CHAPTER VIII

SHERIFF SMITH’S BRIBE--THE LITTLE JOKER

Mark Shinburn, under remarkable circumstances, escaped from Concord prison, after his sudden leave-taking of the jail at Keene the day he was convicted, and his recapture and final incarceration. The prison bars at Concord held him only a few months, when his old partner in crime, John Ryan of Buffalo, and Laurie Palmer, another crook, began work on a plan to break him out of durance vile.

The manner of Shinburn’s escape is soon told. He was a man who did not make many friends, but those that he had were friends indeed. One of these was Matthews. Billy used to give his mother all his winnings from the gambling house, so, eventually, he had quite a tidy sum.

One day in November, 1866, he took five thousand dollars of this sum and started for New Hampshire. There he met one of the high officials of Concord prison, and had a long talk with him. Some days later, as Shinburn’s company was marching past the gate which gave ingress and egress for teams to and from the prison yard, Shinburn dropped from the line, pulled off a part of the gate that had previously been sawed nearly in two, and jumped into a rig that was standing conveniently outside of the gate.

The driver of the rig whipped up his team and was away at a fast gait before the prison officials realized what had happened. When soon the guards discovered what was occurring, they fired several shots, but the team kept right on moving and was soon out of sight in the gathering gloom. The drive was continued, with various stops for refreshments and sleep, to Providence, Rhode Island, where Shinburn took a train and landed safely in New York.

Matthews also returned to Gotham, but had five thousand dollars less than when he went away.

Once in New York, Shinburn, being under the protecting wing of my ring of police officials, and given money by me, was safe from capture. Pursuit of offenders and escaped prisoners was not so persistent or so well conducted in those days as it is now, when the telegraph, the telephone, the camera, and the Bertillon system of measurements make it all but impossible for one to avoid detection and capture.

If I were warden of a prison now, and an inmate thereof escaped, I should not give myself the least worriment. I would know that, if he again resorted to crime, I would be as sure to get him as the night is to follow the day. If he lived an honest life after his escape, he might avoid capture; and it would be far better for society that he should. An honest man does not belong in prison, no matter what may have been his past life.

At the time of Shinburn’s escape, the only means for recapture were a search of the surrounding country and the sending of a description of the escaped man to the police of various cities--a description that would fit many people and often did not at all fit the one for whom it was intended. Instead of a Bertillon system of measurements, by which it is practically impossible to be mistaken, there was then only the old plan of visual identification. This always gave a fine opportunity for the Great Identifier, who constantly looked for a chance to get in his deadly work.

“I’m scheming to make a strike through Western New York and Ontario, Canada,” Shinburn said to me a few weeks later, “but I’m short of the ‘ready’ just now, having been in retirement for some time, as you know; so, if you’ll back the game, I can’t see how we can lose.”

“I’m with you, Mark, provided there is a chance of making good. You’ve been in the business long enough to know best what to do, so here’s along with you.”

John Ryan and Laurie Palmer were counted in the venture, and the prospect of a rich haul seemed exceedingly bright. The banks that were secured entirely by key locks Shinburn was to tackle, and those being guarded in part, or wholly, by combination locks were to be attacked by Ryan, who had a fine kit of tools for that sort of work. We went to Buffalo, where Shinburn and Palmer called on a gambler friend. Ryan put up with a man acquaintance, while I went to a hotel. Making the Bison City our headquarters, we struck out in different directions in search of “lootable” banks, our main object being to find those using key locks. It was like convicting an egotist of his own conceit to find this class of bank, so we gave it up. About this time a friend of Shinburn’s, whom he introduced as Mr. Ellis, a counterfeiter, suggested that a bank at Brockport, seventeen miles west of Rochester, would be a comparatively easy piece of loot, owing to the habits of the police guard of the village, which consisted of a lone night watchman. Ellis said this watchman invariably went off duty at eleven o’clock at night. As to the vault of the bank, he declared it could be robbed, despite the combination lock used on it and its heavy steel work in general, by tunnelling from the top. Shinburn and Ryan decided to attempt the job, agreeing to pay Ellis ten per cent of the treasure obtained.

