seemed to be making tests to
learn whether or not he was being followed. Sometimes he would enter a
large department-store, mingle with the crowds, and suddenly find his
way out of a side door into a little-frequented street. But the
detectives were equally wily. They adopted various disguises, and never
let him out of their sight. After about two months they observed that
Coleman began to make frequent trips toward Morningside Park. He made
always for the same region, where he appeared to walk aimlessly about,
but with his eyes fixed on the ground, as though counting his steps. On
the morning of the third of January, during a heavy snowstorm, Coleman
was followed to West 155th Street and Eighth Avenue, where, in a little
open space near an iron-foundry, he scraped aside the snow, and began a
small excavation of the earth. For some reason he failed to find the
object of his search, and returned home with an air of dejection. One
detective shadowed him homeward; the others did not wait for the falling
snow to obliterate the traces of his excavation. They began digging in
the same spot on a more generous scale, and eighteen inches below the
surface unearthed a glass fruit-jar. The jar, on being lifted to the
light, dazzled the eyes of the detectives, for it contained the missing
jewels, which for six months had lain there in the earth where thousands
of people had daily passed them by.

The detectives, having removed the jewels, placed in the jar a note
addressed to Billy Coleman, signed by Dougherty and his assistants,
McDonals and Wade, stating that they had the jewels, and would call upon
him at the earliest opportunity. They reburied the jar, and restored the
surroundings to their former condition. Coleman, as had been foreseen,
afterward returned to the spot, and dug up the jar. The detectives were
near enough to witness the wretched man's distress when, on reading the
note, he realized that the fortune had escaped him and that the prison
awaited him. He was immediately placed under arrest, and confessed all.
Concerning a few pieces of jewelry that were missing from those found in
the jar he gave information that led to their recovery. Coleman was once
more taken to Cooperstown, and, with the additional evidence, was easily
convicted of the robbery.

Coleman was a man of such remarkable intelligence and engaging
personality that Bishop Potter, whose near presence at the time of the
robbery the burglar little suspec