A TIP TO THE POLICE
Jimmy Hope's drill hole, puttied up and nicely hidden on the outside showed black and conspicuous from the inside. The lock mechanics observed the hole and asked the officers of the bank how the hole came there. They all shook their heads and the subject was dropped. A portly and prosperous looking gentleman who had been standing at the paying teller's window after changing a one hundred dollar bill, heaved a sigh and walked away. It was Jimmy Hope!
"Boys," he said to the band, who were all prepared to abandon the job, "it's a shame to take that money. Those simple souls have found our hole and it doesn't even interest them. They are worrying about a little $20,000 loan on some doubtful security, and here we are within a few inches of from three to six millions."
"Such faith is beautiful," said Johnny Dobbs, with mock piety, "let us pray that it be justified."
Nevertheless the job was postponed for a year on account of information furnished by John Nugent. Nugent, being a member of the New York police force in good standing, was able to keep in close touch with headquarters. He learned that the presence of a dozen of the ablest bank burglars in the world had become known to the police. Not that the police had discovered their presence by detective work, for this happens only in novels or detective plays. When the "sleuth" in actual life gets any real information it is because somebody for fear, hatred, or reward has told him.
As I have said, there was bad feeling in the band and I think someone interested in Howard's death gave the tip. At any rate, the band took pains to scatter, and the various members were careful to record themselves at different cities remote from New York. The New York police were much relieved and promptly forgot the tip that "something big" was to be "pulled off."
Just about a year later Shevelin, who was not by nature intended for a crook, looked up from a drunken doze at a saloon table into the keen eyes of Jimmy Hope. Shevelin had neither the instinctive inclination nor the nervous system which belong to the natural criminal. The bare fact that he was connected with the projected robbery had made a drinking man of him.
He was in debt and in other trouble, and was genuinely pleased to open negotiations again with the able and confidence-inspiring leader. Everything was now in order to go on with the undertaking. There were no dissensions in the gang, therefore the police had no inkling, the bank was smugly confident of their steel fortress, and it only remained to name the hour.
Hope's operations were much embarrassed by the fact that Patrick Shevelin was only a supplementary watchman. Daniel Keely, his brother-in-law, was the regular night watchman, and absolutely honest, as Hope knew, both from his own investigations and from Shevelin's assurances. Shevelin's duty was as day watchman, chiefly during banking hours. The only time when he did not share his watch with either Keely or the equally incorruptible janitor of the building, Louis Werkle, was on Sunday. Therefore, the morning of a beautiful October Sabbath was chosen.
Hope saw that the weak spot of the bank was also the vulnerable point in his own operations, namely, the nervous and somewhat alcoholic Shevelin. Hope decided it would be best for Shevelin to not be on duty at the bank that Sunday, but to arrange with Werkle, the janitor, to take his place.