A postponement was necessary the first night we went at the job, because there happened to be a dance in the village, which in some manner or other induced the night watchman to remain on duty longer,--in fact, until three o’clock in the morning. Several evenings later we journeyed there again, and it was a night to be remembered, because of the great snow-storm and high winds that came with it. It was a hummer--of the blizzard class. In many respects, though, it was just our sort of weather, the kind that keeps people indoors. Scarcely a dog was in the streets after eleven o’clock.

A few minutes after midnight, leaving Palmer on the outside as a guard, Shinburn, Ryan, and I broke in the bank through the front door and were soon examining the vault. We had decided to try wedges on the vault door, so Ryan went to work. He had finely drawn untempered steel ones, which were driven in the seam between the front edge of the door and the jamb. For two hours we labored with these wedges, but the best we could possibly do was to force an opening about half an inch wide, which was insufficient to admit of throwing back the lock bolt. When a space wide enough to do this was about made, the wedges would rebound. Unable to release the bolt, we abandoned the job, being hopeless of accomplishing it in that manner, and leaving behind us plenty of evidence of our failure. The vault front was sadly defaced, but defiantly impregnable, so far as we were concerned that night, with the means at hand.

We went out in the storm, very much disappointed. Locating a hand-car, we started by rail for Rochester, but the snow being too heavy on the track, we ditched the car, and walking to the first village, hired a team and drove there. The remainder of the journey to Buffalo was accomplished by train.

My experience at Brockport and similar knowledge I had previously obtained through the work of a Jack Hartley and his mob of would-be safe-breakers at Carbondale, Pennsylvania, convinced me that success in our line could only be attained by forcing open vaults by means vastly different than any of those employed by either Ryan or Hartley or burglars of their class.

“Putting up cash to break banks with tools Ryan has,” I said to Shinburn, “is simply dumping it in the sea. As for me, I’m out of it.”

This broke the combination, so far as Ryan and Palmer were concerned, the former remaining in Buffalo and the latter returning to New York.

Shinburn and I determined to make for the metropolis also, but he recalled a tip from a friend at home, that there was a bank at Corning, New York, which might be relieved of its cash. Shinburn’s friend was of the opinion that the vault was secured by a key lock. So we concluded to stop off there and investigate, but, doing so, Mark discovered that the work entailed was not worth the risk. At two o’clock in the morning we were in the Erie Railroad depot waiting for a New York train, when a most unexpected thing happened. A mob of men and boys, led by a pair of constables, ran in the depot, one of them a big-looking fellow, yelling at the top of his voice, “Here they are!” The other constable rushed at Shinburn, crying, “We want you men; surrender!”

The big lout who made the first outcry sprang at me, but slunk back in a corner when I covered him with my pistol. Taking advantage of his cowardice, I ran for the door, and had nearly succeeded in getting out, when Shinburn, his pistol failing to work, was overcome. The mob, turning their attention to me, were just in time to block my way, and instantly I was mixed in with them. The cowardly wretch who had slunk back when I was unhampered, now took advantage of my predicament, and jumping on me, began pounding my face as though it were an anvil and his fists were sledges. I did the best I could against so many, but fell back, and as I did so the brute tried to bite my nose. Throwing my head away from him, his teeth met on my lower lip. I made a cry of surrender, but, despite this, he continued to bite at me like a cur, until I was so wounded that I would carry a scar to the grave. I presume I would have been mangled more had not the others dragged him from me. In the midst of a howling mob, we were haled to a lockup and thrown behind bars. Of course we believed we’d been discovered as the Brockport attempted looters and were in for it from that source. We were considerably relieved, for a short time, upon learning the true cause of our arrest. It appeared that a produce merchant in Addison, an adjoining town, had been robbed the preceding night of twenty-eight hundred dollars. Two men had entered his store about nine o’clock, and, felling him unconscious on the floor, appropriated the cash and some valuable papers. Incidentally the burglars carried away a railroad ticket good on some Western road. Of course we knew we weren’t guilty of the job and felt easy on that score. What did trouble us was the possibility that we might be recognized as fugitives from New Hampshire. The Corning authorities notified the Addison constable of our detention and asked that the merchant be brought over to identify us as the burglars who assaulted him. He was too ill, was the word that came back, and in consequence of it we were taken to him.

