A Hoodwinked Crime

by Sylvanus Cobb, Jr.

I don’t know as “hoodwinked” is exactly the proper word under the circumstances, but it struck my fancy, and I set it down. I will tell the story, and then you may call it what you please.

Some years ago—a score, more or less—a man in New Bedford, Mass., found himself painfully cramped and fretted in business. He owned a large store, and had owned a large stock of goods; and store and stock were insured for all he could get the agents to write upon the property. Really, the storehouse itself, considering the manner of its structure, and the material used, was insured for more than it was worth; and as for the goods, they were estimated at a full stock, and insured accordingly. When trouble began to perplex him, he began to force the sale of his goods, and did not replenish. Old, shop-worn goods were moved to the front, and such spread and show made of what was left that to the casual observer it would appear that everything was full. So he went on, very carefully, until he had sold down as low as he dared; and at that point, if only fire would consume the establishment, and he could get his insurance money, he would be above board, with hundreds to spare. Really, he had in his safe two or three thousand dollars for goods sold that he might get double pay for if he could make it appear that they had been burned.

The man studied long, and at length resolved to strike. He removed from his store every paper and light matter of value, and was then ready for the final stroke. On a certain day, towards the middle of the afternoon, he went down into his cellar, where, in a corner directly under that part of the store containing the most inflammable material, was a private closet, or small store-room, in which he kept choice wines, high-priced chemicals, and a few other things of like character, and which he always kept locked, because customers often lounged alone into the main cellar. And here, in this quiet, retired nook, the work was to be done. He closed and bolted the door of the closet behind him, and then struck a match, and lighted a candle, after which he secured a tightly-fitting board over the single high window that set on a level with the sidewalk above. His next movement was to pull out from a corner, from beneath a pile of gunnybags, an oil-barrel, which had been two-thirds filled with shavings and rags thoroughly saturated with spirits of turpentine; then he drew from his bosom a fine sperm candle, of extra length, which he had notched in two places. As afterwards came out, he had experimented and timed these candles, so that he had been able to mark the hour, and very nearly the exact minute, when the candle, by steady burning, would be consumed to a given point. This candle he fixed very carefully into the barrel of inflammable material—inflammable almost to the intensity of gunpowder—and so hedged it about with powdered rosin and nitre that it could not wiggle, nor could the rags work up above their proper lay. He had timed the candle—one of those huge Christmas affairs—so that it should burn just nine hours, —there was candle enough to burn eighteen hours, and, with the door of the store-room shut, and the window boarded up, there could be no adverse or interfering currents of air, and the taper was sure to burn; and when the flame should have eaten its way down to the surface of the waiting combustible the result was sure! He lighted the taper; then looked to be sure that no chink for the passage of light was left open; then went out and locked the door behind him, and passed out from the cellar by the rear bulkhead, and re-entered the store as though just come from far away.

“Now, boys,” he said to his two clerks, while he was putting on his light overcoat, “I want you to be careful, and look out for things. Don’t allow loafers around. You may shut up at nine o’clock; and be sure and open bright and early in the morning. The early bird takes the worm, you know. I shall not return before tomorrow afternoon—probably the late train. Bye-bye!”
An easy walk enabled him to take the railway train for Boston, and his first move on arriving at the metropolis was to visit the wholesale dealers with whom he had in times past traded, and make selection of new goods. He paid for nothing, but had a schedule made, and the articles left subject to his order.

At New Bedford, just on the stroke of midnight the good people were startled from their slumbers by the alarm of “fire!” Mr. Blank’s big store was on fire; and such headway had the flames made before the fire department could respond—really, the headway had been gained when the discovery was made—that nothing could be saved. On the following day the owner returned, and at once, on beholding the ruins of his store, dispatched orders to his Boston correspondents that they should send no goods. He acted the part of a severely-stricken man very well.

There were many circumstances attending the conflagration, and preceding it, which excited suspicions in the minds of others besides the insurance people; but nothing could be proved. The owner himself was known to have been in Boston, and had not been on the premises for at least nine or ten hours when the fire broke out; and it could not be made to appear that he had an accomplice in evil of any kind. He got his insurance in full—every dollar of it, —and from that time seemed to prosper.

But did he prosper? His friends noticed that he seldom smiled after that, and that he had fits of sombre mood, when everything seemed dark and threatening about him. On his death-bed he confessed the crime. It was the only real, willful crime of his life, and he could not carry it in secret to the grave.