We reached New York about August 5th, I think. I went to the Astor House and he secured a boarding place near Thirty-third Street. I at once commenced to look about for some small space in a shop where he could carry on his work.
Up to this time, since I had sent Miss Williams the various sums aggregating $1,500 from Texas, during the preceding winter, I had received only two letters from her, both forwarded to me from New York through a friend in Denver, who had acted as my agent in the matter. About the time I left Fort Worth, I had written her asking that she send me $600. I found this amount awaiting me at New York in Bank of England notes, which I later converted into United States currency at Drexel & Co., in Philadelphia and in New York.
For the first few days of my stay in New York, I was busy visiting several large machinery stores and in doing some other work pertaining to my company’s business of years before. Upon the morning of the 9th of August, Pitezel reminded me that his insurance expired that day, and requested that I aid him in placing his temporary insurance.
I had been waiting for him to make this announcement. He had a very valuable undeveloped patent, nearly finished, a machine for testing eggs, which I wished to use at once. I therefore said to him, suppose I pay you $500 cash for your share of the new patent (I by previous contract already owned one-half of it), then you can use the money as you choose, both for insurance and other matters. He answered that he ought not to take less than a $1,000. I finally gave him $600 for it, and upon his asking me which he should do, retain his old insurance or take out the new, I at once advised him to retain the old, for two reasons: First, it would help my old friend again. Second, if he took the third insurance, long before the expiration of that time his money would have been blown away, and I should feel obligated to give him more.
He then said, ”I will go and telegraph to the company in Chicago, and see if they will keep my insurance in force until the money can reach them.” I said, wire them the money instead. This was apparently a new idea to him, for after understanding it he not only wired them what was due, but also a small amount to St. Louis to his wife. I, as usual, cautioned him to be careful of the rest of the money, and make it last as long as he could. Besides, this I had done all I could to cheer him up, and get him out of the morbid condition he had been in, and he voluntarily promised that for the following thirty days he would not drink liquor.
He told me afterwards that so hard did he try to keep his promise after I left him in New York that he went to the post-office there, and sent by registered letter to B. F. Perry [1]* in Philadelphia, nearly all the money he had, so as to place himself beyond temptation for the first hard days of his struggle. At this time I had come to Philadelphia to meet my wife, to do some business with the Link Belt Engineering Company, with some stationers and with the Pennsylvania Railroad, all of whom were using a patent in which I was interested. Upon reaching Philadelphia I found that this and other work would detain me some time, and not knowing of Pitezel’s precaution already taken and fearing lest he should become drunk in New York, I wrote to him to come here. This he did, and deciding to make our headquarters here, I hired some rooms for my wife and myself.
He immediately commenced to look about for a part of a shop in which to do his work. My wife was taken seriously ill about this time, and continued so during the remainder of our stay in Philadelphia. I was not able to be away from the house more than a few hours at a time, and therefore did not see as much of Pitezel as I otherwise should. About the middle of August he told me he had hired an entire house at 1316 Callowhill Street, it being but little more expensive than a shop. That he had met another patent man who had promised to pay a part of the rent, remarking at the same time that when I got ready to help him in what he wished to do, he would buy out the other man’s business or move elsewhere, and if I perfected my company and went South to unload it, he, if he could make any money in his patent exchange, would have his family come to Philadelphia for the winter, as under the name of Perry he did not fear trouble.
I did not have anything to do with the leasing of the house, nor was I in it to exceed four times prior to the day before his death.
Upon Saturday, September 1st, I called on him to execute some patent papers to send to Washington, and at this time he certainly was doing a good business. During the time I was there no less than twenty customers called, some of them being agents he was supplying with certain washing and cleaning compounds that he manufactured. He had also surrounded himself with a great number of models of patents he was trying to sell for other parties on commission. So busy was he, that after waiting patiently for a long time, I told him I would go to my house and would return next day to execute the work he wished to do. Just before leaving he asked me to lend him $30 or $35, saying he wished to use it to pay his rent that was then due and to place some advertisements in the next day’s papers, explaining to me that all his money was in two large bills, which he did not wish to change until necessary, as, if once broken, he feared he would spend them faster.
I laughingly said to him, “Ben, you are sure they are not spent already?” He answered, “Oh, no! I have them placed away safely upstairs; I can go up and get them if you want me to;” and then started as if to do so. I gave him the money, saying that I did not require him to verify his statement.
