CHAPTER XIVPLOTTING AGAINST YOUNG
When Captain Young left Police Headquarters for Maryland, it was whispered that he’d gone to Albany. This rumor was confused with another, to the effect that he’d been called South. The conflicting stories served to make anxious my good friends in the Detective Bureau, who were bound to give me the best possible information. Detective Phil. Farley was among the first to hear of the arrest of Shinburn and our agent, and he hurried to me with the facts, including the different stories of Young’s sudden disappearance from headquarters. I was at my Brevoort Stables at 114 Clinton Place, now on the city map as West Eighth Street, when Farley came. To say that I was excited over the news would be only half the truth. I knew what sort of a man Captain John Young was, and that he’d ride roughshod over police associate or crook, in furthering his selfish pursuit after gain. In my mind there was no question that he had gone to Albany after requisition papers and would attempt to play a game of great account to himself. In accordance with this I sent a messenger to look up ex-Judge Stuart, oneof my retained counsel. Word came back that he was out of town and would not return until late in the evening. This was disheartening, but as the judge was a shrewd student of the law and had a good understanding of the rights of the prisoners in our case, there wasn’t anything else to do but await his arrival.
It was late in the night when he put in an appearance, but his coming was the signal for a grand hustling. The judge, upon being acquainted with the facts as they came to me, said that Young was undoubtedly in a great hurry to get the prisoners out of town and into the hands of the Maryland officers, and that, if he succeeded, we would have a hard time in fighting the game.
“So,†said the judge, “we must get a writ to stay him, and to do that we must tumble some obliging judge out of bed, no matter what the hour may be.†I suggested Judge McCunn, my next-door neighbor, ever an accommodating legal gentleman when a writ was desired on short notice.
“Just the man,†agreed ex-Judge Stuart, “and we’d better get to him without delay.†I thought so, too.
Judge McCunn was soon found, comfortably reposing in his bed, but was turned out and enlightened as to what we wanted. With much good-natured talk about the audacity of some people hammering at a decent, law-abiding man’s house long after midnight,he issued a writ of habeas corpus as strong as the law would allow, and we were soon ready for the next move. In the meantime a letter to Governor Hoffman at Albany had been given us by Thurlow Weed, another most accommodating gentleman to those in distress. This letter was in the form of a command, so to speak, that the governor hear our side of the case, in the event that the New York police should ask for requisition papers for Shinburn and our sales agent. Now that we had the material with which to go to the capital, the next thing was how to get there, for it was learned that the first train in the morning left too late for us.
“What can be done?†I asked of the judge.
“One thing—get a special train,†was his answer. And a special train we chartered. Not long after two o’clock in the morning, T. P. Somerville, a law partner of the judge, was aboard the special, and, in extraordinarily quick time for those days, was knocking at Governor Hoffman’s door. He, much to his relief, was informed that no requisition papers had been applied for, and that, as a matter of fact, no one from the New York police force had been at the executive mansion or communicated with the governor in any way. However, Thurlow Weed’s letter was what we wanted to fix things with the governor, who effusively promised that requisition papers would not be issued unless ex-Judge Stuart was afforded an opportunity to present our side of the case. And wehad a right to be heard, legally, for Mr. Somerville had proof to show the executive that one of the prisoners was in New York when the New Windsor Bank was robbed. So far we had been successful.
There was another trick that Captain John Young was capable of playing, and against which we must play winning cards. Prisoners had been known to be shanghaied out of the state,—practically kidnapped from the protection of the law,—by him. The formalities of requisition proceedings had been disregarded as so much useless red tape made to adorn law books. Young wasn’t the offender in the instance I will cite. It was Captain John Jourdan.
Eddie McGuire,aliasFairy, Rory Simms, and Dave Bartlett “turned off†the Bowdoinham Bank, of Maine, in June, 1866, and got something like eighty thousand dollars in cash and United States five-twenty bonds. Bartlett hired the team used in the “get-away.†They buried the loot in a wood, and in the wagon drove forty miles to Portland, where, scattering, the looters went by rail to New York.
Prior to this the gang had robbed Cooper’s silverware manufacturing establishment in Waverly Place in New York City, and sold the silver to a “fence†kept by one Morrison. For some reason, the latter tipped off Captain Jourdan, who arrested McGuire and the others at the corner of Hudson and King streets. Fairy pleaded poverty to the captain, andhaving turned over to him what silver they had taken, all hands were released. But there was a string on them. Jourdan forced a promise that there would be a division made the very first “trick†the gang “turned off.†Later they did the Maine “trick.†Having given the job a chance to cool down, Fairy McGuire went to Maine and dug up the treasure, and he and Bartlett asked me to sell the bonds. I bought them outright, and, as was my custom, paid the police the usual percentage, which amounted to forty-two hundred dollars. At the same time I told them that there was more “rake-off†due them, declining, however, to mention any names.
