Murder at the Brown Palace Page 12

  When told in his prison cell at the state penitentiary in Cañon City about Isabel’s death, Henwood showed little emotion. “I have not heard anything whatever of the whereabouts of Mrs. Springer or anything in connection with her or her movements since the unfortunate occurrence in the Brown Hotel in Denver. I am very sorry to hear of her death.”

  He could not, however, hide the bitterness of her betrayal at his trials. “The shooting at the hotel was due to my efforts to save Mrs. Springer from a man I considered thoroughly immoral, but evidently the lesson of that tragedy was not heeded. She went the way so many women do when once they start on the primrose path. I realize now that I should not have interfered in any way.” Unforgiving, he concluded, “Death has sealed the lips and silenced the voice that might have done so much to help me get out of prison.”

  Isabel Springer was not entirely forgotten in Denver. In the wake of her passing, the News published a lengthy editorial, headlined “The Wages of Sin,” without once mentioning her by name. It read, in part,

  Her fame had departed, her beauty was no more. She had wasted her natural endowments in riotous living. The story is as old as original sin. Nature had been prodigal to the woman. She was not only good to look upon, she had brains and knew how to use them. She was held to blame. Those who were without sin and those who had sinned cast the first and last stone at her; she was a vampire, an outcast that could not from that time forward reach the fringes of “society.” She was the haunted woman. The descent to Avernus is steep we are told and there is not room for a woman to turn back. Down, down it must be. The wages of sin is death.

  Two women reporters, ones who had exclaimed over her beauty and grace when she reigned as John Springer’s wife, expressed in print what many in society whispered into their teacups.

  Alice Rohe of the News cited vamps throughout history, including the obscure Thaïs, to show her disapproval. “It is when woman begins to enthrall men without intellect, but through sheer physical lures and sex attractions that she descends from the class of great courtesans into the mire of unnameable creatures. And when women sin for the mere gratification of their desires, the somber saying that the wages of sin is death sound truer than ever.’’

  Reporter Frances Wayne said of the beguiling Isabel,

  Mrs. Springer was very pretty and oh! so feminine! She had charm. She was never heard to say disagreeable things about anybody; she had the smartest turnouts in town; she wore the most stunning frocks; her hats were miracles, and her dinners—her dinners provided the finest wine the palate could desire. Mrs. Springer was tender, and gentle and very, very sympathetic. Her tips to servants were the talk of the hotel. Sometimes Mrs. Springer stormed and raved—but then a lady must occasionally prove her temperament is not dulled—even by marriage.

  She was thirty-seven years old when she died.

  Isabel Springer. (Courtesy of the Library of Congress, LC-USZ62-125674)

  Isabel Springer, her

  legendary beauty battered by drugs and alcohol, wore her hair white after leaving Denver for Chicago, circa 1915. (Courtesy of the Library of Congress,

  LC-USZ62-75444)

  Chapter Eight

  The Reason: “Foolish Little Letters”

  When Frank Henwood’s blazing pistol sprayed death in the barroom of the Brown Palace, the real smoking gun lay in the pocket and rooms of Tony von Phul. It consisted of a series of letters, some of them quite passionate, that Isabel Patterson Springer wrote to von Phul during the first five months of 1911. The letters became the focal point of the dispute between von Phul and Henwood. Von Phul, Isabel told Henwood, threatened to show the letters to her husband, and she asked Henwood to get them back, a request she later claimed in court that she asked him to ignore.

  They were of such an intimate nature that her husband filed for divorce in Denver District Court four days after he read the letters and his wife’s involvement in the dispute became public.

  Members of the city’s high society were stunned by the revelations that slowly came to light. Particularly disturbing was “the utter disregard of conventions showed by Mrs. Springer in her affairs,” huffed Rocky Mountain News columnist Alice Rohe. “A woman who tossed the real things of life like a house of cards, who wrought her own downfall—the presence of Mrs. Springer in the Henwood case would bring an element of moral teaching which is the repetition of such affairs since man and woman became mad with the folly of irregular liaisons.”

  The Denver Post’s Frances Wayne painted Isabel as a “man eater,” a seducer, not unlike many young women who manipulate

  men. “The easiest way they have found is to assume the ‘eternal feminine’ pose. The voice is turned into a soft coo, the eyes lift slowly, their animation is that of the perfume rising from a flower, rather than flame from fire. There is nothing obviously exhausting about these women.”

  Of the many aspects of the legal proceedings, none attracted more attention than did the letters and telegrams sent by Isabel Springer to Tony von Phul. Found by authorities after von Phul’s death, they were written between January 31 and May 20 of 1911. They showed, said The Post on June 16, 1913, during Henwood’s second trial, “that Mrs. Springer enjoyed the most friendly relations with Von Phul.” The next day, the paper, practically blushing, printed portions of some of the letters, noting, “Incidents in which Von Phul and Mrs. Springer figured are referred to constantly in them, meetings in St. Louis and Hot Springs [Arkansas], and the language—well, it’s hardly printable.”

