CHAPTER XXI

JIM BURNS AND HIS CONGRESSMAN PAL

Late in May of 1870, I was driving up Fifth Avenue in one of my finest carriages, for an afternoon spin in Central Park. My name was called, and, glancing toward the sidewalk, I saw Jim Burns, a pal of Hub Frank and Boston Jack, three of the most successful sneak thieves of their day. As an inkling to their right to this credit--from the professional standpoint--I will say that in the fourteen years they conspired together, Hub Frank and Boston Jack were never arrested, and Burns only once. During that time they stole hundreds of thousands of dollars, and spent nearly as much.

“George!” called out Jim, and I drew up beside the curb, as quickly as I could control my mettled horses.

“Glad to see you, Jim,” I said, shaking his hand. He was a happy, handsome fellow, with dark hair and mustache, and on the under side of thirty.

“I wish you’d help me out,” said he. “I’ve got ten thousand in ten-dollar notes, fresh from the United States Treasury. Mind you, they haven’t been in circulation--I’d like you to do that. There’s ten per cent in it for you, without doubt.”

Then, briefly, he told me how he got the money. I thought well of the offer made me and so informed him, and making an appointment at the Sinclair House in Broadway at Eighth Street, we parted.

It seemed that a New England congressman Jim knew was much addicted to the gaming table. They met at Willard’s Hotel in Washington, and later on were gambling together. It was rather of a queer combination, this United States legislator and a sneak thief, but they became chummy, and therein lies the secret. Of cash the congressman had none too much, without having to settle gambling bills, and when luck was against him, there were moments when it would seem to him that the muzzle of a pistol at his head wasn’t the worst thing in the world.

“A clerk in the United States Treasury counting-room tells me that packages of new money lie around loose in there, like so much waste paper,” the congressman said to Burns one day, when his funds were low and his conscience hard; “couldn’t you get away with one?”

“Nothing easier,” was Burns’s assuring response.

In Jim’s room at the Willard it was decided what to do, and the congressman was to get twenty-five per cent of the proceeds. His only part would be the “stalling.” In other words, he would talk to the clerk while Jim took the package.

They went separately to the Treasury Department, one morning about eleven o’clock, to do the job. The congressman, who was well acquainted with the clerk, did his part splendidly. Not a dozen feet away on the counter lay two packages of greenbacks. That could be told by the wrapping paper, though there was nothing visible to the casual observer to indicate how much money each package contained. One was about the size of a square loaf of baker’s bread, and the other a trifle larger. The counter was of the old-fashioned open sort, with none of the wicker windows of to-day.

Our congressman deftly talked the clerk’s face away from the coveted prize, and at the opportune moment Jim slipped the larger package in the big pocket of his top-coat--a pocket that was designed for the purpose, and had been the resting-place, temporarily at least, of many a “touch.” Jim walked from the building and so did the congressman presently, having bade the clerk a pleasant adieu.

Jim and his accomplice met in the former’s room at the hotel soon after, and the package was opened. There were in it two thousand ten-dollar treasury notes, twenty thousand dollars in all; but an unbeliever ought to have been within ear-shot to have heard the congressman swear! He about made the room crackle with electricity.

“Why, my share won’t buy my cigars!” he cried, in angry disappointment. “Sometimes those packages, the clerk told me, contained a million dollars, in one-thousand-dollar bills.” Burns considered it a pretty good day’s work, however, and, having paid the disgruntled congressman forty-five hundred dollars, divided with his associates, and left for New York.

Jim’s selection of the larger package was the most natural thing to do under the conditions, but, as I was informed some months afterward, his eagerness to get the most he could out of the job lost him a fortune. The smaller package contained a thousand one-thousand-dollar notes. Just think! A cool million to be had for the plucking, as easily as was the twenty-thousand-dollar package! But Jim took the matter philosophically. The congressman, however, was quite ready to tear his hair.

