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Trailing a Thief

A Detective's Long Chase After a Fugitive Cashier

From Minnesota Through Canada, England, France, Spain and Italy to Switzerland — A Clever Ruse to Avoid Extradition Proceedings


While a murder is now and then committed without the murderer being brought to justice, and while a proportion of burglars, robbers and embezzlers are bound to escape arrest, from the nature of things, an experience of twenty years in criminal work has satisfied me that no criminal can escape justice if a clue be left to work on, if that clue is persistently followed. 

In March, 1865, a man named Vinewood, of Vermont, with another named Adams, of Cincinnati, established a bank in a new town in Minnesota. The former was a bachelor fifty years old, and the latter a young man of twenty-three. Just how they became acquainted I have forgotten, but I believe they first met in a bank in Cincinnati in which Adams was employed as book-keeper. He had $10,000 in cash which a relative had left him, and Vinewood put in $40,000, and a bank with a capital of $50,000 was established. After about a month, when every thing was running smoothly, Vinewood returned to Vermont on business, having the most perfect faith that all would go well in his absence. On the very day he left Adams received deposits from citizens and from the county treasurer aggregating $18,000. The trustees of an institution likewise placed in his vault for safe keeping $20,000 worth of United States bonds. 

Up to this date the bank had loaned out about $3,000, and it had $10,000 on deposit in Milwaukee and Chicago. Vinewood left in the morning. That same evening at… Read More