  After their discovery in von Phul’s effects, the letters became well traveled. Found by police, they were turned over to the coroner and then to the district attorney’s office. Copies were made, and they began turning up in the hands of various lawyers, including Henwood’s, Springer’s, and the prosecutors. How some of the letters, and portions of others, made it into the news columns, where they were read eagerly by an enthralled public, is uncertain. Springer read the letters a week after the shooting because he was close friends with then-District Attorney Willis V. Elliott, who prosecuted the 1911 case against Henwood. Elliott and Springer agreed that the letters should not be made public because of the damage they would wreak on the wealthy Springer’s stature in the community. They were locked up in the district attorney’s office.

  Elliott left office in the fall of 1912, then died unexpectedly in Wiggins, Colorado, while on a business trip in May 1913. He was succeeded as district attorney by John A. Rush, who inherited the job and the letters. When they reached print, mainly in The Denver Republican in 1913, Springer told the paper, “So far as I can learn positively, there are no known copies of the letters extant.” He did not sound totally

  convinced because he also said, “It is presumed that some person had managed to get hold of some of the letters long enough to make three or four copies of each before he was detected.” He implied that attorney Rush had broken a trust by revealing the letters’ contents to enhance his case, proving Isabel to be an unfaithful wife. Rush, also a friend of Springer’s, was offended. “One thing is absolutely certain, and that is that no human eye has seen either the originals or any copy of any of the letters turned over to me. They have been locked up where no one has seen them, and Mr. Springer could have ascertained that fact with the slight trouble of asking me.”

  His friendship with Springer did not prevent Rush from using the threat of reading the letters into the court record during Henwood’s second trial to keep Isabel from testifying on Henwood’s behalf. “I shall be compelled to produce the letters in open court. I respect friendships and have done nothing to violate this one, yet I shall not allow that fact to deter me from doing my full duty in bringing justice to a man like Henwood.”

  There seemed to be a good many letters from Isabel to von Phul floating around. After his death, von Phul’s sister in St. Louis, Mrs. Marie Kimbrough, talked about an altogether different set of letters:

  Members of our family in St. Louis upbraided Tony for his association with
Mrs. Springer, but for a time he was infatuated with her. He learned his mistake and then she began writing him those letters which we have in our possession. She pleaded with him until he resumed his relations with her. In St. Louis she quarreled with him and after she became acquainted with Henwood she wrote Tony, asking him to send back her letters. He did not take the matter seriously and did not take the trouble to get the letters together. Mrs. Springer then wrote Tony, asking him to go to Denver. We believe that at the same time Henwood understood that he could do Mrs. Springer a great service by recovering the letters.

  Detectives who searched von Phul’s pockets also found a small black leather notebook which contained addresses of women—many of them actresses and many of them with the prefix “Mrs.”—with whom he had been intimate. Among the names in his book was Mrs. Isabel Patterson Springer,

  followed by the inscription, “Florence E. Welch, 619 East Sixth Avenue, Denver. Mark X on back.” Welch was Isabel’s manicurist, confidante, and the intermediary for von Phul’s letters. The X was a code that identified letters he sent to Welch that were intended for Mrs. Springer.

  The bulk of the letters and telegrams exchanged were never made public. The city’s four daily newspapers, perhaps reluctant to offend their readers’ sensibilities, printed portions of some letters and only salutations and dates of others. The letters have not surfaced since they were locked away in 1913.

  

  The following letters and excerpts of letters from Isabel to von Phul were gleaned from newspapers of the day. They served their purpose for the prosecution—Isabel Patterson Springer, who left Denver in 1911 for the East, did not return.

  January 31, 1911 (partial letter)

  Dearest Love—

  I can hardly bear to be away from you I miss you so much. You are the only one I love in the world.

  Isabel

  A few days later, unable to persuade von Phul to come to Denver, Isabel told him that she would visit him in Kansas City, where he was on business with his wine company. She expressed her concern about his career as a balloonist, urging him to follow her advice “and stay on the ground.” She was so taken with von Phul that she risked writing to him while her husband was waiting in the next room at their Brown Palace suite to take her to dinner.

  [Date unknown]

  Sweetheart,

  Why don’t you write to your little sweetheart? It has been three days since I had a line from you, and I am nearly crazy. I have been worrying myself to death for fear something has happened to you. If I don’t get a letter or some word from you within the next twenty-four hours I will take the first train to Kansas City, so my little sweetheart can hold me in his arms.

  Did you make the balloon trip? Or did you take my advice and stay on the ground? I am always worried when you are in the sky, for fear something will happen.

  John is in the next room waiting for me to finish this letter, so we can go to dinner. He thinks I am writing to mother.

  I feel pretty good again, but yesterday I was sick. You know what the trouble is this time, don’t you, dear?

  I must go to dinner with John, so will close, hoping to hear from you in the morning. With lots of love and kisses,

  Yours till the end,

  Isabel

  The following day, she telegraphed von Phul and repeated her warning:

  [Date unknown]

  No letter came this morning when Florence [Welch] come to the hotel. If I don’t hear from you at once I will leave for Kansas City.

