The Crime of the Century Part 12

But, to their eternal honor and credit, be it said, there were many staunch friends of the missing man, who, undeterred by slander and suspicion on the one hand, and questionable reports on the other, were determined that the mystery should be probed to the bottom, and that, dead or alive, the physician should be found. Among them were John F.

Scanlan, W. P. Rend, Frank Scanlan, P. McGarry, and T. T. Conklin. These and others came together and decided to send one of their number to Toronto to investigate the reports that had emanated from that city. An unlimited supply of money was pledged, and Pat McGarry was selected for the mission. Information regarding this action was telegraphed to Toronto and took the Canadian conspirators--who had not contemplated any such move--somewhat by surprise. Prompt action became necessary, and the only thing to be done was to make it appear that Dr. Cronin had disappeared from the city as suddenly as he entered it. Accordingly, dispatches to that effect were prepared and transmitted to the various papers that had received the previous reports. One of these was worded as follows:

Dr. Cronin is a fugitive. He has not been seen in Toronto since 10 o'clock this morning, when Long, his former Chicago friend, left him under the surveillance of an amateur detective, paid for the purpose. Cronin then was in a state bordering on terror, and begged frequently that detectives should not be put upon his track, and offered to give any additional particulars he knew about affairs generally. Dispatches from Chicago newspapers had given the story of suspicion against Cronin in respect to the trunk mystery. When asked about this mystery he denied that he knew anything. This morning, when the news contained in Chicago dispatches was communicated to him, he stuck to that statement, though once or twice threatened with exposure and the allegation that detectives were waiting in the vestibule of the hotel and had a warrant for his arrest on the charge of malpractice. He was next asked if there was any truth in the other story about his going to London to communicate with the British Government. His manner and evasive replies tended to create this impression rather than that he made his escape from Chicago over the trunk mystery. He said he intended in a day or two to return to Montreal, where he had been to get one of the Canada-French line boats to Paris. Then he said he might go to England.

Cronin promised he did not intend to leave Toronto for a few days.

He was not registered at the hotel, and the scores of reporters who called were informed that he was not staying there, and had not been there. This was arranged by Cronin's occupying a room engaged by another party, so the hotel clerk had no idea that the man was in the house. The information contained in the interview was no doubt intended by Cronin to mislead, and the interviewer was well aware of the fact at the time. He got his amateur detective at the end of the corridor and told him to keep his eyes open, and when Cronin was left alone in his apartment to see that he did not leave it. Some few minutes after, Cronin made a dash from his room and went toward the stairs. He had evidently seen the man who was watching him, and his action must have been taken after a great deal of deliberation. When the detective saw him on the stairs he walked to the staircase leading to the ladies' entrance to intercept Cronin there. Cronin, however, had only gone half way down the staircase. Then he returned and took the elevator, descending to the ladies' entrance, where the detective, not finding him, thought he had been fooled, and again returned to the head of the stairs. Cronin had disappeared. At 11 o'clock a second detective was at the hotel to renew the watch over Cronin.

There is no trace whatever of Cronin since 11 o'clock. The people at the Rossin House knew nothing about Cronin getting out. The theory is that Cronin, fearing arrest on the charge of murder, has gone to Montreal again. The only trains leaving the city to-day were the morning and evening express and the noon train for Hamilton. Cronin was seen after the morning express had left. The evening express was watched, and few people went on the noon train, no one of them answering to Cronin's description. The livery stables did not hire out any rig that could have carried the man a great distance out of the city. His disappearance is a perfect mystery. Dispatches from St. Catherines to-night say that Cronin is believed to be stopping there with friends. It would be outside the range of possibility that he could have reached there except by driving from Hamilton. Several dispatches have been received by Mr.

Axworthy, of Cleveland, and at the Rossin House, making inquiries after Cronin.

In this, as in the previous reports, the one thing which it was endeavored to bring into bold relief was the fact that the physician was about to cross the Atlantic, and, while McGarry was _en route_ from Chicago, Chief of Police Hubbard telegraphed to Chief Constable Grossett, of Toronto, asking for definite information regarding Cronin's alleged presence in that city. Instead of conducting an independent investigation, the Canadian official went to Long, and on the strength of the latter's statements, a reply in the affirmative was wired back to Chicago. Even this, however, was not accepted as final, and Detectives Reed and Reyburn were wired to follow up the supposed clue. Starkey was interviewed as to the truth of Long's story. He replied that he had seen Cronin, that the latter had been at his (Starkey's) house, but that he had no knowledge of his subsequent whereabouts. W. Axworthy, an ex-Chicagoan, when telegraphed by W. P. Rend to learn whether the physician had actually been there, went to Long, heard his story, and answered, "Yes." A "prominent railroad official" was next quoted as having recognized the physician, and on the morning subsequent to his alleged disappearance from Toronto, the Chief of Police of St.