We cut desperate figures in the eyes of the countrymen as we, loaded down with irons, were carted through the farming districts. The merchant, upon looking at us through bandages which about covered all but his eyes, said Shinburn didn’t look like either of the men who attacked him, but I greatly resembled one of them. As I looked at the man I wondered that he didn’t say I looked like both of them. This identification played the mischief, however, for we were held for the grand jury and transferred to the county jail at Bath in the charge of Sheriff Smith.

The small affair we had had in the depot at Corning with the constables was so magnified in the county papers that it soon became talked of as a shooting affray that would rival a Texan bandit fight. It was the sort of a sensation we feared would bring trouble down on us, and it did; for a day or two after our arrest Detective Bob Watts of Buffalo appeared in Bath and told Sheriff Smith he wanted to look us over. He recognized Shinburn, having seen him a few years prior in Buffalo, but didn’t mention the fact nor intimate that he had an eye on the reward for his capture. Hurrying to Buffalo, he swore out a fake warrant for burglary, and, rushing back to Bath, flashed the document on the sheriff, claiming us as his prisoners, alleging also that his claim took precedence over the Addison affair. We knew too well what this meant for us, without being told,--that we were in for it unless we could outwit him. New Hampshire would be our next destination if Watts had his way. That it was getting to be mighty serious there was no doubt. It was in our minds to break out of jail, but there didn’t appear to be any one we could reach with the slightest inclination to take a bribe. Finally I resolved I would not be deprived of my liberty again on a charge of which I was not guilty. Once was enough! Having carefully gone over every detail of the situation, it seemed to me that I saw a glimmer of hope in the bogus warrant of Detective Watts. If he could get a fake warrant in Buffalo, why couldn’t I get one in New York? I determined to try, and acted with great promptness by sending a messenger to the big city for such a document and for the sinews of war. Getting the latter in a few days, I retained Lawyer Rumsey of Bath, who afterwards was elevated to the Supreme Court bench. I told him what I had done, and that he mustn’t hesitate at any expense in our defence; and incidentally I expressed myself forcibly to the effect that the Addison robbery ought to be thoroughly sifted; that from what I had been able to gather the merchant complainant owed about everybody in his town, and it occurred to me that he might have plotted to escape his creditors. Further, that he had received, just prior to the robbery, twenty-eight hundred dollars for produce which he had shipped away, and for which he hadn’t yet paid the shipping bills. I said it all looked exceedingly suspicious, and I urged Mr. Rumsey to investigate the case on this line vigorously. The grand jury had been sitting several days when the bit of pasteboard which the merchant described as a railroad ticket, and alleged to have been taken by the burglars, began to play a surprising part. My counsel had advised the railroad company to be on the lookout for it, as there was grave reason to doubt that a robbery had been committed. Presently there came gratifying results, but too late to help us.

In the meantime affairs had been looking bluer and bluer. At the rising of the jury our fate would be known. The last day of the sitting came, and with it came Frank Houghtaling, chief clerk of City Judge Russell of New York, with a warrant for our arrest charging about everything on the calendar but murder. He served the paper on Sheriff Smith, alleging that it must take precedence over the Addison robbery or any claim put in by Detective Watts of Buffalo.

“I’ll take the prisoners back with me or know the reason why,” he said to the sheriff. “We know these men, and they are as desperate a pair of rascals as ever belonged behind prison bars. New York wants them and must have them. We can put them away to a certainty, while you fellows may not have a case against them here or in Buffalo. If they go at large, why, the blame will be on your heads. So you see the strength of my claim.”

