CHAPTER X

I CORRUPT A BANK CLERK

“Who’s that pale-looking chap at the first table to the left?” asked Chelsea George, one of Jack Hartley’s coterie of misfit burglars. His remark was addressed to a faro dealer at his side.

“The feller that’s just cashin’ in his last case?” whispered the dealer.

“Yes--he’s got the look of a farmer not long used to city ways and clothes,” said Chelsea George.

“You’re half right, sir; he’s a bank clerk. He came from Montreal way not long ’go,” volunteered the faro dealer. “But he’s a good thing here, though he was a greeny for sure when he first come in. He’s buckin’ in the game fast, sir, these days. Got the gamblin’ fever very much alive in ’im.”

“Can’t have much cash if he’s only a bank clerk,” remarked Chelsea George with a sniff.

“Not much to back his game, but he’s a sticker for keeps.”

“Is it possible?” ejaculated Chelsea, as though surprised. “Tell us more about him.”

“Yes, do; he seems a queer chap, doncher know,” put in a companion of Chelsea. Up to this juncture he had been a quiet listener.

“I’m not sure but he might prove an interesting acquaintance,” said Chelsea George, turning to the speaker with a peculiar light in his eyes. The third of the group was English George, a pal of Chelsea and a crook of no higher class. They dressed loudly and posed as fast young gentlemen from Britain, with plenty of cash to spend. The faro dealer believed them to be of this class, though had he known them to be what they were, it would have made no difference to him. Occasionally they bucked the tiger.

It was in John Morrissey’s gilded gambling den in West Twenty-fourth Street, New York City, that the above conversation took place. Morrissey was at the zenith of his career, and, though a gambler, he was known to be a friend of the deserving poor. This is not said, however, with a view of putting my stamp of approval on gambling, for my advice to young men is to keep away from the Gilded Palace of the Green Cloth. My warning isn’t backed by personal experience, either. Of a truth I can say that I ever steered clear of the gaming-table.

It was late in the fall of 1867 that Morrissey’s place was first visited by the two Georges, who hung about the tables for the most part of the time in search of information which they could turn to an account in their profession. Not infrequently words were dropped by the wealthy habitués of the den that led to the robbery of a bank or other well-stocked safe.

John Taylor, the young bank clerk being discussed by the Englishmen and the faro dealer, was fast approaching the real danger point in his gambling experience. His fascination for the pool-room and race-track had opened a straight road to Morrissey’s, and at the moment of our introduction to him he had played in the last cent of his salary drawn from the Ocean National Bank that very day. His face was pale but for a patch of deep crimson in the centre of each cheek. He was about to move from the table when the faro dealer and the two Georges approached him.

“Hard luck, Mr. Taylor?” asked the dealer.

“The worst I could possibly have,” said the young man, gnawing at his feverish lips. A few words of the commonplace sort ensued, and then the dealer, having adroitly brought it about, introduced the Englishmen. Presently Taylor and the two Georges were alone at a table, drinking, the former not having the slightest knowledge that the motive for seeking the introduction was an ulterior one. As innocent was the faro dealer.

“We were watching your play,” explained Chelsea after a little, “and although we don’t know much about the game, we concluded that your system was a good one if pushed to the limit. It’s new, isn’t it, Mr. Taylor?”

As a matter of fact, Taylor had played no so-called system, and at the moment was thinking of nothing but that he had lost upon plunging his all. Until then he had been winning. Like thousands of other fools who gamble, he believed his luck had come to stay until he could regain all he’d lost in other days. He placed his pile of winnings and his week’s salary on one card. In an instant he saw it all vanish.

“I haven’t any system,” he answered Chelsea, nervously pulling at his slim black mustache, “but one thing I know well--I’m cleaned out!”

“Pardon me, old chap!” Chelsea George said, placing his hand on Taylor’s shoulder in an affectionate manner, “but I was once in a fix like yours, and not so long ago either. I wasn’t sorry when a friend like Mr. Wales here came along.”

English George smiled benignly at this, and Chelsea continued: “He loaned me a few hundred, and they came just in season. Now if I could be of any service to you, I’d consider it in the light of a favor to me.”

If Chelsea expected Taylor would resent the offer of a loan, he had overestimated the man, at least in the case in hand; for all men in the mad rush eventually reach the rash limit of their financial means, and Taylor had run the gamut! He had to meet an obligation that night, and it was this fact that made him play for a high stake. Exposure, indeed, was close on his heels. If his creditors did as they threatened to do, he would soon be looking for another position. He saw in Chelsea’s loan a straw to which he might cling, consequently when two new one hundred dollar bills were thrust into his hand, it closed on them, though tremblingly. The fine sense of honor drilled into him at home by his stately Canadian father had given him a stab, for the moment. He knew he had accepted the money with scarcely a hope of returning it! But family pride went down before the crush of circumstances.

“I shan’t forget you!” he said to Chelsea George, swallowing hard; “I’ll be here next Saturday night at nine, and, well--”

“My dear old chap, don’t mention it! Mr. Wales and I dine at the Sinclair House to-morrow evening at eight. We’d like to have you join us. We’re just looking about town and taking in the sights, you know. In the meantime don’t worry about this trifling, blasted loan.”

English George, too, warmly pressed Taylor to accept their hospitality. He promised, and so the Georges and the young bank clerk parted.

“The young feller’s up against it, and is good for a stunt,” said English, resuming his natural self.

“He’ll be useful!” was Chelsea’s short answer.

The young bank clerk had come to New York bright, innocent, and ambitious. His gilt-edged references procured him a responsible position in a leading down-town wholesale mercantile house, and from there he soon went to a clerkship in the Ocean Bank. There appeared to be the material in him out of which the successful banker is made, so his promotion was rapid and his salary grew proportionately. It is not my purpose to be misleading; therefore, when I say his salary was increased, I do not mean that it was what it should have been. There is no doubt, to my way of thinking, that his compensation was too small when compared with his ability. Indeed, I believe that a more generous recognition of his talents would have been better for him and his employers.

Taylor was on hand promptly to dine with the two Georges, who were lavish in their supply of wines. It was a mellow trio, indeed, that were about to separate at midnight, John Taylor feeling particularly flushed with his frequent libations.

“I’ve got a scheme, Taylor, old fellow, and you can make a good commission in it!” Chelsea was saying, as he puffed a ring of cigar smoke over his head, and blew another ring quickly after, and through it.

“Heap sight better ’n faro at Morrissey’s,” put in English, with a laugh; “in fact, my boy, it’s a dead sure thing!”

John Taylor drained a glass of champagne and said his companions talked as though they were Jay Goulds and Jim Fisks.

“What is the deal, anyway?” he added. “If there’s money around, the devil knows I need it! Unless things take a lightning change soon, I’ll have to,” and he lurched unsteadily to his feet.

Chelsea gently pushed the young man back in his chair, and filled the wine-glasses once more. Then he said:--

“I’ve got five thousand dollars’ worth of United States five-twenty bonds I want to sell, Mr. Taylor, and I think you can do it for me! I’d do it myself, only I got ’em in a queer way, old chap, and I want to get rid of ’em on the cautious. They’ll sell easy, and there’s twenty-five per cent in the deal for you.”

“And you know the Wall Street game a long sight better ’n my friend,” put in English.

“I know something about the game in the Street,” said Taylor, with a contemptuous shrug of his shoulders. “I might negotiate the bonds if I could see my way clear!”

“Here, fill ’em up again, Mr. Wales!” said Chelsea George, and once more the trio drained their glasses. But the game had been played. Chelsea had brought the bonds with him, and Taylor carried them home. The next day he sold them, and that night he met the two Georges. When he left them, twelve hundred dollars were in his pocket. It occurred to him that there must have been something illegal about the transaction, but to him, then, it made no difference. He must have money. Now that he had it, he was seized with a spirit of exultation. Two-thirds of the snug sum in his pocket would pay off the old scores. These done away with, he would start anew. And, too, the ease with which he had made the money fascinated him. He began to wonder whether or not he would have another opportunity. If the bonds had come into the possession of the Englishmen by fraud, he didn’t know it, so why should he care; he was not supposed to inquire where they came from. He had offered them to a broker of a fine business reputation, and no questions had been asked. Of course the bonds were all right!

As a matter of fact, they had been stolen, and were what is known in the crook parlance as “crooked.” English George met Taylor a few days later, and told him what the bonds were, but did not tell him where they came from. The young clerk, in a measure, was now in the power of the men, whose true character he began to realize; but his craving for money, and their reasoning that he would not fall into the hands of the police, led him to further venture into “crooked bond” selling. Several more deals, of more or less size, were put through without a hitch, and “easy money,” as he termed it, came in his way. But, as is usually the case, it went out as fast, Morrissey’s getting the most of it. There came a time when he was again out of funds, and the Englishmen had no bonds to be negotiated. In this emergency, the evil in Taylor, once aroused, asserted itself with a power not easily resisted. Mad for the want of that which would supply his craving for gambling, the young bank clerk was at the point where he would not stop at anything, short of a great peril that could be seen.