Catherines, Ontario, positively recognized him in Sherwood, New York!

But with the arrival of McGarry the falsity of one and all of these stories became apparent, and the infamous prost.i.tution of the liberty and license of a journalist, of which Long had been guilty, was fully demonstrated. It took the young Irishman but a few hours of investigation to convince himself of the fact that the missing physician had not been seen in Toronto since the day of his disappearance. The same conclusion was arrived at by Detective Dennis Simmons, of Chicago, who had been despatched to the scene by Chief Hubbard, and had, unknown to McGarry, conducted an independent investigation. Simmons wired his superior briefly and to the point: "No truth in it, Cronin has not been here," while the same wires carried this message from McGarry to Frank J. Scanlan:

"Proprietor and clerk on duty do not recognize Cronin's picture as stopping at Rossin House last week. Name not registered at all. No signature resembles Cronin's. Sure interview did not take place with their knowledge."

And, to make the repudiation the more complete, Chief Constable Grossett, who, earlier in the week, had endorsed the statements of Long in hap-hazard fas.h.i.+on, retracted his statements in a letter to the Chicago authorities, in which he said:

"I have caused particular and exhaustive inquiry to be made into the statements that have appeared in the _Empire_ newspaper of this city, and have caused the party who gave the information which was telegraphed you to be questioned closely on the subject. It would now appear that the identification of Dr. Cronin by the party who stated he saw him in Toronto last Sat.u.r.day was by no means complete; in fact, I think there are the best of reasons for supposing it to have been a case of mistaken ident.i.ty. It is quite true that the party here thought he met Cronin in the street, stopped him, and afterward saw the man leave the city by train with a woman. So far as I can learn this is the foundation for the sensational reports that have been transmitted from here and published in your papers. I regret that in sending you my telegram on Monday last more care was not taken to verify the correctness of my informant's statements."

A BIG REWARD OFFERED.

Public interest in the mystery was renewed by these developments. The theory of foul play was again revived, and this time it found numerous supporters, where incredulity had previously existed. Again the friends of the physician were equal to the situation. Another conference was held and it was decided to persevere in the search until the mystery had been solved. Funds to any extent were pledged on the spot. "We will find our friend, if alive; we will avenge him, if dead" was the key note.

That night the following address was flashed over the electric wires to every quarter of the continent.

TO THE PUBLIC: On the night of May 4, 1889, Dr. P. H. Cronin, a prominent and respectable physician of this city, was decoyed from his home to attend an alleged case of injury to an employe of an ice dealer in the town of Lake View. Since that time no trace of him has been found, and it is believed that he was made the victim of foul play, and that he is murdered.

On behalf of his friends and fellow-citizens, who think that his disappearance is due to a conspiracy, I hereby offer a reward of $5,000 for any information that may lead to the arrest and conviction of any of the princ.i.p.als in, accessories to, or instigators of this crime.

A studied attempt seems to have been made, by false dispatches, and other agencies in the public press, to create the impression that he is still alive, and that his disappearance is voluntary.

I am also authorized to offer a further reward of $2,000 for any satisfactory evidence that will prove that he is not dead, and that would lead to the discovery of his whereabouts.

The public is asked to discredit any and all charges, reports, or insinuations reflecting in any manner upon his professional or personal character. He was a man of temperate habits and lived a pure and unblemished life.

The above rewards are offered by his friends and fellow-citizens with the full conviction that a terrible crime has been committed, and with the view that law and order may be vindicated.

JAMES F. BOLAND, Chairman of Com. from Societies and Friends.

CHAPTER VI.

HOPING AGAINST HOPE--THE STENCH IN THE SEWER--"MURDER WILL OUT"--A GHASTLY DISCOVERY--WHERE THE BODY WAS FOUND--THE RECOGNITION BY CAPTAIN WING--ITS HORRIBLE APPEARANCE--EVIDENCES OF A FOUL CRIME--THE CORPSE AT THE MORGUE--PITIABLE SCENES OF GRIEF--THE OFFICIAL AUTOPSY--THE BRUTAL WAY IN WHICH THE PHYSICIAN HAD BEEN DONE TO DEATH.