I met Burns at the Sinclair House the next morning as we’d agreed, and that night I paid him nine thousand dollars for the two thousand ten-dollar notes. Two days later I gave two thousand dollars to my stable partner, Charles Meriam, with instructions to liquidate some personal notes that were about due. He deposited the money to the stable account in the Stuyvesant Bank at Broadway and Astor Place, where I was a large depositor, and with which I had had many cash transactions. In fact, the cashier, James Van Orden, was my friend and debtor. I considered he would do about anything in reason that I asked. Two days after that I made a deposit of ten thousand dollars, seventy-five hundred of which were the new ten-dollar notes. I passed the money to the teller and went back in Van Orden’s office and told him what I had done. I didn’t say anything of the deposit Meriam had made. The Stuyvesant Bank cleared through the Mechanics and Traders’, farther down Broadway, so I requested the cashier not to send the new bills when he made the day’s clearance. He didn’t know why I asked this, but no doubt believed there was something not altogether right. However, as he was a reckless speculator in Wall Street, and I had loaned him money at times when he was much in need of it, and in fact he was indebted to me about five thousand dollars, he said it would be all right.

“Mr. Miles,” exclaimed my second foreman, John McGurk, as I walked into the stable a few days after my talk with Van Orden, “Charley Meriam has been arrested by Colonel Whiteley, chief of the Secret Service men.”

I knew what that meant, and that there would have to be some pretty tall hustling if I didn’t find myself in the same boat. No doubt Washington had discovered Jim Burns’s steal, and had telegraphed on the numbers of the missing bank-notes and a description of the series. How the clew had led up to me so soon, or rather Meriam, I could not tell. Warning McGurk to keep a close tongue, I hurried to my residence, then at 206 West Twenty-first Street, took from the safe five hundred dollars’ worth of the ten-dollar notes,--all I had left,--put them in my pocket, packed my satchel, told the servant-girl not to admit any one from heaven or hades, and went to a hotel. From there I made a visit to a close friend in Thirty-fourth Street, where I found I could hide, and did for more than two weeks. In the meantime I was kept well informed as to what was transpiring outside. Frank Houghtaling, then a clerk in Jefferson Market Police Court with Justice Cox, daily visited my stables and residence, always returning to the court, thence to my hiding-place in the evening. In this way I furnished bail for Meriam, and laid my plans for getting out of the city on an ocean steamer. I had determined to make a dash for Scotland, where my wife at the time was visiting her mother. The good Scottish people had often invited me to come to them, and I had always promised to. I had to smile when I thought what a mighty excellent opportunity had come to help me keep my word. In fact, I was being almost forced to. Among other things Houghtaling did for me was to purchase a ticket on the Hamburg-American Line steamer _Alimania_, which sailed from her Hoboken pier on the 5th of July. I was listed as a first-class cabin passenger, under the name of Edward Whittle.

In the meantime Colonel Whiteley of the Secret Service and a safe expert had broken through the iron gate at the basement of my home, having been refused admittance by the servant-girl, and, driving in the rivets in the hinges of the safe, went through all my papers. Owing to my care, Whiteley gained nothing for his pains.

As the time drew near for my sailing I had my Police Headquarters friends clear the way. Jack McCord and George Radford agreed to be at the pier an hour ahead of the steamer’s departure, and on the arrival of my carriage I was to get a certain signal if everything was all right. When the day came, I drove to Hoboken, not, however, without some misgiving that Whiteley or some of his agents would be laying for me. But McCord and Radford were faithful, and when the latter tipped his hat that all was well, I went aboard and, safely in my stateroom, was joined by them. They remained until the steamer sailed, wishing me a safe voyage.

The trip was a fine one, so far as the weather and passengers could make it. Of course I had no way of knowing what the Atlantic cable, that great intercepter of criminals, would do in the way of providing a warm reception for me on the other side; which naturally bothered me considerably. The passengers were for the most part Germans, but there was a sprinkling of Americans and less of Frenchmen, all of whom went to make up a very convivial party, there being scarcely any illness aboard. Next to my state-room was that of an exceedingly fat German lady and her pretty daughter. They furnished me many pleasant hours, the mother being a most amusing old soul and the daughter a veritable young, but accomplished, chatterbox. Both could speak excellent English, so I gathered that they were making a visit to the “Faderland,” after prosperous years in America.

Well, we arrived in the English Channel, and I began to be more on the watch for trouble. Not far off Plymouth a tug was sighted, and, our vessel slacking headway, several officers in uniform climbed aboard and went to the captain’s cabin. I was unable to tell whether or not they were police officials. Presently they departed, when I learned that some of them were customs officers, and others were officials of the Hamburg-American Line.

