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Show aM;fttfK) .-jarclB.iiwt"j.MmiL.i ! Milium mmiuarwHi.iiiiniiiii mmi l p An fHFI I ! THE CRIMINAL Tells j li-LjLLJLJL 1 IlQw He pianned the l STORIES Deed and Sought to Close i ."V-AiNffrMTf Every Avenue of Know1' 1 f tfi-iiVlUUb edge Leading to His Guilt, j v T7-o r? The Detective Shows How 2 L ki I vi iC J Futile These Efforts Were and I How the Old Adage, Murder 1 By HENRY C. TERRY Will Out, 'Always Holds Good." P mireiin"" -"-"imnT-iiimiiiiiiimii'i ! innii nr-nimii hum imn J (Copyright br L. Nelson THE LAST OF THE RED PEPPER THIEVES. T lias been but a few fj months since New York el ,.. city rang with the story of Mtfjg'fs two bank messengers held Wfyjt. up iii a taxicab, beaten and ISp robbed of $25,000 right un-ihVW un-ihVW der the shadow of Trinity l' spire. It brought instantly jSkvbfc,, to my mind another sensa-2Sk sensa-2Sk (ional robbery that took place exactly at the same spot more than twenty-five years ago. The details, strange to relate, were almost exactly similar except that the former thieves did not, of course, attack at-tack a taxicab. But they more than doubled the taxicab robbers' haul, getting get-ting $53,000. They were widely known as the last of the famous. "Red-Pepper "Red-Pepper Gang." Their capture followed follow-ed as swiftly as did that of the recent re-cent robbers. It was my privilege to talk both with Phil Heinrich, one of the gang, and with Detective Da! ton, who was instrumental in their capture. Their stories form a unique chapter in the annals of crime, and prove thai crime, like the Paris fashions, moves in circles. PHIL HEINRICH'S STORY. "It is my firm belief." said Phil Heinrich. "that there is more philosophy philos-ophy among crooks than in any other class of people. Tl cy take what conies in their way in a moral sense as well as in a physical sense, without with-out complaint. I have seen the work of years go in a second without a murmur. I know a p-in of crooks who spent four years hiving an outfit for a bank and then pot dumped in the end. and I never heard a whimper from any of them. "I had a bit of this sort of luck myself my-self and know how it feels. I found that I took disappointment as well as the best of them and did not want anybody's sympathy. I was at that time running a counterfeiting layout in partnership with Sam Kllis. We had put up some very fine work in Philadelphia. We ran out an edition of twos, fives and tens in government notes which were beauties in every way. I t ell you the work was so good that we could have passed the bills on ourselves without knowing It. "Instead of turning out our work in two years, it was nearly four before be-fore we got ti e pla'es just right and got a 20cd imitation parer to use for printing. We ran off a big wad of money, and put it -in circulation as rapidly as possible. Just when we got thinsrs running beautifully, and it looked like a million a year, a blooming bloom-ing fire hit our house, and all the plates, parer n ;i ! presses were destroyed de-stroyed as well as t'e mute servant. "It was useless, for n time, to think about putting another counterfeiting layout to work in this country, so Sara and I wont up to I'nffalo and got ; a few samples of Can: 'a money to I experiment wU'.i. The lost bill that ! I saw for oor purpose svas the $10 Canadian bank note. !' was a pretty bill, rot nearly as cleverly put up as one of Unle Sara's $10 notes, and we decided to give ii. a test. We got a new set of tools, and laid out for a two years' job. We worked with the greatest care so as to avoid injuring a plate if possible, and we had magnificent mag-nificent luck. I never did such good work In my life, and I never saw Sam in quite such fine trim. "In just eighteen months we turned out a plate which, I'll bet. would have been accepted hy ilie government officials of-ficials of Canada as the genuine article. arti-cle. There appeared to be a great wad of dust in this layout for us, but before a single bill was laid down the pair of us got the collar. It all came through an inquisitive and gabby plumber, who was sent to our house to repair a broken pipe. He saw a lot of things during our absence which he did not know anything about, and got to firing off his mouth in bar rooms in . Buffalo. "His talk in some way reached the ears of the Treasury agents, and Sam and I were caught red-handed. It was the greatest throw-down I ever got, but when we got a chance Sam and I shook hands and smiled at our bad luck. He had not a word of complaint com-plaint to make, nor had I. I'll bet that there never were two men who lost a fortune so easily and kept more even tempers. "It looked a good deal like working for the state for about twenty years, but 1 did not lose heart. When I got Into the Erie county jail I studied the situr.tion of affairs very carefully, and I saw that I had more than an even chance of getting a peep of sunshine again. 