Forgotten News

by Jack Finney

  If Farrell had incorrectly remembered from which direction the two men he saw had come … and if one or the other was mistaken about the distance between the two walkers … then Farrell's testimony now and that of William Ross last Thursday seem otherwise to agree. It's true that if Farrell had been sitting on the steps of number 31, shoe in hand, when Ross walked by, then Ross somehow failed to see him there; but Farrell testified that the steps were quite dark. Of course, it is also true that Farrell had had the chance, like everyone else in New York, to read William Ross's testimony in last Friday's papers.

  The man in the shawl entered the house, Farrell sat trying to fix his shoelace, he said, and then: "Probably a minute might have passed … [when] I heard the door open … [and] a man came to the door…. He said to me, 'What are you doing there?' He spoke in a very rough manner. I was afraid; I thought the man that went in had ordered him to put me off the stoop…. The man … was in his shirt sleeves. I saw his head, his shoulders, and a part of his left hand. "… He said, 'What are you doing there?' I said, 'Nothing.' … I had my shoe off … wetting the shoe string in my mouth, and trying to put it in the holes." Shoe in hand, "and thinking there was a row in the house, and fearing he would probably kick me," Farrell got to his feet, "and in rising I kept my face to the door. At the time I was bent; I could not straighten myself very well on account of this complaint in my back, and I retreated down the steps sideways for fear … that he might assault me."

  At some time along in here Connery sent eight or ten spectators and some reporters up to Harvey Burdell's bedroom.

  Farrell continued: walking on his toes because the sidewalk was sloppy, he moved down to another stoop "three or four doors below." He sat down again, put on his shoe, and went home, where he worked "for an hour on the ladies' gaiters." Farrell thought nothing more of the incident on the stoop of number 31 Bond, he said, until he began reading about the murder in the papers.

  They tested him. On the night all this happened, "Was you sober?" a juror wanted to know.

  "I was."

  What were his "habits as to drink?" An occasional drink when his back hurt, but he wasn't in the habit of getting intoxicated. All he'd had to drink that night was "one glass of rectified spirits; about half an ounce." Of whiskey? "No, what we call spirits. It is such as is usually sold in Dutch groceries." But that's all he'd had in twenty-four hours.

  How was his sight? Shortsighted, but could easily see short distances. Thought he'd be able to recognize the men at the reporters' table, if he saw them again.

  Was he sure this was the house? Yes; he'd seen the house numerals that night; seen a one and a three, that is, but couldn't remember later whether the number was 13 or 31. So last Thursday night he'd walked down Bond Street again, had looked at the stoop of number 13, and that wasn't the one. It was number 31.

  And so they came to the final question: Was the man who had frightened Farrell from the stoop of 31 on the night of the murder… John Eckel? Connery sent some of the jurymen up to join the spectators and reporters in Dr. Burdell's bedroom; and had Eckel taken in to join them. Then Connery walked in, and told the men, some twenty-five of them, tu take off their coats, including Eckel—because the man who'd come to the front door the night of the murder, said Connery, had been in shirt sleeves.

  Henry Clinton seems to have briefed Eckel, who sat "occupying a chair near the foot of the bed, dressed in a shaggy brown overcoat, with a pointed plush cap on his head"—because Eckel refused to take off his coat "by advice of counsel." The other men then put their coats back on, and "formed themselves into an irregular circle, Eckel standing by the head of the bed with nothing in his position or manner to distinguish him from the rest…. All had their heads uncovered."

  Connery returned to the inquest room, where it was "announced that the witness would be taken upstairs," said the Times, and "there was an instant rush to the door which the policemen guarded jealously." But Connery said, "Gentlemen of the Press will be permitted to go upstairs," the cops let the reporters through, and about a dozen of them, "pencils and paper in hand, wended their way up…."

  His stage set, the reporters ready, Connery brought Farrell upstairs. Through the murder room, and into Harvey Burdell's bedroom, where the waiting men made "a pretty good roomful." Eckel now stood "behind the chair on which he had been sitting, leaning against the footpost of the bed; his appearance indicated considerable nervous trepidation, although his feelings were under strong control.