“When they get ready, no doubt you’ll hear from them,†I said reassuringly. Perhaps a week or more had gone by, during which time I presumed the lads had paid the police the remainder of the “rake-off,†but it turned out not to be so. Detective Radford came to me with a tip.
“Fairy McGuire and his pals will be pinched to-morrow by Captain Jourdan,†said he, “and you’d better tell them so. The old man was promised a ‘rake-off’ on the next job after the silver racket, and nothing has been doing. You see he knows who did the Bowdoinham ‘trick,’ for a sheriff was down here with the description of the man that hired the team for the ‘get-away,’ and it fits Dave Bartlett. Jourdan wouldn’t have known it, only inriding in a Fifth Avenue stage the other day he saw McGuire, Simms, and Bartlett in the same stage. They were loaded down with diamonds and heavy gold watch-chains. Worse than all, they never looked at the old man. He got thinking of what had been done in the crooked line to buy all this stuff, and the Bowdoinham job flashes across him. Then came the description of Bartlett from the Maine sheriff. That settled it. So the gang will be pinched to-morrow evening.â€
I recollected what McGuire had told me about the meeting with Captain Jourdan in the stage, and at the time I had protested loudly against the boys’ wearing the diamonds and watches.
“It’s only asking for trouble,†I said, “and what’s the use?â€
“Oh, to hell with the cops,†was the separate reply from the trio. I said no more, but hoped they would be wise. I might have left them to a big surprise, but after Radford had gone I hastened to McGuire’s place in Bleecker Street and told him what I had heard, adding that they would better get out of town on the instant. They laughed at my warning. The following evening at eight o’clock Captain Jourdan arrested them, and the next morning soon after daylight he personally took them to the outskirts of the city and, boarding a train, lodged them in a Maine jail. Thus were “Fairy†McGuire, Rory Simms, and Dave Bartlett shanghaied out ofNew York State by Captain Jourdan, in utter defiance of the requisition laws.
Knowing what the police had done, I determined that Captain Young would not have the opportunity to thus take Mark Shinburn and our sales agent to Maryland, and ex-Judge Stuart said he would assist me. He procured a writ that would forestall any illegal procedure of the sort that might be attempted, and had it served on the Police Commissioners at headquarters. Meanwhile we kept a diligent watch on the gamesters in Mulberry Street. About the time Mr. Somerville got back from Albany with good news from that quarter, Captain Young turned up and with him the news of where he had been. Close on the heels of these developments, the officials of the New Windsor Bank and their attorneys, accompanied by Detective Pierson, of Smith, Pierson, and West’s Agency, of Baltimore, arrived in town. Pierson was a very clever sleuth and a trusted friend of our advisers at Police Headquarters. He promptly received a tip from our friends, and therewith ignored Captain Young. In an exceedingly short time he was in an earnest conversation with the attorneys of the bank officials, advising them as to the most efficacious means of recovering the Union Pacific bonds. Pierson had no difficulty in demonstrating the fiction of John Young’s wonderful tale of his capture of the bank looters, and immediately there was some figuring with a view ofscaling down his promised reward. Also it was presently shown to them how the bonds could be returned without the fabricator’s assistance. They were thoroughly disgusted with the mode of procedure, and admitted that they had been well duped by Young’s representations.
The result of Pierson’s mediation was an interview between the bank’s attorneys and ex-Judge Stuart. Two days later we decided to return the fifty-three thousand dollars’ worth of Union Pacifics in return for the recipients’ promise not to prosecute Shinburn and our sales agent. Captain Young had his reward scaled down to seventeen thousand five hundred dollars, but felt that he must turn the prisoners over to the Maryland authorities. He had his reward in hand, and if General Spinola received any part of it, the information never reached me. Knowing John Young as I did, I believe the general whistled long and loud ere he got a finger on the “rake-off.â€
These matters being “squared†and the Marylanders ready to start for home, Captain Young turned the prisoners over to Detective Pierson, it being lawful in this instance to do so, provided both parties were agreed. Meanwhile I was apprised of the leaving time of the Pennsylvania Railroad train that was to take the party to Maryland, and accordingly the ferry-boat that left the New York slip for the five o’clockP.M.train, bearing the party, alsohad me aboard with a closed carriage and ready for a part I would play. At the landing of the boat I drove my team to a convenient place close to the ferry-house and waited. Detective Pierson, with the prisoners handcuffed, and accompanied by the bankers and lawyers, went to the train in waiting and boarded it. The time was then ripe for action.
