The Devil's Gentleman (24 page)

As for Barnet, he had complained to the club’s Board of Governors after hearing that Cornish had accused him of “improper practices with women.”

At this point, the atmosphere in the room underwent an almost palpable change. Up until that point—despite Osborne’s efforts to inject some drama into the proceedings—the inquest had simply been a rehash of well-known facts. With the introduction of this “savory new element,” as one commentator put it, “the interest in Cornish’s testimony had grown in intensity.” Everyone seemed to be sitting forward in his seat, eager not to miss a word. For the first time, deliciously titillating revelations were emerging about the sordid secret lives of the upper-class clubmen—“the unpleasant substratum that is believed to underlie the whole awful case.”
⁸

Hammering away at Cornish, Osborne got him to admit that he had accused Barnet of frequenting a brothel on East Forty-seventh Street run by a madam named Stern.

“Were
you
ever at that house?” demanded Osborne.

Cornish shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “Yes,” he said after a brief pause. “I’ve been there.”

“How many times?”

“I don’t think more than once,” said Cornish, glaring at his inquisitor.

During the remainder of Cornish’s time on the witness stand, Osborne continued to hammer away at him, shouting at him, berating him, dispensing with all pretense of politeness and rudely addressing him by his last name alone. The quality of Osborne’s interrogation was conveyed in the headline of that evening’s
Journal:
CORNISH ON THE RACK
!

Interviewed immediately after the inquest was adjourned for the day, District Attorney Gardiner had harsh words to say about the witness. Cornish, he felt, had been extremely evasive. It was clear, however, that he had reason to harbor ill feelings toward both Barnet and Molineux. Since Cornish, according to his own sworn statement, had been the one who gave Mrs. Adams the bottle of poisoned bromo-seltzer, “it behooves him to clear his own skirts. Under the law,” Gardiner warned, “his admission of giving her the poison makes it possible to secure his indictment for murder.”
⁹

During his opening address, Gardiner had made a point of not naming a suspect. Now, it appeared that he had one in mind. And to the astonishment of everyone who had been following the case, it wasn’t Roland Molineux.

45

I
n his usual Barnumesque way, William Randolph Hearst had once again, with great fanfare, assigned the popular writer Julian Hawthorne to cover the case. By an odd coincidence, an earlier and infinitely greater Hawthorne—Nathaniel—had written a famous short story titled “My Kinsman, Major Molineux.” Set in pre–Revolutionary War Boston, this tale concerns a naive country lad named Robin whose journey through the labyrinthine streets of the night-shrouded city leads to an unsettling discovery: that lurking beneath their civilized veneer, human beings possess dark and even frightful impulses. Or, as the story puts it, that a man may “have several voices…as well as two complexions.”

It was a lesson that the real-life Molineux case would illustrate in an especially vivid way.

Friday, February 10, was the coldest day on record in New York City, with the thermometer dropping to six degrees below zero—“Klondike weather,” as the papers described it. Frozen pipes left countless apartment dwellers without gaslight or heat, homeless people perished in the streets, and the rivers turned to solid ice, forming “perfect bridges from Jersey to Manhattan, from Manhattan to Long Island.”
¹

Once again, however, the little courtroom was filled to capacity when the inquest resumed that frigid morning. At a few minutes before eleven, an excited murmur ran through the crowd. People shifted in their seats and craned their necks for a better view. Some rose to their feet.

Walking beside his father, one hand resting lightly in the crook of the older man’s elbow, Roland Molineux had just entered the room.

The two made their way to the places reserved for them up front, where Roland slipped off his fine kidskin gloves, doffed his elegant derby, and removed his costly astrakhan-lined overcoat. Impeccably dressed in a high collar, black tie, and double-breasted coat, he seated himself next to his father. Heads bent close together, the two began to examine the morning papers, chuckling softly over the artists’ renditions of Roland, which seemed to exaggerate his features to the point of caricature—the up-tilted nose, the square, dimpled chin, the disdainful curl of his mouth.

When his name was called, he smiled and whispered something to the General, who gave his boy an encouraging clap on the shoulder. Still carrying his tan-colored gloves in one hand, Roland then stepped to the witness chair.

In marked contrast to the gruff Harry Cornish, Molineux struck observers as the epitome of “polished courtesy.” He smiled often, spoke in a “soft, cultured voice,” replied graciously to all of Osborne’s questions.

