Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 193, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 August 1916 — Page 3

The Ruse That Worked

“WOULD YOU MIND MY STANDING BY YOUR BOILER TO GET WARMED?"

The ruse which I am about to describe was perpetrated by me at the time when I was chief of police of Oil City, Pa., and resulted in the apprehension of an anonymous letter-writer. The case was more serious than that, however, for the property of a number of men, valued at several hundred thousand dollars, and the lives of an entire city as well, were Imperiled. One cold winter morning in the month of February I received a visit from a gentleman named Sam Ackert. Mr. Ackert was well known in the district, being the owner of a large oil lease, on the Towles farm, as it was called, situated upon the Plummer road, to the northeast of Oil City, and in Venango county.

Mr. Ackert was considered to be at that time one of the largest oil operators in the district. He was operating from twelve to fifteen oil wells, all of which were producing large quantities of oil. Some of it was being pumped while others were flowing wells. One of the latter kind was producing as much as four hundred barrels a day, and at that time crude oil was selling at the well for about eight dollars a barrel. Ackert employed a large number of men to attend to the wells and to look after his general interests. Some of these men were employed as engineers, being generally known in the oil regions as pumpers. To operate each well two of these pumpers were required, each man working for 13 hours at a stretch. Their work was divided into watches, and men who were so employed usually lived in houses or shanties adjacent to the wells at which they were employed. The cause of Mr. Ackert’s visit to me was that some months previously he had received a threatening letter in his mail.- It stated that unless he would discharge his superintendent, a man named Joseph Sullivan, and thoroughly competent and trustworthy, the property would be destroyed by fire or by other methods. Mr. Ackert paid no attention to this letter, which was followed in the course of time by three others of the same threatening character, each one being anonymous, and each demanding the discharge of the superintendent, Sullivan. The three letters followed each other at intervals of four or 1 five days. As Sullivan was not only a competent man S)ut thoroughly reliable and of good character as well, Mr. Ackert paid no attention to these letters, but laid them aside in his desk. A short time after the receipt of the last anonymous letter one of Mr. Ackert’s oil tanks, containing at the time from four to five hundred barrels of

Stories of the Greatest Cases in the Career of Thomas Furlong, the Famous Railroad Detective, Told by Himself Copyright by W. O. Chapman

crude oil, was emptied one night, at a time between midnight and daylight, by some person who had gone to the tank and opening what was known as the lower faucet. This faucet, which was two Inches in diameter, entered the tank at a point about six inches above the bottom. It was placed there for the purpose of drawing off the salt water at the bottom of the oil. All oil wells in that locality which did not flow but were operated by pumping produced a certain percentage of salt water, which came up with the oil out of the ground. Salt water being heavier than oil, it immediately settled to the bottom of the tank, and for this reason, tank had become nearly the mixture, it was the duty of the men employee as pumpers to open the salt water faucet at the bottom of the tank and let the salt water escape through it, the oil thus settling down and making room for a fresh influx above.

On the night when this tank was emptied in the manner described, there was about three feet of snow on the ground. The weather was cold, and the snow had been heaped up around the tank by the wind, so that It was piled about four feet above the salt water faucet at the bottom. The constant drawing off of the salt water had thoroughly saturated the ground for a space' of two or three square feet under the faucet, and the ground was soft and muddy, since the saturated earth would not freeze on account of the large quantities of salt which had intermingled with the dirt. Salt and snow form a muddy slush which does not harden. When the faucet was opened the salt water ran out, followed by the total contents of oil within the tank, amounting, as has been stated, to four or five hundred barrels. This oil, which was highly inflammable, even in its crude state, ran down into a ravine, which was thickly dotted with oil wells, partly belonging to Mr. Ackert and partly to other producers, for the distance of more than a mile. Had this stream, in the course Of its journey, reached any of the fires that were under the boilers of the pumping stations, it would instantly have ■been converted into a fiery river, carrying destruction all along the mile of its course, destroying hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of property, and probably sacrificing many lives. Mr. Ackert called upon me on the morning after this occurrence. "I have not the slightest idea who was dastardly enough to commit this malicious act,” he said. "I am not aware that I have an enemy on earth.”

THE EVENING REPUBLICAN, RENSSELAER, IND.

He begged me to use all possible efforts to discover who the person was and to bring him to justice. He then told of having received the anonymous letters, which he laid before me. lat once perceived that they were all written upon the same brand of paper, in a legible and penmanlike inanner, and evidently by the same hand and pen. By the end of the third day of my investigations, I had hit upon a clue. Joseph Sullivan, the superintendent, had employed two engineers whose names were George and Henry Book. George was a young man, married, and living in a cottage on the leased property, near the well. Henry, his brother, was single, and lived with George and his wife. They were both employed on the same well as pump* ers. George, who was employed on the day watch, was considered a very good engineer and a reliable man, while his younger brother, Henry, though known to be competent and energetic, was not nearly so reliable. He had been found asleep while on duty by Superintendent Sullivan on various occasions, for which he was several times reprimanded, and finally discharged from the service. It was subsequent to his discharge that Mr. Ackert had received the first of the anonymous letters.

