THROUGHOUT JANUARY AND FEBRUARY, SUPERINTENDENT Walling reviewed what few reliable facts existed of the kidnapping act on July 1, 1874. The police had descriptions of Charley, the kidnappers, and the horse and buggy. Charley was missing and the kidnappers were dead, but for all Walling knew, the horse and buggy could be in plain sight. In their excitement over the chase and demise of Mosher and Douglas, the police hadn’t dedicated much time to finding the getaway transportation. If he could find a caretaker for the horse, Walling thought he could learn more about the kidnappers’ location in the hours following their crime.
Walling published more flyers detailing the case and instructed his men to spread them throughout New York and New Jersey. The superintendent personally asked ten newspapers in the region to carry his newest reorganization of the facts.
Within days of the reprinting, a stable keeper in Newark named Van Fleet contacted Walling’s office.
Van Fleet said that in October 1874, a well-dressed young man about eighteen years old had led a scrawny-looking horse to his stables. Burs stuck to the animal’s mane, its back looked sore, and its hair had turned red, a sign of poor health and bad grooming. Assuming the horse was a castoff that the boy had found roaming in the woods, Van Fleet agreed to take care of it through the weekend. The young man did return, but later than he had promised. He was accompanied by a man resembling the description of Bill Mosher. The older stranger told a black stable hand that if he could “take good care of the animal” for a while longer, he would repay him generously. He also instructed the hostler to clean reddish hairs off of the horse’s black tail by washing it in salt water. One week later, a different, angrier man came to take the horse. When Van Fleet asked him for the promised money, the man swore and walked away.
New York Police Detective Titus went to New Jersey to examine the horse and interview Van Fleet. He reported back to Walling. Once he determined the story was accurate, Walling telegraphed Heins in Philadelphia and asked him to send his “best resource” to identify the horse. Heins contacted Christian, telling him to take Walter immediately to Newark. Unlike the trip he had gone on to identify the kidnappers’ bodies a month before, Walter understood this particular mission.
“I shall know the horse, sure,” the boy said to the press. “He has a white star upon his forehead, a white hind leg, a sore back, and there is a wind gall or wen on one of his hind legs. But I shall know him best because when the horse started he turned around and laughed.” Heins and Christian both remembered Walter’s giving them this last detail six months before. Because it had seemed too imaginative, they had kept it from published descriptions.
As soon as Christian escorted Walter into Van Fleet’s stables, a stable hand led the horse out for Walter’s inspection. The six-year-old recognized and pointed to a white patch on the horse’s forehead and one on its left hind leg. He said the horse had more hair on one side than he remembered. Van Fleet told Christian that when he first saw the horse, it had a thin patch of hair on one side, but that it had grown in the past few months.
The police asked a worker to hitch the horse to a wagon so Walter could see it move as he may have on the day he was kidnapped. Once Walter sat behind the horse, somebody pulled the reins. As soon as it heard “Get up!,” the horse turned its head to one side and showed its teeth.
“Look, Papa, look!” said Walter. “See, the horse is laughing at us.”
Walling ordered his men to locate the young man who had first taken the horse to Van Fleet. He told the stable keeper, the Newark Police, and the local press not to intimidate the young man if he came forward. Regardless of the information the boy provided, Walling said, he would grant him immunity from any wrongdoing and “heavily” reward his cooperation.
Walling’s discovery of Van Fleet’s stables did not reverse the damage caused by his earlier self-aggrandizing behavior. When the superintendent took credit for tracing Mosher and Douglas, he had indirectly encouraged the press to hold him solely responsible for finding Charley. Like the millionaire Arthur Purcell, whose ransom offer the kidnappers rejected, Walling had become a failed hero when Charley didn’t quickly appear.
Not only had the superintendent been unable to claim any of Philadelphia’s reward money, but he also faced losing professional pay in February, when a known burglar accused Walling of arresting and detaining him without evidence for a crime he didn’t commit. He was guilty, the prisoner said, only by association—the police had caught two of his acquaintances at the scene of the crime. In addition, two women registered a complaint against Superintendent Walling for using “violent language” and denying them visitation rights when they went to see the prisoners.
Walling disputed both charges, claiming he had the right to detain a thief while his officers looked for evidence and he searched for the stolen property. As for the women, Walling said, he had no way of knowing if the accused would tell them where to relocate the stolen goods, and at no time did he use inappropriate language. The press expected the Board of Commissioners to agree with Walling’s justification. If it did not, then he faced a fine equal to ten days’ pay or a dismissal.
The superintendent did have at least one thing working in his favor: his relationship with William Westervelt. The closest man to the kidnappers still reported solely to him. Between August 1874 and February 1875, the two men had met more than fifty times. To Walling’s knowledge, Westervelt didn’t communicate with anyone else in authority—even Pinkerton; the private detectives had tried to build a confidence with the informant, but Westervelt said he rejected their offer. So if the board did the unthinkable and took up the cause of a former convict, Walling could always use Westervelt’s confidence as leverage.
Reporters had learned that Walling was in touch with a person close to William Mosher. They didn’t know William Westervelt’s name, but they knew that he had information and referred to him as one who created “renowned excitement in police circles.” Besides Captain Heins, authorities in Philadelphia didn’t know much more than the press.
The advisers had lost footing in the Ross case months before. After Christian fell ill, the Lewis brothers reclaimed the family’s leadership role in the investigation. Philadelphia’s city leaders hadn’t approved of this shift in power, but the involvement of New York’s force had already limited their participation, making it easier for the family to work directly with Captain Heins. Perhaps the most frustrated adviser was William V. McKean, the manager and editor of the Public Ledger. His paper had been the first in the world to print news of Charley’s disappearance, and he wasn’t about to become a member of the crowd awaiting bulletins outside of newspaper offices. McKean went to New York to offer Walling his consulting services, and to speak directly with his source. Walling acquiesced.
