Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 164, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 July 1911 — Under the Rose [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Under the Rose

/ham dbe Qu*-Boo* of Inspector fitoostisotor

THE ANONYMOUS LETTERS

By FREDERIC REDDALE

(Oopyrtsht by W. Q. Chapman)

•mmbnk Of th* straighten ud I squarest men in the de- ■ ..IB I P*rt m « n t.” was th® un*nlI I “Ous verdict passed upon ■“JB""! Inspector Valentine during hlB conn ® < *tlon with New o*l York’s detective bureau. ' M I Yet when he retired to 1 I take up P rlvate Practice f II he was really a fairly S wealthy man—a condition wnasMnJ which resulted mainly through bia Intimacy with the great Wail Street operator, Shank lin Skene, whose friendship sent a good many tips on the market Vai •ntine's way. This association grew out of a remarkable set of occurrences in criminal annals, which developed Into one of the causes celebres of modern times.

First, a word as to Shanklin Skene. This man was one of the most unscrupulous stock gamblers, railroad wreckers and market manipulators in the Empire city. In his notorious attempt some years ago before to corner the visible supply of gold, the United States Itself was shaken to Its center. Only the firmness and adroitness of the national executive saved the country from widespread ruin. Possessed of enormous personal means, and controlling equally large resources through the banks and other sources of wealth in Wall street, ha was everywhere recognised a*s a cynical and merciless foe. In his vast schemes and crooked manipulations he had enriched himself and a group of cronies while ruining thousands of innocent investors. Consequently Shanklin Skene was one of the most cordially hated men of a peculiarly hateful speculative day and generation. His enemies were •verywhere; he trusted nobody, not •ven his own friends. - e Therefore it took little to throw him into a panic of cowardly fear.

On a certain autumn day In the •arly eighties Shanklin Skene's brokers received the following typewritten anonymous letter: “‘Shanklin Skene, Esq.—Take notice! "I hereby warn you that within six days from the date of this communeation your worthless carcass will by the hand of the writer be relegated to the dust from whence it came. Make your peace with God if you can. Mine is no wanton wish to shed the blood of such a scoundrel, but I am inspired by the living God to remove one who is a perpetual menace to the community at large." The writer, who was evidently an educated man, went on to say that on account of losses in the stock market and elsewhere he had come within an ace of shooting Skene on the .preceding Friday at the close of the day, “"but when about to press the trigger a voice bade him hold his hand in order to give the culprit time to repent •re he was plunged into perdition and overlasting torment" The letter was signed with the words “Your Victim." The brokers, Cummings & Cummings, at first paid no attention to this precious screed, regarding it as the work of a harmless crank. But -when several other letters of similar tenor followed, evidently emanating from a speculator who had been following the market “not wisely but too well." and was probably on the verge of black ruin, Messrs. Cummings & Cummings delivered the several missives to Shanklin Skene. So deeply did they alarm the speculator that he promptly called on Inspector Valentine for help.

Valentine*! first move was to ascertain from Skene’s* associates, books and papers the names of such men, customers or followers, who might have been sufficiently hard hit and rendered desperate enough to write such a series of letters. Certain of these were shadowed, but without result. The inspector's next move was through the “personal” columns of the newspapers. He\advertlsed that “if the person who sent an anonymous communication signed “Victim” to a certain Wall street financier would call at the operator’s office, or state where an interview could be arranged, matters would be satisfactorily adjusted. The very day tbe advertisement appeared Shanklin Skene received through his brokers another letter in the same handwriting and signed as before. It read as follows: “You must think me a fool or worse to imagine that I would put myself In your power by going to your office or agreeing to an interview with a policeman waiting outside with a warrant for my arrest! For the present I will communicate only through the newspaper. I have loot a fortune — my all-owing to your roguery. But I might agree to allow you a short respite from death in return for some reliable information concerning the tendencies of certain stocks.” This letter was signed "Texas Cor respondent”; the inspector replied i and accepted the terms through a sec end advertisement; this elicited another letter from the anonymous one Inquiring specifically whether a given Stock would rise or fall during the

Inspector Valentine replied—per advertisement—that this method of communication was getting dangerous and was attracting too much attention. Some other scheme would have to be devised. Whereupon “Victim" or "Texas Correspondent" forwarded io Skene a cipher code for future use. There was one peculiar feature about the letters and this code; all were typewritten—which gave hope of a faint clue. The figures “3” and “S'* were peculiar in that, for distinctness' sake, they both ran below the line, like what printers at that time called Franklin type. Noticing that, Valentine at once called In a typewriter expert and showed him one of “Victim's” letters. “That's written on a Caxton machine,” was the immediate verdict. “It’s an old make, and the only one on the market with its figures cut that way. Find a person who uses an oldfashioned Caxton machine, and if he fulfills your other requirements, he's your man!” But of course, this sort of evidence could only be taken in a corroborative sense; there wer; probably scores of those old-time Caxton machines clicking away In New York at that moment The mere possession of that make of typewriter would not necessarily Indicate the man who wrote the letters threatening murder to Franklin Skene. After the code was received quite a lengthy correspondence ensued —letters on one side, advertisements on the other. Acting for Mr. Skene, and presumably in his name, Valentine gave some of the Information asked for But “Victim” complained that he was again being robbed; he had followed the supposed “tips” and was worse off than ever; unless something definite was done for him by Shanklin Skene he threatened to carry out bis original intention and kill the operator on sight! “We’ve fooled with him about long enough,” at length said the inspector to one of his staff, Bob Quade. “I’ll get him, but in a way he little suspects." To the head of the detective bureau, sworn to protect life and property, the doubtful character of ShankJin Skene counted as nothing. His duty it was to detect and arrest those who openly violated the laws, made alike for the unjust and the just. “What’s the next move then?” inquired Quade. r “We must watch the mall boxes, night and day,” was the grim answer. “Yes, I know it’s a pretty steep contract, but It can be done. Look you, Bob, all these letters, from first to last, were postmarked from Station Q, over on the West side, which proves that they were mailed somewhere in the district between Sixth and Eighth avenues, Thirty-second and Fortieth streets. Go up there and find out how many lamp-post boxes there are tributary to Station Q from which collections are regularly made." In an hour Quade was back with the report that there were a hundred and twelve boxes in all, not counting the various “drops" in the sub-station Itself. For two weeks a man in plain clothes from headquarters kept constant eyes on each of those hundred and twelve street boxes, with orders to report on or arrest any queer or suspicious characters seen approaching. But this plan brought no results —thq meshes of the net were too wide. During this time the correspondence with “Victim" was kept alive by judiciously “pollying him along”; also his letters continued to be mailed from somewhere in the postal district served by Station Q. Now Valentine prepared to strike and quickly. He requisitioned from the general postoffice for a single day a hundred and twelve letter carriers in regular uniform. With these he coupled as many detectives tn plain clothes. Carriers and detectives were stationed, two to each box and within sight of each other. Thus every one of the hundred and twelve boxes was watched by two men. Valentine’s ingenious instructions were as follows: Every time a person deposited a letter In a street box the* carrier on watch was to step up, unlock the box, and read the address on the letter just deposited, while the detective kept an eye on the departing person who had mailed the letter. If 1» was not addressed to Shanklin Skene the mail carrier was to snap a rubber band around it to distinguish It from later letters which might be mailed.

On the other hand, if the envelope was addressed to Skene, the 'mall carrier was to raise his cap as a sign to the watching detective, who was forthwith to place the suspect under arrest. » But on the night before this vast trap was baited, a decoy advertisement was left to be inserted in the Herald next morning which Inspector Valentine believed would elicit an immediate reply from “Victim” by mail tbe following day. If the vast and rather cumbrous machinery thus brought Into play seems like “gunning tor snipe with a gatling pa." It must be remembered that Valentine had to deal with a wily

and a elever so«. All otter means « detection had tatted. Unless the inspector or Ns mon could catch “Victim" red-handed tn the act of mailing one of the incriminating letters the case looked hopeless. However, nothing succeeds like*euocess, and Finney Valentino's elaborate and well-laid plot was justified by the result At about three o’clock In the afternoon of the fateful day an elderly, well-dressed man of military typo and bearing, white mustaohed and erect, carrying a tightly-rvlled umbrella, camo strolling along Thirty-sixth street between Seventh and Eighth avenues. The thoroughfare was almost deserted. It being a quiet residence street As the gentleman reached the corner ho drew from his overcoat pocket a letter, which he casually dropped in the lamppost box. In the act of doing so giving a quick glance around him. Then he leisurely continued on his way west on Thirty-sixth street The carrier on duty at that spot was named Charles King. As though in the line of duty he had the box open almost as soon as the man had passed on. Even had the latter turned his head to look back It is probable that he would have been unsuspicious, seeing merely a uniformed letter-car-rier collecting the mall. Carrier King glanced quickly at the topmost letter and gave the agreed signal. The address was that of Shanklin Skene! On the northwest corner diagonally opposite stood Riley Gannon from the Central office, while a second officer, Dan Williams, stood on the north side of the street. He also picked up the signal. Before he knew what was impending, the two detectives had the whitemustached man under arrest On the way to face Inspector Valentine at 300 Mulberry street the captive preserved a cool, jaunty demeanor and resolutely Wptrhls mouth shut But on being ushered Into that terrible room where so many criminals had practically convicted themselves, and which was decorated with the symbols and weapons of almost every known crime, the prisoner lost his nerve, broke down and confessed everything. His name he gave as Robert Jerdan, formerly a colonel in the Confederate service. He admitted that he had written all the letters signed “Victim" and “Texas Correspondent,” giving as reason and justification therefor the fact that Shanklin Skene, through one of his railroad wreckings, had almost completely ruined Colonel Jerdan and his family. These losses he had attempted to recoup by “coppering" what he supposed were Skene’s trades in the open market, with the result that he only got deeper into the mire. While he was being put through Valentine’s famous “third degree,” after obtaining his place of residence. Detective Bob Quade had made a hurried trip uptown and found in the prisoner’s rooms not only an old-fash-ioned Caxton typewriter, but a lot of stationery similar to that used in the Skene letters. • It was Inspector Valentine’s merciful opinion that Jordan’s mind was slightly unhinged. Now that the anonymous writer was caught and the flood of threatening letters stopped, Shanklin Skene lost his nerve, probably dreading the exposure and the scandal of a public trial, and declined to prosecute on condition that Colonel Jerdan gave his word to “go and sin no more" In that particular way. But he remained a firm friend to Inspector Valentine as long as he lived.