the district attorney and the insurance company were not in agreement as to the fate of the pitezel children. the former still inclined to the hope and belief that they were in england with miss williams, but the insurance company took a more sinister view. no trace of them existed except a tin box found among holmes' effects, containing letters they had written to their mother and grandparents from cincinnati, indianapolis, and detroit, which had been given to holmes to dispatch but had never reached their destination. the box contained letters from mrs. pitezel to her children, which holmes had presumably intercepted.
it was decided to make a final attempt to resolve all doubts by sending an experienced detective over the route taken by the children in america. he was to make exhaustive inquiries in each city with a view to tracing the visits of holmes or the three children. for this purpose a detective of the name of geyer was chosen. the record of his search is a remarkable story of patient and persistent investigation.
alice pitezel had not seen her mother since she had gone with holmes to identify her father's remains in philadelphia. from there holmes had taken her to indianapolis. in the meantime he had visited mrs. pitezel at st. louis, and taken away with him the girl, nellie, and the boy, howard, alleging as his reason for doing so that they and alice were to join their father, whose temporary effacement was necessary to carry out successfully the fraud on the insurance company, to which mrs. pitezel had been from the first an unwilling party. holmes, nellie and howard had joined alice at indianapolis, and from there all four were believed to have gone to cincinnati. it was here, accordingly, on june 27, 1895, that geyer commenced his search.
after calling at a number of hotels, geyer found that on friday, september 28, 1894, a man, giving the name of alexander e. cook, and three children had stayed at a hotel called the atlantic house. geyer recollected that holmes, when later on he had sent mrs. pitezel to the house in burlington, had described her as mrs. a. e. cook and, though not positive, the hotel clerk thought that he recognised in the photographs of holmes and he three children, which geyer showed him, the four visitors to the hotel.
they had left the atlantic house the next day, and on that same day, the 29th, geyer found that mr. a. e. cook and three children had registered at the bristol hotel, where they had stayed until sunday the 30th.
knowing holmes' habit of renting houses, geyer did not confine his enquiries to the hotels. he visited a number of estate agents and learnt that a man and a boy, identified as holmes and howard pitezel, had occupied a house no. 305 poplar street. the man had given the name of a. c. hayes. he had taken the house on friday the 28th, and on the 29th had driven up to it with the boy in a furniture wagon. a curious neighbour, interested in the advent of a newcomer, saw the wagon arrive, and was somewhat astonished to observe that the only furniture taken into the house was a large iron cylinder stove. she was still further surprised when, on the following day, mr. hayes told her that he was not going after all to occupy the house, and made her a present of the cylinder stove.
from cincinnati geyer went to indianapolis. here inquiry showed that on september 30 three children had been brought by a man identified as holmes to the hotel english, and registered in the name of canning. this was the maiden name of mrs. pitezel. the children had stayed at the hotel one night. after that geyer seemed to lose track of them until he was reminded of a hotel then closed, called the circle house. with some difficulty he got a sight of the books of the hotel, and found that the three canning children had arrived there on october 1 and stayed until the 10th. from the former proprietor of the hotel he learnt that holmes had described himself as the children's uncle, and had said that howard was a bad boy, whom he was trying to place in some institution. the children seldom went out; they would sit in their room drawing or writing, often they were found crying; they seemed homesick and unhappy.
there are letters of the children written from indianapolis to their mothers, letters found in holmes' possession, which had never reached her. in these letters they ask their mother why she does not write to them. she had written, but her letters were in holmes' possession. alice writes that she is reading "uncle tom's cabin." she has read so much that her eyes hurt; they have bought a crystal pen for five cents which gives them some amusement; they had been to the zoo in cincinnati the sunday before: "i expect this sunday will pass away slower than i don't know—howard is two (sic) dirty to be seen out on the street to-day." sometimes they go and watch a man who paints "genuine oil paintings" in a shoe store, which are given away with every dollar purchase of shoes—"he can paint a picture in one and a half minutes, ain't that quick!" howard was getting a little troublesome. "i don't like to tell you," writes alice, "but you ask me, so i will have to. howard won't mind me at all. he wanted a book and i got 'life of general sheridan,' and it is awful nice, but now he don't read it at all hardly." poor howard! one morning, says alice, mr. holmes told him to stay in and wait for him, as he was coming to take him out, but howard was disobedient, and when mr. holmes arrived he had gone out. better for howard had he never returned! "we have written two or three letters to you," alice tells her mother, "and i guess you will begin to get them now." she will not get them. mr. holmes is so very particular that the insurance company shall get no clue to the whereabouts of any member of the pitezel family.
