AN EASY BANK ROBBERY
I agreed to this reluctantly, for I felt a premonition that when this "one more job" was finished we should both find ourselves back in Sing Sing again. And, as it turned out, I was right.
It was not altogether lack of money or the desire to live a decent life which made me plead with Ned to reform. The fact that there was a reward on both our heads and that at any minute some ambitious detective was liable to recognize us was beginning to tell on my nerves. Ned used to try to laugh my fears away by saying that I saw policemen in my sleep. Probably I did—at any rate, I know that for months, asleep or awake, I would jump at the slightest sound, thinking it was an officer come to take us back to Sing Sing. We could not live natural lives but had to be constantly dodging about, and occasionally running to cover for long intervals.
The "one more job" my husband had in mind was the robbery of a Montreal bank. He looked the ground over, found it to his liking, and then sent for a friend of ours, Dave Cummings, an experienced bank robber, to come on from New York and help us.
It was really a very simple undertaking for three such expert criminals as we were. My part of it was merely to stand in the shadow of an alley and watch for the possible return of one of the bank's two watchmen. There was small chance of his putting in an appearance, for my husband had previously cultivated his acquaintance, and on this particular evening had been plying him with mugs of ale until he had left him fast asleep in a nearby saloon.
Inside the bank there was a second watchman. He was an old man, but when he discovered Ned and Dave crawling through the rear window, which they had opened with their jimmies, he put up such a stiff fight that they had all they could do to stun him with a blow on the head, stuff a handkerchief down his throat, and tie his hands and feet with a piece of rope. As it was, they made so much noise that I nearly had nervous prostration in the alley where I was crouching half a block away.
"I think I'd better keep an eye on this old chap while you get the coin, Dave," my husband said, ruefully rubbing a bruised cheek he had received in the tussle with the faithful guardian of the bank.
So, as a matter of precaution, my husband mounted guard with his revolver over the watchman, while Dave solved the combination of the safe. Nothing further happened to interfere with our plans and by daybreak we were well on our way toward the Canadian border.
We had expected to get at least $30,000 from this robbery, but when we came to empty the satchel in which Dave had placed the plunder, we found there was not quite half that amount. It was all Dave's fault, as we learned later from the newspapers. He had carelessly overlooked a bundle of currency containing $25,000. I had always considered Dave Cummings a thoroughly careful and reliable man, but this expensive oversight of his rather shook my confidence in him.
My husband and I returned to New York with our share of the booty. There, a few days later, we were arrested, but not for the bank robbery in Montreal. The detectives who had been searching for us ever since our escape from Sing Sing had found our hiding place at last, and they took us back to prison to serve out our terms.
In our prison cells, once more, we had ample opportunity to consider how fruitless of results our escape had been. For all the risks we had run in getting out and for all the worrisome months we had spent in dodging detectives we had nothing to show except the fleeting satisfaction of a few days with our children. What had we gained? Nothing.