The robbery was discovered at the Treasury in Washington on Saturday morning. The news was telegraphed to New York immediately, and on Saturday afternoon anxious councils were held by the officials of the American Exchange Bank and the Adams Express Company. Inspector Byrnes was notified; the Pinkerton Agency was notified; and urgent despatches were sent to Mr. John Hoey, president of the express company, and to Robert Pinkerton, who were both out of town, that their presence was required immediately in New York. Meanwhile every one who had had any connection with the stolen package—the paying-teller of the bank, other bank clerks, the messengers, detective McDougal, the receiving-clerks of the Adams Express Company, and the express messenger—was closely examined. Where and how the forty-one thousand dollars had been stolen was important to learn not only in itself, but also to fix responsibility for the sum lost as between the bank and the express company.
Three theories were at once suggested: the bogus package might have been substituted for the genuine one either at the bank, between the bank and the express office, or between the express office and the Treasury. The first assumption threw suspicion on some of the bank employees, the second upon the two bank messengers, the third upon some one in the service of the express company. Both the bank and the express company stoutly maintained the integrity of its own employees.
An examination of the bogus package disclosed some points of significance. Ordinarily, when bank-notes are done up for shipment by an experienced clerk, the bills are pressed together as tightly as possible in small bundles, which are secured with elastic bands, and then wrapped snugly in strong paper, until the whole makes a package almost as hard as a board. Around this package the clerk knots strong twine, melts a drop of sealing-wax over each knot, and stamps it with the bank's seal. The finished package thus presents a neat and trim appearance. But in the present instance the package received at the Treasury was loosely and slovenly wrapped, and the seals seemed to have been put on either in great haste or by an inexperienced hand. Moreover, the label must have been cut from the stolen package and pasted on the other, for the brown paper of a previous wrapping showed plainly in a margin running around the label. The address on the package read:
"$41,000.
"United States Treasurer,
"Washington,
"D. C."
All this was printed, except the figures "41,000," even the dollar-sign. The figures were in the writing of Mr. Watson, the paying-teller of the bank, whose business it was to oversee the sending of the money. His initials were also marked on the label, with the date of the sending; so that on examining the label Mr. Watson himself was positive that it was genuine.
All this made it tolerably clear that the robbery had not been committed at the bank before the package was intrusted to the two messengers; for no bank clerk would have made up so clumsy a package, and the paying-teller himself, had he been a party to the crime, would not have cut the label written by himself from the genuine package and pasted it on the bogus one; he would simply have written out another label, thus lessening the chances of detection. Furthermore, it was shown by testimony that during the short time between the sealing up of the package in the paying-teller's department and its delivery to Dominie Earle, who took it first, it was constantly under the observation of half a dozen bank employees; so that the work of cutting off the label and pasting it on the bogus package could scarcely have been accomplished then without detection.
Earle and Crawford, the bank messengers, were submitted to repeated examinations; but their statements threw no light upon the mystery. Both stuck persistently to the same story, which was that neither had loosed his hold on the handle of the valise from the moment they left the bank until they had delivered the package through the window of the express company's money department. Accepting these statements as true, it was impossible that the package had been tampered with in this part of its journey; while the assumption that they were not true implied apparently a collusion between the two messengers, which was highly improbable, since Dominie Earle had been a servant of the bank for thirty-five years, and had never in that long term failed in his duty or done anything to arouse distrust. Before entering the bank's employ he had been a preacher, and his whole life seemed to have been one of simplicity and honest dealing.
As for Crawford, who was, indeed, a new man, it was plain that if the Dominie told the truth, and had really kept his hold on the valise-handle all the way to the express company's window, his companion, honest or dishonest, would have had no opportunity to cut off the label, paste it on the bogus package, and make the substitution.
Finally came the theory that the money package had been stolen while in the care of the express company. In considering this possibility it became necessary to know exactly what had happened to the package from the moment it was taken through the window of the money department up to the time of its delivery at the Treasury. The package was first receipted for by the head of the money department, Mr. J. C. Young. Having handed the receipt to the bank messengers, he passed the package to his assistant, Mr. Littlefield, who in turn passed it on to another clerk, Mr. Moody, who way-billed it in due form for Washington, and then placed it in the iron safe which was to carry it on its journey. Two or three hours may have elapsed between the receipt of the package and the shipment of the safe, but during this time the package was constantly in view of five or six clerks in the money department, and, unless they were all in collusion, it could scarcely have been stolen by any one there. As for the express messenger who accompanied the safe on the wagon to the train, and then on the train to Washington, and then on another wagon to the Treasury building, his innocence seemed clearly established, since the safe had been locked and sealed, according to custom, before its delivery to him, and showed no signs of having been tampered with when opened in Washington the following morning by another representative of the express company. The messenger who accompanies a through safe to its destination, indeed, has small chance of getting inside, not only because of the protecting seal, but also because he is never allowed to have the key to the safe or to know its combination. Recently, as a still further safeguard, the Adams Express Company has introduced into its cars an equipment of large burglar-proof and fire-proof safes, especially as a guard against train robbers, who found it comparatively easy to break open the small safes once in use. In the present instance, of course, there was no question of train robbers.
One important fact stood out plain and uncontrovertible: that a responsible clerk in the money department of the Adams Express Company had receipted for a package supposed to contain forty-one thousand dollars intrusted to the company by the bank. This threw the responsibility on the company, at least until it could be shown that the package as delivered contained brown paper, and not bank-notes. In accordance with their usual policy of promptness and liberality, the Adams people paid over to the American Exchange Bank the sum of forty-one thousand dollars, and said no more about it. But their silence did not mean inactivity. Their instructions to their detectives in this case, as in all similar cases, were to spare neither time nor expense, but to continue the investigation until the thieves had been detected and brought to punishment, or until the last possibility of clearing up the mystery had certainly expired.