geyer knew that from indianapolis holmes had gone to detroit. he ascertained that two girls, "etta and nellie canning," had registered on october 12 at the new western hotel in that city, and from there had moved on the 15th to a boarding-house in congress street. from detroit alice had written to her grandparents. it was cold and wet, she wrote; she and etta had colds and chapped hands: "we have to stay in all the time. all that nell and i can do is to draw, and i get so tired sitting that i could get up and fly almost. i wish i could see you all. i am getting so homesick that i don't know what to do. i suppose wharton (their baby brother) walks by this time, don't he? i would like to have him here, he would pass away the time a good deal." as a fact little wharton, his mother and sister dessie, were at this very moment in detroit, within ten minutes' walk of the hotel at which holmes had registered "etta and nellie canning."
on october 14 there had arrived in that city a weary, anxious-looking woman, with a girl and a little baby. they took a room at geis's hotel, registering as mrs. adams and daughter. mrs. adams seemed in great distress of mind, and never left her room.
the housekeeper, being shown their photographs, identified the woman and the girl as mrs. pitezel and her eldest daughter dessie. as the same time there had been staying at another hotel in detroit a mr. and mrs. holmes, whose photographs showed them to be the mr. holmes in question and his third wife. these three parties—the two children, mrs. pitezel and her baby, and the third mrs. holmes—were all ignorant of each other's presence in detroit; and under the secret guidance of mr. holmes the three parties (still unaware of their proximity to each other), left detroit for canada, arriving in toronto on or about october 18, and registering at three separate hotels. the only one who had not to all appearances reached toronto was the boy howard.
in toronto "alice and nellie canning" stayed at the albion hotel.
they arrived there on october 19, and left on the 25th. during their stay a man, identified as holmes, had called every morning for the two children, and taken them out; but they had come back alone, usually in time for supper. on the 25th he had called and taken them out, but they had not returned to supper. after that date geyer could find no trace of them. bearing in mind holmes' custom of renting houses, he compiled a list of all the house agents in toronto, and laboriously applied to each one for information. the process was a slow one, and the result seemed likely to be disappointing.
to aid his search geyer decided to call in the assistance of the press. the newspapers readily published long accounts of the case and portraits of holmes and the children. at last, after eight days of patient and untiring investigation, after following up more than one false clue, geyer received a report that there was a house—no. 16 st. vincent street—which had been rented in the previous october by a man answering to the description of holmes. the information came from an old scottish gentleman living next door. geyer hastened to see him. the old gentleman said that the man who had occupied no. 16 in october had told him that he had taken the house for his widowed sister, and he recognised the photograph of alice pitezel as one of the two girls accompanying him. the only furniture the man had taken into the house was a bed, a mattress and a trunk. during his stay at no. 16 this man had called on his neighbour about four o'clock one afternoon and borrowed a spade, saying that he wanted to dig a place in the cellar where his widowed sister could keep potatoes; he had returned the spade the following morning. the lady to whom the house belonged recognised holmes' portrait as that of the man to whom she had let no. 16.
at last geyer seemed to be on the right track. he hurried back to st. vincent street, borrowed from the old gentleman at no. 18 the very spade which he had lent to holmes in the previous october, and got the permission of the present occupier of no. 16 to make a search. in the centre of the kitchen geyer found a trap-door leading down into a small cellar. in one corner of the cellar he saw that the earth had been recently dug up. with the help of the spade the loose earth was removed, and at a depth of some three feet, in a state of advanced decomposition, lay the remains of what appeared to be two children. a little toy wooden egg with a snake inside it, belonging to the pitezel children, had been found by the tenant who had taken the house after holmes; a later tenant had found stuffed into the chimney, but not burnt, some clothing that answered the description of that worn by alice and etta pitezel; and by the teeth and hair of the two corpses mrs. pitezel was able to identify them as those of her two daughters. the very day that alice and etta had met their deaths at st. vincent street, their mother had been staying near them at a hotel in the same city, and later on the same day holmes had persuaded her to leave toronto for ogdensburg. he said that they were being watched by detectives, and so it would be impossible for her husband to come to see her there.
