ARTHUR.T Stories ----A Murder Conspiracy[4] ----IX---Page 48

About a month after Patrick's first visit to the Berkshire Apartments,

that is, in December, 1899, while he and Jones were examining Rice's
private papers, they stumbled upon the will. Patrick saw his
opportunity. By the forgery of a new will which would increase the
legacies of those mentioned in the will of 1896 and leave legacies to
every person who might have any claim upon the estate, it would be for
the interest of those persons to sustain and carry into effect the
forgery. The whole scheme was based upon the belief that "every man has
his price." He told Jones that he thought the will unjust; that he did
not think it right to leave so little to relatives, and later he brought
to Jones a rough draft of a will which could be substituted for the
genuine one. Patrick was to get half the estate, the relatives were to
receive double or three times the amount provided in the 1896 will, and
what was left was to be given to the Rice Institute. He proposed that
Jones should typewrite this will, and guaranteed to arrange for the
witnessing and signing of it, and promised that Jones should get
whatever he wanted. Jones at first objected, but was finally won over.
Rewritten many times to include new ideas of the conspirators, the
document finally reached the form of the will of June 30, 1900, in which
Patrick substituted himself for the Rice Institute and made himself one
of the executors.

An ingenious part of the conspiracy was the decision to leave the 1896
will in existence. If Patrick had destroyed it and the relatives had
succeeded in overthrowing the will of 1900, the estate would have been
left without testamentary disposition and the relatives would have got
more than was provided by either will. With the will of 1896 in
existence, however, the relatives would get less if they overthrew the
forgery. By retaining it, therefore, Patrick figured that the relatives

would have selfish reasons for accepting the forgery as genuine.

The preparation of this bogus will occupied about a month, and the next

question was the procurement of witnesses. It was desirable to get the

same persons who witnessed the former will. These were Walter H.

Wetherbee and W. F. Harmon, clerks for many years at Swenson's banking
house. On the assumption that Wetherbee had been injured by Rice and was
therefore hostile to him, Jones practically unfolded the scheme. He
told Wetherbee that one of Mr. Rice's bonds had disappeared and that
Rice had accused Wetherbee of stealing it. He wound up with the
suggestion, "I will get one witness and you can get another, and the
thing is done." But Wetherbee indignantly declined to join in the
conspiracy.

Morris Meyers, who had been employed in Patrick's office, and David L. Short, a friend of both, were the false witnesses finally selected.

They were clothed with the appearance of honesty and were brought into
contact with Rice by Jones at various times: Meyers as a notary public,
and Short as commissioner of deeds for the State of Texas, an
appointment procured for him by Patrick probably for this specific
purpose.

The date of the forged will, June 30, 1900, was selected to correspond with the date of three genuine papers which Rice acknowledged before Short on that date.

[Illustration: Last page of the forged will of 1900, showing the forgery
of Rice's signature, and the false attestation of Short and Meyers.]

The next step was to obviate the absurdity of Patrick's being selected
as the residuary legatee at a time when he was engaged in bitter
litigation against Rice. The best way out was for Patrick to pose as a
lawyer who had brought about a settlement of this expensive litigation
and thus won Rice's regard. Patrick first tried to accomplish this by
getting friends to visit Rice and urge a settlement. But Rice rebuffed
them all. Accordingly, Patrick again resorted to forgery, and in
August, 1900, manufactured an instrument of settlement, dated March 6,
1900.

But such an agreement would not explain the paradox of a man whom Rice
hated and despised and did not know by sight turning up as the principal
beneficiary under his will. It was necessary to manufacture evidence to
be used after Rice's death in support of his claim of close relations.
The idea of a personal meeting with Rice had been abandoned on Jones's
advice, and Patrick therefore caused the valet to prepare twenty-five or
thirty forged letters addressed to him and purporting to come from Rice.
These referred to current business matters and conveyed the impression

that it was Rice's custom to seek the lawyer's advice. One instructed

Patrick as to the terms of the will of 1900. Carbon copies were made for filing in Rice's letter book after his death.

To make assurance doubly sure and to secure immediate possession of Rice's securities a general assignment to Patrick of all Rice's estate
was forged, and an order giving him access to and possession of the securities on deposit in Rice's safety vault.

But Patrick did not stop here. He procured from Jones three checks

signed by Mr. Rice in the regular course of business, one payable to

Jones for his July salary and the other two for the July and August

salary of an employee of Rice's in Texas named Cohn. These three checks
Patrick kept as models, forwarding to Cohn two forged checks filled out
by Jones upon which Rice's signature had been traced, and returning to
Jones a substitute check with Rice's signature traced upon it. All three
checks passed through the banks unsuspected. Traced signatures were also
substituted for genuine ones upon letters dictated by Rice to his Texas
correspondents. Thus Patrick secured the circulation of five copies of
Rice's signature which, if occasion demanded, he could produce as
standards of comparison to correspond with his other forgeries. The
principal preparations were complete. But title under the will might
long be delayed and perhaps even eventually fail. Patrick was poor and
in no condition to conduct adequately a serious litigation. The moment
Mr. Rice died a large amount of cash would be necessary. For the
procurement of this Patrick and Jones looked to the current balance of
Rice's bank account, which amounted to some two hundred and fifty
thousand dollars on deposit at Swenson's private bank and at the Fifth
Avenue Trust Company. With this they felt reasonably secure of success.
For even if the will should be set aside as fraudulent they had a second
line of defense in the general assignment of the estate and the orders
to Rice's two million five hundred thousand dollars of securities.

While the evidence affords a motive for Patrick to desire the death of
Mr. Rice, it does not of itself, up to this point, indicate the
slightest intention on the part of Patrick to do away with the old
gentleman. It was therefore conceded by the prosecution that, upon
Jones's own testimony, the conspiracy to murder was not formed until
about seven weeks before the event. The first evidence which points to
an intent to murder is the famous "cremation letter," dated August 3d.

The cremation letter from Mr. Rice, authorizing Patrick to cremate his
body, shows that Patrick intended to do away with Rice in such a way
that an autopsy must, if possible, be prevented and the evidence of
murder destroyed. That Patrick forged such a letter was evidence that
his connection with the murder was premeditated and deliberate. To
cremate the body before an autopsy it was necessary to procure a

physician's certificate that Rice had died from natural causes. He

therefore made preparation to secure such a certificate, and then upon the strength of the cremation letter to give directions for the
immediate destruction of the body.