Read Ebook: Why Crime Does Not Pay by Burke Sophie Van Elkan Lyons Mrs

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Ebook has 1197 lines and 64054 words, and 24 pages

But my joy over the fact that my little one had not had his mother's wickedness revealed to him was of short duration. I had brought the child to Detroit, where I had begun preparations to make a permanent home, honestly, I hoped. Several persons there owed me money, and among them a barber I had befriended. I tried persistently to get from him what he owed me, but without success.

When I returned home after a little trip I was compelled to make to New York, my boy came up to me, crying, and said:

"Mamma, I don't want to live around here any more."

I wondered what could have caused the poor boy to speak that way, so I patted him on the back and said:

"Why, what is the matter, dearie? Don't you like this street any more?"

"Mamma," he sobbed, "I heard something about you which makes me feel awful bad, but I know it isn't true, is it, mamma?"

"Tell me, child, what is it?"

"Well," he answered, "Mr. Wilson, the barber, asked me the day after you left to go downtown on a trip with him, and I went along. He took me into a large building which I heard was the police station. He asked a man to let him see some pictures, and when he got the pictures he showed me one of them which he said was you; and he said you were a thief and the police had to keep your picture so they could find you when you stole things," and then the boy began to sob as if his poor heart would break.

The man had taken my boy down to the police station and had shown him my picture in the rogues' gallery. And again the realization was forced in on me by the reproachful gaze of my boy that crime does not pay.

For a time I managed to get along fairly well and was able by honest efforts to have a little home and to have my children with me. But my old career came up to haunt me and many refused to have business dealings with me when they were informed of my earlier life. At last I was at the end of my resources--should I lose my little home and my children, or should I go back once more, just once more to my old life?

The struggle between my two impulses was finally settled by a visit from two of my old acquaintances of the underworld--Tom Bigelow and Johnny Meaney. They came to ask my help in a promising job which they felt sure would be a success if they could enlist my services--there would be at least ,000 for me, they said.

"Big Tom" Bigelow was an old-time professional bank burglar, who had learned his business under such leaders as Jimmy Hope and Langdon W. Moore--men who had never found any bank or any vault too much for their skill. Little Johnny Meaney was one of the cleverest "bank sneaks" that ever lived. He would perform the most amazing feats in getting behind bank counters and walking off with large bundles of money. He was so quick and noiseless in his work that he would never have been arrested but for his fondness for women and drink. When under the influence of champagne he would confide in some strange woman he had met only a few days before, and in order to get the reward some of the women would tell the police where to find Johnny.

He had granulated eyelids, and his inflamed eyes were so conspicuous that he could always be recognized easily. He was married and had several children. His wife never knew the kind of work he did. He had a quarrelsome temper, and always got into some dispute with every woman he met, and usually left them feeling unfavorably disposed toward him. Many of the girls who betrayed him did so more through resentment than anything else. I mention these things to show how personal peculiarities and temperament are often serious menaces to criminals.

Meaney's specialty was day work. He would walk into a bank during business hours and sneak behind the counter and pick up everything he could lay his hands on. He never did any night work, and knew nothing about safe blowing. As a rule, a man who makes a specialty of night work, with dark lantern, mask, and jimmy, will not attempt any sneak work, and the first-class sneak will not undertake night work. The night robber is guided by the moon, and oftentimes a job will be called off because the cracksmen think the moon is not right for the work. The darker the night the better. But the bank sneak prefers daylight of the brightest kind. He often works right under the eyes of a room full of clerks, and the bigger the crowd in the streets the easier for him to make his escape and lose himself among them.

HOW I PLANNED A BANK ROBBERY

It was a "bank sneak" job they had in mind. The bank was in a small New Jersey city, near enough to New York so that we could lose ourselves in our old haunts on the East Side before the detectives should get hot on our trail.

I went to the town in advance of the other members of the party and rented a small cottage, posing as a widow who planned to settle down there and live on the income of her husband's insurance money.

Soon after settling in my new quarters, I visited the bank and opened a small account. I found the cashier a man who fitted in perfectly with our dishonest designs. He must have been nearly seventy years old and he could not hear or see so well as he should for the security of the funds in his charge.

