synonymous with professionalized detection at a time when public policing was still consolidating. Pinkerton combined practical fieldwork with a talent for narrative, publishing widely read accounts of cases that presented methodical inquiry as a public service. His name became an emblem of vigilance, the sleepless eye, and his books shaped public expectations about how detectives operate, gather evidence, and outwit criminals.
Pinkerton’s early formation was largely self-directed. Trained as a cooper in Scotland, he was influenced by the era’s reform currents, including Chartist demands for broader political representation. Seeking opportunity and stability, he settled in Illinois in the 1840s, bringing craft discipline and a habit of close observation to frontier life. Though not university schooled, he cultivated a practical education in law, commerce, and local affairs that proved vital to detecting. He aligned himself with antislavery sentiment and, in the Midwest, supported networks that opposed human bondage. These convictions, together with his artisan’s persistence, informed the ethical tone and civic purpose of his later work.
Pinkerton’s path into investigation began with local vigilance rather than formal appointment. While working as a cooper, he aided authorities in exposing a counterfeiting ring along the Fox River, an episode that drew him into regular law-enforcement collaboration. In 1850 he organized a private detective agency in Chicago that secured contracts with railroads and express companies, then crucial arteries of commerce. The firm cultivated undercover techniques, traveled widely, and adopted the unblinking eye and promise "We Never Sleep" as its emblem. As demand grew for protection of shipments and travelers, the Pinkerton agency built a national reputation for pursuing thieves, fraudsters, and confidence operators.
During the American Civil War, Pinkerton and his operatives performed intelligence and protective services for the Union, applying systematic surveillance, infiltration, and coded reporting to military and political security. They helped safeguard President-elect Abraham Lincoln during his transit to Washington amid threats in 1861, an episode that highlighted Pinkerton’s focus on preemptive measures. He also pioneered the hiring of women as detectives—most notably Kate Warne—expanding the agency’s capacity to gather information in social settings closed to male operatives. These experiences reinforced Pinkerton’s belief that careful preparation, discretion, and disciplined teamwork were as decisive in preventing crime as dramatic arrests afterward.
After the war, Pinkerton published narratives of investigations that reached a broad readership. In The Expressman and the Detective and The Somnambulist and the Detective, he presented methodical canvassing, surveillance, and controlled deception as legitimate tools of inquiry. The Murderer and the Fortune Teller and The Spiritualists and the Detectives explored fraud and credulity, criticizing exploiters of superstition while emphasizing corroborated fact. Written in a measured yet dramatic style, these books framed detective work as patient accumulation of small truths. They drew on agency files, changed names as needed, and taught readers to value documentation, chain of evidence, and coordinated action over bravado.
Further titles extended the reach and variety of his case literature. Mississippi Outlaws and the Detectives traced investigations along river corridors central to trade; Don Pedro and the Detectives suggested the firm’s international engagements; Poisoner and the Detectives focused on forensic inference; and Bucholz and the Detectives and The Burglar’s Fate and the Detectives returned to theft, pursuit, and confession. Across these accounts, Pinkerton emphasized observation, informant management, and the careful testing of alibis. Contemporary readers admired the practical detail, though some questioned the degree of embellishment. Regardless, the series helped codify procedural tropes that later shaped both true-crime reporting and detective fiction.
In his later years, Pinkerton continued to direct investigations and to refine agency practices in record-keeping and intercity coordination, laying groundwork for private security’s national infrastructure. He died in the 1880s in Chicago, leaving a firm that would grow influential—and at times controversial—as it intersected with corporate interests and public order. His writings, including the volumes named above, remain valuable for their window onto nineteenth-century methods, language, and anxieties about crime. The enduring icon of the sleepless eye, and the disciplined approach it advertised, mark Pinkerton’s legacy: a blend of vigilance, documentation, and collaboration that still informs investigative work today.
Historical Context
Allan Pinkerton’s case narratives emerged from a world remade by the nineteenth century’s accelerations. Born in Scotland in 1819 and settled in the United States by the early 1840s, he founded his Chicago-based detective agency around 1850 amid rapid urban growth and expanding commerce. The books gathered in this collection, largely published in the 1870s and early 1880s, mine those transformations for material and meaning. They translate the agency’s practical work—guarding freight, tracking fugitives, and probing fraud—into stories that slice through the decades spanning antebellum reform, Civil War upheaval, and the Gilded Age. Each title reflects the period’s frictions among law, business, and belief.
The rise of private policing is central background. Before the growth of robust municipal and federal investigative capacities, railroads and express companies hired private detectives to protect goods moving across multiple jurisdictions. The Expressman and the Detective situates its drama in that commerce, drawing on anxieties surrounding thefts against express carriers that linked distant markets. Such enterprises—Adams Express, American Express, and regional forwarders—moved money, jewelry, and payrolls at scale. When losses occurred, victims crossed state lines faster than warrants could. Pinkerton’s agency offered a solution: coordinated surveillance, undercover work, and swift communication tailored to a national transportation web.
Communication and record-keeping technologies shaped these narratives. The telegraph shrank distances, enabling operatives to coordinate across towns, depots, and river landings. Pinkerton’s office compiled dossiers and photographs, anticipating modern “rogues’ galleries,” and relied on coded correspondence and aliases to protect sources. In works like The Expressman and the Detective and The Burglar’s Fate and the Detectives, train timetables, safe designs, and telegraphic alerts become plot machinery. These books reflect a period when technology cut both ways: it empowered security and criminals alike, forcing detectives to master new devices while guarding against forged messages, counterfeit bills, or sophisticated tampering with modern safes.