About one year later, Taylor, in a talk with Chelsea George, said, with a laugh that left his listener in no doubt as to his meaning, “What if a box of securities were left in a position in our bank to be carried off without detection?”

Chelsea eyed Taylor in astonishment. He thought there had been a mighty rapid transition from selling “crooked bonds” to putting up a job to rob a bank.

“I don’t think I understand you,” said Chelsea.

“I could tell you of such a box and from where it may be taken,” said Taylor. “That seems pretty plain language to me.”

“Well, yes, I should say so; and I could see such a box if there was enough of the useful in it to make it worth the while,” answered the Englishman. “How much would there be in it for me?”

“It won’t have less than a hundred thousand dollars’ worth of United States government bonds,” said Taylor.

Chelsea asked where they were kept so handily.

“In the paying teller’s window, during business hours.”

“They might as well be in the vault,” declared Chelsea.

“On the contrary,” quickly explained Taylor, “the box is left by itself in a most careless manner. It would be very easy for you and English to carry it off, when business is at its height, say at three in the afternoon.”

“We might play the business man gag,” mused Chelsea.

“What’s that?” inquired the bank clerk, seemingly catching at the Englishman’s meaning.

“We might call at the bank some afternoon, and English might take the box while I talked to the president.”

“That’s it--just the thing!” cried Taylor; “I didn’t know just how it could be done, but was sure you could find some way.”

“How many clerks are there in the banking office?” asked Chelsea.

“Never mind them,” replied Taylor, confidently; “I’ll see they’re kept busy.”

After the young clerk had made thus clear the possibility of success, Chelsea agreed with him that they might make a good “touch.” So English George was consulted, and the plans laid for an immediate attempt. As suggested by Taylor, the closing hour of business was selected in which to make the “lift.” The president’s room was just off the office and not many steps from the paying teller’s desk. The box of securities nearly always lay at the teller’s elbow.

The day following the completion of the arrangements, a well-dressed Englishman was admitted to the office of President Martin. Almost immediately behind him came another man, apparently the companion of the first. The first caller introduced himself to the president, saying he was anxious to obtain information about money exchange, and that he’d been recommended to Mr. Martin by the agent of the steamship line by which he’d just landed in New York. The president was delighted to meet the strange Englishman, and heartily welcomed him to America, adding, “I shall be pleased to be of service to you.”

They conversed in this manner for fifteen minutes. Apparently the Englishman had not noticed the second caller, who, upon entering the office, had remained at a distance. President Martin had wondered, while they were talking, why his visitor hadn’t introduced his fellow-traveller. Perhaps, though, the other was only a servant. At any rate President Martin was soon so engrossed with the pleasing Englishman’s humorous story of a ship passenger’s experience that the presence of the other slipped his mind.

Presently the second caller walked out in the banking office and stood idly there for several minutes. John Taylor saw him, knew him, and at once took the cue. The stranger saw that Taylor called the clerks over to his desk and was amusing them in some manner. The paying teller was attending to a long line of bank customers before his window. At his elbow, as Taylor had said, there lay a tin box. The stranger edged along in that direction and reached over, with a quick movement, to possess it. As he did so his elbow struck hard against a high stool. He tried spasmodically to catch it, but failed. Crash it went to the floor, and every eye was directed toward him, and every eye saw a flying figure dash into President Martin’s office, and, climbing to the window-sill, disappear, before the two occupants of the room, apparently, realized what had happened. Chelsea George, at Mr. Martin’s side, gritted his teeth and suppressed an oath when he saw English George go through the window empty-handed.

The banking office was in an uproar in an instant. President Martin demanded what was the trouble. Clerk Taylor explained that he’d seen a gentleman standing in the office a moment before the crash, but supposed he was a friend of the president’s.

“I thought the man was with you,” exclaimed President Martin to Chelsea George.

“My dear fellow, no!” expostulated Chelsea; “a man came in behind me, but I thought he was your friend. It must have been a thief. Did he steal anything?” President Martin in the excitement hadn’t thought of that. He was assured that everything was intact.

“How fortunate, my dear fellow,” said Chelsea; “that you’ve lost nothing. Those rascally blacklegs are so bold! Oh, we have them in London, even worse than you have them here, don’t you know.”

With this comforting blather for President Martin, and “Many thanks, my dear fellow, for your kindness,” Chelsea George bowed himself out of the banking office and was soon in Fulton Street, cursing English George, and his stupidity, in all the varied forms of blasphemy he could command.