That evening he came to my place of residence at about 8.30. I noticed at once that he had been drinking, and spoke to him of it, though not in anger, as it has always been my custom to wait until he became sober before chiding him. He told me that he had received word that one of his children was sick, and it might become necessary for him to go home. I asked him which child it was, and also told him he had better telegraph and instruct his wife to wire him if she thought it was necessary for him to go. He then spoke of leaving his business, and asked me what he should do about it if the man he was expecting to take an interest with him did not come on at once. I told him I thought it best for him to select the most trustworthy of his agents to leave in the office for a few days, reminding him that I had to go to St. Louis upon some legal business early in the week, and therefore could not aid him. I then bade him good night, telling him I had to go to the market near by before it should be closed. He said he would go with me. He waited at the market while I made my purchases, and returned with me almost without speaking. I then again said “good night.”
He said, “Can’t you come out again? I want to see you.” I told him as my wife was not well, I could not very well be absent longer, attributing his unusual request to his having been drinking; I also reminded him that I was to see him early the next day. He said in reply, “Then come out a moment now and I will go home.” I did so, and he said, ”You will have to let me have some money in case I have to go to St. Louis.” I said, “that will hardly be necessary; use what you have, and if the child dies or other unforeseen expense arises, I shall be in St. Louis during the week, and can then see to it.” He replied, “Well, I will have to tell you; I have not got any money save what you gave me to-day, and I have used part of that for liquor instead of paying my rent with it.” I said, “Ben, this makes over $1,600 you have wasted in debauchery and drink within the last seven months while your family have needed it. I am done. I told you in Fort Worth if it occurred again I should settle our business affairs, and thereafter you would have to care for yourself. I don’t want to talk with you to-night, but to-morrow I will go to your house, and I want to settle up not only the patent work, as we had intended, but all our other affairs, and in the future if I can spare any money it will be given to your family instead of to you, but I will go to see them upon my arrival in St. Louis, and will, if the child is dangerously sick, send you money to go home with.”
He said they had no money then to live on. I said, “If I find this to be so, I will give them some. It will not be the first time I have done so and far in excess of what would have come to them had you been working elsewhere. For your own part, you will have to keep sober here in Phila
delphia in order to make a living, which I know you can do if you try.” He was crying at the time. He then asked me if I would not help him to carry out the insurance work, having it appear he had been robbed there in the Callowhill Street house. I replied, that inasmuch as he was persisting in drinking, it would not be a month after it was carried out before he told some one of it. He said, “You are in earnest; you will not help me any more; I can do nothing alone.”
I replied, “I am in earnest, and will talk it all over with you to-morrow, and plan as best we can for the family,” and again bade him good night, and as he reluctantly started away I asked him to promise me not to drink again that evening, and to go at once to his home and to bed.
He promised to do this after first going again to the telegraph office to see if there were any messages for him. He then left me, and that is the last time I ever saw him alive.
I wish to say, however, that while I thought it wise and for his advantage for him to suppose he had got to care for himself in the future, I had no intention of abandoning him, if for no other reason than that he was too valuable a man even with his failings taken into consideration, for me to dispense with. I should have gone through a form of settlement with him next day, and upon my return from St. Louis, if I found him sober, have gone on as before.
The next morning I went to the Callowhill Street house, reaching there about 11 o’clock, entering with a key he had given me some weeks before to use if I came there in his absence. I found no one in the front portion of the house, and passed back into the kitchen; finding that also deserted, I went to the stairway and called him by name receiving no answer, I went up the stairs so that I could look into the room where he slept.
He was not there, and I was much worried, thinking that, instead of coming home as he had promised, he had gone about the city and perhaps had been arrested. Upon returning to the kitchen, however, I noticed that there were evidences of a fire having recently been built in the stove, and, therefore, did not think more of the matter, concluding that he had gone to the post-office or telegraph office.
I then left the house, but before doing so I placed a chair in a narrow passageway at the end of a counter, to denote to him, if he returned before I did, that I had been there. I went to the Mercantile Library and read the foreign papers for about an hour, went to a place on Eleventh Street where I had a box for my private mail, and then, buying a Philadelphia Sunday paper, I returned to the Callowhill Street house, entering as before.
The chair was as I had left it. I sat down for a few minutes to read, then went into the kitchen and rekindled the fire, so that he could prepare us a light lunch as soon as he returned, while I was making up the necessary papers.
The fire soon making the lower rooms uncomfortably warm, I went up stairs and lay down upon his bed and resumed the reading of the paper. While there I noticed an unusual odor and finally got up. Upon going into the adjoining room I found perhaps two dozen small bottles containing a certain cleaning fluid upon the mantel, some of which were uncorked. This fluid contained some chloroform, ammonia and benzene among other ingredients, all being of a volatile nature.