Gender is a defining subtext. Pinkerton famously hired Kate Warne in 1856 and promoted the use of women as field operatives, arguing they could penetrate social circles closed to men. That institutional history informs the portrayal of covert observation in several volumes, including The Somnambulist and the Detective and The Spiritualists and the Detectives, where domestic interiors, boardinghouses, and parlors become investigative spaces. The appearance of female agents in such settings reflects broader nineteenth-century debates about women’s public roles, propriety, and credibility as witnesses. The books position women’s intelligence work as both novel and effective, while revealing the period’s expectations and constraints.
The Civil War left an indelible mark on Pinkerton’s methods and image. He supervised intelligence-gathering for Union forces early in the conflict, experiences he later publicized and defended. After 1865, the agency leveraged wartime practices—cover identities, safe houses, and coded reports—within civilian investigations. Across the collection, echoes of wartime vigilance persist: conspiracies are treated as plausible, loyalty is weighed as a civic virtue, and clandestine networks are presumed. In Reconstruction and its aftermath, with federal authority contested and local enforcement uneven, the books channel a security sensibility forged in conflict and repurposed for commercial and municipal needs.
Urbanization made burglary a technical contest. By the 1870s, safe manufacturers—Yale, and Sargent & Greenleaf among others—promoted combination locks and time locks, with the latter gaining traction after 1873. The Burglar’s Fate and the Detectives speaks to this arms race. Professional thieves studied metallurgy, hinges, and alarm layouts; investigators mapped burglary crews, traced tools, and compared signatures of forced entry. The text reflects a world where architectural design, bank routines, and guard schedules mattered as much as bravery. It documents the professionalization of crime and the corresponding professionalization of its control through specialized knowledge and coordinated stakeouts.
White-collar crime occupies a parallel sphere in the collection. The Expressman and the Detective showcases trust betrayed in offices and depots rather than alleys or trains. The long depression following the Panic of 1873 intensified public sensitivities to embezzlement and fraud, as corporate failures and wage cuts sharpened scrutiny of internal controls. Pinkerton’s narratives cast bookkeeping, package sealing, and auditing as detective tools. They mirror boardroom concerns about fiduciary responsibility, employee vetting, and indemnity agreements. The detective becomes a risk manager for a maturing capitalist order, translating moral tales into procedures for deposit, custody, and chain-of-possession.
The Somnambulist and the Detective aligns with nineteenth-century medico-legal debates over sleepwalking, trance states, and responsibility. Courts occasionally heard defenses referencing somnambulism, while physicians and moral philosophers wrestled with the boundaries of intent and consciousness. Emerging neurology and forensic psychiatry did not yet command consensus, and evidentiary standards varied by jurisdiction. Pinkerton’s narrative inhabits this uncertainty, depicting surveillance of habits and routines alongside testimony about mental states. The book reflects a legal culture in flux, where character evidence and expert opinion jostled with circumstantial facts, and where jurors weighed bodily phenomena as potential exculpation or cunning pretext.
Spiritualism and fortune-telling flourished across the mid-nineteenth century, gaining momentum after the 1848 Fox sisters’ séances and the mass bereavement of the Civil War. The Spiritualists and the Detectives and The Murderer and the Fortune Teller draw on this context. Urban authorities alternately tolerated and regulated mediums, while newspapers chronicled exposures of slate-writing, spirit photography, and table-turning. Pinkerton’s treatment is skeptical, positioning the agency as a defender of rational inquiry against deception that could shade into fraud or worse. The works capture an era when science, religion, and entertainment overlapped, and when police and private detectives shared a mandate to police credulity.
Regional tensions animate Mississippi Outlaws and the Detectives. In the Mississippi Valley during the 1860s and 1870s, steamboat landings, rail spurs, and small towns created corridors for banditry and train robbery. Reconstruction politics, uneven funding of sheriffs’ offices, and the mobility of suspects hindered consistent enforcement. Private detectives often cooperated with local posses and federal marshals to pursue high-profile gangs, and public fascination followed the chases of figures such as the James brothers. Pinkerton’s narrative frames interstate pursuit as a logistical challenge, drawing on river schedules, way stations, and clandestine meeting spots strung along America’s central artery.
Don Pedro and the Detectives reflects the era’s transnational entanglements. The narrative corresponds to the broader moment of Emperor Pedro II of Brazil’s celebrated visit to the United States in 1876 for the Centennial Exposition, which symbolized global exchange in technology and culture. Steamships, telegraphs, and exhibitions connected continents, while American police and private security adapted to visiting dignitaries, foreign investors, and immigrant communities. Even when dramatized, the book’s premise underscores how protective services were becoming international, with protocols for escorts, route security, and press management developing alongside diplomacy and world’s fairs.
The Poisoner and the Detectives channels the nineteenth century’s attention to toxicology, a discipline that had advanced through techniques like the Marsh and Reinsch tests for arsenic earlier in the century. By the 1870s, chemical evidence and autopsy reports were increasingly presented in courtrooms, though standards for laboratory practice and expert testimony remained uneven. Pinkerton’s account dramatizes the coordination between detectives, physicians, and chemists, and the difficulties of proving intent when symptoms might mimic disease. The narrative captures a legal culture catching up with scientific capability, and a public newly aware that household substances could become weapons.