  "Witness had been directed to look and see if he found any person that resembled the man that he had seen on the night of the murder come to the door of the house…." Farrell walked slowly around the irregular circle of silent men, "peering into the face of each individual as he passed, but did not at first pay any particular attention to Eckel; a moment afterward, he turned and looked at Eckel fixedly. Eckel's eyes winked incessantly, but he gazed steadily at Witness while undergoing this scrutiny. The absorbed attention with which every person in the room watched this proceeding was actually painful in its intensity. The bystanders scarcely breathed, and a pin might have been heard to drop. Mr. Farrell, after glancing at Eckel in an uncertain, hesitating way, turned twice, evidently struck by something familiar in Eckel's countenance, and the third time he looked, continued to gaze. We observed Eckel's countenance attentively," said the Times man. "The lines about his mouth were even more deeply set and strongly marked than usual. He had the appearance of a man who had made up his mind to undergo examination, and had steeled himself to the task. It was impossible, of course, that he should have known the precise object for which this scrutiny was instituted; he had undergone several interviews with different parties who were called to identify him, but it could not have escaped the notice of the most unobserving that he had arrived at the conclusion that there was something more than usual in this particular investigation. Although, therefore, he was probably unaware of the precise object of this examination, he had put himself under severe restraint, in order that no movement of a muscle and no change in countenance should betray his emotions. But if the expression of Eckel's face was that of stoical indifference, that of the witness Farrell was the epitome of hesitation, doubt and reluctance. He gave a very slight start, so slight as to be almost imperceptible, when his attention was first arrested by the expression in Eckel's face. Unwilling to swear positively that Eckel was the man, yet he evidently struggled with a conviction which seemed to force itself upon his mind, that the person who appeared at the door on the night of the murder and this man were one and the same. He put his hand to his head, and appeared lost in thought for a moment or two,—then turned and walked away."

  Farrell came back to Eckel then, and stooped to one knee, "so as to bring the suspected man's face in the same relation that it stood on the fatal Saturday night; this done, much doubt seemed to vanish from Farrell's face."

  " 'Well, which is the man?' " a reporter quoted Connery.

  " 'I don't know,' " he replied; this is the reporter's italicizing. " 'I think that is the man.' (pointing to Eckel)."

  On the witness stand again, Farrell said "he was sorry [to be] the means of putting any man's life in jeopardy …" but in replies to Judge Capron's further questions he said, "I had no trouble in selecting him from among the others," and "as soon as I looked at him, he attracted my attention; I should have known the man again who came to the door had I seen him twenty years afterwards."

  Outside the house the crowd had been growing all morning, and now two thousand people, the Times estimated, stood waiting as Captain Dilk and three cops brought Eckel out of number 31 and down toward a carriage at the curb. As they stepped out the door onto the stoop, "the crowd set up a dismal howl, which was prolonged until the vehicle reached Broadway, and was lost among the crowd of stages." The Tribune said: "A number of men and boys followed the carriage a short distance, booing and hissing as they went," and the Times concluded: "For many years in this City, there has not been such a burst of execration respecti
ng any suspected criminal as that which jarred on Eckel's ears as he was taken … from the premises in Bond Street."

  Inside the house the inquest was exploding: a new witness had arrived whose testimony on any other day would have been a sensation of itself. She was Isabella Banford, she told them from the witness chair, "a young and quite handsome woman of fine personal appearance and great intelligence." Another reporter liked her, too: thought her "handsome and intelligent." She was "a Jewess," he said, and when "Connery advanced, holding the Bible, she said, 'I do not swear; I am not a Christian,' " so they let her "affirm."

  She lived at 401 Broadway, she told them, and worked for Clyde & Black, retailers of umbrellas, parasols, canes, etc.

  "Have you any recollection of a lady and gentleman calling at your store, lately, to purchase a sword-cane?"

  "Yes, Sir."

  "When?

  "It was Friday, a week ago." This was the day of the murder night; a man and woman had come into the store between eleven and noon, and "asked to see some sword-canes."

  It was a triumphant day for Edward Connery, and he wanted no word missed by the reporters. "Not so fast," he told the witness, and Judge Capron explained, "These gentlemen wish to write, and they cannot write as rapidly as you and I can talk." Slowly, making certain the reporters got it all, they let Isabella Banford tell them how she'd brought out a selection of sword canes, how the couple had looked them over, and how "the lady took one in her hands, and said she did not think it would suit, to the gentleman that was with her."

  "Wait there a moment," said Connery. He gave the reporters time to catch up, then: "Now go on."

  "Then what?" the witness was asked. "Did she try it at all?"

  "Yes, Sir, she tried it against a corner of the table…." Then she "held it in her hand, and bent it so." But the kind of sword cane the couple wanted, they told Miss Banford, must be " 'short, sharp and strong.' " She could get one made, Miss Banford told them, but: "They said it would not answer, they must have it tonight," and that "they would look further and see if they could find one."

  "Is it a frequent occurrence that a lady comes into your store to buy a sword-cane?"

  "No, Sir, that is something a lady had never asked me before…."

  How old was this lady?

  "… about 35 or 36."

  They took her upstairs for a look at Emma Cunningham, but she came back to say, "I should not like to swear it was her." The lady who'd wanted to buy a sword cane had been wearing a bonnet, so they took the witness upstairs again, and made Mrs. Cunningham put on a bonnet. Back to the witness stand, but Miss Banford still wasn't sure: Mrs. Cunningham's features, she thought, "are very like her, but I would not wish quite to swear." How strong this resemblance? "She looks very much like her, indeed," and her voice "was like as it was in the store."

  They sent Miss Banford to the Tombs in a carriage for a look at Eckel, and while they waited, a man spoke privately to Judge Capron. He was Dr. J. B. Morton, described later by the Times as "a German, of unprepossessing features." Miss Banford's testimony worried Dr. Morton because, he said to Capron, a friend of his had told him that a gentleman and lady he knew had tried to buy a sword cane at Clyde & Black that same Friday; and they were not Eckel and Mrs. Cunningham. They were merely people going to a party that evening, and the lady wanted him to have a weapon from fear of the garroters. Just as Miss Banford had said, this couple looked at several sword canes, couldn't find one they liked, and the clerk had suggested having one made. No, the lady had said, they wanted it that night. Capron listened, then told Morton to wait till Isabella Banford came back.

  They used the waiting time to hear a man who lived at number 32 Bond; he'd heard a choking gurgle the night of the murder. They'd sent a juror to examine the minutes of the meeting of the directors of the Artisans' Bank; now he returned to say they showed Dr. Burdell present, here in New York, on October 28, the day Mrs. Cunningham said they'd been married. But Judge Capron suggested that the entry might have been made by proxy, that it didn't prove a thing. A tailor who'd made clothes for Eckel was shown the clothes he had here, but couldn't say whether any were missing. And so on.

  Isabella Banford came back, and they put her on the stand immediately. Had she seen Eckel?

  "Yes, Sir."

  "Well, what do you say?"

  "I cannot recognize him at all."

  "That is bad," Capron said, and questioned her again, but she would not identify Eckel. They had her wait to see if she could recognize the sword-cane customer Dr. Morton had talked about. But Morton didn't know the lady, and couldn't produce her; he'd only heard about her from a friend. So they wouldn't allow his testimony; it was only hearsay, they said.

  Henry Clinton pointed out that this was exactly the same kind of hearsay testimony "that you have occupied ten days with," but it didn't do him any good. "… I hope you will introduce testimony," said Clinton, "that tells in favor of my client, as well as I observe you do that which tells against her." That started a wrangle which ended with Connery threatening to have a cop put Clinton in jail if he spoke one more word.

  Connery then announced that because of "important testimony which connects [Emma Cunningham] this day, more or less, with being the cause of the death of Harvey Burdell, I have, gentlemen of the jury, ordered her to be sent to the Tombs, to be imprisoned tonight, and to be kept there until the issue of this grand inquisition. (Applause)."