I saw right away that he was very susceptible to pretty women and was quite willing to drop his work at any time for a half hour's chat with such a comely widow as I looked to be. My task was to look the ground over, find out where the cash was kept, and how and when access to it could best be secured. It was the simplest thing in the world to get these facts after I had worked my way into the cashier's good graces.

I quickly saw that the most favorable time for the robbery was between the hours of 12 and 1 o'clock, when the other two men in the bank went to their homes for lunch, leaving the institution in the charge of the old cashier. At that time the door of the vault was open, and the bundles of currency and securities lay there in full view, ready for us to take away.

It would be an easy matter for Johnny Meaney, who was a small, wiry fellow, light and quiet on his feet as a cat, to slip in through a side entrance while I held the cashier's attention with one of my harmless flirtations and gain access to the vault through the door in the wire cage, which was almost invariably left unlocked. Even if it should be locked on the day we set for the robbery, it would be a simple matter for Johnny to get inside with the aid of one of his skeleton keys.

Accordingly I sent word to my two comrades that the coast was clear and to come on at once. They arrived in due time and, after looking the ground over, confirmed my own judgment that the robbery was an easy one and could be carried out with little risk according to the plan I had made.

The following Tuesday was the day set, because on that day, as I had found out, the bank generally had a large amount of cash on hand. The time fixed was between 12 and 12:30 o'clock, when the assistant cashier, the bookkeeper, and practically all the rest of the town were at their noonday meal.

Everything was definitely settled unless my visit to the bank on Monday should reveal some unlooked-for hitch.

The cashier had become thoroughly accustomed to the "pretty widow's" habit of dropping in on him every day at the noon hour, and he was exceedingly glad to see me when I entered as usual, Monday, and began a series of questions about some fictitious investments of mine in the West. Alas! how well I remember how that vain old man enjoyed his innocent flirtation, little suspecting that the object of his regard was there only to make sure that nothing had happened to disarrange the plans for to-morrow's robbery.

WHAT DELAYED OUR PLANS

Luckily for me the bookkeeper was just starting for lunch when I took my accustomed place outside the cashier's window. I had seen the door through which he had to pass to get from inside the wire cage to the outer part of the bank opened and shut a hundred times; and I had always noted with satisfaction not only that it was seldom locked but also that its hinges never gave even the slightest squeak.

But at this moment a most unexpected thing happened.

As the bookkeeper turned the knob of the wire-screen door and opened it a most unearthly scream came from the iron hinges.

The clerk passed on, and the door lazily swung back behind him with another piercing screech that filled me with dismay.

No watch-dog could have sounded a more certain alarm than those hinges. My heart sank as I realized how impossible it would be for Johnny Meaney to pass in and out of that creaking door without detection. Bringing my conversation to a hurried close, I went to tell my comrades how our hopes had been dashed by the unexpected development of a squeak in those bothersome hinges.

The difficulty seemed insurmountable until Johnny Meaney, always a quick-witted, resourceful thief, showed us a way out. His suggestion was that the robbery be postponed for a week and that in the meantime we call in the aid of another well-known bank sneak named Bill Taylor, to fix those refractory hinges.

This seemed the only possible solution of the problem, as that squeaking had to be stopped, and it was not safe for either of my companions to attempt it. Accordingly, Meaney went back to New York to make the necessary arrangements, and a few days later Taylor appeared on the scene as the suave, well dressed representative of the company which had built the vault for this bank.

On presentation of his neatly engraved card, Taylor was readily given permission to inspect the vault. During the afternoon he spent in the bank he called attention to the squeaky hinges and suggested that he apply to them some very excellent machine oil he had with him. This he did and the door moved as noiselessly as before.

And incidentally, while Taylor was masquerading as the traveling agent of the safe company and had the freedom of the bank that afternoon he took occasion to fit a key to the wire door. Not that Johnny Meaney could not attend to this himself in case he found the door locked, but Taylor thought he might as well make everything as smooth as possible for Meaney.

