The Sulphur Springs Gazette. (Sulphur Springs, Tex.), Vol. 50, No. 36, Ed. 1 Friday, September 6, 1912 Page: 7 of 10
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THEISULPHUR SPRINGS GA2ETTE, SEPTEMBER 6, 1912
_
Bookofa PrivateDctcdivle
True Narratives of Interestiai Cases by a Former
Operative of the William J. Burns Detective Agency
By DAVID CORNELL
A MATTER OF INTUITION
(Coarrigtat by tb* BMMMtional Pww BonhO
of finding out If I want to trust
low the Brundage Novelty Company
Robbery Was Uncovered
P?
At one time in the history of deteo-
tlve work, possibly, the sole function
•7 of the detective was to detect crime
and criminals. This still is the funo-
' v| tion,, for yhich official detectives,
| thqae employed by city, state or na-
vl Aroon. exist But in this day of bectio
competition there has grown
to startling proportions another uee
jfor the private detective agency; and
the ways and means in which the pub-
lic' Is learning to use and misuse the
service which any detective agency
places at their beck and call for $8
■7, a day, often have little or nothing in
[ common with the original purposes
* of the detective's profession.
| Probably one hglf the business that
1 comes to the private detective agency
I | V *is “business, instead of crime. Firms
i V 'hire private detectives to spy on a
1 Xtf 'competitor; employers hire them to
i look up^the conduct employes after
yissilWss Lours. : T*he«Bape'private do*
{tective agencies so unscrupulous that
* jyou can engage their operatives fer
A’ I almost Any service, no matter how
<1 ;Jow. Then, again, there la the Burns
* j Agency, of which I was an operative,
not touch a piece of busl-
1s not obviously and abso-
square. But even pursuing this
policy, without wavering, they are at
into wierd and wonderful
paths of business mazes; and the
[work often is no legs thrilling than
| the pursuit of vicious criminals.
( The Brundage Novelty Company
(case was one of the most interesting
(Jobs of any kind that I ever tackled.
1
m'-
K7
Mr:
On the first of September, 1910, our
received a telephone call from
Knickerbocker Hotel. The call
^ “Please pick out a man whom
•you know you can trust in every way
‘and send him up here to room 1< 98."
| The caller refused to give bis name
or to mention the purpose for which
he wanted a detective.
"I’ll explain all that satisfactorily to
'you after I have seen whether you
have a man whom 1 consider capable
. my business,” was his an*
» office manager's request
for more information.
"That's a queer one," muttered the
manager, and he took the call in to
the chlefl * - V
“Better send Cornell up there to
see what it is," said tfaf* chief. "We
won't touch it If it doesn’t look good.1*
I at once took the subway to Times
Square, and a few minutes later 1
knocked at room Ufi$* The door was
opened by an old man of patriarchal
appearance, one in whom the dreamer
and the npuudf efficiency seemed
strangely combined. He peered at
me for possibly >0 seconds through
the six inchsb of opening he had
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efi
m
IT
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K
man.
"Weil?" said I.
“Well,” said he, “I believe I have
been fortunate enough to find such a
man at my first try. I believe I can
trust you. My name is Ezra Brun-
dage."
At first the name conveyed nothing
to me.
“Inventor of the Brundage novel-
ties," he continued, “and president of
the Brundage Novelty Company, of
Hoboken."
I placed him, then; I had seen hia
photograph in the advertisements of
the Brundage novelties.
“What is it that you want me to do,
Mr. Brundage?" I asked.
"I want you,” said he, "to satisfy
me that the Brundage Novelty Com-
pany is not being robbed."
Then be went on to explain. It
seems that he had no definite reason
for being suspicious. He said it was
ant on hand for you Just at present.
And, say, Cornell, don’t you fool your-
self too much about that old fellow
having a brainstorm. He’s a pretty
wise old bird. Any man who can in-
vent the scores of little things that
he’s put on the market, and run a suc-
cessful business at the 8ame time, is
no fool, let me tell you. The thing
may develop into a freak case, but
believe me, old Brundage has some
real reason for Incurring our bill.”
The fifth day of the case^ a roughly
dressed young man came '‘in to see
Gerber. Gerber took him into his pri-
vate office and clpsed the door, so it
was impossible for me to see or hear
what went on between them. But the
fact that such secrecy had been ob-
served put me on my guard, and when
the young fellow came out I managed
to have something to do that brought
me near to him. It seems ridiculous,
possibly to the layman, to mention as
the starting point in an exciting case
a Whiff of an odor, but such was the
real starting point of the Brundage
Novelty Company case from my stand-
point.