Bucholz and the Detectives highlights the period’s immigration dynamics and the courtroom challenges they produced. Growing numbers of newcomers, many from German-speaking regions, filled American towns and industrial centers in the 1860s and 1870s. Language barriers, cultural misunderstandings, and sensational press coverage could color investigations and trials. Pinkerton’s portrayal of interviews, translation issues, and community rumor reflects these pressures. It provides a window onto how detectives navigated ethnic neighborhoods, relied on interpreters, and contended with transatlantic correspondence or identification. The book’s concerns mirror a nation debating assimilation, credibility, and the weight of circumstantial evidence in a diverse society.
The Murderer and the Fortune Teller also intersects with municipal regulation of vice and deception. Many cities adopted ordinances addressing fortune-telling, clairvoyance, and itinerant healers, treating them as nuisances or forms of fraud. Pinkerton’s narrative uses this milieu to explore informants, decoys, and the difficulty of distinguishing entertainment from exploitative schemes. The agency’s emphasis on surveillance of meeting places—saloons, rooms-for-rent, and back rooms—aligns with contemporary policing practices that targeted spaces rather than abstract offenses. The book thus reflects how nineteenth-century law often operated through licensing, inspection, and selective enforcement shaped by civic pressure and newspaper campaigns.
Across these titles, extradition and jurisdictional gaps are constant problems. Under the United States’ constitutional framework and nineteenth-century practice, governors and local officials controlled the handover of suspects across state lines, and procedures could be slow or politicized. Pinkerton’s operatives gathered affidavits, coordinated with prosecutors, and staged arrests to secure cooperation from distant authorities. The Expressman and the Detective and Mississippi Outlaws and the Detectives exemplify such cross-border choreography. The narratives reveal a world before standardized criminal databases or federal investigators were commonplace, when success depended on personal networks, detailed ledgers, and careful timing of warrants with railway schedules.
The collection also documents the business of security itself. Railroads, insurers, and express companies embedded detectives in their risk calculations, funding investigations and sometimes demanding procedural reforms. The Burglar’s Fate and the Detectives, The Expressman and the Detective, and Poisoner and the Detectives together show how audits, seals, guard rotations, and time-lock installations followed on the heels of crises. The detective becomes consultant and publicist, producing narratives that reassure stockholders and customers that discipline and vigilance can rebuild trust. Pinkerton’s “We Never Sleep” eye logo condensed this promise into a brand, making surveillance both a commodity and a cultural symbol.
As literature, these books participated in a booming market for crime narratives. The 1870s and 1880s saw inexpensive editions, serial publication, and sensational newspaper coverage blur lines between reportage and entertainment. Pinkerton’s volumes claimed documentary authority while employing reconstructed dialogue and dramatic pacing. Contemporary readers encountered them alongside dime novels and exposés of urban vice. Over time, scholars and journalists have questioned their exactitude, noting self-promotion and composite characters. Yet the works preserve operational detail, bureaucratic language, and period attitudes with unusual clarity, making them valuable artifacts of how detective work wished to be seen in the Gilded Age.Contemporary criticisms related to labor also shape modern interpretation. Although Allan Pinkerton died in 1884, the agency he founded became infamous in later decades for anti-strike activities, notably at Homestead in 1892 and during the Pullman Strike in 1894. That legacy colors readings of earlier casebooks, prompting questions about private power, civil liberties, and the alignment of policing with corporate interests. Reexamining The Expressman and the Detective or The Burglar’s Fate and the Detectives through this lens highlights how narratives that affirm property protection also normalize surveillance and undercover tactics that would later be deployed against organized labor and political dissenters.In aggregate, The Greatest Cases of Pinkerton National Detective Agency offers a commentary on modernization itself. From rail depots to séance parlors, from chemical tests to coded telegrams, the books chronicle a society stitching together vast markets, experimenting with scientific proof, and negotiating belief. They stage contests over credibility—of witnesses, experts, technologies, and institutions. Later readers approach them as both historical sources and crafted performances, alert to embellishment yet appreciative of procedural texture. The collection endures because it records how nineteenth-century Americans imagined crime, order, and evidence at the moment when the nation’s economic and informational systems were coming of age.
Synopsis (Selection)
Crimes of Property: The Expressman and the Detective; The Burglar's Fate and the Detectives
These cases pit Pinkerton operatives against professional thieves targeting shipments and safes, one centered on an express company and the other on a seasoned burglar crew. The narratives spotlight undercover penetration, patient surveillance, and carefully staged confrontations that turn routine habits into vulnerabilities. They epitomize Pinkerton’s procedural voice—plainspoken, moralizing, and fixated on method over bravado.
Domestic Suspicion and Poison: The Somnambulist and the Detective; Poisoner and the Detectives; Bucholz and the Detectives
Set amid parlors, boarding houses, and family quarrels, these investigations weigh rumor, jealousy, and bodily evidence as detectives test competing stories about sleepwalking, inheritance, and suspected poisoning. The agency’s strategy relies on quiet observation and controlled ruses that separate coincidence from intent without tipping suspects too soon. A sober tone underscores Pinkerton’s interest in psychology and the dangers of circumstantial judgment.
