Murder at the Brown Palace

by Dick Kreck

  Henwood was a large part of the cause of von Phul’s anger. Until the roving promoter arrived in Isabel Springer’s life, von Phul was her major affinity outside of her husband, who, in addition to owning thousands of acres of ranch land in Douglas County, was a founder and vice president of Continental Trust Company, an unsuccessful candidate for Denver mayor in 1904, and a superb horseman.

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  Isabel’s husband, John Wallace Springer, had arrived in Denver in 1896 and, within a year, immersed himself in the city’s business and social life. He fit in easily. He was a glad-hander, and he was good-looking, despite his oversized ears. He sported a thick mustache with eyebrows to match and his thinning hair was parted in the middle in something resembling a split comb-over. A natty dresser, he preferred shirts with extremely high collars and frequently wore jeweled stickpins in his ties.

  He soon found himself in a social circle that included many of the city’s most prominent citizens. He was, noted one observer, “a preeminently successful and resourceful businessman’’ who was “affable, genial, public-spirited, patriotic and a political leader.” He was a joiner. At various times, he was a member of the National Live Stock Association (of which he was a founder and president for seven years), the Colorado Cattle & Horse Growers Association, the Denver Chamber of Commerce, the University Club, the Denver Country Club, the Colorado Republican Club, the Overland Country Club, Stockman’s Club, Gentlemen’s Driving and Riding Club, the Pan-Hellenic Club, and the Denver Motor Club. In addition, he belonged to the Real Estate Exchange and the Denver Bar Association and was a trustee of the University of Denver.

  Although he was an enthusiastic civic booster for Denver who numbered among his close friends influential business and political leaders, he was the loser in one of the city’s most corrupt elections. He was oblivious to his wife’s activities outside their marriage and to the drama unfolding at the Brown Palace Hotel.

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  When von Phul checked in to the hotel, he was assigned room 524 but was put temporarily in 404 until his room was ready. Later, he asked to be switched to 603, near the Springers’ suite, 600 and 602, whose curved corner windows overlooked the corner of Seventeenth and Broadway. When he signed in, he was handed the note Henwood had dictated to Isabel. It read,

  This is just to let you know that someone knows a great deal. Therefore, under no circumstances, telephone me or try to communicate with me in any way. Everything is finally and absolutely off and if you wish to save yourself serious trouble with someone and his friends you will forget that you ever knew me. Personally my future is of too much consequence and I’ll never risk it [here she had crossed out the word again]. I will send someone to you to have a final talk with you, and you must be guided by what they say. I have been forbidden to see you or hear from you in the future and I have given my word, which I propose to keep, not to see you again. I have taken this means of letting you know.

  It confirmed what von Phul already suspected. There was meddling afoot.

  About 4:45 p.m., Henwood sent a bellboy to pull von Phul out of the hotel’s barroom and into the lobby, where Henwood and von Phul met, apparently for the first time, although some later claimed that they had clashed previously over Isabel in St. Louis. Who tipped Henwood to the burly St. Louisan’s arrival isn’t known. Henwood introduced himself and added, without explanation, “I wish to have a conversation with you regarding a subject you are concerned with. I am the person referred to in the letter.” Von Phul quickly agreed to a 5:30 meeting in his room.

  Each man was determined to keep an eye on the other. As Henwood sat in the lobby, waiting for the appointed time to arrive, he glanced at his watch and noted it read 5:20. He spied von Phul, talking with the clerk at the front desk. Suspicious, he approached von Phul.

  “Well, you’re ready for me, aren’t you?”

  “I will be there,” von Phul answered, just before he exited the hotel.

  Henwood quizzed the clerk behind the counter. “Where did Mr. von Phul say he was going?” “To Daniels & Fisher,” said the clerk, giving Henwood, a relative newcomer, directions to the large department store at Sixteenth and Arapahoe Streets, eight blocks from the hotel.

  Furious, Henwood jumped into a taxi and headed for Daniels & Fisher.

