The Great Taxicab Robbery: A True Detective Story

At that period of the winter trains were delayed everywhere by storms, so the “Orange Growers” had opportunities to make inquiries at stations and railroad restaurants all along the line to Buffalo. They were in search of their “brother,” who was described in terms of Kinsman’s personal appearance, and was supposed to be on his way somewhere with another man. At Syracuse an observant waitress remembered their “brother” distinctly, having served both the men when their train stopped for supper. Finally, the two “Orange Growers” got snowed up in Michigan for a time, and there we will leave them for the present.

Montani Quizzed Once More

By Thursday many loose ends of the case were being brought together so effectually that the outlook seemed exceedingly bright.

But only to the executive circle in Dougherty’s office.

Outside, all was dark. Newspaper criticism had become more caustic than ever, and the public, after the ingrained habit of New York, was turning its attention to fresher news sensations.

At a big annual dinner of police officials held that evening, February 22, the atmosphere of gloom resting upon the department was most tangible. The fourteen hundred guests, who were chiefly police inspectors, captains and lieutenants, felt that a stigma lay upon the service with which they were identified. They had no means of knowing, of course, that one week from that night the gloom would have lifted, criticism be turned to praise, and that policemen generally would be, as a witty lieutenant put it, “back to our official standing again—which never was so very high.”

Montani had called at Police Headquarters repeatedly, accompanied by his unseen shadowers. He professed to be anxious to furnish further information, if it lay in his power, and the Commissioner chatted with him cordially, leading him to believe that he no longer rested under the slightest suspicion.

On Friday Dougherty made an interesting effort to “break” Montani.

He now had a minute physical description of Kinsman, as well as two photographs of him. The chauffeur was asked to describe once more the man who had sat upon the cab seat with him. The questions went over details from head to foot, and were prompted by details of Kinsman’s real appearance.

Montani said the man had large brown eyes, which was true.

He remembered that he had talked with a good American accent, and used words not common to the criminal, which was also more or less true.

He suddenly recalled a gold-filled tooth in the robber’s upper right-hand jaw, a point already furnished by informants.

In fact, as this new examination went on, it became clear to the Commissioner that Montani was actually describing Kinsman, changing only one detail. He said that the robber had had a dark mustache, while it was certain that Kinsman had been smooth-shaven.

Suddenly the Commissioner tried what is known as a “shot.”

The examiner in such an inquiry is often in possession of incriminating evidence. Instead of producing it bluntly as evidence, however, he will perhaps let it slip out bit by bit, as though by awkwardness, meanwhile maintaining an appearance of absolute confidence in the suspect’s integrity. A classic example of this device is found in the Russian writer Dostoieffsky’s “Crime and Punishment.” The skillful “shot” is usually far more disconcerting than evidence produced openly to overwhelm. For the suspect assumes that the examiner really knows nothing, and has merely blundered. So he is on his guard outwardly. But he also worries inwardly, and this trying conflict between inner doubt and the need for keeping up outer calm will often break him down completely.

Dougherty’s “shot” was a photograph of Kinsman.

By pre-arrangement an assistant came into the office and began turning over some papers on the Commissioner’s desk. The photo of Kinsman popped out where Montani could see it plainly, and then was hurriedly put out of sight again. The Commissioner scolded his assistant, and the latter stood shamefaced and silent.

But in this instance the device failed.

Montani not only betrayed no interest in Kinsman’s picture, but took the awkward assistant’s part, and asked the Commissioner not to scold him.

Montani had planned his crime, fitted the plan with men, laid out every detail in his mind, and arranged his story beforehand. He expected to be arrested, and said so. He admitted that there were inconsistencies in his story, but hoped to clear them up. He had discussed the crime with Jess and Dutch, and had not been seen in the company of the other criminals. So, having settled on his story, Montani stuck to it without variation under every form of pressure. Others forgot what they had arranged as their defense, or departed from it, or broke down and confessed. But not Montani. He alone went to trial, and stuck to his story until the end.

