BANK BURGLARS WHO DISGUISED THEMSELVES AS POLICEMEN, AND OTHER INGENIOUS SCHEMES USED BY THIEVES IN BOLD ATTEMPTS TO GET THEIR PLUNDER
No honest man can accumulate a million dollars without constant industry, self-denial, perseverance, and ability.
The same is true of the professional criminal. In addition, he must possess ingenuity, tact, and resourcefulness of a high order.
I have mentioned a number of professional criminals who, in the course of their careers, obtained over a million dollars apiece. Although these men accumulated vast fortunes, there was not a single one of them who really derived any lasting benefit out of his ill-gotten gains. Many of them spent a large portion of their lives in jail. Behind prison walls, their buried loot availed them nothing. Others dissipated their fortunes almost as rapidly as they made them and their last years were spent in poverty. Some of them died violent deaths.
Yet every one of these men, as I have intimated, possessed valuable qualities which, had they been put to a legitimate use, would undoubtedly have brought them wealth without any of the penalties incident to a life of crime. Living honestly they might not have accumulated millions, but their skill, ingenuity, and perseverance would undoubtedlyhave netted them large incomes, and they might have enjoyed the peace of mind which none but the law-abiding can know.
Without the ability which these men possessed, it would be useless for anyone to hope to achieve the "success" which attended their criminal operations. But anyone possessing their ability would be most ill-advised to attempt to follow in their footsteps when their careers have so clearly demonstrated thatCRIME CANNOT PAY. Whereas, if properly applied, such ability must inevitably bring success.
I intend to give you some idea of the skill and resourcefulness these men possessed by referring in detail to some of their more remarkable exploits.
In the course of a criminal career covering some forty years, Harry Raymond, all-round burglar, committed several hundred important burglaries. It was he who stole the famous Gainsborough painting, as I have previously related. The magnitude of his crimes will be indicated by the fact that his booty aggregated between two and three million dollars. Yet, despite the number and importance of this man's offenses, he was caught only once in the whole forty years, and then through the carelessness of an accomplice. No better proof of the judgment and resourcefulness of a professional criminal could be presented than such a record as that.
His robbery of the Cape Town Post Office will illustrate this point more concretely.
His first step was to cultivate the friendship of the Postmaster of the Cape Town Post Office. Hewent at it very systematically and patiently, but at the end of two or three months he had made such progress that he readily found an opportunity to get temporary possession of the post office keys. That was all that was necessary. He made a wax impression of them and put the keys back without arousing any suspicion.
His next step was to prepare three parcels addressed to himself, and mailed them by registered mail from out of town. He came in on the same train with the packages. He waited until the registered mail sacks had been delivered to the Postmaster and locked up for the night, and then, just as his friend, the Postmaster, was leaving for the day, he stopped hurriedly into the post office and explained that it was of great importance for him to get that night certain packages he understood were arriving by that day's registered mail. The Postmaster readily consented and went back into the office with the burglar. He opened the safe and ascertained that the packages Raymond had described were there, and while he was making certain entries in his book, Raymond succeeded in making wax impressions of the keys to the safe.
Raymond now had wax impressions of the keys to the post office itself and of the keys in which the registered mail and other valuables were kept. Making the keys from the impressions was not a very difficult task, although it required many subsequent visits to the post office and the exercise of a considerable amount of patience before the keyswere properly fitted. Then Raymond waited for the diamonds to come from the mines, his plan to get them into the post office safe having been very carefully thought out.
At one stage of the trip the diamond coach had to make, it was necessary for it to cross a river. This was accomplished by means of a ferry which was operated by a wire-rope cable. Raymond decided to spoil this plan. Before the coach arrived at the ferry he succeeded in severing the wire cable. There was a strong current running and the ferryboat naturally drifted down the stream.
When the coach arrived at the river, there was no ferryboat to take it across, and there was no other means of fording the stream. As I have mentioned, the schedule of the coach had been arranged so that it would reach the docks just in time to catch the steamer for England. The delay at the river resulted, as Raymond had known it would, in the coach missing the steamer, and the next steamer wouldn't sail for a week. In the meanwhile, the diamonds were deposited in the post office safe.
It was an easy matter for Raymond to get into the post office the following night, and the keys he had made gave him access to the safe. The diamonds and other valuables he had planned so cleverly to get were worth $500,000. He abstracted them all and buried them.
Instead of fleeing the country with his booty, his prudence dictated that he was safest right there, and he remained there for months. Subsequently,he disposed of the stolen diamonds in London, but he was blackmailed out of a large portion of the proceeds by the accomplice with whom he had made his first attempt to rob the diamond coach, and who at once concluded when he heard of the successful robbery that it was Raymond who had committed it.
Although it netted the burglars only $100,000, the robbery of the Kensington Savings Bank of Philadelphia was one of the most cleverly arranged crimes of modern times.
The theft was committed by a band of the most notorious bank burglars of the time, including Tom McCormack, Big John Casey, Joe Howard, Jimmy Hope, Worcester Sam, George Bliss, and Johnny Dobbs. No more competent crew of safe cracksmen could possibly have been gotten together.
On the day these burglars planned to rob the bank, the president received, information that the crime was contemplated and would probably be committed that night or the night following.
This information came apparently from the Philadelphia Chief of Police, the messenger stating that the Chief would send down half a dozen uniformed men that afternoon, who were to be locked in the bank that night. The president was told to keep the information to himself as it was desired to catch the burglars red-handed, and it was feared that word might reach them of the plan to trap them and they would be scared off.
That afternoon half a dozen uniformed policemen called at the bank shortly before the closinghour. They were called into the office of the president and introduced to the bank's two watchmen. After the bank was closed the six men were secreted in different parts of the building and the watchmen were told to obey whatever orders the policemen might give.
Nothing happened until about midnight, when some of the policemen came out of their hiding places and suggested to one of the watchmen that it might be a good idea to send out for some beer. One of the policemen volunteered to take off his uniform, but changed his mind, saying that it would perhaps be safer for one of the watchmen to go.
"If the burglars see one of you fellows going out of the building," he said to the watchmen, "they will suspect nothing, but if they see a strange face leaving the bank at this hour they will know there is something unusual going on." The watchmen agreed.
No sooner had the watchman left the building than one of the policemen raised his nightstick and brought it down with all his might on the head of the other watchman. The man dropped to the floor like a log. He was quickly bound and gagged and taken inside the cashier's cage.
A few minutes later the other watchman returned with the beer, and as he set foot in the room where the policemen were congregated he was accorded the same treatment.