Although the superintendent continued to micromanage the investigation, he had gradually begun to place a greater distance between himself and Westervelt. Prior to the kidnappers’ deaths, he had suspected Westervelt enough to have him followed, and now that the informant couldn’t be used to track Mosher and Douglas, he was left wondering whether he had been manipulated into revealing police intelligence. Because Westervelt still believed he could earn his position back on the force, the superintendent didn’t view him as a flight risk, but he did need to increase the pressure if his informant had anything else to reveal. Plus, Walling didn’t have too many friends among newspaper writers, and appeasing a major editor in Philadelphia could only help his reputation.
McKean took Westervelt to the Fifth Avenue Hotel and ordered dinner for the two of them in a private room. While they ate, McKean asked questions he had prepared. The editor was confident that in this interview, Westervelt would reveal more to him than he had shared with New York’s superintendent. To his frustration, Westervelt gave him the same answers he had given everybody else. At some point during the private dinner, Walling became so uncomfortable with the length of McKean’s interrogation that he knocked on the door. McKean did not respond.
Eventually, McKean returned to Philadelphia—disappointed. Over the next two months, however, he would frequently visit Walling’s office.
Meanwhile, Westervelt became more frustrated with Walling. He hadn’t liked McKean, and he didn’t like the way Walling became abrasive toward him when McKean was in the room. During one hour-long meeting of the three men, McKean had called Westervelt a “thief” and accused him of wearing stolen clothes. Instead of defending his informant, Walling let McKean say what he wanted.
Westervelt told Walling to stop bullying him. He reminded Walling that his wife, Mary, was pawning their belongings to make rent at a tenement house. He asked when he was going to get his promised job on the force back. But instead of reinstating him, Walling found Westervelt a job as a driver for the Adams Express Company. He also slipped him some money occasionally.
On February 12, soon after he began work with the Adams Express, Westervelt received a summons from Walling. He returned, once again, to police headquarters on Mulberry Street.
“You need to go to Philadelphia and meet with the city authorities,” Walling said.
“No.”
“You have to.”
“Do you think this is necessary?” Westervelt asked.
“It must be, or they wouldn’t send for you.” Walling advised him to leave early in the morning.
Westervelt said he didn’t have any wages yet to use for the trip.
“That shouldn’t stop you,” said Walling. He handed him ten dollars.
When Westervelt left New York the next morning on a 7:00 A.M. train, he planned to return at 3:00 P.M.
Captain Heins met Westervelt in Philadelphia. The two men went to police headquarters at the State House on Fifth and Chestnut Streets. There, they met Christian Ross, Joseph Lewis, Detective Wood, and two other men who took notes of the conversation. For the rest of the day, the men interrogated Westervelt about his involvement with the kidnappers. They asked him to review his interactions with the Mosher family and Joseph Douglas in the summer and fall of 1874.
“Did you ever hear of any conspiracy of this kind, of any abduction, when you were [in Philadelphia]?”
“No.”
“Did [Mosher] say that Gil had given him away?” they asked.
“I guess.”
“Did either or both [Mosher and Douglas] come [to your house] a few days before Mrs. Mosher came there?”
“Yes.”
“Did you say to Walling several times where he could get these men?”
“I did not say several times.”
“You told me this afternoon that you told Walling you could take both of them, and that Walling objected,” Detective Wood said.
“If I said that I made a mistake. I meant only Douglas.”
Heins disagreed. “Walling said he would not take Douglas alone. Mosher was the brains of the concern. You repeated the word ‘them’ many times.”
“If I said that I made a mistake. I meant only Douglas.”
“Can’t you make a shrewd guess where the child is?”
Westervelt said he thought perhaps Charley was given to somebody Mosher and Douglas had encountered after the kidnapping.
When pressed, he responded, “You are trying to insult me. I know no more about what was done with that child than a child unborn.”
The more Westervelt voiced his innocence, the more the men rephrased the same questions. Frequently after listening to Westervelt’s answers, Heins asked a gentleman taking notes, “What have you got now?” Westervelt grew more and more irritated. As he listened to his testimony repeated back, he attempted to point out reporting errors. Despite his requests at the end of the day, Westervelt never heard the full transcript of his interview. He spent that night at the State House, and questioning resumed the next morning.
Again, Heins asked why Westervelt would not admit to promising Walling an arrest of both kidnappers. “Now yesterday afternoon you said to me that you told Superintendent Walling over and over again where these men could be got.”
“I think you misunderstood me then.”
“Why is it you told me yesterday that you had told him when he could get the men?”
“I think you misunderstood me still.”
“You said to me that you wanted to make the reward of twenty thousand dollars, that you were working for the reward, and yet you know very well that you could not have made the reward by getting Douglas alone, as it could only be obtained by getting both the men and the child, and you know that as well as you are sitting in that chair.”
Westervelt was trapped.
“Well,” he answered, “I did not want to give Mosher away myself. If he could be taken in some way accidentally, I had no objection, but I did not want my sister to say to me if her children were brought to trouble that I done it by putting her husband in prison.”
Before lunch, Heins informed Westervelt that he was under arrest. Based upon his answers, a grand jury had indicted him for involvement in the kidnapping. Heins took him to a station near Tenth Street.
Five days later, when Heins, Lewis, and another man visited, Westervelt accused them of inhumane treatment. Not only did the February winds blow through the cell’s broken windows, Westervelt said, but he also had no bed or blankets, and he had to sleep with his head on a tin cup. Chief Jones transferred him to a better cell before sending the prisoner to Moyamensing, Philadelphia’s county jail.