"RED" LEARY LENDS AID
Besides this I was allowed a little pocket money to buy candies, fruit, and occasional trinkets for the children.
Ned brought good news this time. He had pondered over my suggestion of a forged pass and the more he thought of it the more it seemed a promising scheme. But there were several important things that must be done, and done well, to make the plan reasonably sure of success.
Lyons, in prison, could not personally attend to the necessary details. He must have outside help. Usually, in such emergencies, I was the one who was relied upon to attend to matters of this kind—but, unfortunately, I, too, was in prison and under close watch.
So, in casting about for a reliable friend, Lyons decided to ask the help of "Red" Leary, the bank burglar, who had been associated with my husband in the famous $3,000,000 Manhattan Bank robbery. Word was sent to Leary and, on the next "visitors' day," a gentleman with high silk hat and black gloves and a lawyer's green bag drove up to the prison and sent in his card to the Warden—could Ned Lyons's "lawyer" see his imprisoned client?
In this guise "Red" Leary, high hat, lawyer's bag and gloves, swept into the prison and was courteously allowed an interview with my husband. Ned explained that two important things were needed—a visitor's pass properly signed with the Warden's signature, and a carefully selected disguise for the escaping man to use. Could "Red" Leary attend to these two matters? "Red" Leary could, and with much pleasure—and the first move in the proceedings then and there was to carefully chew up his pass into a wad and tuck it behind his upper molar teeth.
Ned Lyons was led back to his cell and his "lawyer" put on his silk hat and arose to leave. He began searching his pockets and his green bag for his missing pass. An attendant helped him. Then the keeper at the door took a hand and looked through his pocketbook and papers while the "lawyer," in much distress, turned his pockets inside out. But no pass could be found.
At last the principal keeper, Connaughton, was called and he reprimanded the "lawyer" severely for his carelessness, but finally allowed the visitor to depart—and behind "Red" Leary's back teeth was the pass that was so much needed in forging a fresh one, with the proper day and date on it Leary returned to New York and enlisted the services of a friend who was an expert check forger and soon had a pass that the Warden of Sing Sing himself would not know was a forgery. And this precious piece of paper was smuggled in to Lyons and he hid it in a crack in the floor of his cell. Ned planned to use this pass in making his escape if he could get a wig to cover his closely cropped head, a false beard to disguise his face, and a suit of clothes to replace his prison stripes in time for the next visitors' day.
"Red" Leary was to call to see me the next day and I was to arrange with him about securing these necessaries. They were to be left in an obscure corner grocery outside the prison where a "trusty," whom my husband had befriended, would claim them and smuggle them into Ned's cell.
It was a Wednesday I had my last call from Ned. Through one of those mysterious underground channels which keep the inmates of every prison in such close touch with the outside world, my husband had learned that on the following Tuesday, which was a visitors' day, the Warden and several other prominent officials of the prison were to be away attending a political meeting. That was the day he had set for his escape, provided our friend Leary could deliver the necessary disguise in time.
I had my doubts about "Red" Leary, who was good hearted enough and meant well, but was prone to be careless about keeping appointments. To my delight, however, he was on hand next day and he got permission from the matron to see me. When I asked him if he had everything in readiness he burst into a torrent of eager explanations.
"It's all out there in the buggy, Sophie," he said, "tied up in a bundle that you'd take for anything but what it is. Everything's there and everything's right. Why, even the shirt and collar are Ned's right size, and, say, I bet they'll feel good after rubbing his neck for months against that rough prison stuff."