It was the duty of the sheriff to determine which warrant would take precedence. I was in doubt as to the outcome, but Mr. Rumsey said Sheriff Smith would, as a favor to him, recognize the New York warrant.

We were waiting for the grand jury, along about one o’clock, when the sheriff called me aside and said, “I have no further claim on you, but there are two warrants for you boys, one from Buffalo and the other from New York.”

I asked him which one he would recognize.

“As Detective Watts’s was first placed in my hands, I suppose I must give him the preference. He is in town now and has asked me to turn you fellers over to him so he can get away on this evening’s train.”

“Why this, sheriff?” I asked, trembling over the turn of affairs. “Lawyer Rumsey assured me you would, as a favor to him, give the New York warrant the preference.”

He put up a bluff at this and said, “Let me say that I’m running the sheriff’s office of this county, and not Lawyer Rumsey.”

It was perfectly plain to me that he was fishing for money and that Detective Watts had made some kind of a cash offer, otherwise he would not have intimated to me that he’d ignore Mr. Rumsey’s request; he would have stated straight from the shoulder what he would do. I realized that prompt action must be had, or in the last deal of the cards Shinburn and I would be swamped with trumps.

“Sheriff,” I said, taking the bull by the horns, “I want you to come to some agreement with us. To Mr. Rumsey you said you’d turn us over to the New York officer, who really has a right to us. We believe, too, that we can get justice in that quarter, while from Buffalo we’ll get none. You see we are innocent of the Addison affair; were arrested and thrown in your jail without good reason, and it’s up to you to help us out. I’ll make it an object to you, sheriff, to turn us over to the New York officer.”

I watched him for any indication of wounded dignity, but, on the contrary, I had my first impression confirmed. He would take money, I felt certain, if given enough. I drove the nail still farther home, and, as a clincher, produced a corpulent roll of greenbacks and fondled it. His greedy little eyes gazed on it as though they would pierce the very inside of the bills, to know how much I held.

“That’s the kind, sheriff,” I went on; “let’s get down to hard-pan. What’s the price? What’s it worth? Watts isn’t a flea-bite to me.”

The sheriff fidgeted about considerably, but soon, to my satisfaction, was putting up a strong argument as to what his services were worth. Indeed, he seemed to be as accomplished in this line as were some of my New York detective friends. Finally he flat-footedly came out and said he’d accept a thousand dollars. I sent for Lawyer Rumsey and told him of the deal. He called me apart and said I needn’t pay the money, for things would come out all right without it. In fact, he expressed the conviction that it would be a needless expenditure of money. So thought Shinburn. Whether or not they were correct I do not know, but I have always entertained a doubt of it. I wasn’t going to take the chance of making an enforced trip to New Hampshire. I declared I’d pay the bribe. It was to be given the sheriff when we were ready to start for the depot, and while Mr. Rumsey had gone to attend to the details of our release. I began to feel, as also did Shinburn, that it was looking very much like New York. About eight o’clock in the evening Sheriff Smith summoned us to his office, in charge of a turnkey. My lawyer was there, and from the atmosphere of the place I got the impression that something unusual, and perhaps not to our liking, was about to occur. I hoped that the sheriff hadn’t reconsidered the agreement, after a talk with Watts. My mind was soon settled as to what was in the air.

“Detective Watts is on a rampage,” began the sheriff, quietly, “and says he’s bound to get you fellers, if he has to use force. He evidently means what he says, for he’s got two more officers with him. By hook or crook, he swears that he’ll take you back to Buffalo with him to-night.”

“Well, sheriff,” I inquired nervously, not being able to draw anything satisfactory from his words or manner up to this point, “what else have you to say?” I verily believe he enjoyed the uncertainty I felt.

“If I turn you over to the New York officer here, Watts may attempt to take you away. At the depot he may put up the plea that his warrant antedates the one from New York.”