The watchmen out of the way, the six policemen made their way to the bank safe and there aremarkable scene was enacted. Attired in the regulation uniform of the city police, with helmets, shields, and nightsticks of the official style, the six "policemen" proceeded to break into the bank safe. As their work progressed, some of the men removed their hats and loosened their heavy coats, but there was nothing to indicate to anyone who might have witnessed this remarkable piece of work that the men engaged in the cracking of the safe were not genuine policemen. As a matter of fact, of course, they were six of the cleverest bank burglars in the business.
SOON AFTER MIDNIGHT A STRANGE SCENE WAS ENACTED
SOON AFTER MIDNIGHT A STRANGE SCENE WAS ENACTED
When the safe was blown and the bank's funds, amounting to some $100,000, removed, the "policemen" buttoned up their uniforms, put on their hatsand, opening the front doors of the bank with the keys they took from the unconscious watchmen, they boldly marched in single file into the public street.
In planning out a bank robbery, or, indeed, any kind of robbery, a great deal of time must be given over to study of the situation so that when the day of the robbery comes the burglars will know just what to do and be able to do it promptly. Oftentimes it is necessary to wear a disguise so as to more surely carry out the prearranged plans.
I remember once disguising myself as a Quaker farmer's wife when we did a job in the section of Pennsylvania where the Quakers abound. We had been over the territory very carefully and picked out a bank where a considerable amount of money was on display, scattered around on the different counters of the bank, and we decided that we could go into that bank in broad daylight and get most of the cash.
For several weeks we had studied the methods in vogue in the bank and knew pretty accurately where the cashier and other employees would be at certain hours, and which hour would be the most favorable for our work.
There were four of us working on this particular robbery, and it was decided that I should disguise myself as a Quaker woman and pass the bank at a certain hour. I went around the town for several days studying the costumes of the women and finally rigged myself out in the typical Quaker housewife style.
I purchased a small milk can and, as its newness might attract attention, I rubbed the can with dirt until it took on a time-worn appearance. Then I secured one of the common baskets carried very often by the women who go to market to dispose of small lots of vegetables. For several days my pals and myself rehearsed the work we had to do so that when the time of action came we were perfect in our parts.
We had found out from our daily observations of the bank that the cashier, who was a good deal of a dandy, went out every day at half past twelve and returned about 1 o'clock. Several of the other clerks in the bank went out for their lunch at the same time. At fifteen minutes to one there were fewer clerks in the bank than at any other period of the day, and if we were to do our work at all it must be accomplished at that time.
There was only one drawback to this arrangement—the cashier occasionally came back at five or ten minutes to one, and we could not be certain that he would stay out the full half hour on the day we operated. If he came back before 1 o'clock our scheme would be frustrated and we would probably be arrested. So it was decided that I should lay outside the bank and intercept the cashier if he should happen along before my pals made their get-away from the bank.
On the day of the robbery we were near the bank at half past twelve, and waited till a quarter of one, when we saw several other clerks go out. Thenthe rest of my band hastened into the bank, and I kept my eyes fixed on the direction in which the cashier usually came. The robbers who went into the bank had a number of little formalities to get over before it was possible to grab the money, and this took time.
They had been inside nearly ten minutes when I spied the cashier walking up the street toward the bank. As luck would have it, he was getting back five minutes ahead of his usual time. I strolled leisurely to meet him, dressed up, of course, as the Quaker housewife, with my basket full of vegetables and can of milk on my arm.
The cashier and I came together in the middle of the block, about a hundred feet from the bank. I accosted him and asked for some fictitious address, in a broken English kind of lingo, which he could not at first understand. He was a very polite young man, and, of course, stopped to help me out of my little difficulty.
While I was engaging the cashier in this fashion, I kept my eyes rambling to the bank to see if my pals were getting away, for if the cashier had gone down at that moment he would see them in the act of robbing, and all would be lost.
After holding the cashier for a minute or two, he became impatient at my unintelligible talk and said he was sorry he could not help me and would have to be going. Now, under no circumstances could I permit that cashier to leave then. If necessary I would have grabbed him about the neck andheld him by force until my companions escaped. But a better scheme than this suggested itself; I deliberately spilled the can of milk over the cashier's clothes, doing it, of course, in an apparently innocent way.
The nice white milk settled all over the young man's vest and coat, and he looked a sorry sight indeed. He was exasperated at my awkwardness, as he called it, and took out his handkerchief to wipe off the milk, and I, full of sympathy for his deplorable plight, also took out my handkerchief and gave my assistance. While we were trying to get rid of the milk I saw the robbers hurry out of the bank and walk rapidly up the street. Then I knew they had gotten the cash, and it was no longer necessary for me to detain the cashier. I mumbled my apologies to the poor, milk-bespattered cashier, and then hurried off down the street.
I went into a doorway—which I had picked out in advance, of course—and took off my Quaker disguise. Under the disguise I had on my regular clothes. I left the Quaker outfit, milk can and all, in this strange doorway and then hustled off to meet my pals at the rendezvous previously agreed upon. We divided the money—we had obtained $90,000—and stayed in the town a few days.
In the papers the next morning there was a big account of the robbery, and the additional statement that the robbers had overlooked another package of money containing $150,000. We were shocked by this piece of information, and the poor robberwhose duty it was to collect the money in the bank was roundly upbraided for getting a miserable ninety thousand when he could also have taken the $150,000 if he had not been such a bungler. He swore by every deity that the papers were wrong, for he had searched very carefully and there was no other money in sight when he left the place. However, we could never forgive this chap for his oversight, because we believed the papers had the thing right, and we disputed about the matter so much that the gang, or "party," as we of the criminal fraternity call it, had to be disbanded, and we went our separate ways, good friends, of course, but no longer co-workers.
It is the custom among bank robbers to demand that each member of a party do his work properly. If any one of them makes a failure, or does not come up to expectations, he is discharged from the party. The method of discharging a member is peculiar. The leader will say to him: "When are you going home, Jack?" and he will hand him some money. "When are you going home?" means we don't want you with us any more. I might say, in concluding this experience, that one of the men who took part in this robbery is now living in Philadelphia and highly respected. He long since gave up his criminal associations and went into business for himself and has made a great deal of money by his own honest efforts.
The other man died in prison. His was the fate of many another professional criminal. He hadgambled away most of the money he secured from his illegal trade and, in addition, he served twenty years of his life behind prison walls.
Not even the cleverest men in the business have profited by their skill. They may prosper for a brief hour, but in the end they are forced to the conclusion thatCRIME DOES NOT PAY!
