Is This Erdnase?

By Todd Karr Copyright 2006 Todd Karr      The man I am about to describe may be S. W. Erdnase, the mysterious author of the classic 1902 card work The Expert at the Card Table. But his story lacks many pieces of the puzzle and I am releasing this information now in the hope that readers may be able to perform the necessary detective work to either confirm this man’s authorship or disprove it as yet another false lead.      I have been chasing Erdnase since I was a teenager. I’ve read the findings and theories of detectives like Martin Gardner, Richard Hatch, and others, and in sorting through the available information, it’s clear that any theorizing about the identity of a shadowy figure like Erdnase must rely on solid facts and common sense.      His story is so intoxicatingly romantic that a number of writers (see Bart Whaley, The Man Who Was Erdnase) have succumbed to the temptation to follow flimsy trails, offer wild speculation in the absence of evidence, and attempt to make the facts fit into unlikely theories. This is just plain sloppy journalism and historical research, and the man who wrote The Expert at the Card Table will never be found if we don’t stick to the facts.      The truth is that we may never fully determine the author’s identity. He published the book under a pseudonym and any possible witnesses have long been dead, and unless we find evidence of someone involved in magic, gambling, or card work, we may be condemned to making educated guesses. The Basic Evidence The most solid evidence we have are the book itself and the 1940s recollections of its illustrator, artist Marshall D. Smith. These two sources offer us the following basic possibilities:      1. The author may have been named E. S. Andrews, reversing his name to spell “S. W. Erdnase.”      2. Based on the level of subtlety in his explanations, the author seems to have been highly skilled in psychology, deception, and of course gambling.      3. The author had some connection with Chicago, where the book was printed and published, and would most likely have been in the Midwest at the time of the book’s publication in 1902.      4. Erdnase had knowledge of the law or access to legal advice, judging from the elaborate copyright notices throughout the book.      5. The author may be characterized as intelligent (the prose is direct and perceptive), ambitious (based on the scale of the book), and meticulous about detail (he misses very few nuances in his explanations and appears to have hand-corrected, or asked someone to correct, many of Smith’s drawings to improve their accuracy). Erdnase also seems to have lacked pity for the victims of con games (as we read in his book).      6. Erdnase also seems to have been in need of money at times, as he points out at the end of his introduction. As mentioned above, Marshall Smith’s illustrations seem to have been crudely altered by an amateur, an indication perhaps that Erdnase did not have sufficient funds to commission professional corrections.      7. Smith described Erdnase as well-spoken and gentlemanly, short of stature, with a pleasant, smooth tone.      8. Erdnase met Smith in a hotel room and paid for his artwork with a check, as Smith recalled.      9. Smith also said that Erdnase had mentioned a family connection to artist Louis Dalrymple.      I will also add two other interesting elements, though these statements have not been authenticated in any way:      10. In the 1950s, magician Hugh Johnston told Jay Marshall that he had once played the Empress Theatre in Denver, Colorado, and that after one show, fellow performer Del Adelphia brought a man backstage and introduced him to Johnston as Erdnase.      11. Magician James Harto, based in Indiana, claimed to have been friends with Erdnase and to possess letters he received from Erdnase.      I believe that any candidate for being Erdnase should correspond as closely as possible to the above elements. The man I have recently focused on matches many of these criteria. My training as a journalist has conditioned me to be skeptical, and so I very cautiously present the following facts as possibilities only. However, I have shared these findings with a number of current Erdnase scholars, and they agree that this candidate is exceptionally strong. Kokomo, 1901      On November 23, 1901, shortly before the publication of The Expert at the Card Table, the Fort Wayne News reported on a scam perpetrated in Kokomo by “A stranger giving his name as E. S. Andrews of the Brandon Commercial Company, Chicago.” The news report stated that the con man had a clever collections-agency scheme that succeeded in bilking forty local merchants and physicians.      Andrews had come to Kokomo three weeks prior and convinced the businessmen and doctors to hire him to collect their debts. Each participant paid Andrews a “membership fee” of $15 (or about $900 total). The newspaper reported that “Before leaving, Andrews collected several accounts from debtors, all of which he took with him, the merchants or physicians receiving nothing.”      We thus have a candidate whose name is a precise reversal of the pseudonym S. W. Erdnase, a con man based in Chicago who was clever enough to swindle businessmen and doctors, and someone who appears to have had over $900 in his pocket just before The Expert at the Card Table was published. Dubuque, 1902-1903      Late the following year, we find E. S. Andrews in Dubuque, Iowa. In December, the Dubuque Telegraph-Journal announced the new local address of the Charles Brandon Commercial company at the Bank and Insurance Building, noting that "Mr. E. S. Andrews is in charge."      