Everything was now in shape, and we decided to rob the bank next day. Just at noon, as the big clock on the Municipal Building was striking 12, I came up the steps of the bank and greeted the old cashier with my customary smile. The bookkeeper and the four other clerks were passing out of the side door to their lunch. Suddenly I spilled out of my hand right in front of the cashier a handful of large coins in such a way that two silver dollars rolled past him and dropped on the floor inside the wire cage. As he laboriously stooped to pick them up I strained my neck and eyes to examine quickly everything inside the cage to make sure that all the bank clerks had gone out--that nobody remained behind the wire railing except the aged cashier.

Moving over as far as possible to one side of the cashier's window, I drew the old cashier's attention to a photograph of a little child in a locket. This brought the back of his head toward the side door of the bank. As he leaned his face down to see it more closely I caught a glimpse out of the corner of my eye of the shadow-like form of Johnny Meaney.

Noiselessly he had come in through the side door. Like a cat he crept to the wire door. With my ears strained for the faintest alarm from those treacherous hinges, I listened as I kept up a rapid fire conversation to hold the attention of the aged cashier.

The wire door swung open noiselessly; Meaney was crouching low; I had lost my view of him as he crept toward the big open door of the bank vault.

On the sidewalk, pacing slowly up and down in front of the side door, was "Big Tom" Bigelow. He was the "outside man" of the job and, although I could not see him, I knew he was on the alert to intercept anybody who might happen in. With some excuse he must stop any clerk who tried to enter through the side door--I myself must intercept any clerk who might chance to return from lunch and enter by the front entrance.

WE GET OUR PLUNDER

With increasing vivaciousness, I rattled along entertaining the cashier. In a few moments I saw the wire door gently open as if by a spirit hand. Creeping low along the floor, a shadow crossed the little corridor to the outside door; noiselessly it opened and closed--the work was done!

And thus this job, which had taken us weeks to plan, was done in less than five minutes from the time I entered the bank until Meaney stole out of a back door with his satchel full of bank notes and securities. Then the three of us quickly made our way by separate routes to New York.

The loss was not discovered until it came time to close the vault for the day, and we thus had nearly three hours' start of the police. A large reward was offered and numerous detectives engaged, but no one was ever arrested for this crime. I am just vain enough to think that the old cashier was probably very reluctant to believe his pretty widow had a share in the robbery, in spite of her mysterious disappearance on the very day it occurred.

Our plunder amounted to 0,000, of which ,000 was cash and the rest good negotiable bonds. The money was divided and I undertook the marketing of the securities, which were finally disposed of through various channels for ,000, or about 60 per cent. of their value.

Those squeaky door hinges cost Meaney, Bigelow, and myself about ,000 apiece, for through the addition of Taylor to our party we had to divide the spoils among four persons instead of three. After paying my expenses, my share of these ill-gotten gains amounted to about ,000. This I thought ample to provide for the wants of my children until I could establish myself in some honorable business, and I returned to Detroit fully determined never again to risk, as I had, a long prison term.

But my good resolutions were short lived. Two weeks later word came that my husband was in jail for complicity in an attempted bank robbery which had been nipped in the bud and urgently needed my assistance. It took several thousand dollars of the money for which I had paid so dear to secure his liberty, and the remainder soon melted away before the numerous needs of my little brood and my husband's unfortunate gambling propensities.

Here I was again just where I was before the robbery of that New Jersey bank. My money was gone, my old reputation still pursued me, nobody would trust me; "once a thief, always a thief," they said; nobody believed in my sincere desire to abandon my early career and lead an honest life.

I did not feel vindictive at the sneers at my protestations of a desire to earn an honest living--I could not blame anybody for doubting my sincerity. But my home and my little ones, dearer to me than life, what was to become of them? Was there no way to escape from my wretched career? If ever a woman and a mother realized that crime does not pay, I was made to learn that truth.

It is a long and difficult road--the narrow path that leads from crime to honest living. I have traveled it, thank heaven! but it was hard, it was slow--and many times I strayed from the path.

Some of my companions of the old days traveled that road with me. A few, a very few, succeeded as I did at last. Many gave it up, turned back. A thousand episodes of my career and of their misguided lives all illuminate the one great inevitable fact that crime does not pay!

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