PROMOTERS OF CRIME—PEOPLE WHO PLAN ROBBERIES AND ACT AS "BACKERS" FOR PROFESSIONAL CRIMINALS; THE EXTRAORDINARY "MOTHER" MANDELBAUM, "QUEEN OF THE THIEVES," AND GRADY, WHO HAD HALF A DOZEN GANGS OF CRACKSMEN WORKING FOR HIM
If there is any one familiar adage that fits every criminal in the underworld it is "Easy come, easy go." Surely there is a curse on stolen money. More than once in my former life I have received $50,000 as my share in a Sunday morning bank burglary—and by the next Saturday night not even a five-dollar bill remained.
Professional thieves are rich one day and poor the next. The fact that more money is always to be had without the hard labor which brings honest reward makes thieves as improvident as children. All thieves are gamblers—scarcely in all my acquaintances can I recall even one exception. Sometimes the entire proceeds of a robbery are lost in a gambling house within twenty-four hours after the crime.
And this is how it has come about that all over the world, in every big city, there are "backers" of thieves; men, and sometimes women, who take the stolen goods off their hands, find hiding places for criminals who are being pursued, advance moneyto them when they are out of funds, and even pay the expenses of their families when the burglars get into prison.
Some of these friends of thieves are really promoters of criminal enterprises. They name the banks and jewelry shops that are to be robbed and select the residences of wealthy persons that are to be entered. They are like the backers of theatrical enterprises who put up the money for the necessary expenses and advance the salaries of the actors; they are like the promoters in the mining world who pay for the tools, the pack animals, and who "grub-stake" the miners to outfit them on prospecting tours in the mountains.
Curiously enough the greatest crime promoter of modern times was a New York woman, "Mother" Mandelbaum. Alas! I knew her well—too well. A hundred, yes, perhaps near five hundred transactions I have had with her, little and big. Many were entirely on my own account, oftentimes I dealt with her in behalf of thieves who were in hiding or in need of help or were in jail.
MOTHER MANDELBAUM'S FAKE CHIMNEY AND SECRET HIDING PLACE FOR STOLEN JEWELS
"MOTHER" MANDELBAUM'S FAKE CHIMNEY AND SECRET HIDING PLACE FOR STOLEN JEWELS.
Nobody anywhere did such a wholesale business in stolen goods or had such valuable associations among big criminals. "Mother" Mandelbaum, of course, cracked no safes, she did not risk her skin in house burglaries, her fat hand was never caught in anybody's pocket, no policeman's bullet was eversent after her fleeing figure. Here, then, we have a dealer in crime pretty shrewdly protected from the dangers that beset criminals. And yet I shall once again prove to my readers and from this very woman who was the uncrowned "Queen of the Thieves," rich, powerful, and protected by the police—from this very "Mother" Mandelbaum I shall again show thatCRIME DOES NOT PAY!
But was this woman exceptionally unlucky? No. I will recount to you also the career of John D. Grady, her very remarkable rival in the same field of criminal promotion—the man who financed the great $3,000,000 Manhattan Bank robbery and had the famous Jimmy Hope and his band of expert cracksmen in his employ. From Grady I will also prove the great moral truth that surelyCRIME DOES NOT PAY!
"Mother" Mandelbaum's real name was Mrs. William Mandelbaum. She was born in Germany of poor but respectable parentage. As a young woman she arrived in America without a friend or relative. But her coarse, heavy features, powerful physique, and penetrating eye were sufficient protection and chaperone for anyone. It is not likely that anyone ever forced unwelcome attentions on this particular immigrant.
Arrived in New York she was compelled to pawn one or two gold trinkets while looking for work. This brought her in touch with the flourishing pawnshop business.
The pawn shops were practically unregulated by law in those days and the German girl's painful experience as a customer, instead of making her angry, impressed her with great admiration. There was a field for an ambitious person, and if ambition is a virtue none was ever more virtuous in that particular than "Mother."
But how to enter this profitable industry was the question. To be a pawn-broker has always required capital. That is, it always has for anyone but this woman, who had none. She made a hurried survey of the pawn shops along the Bowery and elsewhere, and among others noticed the place of one William Mandelbaum.
William was unmarried, rather weak willed for a man of his calling, lazy, and afflicted with chronic dyspepsia. He cooked his own meals over a kerosene lamp, which was undoubtedly the cause of his indigestion. "Mother" Mandelbaum introduced herself as Fredericka Goldberg, and offered to cook and tend store at nominal wages.
The "nominal wages" item secured her the position and the cooking made her firm in it. Within a week, William's digestion was better than he could ever remember since boyhood; he had gained seven pounds in weight and business was growing beautifully—all on account of the capable Fredericka.
At the end of the week, William and Fredericka had a business talk. Fredericka didn't want anincrease in wages. She didn't want any wages at all. It was partnership or nothing. William ate one meal cooked by himself and then surrendered. Within a few weeks they were married. Mrs. Mandelbaum forever afterward was the head of the house of Mandelbaum.
Among her customers Mrs. Mandelbaum noticed an occasional one who would hurry in and get what he could on a miscellany of watches and small pieces of jewelry. These hasty, furtive young men and boys took what they could get and showed little disposition to haggle. Also, they never returned to redeem their pledges.
Mrs. Mandelbaum's Special Devices for Dealing with Thieves, and the Secret Trap-Door Escape
Mrs. Mandelbaum's Special Devices for Dealing with Thieves, and the Secret Trap-Door Escape.
If ever anybody lived in the proverbial "glass house," surely it was "Mother" Mandelbaum—and she knew it. Her establishment was ostensibly a general store and a pawnbroker's office, which she maintained in the front room (B), but Mrs. Mandelbaum also dealt in stolen goods of all kinds and planned robberies with thieves, and often sheltered, protected, and hid thieves in times of trouble."Mother" Mandelbaum was never seen in the front room (B), where a clerk was always kept on guard. She kept out of reach behind the window with the steel grating (A). Her false chimney and secret dumb-waiter arrangement was at the point (C). In the room (D) "Mother" Mandelbaum kept two or three employees busy removing stolen jewels from their settings and engraving designs to cover up and hide monograms and identification marks on watches, jewelry, and silverware.In the room (E) were kept bulky articles and stolen goods, such as fur coats, etc. Here, too, the price tags, factory numbers and other marks were always removed from stolen furs, laces and silks. The room (F) contained beds where thieves were lodged when occasion demanded. The room (H) was a store room, where crates and cases of stolen goods were packed up for shipment to her customers. At the end of the passageway leading to the room (H) was a secret trap door (G). In case of a raid by the police, and if her front and back doors were guarded by detectives, she could use the trap door (G) to let thieves escape down through a hole in the basement wall, which led up into the house next door, which "Mother" Mandelbaum also owned under another name.
