The Mammoth Book of Unsolved Crimes (63 page)

To add to the importance of this clue, police now disclosed that they had received a letter from a former Army officer in London who stated that sometime after the Armistice was signed he was dining with Captain Taylor in a London hotel. As a stranger in the uniform of the Canadian Army crossed the dining hall, Taylor suddenly exclaimed, “There goes a man who is going to get me if it takes a thousand years to do it.” Taylor then went on to explain that he had reported and court-martialled this man for the theft of Army property. A description was contained in this letter to the police which tallied exactly with that given by the Santa Ana rancher of one of the hitch-hikers, a man called “Spike.”

Apparently police had some reason to believe that these hitchhikers might be found at resorts near the Mexican border, and they immediately proceeded to comb Tijuana which is south of San Diego, and Mexicali which is just south of Calexico in the Imperial Valley.

Fortuituously enough, they located a man in a bar in Mexicali who was named Walter Kirby and who, at the time of his arrest, was reported to have been wearing a cap similar to that worn by the figure seen by Mrs MacLean leaving the Taylor bungalow. Moreover, this Kirby was reported to have been “positively identified” by the rancher who had picked up the hitch-hikers as one of the men to whom he had given the ride. It was also reported that when Kirby’s room was searched, a pair of Army breeches was found with leggings to match and several .38 caliber bullets. It was asserted he had admitted serving in a Canadian regiment in which William Desmond Taylor was serving as captain. Moreover, detectives are reported to have said they recognized Kirby as a chauffeur known in Los Angeles as “Slim” and “Whitey” Kirby. Then it is asserted that he had worked for Taylor for one day and was acquainted with him.

A pretty good case one would say.

Twenty-four hours later, Kirby, questioned by police, seems to have produced an air-tight alibi. And then comes the most interesting and amusing sequence of all. The Santa Ana rancher, solemnly asserted the newspaper, “could not identify him positively as the man to whom he had given a ride in his car . . . He also said that the man arrested was many years younger than the one who had ridden in his car, as well as several inches shorter.”

This man Kirby, promptly released from custody however, seems destined to add another page to this chapter in the mystery. Early in May of 1922, two small boys who were out rabbit hunting in the swamp bottoms of New River, west of Calexico in the Imperial Valley, discovered Walter Kirby’s body.

This time the identification was positive.

Newspapers reported that shortly before his death Kirby had confided to a friend in Mexicali that someone was after him and would “end him quick.” Under a dateline of 2 May 1922, the newspapers posed the question whether Kirby died of an overdose of drug, exposure and lack of food, “or was he killed by means only known to the underworld of the border?”

It is to be noted in passing that it was asserted that Kirby was a drug addict. Habitual drug addicts, as any reader of mystery fiction well knows, are peculiarly vulnerable to murderous machinations. The drugs of underworld commerce are greatly diluted. It becomes only necessary to deliver to an habitual drug user a dose of “the pure quill” and the man, thinking he has his usual diluted dose, is conveniently removed from the scene of operations.

However, there is too much more to be written about the Taylor case to permit ourselves to be diverted over the death of Walter Kirby.

Incredible as it may seem to the reader, the fact seems to be clearly established that by the sixth of March, 1922, more than three hundred people in the United States alone had confessed to the murder of William Desmond Taylor, and there was one confession from Paris and one from England. These confessions were for the most part embellished with the most astounding detail, ranging from the plausible to the riduculous. One person who swore he was a friend of a certain motion-picture actress is reported as stating that he passed the Taylor bungalow on the night of the murder where he observed the director and this actress in a heated argument. Slipping into the house, he saw that Taylor had a gun, struggled with him to get possession of the gun and in the course of that struggle, shot him.

In addition to these confessions, there were solemn statements by “witnesses”. One convict “confessed” that he entered the Taylor bungalow for the purpose of burglarizing it; surprised by the unexpected appearance of Taylor, he hid in the only place which was available, to wit, behind the piano. And while he was hiding there, he witnessed a quarrel between Taylor and a woman who was dressed like a man, the quarrel culminating in the shooting of the director.

It is, indeed, some murder case which brings in confessions at the rate of virtually ten a day for thirty days.

But don’t think you’ve seen anything yet. These are just the preliminaries. The Taylor case was not allowed to die.

Seven years later, in December of 1929, Friend W. Richardson, ex-governor of the state of California, exploded a bombshell by announcing that he knew who had killed William Desmond Taylor, that he had positive proof that a motion-picture actress had committed the crime and that Asa Keyes, Los Angeles district attorney, had blocked the case. Asa Keyes, the ex-district attorney, promptly issued a denial and demanded to know, among other things, why the governor had not disclosed his information sooner. Richardson retorted that he had approached the Los Angeles grand jury and had been advised that there was nothing he could do because “Keyes would never prosecute the case.”

Inasmuch as these disclosures came during the heat of a political campaign, it is easy to imagine the commotion which was aroused in the press.

Pressed for an amplification of his statement, ex-governor Richardson is reported to have said that he received his information from a Folsom convict now parolled, whose name he had “forgotten, and wouldn’t tell if he did remember it, because it would mean the man’s death.”

Newspaper reporters were not so reticent. They promptly decided that the source of the governor’s information was one Otis Hefner.