I caught the odor of gasoline from
this young man as he swept out of
Gerber’s private office.
Of course the thing meant noth-
ing at the time. It suggested nothing.
The only situation opened by it was
this: Gerber had some dealings of a
private nature with a young man who
smelled of gasolene. I
At the same time, it opened up an-
other possible clue for us to work on,
tot in our previous investigation we
had not found Gerber in any dealings
only his intuition that told him all; with anybody who smelled of gasolene
was not right in the company. He
said that a sense of wrong-doing on
the part of someone in the office had
impressed him several weeks before;
or who might have occasion to use
that fluid. As our task was to inves-
tigate all angles of Gerber’s career,
with a view to finding something to
that the impression had grown until 1 substantiate old Brundage’s indefinite
he had begun to investigate, and suspicions, the young man with the
^Can* in,’* he said. After he bad
shut and locked the door he added:
"You’re from the Bum’s Agency, of
course. Sit down.”
I sat The old man stood before
me with bis bands on bis hips. Usual-
ly it is the detective who stands and
scrutinizes and analytes his client,
but in this case the usual order was
revursid "
"How old are year* said the old
man presently.
“Tbhty-six/* I replied.
“Married?** v
“Ted**
"ChiUrenr*
"Thrfo.” : ;\ o „
"Gotta picture of yocr wlfe or any
of theichildren with you?"
I locked at him and began to smile.
"Now look here, Mr," I said; “so for
as I understand it, you sent for a de-
"Toang man,” said he, holding up
bis hand in great dignity, “do not be
Please answer my
humoring an old
There is a reason.
you a picture of
ren with you? Do
out of curiosity to see what
driving at than anything else,
led that I did carry such a pic-
tare, and opening ay watch showed
him the tiny picture of my little fam-
ily that was pasted on the inside of
the Case.
"Good," said he. “Do you carry aay
life Insurance?"
“Tou old shark!” X said, laughing.
•So that’s what you got ms up hers
for? Wall, that’s certainly a new
dodge for as insurance agent.”
■y "Young man, young man—don’t,
please;” said he. "Answer my qoee-
tlon, if yoa please.”
"Yes," I said. "I do.”
"Good!** Then he drew a chair up
before me, and aat down, robbing his
' "I must have a decent man, a fairly
good man, a man I can believe in to
handle this business," said he. “That
to why I asked those apparently aim-
less questions. A married man is more
dependable than a single one; a man
who thinks a lot of his family Is most
dependable of all—for my purpose.
And * Bum who thinks a lot of his
family win often carry a picture
around with him, and carry life ta-
ler their benefit Now do
though he could find no signs, he now
'was fully convinced that the company
—and therefore himself—was being
robbed.
“Intuition entirely, Mr. Cornell,” he
said. “But all my life I have listened
to my intuition, even in my business
dealings, and I find that it guards me
better than anything else I know."
"Whom, do you suspect?" I said
bluntly.
“Mr. Cornell. I am in partnership
with s young man named Gerber."
“And he’s the man, la he?”
He bowed. “I am afraid so, though
I dislike to shy it. Mr. Gerber Is a
young man, and hitherto I have
.thought him the soul of honor—one
whom it was a privilege and pleasure
'to associate with."
"And how do you think he’s get-
ting away with the loot?**
Hs thought it over for a few sec-
onds and said alowly: "I do not
know. That to what I what yon to
find out He is our treasurer, and
so has charge of all the finances of
the firm."
* "Well," fold I, “are there any de-
tails you can give'me? Any point-
eiar
“None,” he said. "But I have this
suggestion to make; that you go to
work in our office as a clerk where
you win have opportunities for close
observation."
“To watch you partner, Gerber?”
“To watch Mr. Gerber. I place the
case in your hands; watch Mr. Ger-
ber/wW
Back to the offioe I went to report
to the chief.
“I thought you would find sort of a
queer bird from ’the way he phoned,"
said the chief. “But business is bus-
iness; he’s retained us for the job,
and your job is to watch Gerber.
However, don’t be so slow as to mere-
ly follow his suggestion about going
to work In the office. Beat the old
man to it; look up Gerber—after
hours. You’ll get more there, prob-
ably, than you would in the office.”
