by Chris Enss
Before Mrs. Drysdale left the bedroom to tend to her household chores, she encouraged Alexander to go back to bed and get more rest. Mrs. Potter heard him pacing and muttering loudly to himself. “This is horrible,” she heard him say. “What does this mean? My God! What could have done it?”
John managed to coax Alexander from his room, and the two took a stroll around the grounds. When John pointed out the blood on the grass and on the gate, Alexander claimed the blood must have been from an injured hired hand.
Several days passed before Alexander had another ghostly sighting. This time he and John were joined by two other residents as they rode through the Atkinson countryside around the Drysdale plantation. The ghostly object Alexander referred to as the image of the murdered George Gordon appeared near the same spot as before. Although one of the men agreed he might have witnessed something moving, neither John nor the other riders could claim to have seen an apparition. Alexander nearly collapsed and had to be supported on either side by his friends in order to make it back to his home. He was then confined to his room, too sick to receive visitors.
Pinkerton was made aware of Alexander’s condition and advised his operatives to continue their work. He was determined to drive George’s killer to confess all.
Less than a week after Alexander had seen the ghost a second time, Mrs. Potter decided to help the land baron’s anxiety along. About one o’clock in the morning she arose, quietly dressed, and stealthily left the house. She walked to a nearby creek and began dropping blood from a bottle along the path to the house. She splattered drops up the front walk, in the hall, and finally slipped into Alexander’s room and sprinkled drops on his pillow.
When Alexander saw the blood the following morning, he was panic-stricken. Neighbors and hired hands who discovered the bloodstains leading to the house were horrified. Some believed the blood was from a would-be thief whose plans had been thwarted when he’d cut himself somehow, and others believed the blood belonged to an animal that was hurt and trying to find help; still others thought a ghost was somehow responsible.
A few nights later Mrs. Potter caught Alexander sneaking out of the house and following a fresh trail of blood planted by her to the creek. She watched as he waded into the creek and leaned over with his hands in the water as if he were feeling for something. Satisfied that whatever he was hoping to find was there, he walked out of the creek and returned home.
Alexander’s health was much improved the following morning, and within a few days he was able to go back to work. Mrs. Potter and an operative named Green who was portraying the ghost of the slain George Gordon monitored Alexander’s nighttime activities, which included regular visits to the creek. The detectives were perplexed but didn’t waver in their duties. The situation was getting desperate. Mrs. Potter could only feign injury for so long. Eventually she would be compelled to leave the Drysdales’ home to return to the hotel.
One late afternoon she agreed to go for a short walk with Mrs. Drysdale, Alexander, and John. She pretended not to be able to keep up with everyone because her legs were stiff. Mrs. Drysdale stayed behind with her while the men kept up a brisk pace in the direction of the creek. Alexander hesitated at first; it was twilight, and he was getting nervous. John continued, undeterred. He was watching a hawk passing overhead when Alexander gasped and dropped to his knees. Crossing the path on the opposite side of the creek was the terrible specter he had seen twice before. It moved out of sight quickly. Alexander fainted. John called for help, and Mrs. Drysdale hurried to her husband. Mrs. Potter hobbled to the scene as the hired hands rushed in from the fields to assist. Alexander was carried to his house and deposited into his bed.
When Alexander recovered, he was white as a sheet and shaking. John was by his side, and Alexander reached out and grabbed his arm.
“John,” he began, “did you see that horrible ghost?”
John shook his head. “No, indeed; I saw no ghost,” he told him.
Alexander questioned his wife and Mrs. Potter, and both responded negatively. The terrified man could not accept their answers. John poured him a glass of brandy, and Alexander drank it down, trying to make sense of what had happened. Mrs. Drysdale burst into tears and pleaded with her husband to let them take him to a reliable physician. Alexander would not agree, and demanded to be left alone.
Operative Green kept a careful eye on the house that evening. Mrs. Potter and John brought him food and instructed him to wait in the woods until the following morning. In the middle of the night, Green observed the door of the Drysdales’ home open and Alexander step out. Wearing only his dressing robe, he wandered about like someone walking in his sleep. He didn’t stay outside long; after roaming around a bit, he returned inside.
The next evening Alexander behaved in much the same way, but this time he traveled to the creek. Green watched him closely as he bent down and searched in the water for something. Once it seemed he’d found it, he marked the area by placing a stone on the bank of the creek. Alexander then hurried back to the house.
Green wasted no time in getting to the spot where Alexander had been standing in the water.
During Alexander’s absence, Mrs. Potter had snuck into his room and sprinkled drops of blood on his pillow and on the floor around the bed. She managed to get out of his room just as he entered the home. She observed him going back to his room and shutting the door behind him. Mrs. Potter peered through the keyhole to see what he did next. She watched as he tried to wash the bloodstains off the floor.