In addition to the attempt to destroy property or, at any rate, to the draining off of Mr. Ackert’s tank, there had been the theft of oil well tools and other material on the Ackert and adjacent leases. This corroborated the supposition that the perpetrator of these acts was familiar with that portion of the oil territory. In fact, everything pointed to Henry Book as the guilty man.

Being familiar with the manner in which oil leases were operated, I donned the suit of an oil driller, consisting of overalls spattered over with sand pumpings, which gives the wearer th.e general appearance of a billposter. Thus equipped, I set forth on a cold night in February, the thermometer at the time standing below zqj-o. My objective was the pumping house of a well where I knew George Book would be on duty until midnight, when he would retire, to be succeeded by the man who had taken the position formerly held by his brother, Henry. Before making my way from Oil City to the Ackert property, I visited a meat market in the town, where I asked for five cents’ worth of liver.

“There’s a pet cat that seems to have adopted me,’’ I explained to the meat market owner. “She stays round my place and cries for food regularly at meal times, and so I guess it’s up to me to see that she gets it.” Having planked down my nickel, I received the chunk of liver which the proprietor cut off and wrapped up in a piece of paper. I took it around the corner, where I made further inroads into it with my jackknife. A small slice I placed in the hollow of my right hand. I then cut a thin piece and spread it on the back of the same hand, which I afterward tightly bandaged with a piece of white muslin. The liver soiled the (ightlydrawn bandage, which gave the appearance of a wound extremely inflamed and sore. I then tied two haridkerchiefs together and improvised a sling in which I could put my right hand at the right time. So equipped I

“THERE’S A PET CAT THAT SEEMS TO HAVE ADOPTED ME."

left Oil City, passing unrecognized through the streets by reason of my costume, and walked through the darkness and bitter cold to the pumping house on the Ackert property, where I arrived a few minutes after nine in the evening.

Inside the pumping house George Book was seated alone in a large easy chair, close to the boiler, which was fired and well lighted with natural gas, and was kept warm and neat. He was reading a novel when 1 entered. The engine house was located only a few feet off the main road that ran between Oil City and the neighboring town of Plummer, and It was not an unusual thing for oil men, or any other men for the matter of that, to stop at the door while passing, to get a drink or to warm themselves, especially on a February night with zero temperature. Book, looking up from his book, was consequently not in the least surprised to see another of his fraternity—as he Imagined me to be —standing at the door at that hour in the evening. "Would you mind my standing by your boiler to get warmed?” I asked. "Not a bit,” responded George Book. "It’s mighty cold outside, and I’ll be glad of your company. Where do you work?” he continued, eyeing me closely, and a little suspiciously at first.

“I have been working on the Foster farm,” I replied, naming a property which was situated on the Allegheny river, about fifteen miles southwest of Oil City.

"How did you get hurt?” asked Book immediately afterward, observing the bandaged hand, which I had slipped into the sling just before entering the pumping house. I fluttered something inaudibly and stood nearer to tthe boiler. After a period of silence I said in a slow manner, as a man uses who is about to reveal a confidence: “You have been mighty kind in allowing me to get warm in front of your boiler, and you look to me like you would not get a fellow into trouble by giving him away, so I will tell you all about it You see,” I continued, “I am a driller, and I was working under a superintendent. * We had some trouble over a girl, and he had a gun. He shot me through the hand.”

With that I pulled- my hand out of the sling and showed him the bandage, to which the liver, adhering, had given a hideously stained appearance, while the liver itself looked like a chunk of raw and quivering flesh. “Gracious! You’ve got an awful hand there,’’ said George Book, looking at the liver and the bandage and shuddering. “You ought to have it attended to at once.”

“I’m going to have it attended to when I reach Petroleum Center,” I answered. “I don’t want to stop on the way, either, because of the other fellow. I shot him, but I don’t know whether he is dead or not; in fact, I didn’t wait to see. I left immediately he dropped, and have walked the entire distance, only stopping long enough to get a cup of coffee at the eating house in the Oil City depot.” Book’s sympathy was now fully aroused, for he was really a goodhearted fellow. “You must be awful hungry,” he said

EACH DEMANDED THE DISCHARGE OF THE SUPERINTENDENT.