but the problem was not yet wholly solved. what had become of howard? so far geyer's search had shown that holmes had rented three houses, one in cincinnati, one in detroit, and one in toronto. howard had been with his sisters at the hotels in indianapolis, and in detroit the house agents had said that, when holmes had rented a house there, he had been accompanied by a boy. yet an exhaustive search of that house had revealed no trace of him. geyer returned to detroit and again questioned the house agents; on being pressed their recollection of the boy who had accompanied holmes seemed very vague and uncertain. this served only to justify a conclusion at which geyer had already arrived, that howard had never reached detroit, but had disappeared in indianapolis. alice's letters, written from there, had described how holmes had wanted to take howard out one day and how the boy had refused to stay in and wait for him. in the same way holmes had called for the two girls at the albion hotel in toronto on october 25 and taken them out with him, after which they had never been seen alive except by the old gentleman at no. 18 st. vincent street.
if geyer could discover that holmes had not departed in indianapolis from his usual custom of renting houses, he might be on the high way to solving the mystery of howard's fate. accordingly he returned to indianapolis.
in the meantime, holmes, in his prison at philadelphia, learnt of the discovery at toronto. "on the morning of the 16th of july," he writes in his journal, "my newspaper was delivered to me about 8.30 a.m., and i had hardly opened it before i saw in large headlines the announcement of the finding of the children in toronto. for the moment it seemed so impossible that i was inclined to think it was one of the frequent newspaper excitements that had attended the earlier part of the case, but, in attempting to gain some accurate comprehension of what was stated in the article, i became convinced that at least certain bodies had been found there, and upon comparing the date when the house was hired i knew it to be the same as when the children had been in toronto; and thus being forced to realise the awfulness of what had probably happened, i gave up trying to read the article, and saw instead the two little faces as they had looked when i hurriedly left them—felt the innocent child's kiss so timidly given, and heard again their earnest words of farewell, and realised that i had received another burden to carry to my grave with me, equal, if not worse, than the horrors of nannie williams' death."
questioned by the district attorney, holmes met this fresh evidence by evoking once again the mythical edward hatch and suggesting that miss minnie williams, in a "hellish wish for vengeance" because of holmes' fancied desertion, and in order to make it appear probable that he, and not she, had murdered her sister, had prompted hatch to commit the horrid deed. holmes asked to be allowed to go to toronto that he might collect any evidence which he could find there in his favour. the district attorney refused his request; he had determined to try holmes in philadelphia. "what more could, be said?" writes holmes. indeed, under the circumstances, and in the unaccountable absence of edward hatch and minnie williams, there was little more to be said.
detective geyer reopened his search in indianapolis by obtaining a list of advertisements of houses to let in the city in 1894. nine hundred of these were followed up in vain. he then turned his attention to the small towns lying around indianapolis with no happier result. geyer wrote in something of despair to his superiors: "by monday we will have searched every outlying town except irvington. after irvington, i scarcely know where we shall go." thither he went on august 27, exactly two months from the day on which his quest had begun. as he entered the town he noticed the advertisement of an estate agent. he called at the office and found a "pleasant-faced old gentleman," who greeted him amiably. once again geyer opened his now soiled and ragged packet of photographs, and asked the gentleman if in october, 1894, he had let a house to a man who said that he wanted one for a widowed sister. he showed him the portrait of holmes.
the old man put on his glasses and looked at the photograph for some time. yes, he said, he did remember that he had given the keys of a cottage in october, 1894, to a man of holmes' appearance, and he recollected the man the more distinctly for the uncivil abruptness with which he had asked for the keys; "i felt," he said, "he should have had more respect for my grey hairs."
from the old gentleman's office geyer hastened to the cottage, and made at once for the cellar. there he could find no sign of recent disturbance. but beneath the floor of a piazza adjoining the house he found the remains of a trunk, answering to the description of that which the pitezel children had had with them, and in an outhouse he discovered the inevitable stove, holmes' one indispensable piece of furniture. it was stained with blood on the top. a neighbour had seen holmes in the same october drive up to the house in the furniture wagon accompanied by a boy, and later in the day holmes had asked him to come over to the cottage and help him to put up a stove. the neighbour asked him why he did not use gas; holmes replied that he did not think gas was healthy for children. while the two men were putting up the stove, the little boy stood by and watched them. after further search there were discovered in the cellar chimney some bones, teeth, a pelvis and the baked remains of a stomach, liver and spleen.
