Though the cause of Benjamin Pitezel’s death remained unclear, the officers of the company had decided to halt their investigation and honor his policy without further delay. Their motives were partly humanitarian and partly a matter of public relations. The sufferings of young Alice—a child so poor that she did not even own a decent pair of shoes—had affected Fouse deeply. Her pitiable situation reflected the plight of her whole family—penniless, unprotected, bereft of their only provider. Fouse did not want to be perceived as the head of a company that dealt cold-bloodedly with a destitute widow and her poor, fatherless children.
Moreover, though Lawyer Howe had struck him as a sharpie, Fouse had been highly impressed by the manly demeanor of H. H. Holmes. Since the true circumstances of Pitezel’s death would probably never be known, Fouse was obliged to base his decision on other factors. That a gentleman as fine and upstanding as Dr. Holmes had vouched for Pitezel’s integrity left little doubt that the claim was legitimate. In the absence of hard evidence to the contrary, the death must be ruled accidental.
And so, on Monday morning, September 24, Howe had presented himself at President Fouse’s office, where he was handed a check for $9,715.85—the policy value minus the expenses that the company had incurred in conducting its investigation. Howe had made some noises about the deduction, but decided not to press the point. Shaking hands with President Fouse and Mr. Perry, he had gone straight back to his hotel room, thrown his things into his bag, and lost no time in getting out of Philadelphia.
On Tuesday, September 25—the morning after his sudden appearance at Georgiana’s doorsill—Holmes kissed his wife good-bye and took a train to St. Louis. After catching a few hours of sleep in a downtown hotel, he cabbed over to the Pitezels’ flat early the next day.
Carrie invited him in. Though no longer bedridden, she looked terribly careworn and gaunt. Shooing the children out of the kitchen, she seated herself beside Holmes at the table and immediately asked about Alice.
Gazing earnestly into her eyes, he assured her that her daughter was fine. He had provided Alice with lodging in the finest hotel in Indianapolis and had paid the proprietor extra money to look after the girl. All her needs were being taken care of. Holmes had even bought her a book to read while he was gone—Mrs. Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin.
Carrie was startled and confused. Why hadn’t he brought Alice home? And where was Benny?
Holmes’s tone grew confidential. Benny was alive and well. The scheme had worked to perfection. But certain precautions still had to be taken, and Carrie must listen very closely to what Holmes had to say.
Though the insurance people had fallen for the scheme, they might well continue to investigate the case, at least for a while. Benny was going to have to disappear for a time. He had decided to move down South until the “clouds rolled by.” At the moment, he was lying low in Cincinnati where he wanted to see Carrie before he headed south.
It wasn’t safe, however, for Carrie to travel with all the children. If the insurance company did have detectives on the case, they would be on the lookout for a lone woman accompanied by five children. Therefore, Holmes and Benny had worked out a plan. Holmes would take Nellie and Howard to Indianapolis, where they would pick up Alice and then continue on to Cincinnati. Holmes had already rented a house there for the winter. He would leave the three children in the care of his cousin Minnie Williams, who had agreed to watch them until Carrie arrived.
In the meantime, Carrie would go back home to Galva with Dessie and Wharton for a visit with her parents. After a few weeks, the three of them would travel to Cincinnati to join the others. Then, Carrie could see Benny before he went into hiding.
By the time Holmes finished laying out this plan, Carrie’s head was spinning. Frightened and alone, caught up in a plot even more devious than she knew, she was defenseless against the suave duplicity of Holmes. Besides, what choice did she have but to trust him? She was desperate to see Benny again and would do whatever was required of her. The idea that detectives might be on her husband’s trail made her shudder. She did not think she could bear the shame that his arrest would bring down on them all.
In the end, she assented completely to the proposal. On Friday morning, she would bring Nellie and Howard to the train depot and turn her little ones over to Holmes.
When she arrived at the station on Friday, September 28, with Nellie and Howard in tow, Carrie was surprised to see Lawyer Howe waiting on the platform with Holmes. The two men were deep in conversation.