They bore news of considerable importance to the German and French passengers, and no less to the captain; that since our departure from America, war had been declared between Germany and France. Before I left the ship, the German and French men and women were ready to pitch in and wallop or scratch the eyes out of each other. To me it was amusing in the extreme. My good fat German neighbor, to whom I expressed great concern over the declaration of war, rose up in her might and exclaimed loudly: “Ach Gott! Have no alarm, for we’ll lick ’em! We’ll lick ’em!”

I decided to debark at Plymouth and go to Scotland by rail. I arrived there safely and was received with open arms. I told the good Scots that I had decided at the last moment to pay them a visit, but to my wife I said that I’d got in some difficulty with the United States custom-house officials.

When it was safe to do so I communicated with my police friends in New York and learned that affairs were pretty hot there and that I was a very badly wanted man by the Secret Service. But in September, having made a good visit and being somewhat of the opinion that I could return to America and “square” things, my wife and I sailed. I had, however, sent a timely word to McCord and Radford that I was coming and indicated on what steamer I might be expected. I knew that they would be on hand to see me safely landed.

So when the _Europa_, of the Anchor Line, on a Sunday about noon, was pretty near her wharf at the foot of Liberty Street, I had Albert Wright, the purser of the _Europa_, a long-time acquaintance of mine, on the lookout. I had previously confided to him that I might get in some trouble with the custom-house officers. Presently Wright informed me that two Police Headquarters detectives were aboard, having put out in a small boat to meet the ship. They proved to be McCord and Radford. I met them on deck, where they assured me I could land without any fear of being arrested by the Secret Service agents. I thanked the boys for their good offices, and presently my wife and I were let out at the Ashland House on Fourth Avenue. Not long after this she went to our home in Twenty-first Street, but I remained at the hotel.

It was not much after one P.M. that we arrived at the hotel, and but mighty few minutes were allowed to pass before I was in ex-Judge Stuart’s house looking for legal advice and urging him to assist me out of my troubles. He said he’d see what could be done. Perhaps he might be able to settle the case with Colonel Whiteley, the Secret Service chief. Then I went to Cashier Van Orden’s house in Harlem. He fluttered like a bird in captivity when his eyes fell on me. I presume he had a mental picture of my arrest, and the possibility of his own implication, vividly before him. I wanted a settlement of my account in the Stuyvesant Bank. My visit was fruitless.

“Pretty soon,” he said, and I left him, intending to call again for further information as to what he had done or would do.

My next call on ex-Judge Stuart met with some satisfaction. He had seen Colonel Whiteley, and there was hope that I might fix the case. I went to Cashier Van Orden again, and told him that I must get my financial affairs in the Stuyvesant Bank settled; that I wanted to and must withdraw my account, and that I was anxious to get hold of the seventy-five hundred, Jim Burns’s money, I’d deposited there. Again was confronted with procrastination. Van Orden said he hadn’t been able to get to my account owing to the press of business in the bank. He was so sorry, you know.

A week passed in this manner and I was beginning to grumble not a little, when ex-Judge Stuart brought me further good news.

“I have arranged a meeting with Colonel Whiteley for you,” he said, “and you’re to name the place and time.”

“That sounds like business,” was my reply; “but are you sure you can trust this Secret Service man? Mind you, he’s about the hungriest fellow after reputation in his business that ever came along. He may be putting up a job to nail me. I’ve escaped the nab too long in this case to have it come now.”

Stuart was inclined to be irritated if any one questioned his word or intelligence, so I came in for a round scoring, which terminated in his demanding to know whether I thought he was an infernal fool. I assured him that he was the finest fellow that ever followed in the footsteps of Daniel Webster, whereat he regained his good humor. I named a day for the meeting in the last week of September, and added that I would send my second foreman, John McGurk, with a carriage, to the Grand Central Hotel in Broadway, near Bond Street.

“The carriage will be at the hotel not later than eight P.M.,” I told Stuart, “and McGurk will be looking for you in the lobby or reading-room. You and Whiteley get in the carriage, and my man will do the rest.”