If ever anybody lived in the proverbial "glass house," surely it was "Mother" Mandelbaum—and she knew it. Her establishment was ostensibly a general store and a pawnbroker's office, which she maintained in the front room (B), but Mrs. Mandelbaum also dealt in stolen goods of all kinds and planned robberies with thieves, and often sheltered, protected, and hid thieves in times of trouble.
"Mother" Mandelbaum was never seen in the front room (B), where a clerk was always kept on guard. She kept out of reach behind the window with the steel grating (A). Her false chimney and secret dumb-waiter arrangement was at the point (C). In the room (D) "Mother" Mandelbaum kept two or three employees busy removing stolen jewels from their settings and engraving designs to cover up and hide monograms and identification marks on watches, jewelry, and silverware.
In the room (E) were kept bulky articles and stolen goods, such as fur coats, etc. Here, too, the price tags, factory numbers and other marks were always removed from stolen furs, laces and silks. The room (F) contained beds where thieves were lodged when occasion demanded. The room (H) was a store room, where crates and cases of stolen goods were packed up for shipment to her customers. At the end of the passageway leading to the room (H) was a secret trap door (G). In case of a raid by the police, and if her front and back doors were guarded by detectives, she could use the trap door (G) to let thieves escape down through a hole in the basement wall, which led up into the house next door, which "Mother" Mandelbaum also owned under another name.
The new head of the house encouraged these customers, who were, of course, pickpockets. At first, through ignorance, and later, as a matter of policy, Mrs. Mandelbaum was more liberal in her terms than was customary. Some pawn-brokers would not accept anything from a pickpocket if they knew it. The others took advantage of the pickpocket's peril of the law to drive the hardest possible terms.
It was not long before Mandelbaum's had the lion's share of the pickpocket business. One who disposes of stolen goods is known as a "fence," and Mrs. Mandelbaum soon became one of the most important "fences" for pickpockets in the city.
As the pawn shop grew more and more notorious, the weight of the police grew heavier and heavier on the proprietress. She dealt less liberally with pickpockets than before. She squeezed them to thelast notch, but they still remained her customers for she was no harder than the other fences.
In order to meet the ever increasing blackmail of the police, Mrs. Mandelbaum found it necessary to steadily enlarge her business. Carefully she developed a system for scattering her stock so that her New York headquarters never contained a very large stock of stolen goods. She kept men busy melting down gold and silver and disguising jewelry and others ferreting out supposedly honest merchants who were willing to buy her wares and ask no questions.
It must always be borne in mind in these articles that crime cannot be carried on by individuals. It requires an elaborate permanent organization. While the individual operators, from pickpockets to bank burglars, come and go, working from coast to coast, they must be affiliated with some permanent substantial person who is in touch with the police. Such a permanent head was "Mother" Mandelbaum.
The field of usefulness to thieves of the big "fences" like "Mother" Mandelbaum and Grady are infinite. Suppose you are a burglar and last night's labors resulted mostly in jewelry and silverware, you would have neither the time nor the plant to melt down the silver and disguise or unset the stones. "Mother" Mandelbaum would attend to all that for you on about a 75 per cent. commission.
This wonderful woman kept certain persons busy on salary melting down silver. Others workedsteadily altering, unsetting, and otherwise disguising jewelry.
What would you do with a stolen watch which bore, deeply engraved on the back, the name and address of its rightful owner? You might melt down the case and get a little something for the works, but "Mother" would do better. She would turn it over to one of her engravers who would rapidly and not inartistically engrave a little scene or decoration on the watch case, completely masking the name and address.
A stolen automobile is the worst kind of a "white elephant" on your hands unless you know where to take it. Every city has its plants where a stolen car is quickly made over, usually into a taxicab, and so well disguised that its former owner may pay for a ride in it without suspicion.
The force of artisans and mechanics employed on the fruits of burglaries and pocket picking is several thousand in a city the size of New York or Chicago.
All burglars and thieves are busy with their own enterprises, and have no time to look after all these matters. Somebody there must be who will organize these first aids to the captured criminals—the "squarers of squealers," the lawyers, the men to provide bail, etc. Such a one was "Mother" Mandelbaum.
Hacks, taxicabs, express wagons, and even moving vans must be readily available. Peddlers are extremely useful. They prowl about wherever theyplease and act as advance men for the burglars. Keeping peddlers and tramps off your premises is one of the best forms of burglar insurance.
The army of enemies of society must have its general, and I believe that probably the greatest of them all was "Mother" Mandelbaum.
Of all the stolen things brought into her shop, Mrs. Mandelbaum preferred diamonds. She rapidly became an expert on stones and they presented few difficulties.
A stone once outside its setting usually bears no "earmarks" by which it can be identified. Nothing is so easily hidden nor so imperishable as a diamond, and, as everyone knows, they have an unfailing market. She exhorted her pickpocket customers to specialize on stickpins, and doubtless they did their best to please her.
While pickpockets are "pickers," they cannot always be choosers, and the percentage of diamonds remained disappointingly low. This interest in diamonds brought the "fence" to visit Tiffany's several times. She stole nothing, in fact, I am sure "Mother" never stole anything in her life. But it cost her nothing to examine and admire the beautiful stones, and during one of her visits she was struck with an ingenious idea which marked the second step in her career. She planned a robbery.
In the rear of the Mandelbaum store aconsultation was held between the proprietress, a confidence man known as "Swell" Robinson, and a shoplifter, just arrived from Chicago, by the name of Mary Wallenstein.
Robinson, as his name would indicate, was a man of good clothes and presence. He walked into Tiffany's, went to the diamond counter, and spent a long time examining the big stones. After about twenty minutes of questioning he was unable to make up his mind and decided to think the matter over and return later.
One of the stones valued at about $8,000 was missing, and the clerk very apologetically asked Robinson to wait a moment while he searched for it. A dozen employees hunted and counted the stones while Robinson grew more and more indignant at the evident suspicion that he had taken the stone.
At last things came to a head and Robinson was led to a room and searched.
Nothing was found and the store, knowing they had been somehow robbed, were compelled to let him go. The excitement had not quieted down when Mary appeared.
She went to the same counter and stood exactly where Robinson had been. She examined one or two small diamonds and, like Robinson, she concluded to go home and think it over. There was no objection made, for there was nothing missing this time. An hour later she handed the $8,000 gem to "Mother" Mandelbaum.