Alexander was in poor health by this point, both physically and emotionally. He wouldn’t get out of bed and refused to eat. He sent for John and asked him to retrieve paperwork from his office in Atkinson and bring it to him. John agreed. Using the key Alexander gave him, he gained access to his private office. Before leaving with the documents, John scattered drops of blood about the room. He raced back to the Drysdales’ plantation with the documents. When Alexander inquired if he’d had any problems, John informed him about the blood on the chairs, desk, and paperwork. As he spoke he held out the documents dotted with crimson stains. The shock proved too much for Alexander, and he fainted. It was some time before he came to.
While Alexander lay struggling with all he had experienced, John conspired with bank executives to sprinkle blood in the bank on the floor and desk where George used to work. The plan was set in motion. Bank employees who discovered the blood were shaken by the sight. When news of the discovery reached Alexander, his nerves became even more raw. John told Pinkerton that Alexander was like a man suffering from hydrophobia more commonly known as rabies. “His thoughts could turn in only one direction,” the operative explained, “and that was toward remorse and fear.” John conveyed to the operatives he was working with that things were approaching a crisis level.
A doctor was called to the Drysdales’ home, and after examining the patient, he prescribed a healthy dosage of morphine to make Alexander sleep. The doctor was fairly certain that once the disturbed man fell asleep, he would stay asleep for several hours.
John seized the opportunity to gather his crew and the bank executives to explore the creek area on which Alexander had been so fixated. Green stayed behind, dressed as the murder victim, ready to scare Alexander should he wake up unexpectedly and decide to venture to the water again.
At midnight under a fair, moonlit sky, John and the three bank executives converged at the creek bed. They had no sooner started toward the marked spot in the water when Green came running at them. Alexander was up and out of his bed and heading their way. Green walked in front of Alexander as George a couple of times, but Drysdale didn’t act like he saw George at all.
John and the others hid in the brush and waited for Alexander to come near. John studied the man’s actions and determined that Alexander was sleepwalking. His anxiety and nervous dread was so great that he couldn’t rest in quiet, and was driven to visit the spot where h
e’d hidden the blood-stained treasure he’d stolen.
Alexander waded into the creek and began splashing in the water frantically. Unable to locate the object he was compelled to collect, he shuffled back to his home. Once he was out of sight, John took up the search. Using a pickax and shovel, he dug into the creek bed until he struck a hollow piece of wood. The bank executives flanked him on either side and assisted in removing the log. Once the log was out of the way they unearthed a large, heavy metal box. Inside were the gold coins that had been taken. The bundles of cash were not in the box. John assured the bank executives that he would have the remainder of the money returned to them in twenty-four hours.
Alexander was grateful that John came to visit him the following day. The frazzled man was not willing to let him out of his sight for a moment. John’s presence was a welcome distraction to Alexander. The time the two of them spent talking about hunting, fishing, or horseback riding were the only moments Alexander wasn’t thinking about the crime he had committed. It wasn’t until late in the evening when Alexander had drifted asleep during a conversation that John had a chance to break away. He crept outside and walked to a grove of trees beyond the garden to rendezvous with Green and Mrs. Potter. Green had witnessed Alexander wandering around the grove one evening and suspected the money might have been buried there.
Armed with lanterns, the three examined the ground in search of loose sod. They did find a patch of fresh earth that seemed suspicious, and John dug beneath it. At a depth of two feet, they came upon a large candle-box which they carefully extracted from the ground with a shovel. The spot was immediately covered over again with dirt and patted down in order to remove any evidence that someone had been there. John took the box to the bank in Atkinson, Green returned to his post watching the house, and Mrs. Potter made her way to Alexander’s room, splattering blood along the path as she went.
At daylight the bank executives opened the box and discovered the stolen cash. John watched as the money was carried to the vault and locked inside. By the time John returned to the Drysdale plantation, Alexander was sick with fear and convulsing. The bloodstains on the floor and his bed had driven him close to madness. John reported to Pinkerton that Alexander’s terror was “greater than he had ever shown before.”
Pinkerton and his operatives were convinced of Alexander’s guilt, but still had no legal evidence sufficient enough to convict him, in case he should maintain his innocence. Pinkerton’s concerns were not limited to the circumstantial evidence. “I had assumed a terrible responsibility in taking such extreme measures with him,” he noted in the case file, “for there was danger that he might go insane without confessing his guilt. In that case my position would have been really dangerous. I should have been accused of giving the orders to drive him crazy with no proper justification for my actions, and the result might have been most disastrous to me. The fact that I, an unknown man from the North, had helped drive a high-toned Southern gentleman insane would have been sufficient to hang me by the summary process of lynch law.”
Pinkerton met again with his operatives, and they further outlined the problems of a case without a full confession. A lawyer could argue that it could not be proven that Alexander buried the money on his property. Nor could it be proven that he was driven to the area where the money was located out of guilt over his actions. Mrs. Potter reminded Pinkerton that Alexander was a sleepwalker, and suggested that perhaps he was sleepwalking the night George was murdered. She suggested that Alexander could have simply followed the murderer to the spot where the gold was hidden.