And yet, along with the suave, agreeable manners, there was something else, something off-putting, even unsavory. “It cannot be said that his appearance recommends him,” wrote Julian Hawthorne, who saw in the handsomely groomed socialite “an air of hauteur—a peculiar cold eye.”
²

Another observer detected “a touch of the dangerous, perhaps the sinister” about Molineux. “At the moment when his manners, speech, and general address induced the greatest confidence, there was a look in his eyes, a cast to his face, that stirred doubt.” To this observer, the coolly self-possessed Molineux was a dark enigma, “the sort of being that a thousand authors have tried to call up from the world of imagination”—“the flesh-and-blood realization of the Mystery Man.”
³

Molineux’s smooth, courteous bearing was matched by Assistant DA Osborne. In his questioning of Harry Cornish, Osborne had been aggressive to the point of hostility. With Molineux, on the other hand, he “was gentle, deferential, apologetic.” Whereas he had treated the athletic director with open disdain—consistently calling him “Cornish” without so much as a pretense of politeness—he never once addressed Roland as anything other than “Mr. Molineux.”
⁴

“Now, Mr. Molineux,” Osborne began with a smile. “You’re not afraid to tell the truth in this case, are you?”

“I am sworn to tell the truth,” Roland replied with a little smile of his own.

“And you are not worried,” continued Osborne, “that your examination might at some future time lead to the charge of homicide against you?”

“Not at all,” said Roland, still smiling.

“You claim to be innocent of the crime that is charged?” said Osborne.

“Entirely and absolutely innocent,” Roland said easily.

Under Osborne’s gentle questioning, Roland—the very picture of relaxed self-confidence—proceeded to recount the troubles he had with Cornish. He told of the time he had requested a new set of horizontal bars, only to have Cornish substitute a different brand on the order form; of Cornish’s alleged mismanagement of the club facilities; and of the inflammatory letter that Cornish had sent to the track star Bernie Wefers on official club stationery—the precipitating cause of Roland’s resignation from the KAC.

“You felt that you wanted Cornish removed?” asked Osborne.

“Yes,” said Roland. “I felt it would be best for the club.”

“You had a strong feeling against him on account of his conduct?” asked Osborne.

“That was my state of mind at the time,” Roland acknowledged.

“A strong, bitter feeling?” Osborne said.

“Yes, sir,” Roland calmly replied.

“You thought he had been disrespectful?”

“I knew so,” said Roland.

“You thought he had overstepped his bounds as an employee?”

“I knew that, too.”

“You thought you were justified in having this feeling toward him?” said Osborne.

“I thought so then,” answered Roland, wearing his usual half smile, “and I think so now.”

Roland was then asked about a note he had mailed to a friend named William Scheffler, giving his reasons for resigning from the Knickerbocker and denouncing Cornish for having written the offending letter to Bernie Wefers. Surely, said Osborne, sending such a note to Scheffler proved that Roland continued to harbor bitter feelings toward Cornish after quitting the KAC.

“Yes, sir,” said Roland without hesitation. “I suppose, for a time, that feeling lingered with me. But my going to the New York Athletic Club—it was a better club and nicer men were in it. And I was a governor there, where I had only been a committeeman in the Knickerbocker Athletic Club.”

“So that feeling gradually wore away?” asked Osborne.

“It did,” said Roland.

“And Cornish passed out of your life?”

“Yes, sir.”

Osborne then shifted his attention to Roland’s relationship with Barnet. He had not proceeded far with this line of questioning, when—as though struck with a sudden realization—he interrupted himself.

“Oh, by the way—you must excuse me for the way the examination is going on,” he said somewhat sheepishly, “but have you got the original of that letter you wrote to Scheffler about Cornish?”

“You may conduct the examination any way you see fit,” Roland said pleasantly. “My counsel has the letter. I’ve turned everything over to him.”

After receiving the letter from Bartow Weeks, Osborne showed it to Roland, who identified it as his “own ordinary handwriting.” The letter was then marked and turned over to Coroner Hart.

Roland remained on the witness stand for another hour or so, recounting—in a voice tinged with sadness—his “warm friendship” with the late Henry C. Barnet. Only once was there even a hint of friction between the witness and his interrogator. It happened when Osborne remarked on how strange it seemed that Roland had learned of Barnet’s death only by reading about it in the papers.