What was the Grand Central Hotel then is now known as the Broadway Central. It got well advertised at one time, as the place where Jim Fisk, the Erie Railway magnate, was murdered by Ed Stokes, who became the proprietor of the Hoffman House, after serving a short sentence in the state prison at Auburn, New York. Like the Metropolitan Hotel, a few blocks below, the Grand Central was the resort of prominent professional men and Wall Street speculators, and the class of cheap men who trail them. In directing McGurk to drive ex-Judge Stuart to me, I said nothing as to whom the other man would be, not deeming it necessary, for I would have trusted my life in the hands of my second foreman.

“Be at the hotel at eight,” I said to him, “and drive Stuart and his companion to me at Eighty-sixth Street and Eighth Avenue. Turn in Central Park, and I will be there. But don’t by any means tell a soul where you are going. Do you understand?”

I knew he did. Then I told him, upon leaving the hotel, to drive ten blocks north, four blocks east, five more up-town, seven blocks down-town, and west to Eighth Avenue, where, if he was not being followed, he might come straight to me.

“Trust me, Mr. Miles,” said John McGurk; and I did, knowing full well that neither ex-Judge Stuart nor any one else in the world would be able to make him disobey or prove unfaithful to his promise.

I was at the appointed place ten minutes before nine, with Gus Fisher, a man of my profession. I brought him along to drive the buggy back to my stables, in case I didn’t need it. With the same caution that I exercised in getting Colonel Whiteley to the appointed place, I had planned to outwit him, should he prove to be decoying me into his hands. I had one of my fleetest horses in front of my buggy, and with Gus Fisher for an assistant I felt pretty sure of getting ahead of any game the Secret Service chief might attempt. Really I had considerable confidence in Stuart’s judgment, but I couldn’t afford to proceed blindly.

It was a beautiful night, light with the shimmering of more stars than I think I had ever seen before. There weren’t many dwellings in the neighborhood at that period, and Central Park was more like nature intended it than now. All together, the night, with its calmness, was of the kind that should bring forth man’s deepest gratitude for having been given being, but I was too much concerned with my planning for liberty unquestioned, to give way to the sentiment. I had left my buggy in charge of Fisher and walked a few rods to a hill thickly covered with trees and a small growth of bushes, where I was in waiting only a minute, or such a matter, when I heard a great clattering of horses’ hoofs. I needed no better indication that my visitors were coming. Five minutes later McGurk swung his team into the park and dashed up to the spot where in the shadows I stood. The horses were steaming and their flanks dripping with foam. McGurk had put them through.

Before he could alight from the box, ex-Judge Stuart, followed by Colonel Whiteley, sprang from the carriage. He was delivering himself of some very strong language, in which there was interspersed much profanity, and the Secret Service chief was not leaving all the swearing to the ex-judge. As I stepped out of the shadows and greeted them with a “Good evening, gentlemen,” Stuart, bristling with anger, exclaimed:--

“Do you take us for thieves, Miles? Are we blacklegs, liars, or what not?”

“Be calm, judge,” said I, soothingly, but scarcely able to restrain laughter. I was fully aroused to the cause of the profanity. They had been given a much longer ride than they anticipated. Besides, the ex-judge didn’t like my distrust of his influence over Colonel Whiteley.

“Damn it,” said Stuart, “why didn’t you drive us to Yonkers and done with it? Do you think that I’ve got too much time on my hands?”

“Never mind, gentlemen,” I replied, in a most conciliatory manner; “you’re here with your bones whole, and I’m ready for business. Of course, when you examine the case from my end of it, you’ll not blame me for being cautious, I know.”

“When I give my word to a man, it’s better ’n my bond,” said Colonel Whiteley; “and this man of yours drove us to hades and back, so it seemed.”

“Yes, and I wasn’t certain but that he’d shake my poor bones apart, at times, with his infernal square turns about corners. Anything follow him? Why, the devil with his cloven hoofs and wings thrown in couldn’t have kept us in sight,” growled Stuart.

“A drink will smooth you out, judge,” laughed I; “and we can’t get it here, so let’s go to Stetson’s.”

I directed Gus Fisher to take my buggy to the stables, and McGurk drove us to the restaurant in Central Park. There we talked business over a few dainties and a bottle of wine.