In the meantime, English George might be a bungler and deserve all the cursing that Chelsea could deliver, but as to his fleetness, there could not be a question. When he disappeared from the window, it was to land ten feet below on the sidewalk in Fulton Street, making good his escape by way of the old horse-car tunnel through the block to Vesey Street at College Place.

It was not until after Chelsea had left the bank, and the police reported, half an hour later, that the thief had escaped, that the guilty bank clerk began to feel safe. When the crash of the bookkeeper’s stool came, Taylor thought there would be certain exposure for him. That night he saw the two Georges and said something far from complimentary to English.

I have related the details of this attempt to “lift” the box of securities, to demonstrate in what state of mind I found John Taylor, for it was in listening to Chelsea George berating English that I, like a flash, conceived the plot to loot the Ocean Bank. Naturally my trained mind told me that a bank clerk who was so anxious and willing to participate in the stealing of one hundred thousand dollars would be quite likely to fall a victim to a bribe which would make possible a game worth striving for.

“You can get next to him in a bond-selling deal,” advised Chelsea; “but I don’t know whether he’d turn to a bank job again after the bungle of English.”

“It won’t do me any harm to know him,” said I. “I’m sure that a man who’ll stand for a deal such as you’ve described won’t stop at anything. So, if you’ll put me up to him, I’ll make a try.”

“No try, no game, George, true enough!”

“Yes,” added I; “and when you meet this Taylor, tell him you know of a man who’s got a few thousands of paper fit for the market. I’ll bait him with ’crooked bonds’ as a stepping-stone to a bigger thing.”

Well, briefly, I went to the Sinclair House a few evenings later and met John Taylor, the appointment having been arranged by English George. I measured the young man’s caliber immediately, and felt satisfied that he’d be a good investment; in other words, would be the sort of stuff out of which I could make a “right” bank clerk. In order that I might become better acquainted with him at once, I placed three thousand dollars’ worth of bonds in his care for the market. He made a good sale, and I paid him fifteen per cent for his pains. Finding that he was a safe one to deal with, in fact, a man who wouldn’t get a “swelled head” over success, I gave him other opportunities to sell bonds, and finally I came down to the more important subject.

I must confess that I was considerably astonished over the readiness with which he met my proposition. It was more than halfway; indeed, he was overanxious to barter his honor and integrity in any reasonable scheme in which there was an ordinary element of safety and a money return commensurate with the risk that would be taken. I will quote his own words as correctly as I can: “I am anxious to make a stake large enough to admit of resigning my position in the Ocean Bank and go West, where I can start in business for myself.”

Having reached such a plain understanding, it was not long before Taylor proposed a second attempt to steal the little tin box of securities which the Englishmen failed to get.

“As a matter of fact,” Taylor told me, “the securities are daily left in the same lax manner they were before that lunkhead of an Englishman fell over the chair.”

“One would think the Ocean Bank folks would be more cautious after so close a call,” I suggested.

“True; but they’re not. I think the box could be carried away easily if the right sort of a man went after it,” said Taylor, with great conviction. But I had my mind set on bigger results, and so I reminded him of our talk about tackling larger game, though at the time I had not hinted, in any way, what I expected him to do. I hadn’t told him I had my eye on the Ocean Bank.

“Why not get in the vault of your bank?” said I, and intently watched his face for the effect. I staggered him! His face, usually pale, fairly blanched at the mention of the proposition. Presently he gasped, “It’s a physical impossibility!”

“By no means,” declared I, smiling at my flat contradiction. Still Taylor was sceptical.

“I don’t believe it! You can’t open it! It’s a bang-up burglar-proof vault, and so much so, by the eternal, that many of our wisest customers leave their strong boxes in it,” he cried.

“Nevertheless,” I persisted, benignly disregarding his earnestness, “the combination lock can be picked, and I can do it! Once inside the vault, the rest is only a question of time and perseverance!”

When I had talked to him much in this vein, he began to lose some of his confidence in the burglar-proof qualities of the vault and became more susceptible to suggestions. With this change of front, and at my request, he gave me a detailed description of the vault, its doors, and of the safes inside. Then he enlightened me as to the business methods of the bank, and, in fact, placed me in full possession, as he then knew them, of such data as would make clear to me what plans would have to be devised to get inside the vault. He wasn’t able, at the moment, to tell me all I wanted to know of the bank’s combination locks, but this he furnished me later, to my entire satisfaction. As a further incentive for Taylor to continue his investigation, I was unstinted in my praise of the work he had thus far done.