Under these instructions I went
over to Hoboken at once with an-
other man to get a “spot” on Gerber,
who was unknown to me. “Getting
a spot" on a man in detective par-
lance signifies this process: one de-
tective enters an office or place of
business and asks for ths man that
is wsntsd. Meeting him, he makes
some excuse and gets away. At the
door of the place he waits for the man
to come out Across the street is an-
other detective. When the man who
is to he shadowed comes out the first
detective signals to the man across
the street In some unobtrusive way,
and drops out In this case Clutter,
the man who went with me, entered
the offices of the Brundage Novelty
Company* and asked for Mr. Gerber.
Having met him Clutter merely ap-
plied for a position—and was turned
down. When Gerber came out at 6
in the afternoon Clutter, standing near
the office entrance, took a paper from
his pocket and began to read it—the
signal we had agreed upon. Then Cluf-
fer went back to New York, and I,
whom Gerber had never seen, took
up the trail. In this way all chance
for suspicion on the part of the sub-
ject is eliminated.
✓ For the next three days we “took
him up in the morning and put him to
bed st night** That Is, from the mo-
ment when he left his house in the
morning to when he retired for the
night Gerber never was out of sight
of s detective.
By dsy, in the office, I had him un-
der my eye, having gone to work
there as a clerk. Outside of the office
another man from the agency watch-
ed him, no matter where he went.
Gerber didn’t have a chance to m&ke^
a move that wasn’t reported on.
But nothing developed in this time,
and I went to the chief and reported
my belief that old Brundage was half
cracked and that his suspicion was
nothing more or l^ss than s hallucina-
tion, a brainstorm, to pnt in bluntly.
“Well, don’t let that worry you,’
said the good natnred chief. "Brun-
dage to paying the bill. He’s good for
It, aad there's nothing mors import
gasolene Qdor promptly became an In-
teresting factor.
Across the street was one of our
men, waiting. When the gasolene man
I
Al[r*f
left the building 1 gave Dawson the
signal to follow him. My man picked
up the trail like a hound, and well sat-
isfied that the mysterious young man
would be followed to his destination,
I turned back to my pretended occu-
pation.
Mind, all this work was being done
without any sane or definite reason
for doing it. We didn’t know whether
Gerber was guilty of anything, or if
he was guilty, of what it might be.
We were working for Brundage, who
had a suspicion, and so long as he
paid the bill, and we had nothing
more important to do, we would con-
tinue on the job.
I suggested to Mr. Brundage that
he examine the books of the company
for indications of anything wrong.
“I had thought of that long ago,”
said he. "But Mr. Gerber has all the
books in his personal charge. He
locks them up every evening. To se-
cure them for an investigation it
would be necessary to make a demand
upon Mr. Gerber, and this naturally
would arouse his suspicion. No. We
will go on as we havo begun. I am
satisfied. If anything is wrong it will
be shown, for Mr. Gerber is not per-
mitted to remove the hooks from this
office.”
That evening I got Dawson’s report
JSm
pi|g
Bite
on the young man who had been In
to see Gerber.
"He's the engineer of a fifty foot
gasolene launch, the Nadine, that is
Tying in the Hudson opposite Forty-
second street,” Dawson reported. "The
boat’s owner is said to be a Mr. Rus-
sel."
"Said to be?”
“Yes; because I hung around ana
wormed out a description of this ‘Rus-
sel’ from a lot of fellows hanging
around the docks, and he comes pretty
close to looking like Mr. Gerber, if
these fellows were right.”
Still, this meant nothing so far as
any case was concerned. But when
1 made enquiries about the office to
find out if Gerber went in for motor-
boating, and found he had expressed
himself as having an aversion to the
water, the thing began to look as it
there might be something in it. It
the boat, The Nadine, belonged to Ger-
ber, he was keeping it a secret; and
if he had secrets they might be con-
nected with Brundage’s suspicions of
something wrong in the firm.
Strange to say, as I continued to
watch Gerber, I too, began to acquire
a suspicious feeling toward him, just
as the senior partner had done. There
was no tangible “reason why this
.should be so. His actions apparently
were what they should be. But there
was something wrong with the man.
That is as well as I am able to -ex-
plain it. He wasn’t "right ” I have
felt this intuition—or "hunch,” in de-
tective parlance—several times in my
career; and the experiences have con-
vinced me that the detection of crime
could be made an exact psychological
science, that each and every guilty
person carries about him certain signs
—or possibly an aura—which distin-
guishes him from the normal being.
For guilt of a crime of any sort, after
all, is an abnormality.
Gerber, in his office, and in his life
after busineff hours, apparently went
along as an honest man in his posi-
tion should. But the more I studied
and he makes me tell everybody that
the boat is owned by a chap named
Russel. Now, what would he be doing
that for? I—”
He shut up suddenly then, realizing
in drunken fashion that he had gone
too far.
