CHAPTER II
THE WALPOLE BANK BURGLARY
B. F. Aldrich was the cashier of the Walpole Savings-bank, and the bank was in his general merchandise store. Thus it can be readily understood that the village of Walpole wasn’t much from the viewpoint of map-makers, though its residents were not a little proud of their abiding-place.
These facts being known, it will not be difficult to imagine the consternation of the Walpole people, when one morning, just prior to Thanksgiving Day in 1864, they got out of bed to find that their only bank had been robbed of nearly half a hundred thousand dollars. At first it was doubted; but not long delayed was the confirmation, and it came with all the thunder that such events create in small villages. Soon, scared and white-faced men, women, and children, depositors and bank officials, crowded to Aldrich’s store. I will not deal with the clamoring ones who thought their savings of years, perhaps, were gone forever. My object is more to tell how the robbery became known and in what manner the burglars were apprehended. I have it from an eye-witness that Cashier Aldrich was in a state bordering on frenzy at times, and at others seemed to be on the verge of a collapse. The keys found dangling in the store door were his, and had been undoubtedly left there to hide the identity of the real perpetrators of the crime. Any one with reason would not deny that, and Aldrich realized his awful position only too well.
He told the bank officials that the store door was strongly secured, when he left, late the previous night; but upon waking the next morning, he missed the keys from his trousers pocket, the trousers being found on the floor in the hall. He could not believe that any one had been in the house during the night, for not a soul had heard a sound. He could not make himself believe that he’d been so careless as to leave the keys in the store door, but to be certain, no time was lost in making an investigation.
All his worst fears were confirmed. The keys were dangling in the lock, the safe had been opened with a key, and papers were scattered over the floor. Every dollar of the cash and bonds had been taken. The bank was ruined, and great was the excitement in Walpole for many days.
The town constables and the sheriff of the county looked wise for several weeks, but got no trace of the burglars. The depositors of the bank were wroth at this, and declared that some action that would bring results must be taken. Herbert T. Bellows, one of the largest of these, led the movement. He was powerful in social and political life, and more able to lose his interest in the bank than almost any one else. He said that good detective work would be sure to result in the recovery of some of the property. So he went to New York City for detectives. Bellows was determined that his wealth should not be taken from him without his putting forth a great effort to recover it. The New York police force sent Timothy Golden and James Kelso, two of the ablest sleuths of which it could boast, and placed them at his disposal. They hadn’t been at work long when it was concluded that the robbery had not been committed without the assistance of some one familiar with the routine of Aldrich’s store. The directors were told that the cashier’s story of the loss of the keys was exceedingly flimsy, and that it looked very much as though he knew more about the robbery than he cared to tell.
“We admit that it is a delicate matter,” said Detective Golden, with great decision, “but unless your cashier can offer a better explanation, you’d better direct us to arrest him.”
The directors repelled this conclusion with the greatest vigor. Cashier Aldrich, they declared, had not been unfaithful to his trust. They said they’d stake their reputations and lives, if necessary, on it. However, Golden and Kelso believed he was guilty, and pushed their investigation on that line. Their persistence in this belief, after many weeks, began to weaken the confidence of some of the bank officials, and it was only a matter of a very few days, when he would have been arrested, that an unexpected clew turned up. It served to change the tide of suspicion from Aldrich, who eventually came from under the cloud, with his character undefiled. It was like giving him a new life. For many weeks he’d borne the torture--that mental agony that must come to the innocent man suspected of a crime by those who had once believed him to be honest beyond question.