As Carrie approached, Howe turned to her and smiled. He shook her hand and congratulated her. The insurance money had been paid, he declared. He had the check waiting back in his office.
Holmes glanced at him and said, “You had better give her some money.”
Nodding, Howe pulled a roll of greenbacks from his pocket and peeled off a $5 bill.
“Thank you,” Carrie said softly, accepting the bill. Then she knelt on the platform and hugged both of her little ones, embracing her ten-year-old boy for so long that Holmes grew impatient.
“We do not have time to fool around,” he said to her. “The train is about ready to leave.”
After loading the children’s trunk on board, Holmes took each of them by the hand and led them to their seats in the car.
Carrie remained on the platform until the train was out of sight. Then, heavy-hearted, she trudged from the depot. Lawyer Howe walked by her side, explaining that they must arrange a time for her to come to his office and sign the final papers.
She barely heard him, so absorbed was she in thoughts of her children. Three of them were now in the care of Holmes. She could never have imagined that—even before he had left Philadelphia—he had already decided to kill them all.
26
There is a method in man’s wickedness.
—Beaumont and Fletcher, A King and No King
Except for his sojourns in Fort Worth and St. Louis, Holmes had been leading a nomad’s existence since his flight from Chicago. But that life seemed almost settled compared to the wanderings to come. On Friday, September 28—the day he took Howard and Nellie Pitezel away to join their older sister—he embarked on a journey so apparently bizarre that, to some later observers, it seemed driven by madness.
But if Holmes was a madman, he was the type who fulfills his compulsions in a frighteningly methodical way. And behind the tortuous odyssey he conducted in the fall of 1894, there lay a devious design. Moving constantly from city to city, dragging his young victims from pillar to post, he was attempting to trace a course so dizzyingly complex that no one would ever be able to follow it.
Early Friday morning, Holmes had wired a message to Robert Sweeney, clerk at the Stubbins’ Hotel, requesting him to bring Alice Pitezel to the depot to meet the St. Louis train. Arriving in Indianapolis, Holmes found Alice and Sweeney waiting on the platform. Thanking the clerk, he led Alice onto the Pullman, where she broke into delighted squeals at the sight of her siblings. The three chattered excitedly all the way to Cincinnati.
By the time they arrived it was late and the children were exhausted. Holmes took rooms in a cheap hotel called the Atlantic House, close to the depot, signing the register as “Alexander E. Cook and three children.” The following morning—Saturday, September 29—he transferred them to a different hotel, the Bristol, at the corner of Sixth and Vine streets. Still using the name Cook, he rented a single room with two beds for himself and the children.
No sooner had they settled into the room than Holmes announced that he was taking Howard out on an errand. He told Alice and Nellie to stay put. Then, leading Howard by the hand, he went off in search of a vacant house.
Clerk George Rumsey was seated at his desk in J. C. Thomas’s real estate agency when a well-dressed gentleman entered with a small boy at his side. Looking up from his papers, Rumsey greeted the man, who explained that he was there to see about renting a house. Rumsey pointed to Mr. Thomas’s door and told the gentleman to go right in. As the man and boy made their
way past his desk, Rumsey gazed after them. He assumed that they were father and son and was struck by how shabbily clothed the child was in comparison to his handsomely dressed father.
Shaking hands with Mr. Thomas, Holmes introduced himself as A. C. Hayes. He was looking for a small house to rent in a quiet neighborhood for himself and his family. Shuffling through his files, Mr. Thomas came up with just the thing—a nice, tidy place at 305 Poplar Street. Holmes, who explained that he was in something of a hurry, agreed to take the house sight unseen. Paying fifteen dollars in advance, he received the keys from Mr. Thomas, then grasped the boy by the hand and headed for the front doorway, pausing at George Rumsey’s desk to ask the name of the nearest used-furniture dealer.
