J.M.
#16
Newport, July 5th, 9 P.M.
All is set for the drama to-night, and I am nervously awaiting my cue. Heaven knows what the next few hours may bring forth! When you read this it may be up to you to get me out of jail. If we pull it off all right I have no doubt the newspapers will say, as they always do, that the robbery gave evidence of long and careful planning, whereas it was all fixed up in a few minutes.
I went over to Providence to-day shortly before the hour set by Lorina, and found Foxy waiting at the hotel she named. Lorina herself, he said, was in Newport looking over the ground, and would be back directly. It seems that hearing of the affair at Fernhurst they had determined to turn the trick the same night.
Lorina came bringing a good-looking, well-dressed young fellow whom she introduced to the crowd as Frank. He was evidently a youngster of the fashionable world, one cannot mistake the little earmarks. He has a look of the —— family; one of the younger sons, maybe, whom drink and the devil have done for. At any rate, he is completely under Lorina's thumb like the rest.
Lorina was playing the part of a traveller in books—religious books if you please! She dressed the business woman plain and handsome, and had engaged a private sitting-room for the day to show her samples. There was actually a whole trunk full of sample books. I suppose she passed us off as her agents or customers.
She had us all in the sitting-room together. Besides Frank, Foxy and myself, there was a fourth man whom I recognised as her chauffeur. His name is Jim. She proceeded to lay out her campaign in the most matter-of-fact way without wasting a word. It might have been the sales-manager instructing the drummers in the Fall line. Nobody seemed nervous except Frank, who was apparently new at the game.
The entertainment at Fernhurst provided our opportunity. It appeared that Frank was well acquainted with Mrs. Levering, and that by Lorina's instructions he had been particularly cultivating her society of late. He was to be the decoy. Furthermore, he drew for us with rather a shaky hand, a plan of the house and grounds at Fernhurst, showing the location of roads, paths, benches, shrubbery, etc. Lorina used this plan in issuing her instructions.
"Dancing is to begin at nine-thirty," she said, "but all the guests will not have arrived until nearly midnight. So we will fix on midnight to turn the trick, or as soon after as possible. We have decided on this bench that I have marked with a cross for the spot. Get its position well fixed in your mind, all of you. It is quite a way from the house you see, few, if any, of the dancers will go so far. It is off the main paths. It is near the street fence, but is hidden from the street by this dense shrubbery behind it.