“Well, go on, sheriff,” I urged, getting more unnerved; “out with it--what will you do?”

“This,” he replied, closing his lips firmly. “I suggest that I heavily iron you men, hand and foot, and take you as far as Corning, where I’ll turn you over to your New York man, unless you think that it would be better for me to continue farther.”

I felt a thrill of relief flash through me. I had been completely mystified, and I guess Shinburn was in no different frame of mind. Seeing that we were not to be trumped out of sight in the last shuffle of the cards, I was in a joyous mood instantly.

“You couldn’t have thought of anything better, sheriff,” I grinned, not forgetting to pat him approvingly on the back. Then we got down to the business that was much more pleasing to him than voluble praise--the payment of the money we’d agreed upon. It was by far the strongest argument I could have put up to him. It was more potent than a plea for justice, and much more so than friendship, in obtaining our escape from the clutches of the Buffalo police.

I handed Lawyer Rumsey a well-swelled fee, and slyly put in the sheriff’s palm one thousand dollars in bills, which he crammed out of sight, and gave orders for our irons to be brought in and put on. For once we were glad to wear the things. In a few minutes, looking very much like a pair of Western bandits, we were marched through the village to the depot, followed by a crowd of curious men and boys. Sheriff Smith, so far as the outsiders were concerned, thought us to be about as desperate a couple as ever came under his control, for he had two stalwart deputies with him, both of whom clung to us like unpaid gas bills.

Detective Watts and his reënforcements and a big crowd were at the depot ahead of us. Watts was angry clear through; verily, he looked as if he would bite a tenpenny nail in pieces. Shinburn and I gave him a glad smile, which he repaid with an angry glare. We got aboard the train, the sheriff and one deputy at our heels. Watts and his men came in the same car, and we were soon at Corning, where we had to wait for a connecting train. In the meantime Sheriff Smith invited us to a substantial meal with plenty of wine. When the latter was served, Smith toasted us, remarking upon the pleasure it gave him to set before us a sample of good country wine.

Of course I said something pleasant to the cunning fellow, but I must confess that there came regretful meditation over the thousand I’d paid him, a part of which was being spent in the wine I was sampling. I consoled myself with the thought that liberty has its price, whether purchased on the battle-field or close by the prison bars.

While we were dining, a Buffalo train pulled in and out again, taking with it Bob Watts, the disconsolate one, and his followers. He realized at last that the game was played; that he’d held the right bower, forgetful of the fact that sometimes there is a joker in the pack. Our train came along presently, and Sheriff Smith handed Frank Houghtaling the New York warrant, and we were off. The handcuffs were on our wrists and the shackles on our ankles as we clanked along to seats selected for us by Houghtaling. Naturally we attracted much attention and comment and drew not a few questions from the passengers. An extremely inquisitive man wasn’t satisfied until he had asked Frank to tell him what crime was charged against us.

“A very serious offence,” solemnly proclaimed our captor. “Indeed, sir, they are accused of a very grave crime.”

“My sakes! What?” he questioned, in a voice that sounded hollow. “You don’t mean murder?”

Houghtaling nodded his head in the affirmative, and looked extremely wise.

While we, in a measure, enjoyed the situation, having the knowledge that we were out of a predicament which held great danger for us, still the irons were not to our liking, even under the conditions; so we asked Frank if it wasn’t about time to liberate us.

“Wait until we’ve passed the next station,” he advised.

Half an hour later the irons were removed and stowed away in Houghtaling’s satchel. The handcuffs he brought with him, but the shackles belonged to Sheriff Smith. We were to send them to him by express. A little later Shinburn and I were strolling about the car, and once we visited the smoker. Of course this brought a lot of questions from the passengers, the most curious ones wanting to know what it all meant. To see a pair of desperate murderers thus roaming at will, seemed, to a few timid ones, like flying in the face of Providence. At last Houghtaling set these meddlesome people at rest by saying: “I received a telegram at the last station, informing me that I’d arrested the wrong men, and that I must at once release them. While I believe them to be guilty, I must obey my superiors. However, I am going to keep an eye on them.”