* After Dawson had made this report;
he went off the case, being called In
to the New York office. For the next
week, or until September 26th, I
worked on Gerber in every way I
knew how, without finding a thing. On
the 25th he failed to show up at the
office. A telephone call to his house
elicited t^e fact that he had left at
about midnight and had not returned
I had a hunch on the instant, and
calling a taxi drove to the place where
the Nadine\had been docked. The
slip was empty, the boat was gone.
From men around the docks I found
that the boat had disappeared in the
night without beins seen, that nobody
had known It was going, and that no-
body knew where it had gone.
I went back to the office and told;
Brundage all I knew.
"Hm! ” said he, and together we
went to the safe. Brundage tried
to open it, he and Gerber having had
the combination together. He failed.
For half an hour he tried, and then he
gave up and telephoned for an expert
from the safe company.
When the safe finally was opened
the books were placed at once In the
hands of an expert accountant. He
found the discrepancy within half an
hour.
"It Is one of* the clumsiest cases of
juggling I ever saw,” he said. "As
near as I can tell on this short exam-
ination, the cash is $15,000 short. Ap-
parently it has been short for a long
time, because I see that the juggling
of figures has been going on for
months.”
“Hm,” said Brundage. “For months,
eh? I was slow. Mr. Cornell, your
task is simplified now; you have only
to find Mr Gerber.” 7
Yes, that' was all, but that was
\
“V
ML
’When he fumed away from
window I was standing More him..
him the more I began to agree with
Brundage that it was time he was in-
vestigated. f r
I put Dawson to work on the young
engineer. Dawson rented a little mo-
tor boat, got permission to tie it up
beside the fifty-footer in the young
man’s charge, and began to overhaul
his engine, as if preparing for a cruise
This gave him an opportunity to bor-
row wrenches and oils from the larg-
er boat, to buy drinks and cigars to
pay for the favors, and so to strike
up a close acquaintance with the man
he was after.
Had th%t young man been strictly
temperate it is doubtful if the Brun-
dage Novelty Company case ever would
have become a credit to the Burns
Agency. Dawson plied him steadily
with liquid refreshment in the saloons
along the water front, aud the young
man began to talk about his employer.
"He’s a queer crab,” said the en-
gineer. "He makes me keep this
boat in running order day and night
—makes me stay by it ready to re-
paint It at a minute’s notice. Now
what In the devil would a man want
to have his boat repainted so sud-
denly for?”
“I couldn’t guess,” said Dawson.
"Then again,” went on the Intem-
perate engineer, "his name is Gerber
plenty. Here is how we laid down
our theory of the situation: Gerber
had gone away In the Jftadine. He
had probably had the boat repainted,
renamed, and otherwise altered be-
fore leaving. He had left no sign of
his route or destination. Our task
was to comb the Hudson river up and
down and pick out Gerber in his prob-
ably altered boat.
Dawson came over on the jump
from the office.
"I sized the Nadine up carefully,”
said he. "I think I will know her even
under a different name and different
paint.” x
"Get the fastest boat for hire on
the river," said Brundage. "Follow
him and bring him back.”
We got the Puritan, a semi-racer
with a small cabin. Two houis after
the discrepancy in Gerber's books had
been found, Dawson and I were chug-
chugging up the Jersey side of the
Hudson 20 miles an hour, with our
eyes on the lookout for a launch that
might be the Nadine. At the same
time we notified all police chiefs of
the towns along the river to he on
the lookout for such a boat and for
Gerber and his engineer. Four dayz
of this sort of work, coupled with the
efforts of the various police depart-
ments, showed us that no boat of this
description was on the Hudson. The
Nadine had disappeared.
I went back to the slip in Hoboken
and began to work among the hang-
ers-on along the docks The Nadine
had been under their eyes constantly.]
and finally one of them let drop the
remark that put me on the scent.
“Wherever she went, she didn’t go
far,” said this man. “They didn’t!
have gasolene in her enough to run
five miles, and there was no chance
to get any when they slippd out at!
night.”
If this was true the Nadine must
have put in at some nearby dock to
purchase gasolene if she intended to
make a long trip. So far as we could
find, she had not done this. There
was a chance that the boat still was
in the vicinity.
Working on this chance we began
to search the neai oy boatyards. On
the second day we Sound her. She
was up high and dry, having her keel
repaired, under the name of the Gull.
