第76章

In 1893 Mr. Dimon died. No will being produced, his brother took, out letters of administration. Whereupon Mrs. Martha Keery commenced a suit against the brother and the next of kin he represented, in an effort to obtain the dead man's estate. She based her claim solely on the LOST will, the contents of which were recalled in the trial by Mr. Dimon's former counsel, who was also one of the witnesses to the lost will. During the course of the trial in the Supreme Court, presided over by Justice George L. Ingraham, Mrs. Keery's attorney produced a mutilated document which from its reading indicated that it had once been a will, though not the "lost" one. But the names of the legatee, executrix, testator, names of witnesses and their addresses were completely obliterated.

The written portions still undisturbed showed it to be in the handwriting of Stephen C. Dimon.

Mrs. Keery's story was that after the death of Mr. Dimon in going over an old coat formerly worn by him, she had found it in a side pocket and had given it to her counsel just as it came into her hands.

Its condition showed it to be considerably pocket-worn. The obliterations referred to represented huge blots of black ink covering a lot of scratches and making it impossible to decipher the under writing.

Defendant's Counsel immediately requested that the document be turned over to an expert, to see what could be done with it. The judge granted the motion and adjourned the case for several days to await results.

Counsel on both sides joined in the selection of myself. Three days were occupied in its decipherment.

The will occupied two sides of a full sheet of legal cap. The original ink which was employed in the writing of the will was of pale gray color. The first obliterations were a series of pen and ink scratches and marks which destroyed the writing.

Not satisfied with them the operator had with a saturated piece of blotting paper, brushed over the scratches and as that ink was of good quality every mark of writing had disappeared in the jumble and blots. It so happened that three inks had been employed.

The original ink, the ink used for scratching and the one employed to do the blotting. The three inks were happily mixtures containing different constituents, and so by utilizing the reagent of one which did not affect the other, gradually the encrusted upper inks were removed and later the original writing appeared sufficiently plain not only to be read but to identify it. Photographs made before and after the chemical experiments, permitted court and counsel to make their own comparisons during the giving of the testimony about it.

It permitted also the finding of the two witnesses who lived outside of the city and to learn many details from them as to Mr. Dimon's conduct in the matter.

The restored will showed that Mrs. Keery at its date (1891) was still in his mind, and its destruction by himself--that he had changed his mind.

Justice Ingraham completes his opinion in deciding the case as follows:

"In this case, however, the long time that elapsed between the time of the delivery of the will to Mr. Morgan and the death of the testator, the absence of my satisfactory proof of the existence of the will from the time it was delivered to Mr. Morgan to the time of the testator's death, and the fact that the testator made another will, making substantially the same disposition of the property, which he subsequently destroyed, all tend to cast a doubt upon the fact that the will was in existence at the time of the testator's death, and there is positively no evidence that it was ever fraudulently destroyed.

"I do not think the court is justified in diverting a large sum of money from those legally entitled to it, by allowing, a lost will to be proved, except upon the clearest and most satisfactory evidence of the existence of the will at the time of the testator's death. And the testimony in this case falls short of what I consider necessary to establish such a will.

"There should be, therefore, judgment for the defendants with costs."* * * * * * *

A case of considerable interest was tried before Hon. Clifford D. Gregory in the month of March, 1899, in the city of Albany, New York. It was entitled the "People of the State of New York against Margaret E. Cody," as charged with the crime of blackmail, in the sending of a letter to Mr. George J.

Gould, in which she threatened to divulge certain information which she claimed to possess about his dead father, Jay Gould. The character of this information was such that if true it meant that Jay Gould and his wife had lived in bigamous relations during a great number of years preceding their death and hence also affected the legitimacy of the entire Gould family. Mrs. Cody asserted that Jay Gould was married to a Mrs. Angel some time in 1853, and that as a result of that "lawful" marriage she gave birth to a daughter, a Mrs. Pierce, who was still alive and living somewhere in the west. As Mrs. Cody offered to sell or secrete the information which she said she possessed for a consideration, Mr. George J.

Gould and his sister, Miss Helen Gould, instantly determined that it could be nothing else than a clear case of an attempt at blackmail, which falsely impugned the reputations of their dead parents. They instituted criminal proceedings against Mrs. Cody, charging that Mrs. Cody when she wrote the letter well knew that her claim that his father had been married to Mrs. Angel and that Mrs. Pierce was their daughter, was absolutely false. Two trials followed, the first in 1898 in which the jury disagreed, and a second one in 1899 which lasted over a week. It was in the second trial that chemical tests on a certain entry in a church record in the presence of the jury were made, which showed conclusively that ancient writing of another character than that which had been substituted was still existent beneath the writing which was apparent to the naked eye.

The following are excerpts of the judge's charge to the jury: