From Boniface to Bank Burglar; Or, The Price of Persecution / How a Successful Business Man, Through the Miscarriage of Justice, Became a Notorious Bank Looter

by George M. White

This bank was near the corner of Wall and William streets, and it was a very sturdy job to contemplate from the start, but I consented to the second proposition. My first survey of the field disclosed the fact that there were two watchmen inside the bank, and that they were there after banking hours. That meant we should be obliged to overcome them if we captured the game. Besides the brace of pesky watchmen in the bank, there were half a dozen private watchmen hovering about the corners of Wall and William streets. While attending to their respective duties, any one of them might, at an extremely critical moment to me, pop on the scene and shuffle everything. It was apparent that I must plan against a stiff game—evident that there must be a base of operations established near by. With no little trouble I obtained the lease of a basement in a building in Pine Street, at the rear of the Bank of America. In this basement there sprang up, one fine morning, a full-fledged Cuban cigar store. It was a wholesale business, to be conducted as a blind. Strangely enough, though, money came in from the venture in a surprising quantity. It proved to be the real thing. However, we made it our rendezvous.

Having accomplished this, I turned to the important work of getting a “right” policeman or two on the posts near the bank. This was not difficult, for I passed the word along, and Patrolman Michael Conners, one of the Bank Ring, was transferred to the Wall Street post. He was just the man I wanted, having been faithful to me in a number of jobs. This fixed to suit me, I turned to the night watchmen end of the plot. It was like trying to walk through a stone wall. As has been pointed out, there were two of them in the bank at night, and through the police I knew these fellows were faithful—no amount of money could bribe them. Finally, I determined to “stand” up one of them and walk him into the bank, where I could get to the other. I found this in the beginning to be a feasible plan from the fact that they made separate trips to an ice box on the Pine Street end of the bank every night, for something to eat. I believed that on one of these trips, which occurred about eleven o’clock, I could capture the watchman. In the meantime, Patrolman Conners would keep the outside private watchmen well away from the bank. With my associates carrying the needful tools and others of us “walking” the captured watchman into the bank, it would be easy to overcome the other one and work our way into the vault.

I started out on this plan, and among other things kept tabs on the time the watchmen paid the nightly visits to the ice box. I didn’t like their actions from the beginning. They were disappointingly irregular about it. One night one would do the trick and the next night the other. Once it would be nine o’clock, and again eleven o’clock. This wouldn’t do at all. Besides this obstacle, Eddie Hughes, the bright chap who was one of my first associates in crime and who formed one of the party which “turned off” the Cadiz Bank in Ohio, was terribly along in his habit of eating morphine. In fact, he was useless to me, and I had to replace him with Mysterious Jimmy, a young crook recommended to me by Detective Josh Taggart of Philadelphia. Then, to add to the trouble, the janitor and his husky wife and big family of boys were frequently happening around the bank at all hours of the night. Disgusted in the extreme, I threw up the enterprise.

Thus far, the scheme of my Police Headquarters friends and I had met with disheartening results. However, they were still anxious to make another attempt, so I took courage and pressed on. What better encouragement could a fellow want than to have all the policemen necessary at one’s beck and call?

It was very evident to me that I must have new material with which to work, and get it I did. Detective Sergeants Tom Davidson and Joe Seymour, a pair of Central Office sleuths who had been ward-men in the First Precinct and knew the Wall Street district from beginning to end, were detailed on what was called “Wall Street duty.” It is needless to say that they played an important part in our loot enterprise, and were, in every meaning of the word, “right,” as I looked at it. I shall be frank too, and say that, while the first names given them are correct, the surnames are fictitious. I feel justified in doing this because of their faithfulness to me throughout our acquaintance. I will, though, go a step farther and say that the initial letter to each surname is the correct one. Beyond that I must not venture.

The next bank selected upon which to make an attempt was the St. Nicholas, and it was through Davidson that I decided to try it. He had suggested that his friend, a depositor there, might be turned to our account; that through this friend, who would be innocent of it all, I might get a chance to watch an unlocking of the vault. Getting the combination numbers in this manner, we’d surely be able to do the rest. Davidson was really adept in getting something for nothing, and wasn’t afraid to use any means to attain his end. His friend, he told me, had a large account in the St. Nicholas, and was on very familiar terms with its officials. As a matter of fact, he was permitted the freedom of the bank. I instructed Tom how to proceed, and he with great alacrity did so,—indeed, persevering to the extent that I couldn’t expect anything but success. He looked up his friend and spun him a great yarn.

“Now,” said Davidson,—and he could tell a story well, as I recall,—“Seymour and me are on a case of embezzlement by a clerk in a Wall Street broker’s office, and we’ve got some of the securities back. The question is, will you help us out?”

“Too glad, if only I can,” was the friend’s answer; “but the thing is how?”

“Easy, very easy,” replied Davidson; “and in this manner—” Here he unfolded the scheme. “Pending a hearing in the police court,” he went on, “Seymour and me must take care of the securities. For reasons I can’t tell—police reasons, you know—we can’t keep the stuff at Police Headquarters, yet we must be able to put our hands on it any moment. Now, can’t you suggest some one who will take temporary charge of the stuff for us?”

The depositor hesitated. He couldn’t, for his life’s sake, seem to think of a soul who’d fill Davidson’s bill; but the latter could and progressed cautiously. His watchword was ever, caution. Should his request for aid ever in any way be connected, even by suspicion, with aught that might happen to the St. Nicholas Bank, he wanted to weave the circumstances so that it would appear as though his friend had proffered assistance.