Читать книгу The Crime of the Century; Or, The Assassination of Dr. Patrick Henry Cronin - Henry M. Hunt - Страница 35

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But, to their eternal honor and credit, be it said, there were many staunch friends of the missing man, who, undeterred by slander and suspicion on the one hand, and questionable reports on the other, were determined that the mystery should be probed to the bottom, and that, dead or alive, the physician should be found. Among them were John F. Scanlan, W. P. Rend, Frank Scanlan, P. McGarry, and T. T. Conklin. These and others came together and decided to send one of their number to Toronto to investigate the reports that had emanated from that city. An unlimited supply of money was pledged, and Pat McGarry was selected for the mission. Information regarding this action was telegraphed to Toronto and took the Canadian conspirators—who had not contemplated any such move—somewhat by surprise. Prompt action became necessary, and the only thing to be done was to make it appear that Dr. Cronin had disappeared from the city as suddenly as he entered it. Accordingly, dispatches to that effect were prepared and transmitted to the various papers that had received the previous reports. One of these was worded as follows:

Dr. Cronin is a fugitive. He has not been seen in Toronto since 10 o'clock this morning, when Long, his former Chicago friend, left him under the surveillance of an amateur detective, paid for the purpose. Cronin then was in a state bordering on terror, and begged frequently that detectives should not be put upon his track, and offered to give any additional particulars he knew about affairs generally. Dispatches from Chicago newspapers had given the story of suspicion against Cronin in respect to the trunk mystery. When asked about this mystery he denied that he knew anything. This morning, when the news contained in Chicago dispatches was communicated to him, he stuck to that statement, though once or twice threatened with exposure and the allegation that detectives were waiting in the vestibule of the hotel and had a warrant for his arrest on the charge of malpractice. He was next asked if there was any truth in the other story about his going to London to communicate with the British Government. His manner and evasive replies tended to create this impression rather than that he made his escape from Chicago over the trunk mystery. He said he intended in a day or two to return to Montreal, where he had been to get one of the Canada-French line boats to Paris. Then he said he might go to England.

Cronin promised he did not intend to leave Toronto for a few days. He was not registered at the hotel, and the scores of reporters who called were informed that he was not staying there, and had not been there. This was arranged by Cronin's occupying a room engaged by another party, so the hotel clerk had no idea that the man was in the house. The information contained in the interview was no doubt intended by Cronin to mislead, and the interviewer was well aware of the fact at the time. He got his amateur detective at the end of the corridor and told him to keep his eyes open, and when Cronin was left alone in his apartment to see that he did not leave it. Some few minutes after, Cronin made a dash from his room and went toward the stairs. He had evidently seen the man who was watching him, and his action must have been taken after a great deal of deliberation. When the detective saw him on the stairs he walked to the staircase leading to the ladies' entrance to intercept Cronin there. Cronin, however, had only gone half way down the staircase. Then he returned and took the elevator, descending to the ladies' entrance, where the detective, not finding him, thought he had been fooled, and again returned to the head of the stairs. Cronin had disappeared. At 11 o'clock a second detective was at the hotel to renew the watch over Cronin.

There is no trace whatever of Cronin since 11 o'clock. The people at the Rossin House knew nothing about Cronin getting out. The theory is that Cronin, fearing arrest on the charge of murder, has gone to Montreal again. The only trains leaving the city to-day were the morning and evening express and the noon train for Hamilton. Cronin was seen after the morning express had left. The evening express was watched, and few people went on the noon train, no one of them answering to Cronin's description. The livery stables did not hire out any rig that could have carried the man a great distance out of the city. His disappearance is a perfect mystery. Dispatches from St. Catherines to-night say that Cronin is believed to be stopping there with friends. It would be outside the range of possibility that he could have reached there except by driving from Hamilton. Several dispatches have been received by Mr. Axworthy, of Cleveland, and at the Rossin House, making inquiries after Cronin.

In this, as in the previous reports, the one thing which it was endeavored to bring into bold relief was the fact that the physician was about to cross the Atlantic, and, while McGarry was en route from Chicago, Chief of Police Hubbard telegraphed to Chief Constable Grossett, of Toronto, asking for definite information regarding Cronin's alleged presence in that city. Instead of conducting an independent investigation, the Canadian official went to Long, and on the strength of the latter's statements, a reply in the affirmative was wired back to Chicago. Even this, however, was not accepted as final, and Detectives Reed and Reyburn were wired to follow up the supposed clue. Starkey was interviewed as to the truth of Long's story. He replied that he had seen Cronin, that the latter had been at his (Starkey's) house, but that he had no knowledge of his subsequent whereabouts. W. Axworthy, an ex-Chicagoan, when telegraphed by W. P. Rend to learn whether the physician had actually been there, went to Long, heard his story, and answered, "Yes." A "prominent railroad official" was next quoted as having recognized the physician, and on the morning subsequent to his alleged disappearance from Toronto, the Chief of Police of St. Catherines, Ontario, positively recognized him in Sherwood, New York! But with the arrival of McGarry the falsity of one and all of these stories became apparent, and the infamous prostitution of the liberty and license of a journalist, of which Long had been guilty, was fully demonstrated. It took the young Irishman but a few hours of investigation to convince himself of the fact that the missing physician had not been seen in Toronto since the day of his disappearance. The same conclusion was arrived at by Detective Dennis Simmons, of Chicago, who had been despatched to the scene by Chief Hubbard, and had, unknown to McGarry, conducted an independent investigation. Simmons wired his superior briefly and to the point: "No truth in it, Cronin has not been here," while the same wires carried this message from McGarry to Frank J. Scanlan:

"Proprietor and clerk on duty do not recognize Cronin's picture as stopping at Rossin House last week. Name not registered at all. No signature resembles Cronin's. Sure interview did not take place with their knowledge."

And, to make the repudiation the more complete, Chief Constable Grossett, who, earlier in the week, had endorsed the statements of Long in hap-hazard fashion, retracted his statements in a letter to the Chicago authorities, in which he said:

"I have caused particular and exhaustive inquiry to be made into the statements that have appeared in the Empire newspaper of this city, and have caused the party who gave the information which was telegraphed you to be questioned closely on the subject. It would now appear that the identification of Dr. Cronin by the party who stated he saw him in Toronto last Saturday was by no means complete; in fact, I think there are the best of reasons for supposing it to have been a case of mistaken identity. It is quite true that the party here thought he met Cronin in the street, stopped him, and afterward saw the man leave the city by train with a woman. So far as I can learn this is the foundation for the sensational reports that have been transmitted from here and published in your papers. I regret that in sending you my telegram on Monday last more care was not taken to verify the correctness of my informant's statements."