  The cab pulled up to the store’s Sixteenth Street entrance, Henwood stepped out and strode in. The department store was among the city’s elite shopping emporiums that included the Denver Dry Goods Co., A. T. Lewis & Son, and the Golden Eagle. Daniels & Fisher was distinguished by its 330-foot tower, inspired by the Campanile of Venice. The tallest building in town, it provided a 200-mile panorama of the Rocky Mountains to the west from its observation deck. As if coming to attention for the determined Henwood’s arrival, the American flag atop the tower snapped in a brisk west wind.

  In minutes, he found Isabel. Her mother and frequent companion, Amelia Patterson, was seated nearby. There was no sign of von Phul.

  Henwood used the moment to chastise Isabel, who must have been alarmed to see him. “Isabel, you haven’t told me the truth about this. You are going to meet von Phul here, contrary to what you promised, you would let me see him first and talk to him.”

  Caught off-guard, Isabel responded, “No, no I’m not.”

  “Now, Isabel, I know better. I know he is on his way down here. You said you wouldn’t see von Phul, and now you are about to meet him. That is the worst thing you can do. When you reach a point with a person that is threatening you, the time comes for a showdown. Make him know exactly that you are not going to let him go any further.”

  Again she denied she’d spoken to von Phul, which was unfortunate because at that moment he walked into the conversation. His first words were directed to Henwood. “Oh, eavesdropper, you here?” Gazing at Isabel, he said, “I want to talk to this young lady alone.”

  “You can talk to her right here, and you can’t talk to her again alone in Denver or any other place,” Henwood said as he took Isabel’s arm. “I am here to prevent you breaking up this home. As a friend of both John and Isabel, I will deal with you for Mrs. Springer.”

  This was not what von Phul had in mind. Henwood’s involvement was confounding an already confused affair. He became abusive. “I have a goddamned notion to spill you all over the place,” he growled, apparently not caring that “the place” was the palm-bedecked shoe department of one of the town’s classiest department stores.

  Henwood refused to back down. “Don’t start in on me. I wouldn’t let you do it.”

  Von Phul’s language became increasingly vulgar. Trying to calm Isabel and her mother, both visibly upset, Henwood suggested that he and von Phul go back to the hotel “and talk it over in a sociable way.” As they walked up the aisle toward an exit, von Phul continued to rain down profanities on Henwood. “You are a damned son of a bitch of an eavesdropper! What in the hell are you butting in for, you son of a bitch?”

  Astoundingly, the two men, each unwilling to let the other out of his sight lest he double back to the department store, shared a taxi to the Brown. On the brief ride, von Phul continued to upbraid Henwood, slinging vile epithets at him. A surprisingly composed Henwood, determined to avoid a physical confrontation with the larger von Phul, pointed out that everything could be worked out. The two agreed to adjourn to 404, von Phul’s room before he changed it to be nearer Isabel, and discuss it.

  Once in the room, things took a more hostile turn. Von Phul closed and bolted the door. Henwood, suspicious that something more than conversation was to be exchanged, put his hand on the bulkier von Phul’s right hip pocket and felt a hard object.

  “You have a gun in your pocket, haven’t you?”

  “Yes,” said von Phul, his pale blue eyes fixed on his rival.

  Seeking to defuse the showdown, Henwood said, “I would like you to know I do not carry a gun. I have never carried one in my life. I think a man who does is a coward. I have not come here for trouble. I want to talk with you like a man
.”

  Von Phul walked slowly across the room and sat in a chair. Henwood remained standing.

  “You are an impostor, Mr. Henwood,” said von Phul.

  Henwood stared, choosing his words carefully. “I am the party mentioned in the message to you. I am a very close friend of John Springer. He is the one man who made my success in Denver possible.”

  Von Phul looked only vaguely interested.

  Henwood pressed on, drawing on his salesman’s gift for words. “I understand you have some foolish letters of Isabel’s. I know her as John’s wife, and I have known of this thing for a long time. You have been threatening to send them, one by one, to her husband unless she left him. I have been with him every day practically since I have known him. He has helped me in a thousand different ways, both socially and in a business way.”