A month later, Andrews had fled town with over $1500 in $25 membership fees and collected debts.      As the Davenport Republican reported on January 31, 1903, the swindled subscribers were reluctant to admit they had been conned.      One of the professionals stated:"We were all a lot of suckers and should not have let Andrews go as long as we did. He did not live up to the contract he made with me, and I understand that he did not live up to the contract he made with others. I was to pay him a commission of five percent on all collections made on current business, and he was to get 10 to 25 percent on all debts that he collected. I gave him my note, and so did other members, while others paid down their $25 fee.      "I estimate from the number of subscribers he had to the 'Charles Brandon Commercial Agency' that he must have got out of town with from $1500 to $1800. He would have no trouble in negotiating the notes.      "His subscribers included lawyers, doctors, and businessmen. He was to make reports of collections every twenty-fours hours and remit a check for the amount collected, after the commission was deducted, but he forgot to make the report and send me the check."      Incredibly, the article continues, Andrews was arrested but not only avoided charges by threatening the witnesses (probably with a countersuit), but also managed to have his accuser held responsible for the costs of his arrest. As the swindled businessman explained: "One of the subscribers had Andrews arrested and got the worst of it, because two or three others were afraid of the bluff made by Andrews. The subscriber paid the costs, amounting to $2.50." Fort Wayne and Oshkosh, 1904      E. S. Andrews appeared again in Wisconsin in 1904 pursuing the same scam, only this time the law caught up with him. Andrews had set up another collections scheme as the Charles Brandon Company, in association with a local law firm, Finch and McPhall in the Pixley-Long block in Fort Wayne. Andrews again skipped town with membership fees and debt sums, returning to Indiana, the scene of his 1901 swindle.      Oshkosh Sheriff M. K. Rounds (the Fort Wayne press gave his name as "J. M. Rounds") was sent to arrest Andrews, who was working in association with a law firm. The firm protested his extradition and the Wisconsin lawman was forced to get permission from Indiana’s governor before being allowed to arrest Andrews and bring him back to Wisconsin for trial.     Andrews was arrested on July 7, 1904 on a warrant from Justice Skelton and was held awaiting the arrival of the Wisconsin sheriff.      Four days later, Andrews left Fort Wayne at noon in the custody of Sheriff Rounds. The Fort Wayne Evening Sentinel reported that Andrews had not only embezzled money, he had also used his notices of collection to purchase "a number of diamonds and other articles." The newspaper noted that "Judge O'Rourke was called upon to remand him into the custody of the Wisconsin sheriff on a requisition honored Saturday by Governor Durbin."      We have the extreme good fortune that a Daily Northwestern reporter interviewed Andrews in his jail cell in Wisconsin and quoted him at length in an article in the newspaper on July 12, 1904:      “Mr. Andrews was seen by a Northwestern reporter this morning while in jail. He is a bright-looking young man whose appearance is that of a shrewd and honest businessman. He said he did not care to talk for publication, but in answer to questions and in the ordinary conversation, he did say to the reporter:      ‘This is the first time I have ever been arrested. The jail here is a palace compared to that in Fort Wayne. That is a bad place to be in.      ‘I did not read the complaint against me and do not know exactly the technical charge against me. In a general way, I know what it is, but I say technically, I have not ascertained.      ‘I believe in being philosophical, however, and while I should not be pleased to stay here long, I can stand it for a time if I can have plenty of reading matter and plenty of fresh air.      ‘I shall have good legal counsel, but I do not think I will need it. I have nothing to fear and believe I could go into court representing myself and convince the court that the law is on my side.      ‘So far as my not going under my own name in Fort Wayne is concerned after leaving here, that will have no effect in the case. It may, to the outsider, give rise to the opinion that I was trying to hide, but while that is true, I had no idea I was wanted here on a criminal charge.      ‘What I did here was business and in a business-like way, and I could have been found by letter at Fort Wayne without the sheriff coming after me.      ‘Sheriff Rounds has treated me very nicely indeed, and while I shall be glad to leave him and his custody, I shall remember the kindnesses he has shown me.’      “Sheriff Rounds is loud in his praises of the assistance rendered him by Superintendent of Police Henry Gorseline at Fort Wayne, and the latter held onto the prisoner in the face of all the efforts made by lawyers to free him.”      A number of characteristics of Andrews seem to closely match our Erdnase fact list: clever, intelligent, deceptive, well-spoken, a reader, knowledgeable about the law, and described as bright-looking young man. In addition, he was living in Indiana, which would support Indiana resident James Harto’s story of knowing Erdnase.      