The Occult and the Confidence Game: The Spiritualists and the Detectives; The Murderer and the Fortune Teller
Here the agency confronts mediums and fortune tellers whose performances blur solace, entertainment, and criminal collusion. The detectives unravel staged phenomena and manipulative séances to expose how credulity can shield violence or extortion. Pinkerton’s skeptical empiricism drives the action, trading spectacle for demonstrations of technique and debunking.
Frontier Pursuits: Mississippi Outlaws and the Detectives
This pursuit follows bandits across river towns and sparsely policed stretches where local loyalties complicate the law. Mobility, coded communication, and undercover posing are central as the agency coordinates across jurisdictions to close the net. The tone is brisk and itinerant, emphasizing endurance and logistics over dramatic shootouts.
High-Profile Protection: Don Pedro and the Detectives
A threatened dignitary named Don Pedro draws the agency into protection work that blends diplomacy with counterintelligence. Rather than waiting for a crime, the detectives probe rumors, test potential plots, and build discreet safeguards around a moving target. The case highlights Pinkerton’s shift toward preventive detection and the importance of reputation, secrecy, and restraint.
The Greatest Cases of Pinkerton National Detective Agency
The Expressman and the Detective
PREFACE.
During the greater portion of a very busy life, I have been actively engaged in the profession of a Detective, and hence have been brought in contact with many men, and have been an interested participant in many exciting occurrences.
The narration of some of the most interesting of these events, happening in connection with my professional labors, is the realization of a pleasure I have long anticipated, and is the fulfillment of promises repeatedly made to numerous friends in by gone days.
"The Expressman and the Detective,"
and the other works announced by my publishers, are all true stories, transcribed from the Records in my offices. If there be any incidental embellishment, it is so slight that the actors in these scenes from the drama of life would never themselves detect it; and if the incidents seem to the reader at all marvelous or improbable, I can but remind him, in the words of the old adage, that "Truth is stranger than fiction."
ALLAN PINKERTON.
Chicago, October, 1874.
CHAPTER I.
Montgomery, Alabama, is beautifully situated on the Alabama river, near the centre of the State. Its situation at the head of navigation, on the Alabama river, its connection by rail with important points, and the rich agricultural country with which it is surrounded, make it a great commercial centre, and the second city in the State as regards wealth and population. It is the capital, and consequently learned men and great politicians flock to it, giving it a society of the highest rank, and making it the social centre of the State.
From 1858 to 1860, the time of which I treat in the present work, the South was in a most prosperous condition. "Cotton was king," and millions of dollars were poured into the country for its purchase, and a fair share of this money found its way to Montgomery.
When the Alabama planters had gathered their crops of cotton, tobacco, rice, etc., they sent them to Montgomery to be sold, and placed the proceeds on deposit in its banks. During their busy season, while overseeing the labor of their slaves, they were almost entirely debarred from the society of any but their own families; but when the crops were gathered they went with their families to Montgomery, where they gave themselves up to enjoyment, spending their money in a most lavish manner.
There were several good hotels in the city and they were always filled to overflowing with the wealth and beauty of the South.
The Adams Express Company had a monopoly of the express business of the South, and had established its agencies at all points with which there was communication by rail, steam or stage. They handled all the money sent to the South for the purchase of produce, or remitted to the North in payment of merchandise. Moreover, as they did all the express business for the banks, besides moving an immense amount of freight, it is evident that their business was enormous.
At all points of importance, where there were diverging routes of communication, the company had established principal agencies, at which all through freight and the money pouches were delivered by the messengers. The agents at these points were selected with the greatest care, and were always considered men above reproach. Montgomery being a great centre of trade was made the western terminus of one of the express routes, Atlanta being the eastern. The messengers who had charge of the express matter between these two points were each provided with a safe and with a pouch. The latter was to contain only such packages as were to go over the whole route, consisting of money or other valuables. The messenger was not furnished with a key to the pouch, but it was handed to him locked by the agent at one end of the route to be delivered in the same condition to the agent at the other end.
The safe was intended for way packages, and of it the messenger of course had a key. The pouch was carried in the safe, each being protected by a lock of peculiar construction.
The Montgomery office in 1858, and for some years previous, had been in charge of Nathan Maroney, and he had made himself one of the most popular agents in the company's employ.
He was married, and with his wife and one daughter, had pleasant quarters at the Exchange Hotel, one of the best houses in the city. He possessed all the qualifications which make a popular man. He had a genial, hearty manner, which endeared him to the open, hospitable inhabitants of Montgomery, so that he was "hail fellow, well met," with most of its populace. He possessed great executive ability and hence managed the affairs of his office in a very satisfactory manner. The promptness with which he discharged his duties had won for him the well-merited esteem of the officers of the company, and he was in a fair way of attaining a still higher position. His greatest weakness—if it may be so called—was a love for fast horses, which often threw him into the company of betting men.
On the morning of the twenty-sixth of April, 1858, the messenger from Atlanta arrived in Montgomery, placed his safe in the office as usual, and when Maroney came in, turned over to him the through pouch.
