Detective Fiction Weekly. Vol. 36, No. 4, October 20, 1928

He went to a polytechnic institute, where he majored in sciences, then he graduated and worked for his father for several years.

He was singularly pleasing in appearance and manner, and at the tender age of sixteen there is a record of an entanglement in a divorce case, from which predicament his family withdrew him and sent him to New Mexico to meditate.

While working in his father’s factory he saw an advertisement for a similar position in Newark, with a firm known as Herrmann’s. He applied by letter, received the appointment and left his father’s employ.

When the club opened Molineux had already made a name for himself at the Brooklyn Y. M. C. A. in amateur athletics, and at the suggestion of some friends that he add the glory of his prowess to the list of the newly formed club, he joined the Knickerbocker.

He moved then, bag and baggage, to Madison Avenue, commuting to Newark by trolley and the Cortlandt Street ferry, this being before the days of tubes or tunnels.

The club gladly welcomed Molineux, his reputation as an amateur horizontal bar performer extended over the country and he rivaled professionals in his work on the trapeze and flying rings.

At the factory his executive skill, combined with his unusual ability in color work won him the position of superintendent, while at the Knickerbocker his interest in club affairs soon placed him on the house committee. And this is where another man, in whom the case is interested, comes into the tale.

A Deep Dislike

This man was Harry S. Cornish, who was director of physical training at the Knickerbocker. Since the young chemist was constantly in the gymnasium, Cornish saw much of Molineux. Molineux was the better athlete, though he looked anything but the part, being delicately built and aesthetic in appearance.

Cornish, famous trainer and athlete of the day looked the typical athlete. He was overbearing in manner, to those who he thought could not jeopardize his position, and cringing to those who could. And since he could not, for some time, decide to which class Molineux belonged, his behavior in that quarter was uncertain.

There is no question in the world that there was bad blood between Molineux and Cornish. Even the most casual member of the club knew of its existence. Yet for all that Molineux disliked Cornish, no one had heard any active expression of that dislike, many said that they could hardly imagine his saying an ill-tempered or ill-mannered thing, no matter what the provocation.

But as the years went on the animosity increased and brought added proof of its depth and seriousness.

Half the club, for example, recalled the occasion of the amateur circus performance given by the members of the gymnasium in which Molineux, was featured and Cornish figured as director.

The First Encounter

There were one or two scenes of displeasure which in the hands of any one save Molineux would have been embarrassing to the onlookers.

Molineux complained that Cornish did not know his place, that he mingled too familiarly with the guests of the members. And Cornish had his bit to say about the well-fitting costumes and the cosmetics used by the star performer, who seemed aware of the attractive figure he presented in action.

“That man is a positive boor,” the chemist had said several times.

“Molineux’s a snob!” came from Cornish.

Cornish went so far one afternoon as to call Molineux, behind his back, of course, a rumseller — a name carrying greater contempt in those days.

But only when the athlete took his pen in hand to write scathing criticisms of a friend did Molineux blow up.

Barney Wefers, the great sprinter of the time, received a letter from Cornish criticizing a man named Bartow S. Weeks on some point of minor athletics. How the letter fell into Molineux’s hands is not known. Yet fall it did and he carried it to the governors of the Knickerbocker Club, demanding the dismissal of Cornish.

Now Weeks, aside from being a friend of Molineux as well as other members of the club, was also president of the New York Athletic Club, an honored and rival organization.

The governors sent around their apologies — for Weeks, too, had heard of the note — decided that this was ample restitution and declined to go further in the matter.

Quite naturally the trainer decided that he had won a point in a personal quarrel. He could not let the matter rest at that and the next time he met Molineux said to him sneeringly.

“Well, you didn’t get me out, did you?”

It is odd to observe that Molineux’s answer was couched in the terms which would probably have been employed to-day.

“You win,” said Molineux cheerfully, and hurried down the stairs to keep an appointment.

In relating this encounter, Molineux told friends that Cornish called him a vile name — as usual — and remarked that his obscene conversation in the gymnasium and dressing rooms was lowering the tone of the club.

Molineux Resigns