Roland, unflappable as ever, replied that he saw nothing strange about it.

“And yet,” said Osborne, “you told me a moment ago, almost with tears in your eyes, that he was such a warm personal friend.”

“I don’t think you saw any tears in my eyes,” Roland said with a barely suppressed sneer in his voice.

“I said ‘almost,’” Osborne replied, reddening visibly. He then asked why Roland had never once visited Barnet during the latter’s final illness.

Roland’s answer seemed perfectly reasonable. He had heard that his old friend was under quarantine for diphtheria. The sickroom was off limits to visitors.

“Mr. Molineux,” said Osborne after a brief pause. “I want to know whether Barnet knew your wife?”

“Do you mean, Mr. Osborne,” said Roland, allowing a note of indignation to enter his voice, “when did I present him to her?”

“Yes,” said Osborne. “When did you present your wife, Miss Chesebrough?”

“I presented Barnet to Miss Chesebrough at the Metropolitan Opera House,” said Roland. “It was the fall of 1897. I don’t remember the date, but it was the first concert given by the Banda Rossa.”

At this juncture—and much to the disappointment of many of the spectators, who felt that the proceedings had just reached a particularly juicy point—Osborne broke off his questioning, and the inquest was adjourned.
⁵

Rising from the witness chair, Roland strolled back to his place, where his beaming father patted him on the back and handed him a big black cigar. As his lawyer, Bartow Weeks, made ready to depart, Roland, always the gentleman, held the older man’s coat for him.

Everyone present agreed that they had witnessed a splendid performance. In contrast to Cornish—who had come across as nervous, shifty, furtive—Roland had seemed open, confident, perfectly at ease: a man with nothing either to hide or apologize for.

On his way out of the courtroom, Osborne told reporters that he was, in fact, far more “favorably impressed with” Molineux than he had been with Cornish.

“It is true that it was Cornish who administered the poison that killed Mrs. Adams,” he declared. “It is true that he is not a willing witness. It is true that he has made several contradictory statements on the witness stand. I never met a criminal in my life—and I have convicted many—who did not assume that attitude when placed on the witness stand.

“I assure you,” he added portentously, “I am by no means through with Cornish.”
⁶

46

T
hroughout his testimony, Roland had held on to his elegant kidskin gloves, toying with them, lightly slapping them against his crossed knee or waving them in the air to make a point. It was another pair of kid gloves, however—the metaphorical ones with which Assistant District Attorney Osborne had handled the witness—that drew the sharpest comments from the press.

Predictably, Hearst’s
Journal
adopted the most scathing tone. Osborne—the “fearless cross-examiner who had browbeaten Cornish into contradiction and confusion”—had inexplicably become “gentle as a lamb” in his questioning of Molineux. Instead of being “placed upon the rack” and reduced to “a tattered remnant” of himself, the witness had been treated with an almost fawning deference. No wonder Roland and his father had left the courtroom looking “supremely happy.” “It was whitewashing day for Molineux,” the paper jeered, “and the brush was wielded by Mr. Osborne.”
¹

If Osborne was stung by these criticisms, he showed no sign of it when the proceedings resumed on Tuesday, February 14. Over the intervening weekend, the city had been hit with a blizzard of such ferocity that entire streets were blocked with six-foot-high drifts. By Tuesday, however, the skies were clear, and when the doors opened at 10:00
A.M.
, the little courtroom was quickly filled to overflowing.
²

Looking “bright and fresh, his face free from worry,” Molineux took the stand shortly after eleven, his fine tan gloves held, as before, in his right hand. Throughout his testimony, he was, as one observer noted, the very picture of seemingly “unstudied grace.”

By contrast, Harry Cornish—seated near the front where he had an obstructed view of the witness chair—“looked careworn and nervous, as if there was a great load of some kind weighing upon his mind.” As he listened to the testimony of his debonair rival, his face took on a “look full of bitterness and hate.”
³

To the delight of the more prurient-minded spectators—who “manifested an air of intense expectancy,” according to the papers—Osborne picked up where he had left on Friday, with the matter of Henry Barnet’s relationship with Blanche. Those who hoped to see Osborne conduct a more aggressive grilling of the witness, however, were in for a disappointment. If anything, he seemed even more solicitous of Molineux’s feelings, prefacing his most probing questions with elaborate apologies.