  Like a knight errant, Henwood continued his quest. Now on bended knee before his rival, he said, “I understand you are making threats. John has reached the stage in life where he needs all the comfort that there is, that can be had. He is not a young man and he is devoted to Isabel, and I know that she is devoted to him. I know that she worships him. I know that she would give anything in the world to have a free mind and be able to make John happy. For God’s sake, Tony, will you break up this home?”

  Henwood had made a serious misstep. Von Phul was “Tony” only to his friends, and Henwood’s familiarity made him angry. He slapped the smaller Henwood, whom he outweighed by forty pounds. Henwood staggered and calmly said, “Von Phul, you are the first man who ever struck me without my returning it. I cannot afford a scene at this hotel. I still want to talk to you.”

  “What do you want to say?” Not waiting for a reply, von Phul snatched up a wooden shoe tree lying on a nearby table and brought it down on the left side of Henwood’s forehead. The two men clutched each other and fell, von Phul on his back, his hands pinned over his head by Henwood, who seized the advantage. “I still do not want a scene,” he said, hoping to put an end to the scuffle.

  “All right,” said von Phul.

  It was a brief armistice. Henwood rose, turned, and unlocked the door. When he turned back to face von Phul, he was confronted with a revolver. Frightened, Henwood nevertheless advanced toward von Phul until the weapon was touching the pit of his stomach. He challenged, “You dirty coward, you dare not pull the trigger. You are a coward, a dirty cur.”

  There was an interminable pause. Henwood held his ground. Von Phul thought it over. “Get out of my room, you son of a bitch! I can’t get you here because they would have it on me, but I’ll get you yet and I’ll get you quick.”

  Relieved, Henwood retreated to his room on the seventh floor. Von Phul, angry over the day’s travails, rushed upstairs to the Springers’ sixth-floor suite. When Isabel opened the door, he stormed in. “You have lied to me!” he told her just before he slapped her, not for the first time. The blow caused her to stagger and nearly fall to the floor.

  Von Phul angrily grabbed two photographs of Henwood that stood in Isabel’s sitting room. Both bore intimate notations to the people he considered his closest friends and benefactors: “My bestest to Sassy who can bring out the best side of anyone I know. Faithfully, Frank”; and, “John and Sassy. ‘Don’t.’ With best wishes from ‘I Won’t’ Frank.” He ripped them from their frames and tore them into small pieces. “I don’t think you should have these pictures of a man who is butting in.”

  Isabel let him believe it was Henwood who had torn up a photo of von Phul the previous week, though she had destroyed it herself, at Henwood’s request. Von Phul took a piece of Isabel’s delicate blue stationery and quickly scribbled a note to Henwood: “Frankie Dear—You destroyed my picture & here is part of yours.” As he prepared to leave, von Phul put a small, ragged piece of one of Henwood’s photographs in an envelope with the note, then jammed the rest of the pieces into his jacket pocket. He also warned Isabel that if he ever saw her with Henwood, even in the presence of her husband, he would “fix him,” one of several times over two days that he threatened his rival. Five minutes later, he left.

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  Things were beginning to unravel and a showdown was inevitable. Frantic, Isabel Springer was trying to juggle the emotions of two ardent admirers, neither of whom was about to back down. The fleeting hours of May 23 were filled with meetings—in her rooms, in hallways, in Henwood’s room, in public places.

  That night, all the principals in the worsening drama came together for supper in the hotel’s dining room—at separate tables.

  Von Phul and his cousin, Fred Cooke, met in the hotel lobby at 6:30 p.m. The two shook hands, causing von Phul to wince in pain. His right hand was bruised and skinned, and his thumb was dislocated from the fight with Henwood.

  Von Phul, Cooke, and a third man, Fred Charles, a traveling salesman and a friend of von Phul’s, headed for dinner in the hotel dining room. Shortly after the three sat down, Henwood entered the room by himself and took a table not far away in the long, narrow room whose numerous palms gave it a tropical look. As befitted the hotel, tables draped in white linen sat atop oriental rugs.