medical examination showed them to be the remains of a child between seven and ten years of age. a spinning top, a scarf-pin, a pair of shoes and some articles of clothing that had belonged to the little pitezels, had been found in the house at different times, and were handed over to geyer.
his search was ended. on september 1 he returned to philadelphia.
holmes was put on his trial on october 28, 1895, before the court of oyer and terminer in philadelphia, charged with the murder of benjamin pitezel. in the course of the trial the district attorney offered to put in evidence showing that holmes had also murdered the three children of pitezel, contending that such evidence was admissible on the ground that the murders of the children and their father were parts of the same transaction. the judge refused to admit the evidence, though expressing a doubt as to its inadmissibility. the defence did not dispute the identity of the body found in callowhill street, but contended that pitezel had committed suicide. the medical evidence negatived such a theory. the position of the body, its condition when discovered, were entirely inconsistent with self-destruction, and the absence of irritation in the stomach showed that the chloroform found there must have been poured into it after death. in all probability, holmes had chloroformed pitezel when he was drunk or asleep. he had taken the chloroform to callowhill street as a proposed ingredient in a solution for cleaning clothes, which he and pitezel were to patent. it was no doubt with the help of the same drug that he had done to death the little children, and failing the nitro-glycerine, with that drug he had intended to put mrs. pitezel and her two remaining children out of the way at the house in burlington; for after his trial there was found there, hidden away in the cellar, a bottle containing eight or ten ounces of chloroform.
though assisted by counsel, holmes took an active part in his defence. he betrayed no feeling at the sight of mrs. pitezel, the greater part of whose family he had destroyed, but the appearance of his third wife as a witness he made an opportunity for "letting loose the fount of emotion," taking care to inform his counsel beforehand that he intended to perform this touching feat. he was convicted and sentenced to death on november 2.
previous to the trial of holmes the police had made an exhaustive investigation of the mysterious building in chicago known as "holmes' castle." the result was sufficiently sinister. in the stove in the cellar charred human bones were found, and in the middle of the room stood a large dissecting table stained with blood. on digging up the cellar floor some human ribs, sections of vertebrae and teeth were discovered buried in quicklime, and in other parts of the "castle" the police found more charred bones, some metal buttons, a trunk, and a piece of a watch chain.
the trunk and piece of watch chain were identified as having belonged to miss minnie williams.
inquiry showed that miss williams had entered holmes' employment as a typist in 1893, and had lived with him at the castle. in the latter part of the year she had invited her sister, nannie, to be present at her wedding with holmes. nannie had come to chicago for that purpose, and since then the two sisters had never been seen alive. in february in the following year pitezel, under the name of lyman, had deposited at fort worth, texas, a deed according to which a man named bond had transferred to him property in that city which had belonged to miss williams, and shortly after, holmes, under the name of pratt, joined him at fort worth, whereupon the two commenced building on miss williams' land.
other mysterious cases besides those of the williams sisters revealed the bluebeard-like character of this latterday castle of mr. holmes. in 1887 a man of the name of connor entered holmes' employment. he brought with him to the castle a handsome, intelligent wife and a little girl of eight or nine years of age.
after a short time connor quarrelled with his wife and went away, leaving mrs. connor and the little girl with holmes. after 1892 mrs. connor and her daughter had disappeared, but in august, 1895, the police found in the castle some clothes identified as theirs, and the janitor, quinlan, admitted having seen the dead body of mrs. connor in the castle. holmes, questioned in his prison in philadelphia, said that mrs. connor had died under an operation, but that he did not know what had become of the little girl.
in the year of mrs. connor's disappearance, a typist named emily cigrand, who had been employed in a hospital in which benjamin pitezel had been a patient, was recommended by the latter to holmes. she entered his employment, and she and holmes soon became intimate, passing as "mr. and mrs. gordon." emily cigrand had been in the habit of writing regularly to her parents in indiana, but after december 6, 1892, they had never heard from her again, nor could any further trace of her be found.
a man who worked for holmes as a handy man at the castle stated to the police that in 1892 holmes had given him a skeleton of a man to mount, and in january, 1893, showed him in the laboratory another male skeleton with some flesh still on it, which also he asked him to mount. as there was a set of surgical instruments in the laboratory and also a tank filled with a fluid preparation for removing flesh, the handy man thought that holmes was engaged in some kind of surgical work.