The “Orange Growers” in Chicago

When Daly and Clare, the two New York detectives working as the “Orange Growers,” arrived in Chicago, they went to Police Headquarters in that city, made inquiries about Kinsman and Splaine, and secured the aid of Chicago detectives. Then they put up at a hotel where, by arrangements with the house detective, they occupied a room on the second floor handy to a little-used stairway leading to a side street, which would make it easy to slip in and out without going through the lobby. On the trip from New York both of them had neglected shaving, and Daly was an especially tough-looking citizen, for his beard grows out stiff and bristly, with black and red intermixed, and a little green to help the general effect. With suits of old clothes and sweaters they were so little like their official selves that for several days, though they went rather freely around resorts frequented by crooks who knew them in New York, they were not recognized.

The “Orange Growers” now became a pair of hardened “yeggmen,” or bank robbers, and for three days were busy visiting thieves’ haunts all over the city, from the Levee district to the Stockyards. It was found that Kinsman and Splaine had put up at a high-class boarding house in a fashionable residence section. Kinsman seemed to be doubtful about the impression Splaine might make there, though in the opinion of the police Splaine was by far the more intelligent of the pair. So he took the landlady aside and asked her, privately, if she had objections to a prize-fighter in her house. The landlady replied, “Why, no! if he is a gentleman—many prize-fighters are just like other people!” Thereupon, Kinsman undertook that Splaine should behave himself. He also wanted to know if valuables were safe there, and the astonished landlady assured him that her house was like a home, that the guests were like one big family and seldom locked their doors, and that Mr. Smith, well known as an officer in one of the leading banks, had lived there for years.

The pair had spent considerable time in criminal haunts, but had now disappeared. Kinsman, as it was learned later, had returned to New York. Splaine was apparently in Chicago still, spending his money, but the two “Orange Growers” seemed never to catch up with him. Their man had always gone around the corner within the past hour.

Finally they planned a ruse with the aid of two Chicago detectives. Splaine had been intimate with a certain woman of the underworld, known as “Josie.” Clare went to her, represented himself as a “stick-up man,” said he and his partner were after that guy with all the money and diamonds, meaning Splaine, and that they meant to rob him. If Josie worked with them, like a good girl, she would come in for her third of the plunder.

Josie professed ignorance. She was sure, so help her Mike, cross her heart, that she knew nothing about no gent with any money or diamonds—no such a party had been near the house in months, worse luck. Clare argued awhile with no results, and then said he would come back a little later and bring his pal. Then Daly was introduced to Josie as the extremely undesirable citizen who would do the strong-arm work. But Josie still insisted that she had no idea what they were talking about.

They went out, and within a few minutes the two Chicago detectives, Dempsey and McFarland, known by Josie as officers, came in, described the disguised Clare and Daly as two of the most desperate “yeggmen” in the country, said that they had warrants for them, and asked if they had been seen. Josie crossed her heart again, and said that there had been nobody around there all evening—believe her, it was like living the simple life, and if things kept on bein’ so quiet she’d blow the town and go back to Keokuk.

Then, enter the two “Orange Growers” once more, to be warned by the fair Josie.

“Say, the bulls are after you boys, an’ you better pull your freight, ‘cause if you stay around here they’re goin’ to get you.”

“Aw, hell!” was the reply, “We’d just as lieve kill a cop or anybody else. We stick in this house till you tell us where we can reach that guy with the money and the diamonds—understand?”

Then Josie broke down, and told them Splaine had been there early in the evening, but had gone away to take a train out of town. She did not know the railroad, and urged them to leave. This was evidently the truth, so they hurried to Police Headquarters, telegraphed descriptions to other cities with a request that arriving trains be watched, and went to bed to get a little sleep, so that they could be at work early the next morning.

But in the morning word came from the Memphis Police that Splaine had been arrested there on alighting from a train, and they thereupon notified New York, went to Memphis, secured Splaine on extradition papers, and brought him back to the metropolis.

The Traps Are Sprung

On Saturday afternoon, February 24, while most of the energy of the Detective Bureau was centered on the taxicab case, a brutal murder was committed in Brooklyn.

Word came that a Flatbush merchant had been found dead in his store, shot by unknown criminals whose motive was robbery. They had taken his watch and five safety razors.

