What happened afterward

EDMUND PEARSON

For a month, two summers ago, Jessie Costello turned her flashing eyes upon a jury in Salem. And the jurors, having well considered the evidence, together with Mrs. Costello's raven hair, and her cheeks, lily-pale, decided that she had not poisoned her husband with cyanide.

Rather, that Bill Costello himself, worn down by the life of a fire-captain in Pea-body, Mass., decided to end it all. Or else, if they adopted the other suggestion of the defence, that Bill sniffed the fumes by accident (cyanide being a favorite kitchen-helper in his household) and then, seven hours later, perished of this sniff.

Upon her acquittal, we heard that Mrs. Costello was to appear in theatres and music-halls, where, to the thrilling accompaniment of trumpets and shawms, she would relate the true story of how she did not poison her husband, and did not have an affair with Eddie McMahon—the policeman alleged by the State (and by Mr. McMahon himself) to be the other side of the isosceles triangle.

It fell flat as a flounder. No one Avould engage her. Despite obvious attractions, and despite a gift of invective and a richness of vocabulary which (see the Boston newspapers) caused old Salem ship-masters to blench, and the big State Troopers of Massachusetts, in their pale-blue uniforms, to shriek and flee away, there were no bookings for Mrs. Costello. Beginning with Salisbury Beach—never noted for its squeamishness—the pleasure resorts of New England declined her services. New York followed New England in its severity. For a week or two, the widow, guiltless and beautiful, wandered up and down Broadway with a theatrical agent and two or three photographers. The agent expressed his indignation:

"They want Jessie on a percentage basis. But I tell her, when you've been tried for murderin' your husband, a percentage ain't enough. You deserve a guarantee. An' I tell her, as I told Mrs. 'Legs' Diamond, take it today, if you can get it, for tomorrow, who are you anyhow?"

As Jessie could not get it, either today or tomorrow, her agent apparently advised her to look into "this here religion racket". When Mrs. Aimee Semple McPherson came to Boston, tabloids announced that she and Mrs. Costello had "teamed up". In more fitting language, they became sister toilers in the Vineyard of the Lord. They have been photographed together: Sister Aimee in prayer, and Sister Jessie in the glare of the Kleig lights. And so, Mrs. Costello departed away from Broadway and sin, away from Peabody and policemen, into the holy keeping of the leader of Angelus Temple.

This precious conclusion of a romance which, at one time, reeked heavily of cyanide, suggests a certain interest in the later careers of some of the more famous personages who once dwelt in the shadow of the rope.

"What," some one asks, now and again, "became of that all-round athlete, named Molineux, who sent—or didn't he?—some poison to some one, by mail?"

The hero of this celebrated series of trials in the '90 s was Roland Molineux, once convicted and once acquitted of murdering a Mrs. Adams by some BromoSeltzer, loaded with poison, and, so it was supposed, intended for Mr. Harry Cornish of the Knickerbocker Athletic Club. After nearly four years of trials and imprisonment, Mr. Molineux came merrily out of Sing Sing and began a literary career which gained him the mild distinction of a notice in Who's Who in America. He had a few years as novelist and dramatist, and then his mind became affected, and he died in a State Hospital for the Insane, in 1917.

In 1912, in what lawyers have generally considered a scandalous misuse of executive clemency, Governor Dix of New York pardoned the convicted murderer, Albert T. Patrick. This man, a Texan lawyer, had been found guilty of inciting one Jones, valet to the wealthy Mr. Rice, to chloroform his master at The Berkshire apartments in New York. Patrick then attempted, by means of forgeries, to seize the Rice millions: perhaps the most impudent imposture on a large scale since the Tichborne fraud.

(Continued on page 67)

(Continued from page 54)

Patrick's name comes up in the papers from time to time; now he is in a distant state; now making a visit to New York, lie was, one heard, doing very well indeed, selling automobile accessories in Tulsa, where—as a tribute to bis legal acumen—he was often addressed as "Judge."

