CHAPTER XVI.
ROBBERY OF THE EXCHANGE BANK—FOUR THOUSAND DOLLARS STOLEN IN BROAD DAYLIGHT WITH THE OFFICIALS PRESENT—GEN. COOK GOES TO WORK WITHOUT A CLUE AND SECURES THE THIEVES AND THE BOOTY IN TWO HOURS.
May 12, 1879, Cole’s circus struck its tent in Denver and prepared to give one of the very creditable performances which generally characterize this “monster aggregation.” The circus had but recently returned to America from Australia and was passing through the country with considerable prestige. Being the means of getting large crowds of people together, it was naturally followed up or accompanied by as depraved a set of sneak thieves and pickpockets as ever traveled in the shadow of any circus. The day of the beginning of the series of performances given in this city was marked by an occurrence which will ever serve to call the date to mind. On that day a robbery was committed in Denver, which will long be remembered for the shrewdness with which it was planned, the expediency with which it was executed, and also for the speedy overtaking of the thieves and the restoration of the stolen property to its owners. The robbery took place at the Exchange Bank, then located on the corner of Fifteenth and Blake streets, about 1 o’clock in the afternoon, while the circus procession was passing and while the streets in front of the building were thronged with people, including those engaged in the parade and those who were looking on as it moved by.
About 1 o’clock the head of the procession began to move up Blake street from the depot. The cashier of the bank, Mr. J. M. Strickler, was at his desk. Mr. A. J. Williams, then the vice-president and now the president of the institution, was in the private office in the rear, and other attachés of the bank were behind the iron railing. There was a temporary lull in the task of receiving deposits, and the bank officers, with the exception of Mr. Strickler, stepped out to the door to see the procession go by. This left no one behind the counter except Mr. Strickler, who was running over some deposits that had been made by patrons of the bank, and talking with a stranger. A few moments later Hon. J. F. Welborn stepped into the bank and asked Mr. Williams to come out to the front, as he desired to speak to him a few moments on business. Mr. Williams joined Judge Welborn at one of the large windows fronting on Blake street, and they stood there chatting until after the procession had gone by. The other bank officers returned to their desks, and Mr. Strickler a few minutes later noticed that a large pile of greenbacks, done up in packages of $500 and upwards, was missing from the table. Thinking they had been placed in one of the cash drawers, he asked his assistant, Mr. Rockwell, who replied that he had not seen the money, and just about that time it began to dawn upon the officers that their short absence from the counter had cost the institution nearly $4,000, about that amount of money having been piled upon the table awaiting deposit.
Gen. Cook was immediately sent for. He found the officers of the bank in a state of considerable excitement, and all of them thoroughly at sea. The robbery was to them a terrible mystery. None of them had been out of the bank at all and Mr. Strickler, the efficient cashier, had remained continuously in his office. They could not have believed that the bank had been robbed if they had not had the evidence which their eyes furnished that the money, which a few minutes before had been there, was missing. That some one should have come into the building and taken out $4,000 in money, even at a time when there was a circus around, seemed to them well nigh incredible. But the fact stared them in the face that the money had disappeared, and they came to Cook to find it. No one could suggest a point that would be of assistance, and he began to put questions, with the hope of getting some clue which would aid him in his apparently almost hopeless search. The clue was at last obtained. Mr. Strickler remembered that while the other officials and the employés of the bank had been out looking at the circus, he had been engaged in conversation with an individual who had brought in a $100 note to get it changed, and the note being of doubtful appearance, he had seemed bent upon drawing the cashier into an animated discussion, which was carried on on the part of the stranger in an unnecessarily loud and vehement tone of voice.
“That is the man we want to get,” said Cook. “He was the steerer for the thieves.”
The detective at once jumped at the conclusion that ordinarily a man would not go into a bank to get change while a circus was passing. The man’s manner, when further described, confirmed the opinion previously formed, and he obtained a description of the fellow as speedily as possible, upon which thread he went to work to run the case down and restore the bank its stolen funds.
Before starting out, however, he made a survey of the building, for the purpose of completing his theory of the modus operandi of the robbery and how many had been engaged in it.
The portion of the building occupied as a bank was composed of two rooms—a large one, in which the active employés were engaged, and a smaller one, used as his private office by Mr. Williams. The two communicated through a partition door, and both had doors opening upon Fifteenth street.
The rear door on Blake street, leading into the private office, was usually locked with a spring lock, working from the inside. It could not be opened without a key, except from the inside. From the private office there was a door leading into the inner portion of the bank, enclosed with counters and railings, and another door leading straight to the front entrance. Gen. Cook concluded that the plan must have been arranged beforehand, and the theft committed without any delay. The rear door being open, a person could gain access to the vaults and cash drawers, and by stooping low would not be visible to any one on the outside of the counter. It was therefore presumed that while one of the thieves guarded the rear door for his pal and another talked with the cashier, the third crawled deftly on his hands and knees and reached up for the money, sweeping the counter pretty clear, and taking all the currency that was in sight. The time consumed by the procession in passing was sufficiently long to enable the thieves to do this without showing their hurry or doing the work bunglingly.