  “That’s the party,” von Phul confided to his companions.

  Things had not calmed down much after the confrontation in von Phul’s room. Cooke later recalled that Henwood “was facing me but Tony’s back was to Henwood. Every time I made a remark, [Henwood] either laughed or sneered.” His attitude so irked Cooke that he told his cousin, “Turn him over to me and I’ll kick a bale of hay out of him.” “Don’t bother,” soothed von Phul. “He isn’t worth it.”

  After dinner, Cooke, Charles, and von Phul got up to leave. “I have to make a few calls on clients,” von Phul told his companions. As a representative of a Midwest wine distributor, von Phul’s calls frequently involved sharing his company’s products with proprietors. As the three men left the dining room, von Phul, knowing Henwood was watching, made it a point to stop and chat with the Springers. Isabel introduced her husband to the man with whom she had been corresponding so ardently. Unaware of the conflict swirling around his beautiful wife, Springer stood and shook von Phul’s hand. “An honor to meet you,” he said.

  Von Phul, Cooke, and Charles hadn’t reached Tremont Place before they ran into Jack Cudahy, the meatpacking heir and a balloon-flying friend of von Phul’s. The four men set out to tour the city’s “thirst emporiums” and “smartest boozerinos” and to conduct extensive research on the products von Phul peddled for his employer, the Ruinart Wine Company.

  About the time von Phul headed off for a night on the town, Henwood left the hotel to plead his case to Hamilton Armstrong, the city’s police chief. His demands were simple: He wanted von Phul run out of town before someone wound up dead.

  “Do you know Tony von Phul?” Henwood asked the chief.

  “I’ve heard of him.”

  Without naming Isabel Springer, Henwood explained that von Phul was holding some letters from “a dear friend,” letters that would be damaging to her marriage. If, he asked Armstrong, he couldn’t get the letters back, would he at least see that von Phul left town? “I want the son of a bitch run out of town!”

  Armstrong was having none of it. “As far as I know, von Phul has done nothing that would justify his being run out of town. I have no authority over the letters.”

  Frustrated, Henwood played his trump card, telling the chief that the unnamed woman was the wife of John Springer, and that he feared that Springer would take violent steps against von Phul if something weren’t done.

  Armstrong was unreceptive, especially after Henwood spilled the name of the “dear friend.” Springer was a powerful man with powerful friends in Denver city government, and dragging his name into the public eye would do no one, especially the chief, any good. “Mrs. Springer don’t have to see Mr. von Phul if she don’t want to. I think Mr. Springer is able and capable of looking after his own family affairs. Mr. Springer is the man for his wife to appeal to.”

  “Chief, I don’t
want Mr. Springer to know anything about this. John is a prominent man here. I know how much he thinks of his wife, and I realize if this man carries out his threats and gives those letters to John one by one, John will kill him.”

  “You should talk to Mr. Springer about that.”

  “Chief, isn’t there something that could be done to Mr. von Phul?”

  “No, not unless Mrs. Springer is willing to make a complaint and appear in court. If she is, I will arrest Mr. von Phul and unless she does, I cannot. Now, I could send for Mr. von Phul and have a talk with him. But it’s optional whether he will come or not.”

  Henwood then spoke words that would haunt him. “If he sends those letters to Springer, I’ll beat John to it—I’ll kill the bastard myself.”

  Still Armstrong demurred. “If Mrs. Springer will swear out a complaint against von Phul, I will arrest von Phul and force him to behave or leave the city. Otherwise, there is nothing I can do.”

  Henwood, frustrated in his attempt to have von Phul run out of town, hurried back to the hotel. Waiting for him in the lobby was his theater party, consisting of the Springers, Isabel Springer’s mother, and Henwood’s business partner and friend, Frank Loveland. They were headed to a private box for the vaudeville show at the Orpheum Theater at Fifteenth