by Charles Fort
Emma Piggott’s lawyer showed that she had been nowhere near the house, at the time of the first fire; and that, when the second fire broke out, she, in the street, this off-evening of hers, returning, had called the attention of neighbors to smoke coming from a window. The case was too complicated for a police court, and was put off for the summer assizes.
Derby Mercury, July 19—trial of the girl resumed. The prosecution maintained that the fires could be explained only as of incendiary origin, and that the girl’s motive for setting the house afire was plain, and that she had plundered so recklessly, because she had planned a general destruction, by which anything missing would be accounted for.
Again counsel for the defense showed that the girl could not have started the fires. The charge of arson was dropped. Emma Piggott was sentenced to six months’ hard labor for the thefts.
Upon Dec. 2, 1919, Ambrose Small, of Toronto, Canada, disappeared. He was known to have been in his office, in the Toronto Grand Opera House, of which he was the owner, between five and six o’clock, the evening of December 2nd. Nobody saw him leave his office. Nobody—at least nobody whose testimony can be accepted—saw him, this evening, outside the building. There were stories of a woman in the case. But Ambrose Small disappeared, and left more than a million dollars behind.
Then John Doughty, Small’s secretary, vanished.
Small’s safe deposit boxes were opened by Mrs. Small and other trustees of the estate. In the boxes were securities, valued at $1,125,000. An inventory was found. According to it, the sum of $105,000 was missing. There was an investigation, and bonds of the value of $105,000 were found, hidden in the home of Doughty’s sister.
All over the world, the disappearance of Ambrose Small was advertised, with offers of reward, in acres of newspaper space. He was in his office. He vanished.
Doughty, too, was sought. He had not only vanished: he had done all that he could to be unfindable. But he was traced to a town in Oregon, where he was living under the name of Cooper. He was taken back to Toronto, where he was indicted, charged with having stolen the bonds, and with having abducted Small, to cover the thefts.
It was the contention of the prosecution that Ambrose Small, wealthy, in good health, and with no known troubles of any importance, had no motive to vanish, and to leave $1,125,000 behind: but that his secretary, the embezzler, did have a motive for abducting him. The prosecution did not charge that Small had been soundlessly and invisibly picked out of his office, where he was surrounded by assistants. The attempt was to show that he had left his office, even though nobody had seen him go: thinkably he could have been abducted, unwitnessed, in a street. A newsboy testified that he had seen Small, in a nearby street, between five and six o’clock, evening of December 2nd, but the boy’s father contradicted this story. Another newsboy told that, upon this evening, after six o’clock, Small had bought a newspaper from him: but, under examination, this boy admitted he was not sure of the date.
It seemed clear that there was relation between the embezzlement and the disappearance, which, were it not for the inventory, would have covered the thefts: but the accusation of abduction failed. Doughty was found guilty of embezzlement, and was sentenced to six years’ imprisonment in the Kingston Penitentiary.
In the News of the World (London) June 6, 1926, there is an account of “strangely intertwined circumstances.” In a public place, in the daytime, a man had died. On the footway, outside the Gaiety Theatre, London, Henry Arthur Chappell, the manager of the refreshment department of the Theatre, had been found dead. There was a post-mortem examination by a well-known pathologist, Prof. Piney. The man’s skull was fractured. Prof. Piney gave his opinion that, if, because of heart failure, Chappell had fallen backward, the fractured skull might be accounted for: but he added that, though he had found indications of a slight affection of the heart, it was not such as would be likely to cause fainting.
The indications were that a murder had been committed. The police inquired into the matter, and learned that not long before there had been trouble. A girl, Rose Smith, employed at one of the refreshment counters, had been discharged by Chappell. One night she had placed on his doorstep a note telling that she intended to kill herself. Several nights later, she was arrested in Chappell’s back garden. She was dressed in a man’s clothes, and had a knife. Also she carried matches and a bottle of paraffin. Presumably she was bent upon murder and arson, but she was charged with trespassing, and was sentenced to two months’ hard labor. It was learned that Chappell had died upon the day of this girl’s release from prison.
Rose Smith was arrested. Chappell had no other known enemy. Upon the day of this girl’s release, he had died.
