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

It had been further arranged that, on his way to my rooms with the precious package, the lookout man was to stop at my stable and notify my coachman, who had orders to drive at once to Cortlandt Street ferry and there await further instructions.

The night was excessively warm, and the janitor, with a crowd of neighbors, sat on the steps until after eleven o’clock, while Shinburn and I, stripped to our underclothes, sweltered in the close air of the office. At last, the chatter above having ceased, the chatterers having sought their apartments, and the patrolman being away, we pulled out the wardrobe and went to work with a will.

Nothing happened to deter us except the momentary passage of some pedestrian, and by two o’clock we had cleared away all the masonry, leaving the wood floor bare. Through this we cut, taking care not to injure the carpet above. A hole being cut in the floor, we pushed up the carpet and in a twinkling we were in the president’s office. The iron shutters on the bank windows hid us from view from the outside and we had a clear road to the vault.

But what if the combination had been changed! I rushed to the door, twirled the dial plate, and—the door was open. To get the keys of the inner doors from their secret resting-place was but the work of a moment, and then we were inside of the vault. There, exposed to our view, were various boxes containing the securities of the bank and of many of its customers who used this as a place of deposit for their valuables.

Taylor had told me where in the vault to find the box containing the sealed package. This box I at once broke open, took the package, and went to the toilet room off O’Kell’s office. In order to save time, the signal that I had arranged for the lookout man was made to work by a cord. One end of this cord was attached to the signal, the other end I carried with me as we went to the vault.

As soon as the vault was opened, I pulled the cord. As luck would have it, the signal was displaced just before the lookout passed, so that when I reached the window I had but a few moments to wait before he was back, and that part of the scheme was completed. Meanwhile, Shinburn had so fixed the lock of the front doors to the bank that it could not be opened without a locksmith, and we were free from fear of intrusion from that direction; at least until we should have time to relock the vault and get below.

From the toilet room I returned to Kohler’s office and proceeded to pass the tools up through the hole to Shinburn. This was no small undertaking, for the shutters of the bank had holes near the top which precluded our having a light in the president’s room. I had had to work the combination by the light of a cigar, and some of the tools were pretty heavy, the hydraulic jack alone weighing one hundred and twenty-five pounds.

All of the tools were wrapped in cloth to prevent clashing; yet it was ticklish business, lest they should strike against something and so make noise enough to be heard outside. At last they were all up without mishap, and I followed. Our next act after getting the tools into the vault was to close the doors and strike a light.

We then went to the various boxes and sorted their contents, taking such securities as were negotiable and putting them in a satchel. We found much jewelry, but did not take any. That was not our graft, and, besides, we felt that we would have a full load with the money and bonds. As we inspected them, we placed the boxes at the far end of the vault and when through with the last one we turned our attention to the tellers’ safes.

We commenced with the receiving teller’s safe, cutting a small opening directly over the lock bolts to enable their being pushed back. But the cutting, or drilling, of steel by hand is very slow and hard work, and it was not until eleven o’clock in the morning that the bolts were sprung and the doors of the safe opened. The contents of this safe were gone over and all that were negotiable were put in the satchel containing the other valuables, and the satchel let down into Kohler’s office, so that we might be sure of that much were we disturbed in our further work.