1 set up communication with a friend of mine. When 1 was taken to the court to plead my friend shook me heartily by the hand. Incidentally he slipped up my sleeve in front of the bright-eyed coppers some very small tools whieh would be of great service to me. I took the precaution of putting them away in case I should be searched on entering the jail. I got through all right, and divided my tools with Sam, who had a cell on the same tier with me, about twenty-five feet away. My tools' consisted of a set of the finest steel band saws and a little box of acid to soften the iron and muffle the buzz of the saws when at work. "It took three nights to get through with everything except the automatic bolt which locks all the cells. After learning that Sam had made as good progress as I had, we arranged it to go through the last bolt before midnight mid-night and be ready to make a break as soon as possible after the midnight mid-night change in the watch. I got to work on the automatic bolt when the lights were put out early in the evening, eve-ning, and by 1 o'clock in the morning morn-ing I could shift my bolt in good shape. I tried the door and found that it opened easily. After the guard made the rounds I slipped Into the corridor. A moment later Sam appeared. ap-peared. "We had our plans all laid. I entered en-tered his cell. We waited for the guard to come round again, and as he passed the door we seized him from behind, dragged him into the cell and put him to sleep with a crack on the skull with an iron bar. I put cn his official coat and hat, took his keys, unlocked the door to a store room and sent in the half-hour signal to the main office. Sam used the saws as quickly as possible to go through the bars on the window, whilo I made the regular tour of the guards' corridor. "I had to go within twenty feet of another guard, but covered my face with my handkerchief during an assumed as-sumed fit of coughing, and ran the gauntlet in good shape. When Sam got through the bars I brought two sheets to him, which he made into a rope, while I made my last tour. "When I got back to the room everything ev-erything was in readiness. We slid down the rope to the top of the prison wall. It was an easy drop from there to the ground and we got away. It I was a very cold night and we forced I an entrance into a clothing store and got a new outfit. We decided that it was best for us to go It alone and make a line for New York. "We were fiat broke and had to I get money somewhere. We fixed up I a bit and tumbled onto a darling scheme the very first day out. Two young fellows, as we were passing the First National bank shortly after 3 o'clock, came out carrying a bag. They showed by their manner that they were on an important mission. We laid for them for two days, and found that they came out regularly each day with the bag. Then we fixed our play. "We waited for them to appear on the third day in Trinity church yard, and when they started up Broadway we got them before they had gone a block Stepping quickly up behind, each picked out a man and gave him I a handful of red pepper in his eyes. They dropped the bag like a shot, and l before they had time to yell I picked It up and we got lost in the crowd. It was a safe play to make a break for the Liberty street ferry with the bag as if we were going to take a train on the Central. I unloaded the bag in the lavatory and got just $53,-000 $53,-000 for the day's work." DETECTIVE DALTON'S STORY. "1 had the very great pleasure," j said Detective Dalton, "of running I down about the last of the Important red-pepper sneaks. "Knowing that it Is customary for thieves befqre carrying out a robbery of this kind to study the situation carefully and lay plans for the attack at-tack and escape, I hunted all over the neighborhood of the bank to find some one, if possible, who had seen any suspicious-looking' persons. I only learned enough to confuse me, as so many people had seen men who might have been the thieves. If all their stories were accepted there probably were one hundred crooks in' lower Broadway several days before the robbery. It is remarkable how little evidence can be picked up about an occurrence which, In the natural order of things, ought to have been seen by at least fifty men. The robbery rob-bery occurred in broad daylight at an hour when the street Is most crowded. crowd-ed. Yet after a long search I only found one person, who had seen anything any-thing which might be of value. I ran across a street vender who must have been within twenty-five feet of the messengers when they were attacked. ' "Ho did not see the