David Herlihy
Page 24
The next day Khazar, disguised as a vendor and with a companion, left Erzurum on a donkey "loaded with all sorts of knickknacks." Sachtleben described their plan: "The companion was to do most of the selling, while Khazar was to take his time and inquire about Lenz. We gave him all the information we already had. He was to go as far as Chilkani, about 100 miles, and search about that neighborhood, following Lenz up from the time of his leaving the house of Avak Parsegh."
Meanwhile, Sachtleben tried to dig up some dirt on Moostoe. "I looked up this man's history as far as I could," the investigator wrote Langhans. "He is a villain of the deepest dye. A description of all the murders of this Kurd would fill a volume. He is the terror of all the Armenians of Chilkani, whom he robs and kills as he pleases. The government takes no notice of his misdeeds, they practically share in the booty." Indeed, Moostoe was "an inferior officer in the Turkish army, that wretched Hamidish Corps of irregular cavalry who are practicing all kinds of oppression upon the Christian inhabitants."
The more Sachtleben found out about the Kurd, the more evil he appeared. "Four years ago there was not a Kurd in the village of Chilkani when this bloody rascal came and settled there by force," Sachtleben wrote home. "He treated the helpless Armenians with great cruelty and oppression. They were all afraid for their lives and had to obey his slightest wish." Shortly after his arrival, the Kurd had allegedly slit the throat of a resident Armenian. Afterward, he was said to have dismembered the body and left the parts by the roadside, as a show of force.
On June 8, Sachtleben dashed off his first letter to Terrell from Erzurum, just in time for the weekly mail pickup. The wheelman inquired if the minister had received Graves's dispatch naming the six Kurds, sent to the British embassy a month earlier, and if so, what he intended to do with the information. Sachtleben added that he had since discovered the name of their ringleader, an officer in the Turkish army, though he did not mention Moostoe by name.
Sachtleben also reported that the vali had offered him a paltry force consisting of two zaptiehs. "A weak prosecution of this case is worse than none," he warned Terrell, "and will only embolden the Koords to kill the next American that comes this way. That will be me, because I am preparing to go over the road in a few days." He closed with a veiled threat: "If you won't help me I will go to headquarters in America when I return."
Later that same day, Khazar returned from his three-week road trip with stunning results. He confirmed that Lenz had spent the night of May 9, 1894, in Chilkani at Parsegh's home and that Moostoe and his men had killed Lenz the following day. He even claimed to have found physical evidence of the crime and to have discovered the whereabouts of Lenz's grave. Sachtleben, naturally, was overjoyed.
Khazar concluded that Lenz had not gotten as far as the Deli Baba Pass after all, but was slain only a few miles out of Chilkani, at the crossing of a stream between the villages of Musertee and Shamian. At that spot, the locals had recovered a number of small items they suspected were part of Lenz's camera. Although Khazar was unable to view the hardware, he surmised that Lenz's assailants had smashed the camera to see if it contained valuable parts, before doing away with Lenz himself. Moroever, the spy discovered, Moostoe's accomplices were not the men Graves had named, but rather a sordid band of associates living in and around Chilkani. One, a certain Alayee Chavdar, reportedly had articles of Lenz's in his home.
In fact, in retrospect, it seemed unlikely that Lenz would have made it as far as the Deli Baba Pass after leaving Chilkani on the morning of May 10. It was a rainy day, and the muddy terrain would have forced him to walk much of the way. Moreover, according to Der Arsen, the Armenian priest of Chilkani who claimed to have been with Lenz that morning, the cyclist was not feeling well, contrary to the testimony of Chambers's Armenian witness.
More tellingly, Khazar could find no witnesses in Zedikan who recalled seeing a wheelman pass through, as Lenz would have needed to do to reach the pass. In fact, the villagers of Chilkani, who had heard about Lenz's killing within days, not weeks, were under the distinct impression that Lenz had been killed just outside their village near the Hopuz River.
