Depraved

by Harold Schechter

  Outside, he made directly for the depot, arriving just in time to meet the train from Detroit. After greeting Alice and Nellie, he turned them over to a porter from the Albion Hotel, handing the man a four-bit tip for himself and enough money to cover a day’s lodging for the girls.

  At this point, Holmes was performing a feat worthy of a master marionetteer: maneuvering three sets of human puppets—his wife; Carrie and two of her children; and Alice and Nellie—from one city to the next and lodging them within a short distance of each other, while keeping them completely unaware of each other’s presence.

  Holmes showed up at the Albion first thing Saturday morning and took Alice and Nellie out for a stroll. Before long, both girls were shivering in the sharp Canadian air. After seeing them back to their room, he paid their board for another day, explaining to the chief hotel clerk, Herbert Jones, that the girls were his nieces. They were awaiting the arrival of their mother, who was due in from Detroit later in the week.

  Then, he hurried off in search of a real estate office. He had promised to take Georgiana to Niagara Falls that afternoon, and he had a critical matter to take care of first.

  On Wednesday, October 24, Thomas William Ryves—a seventy-year-old semi-invalid who still spoke with a distinct burr, though nearly fifty years had passed since he’d left his native Scotland—shuffled to the front of his home at number 18 St. Vincent Street in response to a persistent knocking on his door. Ryves had never set eyes on the caller before— a handsomely dressed gentleman who explained that he had just rented the neighboring house for his sister.

  Standing in the doorway, Ryves cupped his free hand behind one ear and tilted his head toward the stranger.

  “My sister will be arriving from Hamilton, Ontario, in a few days,” the latter continued, raising his voice to a nearshout. “I wonder if I might borrow a shovel from you. I would like to arrange a place in the cellar where my sister can keep potatoes.”

  “You are welcome to it,” Ryves replied. “You’ll find it in the shed out back.”

  Thanking Ryves, the stranger walked around to the rear of the house. A few moments later, he reappeared with the spade in his hand.

  Later that day, as Ryves sat rocking by the window, he saw a wagon pull up at number 16. Perched on the front seat were the driver—a squat-looking fellow in a slouch hat—and the same gentleman who had borrowed the spade. As Ryves watched, the two men unloaded an old bed, a mattress, and a trunk from the wagon and carried them into the house.

  The old man was surprised at the sparseness of the load and assumed that additional furnishings would follow.

  But none ever did.

  * * *

  On Thursday, October 25, Herbert Jones was at his post behind the front desk of the Albion when the uncle of the two little girls arrived, as he had every morning for the past six days, with the exception of Sunday. A few moments later, after settling the daily bill, he called for his nieces in their room and led them away. This, too, was his standard procedure. He had taken the girls sight-seeing virtually every day since their arrival.

  Sometimes, the girls stayed away until suppertime, though they were usually back in a few hours.

  This day, however, was different.

  This day, the two girls didn’t return at all.

  Later that same afternoon, Carrie took Dessie shopping at Baton’s department store on Yonge Street. They remained there for several hours, passing slowly from floor to floor, marveling at the dazzling profusion of dress goods, jewelry, toiletries, and sundries.

  By four the baby was getting fussy. Carrie declared it was time to head back to the hotel.

  They were almost to the exit when Carrie suddenly found herself face-to-face with Holmes. For an instant, both of them simply froze. Then Holmes did something so peculiar that Carrie could not make sense of it.

  He turned deathly pale.

  A moment later, however, he appeared to have recovered himself. “I have been hunting all over for you,” he said, keeping his voice low.

  “What is the matter?”

  “Wheelmen,” said Holmes, using the slang term for bicycle-mounted policemen. “Two of them—in citizen’s clothes. They are watching the house I rented.”

  “How—?”

  “I do not know. It is possible that they are looking for someone else. Perhaps a previous tenant who is wanted by the law. In any event, we cannot take the risk of bringing Ben here.”

  “What are we to do?” Carried cried. The distress in her voice brought stares from several nearby shoppers.