about a month before his execution, when holmes' appeals from his sentence had failed and death appeared imminent, he sold to the newspapers for 7,500 dollars a confession in which he claimed to have committed twenty-seven murders in the course of his career. the day after it appeared he declared the whole confession to be a "fake." he was tired, he said, of being accused by the newspapers of having committed every mysterious murder that had occurred during the last ten years. when it was pointed out to him that the account given in his confession of the murder of the pitezel children was clearly untrue, he replied, "of course, it is not true, but the newspapers wanted a sensation and they have got it." the confession was certainly sensational enough to satisfy the most exacting of penny-a-liners, and a lasting tribute to holmes' undoubted power of extravagant romancing.
according to his story, some of his twenty-seven victims had met their death by poison, some by more violent methods, some had died a lingering death in the air-tight and sound-proof vault of the castle. most of these he mentioned by name, but some of these were proved afterwards to be alive. holmes had actually perpetrated, in all probability, about ten murders. but, given further time and opportunity, there is no reason why this peripatetic assassin should not have attained to the considerable figure with which he credited himself in his bogus confession.
holmes was executed in philadelphia on may 7, 1896. he seemed to meet his fate with indifference.
the motive of holmes in murdering pitezel and three of his children and in planning to murder his wife and remaining children, originated in all probability in a quarrel that occurred between pitezel and himself in the july of 1894. pitezel had tired apparently of holmes and his doings, and wanted to break off the connection. but he must have known enough of holmes' past to make him a dangerous enemy. it was pitezel who had introduced to holmes, emily cigrand, the typist, who had disappeared so mysteriously in the castle; pitezel had been his partner in the fraudulent appropriation of miss minnie williams' property in texas; it is more than likely, therefore, that pitezel knew something of the fate of miss williams and her sister. by reviving, with pitezel's help, his old plan for defrauding insurance companies, holmes saw the opportunity of making 10,000 dollars, which he needed sorely, and at the same time removing his inconvenient and now lukewarm associate. having killed pitezel and received the insurance money, holmes appropriated to his own use the greater part of the 10,000 dollars, giving mrs. pitezel in return for her share of the plunder a bogus bill for 5,000 dollars. having robbed mrs. pitezel of both her husband and her money, to this thoroughgoing criminal there seemed only one satisfactory way of escaping detection, and that was to exterminate her and the whole of her family.
had holmes not confided his scheme of the insurance fraud to hedgspeth in st. louis prison and then broken faith with him, there is no reason why the fraud should ever have been discovered. the subsequent murders had been so cunningly contrived that, had the insurance company not put the pinkerton detectives on his track, holmes would in all probability have ended by successfully disposing of mrs. pitezel, dessie, and the baby at the house in burlington, vermont, and the entire pitezel family would have disappeared as completely as his other victims.
holmes admitted afterwards that his one mistake had been his confiding to hedgspeth his plans for defrauding an insurance company—a mistake, the unfortunate results of which might have been avoided, if he had kept faith with the train robber and given him the 500 dollars which he had promised.
the case of holmes illustrates the practical as well as the purely ethical value of "honour among thieves," and shows how a comparatively insignificant misdeed may ruin a great and comprehensive plan of crime. to dare to attempt the extermination of a family of seven persons, and to succeed so nearly in effecting it, could be the work of no tyro, no beginner like j. b. troppmann. it was the act of one who having already succeeded in putting out of the way a number of other persons undetected, might well and justifiably believe that he was born for greater and more compendious achievements in robbery and murder than any who had gone before him. one can almost subscribe to america's claim that holmes is the "greatest criminal" of a century boasting no mean record in such persons.
in the remarkable character of his achievements as an assassin we are apt to lose sight of holmes' singular skill and daring as a liar and a bigamist. as an instance of the former may be cited his audacious explanation to his family, when they heard of his having married a second time. he said that he had met with a serious accident to his head, and that when he left the hospital, found that he had entirely lost his memory; that, while in this state of oblivion, he had married again and then, when his memory returned, realised to his horror his unfortunate position. plausibility would seem to have been one of holmes' most useful gifts; men and women alike—particularly the latter—he seems to have deceived with ease. his appearance was commonplace, in no way suggesting the conventional criminal, his manner courteous, ingratiating and seemingly candid, and like so many scoundrels, he could play consummately the man of sentiment.
the weak spot in holmes' armour as an enemy of society was a dangerous tendency to loquacity, the defect no doubt of his qualities of plausible and insinuating address and ever ready mendacity.
