A Forgotten Drama of H^all Street. "You had better see Judge Shandley about it. He's in the next room," Tweed an swered. At half-past one in the afternoon, Gou'.d, Shandley and Beiden called on Gordon. With them went Superintendent John J. Kelsoe. Beiden sent in his card. He was admitted and according to Gould's version of the af fair, said to Gordon. "See here, Jay Gould with Judge Shandley and Chief of Police Kelsoe are in Tweed's room. Unless you return at once the money and securities that Gould left with you, they will railroad you to prison before any one knows where you are." The almost unparalleled audacity and sang froid which this prince of swindlers had hitherto manifested, suddenly collapsed. Without protest, he immediately di.sgorged his entire gains with the exception of some shares in the Allegheny and Oil Creek Rail road which he had previously placed in the hands of his brokers for sale. He wrote out an order for these. The only hypothesis which will sufficiently explain Gordon's conduct is a belief that Gould possessed the power to fulfill Belden's threat of "railroading to prison" by Star Chamber methods, without the assistance of a jury in public trial. Without doubt a com promise of signal advantage to the criminal would have been effected, had he manifested some trifling tenacity. Still, Tweed's control of certain members of the judiciary, as re vealed by subsequent investigation, rendered the threat not altogether an idle one. The conspirators were themselves amazed at their success. Gould had remarked on the way over, that if he "got a hundred thousand back, it would be a streak of luck." One hour later, Beiden, with what object cannot be imagined, took it upon himself to return to Gordon, apparently for the very pur pose of expressing the surprise of all con
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cerned that the latter "had given up so' easily. At which the psuedo Lord, plucking up a little courage, hastily dispatched a message to Philadelphia notifying his brokers not to honor the Alleghaney and Oil Creek order. Too late. The imposture was fixed and on April ninth Gordon was arrested, charged with misappropriation. Gould simultaneous ly initiated a civil suit against the brokers, who in obedience to Gordon's subsequent directions, had refused to surrender the stock. So much odium had been incurred by Erie's ex-president, that the general public persistently refused to credit his version of the affair, and the newspapers, when the v made any reference to the matter at all, treated it as a mere squabble arising out of an ordinary stock transaction. Is it not well nigh incredible that even at this late stage, no one seemingly made the slightest attempt to verify Gordon's title of nobility or test the truth of his tale of enorm ous estates in Scotland? Horace F. Clark and A. T. Roberts volunteered their services as his bondsmen, the former leaving his bed at midnight to qualify. Thirty-seven hundred dollars bail was exacted. Ex-Judge James K. Porter, John Graham, James H. Strahan, leaders at the bar, against whom not a breath of suspicion had ever been wafted, be lieved in and appeared for this self-styled "victim of a conspiracy." Judge Joseph F. Brady after a number of adjournments set the case down for trial on September twentieth. A day or two before, Gordon disappeared. ACT III. MANITOBA. In 1873, Hay and Keegan, Minneapolis detectives, employed by the discomfited bondsmen, succeeded in tracing Gordon to Canada. Under then existing treaties, the latter was safe from extradition. Neverthe
