The Adventures of Johnny Vermillion (28 page)

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Allan Pinkerton made three attempts to write
The Prairie Rose and the Detectives
and gave up after fifty pages. Although General Matagordo, a paid Pinkerton informant of years standing, was alive and well and mourning the death of his favorite carrier pigeon in San Diablo, Robert Jules “Mysterious Bob” Craidlaw had committed many questionable acts in his efforts to win the trust of Black Jack Brixton and the Ace-in-the-Hole Gang, and no amount of literary license could guarantee that the attention would not blacken the all-seeing eye of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency. His publishers, G. W. Carleton & Co., agreed to accept a substitute case history, and
The Spiritualists and the Detectives
appeared in 1877.

For this reason, and the fact that numerous legal maneuvers delayed the trial of the members of the Prairie Rose until June 1876, when news of the massacre of George Armstrong Custer and the Seventh Cavalry at the Little Big Horn crowded every other story out of the lead columns, the larcenous adventures of Johnny Vermillion
and his company of artists occupy no more than a line in the few histories of the West that take notice of them. Yellowing documents of court proceedings report the following:

Evelyn Beverly Davies, referred to variously as “the Major,” “Old Porky,” and, in England, “Sir Rot Rotter of Rotting Lane,” was released by the State of Kansas for lack of evidence connecting him to the embezzlement of the Longhorn Bank in Wichita, but ordered to stand trial in Salt Lake City for the lone robbery of the Holladay Overland Mail & Express Company office. Daniel Oberlin, the Overland manager, identified him positively—mostly by his “plummy” voice—as the masked fat man who had commanded him to “hand over the swag.” He was convicted and sentenced to serve three years at hard labor, which the judge reduced to probation because of the defendant's age and physical condition and the fact that it was his first offense.

Elizabeth Jane Mort-Davies, his wife, née Janey Timble, formerly of the Ten Tumbling Timbles, withdrew her confession to complicity in the Longhorn case on the grounds that it was made under duress. The charge was dropped against her as well, and although the Pinkerton National Detective Agency attempted to have her held pending the result of its investigation of the other robberies in which the Prairie Rose was suspected, none of the eyewitnesses who were questioned would submit that the “tall bandit wearing a bandanna” was a woman. She was released.

April Clay, alias Emma April Klauswidcsz, did not retract her confession, but her tearful appearance in the witness box, dressed fetchingly in widow's black lace, convinced the twelve men of the jury in Wichita that she was innocent. They acquitted her.

(No records exist to indicate that any attempt was made to try April Clay elsewhere. It's believed all such plans were abandoned after the case collapsed against Mme. Mort-Davies.)

Cornelius Ragland was convicted on the evidence of his confession in the presence of Marshal Mike Meagher and Agent Philip Rittenhouse. The judge rejected the defense team's plea for clemency on the grounds of his delicate health, but suspended his two-year sentence because it was his first offense. He was immediately extradited to Wyoming Territory, where he was convicted of the robbery of the Cattleman's Bank in Cheyenne. He served eight months at hard labor in the territorial penitentiary and was released four months early for good behavior; guards told parole authorities he was an industrious worker “for a skinny feller,” who gave them each a sample of the poetry he wrote in his cell.

LaVern Munn, charged with embezzlement and conspiracy to embezzle funds from depositors' accounts in the Longhorn Bank of Wichita, did not stand trial. He pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of conspiracy and received a sentence of six months. The sentence was suspended, with a warning never again to seek employment with a financial institution.

Johnny Vermillion, alias John Tyler McNear, spent nearly two years on trial in Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, and the territories of Idaho, Wyoming, and Utah. He was convicted of all charges and sentenced to serve a total of forty years at hard labor, beginning in Kansas.

Topeka Daily Capital
, Tuesday, March 8, 1878:

Authorities throughout the state have joined the hunt for five convicts who escaped last night from the Kansas State Penitentiary
while Warden Lawler, many of his guards, and the majority of the convict population were gathered in the prison cafeteria to watch a theatrical presentation of
The Count of Monte Cristo
, performed by members of the incarcerated community. All of the men who are reported missing belonged to the cast.

Staff and penal servers alike appeared to be entertained by the play, adapted from the novel by M. Alexandre Dumas the Elder (ironically, about an escape from prison) by one John T. McNear—known also by the name Johnny Vermillion—who was also its director and lead player. So engrossed were the spectators that they sat for several moments staring at the crudely painted set after the makeshift curtain rose on the last act before realizing that the dramatis personae had fled.

Subsequent investigation revealed that each of the players had practiced assuming one another's role, and that by changing costumes created the illusion that no member of the cast was out of sight of the hundreds assembled for longer than two or three minutes. By this ruse they managed to take their leave of the prison piecemeal by means of a homemade rope ladder slung over a section of wall rendered invisible to the guards in the corner towers by deep shadow. Those still remaining took advantage of the brief interval between the second and third acts to follow in their path. The trusty who pulled the rope to raise the curtain has been isolated for questioning, but as of this writing continues to maintain his ignorance either of the plan or of the whereabouts of its practitioners.

All of the escapees are characterized as dangerous felons sentenced to periods of long servitude. McNear, who is believed to be the ringleader, is a convicted bank robber, described as . . .

Philip Rittenhouse, seated comfortably in his spartan office in Chicago, scanned the item quickly when it took its due place on top of his stack; then read it again slowly and with the pleasure of a man enjoying a good book. Then he picked up his shears and began to cut.