He also apparently used a fictitious name, although the seemingly media-savvy Andrews took pains to deny this in a note published the next day in the Daily Northwestern: “It was incorrectly stated in your account of an interview with me that I was known while in Fort Wayne under an assumed name. I was known there as E. S. Andrews, representing the Charles Brandon Commercial Company: This is my name and the company is the same as I represented here, and I never used any other name and do not intend to. Yours truly, E. S. Andrews.” The Oshkosh Trial      On August 8, 1904, the Daily Northwestern reported, Andrews was charged in Oshkosh Municipal Court with embezzlement. The original charge had been filed by fur merchant E. F. Steude, who had been bilked of $108. The hearing had already been postponed due to the absence of a prosecution witness, attorney A. C. McPhall, one of Andrews’ legal associates in the scheme.      The following day, a Daily Northwestern article announced that after intense arguments by Andrews’ defense attorneys — Maurice McKenna of Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, and E. P. Finch of Oshkosh — the judge had found adequate cause for Andrews to stand trial on embezzlement charges.      This news report states that Andrews took many precautions to be able to legally justify his financial shenanigans. Andrews had clients sign contracts with a fine-print clause authorizing him to make deductions from monies collected. He also had clients make out their checks to his partner, who then paid Andrews (who, we will note, deposited them in a bank - remember, Erdnase paid Smith with a bank check); in court, Andrews claimed innocence by stating the attorney had never paid him the full amount of the money collected. Here again, we note Andrews’ shrewdness.      Finally, in a footnote of possible support for the Hugh Johnston story, the article also specifies that Andrews had incorporated the Charles Brandon Collections company in Colorado and was its manager.      Bail was set at $2000 and promptly posted by his legal team.      Further procedural challenges from Andrews’ attorneys delayed the trial until matters were cleared up sufficiently on August 17, when municipal court Commissioner W. W. Waterhouse concluded Andrews must stand trial.      On August 23, Andrews appeared in municipal court, this time represented by attorney Henry Fitzgibbon of Menasha. The trial was adjourned until August 27.      The trial was either prolonged or postponed, since it was not until September 28 that Andrews was finally found guilty of embezzlement, though for a reduced sum of $37.50. The trial took place in Milwaukee, and the jury took only a half hour to reach their decision, the Daily Northwestern reported on September 29: “The jury, in view of the whole circumstances, found that Andrews was working what is popularly known as a ‘graft’ and that he willfully retained the amount charged against him. The penalty for the offense is from six months to one year imprisonment in county jail or state prison.” All the above information is from the Daily Northwestern, which covered the trial with regular news articles.      The court sentenced Andrews to eight months in jail. As the Fort Wayne Sentinel stated on October 14, 1904, Andrews had already spent four months in custody, and the judge noted this in his sentencing. Chicago, 1907      On July 14, 1907, the Chicago Tribune reported that E. S. Andrews had again set up a collection-agency scam, this time in connection with attorney W. V. Tyler as the Tyler Company. The duo received dues of between $40 and $50 from over 62 merchants before collecting debts and pocketing the funds. Tyler was arrested for obtaining goods under false pretenses and embezzlement. However, the newspaper stated, “Andrews has disappeared.” Denver, 1911      The last possible trace I've found of Andrews is a Denver listing in 1911 for a "Brandon Commercial Club" in the Colorado State Business Directory. Was this the same phony collections agency Andrews had set up over the previous decade around the Midwest? Remember that magician Hugh Johnston had claimed to have met Erdnase in Denver. Continuing the Search      Here the documentation ends. I requested any existing municipal court records from Andrews’ Oshkosh case and received copies of two large docket sheets that basically recited the facts I have already given in the news reports above. Unfortunately, they contain no further information on Andrews, not even a first or middle name, just “E. S.” But many potentially fruitful avenues remain to be searched. I am hereby calling on any interested magic scholars to investigate the following areas and see what they might discover:      Indiana: Newspapers, business, and police records in Kokomo and Fort Wayne related to Andrews’ 1901 scam and his later 1904 extradition process and arrest (the governor’s office may also have records relating to the grant of extradition).      Wisconsin: Newspaper, business, and police records in Oshkosh detailing Andrews’ swindle as the Charles Brandon Commercial Company and relating to his 1904 trial. The records of the lawyers and police officials connected with the trial may also be helpful.      Illinois: Newspaper, business, and police records connected to Andrews’ Tyler Agency activities, the 1907 arrest of his partner Tyler, and Andrews’ departure from Chicago.      Colorado: Newspaper, business, and police records that might shed light on Andrews’ claim that the Charles Brandon Commercial Company was incorporated there.      I hope any interested parties will keep me updated of their progress and let me know if I can be of any further assistance. This may be our man. I hope we can find out for certain.      Todd Karr email: toddkarr@aol.com

All materials in Magical Past-Times: The On-Line Journal of Magic History are copyright © 2004. Editor: Todd Karr. Advisor Emeritus: Gary Hunt. We welcome your comments and writings.