“I ask these questions with considerable regret, Mr. Molineux,” he began. “I have no wish to pry into your personal life, but I must do so in the interest of justice.”

“I realize that, Mr. Osborne,” Roland said with an understanding smile. “And I will answer you in the same spirit.”

Acknowledging Roland’s gracious reply with a little bow, Osborne said, “Tell me, Mr. Molineux. After you introduced Mr. Barnet to Miss Chesebrough, did he pay her any attention?”

“He was polite to her,” said Roland. “He sent her flowers, took her to dinner—just such attentions as a gentleman would pay to any lady.”

“Then I ask you, Mr. Molineux, was your wife in love with Mr. Barnet?”

“I think she admired him as a friend,” Roland said with a dismissive little wave of his gloves.

“Did you ever have reason to believe that Mr. Barnet was in love with Miss Chesebrough?” asked Osborne.

“Really, Mr. Osborne,” said Roland, as if addressing a child, “I have no way of knowing the state of Mr. Barnet’s feelings. If he were,” he added gallantly, “I’m sure I wouldn’t blame him.”

“Did Barnet ever visit your wife at Mrs. Bellinger’s house before your marriage?” asked Osborne.

“I think he did,” said Roland.

“Was it done with your knowledge and approval?”

“Why, yes, certainly,” said Roland, as though the answer were so obvious it hardly needed stating. “He had a perfect right to call upon her.”

“Did you ever resent it?”

“Never,” said Roland.

Apologizing once more for the necessity of inquiring into Roland’s “private and domestic life,” Osborne then asked if it was true that he had been turned down once by Blanche before she finally consented to marry him. “There is no intention to insult you,” Osborne hastened to assure him.

“I have no such opinion,” Roland said with a smile. He then acknowledged that Blanche had indeed rejected his first proposal.

“After you proposed that first time, did you object to Barnet’s attention to Miss Chesebrough?”

“Upon what grounds could I object, Mr. Osborne?” replied Roland, in the urbane tone of one man of the world to another. “She certainly had the right to receive the attentions of any man she favored.”

“Then you had no reason to be jealous of Mr. Barnet?”

“None whatsoever,” said Roland. “Barnet, Miss Chesebrough, and I were all good friends. He called me ‘Mollie’ and I called him ‘Barney.’ Miss Chesebrough did, too.” There was a hint of sadness in his voice, as though his heart had been pierced by the sudden recollection of happier times.

Osborne paused for a moment to consult his notes. When he resumed, the subject he raised was even more titillating than the reputed romantic triangle involving Mollie, Barney, and Blanche.

Had Roland ever visited the so-called Oriental room described in recent newspapers? Osborne asked.

The question made the spectators sit up in their seats. Osborne was clearly inquiring about one of the most explosive aspects of the whole affair—the rumored “coterie of degenerates” within the Knickerbocker Athletic Club. The ringleader of this sinister bunch, who had never been publicly identified, was said to inhabit an “Oriental apartment fashioned after the rooms occupied by Oscar Wilde”—shocking proof of his depravity.
⁴

In response to Osborne’s question, Roland now conceded that he had, in fact, once visited the apartment, though he denied that there was “anything Oriental about it.”

And what, Osborne asked, had occasioned the visit?

Molineux said that he had gone there to speak to its occupant—Mr. John Adams.

The mention of this name caused a stir in the courtroom. Adams was the secretary of the Knickerbocker Athletic Club. It was Adams who first noticed the supposed similarity between the penmanship on the poison package and the handwriting on Roland’s letter of resignation. And it was Adams who first brought this resemblance to Harry Cornish’s attention.

Now it appeared—from Osborne’s line of questioning—that Adams himself was a person of highly dubious character, a member, if not the leader, of the homosexual gang that had allegedly conspired to eliminate the two men who threatened them with exposure: Harry Cornish and Henry Barnet. Could Adams have pointed the finger of suspicion at Roland in order to deflect attention from the true culprits—that is, himself and his fellow “degenerates”?

“Do you know a young man by the name of Glohr?” asked Osborne.

“Paul Glohr?” said Molineux, as if slightly surprised by the introduction of this name. “Yes, I know him.”

“Tell me what you know about him,” Osborne said.