Then, having removed to Georgia, and convinced the Georgians of his suitability to practice law there, he came to Albany "to clear his name" of "certain aspersions" cast upon it. As recently as 1930, the U. S. Supreme Court rejected his petition for reinstatement and continued its order disbarring him. Evidently that Court, at least, understands that an executive pardon does not constitute proof that a conviction for murder was unjust. As for the forgery, the New York Evening Post said bluntly that Patrick "must be considered a forger of the worst type" and that his forgery of the Rice will "had been proved in a way that precluded reasonable doubt."

Another of these pensive wanderers, who, like Patrick, seems in the eyes of a few persons unfamiliar with his real history, to have the wan light of martyrdom flickering around his brow, is Thomas Mead Chambers Bram, sometimes known as "Mate" Bram, more recently as "Captain" Bram. This mariner is a native of St. Kitts. About thirty-five years ago, he was twice convicted by Federal juries for murdering the captain, the captain's wife and the second mate of the barkentine Herbert Fuller, en voyage from Boston to the Argentine.

There were two long and painstaking trials, and in each the jury undoubtedly saw and heard the real murderer, since every person left alive on the ship appeared and testified. Both juries named Bram, the first mate, as the murderer, after considering, at enormous length, the alternative theory of the defence, which was that the helmsman was guilty. This was rejected on the sufficient ground that the man at the wheel could not have left it, in a fresh breeze, even if it were lashed, and have gone below long enough to kill three persons, without his own absence having been discovered. Bram himself was in charge of the deck.

Bram's neck was saved, as he was given a life sentence in Atlanta. After fifteen years he was out on parole. And in 1919, for reasons never made known. President Wilson granted him a full pardon.

It is often asserted that Mr. Wilson was persuaded to this act by reading Mrs. Mary Roberts Rinehart's novel The After House. This, on the whole, is the roughest thing ever said about President Wilson, since the novel is not up to the level of the work of this widely admired author, and, what is more important, is totally useless as a guide to the facts of the Bram case.

The theory of the guilt of the helmsman, and that he was a homicidal maniac, has recently been revived, as if it were a new discovery. It was the mainstay of the defence at both trials. It does not seem to occur to people that it is no easier for a maniac to lash the wheel of a ship at sea, and keep her on her course, than it is for this miracle to he performed by someone who is quite sane.

Bram, after his release, was heard of as a wholesale dealer in peanuts in Atlanta; then, for a brief spell, as an opulent owner of land during the Florida boom. In 1928 he was again on all the front pages: the schooner Alvena, whose master was Bram himself, sent out SOS calls, off Ilatteras, and then relapsed into ominous silence. The old story of the Herbert Fuller was revived, and many of the papers, without any ceremony, described the captain hold as a triple murderer.

Two or three days later, the Alvena, with Captain Bram, hale and hearty, heave ho, me jolly lads, sailed into Portland. Evidently not born to be drowned, either.

Even now, tourists returning from Bermuda tell me that in those fair isles Capt. Bram is a frequent caller. Moreover, he is distinctly something to talk about, over the teacups or the dry martinis. The mystery and wonder of the sea surrounds the stout old sailor, hut he has another awful charm, beside. That of the martyr's crown.

"Do you know, my dear, he has had the most romantic past? The poor, dear Captain; he's just out of prison, where they kept him for years. And all for a crime committed by another man! He is as innocent as—oh, I can't tell you how innocent he is! Yes, the other man made a death-bed confession—out in Oregon, or California, or China, or somewhere. Oh, I know it's true; Mrs. Whoosis told me, and she had it right from Mrs. Whatzis."

And as the Captain smiles genially, and does not discourage the tea-table stories of his unmerited sufferings, the legend prospers. There must be still other surviving members of the crew of the Herbert Fuller, and since the yarn of a "death-bed confession" can he devised about each of them—when he is safely dead and cannot defend himself —it is clear that the Captain's robes of innocence will increase in spotlessness until their sheen is greater than all the lilies of Bermuda.