Mr. Pitezel is owing me One hundred and eighty Dollars, and if he is in reality dead, I should be glad to have that amount detained from the sum payable on his policy, as I very much need it … I have done a good deal for his family within the past eight years and I think if need be, I could get an order from his wife, authorizing you to retain the amount due me.
The next morning, Monday, September 17, Holmes mailed this letter off to Cass and continued on his journey, disembarking this time in Cincinnati, where—after checking into the Grand Hotel—he composed an extremely cunning follow-up:
Dear Sir:—
Since writing to you yesterday, I have seen from a file of Philadelphia papers, that the supposed body of Pitezel is in the hands of the coroner there instead of in Chicago, as per clipping you sent me. I shall be in Baltimore in a day or two, and I will take an afternoon train to Philadelphia and call on your office there, and if they wish me to do so, I will go with some representative of theirs to the coroner’s, and I think I can tell if the man there is Pitezel:—from what I read here, I cannot see anything to lead me to think that the person killed was other than a man by the name of Perry.
Yours Respectfully,
H. H. Holmes
Satisfied at the way he had handled things, Holmes settled in for the night, leaving instructions with the desk clerk to awaken him at six A.M. He had an early train to catch and it was crucially important that he be on it.
That same night, Tuesday, September 18—around the time that Holmes was completing his second letter to Cass—Jeptha Howe knocked on the door of the Pitezels’ shabby flat.
Alice—dressed in a patched calico shift and threadbare jacket—opened the door and admitted him. A cracked leather satchel, packed with the handful of garments that constituted her entire wardrobe, waited on the sitting-room floor.
Rising shakily from her sickbed, Carrie kissed her fifteen-year-old daughter good-bye and urged Howe to take good care of the girl. Alice’s hand-me-down shoes were so old and worn-out that her stockinged toes poked through the tips. Howe promised that he would buy her a brand-new pair as soon as they reached Philadelphia.
Alice gave each of her siblings a hug, then followed Howe out to the landing. As she started down the stairwell, she turned for a final glimpse of her mother, who leaned against the doorframe, frightfully frail and pallid, her haggard cheeks slick with tears.
Carrying Alice’s bag in one hand and his own suitcase in the other, Howe led the girl to the nearest streetcar stop. Moments later, a trolley turned the corner. After boarding, Howe asked if Alice had brought any spending money with her.
Alice nodded. “Mother give me a five-cents piece.”
Digging into his pants pocket, Howe extracted a silver dollar, which he handed to the girl. Alice muttered a thank-you and stuck the coin into the satchel that rested between her feet. Not long afterward, they arrived at Union Depot, where they boarded an eastbound train.
The car was empty enough for Alice to occupy her own seat across the aisle from Howe. She curled her legs up onto the cushion and leaned against the window, gazing out into the darkness.
Though Alice was nervous about the trip—and particularly about the dreadful task that awaited her at the other end—her weariness finally got the better of her. As the night wore on, she fell into a solid sleep, lulled by the rhythmic rocking of the train.
Morning sunlight filled the car when she awoke hours later—just as the train was pulling into the Cincinnati depot.
23
Little girls, this seems to say,
Never stop upon your way,
Never trust a stranger-friend;
No one knows how it will end.
—Charles Perrault, “Little Red Riding Hood”
They changed trains in Cincinnati. The new coach was more crowded than the first, and Alice was forced to share a seat with Howe. He let her have the place by the window, and as the train pulled out of the station and picked up speed, she kept her eyes fixed on the passing scenery. The countryside was flat and featureless, but she liked to watch the landscape flow by.
After a while, she grew vaguely aware that Howe was talking to someone in the aisle. Suddenly, she realized that the person was addressing her. She glanced up and was startled to see Mr. Holmes, the man her papa had worked for, standing there smiling down at her.
“What a great surprise,” Holmes said, reaching out for Alice’s hand. “Hello, my child. I did not recognize your jacket at once, but when I saw your face, I knew it was my favorite girl.”
Nodding to Howe—who arose and moved off to a different part of the car—Holmes sat down beside Alice.
“What a pleasure to see you, my dear,” he said. “How are you feeling?”
Alice replied that she supposed she was fine.
“Very good. You are a brave child. You have been entrusted with a difficult errand. But Lawyer Howe and I are here to help to see you through it.”
Keeping his voice low, Holmes proceeded to tell her precisely how she must behave in the presence of the insurance people if her family hoped to obtain the money from her poor father’s policy. She and her family would be set up for life—but only if Alice followed Holmes’s directions to the letter.
To begin with, she must never let on that she had seen and spoken to him on the train. Second, she must pretend that Holmes and her father were only casually acquainted. Finally, though the ravages of death might have marred her papa’s face, she must state with absolute certainty that the body in the morgue was her father.
Beyond that, she should simply act in a natural manner. He and Lawyer Howe would take care of the rest.
Holmes asked the girl to repeat his instructions. Satisfied, he patted her hands, then got up and went off to find Howe.