Pinkerton learned the Drysdales had decided to sell their property in Atkinson and move to New Orleans. The troubled couple was in agreement that starting over in a new location might improve Alexander’s health. Mrs. Drysdale made plans for her husband to go to his office to close their accounts. When Pinkerton discovered the Drysdales’ intentions, he drew up the necessary affidavit to have Alexander arrested. John accompanied an unsuspecting Alexander to his office. They had no sooner arrived when the sheriff entered the business and presented the warrant to Alexander. He was taken aback and demanded to know why he was being arrested. When the officer told him it was for the murder of George Gordon, Alexander let out a scream and fainted. John assisted in reviving the accused, and law enforcement asked the two men to go to the bank with them.
It was twilight when the sheriff, Alexander, and John journeyed down the street to the bank. Pinkerton met them at the door, introduced himself, and reinforced that Alexander was to be taken into custody for murder.
“Have you any denial to make?” Pinkerton asked.
Before he could respond, operative Green passed behind George Gordon’s desk and stood in the spot where the man was killed. As on previous occasions, Alexander turned white as a sheet and collapsed. Restoratives were applied, and he soon recovered. No one but Alexander claimed to see the ghost, and it made him frantic. He denied the charges made against him and called them “false in every particular way.”
Pinkerton placed a box on top of one of the desks and then asked the crazed man if he also denied he had buried gold in the creek. Pinkerton opened the box and removed a few sacks of gold. Alexander said nothing. He merely hung his head and drew in a long breath. “Will you also deny that you buried the paper money in a grave near your home on the plantation?” Pinkerton expounded on the evidence, telling the accused about the partially burned notes and buttons found in the fire. Alexander sat stone-faced, either not knowing how to respond or too afraid to speak.
According to the file Pinkerton maintained on the case, his next move was a desperate one.
“If you’re not satisfied with the evidence that we can prove you are guilty,” Pinkerton told Alexander, “I will call upon the murdered man himself to testify against you.”
As Pinkerton spoke, Green slowly reappeared behind the desk.
Alexander covered his face with his hands and dropped to his knees. “Oh! My God! I am guilty!! I am guilty!!” he cried out. Once Alexander began confessing, he couldn’t stop. He told every detail of the crime except for why. He had no answer to that question. “I’ve not known a moment’s peace since then,” he cried. “My mind has been occupied with that money constantly, and even in my sleep I would dream about it.”
The more Alexander talked, the more the motive for the murder became clear. He was going broke and couldn’t pay his debts. One of the debtors was pressuring him, and he was becoming more desperate. He had removed the $300 he had left in his account and applied for a loan from the bank for the rest. While George Gordon had been counting out the cash to give to Alexander, he struck him with a hammer, stole the money from the vault, and buried it.
Alexander seemed resigned to the fact that he was going to jail, and asked the sheriff for a moment alone to write a note to his wife. The sheriff agreed. Alexander requested that John be allowed to go with him into one of the bank executives’ offices while he penned the letter. That request was also approved. Alexander wanted John to take the letter to his wife.
The two men stepped into the office, and John helped Alexander to a desk. Alexander grabbed his hand and held it tightly. “Tell my wife I feel better for having confessed,” he implored the operative. John nodded and handed him a piece of paper. As he turned away to close the door behind them, Alexander removed a pistol from his jacket pocket and shot himself in the head.
Mrs. Potter was at Mrs. Drysdale’s side when she was informed of her husband’s arrest and subsequent death.
Notes
1. Pinkerton, The Detective and the Somnambulist; The Murderer and the Fortune Teller, pp. 3–101; “Jane Maxwell Drysdale” (www.ancestry.com/genealogy/records/jane-maxwell-drysdale_45857219).
Chapter Three
Operative Hattie Lewis Lawton
An article in the May 14, 1893, edition of the New York Times categorized women as the “weaker, gentler sex whose special
duty was the creation of an orderly and harmonious sphere for husbands and children. Respectable women, true women, do not participate in debates on the public issues or attract attention to themselves.”1 Kate Warne and the female operatives who served with her defied convention, and progressive men like Allan Pinkerton gave them an opportunity to prove themselves capable of more than caring for a home and family.
Kate’s daring and Pinkerton’s ingenuity paved the way for women to be accepted in the field of law enforcement. Prior to Kate being hired as an agent, few had been given a chance to serve as female officers in any capacity.
In the early 1840s, six women were put in charge of female inmates at a prison in New York. Their appointments led to a handful of other ladies being allowed to patrol dance halls, skating rinks, pool halls, movie theaters, and other places of amusement frequented by women and children. Although the patrol women performed their duties admirably, local government officials and police departments were reluctant to issue them uniforms or allow them to carry weapons. The general consensus among men was that women lacked the physical stamina to maintain such a job for an extended period of time.2 An article in an 1859 edition of The Citizen newspaper announced that “Women are the fairer sex, unable to reason rationally or withstand trauma. They depend upon the protection of men.”3
The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union played a key role in helping to change the stereotypical view of women at the time. The organization recognized the treatment female convicts suffered in prison and campaigned for women to be put in charge of female inmates. The WCTU’s efforts were successful. Prison matrons provided assistance and direction to female prisoners, thereby shielding them from possible abuse at the hands of male officers and inmates. Those matrons were the earliest predecessors of women law enforcement officers.4
