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Show I PARALLEL 1 1 I STO R I E S Deed and Sought to Close Every Avenue of Knowl- T X AMOU5 edge Leading to His Guilt. Cn t r r G The Detective Shows How 1 1 M L O Futile These Efforts Were and g How the Old Adage, Murder I By HENRY C. TERRY Will Out, "Always Holds Good." 1 1 (Copyright br P. L. Nelson THE GREAT ENGLEWOOD ROBBERY. ROB-BERY. T7TJt ID you ever think how a M t$m l burglar, who breaks into &!flefe your house regards you? NfcjiM You Plav an Important part fff in his scheme of things, It is true, but he hasn't a very high opinion of you, at least of your fighting abilities. The thieves who broke into the house of Banker Baldwin, at Englewood, N. J., a few years ago and perpetrated cruel outrages upon every member of the family had no fear of dogs or guns. They did their work with fiendish precision and congratulated themselves them-selves that they left no clue. But the teeth marks left on one of the gang by a faithful bull dog who died defending his mistress, proved their undoing. Now let the principal actors ac-tors tell the story. DANNY M'BRIDE'S STORY. In the days when masked burglaries were In vogue, and all the villages within one hundred miles of New York were considered by these special spe-cial students of the dark lantern and Jimmy as the proper places for them to visit, there was no more desperate gang In the world than that led by Danny McBrlde, who was a Bort of a hero among the lower class of cltl-lens cltl-lens In the old Second Ward. Danny followed thieving on the bay and river front for several years, but the business was not very remunerative, remunera-tive, as most of the stuff which was stolen was disposed of as old Junk. It was about as safe a line of thievery thie-very as there was going, because Danny and his gang, which consisted of Ben Harper, "Simmy" Kelly, "Old Man" Dobbs, Pete Beller and Jack Opp, were such cold-blooded cutthroats cut-throats and careless handlers of the knife and revolver that no one, not even the police, cared about running up against them. They were known as the greatest collection of rough-and-tumble fighters, fight-ers, and many a bitter battle did they have single-handed or together with the champions of the Ninth, or American Ward, as It was known at that time. It was the tosB of a cent who was the better man, Abe Hicks, the American, or Danny McBrlde. And, although they had a dozen fights In which all the work was done while they were lying In the street, they always came out about even. The last fight they had, John Morrlssey was the referee, and he was in sympathy sym-pathy with McBrlde. Hicks seemed to be getting a trifle the best of the argument, and Morrlssey interfered. Then on the Morton street pier occurred oc-curred one of the bloodiest fights that I ever took place in the Ninth Ward. McBrlde went to the hospital covered with wounds and glory, and It was three months ' before he was able to get out. "It was along about this time that Jeff Reynolds, whose life I saved when Billy Porter was trying to fill him full of lead, came down from Sing Sing after doing a stretch of ten years, and the first thing he did was to hunt me up. I was then under cover for a highway trick on Staten iBland, but Jeff knew where to find your uncle. When I found out that the cops had no pipes on me for the Staten Island Job I went In with Jeff, Ben Harper, I,ong Sam Wiley and Spanish Forbes. Forbes was a nigger. "Jeff got up a scheme to do the towns on the East and Hudson River fronts, and travel in a sloop. I always al-ways liked the water, and this Just suited me. We worked off the tricks in the houses on each side of the rivers riv-ers one after the other, so as to throw down the police. All our sailing sail-ing was done in the night, and Forbes, who traveled on shore as a beggar, planted the places 'or us. It was dead easy work, and more like a picnic pic-nic than anything else, calling up people peo-ple in the night with masks on and relieving them of their wealth. We had plenty of luck on the Hudson River front and raided over forty houses. The game got so hot that' committees went out at night with rifles to hunt for crooks and we pulled off for a while as it never pays to be a target even for a bad hunter. "Whlla laying off I picked up a paper pa-per and read of a 6well wedding at Englewood at the house of a man named Baldwin one of the wealthiest ducks in the neighborhood and some fellow had figured up the presents in Jewelry and silver plate as being worth $200,000. I showed It to Jeff, and said that we ought to give the place a call before any of the presents pres-ents were sold. He