I don’t know how long I stayed there, nor what time it was when I finally thought it best to go home, and I then went down stairs to his desk to write him a note. There among the paper I found a note written in a cipher we sometimes used, which read, “Get letter in bottle in cupboard,” or words to that effect. (This note being one that no one could read without my aid, I carried it in the small watch pocket of my pantaloons, until in Toronto, having a new suit of clothing made, from which my tailor had omitted such a pocket, I placed the note in a tin box of papers that later was taken by the authorities. The note is now, or should be, in their hands.)
I went to the kitchen cupboard, which was the only one I had noticed in the house, and there I found a whiskey flask, within which I could see some paper.
To get at it I quickly broke the bottle, and upon opening the letter I read, “I am going to kill myself, if I can do it. You will find me up stairs. I am worth more dead than alive.” I did not wait to finish the letter at that time, but went hurriedly up stairs. The only place on the second floor I had not had occasion to visit that morning was a small room under the stairway, and looking into it I found it empty.
I then ran up this stairway to the third story, a portion of the house I had never before been in.
It consisted of two low, small rooms, each having one small window. The door to one of these rooms was open. I instinctively turned to the room that was closed. Thrusting open the door and stepping within, I saw Pitezel lying upon the floor. I rushed to him, but before I had remained longer than to remove a large towel that was wrapped around his head, and not having time to find if he were alive, I was forced, owing to the overpowering odor of chloroform, together with the shock of coming upon him so suddenly and in such a condition, to leave the room, falling upon my knees and crawling a portion of the way until I finally reached the window in the adjoining room, which I opened, and in a few minutes had recovered myself sufficiently to return to the room where Pitezel lay, but again was forced to leave before I could make a satisfactory examination.
This time I had opened the window in this room as well, and presently was able to ascertain that he was dead. I then went to the hallway and sat down upon the stairs. I do not know how long I sat there, nor what I thought in the meantime. I had not yet wholly recovered from the effects of the chloroform, and was dazed. This was not due to having come suddenly upon a dead body, for my medical experience of years before had rendered me accustomed to disagreeable sights and scenes – but the man had been to me far more than an ordinary employee; one whom, although most of our tastes were dissimilar, I had always liked and had had fewer disagreements with than would likely have been the case had he been my own brother. And to come upon him thus had unmanned me.
I know the thought never came to me while sitting there that it might be dangerous for my own safety, the street door being then unlocked. After a time I returned to the room and made a careful examination.
He lay upon his back, his lower limbs fully extended, one arm folded upon his chest, the other thrown out at his side.
His head was slightly raised by means of a coarse colored blanket, closely folded. He was fully dressed, except his coat and vest which hung on a chair beside him. The pockets of his trousers were turned inside out, and in the waistband was a letter within an envelope addressed “C. A. P. *[2]
If asked to express an absolutely true opinion as to how long he had been dead, I should say not more than six hours.
Upon the chair was a large gallon bottle laying upon its side, so arranged that it would nearly empty itself, it being held in position upon one side by a hammer and upon the other by a small block of wood; from the bottle, and connected thereto by a perforated cork in which an ordinary quill toothpick had been inserted, there trailed a long piece of small rubber tubing, terminating at its free end in the towel I had removed upon first entering the room. This tube was constricted midway by a piece of cord tied about it, so that the flow of liquid would be slow.
Owing to the time that had elapsed after his death all the chloroform that could escape from the bottle, in the position in which it lay, had passed through the tube, filling his mouth and, as I later learned from the coroner’s physician, his stomach as well; this one fact alone being sufficient to prove to any scientific person, or physician at least, that any one having a medical training would not, if obliged to use chloroform for such a purpose, carry it to such an extent if he wished it to appear later that the man died as the result of inhaling the vaporous fumes of chloroform and benzene, that had exploded in a bottle held in the victim’s hands.
The excess of the liquid had then run out upon the floor and on the blanket underneath his head. The only other articles in the room besides those already enumerated were some small pocket belongings, a knife, memoranda book, match box, containing some of our patent stam
ps, and perhaps twenty small coins; all these were placed on the chair beside the bottle. Upon the windowsill was a small handful of tacks with which he had fastened some newspapers upon the sash in lieu of a curtain.
By this time, owing to the excoriating effect of the chloroform his face had become somewhat discolored, and I went to the rooms below and procured a wet towel, and after covering the face with it I started down the stairs fully intending to call in some of the neighbors. Then came the thought that, instead of filling the house with a crowd of curious people, it would be better to go direct to the Coroner.
Confessions of the Serial Killer H.H. Holmes (Illustrated) Page 7