But the accusation failed. A police inspector testified that, at the time of Chappell’s death, Rose Smith had been in the Prisoners’ Aid Home.
2
I am a collector of notes upon subjects that have diversity—such as deviations from concentricity in the lunar crater Copernicus, and a sudden appearance of purple Englishmen—stationary meteor-radiants, and a reported growth of hair on the bald head of a mummy—and “Did the girl swallow the octopus?”
But my liveliest interest is not so much in things, as in relations of things. I have spent much time thinking about the alleged pseudo-relations that are called coincidences. What if some of them should not be coincidences?
Ambrose Small disappeared, and to only one person could be attributed a motive for his disappearance. Only to one person’s motives could the fires in the house in Derby be attributed. Only to one person’s motives could be attributed the probable murder of Henry Chappell. But, according to the verdicts in all these cases, the meaning of all is of nothing but coincidence between motives and events.
Before I looked into the case of Ambrose Small, I was attracted to it by another seeming coincidence. That there could be any meaning in it seemed so preposterous that, as influenced by much experience, I gave it serious thought. About six years before the disappearance of Ambrose Small, Ambrose Bierce had disappeared. Newspapers all over the world had made much of the mystery of Ambrose Bierce. But what could the disappearance of one Ambrose, in Texas, have to do with the disappearance of another Ambrose, in Canada? Was somebody collecting Ambroses? There was in these questions an appearance of childishness that attracted my respectful attention.
Lloyd’s Sunday News (London) June 20, 1920—that, near the town of Stretton, Leicestershire, had been found the body of a cyclist, Annie Bella Wright. She had been killed by a wound in her head. The correspondent who wrote this story was an illogical fellow who loaded his story with an unrelated circumstance: or, with a dim suspicion of an unexplained relationship, he noted that in a field, not far from where the body of the girl lay, was found the body of a crow.
In the explanation of coincidence there is much of laziness, and helplessness, and response to an instinctive fear that a scientific dogma will be endangered. It is a tag, or a label: but of course every tag, or label, fits well enough at times. A while ago, I noted a case of detectives who were searching for a glass-eyed man named Jackson. A Jackson, with a glass eye, was arrested in Boston. But he was not the Jackson they wanted, and pretty soon they got their glass-eyed Jackson, in Philadelphia. I never developed anything out of this item—such as that, if there’s a Murphy with a hare lip in Chicago, there must be another hare-lipped Murphy somewhere else. It would be a comforting idea to optimists, who think that ours is a balanced existence: all that I report is that I haven’t confirmed it.
But the body of a girl, and the body of a crow—
And, going over files of newspapers, I came upon this:
The body of a woman, found in the River Dee, near the town of Eccleston (London Daily Express, June 12, 1911). And nearby was found the body of another woman. One of these women was a resident of Eccleston: the other was a visitor from the Isle of Man. They had been unknown to each other. About ten o’clock, morning of June 10th, they had gone out from houses in opposite p
arts of the town.
New York American, Oct. 20, 1929—“Two bodies found in desert mystery.” In the Coachella desert, near Indio, California, had been found two dead men, about 100 yards apart. One had been a resident of Coachella, but the other was not identified. “Authorities believe there was no connection between the two deaths.”
In the New York Herald, Nov. 26, 1911, there is an account of the hanging of three men for the murder of Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey on Greenberry Hill, London. The names of the murderers were Green, Berry, and Hill. It does seem that this was only a matter of chance. Still, it may have been no coincidence, but a savage pun mixed with murder. New York Sun, Oct. 7, 1930—arm of William Lumsden of Roslyn, Washington, crushed under a tractor. He was the third person in three generations in his family, to lose a left arm. This was coincidence, or I shall have to come out, accepting that there may be “curses” on families. But, near the beginning of a book, I don’t like to come out so definitely. And we’re getting away from our subject, which is bodies.
“Unexplained drownings in Douglas Harbor, Isle of Man.” In the London Daily News, Aug. 19, 1910, it was said that the bodies of a young man and of a girl had been found in the harbor. They were known as a “young couple,” and their drowning would be understandable in terms of a common emotion, were it not that also there was a body of a middle-aged man “not known in any way connected with them.”