A few hours later, Miss Henrietta Hill, who resided at 303 Poplar Street, heard an unaccustomed noise coming from the vacant house next door. Stepping out onto her porch, she was surprised to see a horse-drawn furniture wagon pulled up in front of number 305. As she watched, a neatly groomed man in a brown coat and derby removed a key from his pocket and unlocked the front door, while two laborers hauled a stove out of the rear of the wagon and maneuvered it into the house. Standing in the front yard, his hands stuck deep in the pockets of his gray coat, a raggedy little boy looked on in silence.
Two things struck Miss Hill as curious. The first was the size of the stove. It was an enormous, cylindrical thing, more suitable for a barroom than a modest-sized house. The second was the contents of the wagon—or more properly, the lack thereof. Besides that single object, the wagon held nothing—no fixtures, no furnishings. Just the huge, iron stove, big enough to heat a beer hall.
With the moving men gone and the boy amusing himself outside in the yard, Holmes paced back and forth in the vacant living room, trying to cool his fury. So much time and money gone to waste. The house was not nearly as isolated as he had been led to believe. He had spotted the neighbor woman watching him from her front porch. Holmes knew the type. Before long, every busybody in the neighborhood would know all about the mysterious new tenant who had rented the empty house at 305 Poplar Street and brought in nothing but a big stove and a little boy. It took him a good twenty minutes to calm down enough to make a measured decision. There was nothing to do but switch plans.
Next time, he would be more careful.
Early Sunday morning, Miss Hill’s doorbell rang. The caller was her new neighbor, Mr. Hayes, who proceeded to explain that, because of a sudden change in his business affairs, he would not be renting the house next door after all. He had already purchased a perfectly good stove, however, and was wondering if Miss Hill would care to have it. She was welcome to it, free of charge.
Then, tipping his hat to the puzzled spinster, he turned and disappeared down the street, never to be seen in the neighborhood again.
Later that day, Holmes took Alice, Nellie, and Howard to the Cincinnati Zoo—the only time in their lives that the children had visited such a magical place. They petted the ostriches, gawked at the giraffes, exclaimed over the bison, and had an altogether wonderful afternoon.
Holmes’s motives for treating the young ones to such a pleasant time were, of course, purely sinister. For as long as they were in his keeping, it served his purpose to beguile both the children and the world at large into seeing him as a loving guardian. A casual observer, spying Holmes with his three ragtag charges, might have taken them for a kindly uncle on a Sunday outing with his visiting nieces and nephew. Such a person could never have conceived the truth—that what he had seen was really a trio of tiny prisoners and a keeper who had already condemned them to death.
Back at the hotel after their trip to the zoo, Holmes told the children to get ready to leave. That evening, the foursome traveled to Indianapolis. From the depot, Holmes took them to a place called the Hotel English, registering the children under their mother’s maiden name, Canning.
They remained there only overnight. Early the next morning—Monday, October 1—he moved them to a hotel called the Circle House, a short distance from the Circle Park Hotel, where Georgiana was still whiling away her time, awaiting her husband’s return.
As soon as the children were settled in, Holmes informed them that he would be leaving for St. Louis that evening to fetch the rest of the family. Alice, Nellie, and Howard were to remain in their room—reading, drawing, playing with their few simple toys. Holmes would arrange for their meals to be brought to them.
When he asked if they would like to send messages home, the two girls sat down at once and penned letters to their mother. Alice described the wonders of the zoo (“The ostrich is about a head taller than I am so you know about how high it is. And the giraffe you have to look up in the sky to see it”). Thirteen-year-old Nellie, an erratic speller, offered random observations on the weather and the accommodations (“It is quite worm here and I have to wear this worm dress becaus my close an’t ironet. It is awful nice place where we are staying”).
The letters completed, Holmes folded them carefully away, promising to deliver them personally to the girls’ mama. He was lying, of course. None of the notes the children composed ever reached their destination. But Holmes did not destroy the letters. Instead, he stored them neatly away in a small metal box.
Clearly, he foresaw a tune when this correspondence might come in handy—a time when he might be called upon to prove that, during the weeks the Pitezel children were in his care, he had treated them with a father’s kindness.