We reached New York in fine spirits, and Houghtaling immediately arraigned us before Judge Russell in the latter’s private office. Peter Mitchell, subsequently a civil justice, represented us, and upon his statement to the judge that the warrant upon which we had been apprehended, though charging many grave offences, really had no basis for issue except that growing out of an ordinary family quarrel, we were released on a nominal bail. The worst that could befall us under this action was a civil trial. But we knew that the case was as good as ended.

Detective Bob Watts, with his fake warrant, had been defeated. He might now whistle for his reward from New Hampshire.

But our trip was not without its disappointment in another direction, for Shinburn and I had a disagreement. He still insisted that it was unnecessary to have paid Sheriff Smith the thousand-dollar bribe, averring, testily, that it was money thrown away, and exhibited a disinclination to shoulder his share of it. The end of it was a decision to part company. I believed then, and I do to this day, that we would have been turned over to Detective Watts had I trusted to Lawyer Rumsey. I feel morally certain, too, that he overestimated his power with the cunning sheriff.

In the meantime Mark and I made precious little money. I was convinced that the crude methods used by the burglar craft, to master bank vaults, were too antiquated to compete with the great improvement which had been made in the construction of vaults and combination locks. In my brief experience I had become thoroughly disgusted with the lack of success in robbing banks, for fully ninety-nine per cent of failures had been recorded in my mental bookkeeping. This I had good reason to know, for hadn’t I supplied much of the funds which were behind these ventures? I determined that no longer would I have anything to do with the sort of bank robbery that necessitated lugging about three hundred pounds of burglars’ tools. I believed there was some other and more effective method of getting at the millions in vaults whose locks must be mastered. No doubt, if the newspapers of that period had woven the romance about the burglar that we read of to-day when one of the profession exhibits exceptional genius, I would have been dubbed the “Ethical Burglar,” for I began a diligent, systematic study into the theoretical and practical aspects of the subject of bank looting. To do this, I purchased combination locks from all the leading manufacturers and plunged into the intricacies of their mechanism, and at the end of many months of almost constant investigation I felt satisfied that I had not thus applied myself in vain. I could pick every lock, work out every known train of numbers, and had mastered the finest system in the use of high explosives; and, what was of far greater importance than all, I had evolved a tiny instrument scarcely more formidable than a finely tempered piece of very small steel wire. But the possibilities of this invention were greater than I knew, for it worked wonders before the end of its usefulness came. It did away with cumbersome burglars’ tools and made the necessity for the use of explosives of rare occurrence. In fact, it made safe robbing an easier proposition than it ever had been and ever will be again.

When once an entrance to a banking office was obtained, I reduced the art of getting combination numbers to a matter of little concern, by the use of this precious device. All I had to do was to take off the dial knob of a lock, adjust the wire on the inside surface of the dial, and replace the knob; returning later to the bank. The lock in the meantime having been used by the bank people to open the vault or safe, I had only to remove the knob and examine the marks made by the wire, and I had the combination numbers. All that remained between me and the right combination was to figure out the order in which the numbers were used, and that was not difficult.

Another advantage that came to me through this schooling, was the rare accomplishment of being able to watch the unlocking of a vault door, though ten feet away from it, and, with scarcely a failure, obtain the combination numbers. Rarely, indeed, would I require more than one sitting. Thus I mastered the combination locks. Having this control over them, and with the use of the little steel wire, which I christened the “Little Joker,” I went into the safe-robbing business with unlimited energy. The result of my long toil and the expenditure of several hundreds of dollars, proved to be a veritable bonanza.

I was much amazed, when next I heard from Mark Shinburn, to learn that he had been as thoroughly disgusted as I with the old-fashioned mode of breaking bank vaults and had set about to devise better means. His efforts, like mine, had opened up greater opportunities. Presently I tapped on the rock as with a magic wand, and out came a golden stream.