Maroney unlocked the pouch and compared it with the way-bill, when he discovered a package of four thousand seven hundred and fifty dollars for a party in Montgomery which was not down on the way-bill. About a week after this occurrence, advice was received that a package containing ten thousand dollars in bills of the Planters' and Mechanics' Bank of Charleston, S. C., had been sent to Columbus, Ga., via the Adams Express, but the person to whom it was directed had not received it. Inquiries were at once instituted, when it was discovered that it had been missent, and forwarded to Atlanta, instead of Macon. At Atlanta it was recollected that this package, together with one for Montgomery, for four thousand seven hundred and fifty dollars, had been received on Sunday, the twenty-fifth of April, and had been sent on to Montgomery, whence the Columbus package could be forwarded the next day. Here all trace of the missing package was lost. Maroney stated positively that he had not received it, and the messenger was equally positive that the pouch had been delivered to Maroney in the same order in which he received it from the Atlanta agent.
The officers of the company were completely at a loss. It was discovered beyond a doubt that the package had been sent from Atlanta. The messenger who received it bore an excellent character, and the company could not believe him guilty of the theft. The lock of the pouch was examined and found in perfect order, so that it evidently had not been tampered with. The messenger was positive that he had not left the safe open when he went out of the car, and there was no sign of the lock's having been forced.
The more the case was investigated, the more directly did suspicion point to Maroney, but as his integrity had always been unquestioned, no one now was willing to admit the possibility of his guilt. However, as no decided action in the matter could be taken, it was determined to say nothing, but to have the movements of Maroney and other suspected parties closely watched.
For this purpose various detectives were employed; one a local detective of Montgomery, named McGibony; others from New Orleans, Philadelphia, Mobile, and New York. After a long investigation these parties had to give up the case as hopeless, all concluding that Maroney was an innocent man. Among the detectives, however was one from New York, Robert Boyer, by name, an old and favorite officer of Mr. Matsell when he was chief of the New York police. He had made a long and tedious examination and finding nothing definite as to what had become of the money, had turned his attention to discovering the antecedents of Maroney, but found nothing positively suspicious in his life previous to his entering the employ of the company. He discovered that Maroney was the son of a physician, and that he was born in the town of Rome, Ga.
Here I would remark that the number of titled men one meets in the South is astonishing. Every man, if he is not a doctor, a lawyer, or a clergyman, has some military title—nothing lower than captain being admissible. Of these self-imposed titles they are very jealous, and woe be to the man who neglects to address them in the proper form. Captain is the general title, and is applied indiscriminately to the captain of a steamer, or to the deck hand on his vessel.
Maroney remained in Rome until he became a young man, when he emigrated to Texas. On the breaking out of the Mexican war he joined a company of Texan Rangers, and distinguished himself in a number of battles. At the close of the war he settled in Montgomery, in the year 1851, or 1852, and was employed by Hampton & Co., owners of a line of stages, to act as their agent. On leaving this position, he was made treasurer of Johnson & May's circus, remaining with the company until it was disbanded in consequence of the pecuniary difficulties of the proprietors—caused, it was alleged, through Maroney's embezzlement of the funds, though this allegation proved false, and he remained for many years on terms of intimacy with one of the partners, a resident of Montgomery. When the company disbanded he obtained a situation as conductor on a railroad in Tennessee, and was afterwards made Assistant Superintendent, which position he resigned to take the agency of the Adams Express Company, in Montgomery. His whole life seemed spotless up to the time of the mysterious disappearance of the ten thousand dollars.
In the fall of the year, Maroney obtained leave of absence, and made a trip to the North, visiting the principal cities of the East, and also of the Northwest. He was followed on this trip, but nothing was discovered, with the single exception that his associates were not always such as were desirable in an employé, to whose keeping very heavy interests were from time to time necessarily committed. He was lost sight of at Richmond, Va., for a few days, and was supposed by the man who was following him, to have passed the time in Charleston.
The company now gave up all hope of recovering the money; but as Maroney's habits were expensive, and they had lost, somewhat, their confidence in him, they determined to remove him and place some less objectionable person in his place.
Maroney's passion for fine horses has already been alluded to. It was stated about this time that he owned several fast horses; among others, "Yankee Mary," a horse for which he was said to have paid two thousand five hundred dollars; but as he had brought seven thousand five hundred dollars with him when he entered the employ of the company, this could not be considered a suspicious circumstance.
It having been determined to remove Maroney, the Vice-President of the company wrote to the Superintendent of the Southern Division of the steps he wished taken. The Superintendent of the Southern Division visited Montgomery on the twentieth of January, 1859, but was anticipated in the matter of carrying out his instructions, by Maroney's tendering his resignation. The resignation was accepted, but the superintendent requested him to continue in charge of the office until his successor should arrive.
This he consented to do.
CHAPTER II.
Previous to Maroney's trip to the North, Mr. Boyer held a consultation with the Vice-President and General Superintendent of the company. He freely admitted his inability to fathom the mystery surrounding the loss of the money, and thought the officers of the company did Maroney a great injustice in supposing him guilty of the theft. He said he knew of only one man who could bring out the robbery, and he was living in Chicago.
Pinkerton was the name of the man he referred to. He had established an agency in Chicago, and was doing a large business. He (Boyer) had every confidence in his integrity and ability, which was more than he could say of the majority of detectives, and recommended the Vice-President to have him come down and look into the case.