Later that day, Holmes made a surprise appearance at the Circle Park Hotel. But before Georgiana could get overly excited about seeing him, he announced that he had to leave again at once. He had only returned because he missed her so desperately—he needed to gaze upon her dear face if only for a moment, and to feel the touch of her lips upon his own. Urgent business, however, required his immediate return to St. Louis, though he swore to rejoin Georgiana in a matter of days.
Georgiana’s disappointment was somewhat allayed by the splendid news Holmes had brought back from St. Louis. He had found a purchaser for his building in Fort Worth, a businessman willing to pay $35,000 for the property. This gentleman was expected to arrive in St. Louis the following day with $10,000 cash advance.
Georgiana was delighted—for herself as well as for Henry. With the Fort Worth business out of the way, their European trip was a step closer to reality.
The pair spent a few tender hours together. Then Holmes took leave of his wife, satisfied with his stratagem. Of course, the Fort Worth businessman had been a complete fabrication, but when Holmes returned from St. Louis, he expected to be a substantially richer man, and the real estate sale would account for his sudden increase in wealth.
By Tuesday morning, October 2, Holmes was back in St. Louis. Shortly before noon, he picked up Carrie at her flat and escorted her to the offices of McDonald and Howe.
By the time the lawyers got through with her, Carrie felt so battered and distraught that she wanted nothing more to do with the whole sordid affair. “I don’t care about the money anymore,” she said through her tears. “I just want to go home.”
Holmes, ever the kindly family counselor, advised her to sign the papers and have done with it. Carrie finally relented. After endorsing the insurance check and paying Howe’s fee—a hefty $2400 plus a few hundred more for various expenses—she received several piles of greenbacks, which she stuffed into a shopping bag she had brought along for that purpose. Then Holmes shook hands with the lawyers and led Carrie off to the First National Bank.
She had already been fleeced by the lawyers. Now it was Holmes’s turn to skin her completely.
Inside the bank, he took her aside to apprise her of her husband’s financial situation. Holmes began by reminding her that, along with himself, Benny was half-owner of a valuable piece of real estate that the two of them had purchased in Fort Worth. To finance the deal, they had taken out a $16,000 loan. Benny still owed $5,000 on the note and would lose his share of the property unless that sum was paid immediately.
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Carrie peered inside her bag. It was crammed with $100 bills. Never in her life had she seen—let alone held—so much money. But it wasn’t in her possession for long.
Taking the bag from her hands, Holmes reached inside and counted out $5,000. Then he carried the money to a cashier’s window on the far side of the lobby, while Carrie waited at the customer’s service counter, her back to Holmes.
When Holmes returned a few minutes later, he handed her a canceled promissory note for $16,000 drawn against the Fort Worth National Bank. The note was signed “Benton T. Lyman”—the alias Pitezel had been using down in Texas. The matter was now taken care of, Holmes said with a grin. She had done well. Benny would be proud of her.
Holmes, it need hardly be said, had not turned the money over to the bank. Standing by the cashier’s window, he had simply shoved the bills into his own pocket. He hadn’t entirely lied to Carrie. He and her husband did indeed owe $16,000 to a Fort Worth businessman named Samuels. But Holmes had as much intention of repaying it as he had of confessing to Pitezel’s murder. The promissory note he had given Carrie was a worthless scrap.
Before they left the bank, Holmes relieved Carrie of an additional $1,600—$1,500 for his own services, plus an extra $100 to cover her children’s living expenses.
“I believe that makes us about even,” Holmes said, tucking away the money.
Carrie, so dazed by this time that she barely knew up from down, simply nodded wearily. Out of the nearly $10,000 realized from her husband’s life insurance policy, she had ended up with $500.
Before taking leave of her, Holmes asked if she would like to send a message to the children. Carrie scribbled a greeting, which Holmes pocketed, intending to destroy it as soon as she was out of sight.
Outside the bank, Holmes impressed upon her the importance of leaving St. Louis at once. It was Benny’s desire that she take Dessie and the baby to her parents’ home in Galva and remain there until she received further word. “Go tomorrow,” Holmes commanded. “And then when I write to you in Galva, do as I say. These are your husband’s instructions, remember.”
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