cruel way he had been mistreated at Q)lorado City, and protested all the while that he was absolutely innocent. The Pinkerton Agency also published formal statements in the Denver press, denying the operative's connection with the Agency, and saying among other things that they had never known of any such man as A. H. Crane.
Yet, while the public was reading the accounts in the press, No. 5 was recovering from the mortification of his exposure in a back room of the Pinkerton Agency, in the Opera House Block, Denver. As his exposure had rendered him useless to the Agency in this territory, he was in a few days transferred to the Chicago office.
The following story will prove conclusively the relations which existed between A. H. Crane and Pinkerton's National Detective Agency.
After the operative was exposed at Colorado City, he was loaned to the Chicago office, for a mining operation in Kentucky.
While he was thus engaged, the Denver Agency received a letter from General Manager MacNeill of the smelter trust, containing a sealed envelope addressed to the operative. Mr. MacNeill's letter requested the Agency to forward the sealed envelope to Operative Crane. Complying with this request, the Denver office sent the sealed letter to Chicago, and this office forwarded it to the operative along with other mail.
On opening the envelope, all the operative found was a fifty-dollar bill. As there was no explanation, he presumed it was expense money, and charged himself accordingly.
The Pinkerton Labor Spy. 39
At the conclusion of the operation the operative settled his accounts with the Chicago office on the basis that this fifty-dollars was expense money, without the office tumbling to the error.