  Gesturing emphatically, Holmes signaled Carrie to lower her voice.

  “If you have made any purchases,” he whispered, “have them sent immediately to your hotel. I want you to leave here tonight.” Glancing around, he saw that he and Carrie were continuing to draw curious looks. “Wait here,” he said. “I will be back in a moment. I need to pick up something at the other end of the store.” Turning, he disappeared into the crowd of shoppers.

  Carrie and Dessie waited for nearly ten minutes with mounting confusion. Finally, Carrie asked her daughter to go look for Holmes. When the girl returned without having found him, Carrie handed her the baby and went off on her own fruitless search. Bewildered and dismayed, they returned to the hotel and began to pack.

  At around five, Holmes showed up at their room. He said nothing about his sudden disappearance, and Carrie was too distraught by then to ask. Handing her some train tickets, Holmes instructed her to leave immediately for Prescott, Ontario, then cross down to Ogdensburg, New York. He would meet them in Ogdensburg tomorrow.

  A few moments later, after making sure that Carrie had the directions straight, Holmes rushed off.

  Back in his own hotel room, Holmes informed Georgiana that they must leave Toronto at once. He had decided that it was time for them to make their long-delayed trip to Germany. They would take a steamship from Boston. On their way down to Massachusetts, he had several brief stops to make—a few loose ends to tie up involving his copier business.

  Georgiana was delighted, though she was also puzzled by the urgency in her husband’s manner. By now she was used to these abrupt departures. But there was something different about Harry’s behavior this time. Generally, he seemed like a man in a hurry.

  Suddenly, he seemed like a man on the run.

  30

  Vice may triumph for a time, crime may flaunt its

  victories in the face of honest toilers, but in the end

  the law will follow the wrong-doer to a bitter fate,

  and dishonor and punishment will be the portion of those who sin.

  —Allan Pinkerton

  William Gary had decided that St. Louis was the logical place to start searching for Holmes. Arriving with O. LaForrest Perry on Friday, October 12, Gary immediately sought out Carrie Pitezel, only to discover from a neighbor named Becker that the newly widowed woman had abruptly left town the week before, along with her infant son and oldest daughter. From the rogues’-gallery portrait that Gary showed him, Becker was able to identify Holmes as the man who had called on the Pitezels several times during the late summer and early fall.

  Thanks to the report put together by Edwin Cass, Fidelity’s Chicago branch manager, Gary and his colleague knew that Holmes kept a domicile in Wilmette, Illinois. The following day, the pair showed up at the trim, red-frame house on North John Street.

  Myrta Holmes was no more forthcoming with the two investigators than she had been with Cass. But once again, a neighbor proffered some useful information. Dr. Holmes, this individual revealed, was rarely seen in the neighborhood. According to rumor, however, he was well-known in Englewood, where he had run into some trouble with the law.

  That same afternoon, the two men traveled down to Englewood. They spent the remainder of that day and most of the next interrogating Holmes’s neighbors and acquaintances—including his broker and business associate, Frank Blackman, who grabbed the first opportunity to contact Holmes with the news tha
t insurance men were on his trail. It was this wire that caused Holmes to abandon his plan in Detroit.

  Checking in with the Chicago police, Gary and his partner conducted an interview with two detectives named Norton and Fitzpatrick. As the insurance men Listened, a picture emerged of Holmes that confirmed Gary’s strongest suspicions. Gary learned all about the druggist’s financial misdeeds and manifold frauds, including the failed fire-insurance scam at his “Castle.” He also discovered that both Holmes and Pitezel were wanted down in Texas on charges of swindling and horse theft.

  It had become increasingly clear to the insurance men that they were chasing a bold and wily criminal whose trail extended over a wide geographical area—from Philadelphia to Fort Worth, St. Louis to Englewood. At this point, Holmes might be anywhere in the country. Two men working on their own—even ones as capable as Gary and his colleague—were simply inadequate for the job. What they needed was the aid of a detective service with the manpower and know-how to conduct a nationwide hunt.

  The next morning, Gary wired his recommendation to L. G. Fouse. It was time to call in the Pinkertons.

  Instead of disembarking at Prescott, Holmes did something that struck Georgiana as peculiar. He escorted her off the train at the previous station and hired a carriage to drive them the rest of the way. When Georgiana asked the reason for this expedient, Holmes mumbled something about the need to conceal his movements from unprincipled competitors, who would stop at nothing to sabotage his business.

  The carriage dropped them off at the ferry landing. Not long afterward, they docked in Ogdensburg, New York, after a choppy trip across the St. Lawrence River.

  Accompanied by her two children, Carrie arrived in Ogdensburg one day later, Sunday, October 26. Taking a room at the National Hotel, she settled in to await further instructions. Holmes—who had left Georgiana resting in a nearby rooming house—showed up early that evening and laid out his latest plan.

  He would be leaving for Burlington, Vermont, on Tuesday, he explained. Carrie and her children were to remain in Ogdensburg until November 1, then follow on the early train. Holmes would meet them at the depot. In the meantime, he would arrange for Benny to journey down to Burlington, where Carrie and her husband would have their long-deferred reunion.

  Holmes and Georgiana made the trip to Burlington on October 30. Once again, he insisted on detraining at the preceding stop and finishing the journey by carriage. After an overnight stay at the Burlington Hotel, they transferred to Ahern’s boardinghouse where Holmes registered as “Mr. Hall and Wife.”

  That same afternoon, using the alias “J. A. Judson,” Holmes rented a furnished house at 26 Winooski Avenue, explaining to the agent that he was taking it for his widowed sister, whose name he gave as Mrs. Cook.

  Much to Holmes’s annoyance, Carrie and the children did not arrive the following morning, as planned. Holmes returned to the station to meet the afternoon train. The moment Carrie climbed down with her children, he began berating her. “Why didn’t you come on the train I told you to?”

  “They told me it was a local train,” Carrie replied in an unapologetic tone. “It’s bad enough traveling with the baby on a fast train.”

  “Whenever I tell you to do anything,” Holmes growled, “you do it.”

  Carrie, however, was rapidly reaching the end of her tether. She was through being browbeaten. Meeting his anger with a defiant glare, she maintained an icy silence during the carriage ride to Winooski Avenue.

  Inside the house, Carrie sank into a chair while Dessie, baby in arms, went off to explore the rooms. “I would have taken you for supper,” Holmes said coolly, “if you had come on the earlier train.”

  “I don’t care about supper,” Carrie shot back. “I only care about one thing—seeing my husband and children. Where is Benny now?”

  “Still in Montreal,” Holmes replied. Carrie need not worry. She and her husband would soon be together.

  The following morning, Holmes returned to Winooski Avenue and asked Dessie if she would like to go out and see a little of the city. With Carrie’s permission, Dessie agreed. As Holmes led the seventeen-year-old girl toward the street-car, he casually asked if her father had ever mentioned anything to her about a plan involving life insurance.

  Sometime during the preceding week, Dessie had, in fact, remembered the puzzling remarks that her papa had made back in St. Louis. Now, she repeated his words to Holmes.

  “Have you mentioned this to anyone else?” Holmes asked quickly.

  Dessie shook her head.

  “Good,” replied Holmes, more persuaded than ever that he must act at once.

  A few hours later, he dropped Dessie back at the furnished house. Before leaving, he asked Carrie how she was fixed for money.

  “I am strapped,” Carrie answered bitterly. All the moving around Holmes had put her through had drained her meager funds.

  Pulling some loose bills from his vest pocket, Holmes handed them to Carrie and told her to go shopping tomorrow for food.

  Holmes did some shopping himself the next morning. Shortly after noon, he returned to the rented house on Winooski Avenue with a purchase wrapped in cloth.

  As he’d expected, Carrie and her children were not at home. Letting himself in with his duplicate key, he snuck down to the basement, taking each of the wooden stairs slowly and carefully, as though fearful of making a misstep. Crouching by the coal bin, he gently unwound the cloth from the object it protected—a bottleful of thick, colorless fluid—which he gingerly secreted behind some decayed boards in the bin.