assault, but a ; second later, and before he understood under-stood what had happened, he saw two men, very well dressed, hurry across Broadway and turn down Cedar Ce-dar street toward the North river. That was the natural course which j thieves who knew their business would have taken. The vender had j a pretty fair idea of the appearance j of the two men and their clothing. With that as a guide I went through Cedar street. I traced the men to West street by witnesses who had noticed them moving quickly as if they were in a hurry to catch a train, I but lost track of them In West street j until I reached the Liberty street ferry. Then I picked up the very I clue I was after. I "The ticket agent had seen the j men, and his attention was attracted j to them particularly because in buy- ! ing a tioket for Scranton one of them i took some money out of a bag. This ' was red-hot stuff. A moment later I ! struck something better. While searching for information from the ferry hands I ran across a porter who had found a valise In the lavatory and had taken it to the lost and found department. de-partment. It did not take me long to get there and see that bag. It was a medium-sized affair, and had been found unlocked and empty. There was no mark on it to Indicate where It had come from. I sent it to the bank and in a few moments received word that it was the bag which bad been used by the messengers. - "That point being cleared up, I next started the telegraph lines working, work-ing, and kept them hot until the train dispatcher held up the Scranton train at a station, and got the conductor on the wire. He had noticed every one on the train, simply as a matter of business, soon after leaving Jersey City. He was positive that no person answering the descriptions of either of the men who had brought the bag to the ferry house had been on board his train. This settled beyond reasonable reason-able doubt that the thieves had not left the city, at least by that route. "The porter who had found the bag had got a- very good look at the two men. He remembered them even more accurately because he had associated associat-ed them with the lost bag. His description de-scription tallied with that given by the street vender, except that he gave more complete details. In thinking it over it suddenly struck me that I had read a similar description somewhere. I could not place it until the next day. Then it came over me like a flash. What I had seen was the alarm which had been sent out at the request of the Erie county police giving the descriptions de-scriptions of Sam Ellis and Phil Heinrich, Hein-rich, fugitives from justice. "The case then appeared perfectly plain to me. Ellis and Heinrich, after leaving Buffalo, had come to New York instead of going to Canada, as had been generally believed. They probably had adopted the red-pepper scheme of robbery in order to raise money at once, since their scheme had been frustrated to flood Canada with counterfeit money. The job was not exactly in the line of either of the men, but they were, I knew, fully competent to undertake anything In any branch of thievery. "Unfortunately the newspapers got hold of the story of the finding of the bag and the description of the men. This was, of course, sufficient warning warn-ing to the team of worthies to dive deeper Into their hole, and made my work so much harder. How was I to get to Ellis and Heinrich? I did not know. They were a cunning lot, and I knew T had a stiff game. "One evening, while I was having some oysters In Billy the Bite's in Wooster street. Jack Griffin came In. A few moments later In came his old friend, Reddy the Blacksmith. They were both friends of Ellis and Heinrich. Hein-rich. To my utter amazement Griffin began telling in my presence about the arrest of both Ellis and Heinrich In Pittsburgh for fighting and cleaning clean-ing out a joint. Griffin was with them, but had got away safely. Both men were sent to the county prison for thirty days under fictitious names. I ate my oysters without any show of hurry, but I need not tell you that I did cot lose any time when I reached the street. "I notified headquarters and took the first train for Pittsburgh. I got there just In time to learn that the two men had been discharged upon bail after appealing their case. I knew that they were going to skip the town, and just for a flyer I hurried hur-ried to their lawyer's office. Luck was with me, and I met Ellis and Heinrich coming out with a satchel. I followed them until I met a policeman police-man and then closed in with them. I covered them with a gun while the policeman put on the handcuffs, and then we locked them up. It took a three months' fight in court to land them here, but finally they were tried and sent away for twenty' years." |