London Daily Chronicle, Sept. 10, 1924—“Near Saltdean, Sussex, Mr. F. Pender, with two passengers in his sidecar, collided with a post, and all were seriously injured. In a field, by the side of the road, was found the body of a Rodwell shepherd, named Funnell, who had no known relation with the accident.”
An occurrence of the 14th of June, 1931, is told of in the Home News (Bronx) of the 15th. “When Policeman Talbot of the E. 126th St. station went into Mt. Morris Park at 10 a.m., yesterday, to awaken a man apparently asleep on a bench near the 124th St. gate, he found the man dead. Dr. Patterson, of Harlem Hospital, said that death had probably been caused by heart failure.” New York Sun, June 15—that soon after the finding of this body on the bench, another dead man was found on a bench nearby.
I have two stories, which resemble the foregoing stories, but I should like to have them considered together.
In November, 1888 (St. Louis Globe-Democrat, Dec. 20, 1888), two residents of Birmingham, Alabama, were murdered and their bodies were found in the woods. “Then there was such a new mystery that these murder-mysteries were being overlooked.” In the woods, near Birmingham, was found a third body. But this was the body of a stranger. “The body lies unidentified at the undertaker’s rooms. No one who had seen it can remember having seen the man in life, and identification seems impossible. The dead man was evidently in good circumstances, if not wealthy, and what he could have been doing at the spot where his body was found is a mystery. Several persons who have seen the body are of the opinion that the man was a foreigner. Anyway he was an entire stranger in this vicinity, and his coming must have been as mysterious as his death.”
I noted these circumstances, simply as a mystery. But when a situation repeats, I notice with my livelier interest. This situation is of local murders, and the appearance of the corpse of a stranger, who had not been a tramp.
Philadelphia Public Ledger, Feb. 4, 1892—murder near Johnstown, Pa.—a man and his wife, named Kring, had been butchered, and their bodies had been burned. Then, in the woods, near Johnstown, the corpse of a stranger was found. The body was well-dressed, but could not be identified. Another body was found—“well-dressed man, who bore no means of identification.”
There is a view by which it can be shown, or more or less demonstrated, that there never has been a coincidence. That is, in anything like a final sense. By a coincidence is meant a false appearance, or suggestion, of relations among circumstances. But anybody who accepts that there is an underlying oneness of all things, accepts that there are no utter absences of relations among circumstances—
Or that there are no coincidences, in the sense that there are no real discords in either colors or musical notes—
That any two colors, or sounds, can be harmonized, by intermediately relating them to other colors, or sounds.
And I’d not say that my question, as to what the disappearance of one Ambrose could have to do with the disappearance of another Ambrose, is so senseless. The idea of causing Ambrose Small to disappear may have had origin in somebody’s mind, by suggestion from the disappearance of Ambrose Bierce. If in no terms of physical abduction can the disappearance of Ambrose Small be explained, I’ll not say that that has any meaning, until the physicists intelligibly define what they mean by physical terms.
3
In days of yore, when I was an especially bad young one, my punishment was having to go to the store on Saturdays, and work. I had to scrape off labels of other dealers’ canned goods, and paste on my parent’s label. Theoretically, I was so forced to labor to teach me the errors of deceitful ways. A good many brats are brought up, in the straight and narrow, somewhat deviously.
One time I had pyramids of canned goods, containing a variety of fruits and vegetables. But I had used all except peach labels. I pasted the peach labels on peach cans, and then came to apricots. Well, aren’t apricots peaches? And there are plums that are virtually apricots. I went on, either mischievously, or scientifically, pasting the peach labels on cans of plums, cherries, string beans, and succotash. I can’t quite define my motive, because to this day it has not been decided whether I am a humorist or a scientist. I think that it was mischief, but, as we go along, there will come a more respectful recognition that also it was scientific procedure.
In the town of Derby, England—see the Derby Mercury, May 15, and following issues, 1905—there were occurrences that, to the undiscerning, will seem to have nothing to do with either peaches or succotash. In a girls’ school, girls screamed and dropped to the floor, unconscious. There are readers who will think over well-known ways of peaches and succotash, and won’t know what I am writing about. There are others, who will see “symbolism” in it, and will send me appreciations, and I won’t know what they’re writing about.