The following morning the man who polished thecounters at Tiffany's found a piece of chewing gum wedged underneath the counter where nobody would see it. Inspection of the gum revealed the impression of the facets of a diamond of the general size of the missing stone. Then everyone understood. The man had placed the gum beneath the counter when he came in. At his first opportunity he stuck the diamond in it. The girl coming in later had only to feel along the counter and remove the gem to make the theft complete.
This first robbery planned by "Mother" Mandelbaum was so delightfully successful that the pickpocket industry seemed slow by comparison. The chewing gum trick could not be worked again, because the jewelers' association had notified all its members of the new scheme. It was a short step from jewel-stealing to sneak-thief operations in banks. Sneak thieves and confidence men began to frequent the back rooms of the Mandelbaum establishment. It became a clearing house for crimes of larceny—big and small.
Many able and successful burglars are unimaginative, and, left to their own devices, would never discover anything to rob. These earnest but unimaginative souls hung about the premises as if it were an employment agency waiting for the "boss" to find a job suited to their particular talents.
On the other hand, timid but shrewd and observant persons frequently saw chances to steal whichthey dared not undertake. Servants of wealthy New York families learned that "Mother" Mandelbaum paid well for tips and plans of houses.
Next came employees of wholesale and retail dry goods houses.
To handle bales of silk and woolen, furs, blankets, and other bulky but valuable merchandise presented new problems. To meet these Mrs. Mandelbaum moved her establishment to larger quarters. She retained the pawnbroking department, but added a miscellaneous store, in which she carried for sale most all the articles found in a country store.
She was now the mother of three children, two daughters and a son—Julius. One of the daughters married a Twelfth Ward Tammany politician. This political alliance was extremely valuable. It made the police more moderate in their extortion for immunity, and was the means of obtaining pardons, light sentences, and general miscarriage of justice on the part of judges.
I shall never forget the atmosphere of "Mother" Mandelbaum's place on the corner of Clinton and Rivington Streets. In the front was the general store, innocent enough in appearance; and, in fact, the goods were only part stolen, and these of such a character that they could not possibly be identified.
"Mother" Mandelbaum led a life which left her open to many dangers from many different directions. Every member of the underworld knew that stolen goods of great value were constantly cominginto her resort and from time to time schemes were devised to plunder the famous old "fence."
Mrs. Mandelbaum always sat inside of a window which was protected by strong steel slats. The door to the room was of heavy oak. It was impossible, thus protected, for anybody to make a sudden rush and catch "Mother" Mandelbaum off her guard.
But, realizing that thieves might at any moment raid her establishment and finally force their way into her den, she provided still another safeguard.
"Mother" Mandelbaum had a special chimney built in her den, where she kept a little wood fire burning during the winter and kept the fireplace filled with old trash during the hot season. This chimney was peculiarly constructed, and had a false back behind the fire, and in this cavity was hidden a little dumb-waiter. In front of the dumb-waiter was a false iron chimney back on a hinge that could be let down. She constructed a special brick wall so that it appeared to be the regular wall of the house.
In case of sudden emergency, "Mother" Mandelbaum could gather up any diamonds or stolen goods which might be incriminating, pull down the false chimney back, which fell down over the fire, stow away the telltale valuable in the hidden dumb-waiter, push the dumb-waiter up out of sight intothe chimney, and push back into place the false chimney back. This simple operation concluded, "Mother" Mandelbaum was then ready to face a search or a holdup.
If ever anybody lived in the proverbial "glass house," surely it was "Mother" Mandelbaum—and she knew it. Her establishment was ostensibly a general store and a pawnbroker's office, which she maintained in the front room, but Mrs. Mandelbaum also dealt in stolen goods of all kinds and planned robberies with thieves and often sheltered, protected, and hid thieves in times of trouble.
"Mother" Mandelbaum was never seen in the front room, where a clerk was always kept on guard. She kept out of reach in an inside room, behind the window with the steel grating. Her false chimney and secret dumb-waiter arrangement, as already explained, was in this room. In another room, "Mother" Mandelbaum kept two or three employees busy removing stolen jewels from their settings and engraving designs to cover up and hide monograms and identification marks on watches, jewelry, and silverware.
In an adjoining room were kept bulky articles and stolen goods, such as fur coats, etc. Here, too, the price tags, factory numbers, and other marks were always removed from stolen furs, laces, and silks. One of the back rooms contained beds where thieves were lodged when occasion demanded. Stillanother room was a store room where crates and cases of stolen goods were packed up for shipment to her customers. At the end of the passageway leading to one of the rooms was a secret trap door. In case of a raid by the police, and if her front and back doors were guarded by detectives, she could use the trap door to let thieves escape down through a hole in the basement wall which led up into the house next door, which "Mother" Mandelbaum also owned under another name.
Gradually "Mother" Mandelbaum's clientele of crooks increased in number and importance until she had only one real rival, John D. Grady, known as "Old Supers and Slangs."
Grady had a more distinguished body of bank burglars under his sway than had "Mother." Bank burglars are the aristocrats of the underworld, just as pickpockets are the lowest.
When the Manhattan Bank robbery was planned and executed, "Mother" Mandelbaum was much humiliated that she could not command the financing and planning of the splendid project. It was Grady's funds which financed the undertaking, and poor "Mother" lost her one pet and star, "Western George" Howard. Howard, in many ways, was the greatest of bank burglars, and he was rated by many as superior to Grady's Jimmy Hope. In another chapter I told you how "Western George" made the Manhattan Bank robbery possible and then was murdered.
After Grady's tragic death, "Mother"Mandelbaum was the undisputed financier, guide, counsellor, and friend of crime in New York.
For twenty-five years she lived on the proceeds of other people's crimes. During that time she made many millions. But these millions slipped away for the most part in bribing, fixing, and silencing people.
Still she was a very wealthy, fat, ugly old woman when the blow fell. Mary Holbrook, a shoplifter and old-time ally of Mrs. Mandelbaum, had a serious row with her. This row was the beginning of "Mother's" end.
Soon after Mary was arrested, and, of course, applied for help from the usual source. Not a cent would the old woman give her for bail, counsel fees, or even for special meals in the Tombs. Mary was desperate, and sent for the District Attorney. It just happened that District Attorney Olney was an honest man. He listened to Mary's tale about "Mother" Mandelbaum, and acted.
"Mother" Mandelbaum, her son Julius, and Herman Stoude, one of her employees, were arrested.
"Abe" Hummel did his best, but the indictment held, and there was a mass of evidence sure to swamp her at the trial. But "Mother" did not wait for the trial. She and the others "jumped" their bail and escaped to Canada.