This ended the case for most of the detectives. One by one they had gone away, and nothing had been developed by them. The Vice-President, still anxious to see if anything could be done, wrote a long and full statement of the robbery and sent it to me, with the request that I would give my opinion on it.
I was much surprised when I received the letter, as I had not the slightest idea who the Vice-President was, and knew very little about the Adams Express, as, at that time, they had no office in the West.
I, however, sat down and read it over very carefully, and, on finishing it, determined to make a point in the case if I possibly could. I reviewed the whole of the Vice-President's letter, debating every circumstance connected with the robbery, and finally ended my consideration of the subject with the firm conviction that the robbery had been committed either by the agent, Maroney, or by the messenger, and I was rather inclined to give the blame to Maroney.
The letter was a very long one, but one of which I have always been proud. Having formed my opinion, I wrote to the Vice-President, explained to him the ground on which I based my conclusions, and recommended that they keep Maroney in their employ, and have a strict watch maintained over his actions.
After sending my letter, I could do nothing until the Vice-President replied, which I expected he would do in a few days; but I heard nothing more of the affair for a long time, and had almost entirely forgotten it, when I received a telegraphic dispatch from him, sent from Montgomery, and worded about as follows:
"Allan Pinkerton: Can you send me a man—half horse and half alligator? I have got 'bit' once more! When can you send him?"
The dispatch came late Saturday night, and I retired to my private office to think the matter over. The dispatch gave me no information from which I could draw any conclusions. No mention was made of how the robbery was committed, or of the amount stolen. I had not received any further information of the ten thousand dollar robbery. How had they settled that? It was hard to decide what kind of a man to send! I wanted to send the very best, and would gladly go myself, but did not know whether the robbery was important enough to demand my personal attention.
I did not know what kind of men the officers of the company were, or whether they would be willing to reward a person properly for his exertions in their behalf.
At that time I had no office in New York, and knew nothing of the ramifications of the company. Besides, I did not know how I would be received in the South. I had held my anti-slavery principles too long to give them up. They had been bred in my bones, and it was impossible to eradicate them. I was always stubborn, and in any circumstances would never abandon principles I had once adopted.
Slavery was in full blossom, and an anti-slavery man could do nothing in the South. As I had always been a man somewhat after the John Brown stamp, aiding slaves to escape, or keeping them employed, and running them into Canada when in danger, I did not think it would do for me to make a trip to Montgomery.
I did not know what steps had already been taken in the case, or whether the loss was a heavy one. From the Vice-President's saying he wanted a man "half horse, half alligator," I supposed he wanted a man who could at least affiliate readily with the inhabitants of the South.
But what class was he to mix with? Did he want a man to mix with the rough element, or to pass among gentlemen? I could select from my force any class of man he could wish. But what did he wish?
I was unaware of who had recommended me to the Vice-President, as at that time I had not been informed that my old friend Boyer had spoken so well of me. What answer should I make to the dispatch? It must be answered immediately!
These thoughts followed each other in rapid succession as I held the dispatch before me.
I finally settled on Porter as the proper man to send, and immediately telegraphed the Vice-President, informing him that Porter would start for Montgomery by the first train. I then sent for Porter and gave him what few instructions I could. I told him the little I knew of the case, and that I should have to rely greatly on his tact and discretion.
Up to that time I had never done any business for the Adams Express, and as their business was well worth having, I was determined to win.
He was to go to Montgomery and get thoroughly acquainted with the town and its surroundings; and as my suspicions had become aroused as to the integrity of the agent, Maroney, he was to form his acquaintance, and frequent the saloons and livery stables of the town, the Vice-President's letter having made me aware of Maroney's inclination for fast horses. He was to keep his own counsel, and, above all things, not let it become known that he was from the North, but to hail from Richmond, Va., thus securing for himself a good footing with the inhabitants. He was also to dress in the Southern style; to supply me with full reports describing the town and its surroundings, the manners and customs of its people, all he saw or heard about Maroney, the messengers and other employés of the company; whether Maroney was married, and, if so, any suspicious circumstances in regard to his wife as well as himself—in fact, to keep me fully informed of all that occurred. I should have to rely on his discretion until his reports were received; but then I could direct him how to act. I also instructed him to obey all orders from the Vice-President, and to be as obliging as possible.
Having given him his instructions, I started him off on the first train, giving him a letter of introduction to the Vice-President. On Porter's arriving in Montgomery he sent me particulars of the case, from which I learned that while Maroney was temporarily filling the position of agent, among other packages sent to the Montgomery office, on the twenty-seventh of January, 1859, were four containing, in the aggregate, forty thousand dollars, of which one, of two thousand five hundred dollars, was to be sent to Charleston, S. C., and the other three, of thirty thousand, five thousand, and two thousand five hundred respectively, were intended for Augusta. These were receipted for by Maroney, and placed in the vault to be sent off the next day. On the twenty-eighth the pouch was given to the messenger, Mr. Chase, and by him taken to Atlanta. When the pouch was opened, it was found that none of these packages were in it, although they were entered on the way-bill which accompanied the pouch, and were duly checked off. The poor messenger was thunder-struck, and for a time acted like an idiot, plunging his hand into the vacant pouch over and over again, and staring vacantly at the way-bill. The Assistant Superintendent of the Southern Division was in the Atlanta office when the loss was discovered, and at once telegraphed to Maroney for an explanation. Receiving no reply before the train started for Montgomery, he got aboard and went directly there. On his arrival he went to the office and saw Maroney, who said he knew nothing at all of the matter. He had delivered the packages to the messenger, had his receipt for them, and of course could not be expected to keep track of them when out of his possession.
Before Mr. Hall, the route agent, left Atlanta he had examined the pouch carefully, but could find no marks of its having been tampered with. He had immediately telegraphed to another officer of the company, who was at Augusta, and advised him of what had happened. The evening after the discovery of the loss the pouch was brought back by the messenger from Atlanta, who delivered it to Maroney.
Maroney took out the packages, compared them with the way-bill, and, finding them all right, he threw down the pouch and placed the packages in the vault.
In a few moments he came out, and going over to where Mr. Hall was standing, near where he had laid down the pouch, he picked it up and proceeded to examine it. He suddenly exclaimed, "Why, it's cut!" and handed it over to Mr. Hall. Mr. Hall, on examination, found two cuts at right angles to each other, made in the side of the pouch and under the pocket which is fastened on the outside, to contain the way-bill.
On Sunday the General Superintendent arrived in Montgomery, when a strict investigation was made, but nothing definite was discovered, and the affair seemed surrounded by an impenetrable veil of mystery. It was, however, discovered that on the day the missing packages were claimed to have been sent away, there were several rather unusual incidents in the conduct of Maroney.
After consultation with Mr. Hall and others, the General Superintendent determined that the affair should not be allowed to rest, as was the ten thousand dollar robbery, and had Maroney arrested, charged with stealing the forty thousand dollars.
The robbery of so large an amount caused great excitement in Montgomery. The legislature was in session, and the city was crowded with senators, representatives and visitors. Everywhere, on the streets, in the saloons, in private families, and at the hotels, the great robbery of the Express Company was the universal topic of conversation. Maroney had become such a favorite that nearly all the citizens sympathized with him, and in unmeasured terms censured the company for having him arrested. They claimed that it was another instance of the persecution of a poor man by a powerful corporation, to cover the carelessness of those high in authority, and thus turn the blame on some innocent person.
Maroney was taken before Justice Holtzclaw, and gave the bail which was required—forty thousand dollars—for his appearance for examination a few days later; prominent citizens of the town actually vieing with one another for an opportunity to sign his bail-bond.
At the examination the Company presented such a weak case that the bail was reduced to four thousand dollars, and Maroney was bound over in that amount to appear for trial at the next session of the circuit court, to be held in June. The evidence was such that there was little prospect of his conviction on the charge unless the company could procure additional evidence by the time the trial was to come off.
It was the desire of the company to make such inquiries, and generally pursue such a course as would demonstrate the guilt or the possible innocence of the accused. It was absolutely necessary for their own preservation to show that depredations upon them could not be committed with impunity. They offered a reward of ten thousand dollars for the recovery of the money, promptly made good the loss of the parties who had entrusted the several amounts to their charge, and looked around to select such persons to assist them as would be most likely to secure success. The amount was large enough to warrant the expenditure of a considerable sum in its recovery, and the beneficial influence following the conviction of the guilty party would be ample return for any outlay securing that object. The General Superintendent therefore telegraphed to me, as before related, requesting me to send a man to work up the case.
CHAPTER III.
Mr. Porter had a very rough journey to Montgomery, and was delayed some days on the road. It was in the depth of winter, and in the North the roads were blockaded with snow, while in the South there was constant rain. The rivers were flooded, carrying away the bridges and washing out the embankments of the railroads, very much impeding travel.
On his arrival in Montgomery he saw the General Superintendent and presented his letter. He received from him the particulars of the forty thousand dollar robbery, and immediately reported them to me.
The General Superintendent directed him to watch—"shadow" as we call it—the movements of Maroney, find out who were his companions, and what saloons he frequented.
Porter executed his duties faithfully, and reported to me that Montgomery was decidedly a fast town; that the Exchange Hotel, where Maroney boarded, was kept by Mr. Floyd, former proprietor of the Briggs House, Chicago, and, although not the leading house of the town, was very much liked, as it was well conducted.
From the meagre reports I had received I found I had to cope with no ordinary man, but one who was very popular, while I was a poor nameless individual, with a profession which most people were inclined to look down upon with contempt. I however did not flinch from the undertaking, but wrote to Porter to do all he could, and at the same time wrote to the General Superintendent, suggesting the propriety of sending another man, who should keep in the background and "spot" Maroney and his wife, or their friends, so that if any one of them should leave town he could follow him, leaving Porter in Montgomery, to keep track of the parties there.
There were, of course, a number of suspicious characters in a town of the size of Montgomery, and it was necessary to keep watch of many of them.
Maroney frequented a saloon kept by a man whom I will call Patterson. Patterson's saloon was the fashionable drinking resort of Montgomery, and was frequented by all the fast men in town. Although outwardly a very quiet, respectable place, inwardly, as Porter found, it was far from reputable. Up stairs were private rooms, in which gentlemen met to have a quiet game of poker; while down stairs could be found the greenhorn, just "roped in," and being swindled, at three card monte. There were, also, rooms where the "young bloods" of the town—as well as the old—could meet ladies of easy virtue. It was frequented by fast men from New Orleans, Mobile, and other places, who were continually arriving and departing.
