True Stories of Crime from the District Attorney's Office

With the Introductory Chapter 'The Pleasant Fiction of the Presumption of Innocence'

Arthur Train

• Publisher: Read & Co. History
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781528792288
• Topic: Sciences sociales
• Subtopic: Biographies de sciences sociales

First published in 1908, "True Stories of Crime from the District Attorney's Office" is a first-hand account of various case files from the New York City District Attorney's office during the late 1890s and early 1900s. Highly recommended for those with an interest in New York City history and early 20th century Americana in general. Contents include: "The Woman in the Case", "Five Hundred Million Dollars", "The Lost Stradivarius", "The Last of the Wire-Tappers", "The Franklin Syndicate", "A Study in Finance", "The 'Duc de Nevers'", "A Finder of Missing Heirs", etc. Arthur Cheney Train (1875–1945) was an American lawyer and writer of legal thrillers famous for his courtroom scenes and novels featuring the fictional lawyer Mr. Ephraim Tutt. Other notable works by this author include: "The Needle's Eye" (1924), "The Blind Goddess" (1925), and "Page Mr. Tutt" (1926). Read & Co. History is proudly republishing this classic work now in a brand new edition complete with the introductory chapter "The Pleasant Fiction of the Presumption of Innocence".

II

FIVE HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS

This story, which ends in New York, begins in the Department of the Gironde at the town of Monségur, seventy-five kilometers from Bordeaux, in the little vineyard of Monsieur Emile Lapierre—"landowner." In 1901 Lapierre was a happy and contented man, making a good living out of his modest farm. To-day he is—well, if you understand the language of the Gironde, he will tell you with a shrug of his broad shoulders that he might have been a Monte Cristo had not le bon Dieu willed it otherwise. For did he not almost have five hundred million dollars—two and a half milliards of francs—in his very hands? Hein? But he did! Does M'sieu' have doubts? Nevertheless it is all true. C'est trop vrai! Is M'sieu' tired? And would he care to hear the story? There is a comfortable chair sous le grand arbre in front of the veranda, and Madame will give M'sieu' a glass of wine from the presses, across the road. Yes, it is good wine, but there is little profit in it, when one thinks in milliards.

The landowner lights his pipe and seats himself cross-legged against the trunk of the big chestnut. Back of the house the vineyard slopes away toward the distant woods in straight, green, trellised alleys. A dim haze hangs over the landscape sleeping so quietly in the midsummer afternoon. Down the road comes heavily, creaking and swaying, a wain loaded with a huge tower of empty casks and drawn by two oxen, their heads swinging to the dust. Yes, it is hard to comprendre twenty-five hundred million francs.

It was this way. Madame Lapierre was a Tessier of Bordeaux—an ancient bourgeois family, and very proud indeed of being bourgeois. You can see her passing and repassing the window if you watch carefully the kitchen, where she is superintending dinner. The Tessiers have always lived in Bordeaux and they are connected by marriage with everybody—from the blacksmith up to the Mayor's notary. Once a Tessier was Mayor himself. Years and years ago Madame's great-uncle Jean had emigrated to America, and from time to time vague rumors of the wealth he had achieved in the new country reached the ears of his relatives—but no direct word ever came.

Then one hot day—like this—appeared M. le Général. He came walking down the road in the dust from the gare, in his tall silk hat and frock coat and gold-headed cane, and stopped before the house to ask if one of the descendants of a certain Jean Tessier did not live hereabouts. He was fat and red-faced, and he perspired, but—Dieu!—he was distingué, and he had an order in his buttonhole. Madame Lapierre, who came out to answer his question, knew at once that he was an aristocrat.

Ah! was she herself the grandniece of Jean Tessier? Then, Heaven be thanked! the General's toilsome journey was ended. He had much to tell them—when he should be rested. He removed the silk hat and mopped his shining forehead. He must introduce himself that he might have credit with Madame, else she might hardly listen to his story, for there had never been a tale like it before since the world was. Let him present himself—M. le Général Pedro Suarez de Moreno, Count de Tinoco and Marquis de la d'Essa. Although one was fatigued it refreshed one to be the bearer of good news, and such was his mission. Let Madame prepare herself to hear. Yes, it would be proper for her to call M'sieu', her husband, that he might participate.

Over a draft of this same vintage M. le Général imparted to them the secret. Lapierre laughs and shrugs his shoulders as he recalls the scene—the apoplectic General, with the glass of wine in one hand, waving the other grandiloquently as he described the wealth about to descend upon them.

Yes, the General must begin at the beginning, for it was a long story. First, as to himself and how he came to know of the affair. It had been on his return from the Philippines after the surrender of Manila, where he had been in command of the armies of Spain, that he had paused for repose in New York and had first learned of the Tessier inheritance. The precise manner of his discovery was left somewhat indefinite, but the Lapierres were not particular. So many distinguished persons had played a part in the drama that the recital left but a vague impression as to individuals. A certain Madame Luchia, widow of one Roquefailaire, whom he had accidentally met, had apparently been the instrument of Providence in disclosing the history of Jean Tessier to the General. ...