But for the waterman who had ob-
served the depletion of her fuel sup-
ply the boat might have lain there
till it rotted before we noticed it, for
the work of disguising her had been
welt done, and a boat on the blocks
in dry-dock Is of different appearance
than a boat in the water.
I was forced to smile irt admiration
of Gerber when I found the Nadine.
He had fooled us, and fooled us artis-
tically. We had: thought it a certain,
thing that he had flown away up or
down the river. He had worked artis-
tically to this end. But he had done
nothing of the tort. All he had done
—as I discovered '*Then I located the
engineer—was to telephone the lat-
ter to take the Nadine out at night
and lay her up for repairs in the
boatyard. Then he, Gerber, bad flit-
ted otherwhere, leaving us to chase
away on his false, eatery tracks It
was , well done. It was better done
than most crooked pieces of work. But
like all crooks he had not stopped to
consider the absolute certainty of be-
ing caught when there is plenty of
money willing to be spent to effect a
capture.
“Get bim,” directed Brundage. “I
don’t care how high the bills run; get
that man.”
After that it was only a question of
time.
How is the net woven with such
certainty around the hiding criminal?
In Gerber's case, ten days after his
defalcation was discovered, 10,000 cir-
culars, containing his description and
history and two cuts of him, were in
the hands of as many trained men in
all parts of the country. A thousand
men, in all the large ports of the
world, had these circulars three
weeks later.
7 Gerber was not caught, however,
until after three months had elapsed. n
Then one of his intimate friends— ,
whelm I was watching as the first per- ,
^>n Gerber would be likely to com-
municate with—received a letter post-
marked New Orleans, and addressed
In a disguised hand. I had possession , *7
of the letter before the friend ever
41
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!«g
saw it—through & secret arrangement’
Will the postaliatfthojrttiesr-
it—and it was from Gerber.
letter, word by word, I sealed it
again, and sent It along to its destin-
ation. But before he ever received
the letter I was on my way to New;
Orleans. I went straight to the gen-
eral delivery 'window at the post of-
fice and waited. Gerber had directed
his mall to be sent there. I got him
that night He came in with his hat
over his eyes, and asked for a. letter.
When he turned away from the win-
dow I was standing before him.
“Hello, Gerber,” I said, “I came
down to bring you back to Hoboken." r
He stood dumb for ten seconds. )
Then he blurted: “How In-did you i
ever do it? Haven't been out of my
room in daylight since I came here."
, "Ob, well,” I said, “you come back
like a nice boy and Ffl tell you all
about it on the train.” ' . ’
Brundage didn’t prosecute Gerber.
He said, "Fifteen thousand dollars is a
big sum to lose. But it would be
harder for me had I lost faith in my
sense of intuition”
gjgai
■ $
7m
m
The Captain of His 8oul.
Nearly blind, partly paralyzed and
wholly helpless, Gen. Homer Lea, re-
cently in command of the victorious
Chinese revolutionary army, is report-
ed to be returning to the United
States. His ailments are not of re-
cent origin. As a youhg man Homer
Lea was frail and undersized.
Those who saw this lad a few years
ago drilling companies of Chinese
with broomsticks for rifles only laugh-
ed at the grotesque sight. But he re-
fused to recognize his limitations. The
driving force within him urged him on
and made up for all deficiencies. So
through the force of an indomitable
personality he conquered more of life
than is usually given to even the bril-
liantly endowed man of fine physique.
Stone walls do not prison make, nor
iron bars a cage. Neither does phys-
ical frailty bar a person from achieve-
ment Milton did his greatest work
after he had become blind. Beethoven
was deaf when he wrote the famous
Ninth Symphony. Spencer did biz
work in spite of chronic invalidism.
Stevenson wrote under sentence of
exile to the South seas. The deaf,
dumb and nlind Helen Keller has
made her life count .
Henley was right. A man Is the
master of his fate and the captain of
his soul—If he will only take com-
mand.
*4,1
■.p
V1*
n
Going Up.
"Would you vote for & man who of-
fered you money?”
“I should say not,” replied the
shifty member of the legislature. "The
days for that kind of transaction are
past A man who wants to clinch my
influence has got to have a good busi-
ness and slip me an interest in It"
■-'i
ill
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Fanning, R. W. The Sulphur Springs Gazette. (Sulphur Springs, Tex.), Vol. 50, No. 36, Ed. 1 Friday, September 6, 1912, newspaper, September 6, 1912; Sulphur Springs, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth817819/m1/7/?q=Lamar+University: accessed July 17, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Hopkins County Genealogical Society.