A BANKER HIRES US TO ROB
I was amazed at the bold ingenuity of this plan and the matter-of-fact way in which he presented it to me. This was the first I had ever heard of a bank being robbed by request of one of its officials. Later I came to know that it is not an uncommon thing for dishonest presidents and cashiers to conceal their thefts by hiring robbers to break into their banks. The difference between what is actually taken in one of these robberies by request and what the police and the newspapers say is taken covers the amount which the embezzling official has lost in Wall Street or some other speculation.
WHAT HAPPENED WHEN WE ROBBED A BANK "BY REQUEST."
At that time such an idea was so new to me that all sorts of suspicions crowded into my mind. Probably it was a trap for me, I thought, and I positively declined to have anything to do with it.
But the old banker would not take no for an answer. He urged me to think it over and a week later he called again.
By this time the fear of the disgrace which threatened him and his family had made him a nervous wreck. He begged so piteously for me to help him save his good name that my womanly sympathies got the better of me and I finally consented.
All my feeling for him, however, did not quite free my mind of the fear that the whole affair might be a trick, and I determined to protect myself and the robbers who would assist me with all the shrewdness I could.
"We must have a written agreement," I said at the very start.
The banker objected to this, fearing, I suppose, that I might use the paper against him later for blackmail. But I insisted that I would not do a thing until I had it.
"If you can't trust me to that extent I can't trust you," I said firmly—and at last he told me to draw up the paper and he would sign it.
According to the contract which I prepared, the banker paid five thousand dollars down and was to pay me an equal amount as soon as I had completed my arrangements and set the date for the robbery. He further agreed that there should be at least $50,000 in cash in the bank vault on the night of our visit.
It was further provided that the banker should cooperate with me and my fellow robbers in every possible way, and that he should do nothing to aid in our arrest or conviction for the crime, which, as was expressly stated, was committed at his suggestion, and not ours. In case the robbery was interrupted before we could get inside the vault the banker was to pay us $25,000 in cash in addition to the $10,000 already advanced.
I agreed to leave no stone unturned to carry out the robbery and promised to return the agreement to the banker as soon as all its provisions had been fulfilled.
All this I set down on paper in as businesslike way as I knew how. It was a document which would have made the poor old banker's ruin even greater than his thievings had done if I had been the sort of woman to break faith with him. With trembling fingers he signed it and counted out $5,000 in bills.
From the banker I had gained a good idea of the bank and the sort of vault we would have to enter. Now, to get some good, reliable men to help me do the job.
Of all the bank burglars in my acquaintance George Mason seemed best fitted for this particular crime. He was a cool, resourceful fellow and had had wide experience in blowing open bank vaults.
George readily agreed to join me, and for the rest of the party he recommended two younger men—Tom Smith and Frank Jones, I will call them, although those were not their names. I do not like to reveal their identity here because they later reformed and led honest lives.
Right here let me say that I never told these three men of my arrangements with the banker or that I was to receive from him $10,000 in addition to what we expected to find in the vault. If they are alive to-day and read these lines they will learn here for the first time that the bank in Quincy, Ill., which they helped Sophie Lyons rob was robbed by request of its president.