"I waited a day or so, but nothing more happened, and I began to get anxious.Perhaps I was a bit hasty.Anyhow I watched my chance and made an arrest of both of them when they came to New York on a shopping expedition.You should have heard that Englishman swear.
I didn't know such language was possible.But in his pocket we found twenty more of those hundred-dollar bills - that was all.
Do you think he owned up? Not a bit of it.He swore he had picked the notes up in a pocketbook on the pier as he left the steamer.I laughed.But when he was arraigned in court he told the magistrate the same story and that he had advertised his find at the time.Sure enough, in the files of the papers we discovered in the lost-and-found column the ad, just as he claimed.
We couldn't even prove that he had passed the bills.So the magistrate refused to hold them, and they were both released.But we had had them in our power long enough to take their finger-prints and get descriptions and measurements of them, particularly by this new 'portrait parle ' system.We felt we could send out a strange detective and have him pick them out of a crowd - you know the system, I presume?
Kennedy nodded, and I made a mental note of finding out more about the "portrait parle" later.
Burke paused, and O'Connor prompted, "Tell them about Scotland Yard, Tom.""Oh, yes," resumed Burke."Of course I sent copies of the finger-prints to Scotland Yard.Within two weeks they replied that one set belonged to William Forbes, a noted counterfeiter, who, they understood, had sailed for South Africa but had never arrived there.
They were glad to learn that he was in America, and advised me to look after him sharply.The woman was also a noted character - Harriet Wollstone, an adventuress.""I suppose you have shadowed them ever since?" Kennedy asked.
"Yes, a few days after they were arrested the man had an accident with his car.It was said he was cranking the engine and that it kicked back and splintered the bone in his forearm.Anyhow, he went about with his hand and arm in a sling.""And then?"
"They gave my man the slip that night in their fast touring-car.
You know automobiles have about made shadowing impossible in these days.The house was closed up, and it was said by the neighbours that Williams and Mrs.Williams - as they called themselves - had gone to visit a specialist in Philadelphia.Still, as they had a year's lease on the house, I detailed a man to watch it more or less all the time.They went to Philadelphia all right; some of the bills turned up there.But we saw nothing of them.
"A short time ago, word came to me that the house was open again.
It wasn't two hours later that the telephone rang like mad.AFifth Avenue jeweller had just sold a rope of pearls to an Englishwoman who paid for it herself in crisp new one-hundred-dollar bills.The bank had returned them to him that very afternoon - counterfeits.I didn't lose any time making a second arrest up at the house of mystery at Riverwood.I had the county authorities hold them - and, now, O'Connor, tell the rest of it.You took the finger-prints up there."O'Connor cleared his throat as if something stuck in it, in the telling."The Riverwood authorities refused to hold them," he said with evident chagrin."As soon as I heard of the arrest I started up myself with the finger-print records to help Burke.It was the same man, all right - I'll swear to that on a stack of Bibles.So will Burke.I'll never forget that snub nose - the concave nose, the nose being the first point of identification in the 'portrait park.' And the ears, too - oh, it was the same man, all right.
But when we produced the London finger-prints which tallied with the New York finger-prints which we had made - believe it or not, but it is a fact, the Riverwood finger-prints did not tally at all."He laid the prints on the table.Kennedy examined them closely.
His face clouded.It was quite evident that he was stumped, and he said so."There are some points of agreement," he remarked, "but more points of difference.Any points of difference are usually considered fatal to the finger-print theory.
"We had to let the man go," concluded Burke."We could have held the woman, but we let her go, too, because she was not the principal in the case.My men are shadowing the house now and have been ever since then.But the next day after the last arrest, a man from New York, who looked like a doctor, made a visit.The secret-service man on the job didn't dare leave the house to follow him, but as he never came again perhaps it doesn't matter.Since then the house has been closed."The telephone rang.It was Burke's office calling him.As he talked we could gather that something tragic must have happened at Riverwood, and we could hardly wait until he had finished.
"There has been an accident up there," he remarked as he hung up the receiver rather petulantly."They returned in the car this afternoon with a large package in the back of the tonneau.But they didn't stay long.After dark they started out again in the car.The accident was at the bad railroad crossing just above Riverwood.It seems Williams's car got stalled on the track just as the Buffalo express was due.No one saw it, but a man in a buggy around the bend in the road heard a woman scream.He hurried down.
The train had smashed the car to bits.How the woman escaped was a miracle, but they found the man's body up the tracks, horribly mangled.It was Williams, they say.They identified him by the clothes and by letters in his pockets.But my man tells me he found a watch on him with 'W.F.' engraved on it.His hands and arms and head must have been right under the locomotive when it struck him, I judge.""I guess that winds the case up, eh?" exclaimed O'Connor with evident chagrin."Where's the woman?""They said she was in the little local hospital, but not much hurt.
Just the shock and a few bruises."