agreed with me and we sent Forbes to take a look at the place. He reported that the Job was as easy as finding the stuff on the road, and the night after the wedding wed-ding we landed in Englewood in a grocery wagon. "When we got alongside of the house I was afraid of alarm bells, so I sent Wiley to the top of the piazza to try his luck. The window catch was a double-ender, which could not be worked with a blade, and he had to cut out a pane of glass with a diamond dia-mond point. The window opened Into In-to a vacant room, and we all got Into the house that way. We put on our masks and started through the house. We struck old Baldwin's room first, and he actually showed fight. He tried to get to a knob which probably was a Bignal of some kind, and Jeff put him to sleep with a sandbag. They were all fighters in the house, and a young fellow shot Jeff through the arm In the hall. He was put to sleep before he could do any more shooting. The women three of them had to be tied up and gagged to keep them still. "When we thought that everybody was safe we divided up and went o a hunt for the swag. Forbes went to the front of the house, and In a few seconds I heard some terrible growls and a lot of things upsetting. I ran to the room, and there was Forbes having it out with a bull mastiff on the floor, with a young woman sitting sit-ting on the bed and urging the beast on. She was a beauty and not scared a bit. The mastiff was getting the best of the fight and had a grip on Forbes' neck which was making him look sick. I pulled my gun and ordered or-dered the girl to call off the dog, but she defied me and told me to blaze away. I saw the bluff would not work, so I got out my old blackjack, an ugly-looking thing, and hit the beast a clip on the skull that knocked the life out of him. "The girl flew at me when I banged the dog, like a wild animal, and I had all I could do to hold her without hurting her. I would not have harmed a hair of that spunky girl's head for a million, but I had to gag her for safety. I always felt sorry for her as she lay looking at the dog, which was probably her pet, and made a good fight to defend her. "We had easy sailing after that, and in every room there was a lot of stuff which we put into bags. All of It looked good and was very heavy. There was any quantity of Jewelry lying around, and In a small safe, which we had no trouble In forcing with a wedge, there was a load of diamonds Which had been described In the papers. We took our time In packing everything up in good shape, and after a good meal and a big draught of the old man's wine cellar, we quit the place. Harper was waiting wait-ing down the road a bit with the wagon, and we loaded all the stuff Into It." DETECTIVE MALLON'S STORY. "The dastardly treatment which the thieves," said Detective Mallon, "who did the work at Baldwin's mansion man-sion In Englewood gave the family caused great excitement, and the local lo-cal police were paralyzed and did not know which way to turn. Mr. Baldwin Bald-win lived part of the time in New York, and was a broker in Wall street. He requested us to give him aid In running down the thieves, and offered $20,000 reward for their capture. cap-ture. The case was given to me the second day after the robbery, and I went carefully over the ground. "I found the family In a terrible condition, and MIbs Alice Baldwin almost al-most crazy over the loss of her dog, which defended her so gallantly, and was burled in the finest part of the lawn. The others were all suffering from concussion of the brain from a terrible blow on the head. The only member of the family who could give any clue, which was of any value was Miss Alice, who slept through all the early part of the confusion and was awakened by the growling of the dog. The light was burning in her room, and she saw a heavy built man standing stand-ing beside her bed. She called the dog, who was lying at the foot of the bed, and set him on the thief. In the struggle the dog tore the mask off, and she saw the burglar wns a negro. "She said that she had Been the negro before in Englewood, and thought that she had seen him on a wagon loaded with garden truck going go-ing toward New York about two weeks before. Upon this Information I made a tour all through the country to get a trace of a missing negro and wasted a lot of time In following the wanderings of a colored man who had worked for several dayB with a farmer farm-er near Lodl. I found him, but there were no wounds on his body, and this left him out of the game. "When I returned to New York, I had a complete list of all the stolen goods, and made a tour of all the fences which were likely to give up information to the police, but learned nothing that would do me any good. A friend of mine who kept a liquor store in Greenwich street told me ol a watch which he had bought from a fellow who looked like a tramp about a week before, and It had all th6 marks of one of the watches which had been stolen. I took the watch tc Mr. Baldwin, and he Bald that It wai his property. "I made up my mind that the trami did not have any hand in the. rob bery, and had got possession of th watch In some other way. I hunted high and low for this fellow, In th( cheap dives, and finally landed a fel low answering to his description. 