I advised the General Superintendent that it would be best to have Porter get in with the "bloods" of the town, make himself acquainted with any ladies Maroney or his wife might be familiar with, and adopt generally the character of a fast man.
As soon as the General Superintendent received my letter he telegraphed to me to send the second man, and also requested me to meet him, at a certain date, in New York.
I now glanced over my force to see who was the best person to select for a "shadow". Porter had been promoted by me to be a sort of "roper".
Most people may suppose that nearly any one can perform the duties of a "shadow", and that it is the easiest thing in the world to follow up a man; but such is not the case. A "shadow" has a most difficult position to maintain. It will not do to follow a person on the opposite side of the street, or close behind him, and when he stops to speak to a friend stop also; or if a person goes into a saloon, or store, pop in after him, stand staring till he goes out, and then follow him again. Of course such a "shadow" would be detected in fifteen minutes. Such are not the actions of the real "shadow", or, at least, of the "shadow" furnished by my establishment.
I had just the man for the place, in Mr. Roch, who could follow a person for any length of time, and never be discovered.
Having settled on Roch as the proper man for the position, I summoned him to my private office. Roch was a German. He was about forty-five years old, of spare appearance and rather sallow or tanned complexion. His nose was long, thin and peaked, eyes clear but heavy looking, and hair dark. He was slightly bald, and though he stooped a little, was five feet ten inches in height. He had been in my employ for many years, and I knew him thoroughly, and could trust him.
I informed him of the duties he was to perform, and gave him minute instructions how he was to act. He was to keep out of sight as much as possible in Montgomery. Porter would manage to see him on his arrival, unknown to any one there, and would point out to him Maroney and his wife, and the messenger, Chase, who boarded at the Exchange; also Patterson, the saloon keeper, and all suspected parties. He was not to make himself known to Floyd, of the Exchange, or to McGibony, the local detective. I had also given Porter similar instructions. I suggested to him the propriety of lodging at some low boarding house where liquor was sold.
He was to keep me fully posted by letter of the movements of all suspected parties, and if any of them left town to follow them and immediately inform me by telegraph who they were and where they were going, so that I could fill his place in Montgomery.
Having given him his instructions, I selected for his disguise a German dress. This I readily procured from my extensive wardrobe, which I keep well supplied by frequent attendance at sales of old articles.
When he had rigged himself up in his long German coat, his German cap with the peak behind, and a most approved pair of emigrant boots, he presented himself to me with his long German pipe in his mouth, and I must say I was much pleased with his disguise, in which his own mother would not have recognized him. He was as fine a specimen of a Dutchman as could be found.
Having thoroughly impressed on his mind the importance of the case and my determination to win the esteem of the company by ferreting out the thief, if possible, I started him for Montgomery, where he arrived in due time.
At the date agreed upon I went to New York to meet the General Superintendent. I had never met the gentlemen of the company and I was a little puzzled how to act with them.
I met the Vice-President at the express office, in such a manner that none of the employés were the wiser as to my profession or business, and he made an appointment to meet me at the Astor House in the afternoon. At the Astor House he introduced me to the President, the General Superintendent of the company, and we immediately proceeded to business.
They gave me all the particulars of the case they could, though they were not much fuller than those I had already received from Porter's reports. They reviewed the life of Maroney, as already related, up to the time he became their agent, stating that he was married, although his marriage seemed somewhat "mixed".
As far as they could find out, Mrs. Maroney was a widow, with one daughter, Flora Irvin, who was about seven or eight years old. Mrs. Maroney was from a very respectable family, now living in Philadelphia or its environs. She was reported to have run away from home with a roué, whose acquaintance she had formed, but who soon deserted her. Afterwards she led the life of a fast woman at Charleston, New Orleans, Augusta, Ga., and Mobile, at which latter place she met Maroney, and was supposed to have been married to him.
After Maroney was appointed agent in Montgomery he brought her with him, took a suite of rooms at the Exchange, and introduced her as his wife.
On account of these circumstances the General Superintendent did not wish to meet her, and, when in Montgomery, always took rooms at another hotel.
The Vice-President said he had nearly come to the conclusion that Maroney was not guilty of the ten thousand dollar robbery; but when my letter reached him, with my comments on the robbery, he became convinced that he was the guilty party.
He was strengthened in this opinion by the actions of Maroney while on his Northern tour, and by the fact that immediately on his return the fast mare "Yankee Mary" made her appearance in Montgomery and that Maroney backed her heavily. It was not known that he was her owner, it being generally reported that Patterson and other fast men were her proprietors.
This was all the Vice-President and General Superintendent had been able to discover while South, and they were aware that I had very little ground on which to work.
I listened to all they had to say on the subject and took full memoranda of the facts. I then stated that although Maroney had evidently planned and carried out the robbery with such consummate ability that he had not left the slightest clue by which he could be detected, still, if they would only give me plenty of time, I would bring the robbery home to him.
I maintained, as a cardinal principle, that it is impossible for the human mind to retain a secret. All history proves that no one can hug a secret to his breast and live. Everyone must have a vent for his feelings. It is impossible to keep them always penned up.
This is especially noticeable in persons who have committed criminal acts. They always find it necessary to select some one in whom they can confide and to whom they can unburden themselves.