Inspector Hughes was sent to the scene of the crime, and Commissioner Dougherty quickly followed. The murder occurred about one p. m. By six o’clock the same day the number of the watch had been learned through a canvass of jewelers in the neighborhood, it being on record by one of them who had repaired it, and the watch and two of the safety razors had been found in pawnshops. Descriptions of the murderers were obtained, and by three o’clock Sunday, the following day, their identity had been established. Within thirty hours after the crime these men had been arrested, positively identified as the pawners of the stolen articles, and completely tied up in their own statements.

At half-past nine Sunday night, while the Commissioner, Inspector Hughes and Captain Coughlin, in charge of Brooklyn detectives, and Lieutenant Riley were winding up their work on this murder case, word suddenly came over the telephone to Commissioner Dougherty from an informant that Eddie Kinsman had been seen in New York with “Swede Annie,” and that he was accompanied by an unknown man, wearing a red necktie, supposed to be Gene Splaine. At the same time Matron Goodwin, stationed inside Annie’s lodgings, telephoned that she had information indicating that Kinsman had returned to the city.

When the Commissioner motored over to New York, he found his men covering a hotel on Third avenue, not far from 42d street. Kinsman and Annie were inside.

The Commissioner hurried to the 18th precinct police station and sent out a call for twenty-five detectives. Team work on the case had developed to such a degree by this time that, though the men came from many stations, they were all on hand in record time, a matter of twenty or thirty minutes. Then a squad of these plain-clothes men was sent to watch every railroad station and ferry house, each accompanied by one of the men from “Plant 21,” familiar with Annie from having followed her movements for a week. Surveillance on the hotel was strengthened, and steps taken to ascertain whether the unknown man in the red tie was really Splaine.

While making these arrangements, a curious incident occurred, showing how small is New York, after all, with its five million people. As Dougherty sat in the 18th precinct station, Detective Rein brought in a prisoner arrested for shooting a citizen. He was drunk and extremely disagreeable, and gave his name as “Steigel,” living at 98 Third avenue. Something in this address echoed to something in Dougherty’s memory—a keen one for names, dates, addresses and facts generally. He investigated further, and found that this prisoner was no other than the criminal Molloy, whose urgent need of “character witnesses” had played so important a part in furnishing the first information in the taxicab case.

By some mischance, these operations came to the ears of the newspaper men. Word went about, beginning in Brooklyn, that important arrests were to be made. The reporters followed the Commissioner in a crowd when he refused to make a statement. They not only hampered the work, but greatly endangered the outcome. On the following day, Monday, the papers published information about the police activities of the night before. The hazard here may be appreciated when the reader is told that Kinsman had been a persistent reader of newspapers from the day of the robbery, and that it was largely the pessimistic newspaper comment upon Montani’s release in court that led him to return to New York. Deceived by the newspaper chorus of “police demoralization,” and the easy way in which Montani had got free, he concluded that the taxicab investigation had been given up as hopeless.

Kinsman was arrested in the Grand Central Station at half-past eleven Monday morning, with Swede Annie and the unknown in the red tie. They were about to set out for Boston.

There were some amusing circumstances in the arrest.

Kinsman’s immunity over night, and police precaution in deferring the arrest until the last moment, on the chance that other persons would join the party, gave him a false confidence. He afterward admitted that ideas of a “pinch” at that time were far from his mind.

When a criminal thought to be dangerous is to be arrested in a crowded place like the Grand Central Station, police officers operate by methods that prevent a struggle. As two detectives closed in on the party, Kinsman watched one of them out of the corner of his eye. While a waiter at the “Nutshell Café” he had often thrown objectionable guests out onto the sidewalk. He now fancied that one of the detectives resembled a man he had once “bounced,” and was ready to fight if attacked.

“I was just folding it up,” he said, referring to his fist, “and getting ready to land on him when one had me from behind and the other in front. Then I knew they were cops.”

Annie was gorgeously dressed in a new blue suit and fine fur coat, bought out of the taxicab money. The unknown man proved to be Kinsman’s brother, who had come down from Boston with him. Kinsman had visited his native city before returning to New York, but had escaped the police net there by stopping at a hotel and sending for his brother. He sent a grip home by this brother, and it was afterward found to contain three packages of bills of $250 each in the original wrappers of the bank.

As soon as word of these arrests was telephoned to Police Headquarters, the other traps were sprung. Detectives brought in Montani, Jess Albrazzo and Myrtle Horn, the latter, with Annie, being held as witnesses.