Hands were shaken, the last words of advice given,
and Cummings plunged into the labyrinth of gullies
and underbrush, leaving his companions each to pursue
his own way, Moriarity going west, while Haight, going
east, sprang the fence, and entering a thick patch
of bushes, brought out a horse, saddled and bridled.
Mounting this he struck into a quick canter across
the country toward St. Louis.
The first clew found.
Mr. Pinkerton had passed an anxious week, Never before
had he been so completely baffled. The finding
of the letter-heads with Bartlett’s name written
on them in Fotheringham’s trunk had quite upset
his theories. Yet the most searching examination
could find nothing in the suspected messenger’s
previous movements, upon which to fasten any connection
with the robbery.
The vast machinery of Pinkerton’s Detective
Agency was at work all over the country. His
brightest and keenest operatives had been brought
together in St. Louis, Kansas City, Leavenworth and
Chicago. False clews were sprung every day, and
run down to a disappointed termination. But all
to no purpose. Outwitted and baffled, Mr. Pinkerton
was treading his apartment at the Southern Hotel with
impatient steps; his brow was wrinkled with thought
and his eyes heavy with loss of sleep. In his
vast and varied experience with criminals he had never
yet met one who had so completely covered his tracks
as this same Jim Cummings. Of one thing he was
satisfied, however, and that was, that no professional
criminal had committed the robbery, and again that
two or more men were concerned in it.
In Fotheringham’s description of the robbery,
he had mentioned hearing an unusual noise in the fore
part of the car, as if some one were tapping on the
partition, and on examining the car, the bell-cord
was found to be plugged. This showed an accomplice,
or perhaps more than one.
That it was not done by a professional was clear,
because Mr. Pinkerton, having the entire directory
and encyclopedia of crime and criminals at his fingers’
end, knew of no one that would have gone about the
affair as this man Cummings had done.
As everything else has its system, and each system
has its followers, so robbery has its method, and
each method its advocates and practitioners.
This is so assuredly the fact that the detective almost
instantly recognizes the hand which did the work by
the manner in which the work was done.
This particular robbery was unique. An express
car had never been looted in this manner before.
“Therefore,” said Mr. Pinkerton, “it
was done by a new man, and although this new man had
the nerve, brains and shrewdness necessary to successfully
terminate his plans, yet he will lack the cunning
and experience of an old hand in keeping clear of the
detectives and the law, and will do some one thing
which will put us upon his track.”