“By the way, Miles,” Colonel Whiteley was saying, “when did you get to town?”

“About a week ago, on the Anchor Liner _Europa_.”

“And you were in Scotland all the time?” he continued.

“Yes, paying a visit long promised my friends,” I explained.

“And you left town--”

“On the 5th of July by way of the Hamburg-American Line.”

“Sorry I didn’t know it,” said Whiteley, with a laugh.

“I felt no discomfort at missing your _bon voyage_,” said I, joining in the laugh. “But seriously, colonel, I can’t just realize why you were so anxious to get your hooks on me. I got that money fairly through my Broad Street office. I sold ten bonds to a customer, and he gave me ten thousand in new money for them. I don’t know why I should suffer all this inconvenience.”

“Miles is right, Whiteley,” put in the ex-judge.

“But why did you get out of the country?” inquired the colonel.

“For a reason--I wanted to avoid trouble. My man Meriam was arrested--wrongfully, and I didn’t want to get in the same box. There’s no telling what you United States fellows will do to a man, once you get him in your toils.”

“Well, you gave us a good chase, Miles,” said Whiteley. “I had two hundred men looking for you, and it was lucky that you kept out of sight.”

“But you see I came back to you, colonel; that doesn’t look so bad in me, does it?”

“If you were innocent, of course you had a right to feel safe in coming back,” was his doubtful remark. “You were cautious enough in making this meeting, too.”

“For the same reason that I got out last July. Now that we’ve met, colonel,” continued I, “you will no doubt come to some sort of an agreement, in which I can claim my money in the Stuyvesant Bank. The judge, I presume, told you that a meeting between us would, in all probability, straighten out this very disagreeable tangle.”

“You surely don’t mean the seventy-five hundred you deposited in the Stuyvesant Bank?”

“I do, colonel--certainly.”

“You needn’t worry about getting that dust there,” said Whiteley. “It’s at the district attorney’s office.”

“What,” I cried, “not in the Stuyvesant Bank?”

“No. I asked Van Orden about the two thousand your man Meriam deposited, and he pulled open a drawer and showed me the rest of the stuff. I took it.”

“The devil,” I cried. “So that’s the way Van Orden deals with his friends. He didn’t tell me, in all my visits to him after a settlement, that you had the money.”

“I didn’t know that,” said Whiteley.

I thought that it would have been a pure piece of scoundrelism on Van Orden’s part to have sent the money to the clearing-house. It seems he hadn’t, but had done worse--had actually betrayed me. Not because he wanted to do me harm, but for fear of endangering his own neck, the coward. All this I said to myself. Aloud I declared that Van Orden would be held to account for his failure to settle with me.

“It seems to me that you played a pretty high-handed game,” I continued to Whiteley; “about like the burglary committed on my dwelling and on my safe.”

“I wanted the ten thousand five hundred still missing,” replied Whiteley. “I had reason to believe the money was in your safe.”

“But you were mistaken,” said I, scornfully. “The thief who stole the government money and bought my bonds didn’t pay me but ten thousand. How much was missing?”

“A matter of twenty thousand dollars.”

“I suppose you’d been after me just as hard if your thief had bought twenty bonds of me and passed over the whole twenty thousand dollars?” said I, with an attempt at a little sneer, though not wishing to play the game I was playing too far.

“Well, it looks as if you were the victim of circumstances, Miles,” said the colonel; “but it’s too late now.”

“Not to get my money back,” said I, firmly.

“Yes, too late for that,” was his reply and just as firmly.

“You mean that I can’t have the ten thousand dollars that rightfully belongs to me?”

“That’s it, Miles. The money was stolen from the government. It has been identified by the proper authorities. You had it in your possession. That you came honestly by it I shall not dispute. I’m taking your word for that. If I didn’t, you’d have to produce the man who bought the bonds, and perhaps you’d have to go farther and prove what bonds you had to sell.”

“So I can’t get any part of the money?”

“No! It’ll have to go back to the United States Treasury,” said Whiteley. I knew that it was hopeless to argue further. Stuart told me it was.

“It’s mighty hard,” I said, “to shoulder such a loss, but I suppose I must. As you say, I had stolen property.”

