The Pleasantville press. (Pleasantville, N.J.) 1912-1929, 1926-08-20

on various clues hearing Of one MEM
Der of the gang here and another there,
and In each instance losing their man,
the detectives finally brought up in
New Orleans. They had spent five or
six weeks Of time and large amount
of money, only to find themselves alb
solutely without clue as to the
whereabouts of the men they were
pursuing They were much discour-
aged when a telegram from Mr.. Pin
kerton told them that Butch" Mccoy
was back in Galesburg, where they
had first sought him. Proceeding
thither with all dispatch they traced
Mccoy into saloon, and there three
of them-John Smith, representing
the Rock Island railroad John Nc
CHM, for the. Pinkerton agency, and
Frank Murray, working for the news
paper-with drawn revolvers captured
him, in spite of desperate dash he
made to escape.
McCoy's capture was the occasion
Of much felicitation among the peo-
pie interested in the matter. Mr.. st.
John and the editor were confident
that now the whole mystery of the ex-
press robbery would be solved and
the murderer convicted But Mccoy
showed on trial that he had left New
Orleans to come North only the night
before the murder and had spent the
whole of that night on the Illinois
Central railroad 1t also appeared
that McCoy's associate, Connors, was
in Jail at the time of the robbery and
that the man Jeff" was dead Thus
the whole Plunkett story was exploded.
Some time before this the man who
had ridden on the free pass, and given
the detectives so much trouble, had
been accidentally found by Jack Null
Inns, a brakeman on Conductor Dan
forth's train. He proved to be an
advertising solicitor, employed by no
other than that self-same newspaper,
which would have given a thousand
dollars to know what Its agent knew;
for the advertising man had seen the
conductor bring olt the vallse con-
tanning the all-important fragment of
the draft But he had not realized
the value Of the news In his posses
sion, and Mr.. Pinkerton took good
care to keep him from that knowl-
edge. Not until he had seen the man
safely on train out from Chicago
did Mr.. Pinkerton breathe easily; and
1t was not until months later that the
editor learned how near he came to
getting a splendid scoop" on the whole
city and country.
The Identification of the pass-holder
removed the last possibility that the
valise had been taken into the train by
any of Conductor Danforth's passen-
gers. And yet the valise was there!
How came it there? In the course Of
their examination two Of the passen-
gers had testified to having seen
Schwartz enter the toilet room dur
ing the run. Brakeman Jack Mullins
stated that he had been in the same
room twice that night, that the sec
ond time he had noticed the valise,
but that it was not there when he went
in first Other witnesses in the car
were positive that the person who
entered the room last before the time
when Mullins saw the valise was
Schwartz. Thus the chain of proof
was Tightening, and Mr. Pinkerton
sent for Schwartz.
After talking with the brakeman in
a sem-confidential way for some time,
the detective began to question him
about Watt, his fellow trainman
Schwartz said ha was q good follow
and, in general spoke highly of him.
Mr.. Pinkerton seemed to hesitate
little, and then said:
Can ! trust you, Schwartz"
Eyes, sir"
well, the fact Is. I am little sus-
picious Of Watt. You see, his story
about that hand overhead does not ex-
actly hang together. | don't want in