This work being accomplished, the thief who had taken the money wrapped it in a red handkerchief and crept to the back door. Seeing his friend clear, the man with the $100 bill took his departure and all three joined on the outside, passing hurriedly down Fifteenth street and past the Elephant corral, as had been noticed by spectators, who did not, of course, know what had transpired in the bank. At that corral, as was afterwards learned, a portion of the money was left.
Having a description of one of the men who had been in the robbery, and being in possession of the course that the robbers had taken, Cook went to work himself and sent others of his officers out in the search. They had some hope of finding the thieves through other operations, and some of the detectives attended the circus for the purpose of getting a clue of this kind. The fact that a number of smaller robberies were committed during the forenoon, and, in every instance, in the crowds where the procession passed, strengthened the theory that there was a well-organized gang at work, and that they were doing their work under cover of Cole’s circus procession. But a more hopeless task could hardly be imagined. Here was a bank robbed in broad daylight, with the officers and clerks moving about the room and keeping a watchful eye on the money deposits. No one who could recognize them had seen the thieves enter or depart, and no one connected with the bank could give the officers any but the slightest clue as to the character or appearance of the bold outlaws. But Cook is not a man prone to give up the track of a thief because the trail happens to be cold. According to methods and intuitions of his own he went to work. He relied mainly upon his great knowledge of the thieves of the country, believing that if the robbers had been well known and experienced crooks, as their work showed they were, he would know them or some of them when he should come upon them.
He accordingly set out to look for his men. Two hours afterwards brought the welcome information to the bank that two out of the three robbers had been captured and part of the money recovered. In his search Gen. Cook visited the American house, and while sauntering about there, Cook’s eyes fell upon a form that was not unknown to the eyes of the detective. A brief retrospection caused him to remember the man as one Joe Parrish, a noted thief, whom he had seen ten years before in Chicago. He was observed to be accompanied by another man, whose face could not be seen at first. The two moved about suspiciously, and Cook decided upon a closer investigation of the pair. At last he obtained a full view of Parrish’s partner, and found him to be not only a first-water Italian crook from St. Louis, but also that his description answered that given by Mr. Strickler of the man who had called to get a bill changed. These were the men wanted. Of this fact Gen. Cook was quite certain. He consequently left them and went in search of his deputy, Mr. Smith. That gentleman joining his chief, they returned to the American house “for business.”
Spotting their men, who did not seem to be laboring under any uneasiness of apprehension, they decided upon immediate arrest, and came down upon them like a thousand of brick. Cook walked deliberately up to Parrish, a genteely dressed young man, with a Jewish cast of countenance, and announced that he was under the pleasant necessity of placing him under arrest. Parrish—who subsequently gave his name as F. Wiggins—made no resistance; did not even raise the slightest objection or remonstrance. Meanwhile, Smith had approached the other party and placed him under arrest. This man—who gave his name as I. H. Russell, though it was an alias—was also neatly dressed and of gentlemanly appearance. He exclaimed, as Smith laid his hands upon him: “Well, well!” Only this and nothing more.
As the officers were conveying their prisoners to a coach, however, preparatory to taking them to jail, Russell turned to Gen. Cook and said: “Will you be kind enough to tell me what this is all about?”
He also informed Cook that he was a lawyer in good standing, afterwards stating that he had come to Denver as a commercial traveler, and was selling jewelry. When Cook asked him where his samples were, he replied that he was dealing in cheap jewelry and did not carry any samples.
Wiggins never spoke a word from the time of his arrest till he was behind the bars.
While Smith was looking after the prisoners in the office of the American house, Cook went up to the room—No. 73—occupied by Wiggins and Russell and instituted a vigorous search. The prisoners were also carefully searched, and $800 in all was found upon the two, the bulk of which was identified as money stolen from the bank. A portion of the money found upon the prisoners was $100 in five and ten-dollar bills, which was hidden in the front part of one of Mr. Wiggins’ shoes.
Both the prisoners stoutly protested their innocence of the crime charged against them, but the proof of their guilt was as straight as could possibly have been desired, and no one entertained any doubt that the right men had been taken. The job was one of the neatest ever performed by a detective in any place, and Gen. Cook and his co-worker were praised on every hand. Starting out at 2 o’clock without a single clue, they had in two hours found and jailed the robbers and secured a fine roll of money, if not all or the bulk of it. “With such detectives as these in Denver,” said one, “thieves will certainly conclude that this is not the place for them.” “They are better than all the iron safes in the country,” said another. Indeed, the detectives were congratulated upon every hand.
But one of the thieves was still missing, with something like $3,000 in his possession. He proved to be more evasive than the other two had been, and succeeded in getting out of town. The officers were at first nonplussed and unable to obtain the slightest clue as to his identity. They could not turn a wheel. At last they succeeded in getting the man’s name, which was Sam Straddler, otherwise known as “Dayton Sammy,” from his pals, and learned that he was in Cincinnati. Thitherward Cook dispatched Smith, who arrived just in time to learn that his bird had flown. He had contrived to get away from the police authorities there and could not be found.
Parrish and Russell remained in jail for several months, and at last compromised the matter, so that the bank was out nothing in the end.
It is a fact worth noting that neither Mr. Russell, Mr. Parrish or Mr. Straddler has been seen in the city since they were turned out of jail. They don’t get along well with Dave Cook, and prefer to be widely separated from him.
THE HAYWARD MURDER.