  Carrie did not see or hear from Holmes again for nearly a week and assumed that he had gone to fetch Benny. But when Holmes showed up unexpectedly on the evening of November 7, he was alone. When Carrie realized that he had not brought her husband back with him, her long-simmering frustrations finally reached a boil.

  “You have been lying to me all along,” she shouted. “Nothing comes of what you say!”

  “I have never lied to you,” Holmes said calmly.

  “I won’t stand it any longer,” she yelled. “I’m going to Indianapolis to see my babies!”

  “They are not in Indianapolis anymore.” Holmes said he had moved them to a house in Toronto, which he had rented from an “old maid.” That’s where he had been for the past week. “You said you liked Toronto.”

  “Yes, I like Toronto,” snapped Carrie. “But I don’t give a care where I am so long as I have the children with me.”

  “Well, you will have them soon.”

  “How are my babies?” Carrie cried.

  “Perfectly happy,” Holmes said with a smile. They were excited about the new house. They had gone running all around it, exploring every corner and closet.

  Holmes had bought Howard and the two girls new heavy coats so that they “wouldn’t take cold.” Alice had grown into “a real little woman.” Why, just a few evenings ago, she had fixed him a wonderful dinner.

  Carrie was somewhat mollified. She even chose to believe him when he promised her that he would leave the next morning to bring Benny down from Montreal.

  That evening, Holmes told Georgiana that he was setting off the next day on a brief business trip to close out his contracts on his copying machines. She was to meet him in Lowell, Massachusetts, in one week. From there, they would travel to Boston and board a steamship for Europe.

  As usual, Holmes was deceiving both women. He had no intention of traveling back to Canada. Nor did his trip have anything to do with the ABC Copier.

  His actual destination was Gilmanton, New Hampshire.

  Herman Webster Mudgett was going home.

  The Pinkerton company logo—a staring eye above the motto “We Never Sleep”—had given the agency its nickname among criminals. “The Eye,” they called it. (Eventually, the term would filter into general usage as the slang name for all private detectives or “private eyes.”)

  Within a week of being called onto the case, “The Eye” had spotted the elusive Dr. H
olmes.

  A team of Pinkerton agents had picked up his trail in Prescott and followed him to Ogdensburg and from there to Vermont. It would have been a simple matter to arrest him in Burlington. But—hoping that he might lead them to other conspirators in the insurance swindle—the detectives decided to put him under surveillance for a time.

  They were shadowing him when he showed up at his parents’ doorstep on November 8.

  At the sight of their child, whom they had not laid eyes on for over seven years, Levi and Theodate Mudgett—churchgoing people, well-versed in scripture—must have been reminded of the parable of the Prodigal Son. Holmes himself—who later wrote of the reunion in the most tear-jerking terms—preferred a different biblical analogy, comparing himself to Lazarus returned from the dead.

  Holmes passed the following week revisiting his childhood haunts. To his parents and siblings he dished out extravagant lies about his life. Sometime during this period, he also made a trip to Tilton to see his abandoned wife and thirteen-year-old son.

  The reunion with Clara Lovering Mudgett—who had remained faithful to her husband, never doubting that he would return to her someday—was an emotional experience for Holmes. Touched by her devotion, he swore that—though he must leave again soon on an urgent business trip—he would return for good in April. There was, however, one small matter that he felt honor-bound to disclose. He was embarrassed to admit it, but a little less than a year ago he had accidentally married another woman.

  The story he told Clara was outrageous even by Holmes’s mythomaniac standards. A year earlier, he claimed, he had been severely injured in a train wreck out West and had been transported, unconscious, to the nearest hospital. Upon awakening, he was amazed to discover that all recollection of his former self had been blotted out. “Who I was, my name, occupation, home, parents, friends—the memory of all had fled. On the night of the accident, a curtain had dropped between myself and the past, and all knowledge of my former self had been swept into oblivion.”