Dear Sir,—Three years ago one of your reporters did me a good turn. In return I promised to tip him off if ever I came across a big piece of news. He saved me from being wrongly sent to state prison. Things looked pretty black for me, though I was not guilty. I've forgotten his name. He looked to be twenty-eight or thirty years old, about five foot ten, not very heavy-built, smooth-shaven, dark-brown hair, and wore eyeglasses. He had on a dark-blue serge suit and was always smoking cigarettes. It happened on Chambers Street, not far from the Irving Bank. Ask him if he remembers my promise to pay him back for being good to me. Here is where I do it. Mr. W. H. Garrettson, the banker and promoter, is going to be kidnapped. The plans are all made. He will be held for one hundred million dollars ransom, and no harm will come to him, because he will be sure to pay.
Don't warn the police of this, because the other papers would get it and you would lose your scoop. You can warn Garrettson if you wish, but it will be useless, as in that event we should wait until vigilance relaxes, as it will surely do. Please do not think this is a crazy yan! Don't print anything now. Simply be ready, with photographs of Garrettson, his home, art-gallery, bank, list of his promotions, and corporations controlled by him, and so on. Keep this letter for reference, and just before you throw it into the waste-basket remember this: It costs you nothing; it commits you to nothing, involves no expense; there is no concealed dynamite and no fool joke. Remember my writing and my signature, and wait for the tip I shall send you if I possibly can, so that you alone publish the news.
Grateful Friend.
The city editors thought it was a crank's letter and threw it away, but each made a mental note—in case! Also they did not “tip off” anybody. They afterward stated that they said nothing to Garrettson, because if they acted on every freak missive they received half the city would not sleep. They thus were ready for the kidnapping of the great Garrettson.
At nine-forty-five on Tuesday morning Mr. James B. Robison, accompanied by an office-boy and an order-pad on which was printed “From J. B. R., for Richards & Tuttle,” went to the Broad Street entrance of the New York Stock Exchange. His gaze was fixed steadily on the Subtreasury, or so it seemed to the office-boy. At nine-fifty-two he exclaimed: “There he is!”
The office-boy, Sweeney, looking in the same direction, saw nothing but hurrying pedestrians and a carriage or two. Robison seemed so disappointed that the office-boy out of kindness asked, sympathetically, “Who, sir?”
“Nobody!” answered Mr. Robison, shortly. “Go back to the office and tell Mr. Richards to send me the clerk he promised me—the clerk with the ticker deafness, tell him. I'll wait here.”
The boy left and presently returned with one of the bookkeepers.
“Here is Mr. Manley,” the office-boy told Mr. Robison.
“Thank you. Here is something for you, my boy. Go back to the office.”