As a precaution, Holmes and his confederate agreed to travel the last leg of the journey on separate trains. At Washington, D.C., Howe disembarked with Alice, while Holmes continued on to Philadelphia, where he took a carriage to Adella Alcorn’s rooming house.
The landlady was delighted to see Mr. Howard (the name by which she knew him). What, she inquired, was the occasion for his visit?
Holmes replied that he had returned to conclude his deal with the Pennsylvania Railroad Company. Negotiations were taking longer than expected and might stretch out for an indefinite number of weeks.
He was interested in renting rooms not only for himself and his wife but also for his little sister, Alice, who was spending the winter in his care. As it happened, the three large bedrooms on the third floor of the house were presently available. Holmes agreed to take the entire floor.
The landlady could not have been more pleased. “And where are Mrs. Howard and your sister?” she asked.
Holmes explained that his wife and his little sister were enjoying a holiday in Atlantic City. He planned to travel to the resort in a few days and bring Alice back with him. Mrs. Howard would probably remain there for another two or three weeks before joining them in Philadelphia.
Before repairing to his room, Holmes told the landlady that he was expecting a visitor—a gentleman who might call either that evening or the following day. Would Mrs. Alcorn kindly direct him upstairs the moment he arrived?
While Holmes was checking into Alcorn’s, Howe and Alice were taking in the sights of Washington, D.C. Alice, who had seen nothing of the world beyond the small towns and city slums of the Midwest, was overwhelmed by the marble glories of the capital.
Late that night, they departed for Philadelphia, checking into separate rooms at the Imperial Hotel early the next morning, Thursday, September 20.
Alice had promised to write to her family, and she proved to be a faithful correspondent. In the coming weeks, she composed a series of letters that—for all their clumsiness of expression—possessed a terrible poignancy in the light of subsequent events. Though all were preserved, only a few ever reached their destination. Alice, of course, remained unaware of this fact. Nor could she have guessed at the c
ritical role her simple letters were to play in the climax of the tragedy to come.
Alone in her hotel room that Thursday afternoon, with her guardian napping next door, Alice sat down to write to her mother:
Dear Mamma and the rest,
Just arrived in Philadelphia this morning…. Mr. Howe and I have each a room at the above address. I am going to the Morgue after awhile. We stopped off in Washington, Md…. Yesterday we got on the C. and O. Pullman and it was crowded so I had to sit with Mr. Howe we sit there quite awhile and pretty soon some one came and shook hands with me. I looked up and here it was Mr. H[olmes]. He did not know my jacket, but he said he thought it was his girl’s face so he went to see and it was me. I don’t like him to call me babe and child and dear and all such trash. When I got on the car Tuesday night Mr. Howe asked me if I had any money and I told him 5 cents and he give me a dollar. How I wish I could see you all and hug the baby. I hope you are better. Mr. H says that I will have a ride on the ocean. I wish you could see what I have seen. I have seen more scenery than I have seen since I was born I don’t know what I saw before. This is all the paper I have so I will have to close & write again. You had better not write to me here for Mr. H. says that I may be off tomorrow. If you are worse wire me good-bye kisses to all and two big ones for you and babe. Love to all.
That same afternoon—while Howe relaxed and Alice sought distraction from her loneliness by writing to her loved ones—Holmes made his first visit to the Fidelity Mutual Assurance Building at 914 Walnut Street.
Claims manager Perry was conferring with President Fouse about an unrelated matter when Holmes appeared at the doorway of the latter’s office. Introducing himself, Holmes explained that he had just arrived from Baltimore to assist in the B. F. Perry case. The claims manager gathered up his papers and exited the office, leaving Fouse and his visitor to talk in private.
Holmes, seated at the side of the president’s big mahogany desk, began by asking Fouse about the precise circumstances of B. F. Perry’s death. The clippings he had seen contained only incomplete details.
President Fouse reviewed all the known facts of the case, from the discovery of the corpse to the autopsy results.
“A most peculiar case,” Holmes said, frowning. “And what was the verdict of the coroner’s jury?”
“Congestion of the lungs,” Fouse replied, “caused by flame inhalation or chloroform poisoning.”
After soliciting a description of Benjamin Pitezel from Holmes, Fouse asked why the fellow might have been using an alias.
Holmes stroked his mustache meditatively for a moment before replying. Pitezel, he believed, had run into some “financial difficulty” down South a few months earlier and might have thought it prudent to conceal his identity from his creditors.
Fouse went on to explain that he had received a communication from a St. Louis lawyer named Jeptha D. Howe, who was on his way to Philadelphia with a member of the Pitezel family. As soon as they arrived, the corpse would be exhumed for identification. Fouse asked Holmes to leave his Philadelphia address, so the company could contact him when the examination took place.
Holmes told Fouse that he had some pressing business that might require his immediate attention. If so, he would be sure to leave word of where he could be reached. Otherwise, he would stop by the office early Friday morning to see where matters stood.
Thanking Holmes for his help, Fouse saw him to the door, much impressed with the frank and forthright manner of the well-spoken gentleman.
