In his usual Barnumesque way, William Randolph Hearst had once again, with great fanfare, assigned the popular writer Julian Hawthorne to cover the case. By an odd coincidence, an earlier and infinitely greater Hawthorne—Nathaniel—had written a famous short story titled “My Kinsman, Major Molineux.” Set in pre–Revolutionary War Boston, this tale concerns a naive country lad named Robin whose journey through the labyrinthine streets of the night-shrouded city leads to an unsettling discovery: that lurking beneath their civilized veneer, human beings possess dark and even frightful impulses. Or, as the story puts it, that a man may “have several voices…as well as two complexions.”
It was a lesson that the real-life Molineux case would illustrate in an especially vivid way.
Friday, February 10, was the coldest day on record in New York City, with the thermometer dropping to six degrees below zero—“Klondike weather,” as the papers described it. Frozen pipes left countless apartment dwellers without gaslight or heat, homeless people perished in the streets, and the rivers turned to solid ice, forming “perfect bridges from Jersey to Manhattan, from Manhattan to Long Island.”1
Once again, however, the little courtroom was filled to capacity when the inquest resumed that frigid morning. At a few minutes before eleven, an excited murmur ran through the crowd. People shifted in their seats and craned their necks for a better view. Some rose to their feet.
Walking beside his father, one hand resting lightly in the crook of the older man’s elbow, Roland Molineux had just entered the room.
The two made their way to the places reserved for them up front, where Roland slipped off his fine kidskin gloves, doffed his elegant derby, and removed his costly astrakhan-lined overcoat. Impeccably dressed in a high collar, black tie, and double-breasted coat, he seated himself next to his father. Heads bent close together, the two began to examine the morning papers, chuckling softly over the artists’ renditions of Roland, which seemed to exaggerate his features to the point of caricature—the up-tilted nose, the square, dimpled chin, the disdainful curl of his mouth.
When his name was called, he smiled and whispered something to the General, who gave his boy an encouraging clap on the shoulder. Still carrying his tan-colored gloves in one hand, Roland then stepped to the witness chair.
In marked contrast to the gruff Harry Cornish, Molineux struck observers as the epitome of “polished courtesy.” He smiled often, spoke in a “soft, cultured voice,” replied graciously to all of Osborne’s questions.
And yet, along with the suave, agreeable manners, there was something else, something off-putting, even unsavory. “It cannot be said that his appearance recommends him,” wrote Julian Hawthorne, who saw in the handsomely groomed socialite “an air of hauteur—a peculiar cold eye.”2
Another observer detected “a touch of the dangerous, perhaps the sinister” about Molineux. “At the moment when his manners, speech, and general address induced the greatest confidence, there was a look in his eyes, a cast to his face, that stirred doubt.” To this observer, the coolly self-possessed Molineux was a dark enigma, “the sort of being that a thousand authors have tried to call up from the world of imagination”—“the flesh-and-blood realization of the Mystery Man.”3
Molineux’s smooth, courteous bearing was matched by Assistant DA Osborne. In his questioning of Harry Cornish, Osborne had been aggressive to the point of hostility. With Molineux, on the other hand, he “was gentle, deferential, apologetic.” Whereas he had treated the athletic director with open disdain—consistently calling him “Cornish” without so much as a pretense of politeness—he never once addressed Roland as anything other than “Mr. Molineux.”4
“Now, Mr. Molineux,” Osborne began with a smile. “You’re not afraid to tell the truth in this case, are you?”
“I am sworn to tell the truth,” Roland replied with a little smile of his own.
“And you are not worried,” continued Osborne, “that your examination might at some future time lead to the charge of homicide against you?”
“Not at all,” said Roland, still smiling.
“You claim to be innocent of the crime that is charged?” said Osborne.
“Entirely and absolutely innocent,” Roland said easily.
Under Osborne’s gentle questioning, Roland—the very picture of relaxed self-confidence—proceeded to recount the troubles he had with Cornish. He told of the time he had requested a new set of horizontal bars, only to have Cornish substitute a different brand on the order form; of Cornish’s alleged mismanagement of the club facilities; and of the inflammatory letter that Cornish had sent to the track star Bernie Wefers on official club stationery—the precipitating cause of Roland’s resignation from the KAC.
“You felt that you wanted Cornish removed?” asked Osborne.
“Yes,” said Roland. “I felt it would be best for the club.”
“You had a strong feeling against him on account of his conduct?” asked Osborne.
“That was my state of mind at the time,” Roland acknowledged.
“A strong, bitter feeling?” Osborne said.
“Yes, sir,” Roland calmly replied.
“You thought he had been disrespectful?”
“I knew so,” said Roland.
“You thought he had overstepped his bounds as an employee?”
“I knew that, too.”
“You thought you were justified in having this feeling toward him?” said Osborne.
“I thought so then,” answered Roland, wearing his usual half smile, “and I think so now.”
Roland was then asked about a note he had mailed to a friend named William Scheffler, giving his reasons for resigning from the Knickerbocker and denouncing Cornish for having written the offending letter to Bernie Wefers. Surely, said Osborne, sending such a note to Scheffler proved that Roland continued to harbor bitter feelings toward Cornish after quitting the KAC.
“Yes, sir,” said Roland without hesitation. “I suppose, for a time, that feeling lingered with me. But my going to the New York Athletic Club—it was a better club and nicer men were in it. And I was a governor there, where I had only been a committeeman in the Knickerbocker Athletic Club.”
“So that feeling gradually wore away?” asked Osborne.
“It did,” said Roland.
“And Cornish passed out of your life?”
“Yes, sir.”
Osborne then shifted his attention to Roland’s relationship with Barnet. He had not proceeded far with this line of questioning, when—as though struck with a sudden realization—he interrupted himself.
“Oh, by the way—you must excuse me for the way the examination is going on,” he said somewhat sheepishly, “but have you got the original of that letter you wrote to Scheffler about Cornish?”
“You may conduct the examination any way you see fit,” Roland said pleasantly. “My counsel has the letter. I’ve turned everything over to him.”
After receiving the letter from Bartow Weeks, Osborne showed it to Roland, who identified it as his “own ordinary handwriting.” The letter was then marked and turned over to Coroner Hart.
Roland remained on the witness stand for another hour or so, recounting—in a voice tinged with sadness—his “warm friendship” with the late Henry C. Barnet. Only once was there even a hint of friction between the witness and his interrogator. It happened when Osborne remarked on how strange it seemed that Roland had learned of Barnet’s death only by reading about it in the papers.
Roland, unflappable as ever, replied that he saw nothing strange about it.
“And yet,” said Osborne, “you told me a moment ago, almost with tears in your eyes, that he was such a warm personal friend.”
“I don’t think you saw any tears in my eyes,” Roland said with a barely suppressed sneer in his voice.
“I said ‘almost,’” Osborne replied, reddening visibly. He then asked why Roland had never once visited Barnet during the latter’s final illness.
Roland’s answer seemed perfectly reasonable. He had heard that his old friend was under quarantine for diphtheria. The sickroom was off limits to visitors.
“Mr. Molineux,” said Osborne after a brief pause. “I want to know whether Barnet knew your wife?”
“Do you mean, Mr. Osborne,” said Roland, allowing a note of indignation to enter his voice, “when did I present him to her?”
“Yes,” said Osborne. “When did you present your wife, Miss Chesebrough?”
“I presented Barnet to Miss Chesebrough at the Metropolitan Opera House,” said Roland. “It was the fall of 1897. I don’t remember the date, but it was the first concert given by the Banda Rossa.”
At this juncture—and much to the disappointment of many of the spectators, who felt that the proceedings had just reached a particularly juicy point—Osborne broke off his questioning, and the inquest was adjourned.5
Rising from the witness chair, Roland strolled back to his place, where his beaming father patted him on the back and handed him a big black cigar. As his lawyer, Bartow Weeks, made ready to depart, Roland, always the gentleman, held the older man’s coat for him.
Everyone present agreed that they had witnessed a splendid performance. In contrast to Cornish—who had come across as nervous, shifty, furtive—Roland had seemed open, confident, perfectly at ease: a man with nothing either to hide or apologize for.
On his way out of the courtroom, Osborne told reporters that he was, in fact, far more “favorably impressed with” Molineux than he had been with Cornish.
“It is true that it was Cornish who administered the poison that killed Mrs. Adams,” he declared. “It is true that he is not a willing witness. It is true that he has made several contradictory statements on the witness stand. I never met a criminal in my life—and I have convicted many—who did not assume that attitude when placed on the witness stand.
“I assure you,” he added portentously, “I am by no means through with Cornish.”6