The Denison review. [volume] (Denison, Iowa) 1867-current, 1902-12-16
A VICARIOUS SUICIDE
ny JOHN II. R.AFrEnY.

When they had told number OF stories
Illustrative of the east with which great
criminals sometimes cheat the law, Capt
Mccarthy, who was never Sherlock
Holmes, and secuted all such impossible
character, told this one:
1t is true that a great many CRIMINALS
cheat the law after their crimes are knoWn3
it Is also true that great many horrible
crimes are committed that are never heard
OF by the authorities. We had little
fellow down in Boston one time that did
nice bit of detective work that never came
to anything. 1t was case OF forgery and
The complainant, man named Mark Gil
iesple, was pretty rich man. 1t seems
that his boolkeeper a fellow named Porter,
had forged and cashed enough checks be-
fore he was discovered to pretty near bank
rupt Gillespie.
The soung detective, | think his name
was Moran, did the outside trimmings,
such as looking for the missing boolSkeeper
in f-the-way places L found out that
he had been very chummy with Porter,
and by deliquent inquiry discovered that
the employers habits were no better than
those of the embezzler and forger. In fact,
for man who attended to business so we'll
during the day, | couldn't quite understand
how he kept up the all-night pace, too. In
the course of my investigations found out
that the handwritings OF Gillespie and his
bookkeeper were almost Identical, so much
so, that it was hard matter to tell by the
set of books which they kept where the
employers writing left off and the book
keeper commenced When commented on
this, Gillespie told me that this similarity
OF handwriting was simply coincidence,
that he and Porter had often commented
upon it, and that the latter had never made
any secret of his ability to write exactly
like Gillespie.
OF course, l discussed the different
phases of the case with young Moran and
he began to take an almost feverish in
terest in it that | couldn't quite explain.
Well the whole thing seemed to come
to an end when some laborers away out
on Putnam street found in q lime kiln near
new building the dead body of the miss
ing boolkeeper. There was no doubt about
the identity in spite of the fact that the
lime had eaten away most OF the flesh, for
the usual good-by letter of suicides was
! found in a leather pocketbook inside of the
clothing. 1t was duly signed Porter,
and included full confession of the forger-
! les, with an itemized statement of the
amounts taken. Gillespie, of course, drop
ped the case then and the police passed it
up as soon as the coroner's verdict was
announced. But | didn't know for nearly
week later that young Moran hadn't
dropped it. | found out that he had quit
the force, but | saw him on the street one
day and traced him to Gilespie's own Of
flee. ! laid for him" that night, and he
admitted that he had hired himself out as
/ 10
Gillespies books. When | swore that I'd
keep mum and help him all l could with
out betrayng our acquaintance he told
me that he was quite sure that the body
in the kiln was not Porter's at all. Letters
had been coming almost every day to Gil
lespie, marked personal" but in that same
peculiar handwriting that we both knew
as characteristic of both Gillespie and the
missing forger. 1t wasn't likely that three
different men could always write thus in
exact triplicate, and l had to admit that
it cooked queer
The next odd discovery Of young Moran
was that Gillespie himself had abandoned
his old style of handwriting and now used
a square, labored kind of back-hand. That
he had transferred all his money, or what
was left of it, from his old bank and opened
new deposit against which he checked in
wholly different handwriting. | was so
puzzled by this that | dropped in casually
at Gillespe's Office to make sure that my
friend Moran wasn't mistaken in his en-
ployer's identity. He wasn't. 1t was Gil.
lespie, all right. | was sure because | had
come to know him we'll. passed Moran
without noticing him, of course, but that
night he told me that Gillespie didn't seem
to be very good business man, kept bad
hours, left everything to his clerk and
acted like a raw hand at the simplest bust
ness transactions.
81 don't tank it's Gillespie, at ALL ex
planned Moran. And then, more mystified
than ever, we began to further prove that
this Mark Gillespie, for whom Moran was
now clerklng, was the same person who
had lodged the information against the
dead or missing Porter. We proved it in
hundred ways, and then | had the laugh
on Moran But how about those letters:
Could Gillespie be writing letters to him
self? Or was Porter alive? And if fugi
tive, why did he write to the man whom
he robbed? We puzzled over that fol
weeks, and Moran watched like hawk
for glance at the contents of one of those
mysterious letters. Finally almost dis
tracted with the problem, he opened one
and found it written in some unintelligible
code made up of ncoherent English word.
and unsigned. He had searched every
drawer, shelf, closet, and receptacle in the
place for evidence, and at last there wa.
nothing left but to search Gillespie him
self. This was easy, provided we had the
nerve to do it, because the man was in the
habit of visiting the Office at all hours O
the night to get money out Of his safe
We'll, we did. We worked the burglar
act on him. Masks, sand-bag and chloro
form did it, and we stretched him on hi
sofa in the back private office, and tool
everything except his money. We ever
took his watch, hoping that a photograph
inside might help us.
And it did. On the inside of the lid W.
found photograph miniature of DO,
} twins; an old picture in which the two Gil
; lespies appeared like young immigrant
just landed at Castle Garden.
Hes Gillespie all right, Capt." sale
Moran, when we got safely into my room
and examined the photograph. "But he
not Mark Gillespie He's Marks twin, T