That end of the game was up. I had played and lost. But Van Orden’s cowardice angered me. Here was a man who owed me five thousand dollars. His fear had made him, without good reason, betray me.

“I’d like to ask a favor of you, colonel,” I said, as the interview came to an end. “Meet me at the Stuyvesant Bank as soon after ten o’clock to-morrow morning as you can. Will you?”

“I’ll be there.” With that we drove down-town. My man put the gentlemen at their doors, and I went home, satisfied that I’d made the Secret Service chief believe I’d come by the money honestly. But it had cost me nine thousand dollars, not including other expenses, and the end might not yet be in sight.

I was at the bank at ten promptly the next day, and without any warning walked into Van Orden’s office. I thought he’d drop to the floor. His cheeks grew white, and he clutched at his beard nervously. He thought I was in danger of arrest and that he might be involved. I was glad to make him suffer for his treatment of me.

“You--you--ought not to come here, Mr. Miles,” he said in a voice that trembled. “The Secret Service men are likely to drop in here at any moment. Please go away. I--”

“Let them, Van Orden,” I answered savagely. “However, I didn’t come here for trouble. I want a settlement. I must and will withdraw my account from this bank.”

“Very well, you shall, Mr. Miles--as soon as I can balance the books!”

The door of Van Orden’s room faced the main entrance to the bank. As he spoke the last word, his face grew still whiter if that were possible, and his lips had a purplish hue. I glanced over my shoulder to ascertain the reason. It was obvious. Colonel Whiteley was just entering the office door.

“Good morning, colonel,” I exclaimed, with all the warmth of a long-time friend, for Van Orden’s benefit, and we shook hands vigorously, the colonel not being able to resist my energy without appearing unnecessarily rude.

“Let me introduce you to my friend, Cashier Van Orden,” I added, with a wide sweep of my hands.

“We’ve met,” said Whiteley; “haven’t we, Mr. Van Orden?”

“Well, yes,” responded the cashier. Seeing that I was not likely to be arrested, but still in doubt as to the meaning of the meeting, Van Orden grew calmer and invited Colonel Whiteley to be seated.

Then I proceeded to make things as uncomfortable for the cashier as I could. First I adroitly had Whiteley tell how he learned of my deposit, and how unnecessarily, through it, Van Orden had lost for me the seventy-five hundred. After grinding him with this sort of reminder, not forgetting to upbraid him for failing to tell me that my account in the bank had been tampered with, I demanded that he make a settlement at once.

“I got that money,” said I, “through the sale of Union Pacific Bonds, and deposited it with this bank. Now, I shall hold you responsible. Colonel Whiteley, as a business man, doesn’t think that I’d take those ten-dollar greenbacks, knowing they had been stolen. Do you, Colonel?”

“No, I don’t think you would,” agreed Whiteley.

“Colonel Whiteley tells me that, of your own volition, you told him I was a depositor here and showed him the money I had placed in your care. Now you must make good to me.”

I gave the cashier a look that made him fear I would inform certain superiors of his of a number of questionable money transactions, which, if made known, would ruin him, financially, professionally, and socially. But that I would not do.

Van Orden was completely floored by the turn of circumstances. Though I knew his promises would be worthless, I could do nothing more than accept them. Colonel Whiteley left the bank presently, and I soon followed. I had had revenge, but it was dearly bought.

Colonel Whiteley and I had met for the first time, though I had been in the line of getting something for nothing about four years. He went away believing me to be an honest man. As for him, I don’t know that he didn’t turn the nine hundred and fifty ten-dollar notes over to the Treasury Department. But I was to meet him again before many years, and under most unusual conditions. Of this meeting I shall be able to tell in another volume of my series of Bliss books.

As to my foreman, Meriam, when he came up for a preliminary trial, ex-Judge Stuart, whom I retained for him, so confused the young woman who came on from the Treasury Department to identify the bills that her testimony was valueless. As the case depended upon her identification, it fell through, and Meriam was discharged from custody.

All together it was a costly meeting that I had had with Jim Burns in Fifth Avenue. I had started out to make a profit of one thousand dollars, and it had cost me more than ten thousand, besides bringing grief to my beloved wife; for until that time she’d been kept in entire ignorance of the fact that I was a professional burglar.

The New England congressman got more out of the job than I. Lucky congressman!