At the verge of casting Aldrich in jail the detectives were suddenly called back to New York. It was long past the time when a tangible clew was expected from that quarter, but at last one of the government bonds taken from the Walpole Bank had turned up in the United States Treasury at Washington. It had been purchased from a man named Cummings, by a reputable business man of Scranton, Pennsylvania. Armed with this information, the detectives interviewed the Scranton man, who told them he understood that Cummings was an agent for a fruit-tree nursery at Rochester, New York, and that he was said to be a friend of a Dr. Hollister at Providence, a hamlet on the outskirts of Scranton. Golden and Kelso went to Providence, though they didn’t believe that Cummings would be the real game they were after. However, if he proved to be a link in the chain that would lead them to the “looters” of the Walpole Bank, they would be satisfied. Arriving in Providence, Dr. Hollister was found, but Cummings wasn’t there. The doctor at once became a mystery in the case. While insisting that Cummings was merely one of his patients, his information was so unsatisfactory, and so evidently reluctant was he to assist the detectives, that they began to suspect him of knowing more about the Walpole burglary than he cared to tell.
The result was that Dr. Hollister was arrested, and extradited to New Hampshire as quickly as the law would allow. It proved to be a fruitless piece of work of the detectives and undoubtedly a most unpleasant experience for the doctor. They could only prove that Cummings had been his patient, which was less than nothing. An early hearing resulted in the prisoner’s discharge from custody and his return to Pennsylvania. As for Golden and Kelso, they were deeply chagrined, to say the least. They felt happy indeed, when, finally, no serious financial loss through a criminal libel suit came of the arrest.
But the tireless energy they’d put in the case was at last rewarded. Cummings was located in New York City. Thither they returned, but arrived one day too late, for the bird had flown. However, as Golden was talking to the housekeeper, his eyes fell on a sensational weekly story paper lying on a table, which bore the name of Cummings,--and he gained the information from the housekeeper that the paper had been changed to another address. As she apparently knew little or nothing about Cummings, the detectives went to the office of the story paper. There they found that the paper was being sent to “M. Shinburn, Saratoga, New York.” This was a mighty small clew to follow. At their wits’ end, however, the detectives decided to make the trip. Possibly they might find Cummings there.
It was not difficult to find “M. Shinburn.” The gossips in Saratoga believed him to be a wealthy business man who had recently located there and who had purchased a large farm on the outskirts of the village, where he lived with a brother, whose name, they had heard, was Frank. The few who had made his acquaintance found him to be of a most affable sort. Indeed, they declared that he had come from the South or West, and had bought the farm about a month previous. Just when he first put in an appearance at Saratoga they could not tell, however.
As the days wore on, many little characteristics in Shinburn made the detectives believe that he was not all he professed to be. They felt certain that it would be a wise move to arrest him; yet there was the Dr. Hollister _fiasco_ still fresh in their minds, and to make another mistake was something not to be relished. At last, driven to desperation by circumstances, Golden told Kelso that the risk must be taken; and it was--but I will allow the former to relate, in his own way, what came of it.
“We were at our last ditch,” said he, “when we decided to take him in. It was a big risk,--much like a plunge in the dark,--but we determined to do it. The favorable opportunity came one night right after the theatre. Kelso and I waited on the outside, and when Shinburn came to the street, we pinched him. Now, mind you, it was just speculation. Well, he put up the stiffest kind of a kick, but we would not let up on him until every pocket had been turned inside out and every scrap of paper examined. We found on him five coupons cut from bonds, and two railroad bonds, all stolen from the Walpole Bank. Of course that settled it for keeps. We locked him up, and then, armed with only our nerve, we searched his house, his brother Frank putting up a big holler, and found files, skeleton keys, wax impressions, and other burglars’ tools. Among the keys we discovered was a duplicate that would open the outer vault door of the Ashuilot Bank at Keene.”
I have it from Golden that Cashier Faulkner of the Ashuilot was about unnerved when shown how easily the key opened the vault door. He realized how narrow had been his escape from an experience like that of Cashier Aldrich. The detectives told him there was no doubt that the Ashuilot would have been robbed as soon as the excitement of the Walpole case had died out.
Shinburn was taken to New Hampshire and locked under a strong guard in the jail at Keene. Meanwhile the detectives took up the trail after James Cummings, which led them to Philadelphia, where he was arrested a few days later. In his possession were something more than five thousand dollars in currency, undoubtedly the result of the bond sale. He was extradited to New Hampshire and lodged in the same jail with Shinburn. District Attorney Lane was handed the money by Golden and Kelso.