Here she lived a few years a wretched and broken figure, yearning and working to get back to the haunts she loved. But neither her money nor her political friends were able to secure her immunity.Once she did sneak to New York for a few hours and escaped unnoticed. It was at the time of her daughter's funeral, which she watched from a distance, unable to attend publicly.
Though "Mother" Mandelbaum had money when she died, yet she was an exiled, broken-hearted old woman, whose money did her no good. Unusually talented woman that she was, it took most of her lifetime for her to learn the lesson that crime does not pay!
And now let us take a look at Grady, Mrs. Mandelbaum's great rival. Did this remarkable man find that crime paid in the long run?
John D. Grady, known to the police and the underworld as "Old Supers and Slangs," probably never handled as much money or had his finger in quite so many crimes as "Mother" Mandelbaum. His career, too, was somewhat shorter, but it made up for these defects in the unequaled daring and magnitude of his exploits.
"Mother" Mandelbaum "played safe." Not so John D. Grady. His was a desperate game, well played for splendid stakes, with risks few men would care to take, and with all the elements of romance and a tragic death to cap it.
Grady, like "Mother" Mandelbaum, was a "fence," but, while she dealt in everything, Grady specialized in diamonds. He had an office oppositethe Manhattan Bank, which bore the sign, "John D. Grady, Diamond Merchant." From the windows of this office, Grady, Jimmy Hope, and his gang gazed hungrily across at the bank and plotted its ruin. Up to the actual day of the robbery, Hope and Grady were in accord on all plans. Afterward the two leaders quarreled over the disposition of the bonds. Hope had his way and there is little doubt that had Grady taken charge of the two million dollars of securities he would have succeeded in selling them, whereas Hope failed.
While "Mother" Mandelbaum was building up her trade with pickpockets and shoplifters, Grady was carrying his business about in a satchel. No man ever took greater chances. At all hours of the night this short, stocky man went about the darkest and most dangerous parts of New York. In the little black satchel, as every criminal knew, was a fortune in diamonds.
When a thief had made a haul, Grady would meet him at any time or place he pleased and take the diamonds off his hands. Only once was he "sandbagged" and robbed of several thousand dollars worth of the stones. He took the misfortune in good part, said it was his own fault, and never took revenge on the men who robbed him.
While "Mother" Mandelbaum engineered house and dry goods store robberies, Grady set his mindand energies on the great banks. As bold as the Manhattan affair was his assault on a West Side bank. The vaults of this bank were surrounded by a three-foot wall of solid concrete.
Grady opened a first-class saloon next door, and as soon as he got his bearings installed a steam engine in the cellar. This engine was supposed to run the electric light dynamo and an air pump. In reality it was there to drill a hole into the bank next door.
Selecting a Saturday which happened to be a holiday, he commenced operations Friday night, and there was every prospect of being inside the vault long before Monday morning. But, unfortunately, a wide-awake policeman of inquiring mind heard the unfamiliar buzzing out in the street. He prowled around and finally discovered that something unusual was going on in the cellar under the saloon. No answer coming to his knocks, he burst in the door and descended to the cellar. The thieves ran out, but two were caught in the street. Though Grady financed and planned this scheme, he escaped untouched, for there was no evidence against him.
Criminals, successful and unsuccessful, rarely lack women to love them. Strangely enough, this grim, daring, successful general of crime was perpetually spurned and flouted by my sex. Finally there came to him like an angel from heaven a very beautiful, well-bred daughter of the rich. Of course, John fell in love with her—any man would have—and things looked favorable for him.
This woman was the young and almost penniless widow of a member of the "four hundred." She had involved herself in a financial situation from which there was no honest escape. Just as servants of the rich ran to "Mother" Mandelbaum with their secrets, so this woman went to Grady with her inside knowledge.
A sort of partnership sprang up between them which was profitable to both, but particularly to the woman, who used her sex unhesitatingly to get the better of her bargains with the cunning old master of the underworld. Grady's passion grew stronger and stronger, and the young widow, who really despised him, found it harder and harder to keep him at a distance.
Finally things came to a head. Grady knew that the secret of the Manhattan Bank was soon to come out and that his position in New York would be no longer safe. He was ready to flee, but his passion for the woman had become so completely his master that he would not move without her. It was a peculiar duel of wits that followed. The woman was financially dependent on Grady and dared not hide from him nor pretend that she did not return his passion.
The night came when she must either elope with him or lose his aid. The thought of either was unbearable, yet she met him in his empty house at midnight prepared. She knew that Grady would have his entire fortune with him in the form of the diamonds and her plan was nothing less than tomurder him and take his jewels. She had brought a little vial of poison with her and held it in trembling fingers within her muff. She knew Grady had a bottle of yellow wine, and she knew it would not be hard to have him drink a toast to their elopement.
Grady produced the bottle but also only one dirty tumbler. They were both to drink from that, it seemed. The woman, at her wits' ends, glanced about the room and spied a battered tin cup.
"There," she cried, pointing, "the very thing."
While Grady went to get it she emptied the vial into the dirty glass. Grady soon poured a quantity of the yellow wine on top of it, and then filled the cup. But to her horror, he handed her the glass and took the cup.
"No, no, John," she gasped, "you take the glass. I'll drink from the cup."
"Why," asked Grady, his eyes aflame with sudden suspicion, "what's the matter?"
"Oh, only that I left a kiss for you on the glass," she faltered.
Grady took the glass and slowly, very slowly, he raised it toward his lips, all the while gazing unwinkingly at the woman. Just at his lips the glass stopped and the woman could not avoid a shudder, she covered her eyes and Grady, used to readingpeople's minds, read hers. He let the glass fall and shouted:
"So, it's murder you want—well, murder it shall be, but I'll do the murdering."
She saw death in his eyes as he seized her arm but before death he would first have his way with her. She screamed and, pulling with the strength of despair, twisted the arm out of Grady's grasp, leaving half her sleeve in his hand.
Still, there could surely be no hope for her, and yet at that very instant when he poised himself to plunge after her again, his eyes turned glassy; paralysis seized him, and he sank slowly into his chair while the fainting woman tottered out of the door.
The next day, it so happened, Shevelin, the watchman, confessed to his connection with the Manhattan Bank robbery. The police were just taking up the trail that led to Grady's connection with the affair when the news came to headquarters that Grady was dead.
He was found with the sleeve of a woman's dress grasped convulsively in his hand. On the table were a bottle of wine and a cup. A broken glass and spilled wine on the floor showed traces of poison.
An autopsy performed on Grady's body showed no sign of poison. His death had been caused by apoplexy. The woman who meant to kill him bypoison had actually done so by means of the furious emotions she had aroused. She could have taken the diamonds had she only dared to wait.