It is always the unexpected that happens.

Even the closest friends of the missing man, earnest as they apparently were in the declaration of their belief that he had been the victim of foul play, still hoped against hope that their fears would not be realized. As a drowning man clings to a straw, so they clung to the hope that they would again see him alive and in the flesh.

But it was not to be.

Dr. Cronin did _not_ leave Chicago on the night of his disappearance.

He was _not_ seen on a street car apparently en route to the depot.

He was _not_ recognized on Canadian soil; nor did he unbosom himself to reporter Long.

He was _not_ en route to London to betray the cause to which he had devoted so large a portion of his active life; or to re-enforce the spy Le Caron in his work of infamy.

Dr. Cronin was murdered.

While these reports and rumors were confounding his friends and making his enemies exultant; his body, hacked and marred and battered, was rapidly decomposing in one of the sewer catch-basins in the town of Lake View.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE CATCH-BASIN--SOUTH VIEW.]

WHERE THE BODY WAS FOUND.

Ten days after the physician's disappearance the board of public works of Lake View received a complaint that the sewer at the corner of Evanston Avenue and North Fifty-Ninth Street was apparently choked up, and that the foul air in the neighborhood was beginning to be a nuisance. No immediate action was taken. Another complaint came in, and another, and very soon they were counted by the score.

Finally, realizing that the complaints demanded attention, Otto Failmerzger, chief clerk of the department, hung on the hook an order to the foreman of the gang charged with the care of gutters and sewers, to remove the supposed obstruction in the sewer without delay. On the following morning--Tuesday, May 22nd--the foreman in question, Nicholas Rosch, accompanied by two of his a.s.sistants, John Finegan and William Michaels, went to the locality indicated. They found that the ditch on the east side of Evanston Avenue was partially filled with water, which was constantly creeping from a damaged fire plug. The fall of water here was to the north. About twenty feet north of the fire plug was a catch-basin into which the water from the ditch was supposed to flow, just as it flows into them in sections of the city that are paved. At this point, however, the sand had rolled down from the roadway into the open ditch, damming up the water so that it could not escape into the basin. One glance at the ditch convinced Foreman Rosch that this was the source of the trouble, and procuring their shovels, the three men went to work with a will to throw out the moist sand. It was a slow and laborious job, and it was well on towards four o'clock when they reached the immediate vicinity of the catch-basin. The latter, as will be seen in the ill.u.s.tration, was circular in form, built of brick, and with a heavy wooden top on a level with the street. About two feet below the top was an opening in the side of the brick wall to the southwest. In this a barred iron grating was set, through which the water from the ditch was supposed to flow. With the exception of this side, which was open to the bottom of the grating, the circular brick basin was surrounded by dirt almost to the street level. The locality was precisely one mile north of the spot where the b.l.o.o.d.y trunk had been found, the same roadway leading directly to the catch-basin and almost directly to the neighborhood of O'Sullivan's ice-house whither Dr.

Cronin had been summoned by the mysterious messenger.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE CATCH-BASIN, SHOWING FIRE-PLUG AND DITCH.]

"MURDER WILL OUT."

The laborers wondered, as they shoveled the sand out of the ditch, what it was that caused the terrible stench that pervaded the atmosphere. It was indescribably strong and noisome, and more than once they were almost compelled to cease their work. Yet, although they searched around and examined the ground for a square block, they could find nothing to which it could be attributed. At last the ditch was cleaned out, and the foreman concluded to take a look into the catch-basin before quitting for the night. Accordingly, getting down on his hands and knees, he peered through the iron grating. In the darkness he could discern something white apparently floating in the water.

"There's a dog in here" he called out "and that's what has been making this stench."

"That's strange" replied Finegan, coming up "how the deuce could a dog get in there?"

Finegan pressed his face close to the bars for a moment.

"Great heavens," he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, "it's a corpse!"

[Ill.u.s.tration: DISCOVERY OF DR. CRONIN'S BODY IN THE CATCH BASIN.]

[Ill.u.s.tration]

To tear off a portion of the heavy plank top of the basin was to the three strong men but the work of a moment. The foul air and stench that escaped caused their heads to swim and their faces to turn pale; but, quivering with excitement, they bent over the edge and peered down into its depths. What they saw filled them with horror. The basin contained the nude body of a man. A large quant.i.ty of cotton batting had been thrown over the corpse partly concealing it. A towel was tightly tied around the neck. The head was bent forward upon the breast and was entirely submerged.