  Darkness had come, they adjourned, and Emma Cunningham was escorted to a carriage by Officer Smith of the Fifteenth Ward. "The crowd around the house was immense, but night enveloped her removal, and but little notice was taken of her as she entered the carriage…."

  At the Times I think the typesetters must already have been at work, because the paper came out with an "Extra Times" that very evening, containing the "leading parts" of today's stunning testimony. The Extra "created an immense sensation," they said next day. "Our office was densely crowded, and 10,000 or 12,000 copies … were sold as rapidly as they could be struck from the press."

  In another part of the Times offices that evening, a man began writing tomorrow's editorial. "The Curtain Lifted—the Mystery of the Murder Dispelled," he headed it, then: "The Bond-street drama approaches its close," he began; and couldn't have been more mistaken. "Yesterday's proceedings … substantially fastened upon John J. Eckel and Mrs. Cunningham the guilt of the bloodiest and most awful murder that has startled this City for many years…. There seems little reason to doubt that Eckel did the deed—and he cannot be implicated without it implicating Mrs. Cunningham.

  "A remarkable feature of the case is that the witness by whom this consummation has been reached, has been entirely unknown and unheard of until the last moment. An anonymous letter …

  "… the very precaution which Eckel took against being observed, —his going to the front door and looking to see if anybody was in the street, proved the means, and thus far the only means, of his exposure!

  "… Mrs. Cunningham is also identified as having, in company with a gentleman, on Friday purchased a sword-cane in Broadway…. This leaves it impossible to doubt her complicity in the murder,—or that the whole affair was deliberately and systematically planned… it will be very difficult to convince the public that no noise was heard by any of the inmates on that night…."

  On this same busy evening a lithographer named Robert Mathews walked into the chief of police's office, and handed the sergeant there "a small, square piece of paper, smutted and creased as though carried some time in the vest pocket." A man on the street, a stranger, had handed it to him, Mathews said. "Upon one side of it was written in a large bold hand:

  "John M. Smiter,

  Wm. L. Butkins,

  alias Wm. Pike,

  and

  Joseph M. Hathorn,

  are the murderers of H. Burdell.

  "and upon the other side:

  "The writer of this

  is one of the

  murderers."

  At fou
r o'clock in the morning, George Snodgrass showed up at the Fifteenth Ward station house, and asked for a place to sleep.

  The inquest wound down in only a couple more days, as though Farrell and his spectacular shoestring had been a climax it was no use trying to top. Mostly they wrapped up loose ends.

  On Friday they didn't meet at all, and the house was cleared out, no outsiders admitted except the cops guarding it. For the first time since the murder, Helen and Augusta and their little brothers were left alone in the house.

  What these four Cunningham children had to say to one another throughout that day can only be guessed at; wrongly, I'm sure. At some time during the day and again on the next, the girls went down to the Tombs to visit their imprisoned mother. At the prison: "Their deportment was such as to astonish the warden, doctors and officers…. They were dressed in rich silks, with very valuable fur capes, heavy gold bracelets, and other expensive jewelry. While waiting for admission in the outer corridor, they carefully arranged their apparel, and altogether behaved very little like persons about to enter the cell where their mother was confined on a charge of murder."

  Well, maybe. You wonder just how they should have behaved to suit the reporter's idea of correct conduct while visiting one's mother in jail. Possibly they were only toughing it out.

  On the last day, Saturday, George Snodgrass was identified by a still-indignant lady witness as the young man she'd quarreled with at her store a few days before the murder. He had bought "a dagger-knife," she said, "a four-cornered blade." Snodgrass denied this just as indignantly, and the lady's own clerk failed to support her identification. But Dr. Woodward was given a dagger the store owner had brought along as being a duplicate of the one she'd sold. The doctor left with it, then returned in the afternoon to report that he'd tried it on a dead body (this time the italics are all mine) and that it could have made the wounds that killed the Doctor. That was enough for Connery: he ordered Snodgrass arrested as an accessory to the murder.