Thus died Grady, still free from the law, and with his great fortune in diamonds in his pocket. Yet he died in an agony of furious disappointment as miserably as it is the lot of man to die. For him, as for "Mother" Mandelbaum, it was destined that the lesson should be finally but tragically impressed—that crime does not pay!
As a general thing the receiver of stolen goods is the greediest, tightest-fisted individual who ever squeezed a dollar. The bargains he drives are so one-sided that unless the thief is unusually shrewd he will find his profits dwindling to almost nothing by the time he has disposed of his plunder. The margin between what the thief gets for his stealings and the price they finally bring is enormous, and even with only a few thieves working regularly for him the "fence" finds it easy to get rich in a very short time.
The greed of the "fences" is one important reason why many criminals find it difficult to reform. The more thieves a "fence" has working for him the greater his profits, and naturally the longer they remain in the business the more valuable they are. When a thief reforms, the "fence" is put to the trouble and expense of training a new man—and there is always the danger that the new member of the staff will prove less capable or industrious than the one whose place he takes.
The "fence," therefore, tries to make crime so attractive or so necessary to the clever thief that he will continue stealing until death or arrest overtakes him. He keeps close watch for signs of a desire to reform, and does all he can to discourage it.
The "fence" studies the special weaknesses of his thieves and understands just how to play on them to his advantage. If a thief suggests "turning over a new leaf," the "fence" pays him more liberally for his next lot of goods, or loans him money to satisfy his craving for liquor, drugs, fine clothes, or whatever may be his failing.
This last is a favorite method of getting a thief into a "fence's" power. The "fence" advances money freely, with the "always-glad-to-help-an-old-friend" spirit. But he keeps careful count of every dollar loaned, and when the inevitable day of reckoning comes the debt is usually so large that the thief can never hope to pay it except by crime.
After living an honest life for fifteen years, Mark Shinburn might never have turned burglar again had he not fallen into the hands of one of these avaricious receivers of stolen goods.
Shinburn—as I will tell you in a later chapter—had accumulated from his early robberies a million dollars. With this fortune he went to Belgium, bought an estate and the title of count, and settleddown to the life of a prosperous country gentleman.
But the evil fortune which seems to follow every thief never forsook Shinburn. His mania for gambling and an unlucky series of speculations in the stock market at last left him penniless.
In the hope of restoring his fallen fortunes, Shinburn went to London. There he met an old acquaintance of his—a wealthy receiver of stolen goods. This wily trickster, eager to get Shinburn, the greatest of burglars, to stealing for him again, received him with open arms.
"Glad to accommodate you, Mark," said the "fence" when a loan was suggested. "Your word is good for whatever you need—and pay it back whenever you are able."
The money Shinburn received in this way went where much of his original fortune had gone—at Monte Carlo. He returned to the London "fence" for another loan, and another—and all were willingly granted. But when he sought money the fourth time he found the "fence's" attitude strangely changed.
"Really," said the "fence," "I don't see how I can let you have any more money. It seems peculiar that you should be in such straitened circumstances. In the old days you used to have all the money you needed—why don't you use your wits and get some now?"
After touching Shinburn's pride in this crafty way, the "fence" casually mentioned an excellent opportunity which had come to his ears for robbing a bank in Belgium. It was, he said, a rather delicate undertaking, but there was a great deal of money involved—and Shinburn was the one man in the world who could carry it through.
Shinburn's shame at being obliged to borrow money made him an easy victim of the "fence's" wiles. He went to Belgium, was caught in the act of entering the bank, and was sent to prison for a long term. As soon as he was released the London "fence" began pressing him for money, and Shinburn became a confirmed criminal again, primarily to pay this debt.
And this same "fence," Einstein by name, paid the penalty of his wretched practices with a bullet in his brain, which was sent there by a desperate burglar who had tried vainly to reform but was held in criminal bondage by Einstein.
The promoter of crime is not always a receiver of stolen goods. Sometimes he is himself a thief, who has mastered some branch of the business so thoroughly that he is able to sit back and let others do the active work.
Such a man was "Dutch Dan" Watson, who was long considered one of the most expert makers of duplicate keys in America. His specialty was entering buildings and taking wax impressions of the keys, which he often found hanging up in surprisingly convenient places.
From these impressions Watson, in his own workshop, would make the duplicate keys and file them away for future use. To each key he would attach a tag bearing the address of the building and a little diagram showing the exact location of the door which the key unlocked.
"Dutch Dan's" active part in the proposed crime ended as soon as the keys were made. Then, from the wide circle of criminals that he knew, he would select a number of expert burglars and hand them a set of the keys and diagrams, showing just how the robbery was to be carried out.
If the burglars were successful they turned over to "Dutch Dan" 20 per cent. of the proceeds. This mode of operation proved very profitable for Watson, and I remember that he often had as many as eight different parties of burglars working for him at one time.
And Watson, like Einstein, was sent to his grave by a fellow criminal, who had been discarded from his gang and killed him in revenge.
Will any reader who has reviewed with me the lives of the famous criminals recounted above dispute my assertion that, truly,CRIME DOES NOT PAY?
SURPRISING METHODS OF THE THIEVES WHO WORK ONLY DURING BUSINESS HOURS AND WALK AWAY WITH THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS UNDER THE VERY EYES OF THE BANK OFFICIALS
One day before I was as well known to the police as I later became I was walking down Broadway in New York when I met a prominent citizen of the underworld with whom I had been associated in numerous burglaries. So far as I knew at that time he was still a burglar. After we had stood chatting for several minutes I was surprised to have him press a hundred-dollar bill into my hand and say:
"Just as the clocks strike noon to-day I want you to go into the Manhattan Bank and have this bill changed. Walk right up to the paying teller's window and ask for some silver and small bills. When he hands you the money take your time about counting it, and keep his attention engaged just as long as you can."
"But what do I get for running errands for you?" I jokingly inquired.
He refused to explain any further, and, as I was just dying with curiosity to find out what sort of game he was up to, I agreed to do as I was told. Of course, I knew it was some crime he wasinveigling me into, but just what it was, or what part I was playing in it, I had no more idea than a babe unborn when I strolled into the bank promptly on the stroke of twelve.
The paying teller proved to be a very susceptible man, and I found no difficulty in getting him into conversation. As there were few people in the bank at that hour, he was glad enough to relieve the monotony of his day's work by a little chat with a pretty young woman.