In five days, there were forty-five instances of girls who screamed and dropped unconscious. “The girls were exceedingly weak, and had to be carried home. One child had lost strength so that she could not even sit up.” It was thought that some unknown noxious gas or vapor, was present: but mice were placed in the schoolrooms and they were unaffected. Then the scientific explanation was “mass psychology.” Having no more data to work on, it seems to me that this explanation is a fitting description. If a girl fainted, and, if, sympathetically, another girl fainted, it is well in accord with our impressions of human nature, which sees, eats, smells, thinks, loves, hates, talks, dresses, reads, and undergoes surgical operations, contagiously, to think of forty-three other girls losing consciousness, in involuntary imitativeness. There are mature persons who may feel superior to such hysteria, but so many of them haven’t much consciousness.
In the Brooklyn Eagle, Aug. 1, 1894, there is a story of “mass psychology.” In this case, too, it seems to me that the description fits—maybe. Considering the way people live, it is natural to them to die imitatively. There was, in July, 1894, a panic in a large vineyard, at Collis, near Fresno, California. Somebody in this vineyard had dropped dead of “heart failure.” Somebody else dropped dead. A third victim had dropped and was dying. There wasn’t a scientist, with a good and sticky explanation, on the place. It will be thought amusing: but the people in this vineyard believed that something uncanny was occurring, and they fled. “Everybody has left the place, and the authorities are preparing to begin a searching investigation.” Anything more upon this subject is not findable. That is the usual experience after an announcement of a “searching investigation.”
If something can’t be described any other way, it’s “mass psychology.” In the town of Bradford, England, in a house, in Columbia St
reet, 1st of March, 1923, there was one of those occasions of the congratulations, hates, malices, and gaieties, and more or less venomous jealousies that combine in the state that is said to be merry, of a wedding party. The babble of this wedding party suddenly turned to delirium. There were screams, and guests dropped to the floor, unconscious. Wedding bells—the gongs of ambulances—four persons were taken to hospitals.
This occurrence was told of in the London newspapers, and, though strange, it seemed that the conventional explanation fitted it.
Yorkshire Evening Argus—published in Bradford—March 3, 1923—particulars that make for restiveness against any conventional explanation—people in adjoining houses had been affected by this “mysterious malady.” Several names of families, members of which had been overcome, unaccountably, were published—Downing, Blakey, Ingram.
If people, in different houses, and out of contact with one another—or not so circumstanced as to “mass” their psychologies—and all narrowly localized in one small neighborhood, were similarly affected, it seemed clear that here was a case of common exposure to something that was poisonous, or otherwise injurious. Of course an escape of gas was thought of; but there was no odor of gas. No leakage of gas was found. There was the usual searching investigation that precedes forgetfulness. It was somebody’s suggestion that the “mysterious malady” had been caused by fumes from a nearby factory chimney. I think that the wedding party was the central circumstance, but I don’t think of a factory chimney, which had never so expressed itself before, suddenly fuming at a wedding party. An Argus reporter wrote that the Health Officers had rejected this suggestion, and that he had investigated, and had detected no unusual odor in the neighborhood.
In this occurrence at Bradford, there was no odor of gas. I have noted a case in London, in which there was an odor of gas; nevertheless this case is no less mysterious. In the Weekly Dispatch (London), June 12, 1910, it is called “one of the most remarkable and mysterious cases of gas poisoning that have occurred in London in recent years.” Early in the morning of June 10th, a woman telephoned to a police station, telling of what she thought was an escape of gas. A policeman went to the house, which was in Neale Street (Holborn). He considered the supposed leakage alarming, and rapped on doors of another floor in the house. There was no response, and he broke down a door, finding the occupants unconscious. In two neighboring houses, four unconscious persons were found. A circumstance that was considered extraordinary was that between these two houses was one in which nobody was affected, and in which there was no odor of gas. The gas company sent men, who searched for a leak, but in vain. Fumes, as if from an uncommon and easily discoverable escape of gas, had overcome occupants of three houses, but according to the local newspaper (the Holborn Guardian) the gas company, a week later, had been unable to discover its origin.