On 13 January 1930 one of the Los Angeles papers which seems to have been rather unsympathetic politically toward ex-governor Richardson has this to say: “Mr Hefner is the resourceful young man whose twice-told tales of what he knew about the murder of the Hollywood movie director created a big stew when former governor Friend W. Richardson threw it into the political pot several weeks ago. He did most of his talking in 1926, and was rewarded with a parole from Folsom. Now that he has been uprooted from his job and attempts to stage a comeback and support his little family, he would just as soon be left alone. But if Mr Fitts must have the facts, there is what Hefner says he will tell the Los Angeles district attorney: That most, if not all, he ever said about the case was hearsay with him; that he never stated to anybody he could identify a woman he once said he saw leave the Taylor bungalow on the night of the murder; that he does not know where Edward F. Sands, Taylor’s old valet, and now suspect in the case, is at the present time, and that the story he told Governor Richardson and saw published in San Fancisco newspapers in the last few days is the old tale which the Los Angeles authorities discarded as unworthy of consideration.”

With interest in the murder thus revived, newspaper reporters instituted a search for Peavey and finally located him in Northern California. What happened next is reported in the press of 8 January 1930, as follows: “Two long statements were forthcoming from Peavey during the day. As usual, they contradicted one another.

“In the first he declared flatly that a famous film actress killed the equally famous director—the same actress named by Hefner in his story Monday. He added that he would welcome a return to Los Angeles and an appearance before the grand jury, and that he had been silenced by the authorities and told ‘to get out of town’ shortly after the murder.

“But in his second statement, Peavey was not so certain. Later in the day, he declared that he had forgotten most of the details of the killing. He believed he knew who did the killing, but even of this he was not then altogether certain. And he didn’t desire a return to this city and least of all a call to appear before the grand jury.

“In both statements, however, he fixed the time of the murder at about 7:30 p.m. Peavey, found in the Negro quarters at Sacramento, explained that the case was ‘getting on my nerves’ and that he couldn’t remember distinctly that far back. A few hours earlier, however, he seemed to remember everything.”

The name of the motion-picture actress apparently referred to by Hefner and Peavey never found its way specifically into the columns of the press but was, perhaps, intended to be a political bombshell if one can judge from the reports of the time, and failed to have sufficient explosive force to cause the case to be reopened.

Down through the years, the red thread of mystery in the William Desmond Taylor murder case has wound its way in and out of the press. Various circumstances have “recalled the Taylor murder case.” And now and again incidental sidelights have appeared in the newspapers.

During the time when Asa Keyes was district attorney, there was a flare-up over two diaries which had apparently been taken from a safe-deposit box and found their way into the possession of the district attorney. There was quite a bit of newspaper comment about these diaries but the young woman who had authored them retained shrewd counsel who advised the district attorney that if any hint of their contents became public property, the district attorney would be held strictly accountable. Apparently the threat served as a sobering influence and while the newspapers hinted a bit here and there, no quotations, excerpts, or purported summary of the contents were ever published.

Those diaries, in connection with other things, caused Keyes to rush around the country making an investigation. Once more people were interrogated—and then the thing died down again.

As 1923 went out and 1924 was ushered in with a blare of noise and the usual celebrations, Mabel Normand and Edna Purviance were at a New Year’s party.

Trying to unscramble all that happened at that party is like trying to follow the directions given by a well-meaning, you-can’t-miss-it friend for finding some house in a strange countryside.

Suffice it to say that one of the men at the party was shot by Mabel Normand’s chauffeur (not the same one she had employed at the time of the Taylor murder). For a while it was expected the victim would die. Then he recovered physically although the newspaper reported that his memory was “still sick.” The preliminary hearing on this case was scheduled to open on 19 March 1924. On 17 March newspapers mentioned that Miss Normand had left the day before for New York. On 16 April the district attorney’s office announced that it would not go to trial on a shooting charge against Miss Normand’s chauffeur without the presence of Mabel Normand. The trial was continued until 16 June. On 15 June, the newspapers stated that the grand jury was making an investigation, trying to find out how it happened that the victim of the shooting had succeeded in leaving the jurisdiction of the California courts and also taking with him the $5,000 that he had put up as security that he would be on hand to testify.

The chauffeur was acquitted.

All in all Hollywood’s contribution to murder mysteries at a time when the silent film was at the zenith of its popularity, is fully in keeping with what one might expect—a murder mystery which is “super-colossal.”

At this late date it is impossible to “solve” the William Desmond Taylor murder case from the facts as presented by the press. It is, however, interesting to speculate upon lines which the police inquiry could have taken some years ago. In the first place, it seems to me that the police theory of a “stick-up” has several very big holes in it.

Let us suppose a man did slip through the door and commanded Taylor to raise his hands. The movie director complied—then why shoot him? If a man is perpetrating a robbery and the victim raises his hands, the next move is for the robber to go through his clothes and take his personal possessions. The use of firearms is resorted to when the victim
refuses
to comply with the order to stick up his hands. Moreover, apparently robbery was not the motive because of the money and jewellery found on the director’s body.

It occurs to me that the police have either overlooked or deliberately failed to emphasize a far more logical theory than this stick-up hypothesis.

There was a checkbook on the desk, a fountain pen, also the income-tax statement. When a person is writing, if he is right-handed, he rests his left elbow on the desk and slightly turns his body. That would have the effect of raising the coat just about the amount that would be required to match up the bullet holes in Taylor’s coat and vest.

Let us assume, therefore, that Taylor was writing at the time he was shot.

What was he writing?

Obviously it was not a check. He may have offered to write a check, but the person who shot him didn’t want a check. He wanted something else
in writing
.

If William Desmond Taylor had
refused
to write a check, the checkbook wouldn’t have been there on the desk with the fountain pen nearby. If he had written a check, then it was to the interest of the person receiving that check to see that Taylor lived long enough for the check to be cashed. A man’s checking account is frozen by his bank immediately upon notification of his death.