"Not very,” I answered. “I have some good friends at Petroleum Center who will feed me and look after me, and keep me under cover while the police are searching for me; and I guess they will get a doctor, too. What is worrying me most just now is that I cannot write with my left hand, and I want to write a letter. You see, my folks live at Fort Erie, Canada, which is just across the Niagara river, opposite Buffalo. I have been saving my money and sending it to my people at Fort Erie, and they have it all deposited in a bank at Buffalo, to my credit. I have several hundred dollars there, and if I could only write a letter tonight and mail it on the early morning train tomorrow morning, it would reach Fort Erie tomorrow night. My friends could then send me all the money I need, which I would receive the day after tomorrow at Petroleum Center.” George Book was thoroughly taken off guard. “I am a pretty good penman and would be glad to write the letter for you,” he answered. This, as a matter of fact, I knew already, for I had learned that George Book was a good scholar, having been a country school teacher some years before in his native county, Crawford county, Pennsylvania. He was also considered an extra good penman. At the same time, it was on Henry and not on George that the suspicion had naturally fallen. George Book excused himself and went to his house, which stood nearby, returning in a few minutes with letter paper, envelopes and a big lunch for two, including a pot of coffee. We ate the lunch together, and then I produced cigars from my pocket, and we lit up. After we had finished George Book started to write the letter at my dictation. In dictating this I used as many words as I could which had been used in the anonymous letters, with whose contents I of course thoroughly familiarized myself.

I at once perceived that George Book was using the same quality of paper as that upon which all the anonymous letters had been written and, in consequence, did not make my letter very long. I also perceived, before three lines had been set down, that he used the same handwriting, the same kind of Ink and, In all probability, the same pen as had been used previously. It was now obvious that the letters had been written by George. Whether or not he had drawn the oil out of the tank had still to be shown, and that was the more serious offense, by far. When the letter had been written Book addressed the envelope, inclosed the missive, and sealed and stamped It Apparently profusely grateful, I thanked him and departed in the. direction of Petroleum Center, but in reality toward Oil City, which I reached early the following morning after I had set out

During the course of the forenoon I submitted the dictated letter, which I had taken away, as though to post It, togther with the anonymous letters which had been sent to Mr. Ackert, to a writing expert who was connected with the First National bank of Oil City. He compared the four and said without hesitation that they had all been written by the same person. That afternoon I went back to the Ackert lease, knowing that George Book would be off duty and in bed, and that, in consequence, there would

be no probability of my meeting him. Approaching the emptied tank, I carefully shoveled the snow from around the salt water faucet and, when I got down to the muddy ground, I found very distinct traces of a No. 8 boot. The boots had been very recently half soled, and the shoemaker who had made the repairs had placed three nails in a row across the center of the half sole, as his trade mark and sign manual. Returning to Oil City, I made diligent inquiries among the shoemakers of the town. There was not a large number of men who did repair work of the rough and ready type which was required by the men employed in the oil leases, and after a short Investigation the man who had soled the shoes was discovered. He at once remembered having repaired a pair of shoes for Henry Book a couple of days before the oil tank had been emptied. It developed then that both the brothers were in the conspiracy, the one having written the letters and the other having acted upon the. threat contained in them. Undoubtedly George Book had been more or less a tool in his brother’s hands, for with a wife and a good position he had no reason to feel a grudge against his employer on account of the superintendent I at once procured a warrant for the arrest Of the Book brothers, and that night returned to the Ackert lease, this was a sleigh and accompanied by two officers. Arriving about 11 o’clock I found George Book in the pumping house on duty, as he had been the night before, and at once arrested him. I then proceeded to George’s house, where I found his brother Henry in bed and arrested him also. After this the house, which was a one story building with an attic, was thoroughly searched, and wagon loads of loot were found, all of It taken from the Ackert and adjacent leases. This was afterward Identified by the owners as having disappeared from time to time. After a preliminary hearing the Book brothers were committed to the county jail in default of bail. Henry Book soon confessed to the emptying of the oL tank and George to the writing of the anonymous letters. There seemed no doubt of their conviction. However about a week before the trial was to have begun there was a jail delivery from the * county jail at Franklin, Pa., fifteen or more prisoners making their escape, among them being the Book brothers. They boarded a northbound freight train on the A. & G. W. railroad, now known' as the Erie. When at a point about twenty miles north of Franklin this freight train collided with another train and in the wreck Henry Bock was killed instantly, while George was so badly hurt that he died the following day. This was the ending of the Book case, which occupied in all only six days of my time.

An Agreement at Last.

Silas fled before his irate wife, and seeking the first shelter that presented itself, crept under the bed, from whence after a Short time, he peered cautiously out. Seeing his wife standing near by with An uplifted broom, he shouted: “Mlrandy, I think it’s about tiros somebody was boss in this house.”— Christian Herald.