  Lots of love,

  Isabel

  Her next letter, written on Mercy Hospital stationery on February 6, began, “My Own Precious” and told of her impending surgery.

  Between February and April, she suffered a series of medical problems, which she didn’t hesitate to relate with some drama. This trip to the hospital would be followed by another, and she described various ailments she had been troubled with. A note written a few days later from Mercy Hospital just before her surgery reflected her concern and seriousness of the operation, the nature of which was never explained. In the beginning of the letter, she joked about taking “an automobile ride,” but as she wound up the note, she turned serious, asking von Phul to “remember that you are the only one I ever loved.” Her mention to von Phul that “you know what the trouble is” and her sudden surgery only days later hints at something other than appendicitis.

  February 12

  My Darling—

  They are waiting in the hall with that funny little cart on which I am going to take an automobile ride, to take me to the operating room. John, brother [Arthur Patterson] and the rest of them are sitting in another room worrying themselves to death about my condition, but, dear, you are the only one I am interested in, and if they only knew.

  I must cut this short, for the men are waiting in the hall and the nurse is standing in the room, waiting for me to finish this letter to take me to the operating room.

  Well, dear, if I don’t come out of this and if I never see you again, just remember that you are the only one I ever loved.

  Isabel

  Letters followed every few days and by March 27 she was writing from Hot Springs, Arkansas. A second surgery, reported by one paper to be an appendectomy, followed when she returned to Denver in mid-April.

  February 13

  My Sweetheart—

  No letter came today and I was so disappointed the nurses became alarmed. Florence came to see me, but I felt so disappointed that she did not stay but a few minutes.

  Isabel

  Only the salutations of a series of letters written between February 15 and April 13 were reprinted by the newspapers. Most began “Dearest” and were signed “Isabel.”

  April 1911

  My Darling—

  Just a little note tonight to let you know your little sweetheart is thinking of you. John is in the next room and likely to come in at any minute, so you know I must hurry.

  Oh, how I wish you were here tonight to tuck me in my little bed and kiss me goodnight. I have been sick ever since I left St. Louis and you can’t imagine how I have longed for you, sweetheart. It seems that something is always the matter with me. First I was in Mercy Hospital for that old operation, then I was laid up with the grippe, and now . . .

  It is just one thing after another and if I continue to be ill I shall try and persuade John to let me go to Hot Springs. Then I can see you and be with you, sweetheart. When do you expect to come to Denver? Some time soon, I hope. Unless you make arrangements to come here I shall leave for St. Louis within the next four weeks.

  Must close now as I hear John moving about in the next room. Florence is coming tomorrow and you know I am expecting a letter. If I fail to get one, you know I shall be disappointed.

  Hurriedly,

  Isabel

  April 1911

  Sweetheart—

  The operation is over and it was successful. I am beginning to feel like myself again. Yesterday the doctor took out the stitches, and, oh, sweetheart, how it did hurt. I didn’t cry because I knew you would call me a baby.

  I am sending you a piece of one of the stitches which the doctor took out today. This is the longest one I could find and I told the nurse to be sure and save it for me because I wanted to send it away. She laughed at me, but I knew you would like to have it.

  I will soon be out of the hospital and then I will tell John that a trip will be a good thing for me. I am sure he will let me go to the Hot Springs and then you can hold me in your arms once more and make me the happiest woman in the world.

  With all the love in the world, and hoping to be with you soon, I am, yours forever,

  Isabel

  A few days later, she wrote again,

  [Date unknown]

  Sweetheart—

  Just a few lines to let you know I am back to my hotel and I am more than glad to get away from that old hospital. I am beginning to feel fine again and to long for the time, dearie, when you can be with me.
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br />   How I wish you were here tonight to tuck me in my little bed and say nice things to me—things that no on else in the whole world could say and make me happy. How I am longing for the time to come when you can hold me in your arms again and pat me on the head and whisper tender things to me.

  John don’t think I am as well as I am, and I will keep him thinking that way. Then when I tell him I need a trip he will let me go back to Hot Springs so I can be near you.

  Florence came to the hotel today, but no letter. You can’t imagine how disappointed I was when she told me. But I suppose you have been busy, but you must remember that you must not forget your little sweetheart out here in Denver, who is pining and longing to be with you.

  Just as soon as I can arrange it with John, I will go to Hot Springs. I will wire you when I leave Denver, so you can meet me there.

  Must close now, as I expect John home any minute and I want to have this letter out of the way before he comes.

  With all the love a woman is able to give, I am sending to you, the only man I have ever really loved.

  Isabel

  [Date unknown]

  I have been looking at the incision today and I am very glad to find that it is not nearly as bad as I thought it was.

  I was so afraid it would be bad and that it would leave an ugly scar and that you would not like it. But I believe everything is going to be all right and that I am not going to be ugly. But you will not mind the scar, will you?

  You know, dear, that you promised to love me and to love the scar, and you must keep your promise.

  Isabel

  Part of a telegram sent to von Phul while she was in Hot Springs: