The Adventuress: Murder, Blackmail, and Confidence Games in the Gilded Age

17. Where Are They Now?

Chicago, 1902–1915 194 and all the testimony regarding his addiction to sleeping potions. Because, unless he were deluded as to the true nature of cyanamide, Louderback would not have taken it unless he wanted to kill himself. There could be no “unintentional” overdose if, in fact, it had come from the bottle labeled “cyanamide.” other than suicide, then, the only possibility is murder. reporters, digging up everything they could on DeLancey Louderback, discovered that the title to the “Crystal House” was not held by the dead man, but by his secretary, Bertha schneider. This was revealed to them by people who said they were relatives of Louderback—possibly sallie or Henry, as they were the only ones living in the Chicago area. When a reporter telephoned Bertha about it, she refused to talk to him. “i don’t care to say anything about the matter at all,” she told him, then hung up abruptly when he tried to get her to say what the quid pro quo was in exchange for the house, obviously intimating that it was sexual favors. The so-called relatives who had first alerted the reporters as to this arrangement also voiced their concern about Bertha schneider and the large monetary bequest she was given. They wanted to contest the will, but Louderback—anticipating exactly that—had put in a clause awarding only one dollar and no more to anyone who did so. Bertha schneider would have been better off squelching all this talk by telling reporters what was really going on, that the title was put in her name to disguise the house’s true owners from the public. The ravenswood house and property didn’t belong to Louderback after all, or even to Bertha schneider, but to his Northwest Land Association, of which he was president. Bertha had to sign a separate contract stating that she would transfer the property to the NWLA whenever they asked for it. Given Louderback’s past dealings, this whole contrivance must have been concocted to achieve some tax or other economic advantage. But the bottom line was that Louderback did not own the house personally, so his heirs didn’t, either. And, in fact, it is not even listed in the probate files. (There was even a later rumor, one that never materialized, that minnie would come back from London and live in the famous house.) As for minnie, despite her bequest, in march 1915 she hired a stateside law firm to represent her in her suit against the Louderback estate for the amount of $2,550, which she said she had deposited with DeLancey over a four-month period in 1904. Then, on march 20, having applied for her new passport in December of 1914, she boarded the rms Lusitania and arrived in New york City on monday, march 26, 1915—just six weeks Death from Afar 195 before the fatal sinking of that ship by a German u-boat off the coast of ireland on Tuesday, may 1. she gave her address in Chicago as 156 West Washington street and shaved a year off her age.6 eventually, minnie would drop her lawsuit against Louderback’s estate, possibly feeling it would prolong the time before she could get her life interest. For some reason, the Louderback attorney, John Cummings, dragged his feet on presenting the final accounting and even had to be threatened by the probate court in December 1917 to take care of it or be fined. It was finally settled in 1918, and the entire amount of the estate, consisting solely of personal property, was a mere $10,000. A newspaper from emporia, a city periodically embarrassed about its connection with minnie and her inability to stay out of the news, commented that the depletion of the millionaire’s assets was “due to the expensiveness of mrs. Ketcham’s friendship.” As it turned out, Bertha Schneider probably profited the most from DeLancey Louderback’s estate. His $5,000 bequest to her and the $500 gift to Virginia’s nurse, as well as payment of his debts and funeral expenses, were to be taken care of before any other inheritances were disbursed. minnie and the relatives got percentages of the remainder instead of actual dollar amounts. Who Killed DeLancey Louderback? minnie Ketcham was overseas when DeLancey Louderback took his fatal dose of cyanide, but otherwise the circumstantial evidence is just too coincidental to be dismissed in her favor. What are the odds that one...