Shortly after eight that evening, Jeptha Howe—refreshed after his full day of rest—knocked on the door of Alice’s room to say that he was going off on an errand and would return in several hours. Outside, he headed straight for 1905 North Eleventh Street, arriving at Alcorn’s boardinghouse just as its proprietress was stepping out the door on her way to her evening prayer meeting. By the light of the street-lamp, Adella Alcorn got a clear glimpse of the stranger, taking particular note of his boyish face and small, neatly trimmed mustache.
Upstairs, Holmes reported on his meeting with President Fouse. Then the two reviewed their strategy for the following day.
Their business concluded, the pair went off to sample the pleasures of a local whorehouse that Holmes had sometimes patronized during his previous stay in the city.
* * *
Late Friday morning, September 21, Alice sat down beside her open window and penned another letter to her family back home:
Dear Mamma and Babe,
I have to write all the time to pass away the tune.
Mr. Howe has been away all morning. Mamma have you ever seen or tasted a red banana? I have had three. They are so big that I can just reach around it and have my thumb and next finger just tutch. I have not got any shoes yet and I have to go a hobbling around all the time…. Are you sick in bed yet or are you up? I wish that I could hear from you but I don’t know whether I would get it or not…. I have not got but two clean garments and that is a shirt and my white skirt. I saw some of the largest rocks that I bet you never saw. I crossed the Potomac River. I guess that I have told you all the news. So goodbye Kisses to you and babe.
Your loving daughter.
Howe showed up at Alice’s room in the early afternoon. After making sure that she remembered her instructions, he took her off to the Fidelity building, where they were immediately ushered into the office of President Fouse.
Howe had come equipped with various documents and credentials, including a letter of attorney from Carrie Pitezel. Carrie had also supplied him with some letters Benny had sent her during the summer. The return address on the envelopes read, “B.F. Perry, 1316 Callowhill Street, Philadelphia.”
When Fouse asked Howe the question he had posed to Holmes—why had Pitezel adopted a pseudonym?—the lawyer gave essentially the same answer, explaining that, because of some “embarrassing financial transactions” in Tennessee, Pitezel had thought it “advisable to change his name and his location” for a while.
Fouse perused the letters, which left no doubt that Pitezel had been passing himself off as Perry. Still, they did not prove that the dead man found at 1316 Callowhill Street was really Pitezel.
The lawyer (who had been tutored in this matter by Holmes) responded with a detailed description of Pitezel. Fouse was forced to concede that the man’s appearance did indeed match the general attributes of the deceased.
Fouse then turned his attention to Alice, who had sat mutely during this exchange, her eyes downcast and her feet pulled up under her chair, as though to hide her wretched shoes from public view. Smiling down at the underfed girl in her ragtag clothes, Fouse asked if she could say what her father looked like. Alice mumbled a description that matched Howe’s.
“And can you think of any special marks—scars, injuries, or the like—by which your father might be identified?” Fouse then inquired.
Alice chewed on her lower lip for a moment, then—in a voice so low and hesitant that Fouse had to lift himself off his seat and lean forward on his desktop—she stammered something about a permanently bruised thumbnail and “twisted” lower front teeth.
Just then, a clerk slipped into the office and whispered something to Fouse. “Very good,” Fouse replied, then looked over at Howe and explained that a gentleman named Holmes—who had known Pitezel in Chicago and had kindly volunteered to help with the identification—had just arrived in the building. Would Howe care to meet him?
“Most assuredly,” replied Howe.
Fouse greeted Holmes warmly when he entered the room, then introduced him to Howe. The two shook hands politely and exchanged the standard civilities.
Suddenly Holmes seemed to notice Alice for the first time. Stepping to her chair, he leaned down and smiled. “You are Alice, are you not? Don’t you remember me, my dear? I knew your family in Chicago.”
Alice shrugged, nodded, then allowed that she did recollect him.
Howe, who had been eyeing Holmes warily, suddenly addressed himself to Fouse. He d
id not mean to cast suspicions on a total stranger, he declared. Nevertheless, as the attorney for Mrs. Pitezel, he felt entitled to know the motives of Mr. Holmes. What precisely was his purpose in being there?
Holmes, acting slightly wounded, professed that he had no personal motives. He had been contacted by the insurance company and wished to do whatever he could to help resolve a matter that could only be a source of immeasurable pain to Mrs. Pitezel and her children.
Howe seemed mollified by this explanation and apologized if his words had offended Mr. Holmes. The latter graciously replied that no apology was necessary.
At that point, the three men turned to the matter that had brought them together—the identification of the body. Before long, they had agreed on a set of physical characteristics peculiar to Pitezel: a warty growth on the neck, a scar from an old injury on his right shin, the discolored thumbnail, and his jagged lower teeth.
The final arrangements were made. The next day, Saturday, September 22, all the parties would convene in Fouse’s office and proceed from there to potter’s field, where the three-week-old corpse would be disinterred for examination.
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