At Victoria I put in a few very pleasant months. I joined the colony of Chinese and opium smugglers who ran their freight across the line in fast, small boats at night into Port Townsend, Anacortes, or Seattle, Washington. The manufacture of smoking opium was then a legalized industry in Canada, and the smugglers were welcomed and harbored because they brought much American gold to the Canadian side. Being in the company of these characters I was accepted by the police as one of them, and went my way unmolested.
One fatal evening, as I stood watching a faro game making mental bets and winning every one, the devilish hunch came to me that I was lucky and ought to make a play. My resistance reached the vanishing point. I made a bet, lost it, got stuck, and feverishly played in my last dollar.
This gambling habit is the curse of a thief’s life. He loses his last dime and is forced to go out in haste for more money. Like a mechanic broke and out of a job, he takes the first one in sight. He has no time to pick and choose, or calculate carefully what he is about; he must eat, and the minute he goes broke he gets hungry. Gambling keeps him broke, forces him to steal small money on short notice and take prohibitive and unnatural chances.
I could have borrowed money enough to expense myself to Vancouver where I had the valuable watch planted, but there had been such a cry in the papers about the car burglary, the loser was so powerful and influential, and the danger of trying to sell it so great, that I decided to leave it there till later, and take it to the American side.
During my stay in Victoria I had strolled through the residence district and noted several homes that looked prosperous and easy of approach. House burglary was almost unknown there then; there was almost no police protection, none was needed. Householders left windows open and doors unlocked.
One o’clock found me in one of the most pretentious places on my list, but instead of picking up trifles right and left as I expected, I found but one room occupied. Later I learned the family, with the exception of the man of the house, was away for the summer. He was a good sleeper. I took nothing but money, and not much of that—less than fifty dollars in silver and bills—leaving his watch and some small articles of jewelry as not worth the chances I must take in trying to dispose of them in a strange town.
I went straight downtown to the only all-night bar and lunch counter to eat before going to bed. Before I had my meal finished two officers and two civilians came in and spoke to the sleepy bartender. He nodded toward me and they all came over to where I sat eating. One of the civilians looked at me closely and said to the other: “Looks very much like the man; same clothes, same hat, same build, same height.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“This,” spoke up the other. “If I am wrong you have an apology in advance; if I am right you are in for it. I was robbed not an hour ago in my bedroom in my house. This man, my servant, had occasion to get out of bed and, while standing at a window in his room, saw the prowler leaving stealthily by the rear way. Suspicious, he alarmed me, and I discovered my loss. I brought these officers here on a bare chance that the burglar might be here. You are the only one who has entered here, except us, in the last hour. I do not accuse you. I ask you if you will permit the officers to search you. If you are an honest man, you cannot take offense.”
He was the man I had robbed; he was an Attorney; he was a smart man. I was in a bad hole. If I objected to search it would look bad, and they would do it anyway. “Certainly. Go ahead and search me,” I said, making the best of a bad position. When the officers had finished searching me, they counted the money.