“Give my love to Billy Pinkerton when you see
him. Tell him Jim Cummings did this job.”
As he uttered these words, the train commenced slacking
up, and as it stopped, Cummings, opening the door,
with his valuable valise, leaped to the ground, closed
the door behind him, the darkness closed around him
and he was gone.
Inside the car, a rifled safe, a bound and gagged
messenger, and the Adams Express Company was poorer
by $100,000 than it was when the ’Frisco train
pulled out of the depot the evening before.
Pinkerton to the rescue.
The next day the country knew of the robbery.
Newspapers in every city had huge head lines, telling
the story in the most graphic style.
Jesse James OUTDONE! The Adams Express
Company robbed of $100,000!
The express messenger found gagged
and bound to his own safe—the
robber escapes—absolutely
no clews—Pinkerton to
the rescue!
Mr. Damsel, the superintendent of the St. Louis branch
of the Adams Express Company, was pacing anxiously
up and down his private office. Fotheringham
was relating his exciting experience, which a stenographer
immediately took down in shorthand. At frequent
intervals Mr. Damsel would ask a searching question,
to which the messenger replied in a straightforward
manner and without hesitation. It was a trying
ordeal to him. Innocent as he was, his own testimony
was against him. He knew it and felt it, but
nothing that he could do or say would lighten the
weight of the damaging evidence. He could but
tell the facts and await developments. When he
was through Mr. Damsel left him in the office, and
immediately telegraphed to every station between Pacific
and St. Louis to look for the linen and underclothing
which the robbers had thrown from the car. The
wires were working in all directions, giving a full
description of Cummings and such other information
as would lead to his discovery.
Local detectives were closeted with Mr. Damsel all
day, but so shrewdly and cunningly had the express
robber covered his tracks, that nothing but the bare
description of the man could be used as a clew.
Fotheringham was put through the “sweating process”
time and again, but, though he gave the most minute
and detailed account of the affair, the detectives
could find nothing to help them.
That Fotheringham “stood in” with the
robber was the universal theory. The story of
the letter and order from Mr. Barrett was received
with derision and suspicion.
Mr. Damsel himself was almost confident that his employee
had a hand in the robbery. It was a long and
anxious day, and as it wore along and no new developments
turned up, Mr. Damsel became more anxious and troubled:
$100,000 is a large sum and the Adams Express Company
had a reputation at stake. What was to be done?