“I’m going to call a halt here, gentlemen,†said Shinburn, “and there’s mighty little time to waste before this train goes.â€
Detective Pierson tried to look solemn, as did the bankers and their attorneys, and then asked the reason for the protest.
“Simply this—we’re not going with you,†declared Mark.
“Oh, yes, you will; there’s no use crying about it. Sit down!†commanded Pierson. This made a fine by-play for the passengers.
“I’ll make an outcry,†exclaimed Shinburn, “unless you can show me your authority.â€
Detective Pierson exhibited his shield. Shinburn laughed derisively. “Where’s your warrant? That’s what I want to see.â€
Pierson fished a warrant out of his pocket and held it to Shinburn’s nose. He thrust it away contemptuously.
“The devil!†he cried; “that’s nothing but a Maryland warrant, and it doesn’t go in the state ofNew Jersey. Come, the game is up; take off these irons, quick!â€
“It’s a fact, gentlemen,†said Pierson, turning to the bankers and attorneys, “that we haven’t anything more than the Maryland warrant. These men refuse to go with us without requisition papers from the state of New Jersey. In fact, the prisoners as such in New York are here no longer prisoners.â€
“Call an officer of the Jersey City force,†put in one of the bank’s attorneys.
“Good day, gentlemen,†said Shinburn, walking swiftly from the car, followed by the sales agent; “you’ve made a mistake this time.â€
No one offered to follow them and of course no one wanted to. Outside I was waiting with the carriage. In hopped the pair, and at a gallop we were driven on the ferry-boat. It was the one that brought us over. Upon it we landed again on the New York shore. In the meantime I unlocked the irons from the wrists of my companions with a key I had provided. Within an hour from the time the lads got out of John Young’s hands, they were back in New York streets, free to go where they pleased. To them the New Windsor Bank robbery was to pass into the realm of “has been.†But the outcome of the projected trip of Shinburn and the sales agent, with the superficial booking for their confinement in a Maryland prison, was to create alaugh. They were free, and the bankers had gone home with the one hundred and sixty-five thousand dollars’ worth of securities that Captain Young had turned over to them in return for his reward, besides the Union Pacific bonds. With the possibility of getting nothing out of the two hundred and eighty-one thousand dollar loot, and returning to Westminster with two hundred and eighteen thousand dollars, the bankers could well count themselves lucky. We had to be satisfied with sixty-three thousand dollars, less the “rake-off†that must be paid to our Police Headquarters friends.
It was a week after the matter had been settled that we decided to “square†with Mulberry Street, and I advised that Mark had better make arrangements to meet either Detective McCord or Detective Radford. Mark hadn’t done this sort of work, leaving it for me to do.
“Try your hand, Mark,†I said, and he did. It was, however, the first and last time while we worked together. Mark made an appointment to meet Radford at Chris Connor’s place in Fourteenth Street, near Broadway, at eight o’clock in the evening, and went there in a cab. He turned over to Radford sixty-three hundred dollars, the ten per cent we agreed to give the police. It was in bills, wrapped in brown paper. Radford put it in his pocket. There was wine bought to celebrate the settlement, with the result that, nine o’clock coming, Radfordhad added not a little to a comfortable “jag†he had acquired before the meeting. Mark found the detective troublesome and once or twice the latter was on the point of a quarrel. And, too, he accused Mark of putting up a job to get him off the force. Of course this was a fancy of his drink-crazed brain, and, more to protect him than anything else, Mark suggested that they drive to the Metropolitan Hotel to see Jack McCord. This seemed to suit Radford. They got in the cab and were soon whirling down Broadway. At Ninth Street, Radford turned to Mark and, saying something incoherent, tore the package of money from his pocket and threw it out of the window. The cab was stopped and Mark ran back more than a block in search of the money. He heard Radford shout back in a thick way, “You can’t put up a job on me.†Fortunately Mark’s activity resulted in recovering the money, though a moment later he would have been too late. A telegraph messenger boy running across Broadway had struck the package with his foot and was about to run off with the prize when Mark snatched it. Hurrying back, no one was there but cabby, Radford having disappeared through Ninth Street. Mark drove to his rooms in West Twenty-sixth Street, where he dismissed the cab. The next day Jack McCord sent for me and with great concern said, “Do you think Mark would put up a job on me and Radford?â€
“What!†I cried, “do you think we’re crazy? Why?â€
“Radford came to me last night, declaring Mark had given him money, but he didn’t know what became of it.â€
“I haven’t seen Mark,†said I, “but I’ll guarantee he’s all right.â€
“So I’ve believed,†said McCord, “but it’s queer somehow. Perhaps,†he added, “it’s the result of one of Radford’s drunks. He’s gone, and I’ll wait until he turns up. In the meantime will you see Shinburn?â€
I promised I would, and, accordingly, a few minutes later, Mark had heard from me Jack McCord’s story. At that he hauled the money from his pocket and tossed it at me. I looked the surprise I felt.
“I thought you’d settled with Radford?†I said.
“So I did, but the fool threw the dust out of the cab window, and while I went back after it, he vanished.†Then Mark told me, in detail, all that happened. It was all made very clear to me. I left him saying I would make an appointment for him with McCord at the Washington Parade Ground at the lower end of Fifth Avenue, that evening. Mark was there and paid McCord the money, who in no gentle language scored Radford for his drunken escapade.
“You can give me the credit of saving the dust for the duffer,†said Mark to me subsequently, “forI had to run back nearly two blocks, and then got it by only a hair.â€
But I must return to Captain Young. He had pocketed the seventeen thousand five hundred dollars, the outcome of his secret trip to Westminster, and was in a way congratulating himself. Had he not given his two prisoners, so cleverly captured, over to the Maryland authorities? Had he not done a great piece of detective work? None better, the public would think, upon hearing of it, done up with the right sort of glamour. There was one way to put that touch on, so he called in the Police Headquarters reporters, who had offices across Mulberry Street. To them he related the story of his astuteness in getting a “line†on the looters, adding everything that he could conjure up to make a glowing yarn, in which he was the central figure. The newspapers told at great length of the desperate encounter he and his sleuths had had with the prisoners, who had to be taken at the pistol point.
“I turned the prisoners over to the Baltimore authorities,†the newspapers quoted him as saying, “heavily ironed, and they started south with a clear case against them. They couldn’t escape from long terms in prison, with the evidence against them.â€
It was not until several months later that the dear public awoke to the cold fact that Chiefof Detectives Young’s great capture and brace of prisoners, which started for Maryland, only reached the Pennsylvania Railroad depot in Jersey City.
If Young had hugged the belief that he should get away with the reward, without making a division with Detectives Jim Irving and George Edsel, he soon came to a truer realization of the situation. Now, they had made the arrests, for, as I have truly told, Captain Young boldly stood in the hallway outside of Spinola’s fake brokerage office, safe from harm, while his tools did the work. Naturally they wanted a fair part of the reward, though Captain John entertained very different views on the subject. When Irving and Edsel made their demands, he firmly defined his position. After many long and heated arguments over the spoils, not unlike those occurring among crooks, Young consented to a generous division of his reward. How would the boys like five hundred each? That certainly was munificent on his part. There was more argument, in which the language used was not of the choicest, and finally George Edsel, realizing, like Bobby Bright, that it was now or never, accepted five hundred and held his peace. Not so with Jim Irving—made of sterner stuff. Besides, he was financially hungry. Not a cent would he take, and away he went, vowing he would get even with so fine a specimen of the swine as John Young.
The police at headquarters whom we regardedas our friends were known to us as the Bank Ring. This coterie of unfaithful policemen in the Detective Bureau had long hated Young because of his uncertainty in handling spoils, because he could not be depended upon to make a “divvy.†If the opportunity came along in which he could put all in his pocket, he never failed to do it. The Ring had long wanted to get rid of him. When Irving told me, with much anger, how he had been treated, steps were immediately taken to cut off Young’s police career. And when the change was made, we determined to get a “right†commander at the head of the Detective Bureau. Accordingly political and other kinds of wires soon began to hum. And Irving was instructed what his part was to be.
“Hold out for an even third of the Maryland reward,†I told him, “and don’t, for anything that is offered you, come down from that position.â€
Irving couldn’t see the wisdom of this advice, but was told to go it blind and wait for the outcome. And he did. It was not for long either; within forty-eight hours Captain Young was commanded by the Police Commissioners to divide the reward equally between his associates and himself. At last the grasping one found himself confronting a strong game,—a game that was more difficult to play at successfully than had been the one he had tackled in Maryland. It was put up to him firmly by the Police Commissioners, that he must dividethe seventeen thousand five hundred dollars, or hand in his shield and resign from the force.
What he did do was just like John Young—he refused to part with a cent. It was more than he would get in a year’s “rake-off†from his different mob of grafters, so he clung to the whole reward, relinquished his shield, packed his grip, and turned his back forever on 300 Mulberry Street, in the year 1869, and became plain John Young.