Further evidence pointing to an ambush just outside Chilkani came from an Armenian resident named Varshabed Ohannes. He confided that in May 1894 a naked corpse was found in the river Sherian, about a mile west of town. The locals promptly notified the kaimacam of Toprakaleh, who had jurisdiction over the territory. The medjelis (a council of mullahs) went to see the body and determined that it was that of a young man of medium height, sandy complexion, and strong build. They could find no signs of a wound. The body was secretly spirited to the Kurdish village of Kolah and buried under cover of darkness.
Khazar was convinced that the body in question was that of Lenz. Although the evidence strongly suggested that the cyclist had been killed near a different branch of the Sherian, Khazar theorized that the wily Kurds had taken Lenz, dead or alive, across the fields before throwing him into the larger river. In so doing, they hoped to cover their villainous tracks.
As if all this were not stunning enough, Khazar had one more revelation: several informants in Chilkani had told him that the Kurdish chief was using Lenz's inner tubes as saddle girths. Reported the spy: "I managed to get on friendly terms with Moostoe's family, giving them presents of looking glasses and other things. They invited me to meals several times." Sure enough, the spy spotted the incriminating articles dangling from Moostoe's horse. Khazar settled in the village and awaited his opportunity.
Finally, Khazar found a ripe moment. "I approached Moostoe and, putting my hands on his shoulders and looking him lovingly in the eyes, said, 'Moostoe, promise not to refuse me.' He appeared quite overcome by this burst of affection and said: 'Speak. I will do anything for you that is in my power.' 'I want to buy that saddle of yours, put it on my horse, and ride it back to Erzurum.'" After some haggling, the two came to terms. But just then an Armenian friend stopped by to see Moostoe, distracting the Kurd. By the time he refocused on Khazar, the Kurd had changed his mind. The spy, not wishing to raise suspicions, reluctantly abandoned his bid to buy the saddle.
For the next few days, Khazar continued to hunt for other elements of Lenz's gear. While peddling his own knickknacks, he sent out word that he was looking to buy small metal articles. Unfortunately, no one came forward with anything of interest save a Kurd in the village of Tchurmouk. He produced half a bicycle bell, which Khazar promptly purchased on the assumption that it had belonged to Lenz.
Sachtleben was now utterly convinced that Moostoe was the arch-murderer. After all, the tubes in his possession were brown, a color distinct to the Overman products Lenz employed. The investigator immediately cabled a summary of Khazar's findings to Mrs. Lenz to serve as proof of her son's death. At the same time, he sent another letter to Terrell, asserting: "It will be a very easy matter to discover the real culprits as soon as a strong order is sent from Constantinople to the Vali here authorizing him to give me the power and sufficient force to arrest these men, search their houses, and bring them to trial in Erzeroum." Sachtleben added a stern warning:
Do not divulge any names I have given you. This would be very foolish. If you do, you will destroy in a moment the results of all my work. For as soon as the authorities at Constantinople have the names they will secretly telegraph them to the Governor here, who will give the murderers warning and they will not be able to be found when wanted, and they will destroy every trace. If you disclose the names of the Armenians they will either lose their lives by the hands of the Koords or be robbed of all they possess. Do not disclose the names of the towns, but secure an order from the government to order the Vali here to give me immediately the power and permission to do what I wish in this case.
A few days later, Sachtleben finally received a terse cable from Constantinople in response to his earlier letter: "Your letter of 8th June received. The facts we reported to our Government. I await its instructions. Haste cannot restore the dead. Therefore, get all the facts you possibly can b
efore I move here. It would be better not to start at all than to fail. I would write more fully but in the condition of the mails, prefer not to."
Terrell's patronizing plea for patience irked the investigator, who felt that he had been waiting long enough for action. A few days later, Terrell cabled again, this time in response to the second letter: "Remain if you can. British Consul will assist. Measures are afoot to secure justice." Eager to learn just what those measures were, Sachtleben dashed over to see Graves. The consul revealed that he had agreed to represent the American government in case of a trial, but he knew of no other developments.
Sachtleben reluctantly concluded that he had made little headway with the lethargic minister after all. In fact, Terrell had sat on Graves's report for a good month. Finally, on June 20, the minister wrote Currie to apologize for "the failure of this Legation to promptly acknowledge its appreciation," citing his "absence in the Mediterranean." He then cabled Washington to announce that Lenz's killers had been identified. He also declared that he would demand that the porte act on this new information.
The substance of Terrell's cable was published in numerous American newspapers, sending shock waves across the country. For despite all the previous reports affirming Lenz's demise, including Sachtleben's recent cable, nothing had seemed quite so definitive as this telegram from the American minister in Turkey asserting that Lenz was dead. Now it was official, though it would be another few months before Mrs. Lenz actually filed his will. A reporter with the Dispatch rushed to the Lenz residence to get Mrs. Lenz's reaction, and his report appeared in the paper the next day:
Mrs. Lenz is a comely German woman. She lives comfortably with her husband at 4701 Liberty Avenue. "Frank was always wild to go off on this trip and talked of it all the time," she said in broken English. "He wrote to Scribner's and they said their force was made up for the year and they could not take up the scheme. Then he tried Outing and they agreed to send him. I told him how dangerous it would be and he would never come back alive. But he said he would be all right. After he went away he wrote every week till he got to China, when it took six weeks to get a letter home. A friend of his who had been in Little Asia told me the people were very treacherous. I wrote and warned Frank and told him not to go there. He wrote back that he was all right, that there was no danger. That's the last I heard."
Mrs. Lenz declared with tears in her eyes that she would still hope. Frank was her only child, and she had tried every endeavor as had his employer, Mr. Cadman, to induce him not to make the trip. Her last letter from him was dated April 28. She received it May 27. About a week later began the rumors of his murder. Since then she has laid awake nights weeping, but will not give up hope.
A few days later, she faced yet another grim task. Worman had written her to request a description of Lenz's dental structure so that Sachtleben could confirm her son's remains. She dutifully composed a letter in German, which Worman translated and forwarded to his correspondent in Turkey. It read:
Filled teeth Frank never had before his departure from home. That I know definitely, but it is barely possible that while he was traveling he had some filled for he had suffered often from toothache. But it seems to me he would have written me for he was always accustomed to tell me such things.
Frank's teeth were very uneven. On the upper row he had on each side a crooked crown tooth somewhat protruding and beside that, one too large outside of the tooth row. I often talked with Frank about it, whether we should have it removed because it pushed forward the upper lip a little in consequence. But I begged him not to have it done as I feared it would do him harm, because it was a very strong tooth. Two eye teeth Frank had drawn before he left home.
I write all this that it may possibly help to find my son. I had continued to hope that we might find him alive. Oh! How hard it is to be so near your goal; to have suffered so much and then to lose one's life. My poor Frank.
I thank you many times for all the pains you are taking to find my poor son.
Respectfully,
Signed, Mrs. Anna Lenz
A few weeks later, Langhans received a direct request from Sachtleben, asking for a photograph of Lenz revealing his teeth. A Pittsburgh paper described the successful search: "Mr. Langhans went out to the home of the mother of Lenz yesterday and the matter was canvassed. She happily recalled the fact that she had a picture of her son taken by himself in comical attitude. The portrait shows his teeth, which is a first-class means of identifying the remains."
Just after cabling Washington with the news that Lenz's killers had been identified, Terrell made good on his promise to demand action from the porte, addressing a note to the Turkish foreign minister. Rather than request more firepower for Sachtleben, however, the minister divulged the names of the six Kurds listed in Graves's report and asked the porte to "arrest the parties named." He made no mention of the newly accused Moostoe or his alleged accomplice per Khazar, Alayee Chavdar.
The Reverend Dwight got wind of Chambers's note and wrote Chambers to inform him of Terrell's action. He added that he had recently run into the minister, who told him in no uncertain terms that it would be "impossible" to demand ten zaptiehs for Sachtleben. Chambers promptly related the information to Sachtleben. Of course, the wheelman went into a rage. Not only had Terrell revealed the names of the Kurdish suspects, contrary to Sachtleben's explicit instructions, but he was also evidently maneuvering to delegate the responsibility of conducting house searches and making arrests to the Turks themselves.
Evidently, Sachtleben was not having his way with the authorities. Despite his frequent and impassioned appeals to public opinion, he had yet to gain any visible sway over the State Department or Terrell, let alone the Turks. Moreover, his relationship with Worman was rapidly deteriorating. The editor was taking great pains to disassociate himself from his outspoken investigator, who rarely wasted an opportunity to blast Terrell in his letters home, much to the dismay of Washington. "We wish in no wise to be responsible for anything Mr. Sachtleben has chosen to say," the editor assured the State Department. "We are not willing to share in the insinuations made against Mr. Terrell or other employees of the Government."
Worman also practically apologized to the State Department for Sachtleben's vociferous grumblings to the effect that the American government was not doing enough to secure him a larger protective force. "We had hoped that Mr. Sachtleben, who knows that country, would go into it quietly," Worman wrote to Acting Secretary Alvey A. Adee, "and obtain proofs of the death and identify the body. We were disappointed to learn that he could not go without an escort."
Worman emphatically refused to ask Mrs. Lenz to make public demands of the Turkish government, as Sachtleben had stipulated. Read Worman's telegram in reply: "Cable worthless. Convincing data of death and body wanted from you." Instead, the editor all but commanded his correspondent to abandon his efforts to make house searches and arrests and to focus instead on finding Lenz's remains or other irrefutable proof of his death.
Some even doubted the significance of Khazar's findings. "Charlie Petticord smiles grimly when talking about the report that Sachtleben has found Lenz's bell," a Pittsburgh paper reported. "Said he yesterday: Lenz never carried a bell on his wheel. He wouldn't do it here and he never took any away with him either. I am certain that he did not get a bell while en route else he would have told me in his letters for he knew that I knew his antipathy for bells. I think this is another fairy tale and I will not yet believe the boy is dead."
Feeling increasingly embattled, Sachtleben went on the offensive again. He fired off a barrage of letters back home to Lenz's family and friends urging them to contact the State Department to voice their support for his demands. "I know where Lenz's grave and possessions in part are," Sachtleben wrote to Langhans, "but I have no power to get them. I have done all that can be done without official support." If he did not receive the necessary escort, he threatened, he would be forced to return to the United States empty-handed.
> Lenz's loved ones responded quickly and forcefully. Wrote Langhans to the secretary of state:
Mr. Sachtleben knows all but cannot move from Erzurum. The governor of the province only offers him two Turkish soldiers. To undertake such a dangerous mission he must have at least ten well armed body guards. He informs us that if sufficient support is not granted him soon he must return. You no doubt understand what a blow it will be to the begrieved mother if he should return without bringing the remains with him.
Echoed Purinton: "Cannot your Department direct Terrell to demand that the vali provide Sachtleben with sufficient support and protection? Terrell seems to fail to realize that he is dealing with as treacherous a nation as exists on the face of the globe. Their promises are as plentiful as water and not half as reliable." Wrote Mrs. Lenz herself: "I pray that your Department makes an immediate demand on the Turkish government to furnish Mr. Sachtleben with sufficient protection so that he can proceed to Chilkani, to examine and secure the remains of my only child."
At the same time, Sachtleben continued to send long letters to Terrell demanding not only the armed squadron but also immediate action on the indemnity front. Sachtleben maintained that he had already submitted sufficient evidence to prove Lenz's death and the failure of the Turkish government to provide him with adequate protection. The investigator argued that Terrell had no need to defer this action pending the discovery of the body or explicit instructions from Washington. Indeed, Sachtleben feared that if he left Turkey before such a demand had been lodged, Terrell might never get around to it.
Anticipating another lull, Sachtleben tried to make the most of his time in Erzurum. Mrs. Chambers described his doings to her brother in a letter dated July 9: "Mr. Sachtleben is still with us. He is a pleasant guest and making the best of his time reading up on the country and laying by a good store of information. The police have been watching him lately, as they did not at first. We wonder if his letters have been opened. It began one day when we went on a ride and he took a camera with him for the sake of photographing us. But they pretend to think he tried to photo the fortifications!"