Molineux explained that Glohr had been an office boy at the club—and not, in Roland’s opinion, a very good one. He had been remiss in his duties and had once used the tip of his forefinger to inscribe an obscenity on the frost of a windowpane facing Forty-fifth Street.

Roland had taken it upon himself to complain about Glohr to John Adams, who had called the boy to his room, presumably to reprimand him. The next thing Roland knew, Glohr had been made a member of the club and was visiting Adams’s room almost every evening to receive a “history lesson.” Eventually, Adams moved out of the club and took an apartment nearby, bringing the boy to live with him as his “ward.” It was this apartment that had reportedly been furnished in the scandalous “Oriental” style.

After questioning Roland about several other boys who had reportedly been taken under Adams’s wing, Osborne suddenly changed tack again. This time, he focused on published reports about Roland’s own supposedly immoral behavior. As before, however, he seemed almost abashed at having to raise such distasteful matters, apologizing in advance for the “personal questions” he was compelled to ask.

“I shall be glad to answer them if they give me a chance to deny some rumors,” said Roland with his usual urbanity.

“Did you ever smoke opium?” asked Osborne.

Roland did not miss a beat. “Yes, over a year ago,” he said. “I will qualify that by saying once or twice to see what it was like.”

“But you are not an opium fiend?”

Roland chuckled softly. “No, sir. I was in Chinatown sightseeing and wanted to see what opium smoking was like. Just curiosity.”

“I’m told,” said Osborne, “that you know all the bartenders in Newark, and that you associate with that sort of men. Is that true?”

“It is false,” said Roland flatly.

“I’m also told you took your wife out there and introduced her to a bartender,” said Osborne.

For the first time, Roland appeared to bristle. “Are you in earnest, Mr. Osborne?”

“Yes.”

“It’s a lie,” Roland said angrily.

“Tell me, if you please, Mr. Molineux,” said Osborne. “Have you ever rented a letter box in your life? A private letter box?”

“Never,” answered Roland.

“What do you know about cyanide of mercury?”

“I don’t think I even knew such a poison existed except perhaps in a general way before this Adams case,” Roland said.

“But aren’t you a chemist?” Osborne asked.

“A very bad chemist,” Roland said with a self-deprecating smile. “My specialty is the study of pigments. I’m merely a color-maker at a factory.”

Osborne then asked Roland if he had ever written any requests to patent medicine firms. Roland denied that he had.

Stepping to the counsel’s table, Osborne sifted through a stack of documents, then approached the witness box with a single sheet in one hand.

“Have you ever seen paper like this, Mr. Molineux?” asked Osborne, handing him the sheet—a piece of eggshell blue stationery embossed with three interlinked silver crescents.

Roland studied it for a moment before saying, “Not that I remember, Mr. Osborne.”

“You have never seen any paper like that in your life?” Osborne repeated. “I mean, with that crest on it?”

“Not that I recall,” said Roland.

Shortly afterward, Osborne excused Molineux from the witness stand, thanking him for his cooperation and asking if he would be willing to return for further questioning should the need arise.

“I shall be very glad to come whenever you send for me,” Roland said with a smile as he rose from his chair. He then returned to his place, where his father welcomed him with an affectionate little rub on the back.
⁵

Interviewed by reporters at the close of the day’s proceedings, Osborne, as before, was effusive in his praise for Roland, whose testimony—in contrast to Cornish’s grudging answers—had been so frank and forthright.

The warm feelings were reciprocated by Roland and his representatives. Until that moment, Weeks and his co-counsel, George Gordon Battle, had refused to permit their client to supply the authorities with a penmanship sample. Now, believing that the district attorney and his men were focusing their suspicions on the surly athletic director, they agreed.

Late that afternoon, in the presence of his attorneys, Roland sat down at a table in James Osborne’s office and, to the dictation of handwriting expert William Kinsley, penned a number of samples. These included the address on the poison package sent to Harry Cornish, which Kinsley read aloud to Roland.

When he was finished, Roland shook hands all around and took his leave, “pleased and confident.”

Kinsley carefully put the samples in an envelope. He would need some time to analyze them closely. But even at a glance, he had noticed something interesting.

In writing out the address of the Knickerbocker Athletic Club, Roland had spelled the street number “Fourty Fifth Street,” adding a superfluous
u.

It was the same error made by the anonymous sender of the poisoned bromo-seltzer.
⁶