“As though a living man or the spirits of the dead could doubt me!” exclaimed Spinola, drawing his stature up to its height and throwing his chest out and his head back, in emphasis of his “square” dealing.
“You’ll pardon me, my dear general,” spoke Shinburn, in a voice that would be envied by a parson; “but here are the securities, and I’ll feel obliged if you’ll do me the honor,” and he laid the package of securities on the counter, but not an inch away from his fingers.
“There’s no question as to my part of the deal being fulfilled,” said Spinola, as he threw open the door of a safe and disclosed to view what he said was a million dollars in bills.
“Good,” declared Shinburn; “the sooner we close up the sale, the better!”
“And that’s what I think, too,” cried Spinola, as he hurled the door shut with a bang loud enough to be heard in the hallway. And it was heard, for in the main door appeared Detective James Irving. Shinburn gave one glance at Spinola, who stood motionless, and then crammed the securities in the satchel. He knew that a trap had been set; the question was—how to get out of it. He would care for himself and the sales agent must do likewise. Darting toward a window that opened into the hall, he threw up the sash. Another man appeared in the window—Detective George Edsel. He was trapped to a certainty, and, knowing it, surrendered, as the sales agent had already done. The detectives closed in on him, the securities were taken, and in a moment the prisoners were handcuffed and face to face with Chief Young. The latter had come in from the hallway after the arrests were made. With one hundred sixty-five thousand dollars’ worth of securities thus captured, Captain Young drove his prisoners to Police Headquarters, smuggled them in by the basement door on the Mott Street side, and gave strict orders that no information was to be given the reporters.
The New York Detective Bureau at that time was under the command of a captain whose power was as great as his conscience would permit him to use it, in any direction. He was to all intents and purposes a power within himself, and seldom received orders from his superiors; unless it were in exceptional cases, where politics played an important part. In that event everything had to bow to the inevitable.
Now, I do not hesitate in saying that Chief of Detectives John Young was as “crooked as a ram’s horn,” which fact was well known, in and out of the department. He took his “rake-off” greedily, from pickpocket mobs and other small-fry thieves, with the same assurance that an honest man receives his wages from an honest employer. Though this was common information among his official associates, many of whom were as firmly established in the saddle for graft as he, John Young was not of the sort they would trust. He was quite likely to fail them in an important settlement. So far as the profession was concerned, we had retained some of the headquarters associates of Chief Young, in our effort to obtain something for nothing, and when he couldn’t be trusted, they told us it was because he had not been “seen.” That the word “seen” may not be misunderstood, I will explain that crooks had to divide with him. However, Johnny had two confidants in Detectives Irving and Edsel, both of whom trusted him, as much as any man dared to, and stood by him pretty well, though the former had more than once rebelled. Another official with whom he associated to a certain degree was Colonel Hiram C. Whiteley, the powerful head of the United States Secret Service. When Young needed bogus money to stuff Spinola’s safe in the blind brokerage office, he went to Whiteley, who supplied counterfeit money. It was a pile of this kind of bills that Shinburn was shown by Spinola and which lured the victim, blindly, into the trap. As I think of John Young now, it is with a feeling of wonderment that he would have soiled his hands with spurious money, so eager was he to get his clutches on the real kind. No doubt he withstood the ordeal in the belief that it would lead to the bona-fide currency of Uncle Sam. I recall that Johnny’s eyes ever had a covetous glint in them when there was a “rake-off” in sight. Another streak in the color of John Young was his anxiety to keep out of harm’s way. When the trap was laid to catch Mark and our sales agent, he was mighty careful not to make a mark of himself, but sent his men in the brokerage office to face any danger there might be, and waited on the outside, behind the door, until he was sure it was safe to enter. I have ever held this act against him. I cannot say that either Irving or Edsel was possessed of a yellow streak.
Locked in a cell in the basement of headquarters, the prisoners felt somewhat disconsolate—not over the fact that they would find a cell up the Hudson River at Sing Sing, for that was not probable. Cash would be forthcoming, from me or some one else, and their freedom would be bought, they felt assured. It was the fact that the bonds were in the hands of Young that worried them. That was tantamount to our never seeing them again. Mark knew also that he would be secreted from his friends, as long as Young could do it, pending negotiations with the New Windsor Bank officials. If Young could make a deal with them, Mark knew that all other considerations would be side-tracked. The promises to the profession and friendships for his associates would count as nothing, weighed against Johnny’s desire to line his pocket with gold. Mark could only hope that some of our friends would hear of his arrest and take the word to me.
In the meantime Chief Young had again cautioned his confidants as to maintaining great secrecy, assuring them that he had a plan maturing which would fetch them in a few dollars.
“No one is to see the prisoners,” he commanded; “and, understand, I mean their counsel shall not get to them.”