Well, to make a long story short, we talked busily for fully fifteen minutes, and during all that time I succeeded in keeping his eyes riveted on me. When, at last, a man approached the window to transact some business I put my money away in my satchel, gave the courteous teller a parting smile, and strolled leisurely out of the bank. While I was in the bank I had seen nothing of the man who had sent me on this mysterious errand, and I did not see him until I called at his hotel that evening.
"We've done a good day's work, Sophie, and here is your share of the profits," he said, handing me a fatter roll of crisp bank notes than I had laid my hands on for several weeks. As I hurriedly counted the bills over I was amazed to find that the roll contained $2,000.
"While you were flirting so deliciously with the paying teller," my friend explained, "I slipped into the bank by a side entrance, reached my hand through a gate in the wire cage and grabbed a bundle of bills, which I later found to contain $4,000."
That was my introduction to the work of the "bank sneak"—a thief whose methods were then in their infancy, but who developed ingenuity and boldness so rapidly that he soon became the terror of the banks and every business man who ever has to handle large sums of money or securities.
What I have to tell you to-day about "bank sneaks" and their methods will furnish as good an example as anything I know of the fact that CRIME DOES NOT PAY.
The stealings of a clever "sneak" often run as high as $100,000 in a single year. But what benefit does he get out of this easily acquired wealth? It invariably goes as easily as it comes, and, after a few months, he is as badly in need of money as he was before. I can count on the fingers of one hand the "sneaks" who are getting any real happiness out of life—and they are all men and women who, like myself, have seen the error of their ways and reformed.
If crime could ever prove profitable to any man, it would have proved so to Walter Sheridan, long the foremost "bank sneak" in America. So varied and far reaching were his adroit schemes that within twenty years the gangs which he organized and led stole more than a million dollars. He was a past master in the art of escaping punishment for his crimes, and he was also a shrewd, close-fisted financier, who claimed the lion's share of all the booty and carefully hoarded his savings.
Yet what did all his cleverness avail this princeof "sneaks"? His fortune was swept away, and he finally died a pauper in the prison cell to which he was sent when he was picked up starving in the streets of Montreal.
Sheridan introduced many ingenious new methods in "bank sneaking," just as Mark Shinburn did in burglary. He was the first to conceal a pair of tweezers in the end of his cane and use them to pick up bundles of money which were beyond the reach of his arms.
This cane was a really wonderful device. To all appearances it was only a fine, straight piece of bamboo, nicely polished and fitted with an ivory handle—the sort of walking stick any prosperous man might carry.
Only when you unscrewed its heavy brass ferrule was the dishonest purpose for which it was intended revealed. The bamboo stick was hollow, and in it were two narrow strips of steel which dropped down below the end of the cane and could be operated like tweezers when you released the spring, which was concealed under a heavy band of solid silver just below the handle.
When Sheridan was his natural self he was a stout, good looking man of dignified presence and refined manners who would readily pass for a well-to-do merchant or manufacturer. But when occasion required he could change his appearance so that even his closest friends wouldn't recognize him.
Once when he was arrested in New York heeffected in his cell in the Tombs a transformation which mystified the authorities and nearly resulted in his release on the ground of mistaken identity.
He exchanged his expensively tailored suit and fine linen for the dirty rags of a tramp who was locked up in the adjoining cell. With a broken knife blade he hacked off every bit of his long flowing beard. He dyed his reddish brown hair with coffee grounds and clipped and twisted it to make it look a life-long stranger to comb and brush. By eating soap he managed to reduce his portly figure to a thin, sickly shadow of skin and bones.
When the prison keepers came to take him into court for trial they were amazed to find in place of the well-dressed, well-fed broker they had locked up a few days before a repulsively dirty, ragged, emaciated tramp, whose actions indicated that he was not more than half witted.
This ruse of Sheridan's failed, however, through the persistence of William A. Pinkerton, head of the Pinkerton Detective Agency. Mr. Pinkerton, who had been on Sheridan's trail for years, identified him positively in spite of his changed appearance, and succeeded in having him convicted and sentenced to five years in Sing Sing prison.
It was from this wizard of crime, Walter Sheridan, that I learned the value of the clever disguises which so often stood me in good stead and which enabled my comrades and me to get our hands on hundreds of thousands of dollars that didn't belong to us.
Early in my career I conceived the idea of furthering my dishonest plans by posing as a wealthy old widow, so crippled that she had to transact whatever business she had with the bank from her seat in her carriage. This plan succeeded beyond my fondest expectations, and I am ashamed to think how many thousands of dollars I stole through this simple but extremely effective little expedient.
This ruse proved its merits the first time we tried it—in the daylight robbery of a Brooklyn, New York, bank, where one of my two companions walked away with $40,000 while I sat outside in my carriage listening to the old cashier's advice about investing the money my lamented husband had left me.
But let me go back to the very beginning and show you just how this bold robbery was planned and carried out.
We had had our eyes on this bank for a week—Johnny Meaney, Tom Bigelow, and I. Between the hours of 12 and 1 each day we found there were few customers in the bank and the institution was left in charge of the old cashier and a young bookkeeper.
But the cashier, although over sixty years old, was a keen-eyed, nervous man, whose suspicions were apt to be easily aroused. And, besides, the window in the wire cage where he did business with the bank's customers was so situated that he could always see out of the corner of his eye the vault and the long counter where the money was piled.
We all agreed that it was not safe to attempt the robbery while the cashier was in his usual place.If I could only devise some way of getting him outside the bank for a few minutes it would be easy for one of the men to hold the young bookkeeper in conversation at the paying teller's window, which was so placed that while he stood there his back was toward the vault. That would give just the opportunity we needed for the third member of the party to step unnoticed through a convenient side door and get the plunder.
But how to lure the cashier out of the bank? That was the question, and it was while I was racking my brains for some solution of the difficulty that I blundered upon the idea of posing as awealthy widow who was too lame to leave her carriage when she called at the bank.
During my stay in this city I had heard of the death in Europe of a rich and prominent Brooklyn man. He had been living abroad for the last ten years and had married there an English woman who had never visited Brooklyn and was entirely unknown there except by name.
Nothing could have suited my purpose better. I would pose as this wealthy Brooklyn man's widow, and in this guise would induce the bank cashier to come out to my carriage and talk with me.
You may be sure that I laid my plans with the greatest care, for I knew what a bold undertaking this was and that the least oversight on my part would spoil everything.
First I bought a silver gray wig to cover my chestnut hair. It was a beautiful specimen of the wig-maker's art and cost me sixty-five dollars.
Then I made up my plump, rosy cheeks to look as pale and wrinkled as an invalid woman's should at the age of seventy and dressed myself in the gloomiest, most expensive widow's weeds I could find.