1 took him to the liquor dealer, and h was fully identified. I locked him ui and squeezed him very hard for In formation. He persisted that he hat! found the watch in the street, bu after he was put through the mill and charged with killing a man tc get the time piece, he admitted that he Btole it from a man who was Iy ing drunk In a hallway In Greenwich street "From the description that he gavi me and the knowledge of crook: which I had, I concluded that It was probably Danny McBrlde. I dropped downtown, and, after hanging around for a few days, I felt satisfied that Danny was In hiding for something. I could not find him In any of his haunts. "One evening, while going through Bleecker street, I met Frank Carroll, and he told me an amusing story about a voodoo woman, who sold charms to the superstitious negroes. She was from Cuba, Bpoke Spanish and had wonderful powers. She could destroy witches who follower1 negroes, ne-groes, and could cure diseases by the laying on of her hands. Carroll said that there was a report going around among the negroes that she had healed the wounds and destroyed the evil spirit which was bothering a negro ne-gro at a single sitting, for which service ser-vice she had received a fabulous sum. Ordinarily, I wouldn't have listened to this story, but by some strange influence I associated this negro with the one who had been bitten by the dog at Baldwin's house. "A good detective always run down every Idea, no matter how foolish it may seem, and I decided to have a chat with the voodoo doctress. She lived In a rear building in Wooster street, on the top floor, and received me with a great show of suspicion. I told her that I believed in her power pow-er to kill my enemies, and I offered to pay her liberally for one of her enemy-destroying charms. "In a few moments she limbered up a little and made a statement that fairly caused me to Jump for Joy. She said that the voodoo which had this man In his power had bitten him all over the body, and his flesh was filled with deep indentations from the teeth. That was all she would say then, and she would not tell who he was or anything about him except that he had gone to Cuba. I got a detective from the Mercer street station sta-tion to watch the house and in the evening I got Al Pender, a colored man who could be depended on to play a part. "He called upon the voodoo woman. and tne nrst tmng ne aia was iu pun out a big knife and sharpen it. He said nothing while doing this and the woman became very uneasy. When he got through the pantomime he told her in very solemn tones that the object of his visit was to kill her. He gave her one alternative. If she would tell him who the man was who called on her with the teeth marks in his body, her life would be spared and she would get $1,000 In gold. Pender shook a bag full of metal and gave her three minutes to anawer. She whispered the name of Spanish ForbeB. Pender knew that he had the woman In his power, and pressed the question, under the same conditions, as to where Forbes was. She told him he was in a certain cellar cel-lar In Wooster street. "I had heard all she Enid from the hall, and at this point opened the door. I ordered her to take me to Forbes, but it took a prod from Pender's Pend-er's knife to make her move. She had told the truth. Foroes was in the cellar in a seml-dellrlous state from morphine. lie talked all the time and I made the woman :,it on his bed He seemed to be frlphtened when he saw her. I risked him who was with him at the Englewood robbery, and when I told him that the woman had told me everything, he gave the names of Jeff Reynolds, Danny McBrlde, Mc-Brlde, Sam Wiley and Ben Harper, and told where they could be found. "That was enough for me, and I sent Forbes to a hospital .under guard. The same night I- captured McBrlde, Wiley and Reynolds. They were tried, convicted and put away for fifteen years in Jersey. I caught Harper two years later, and he got the same dose. Forbes, who turned state's evidence, got off with seven years. |