He directed everybody, by order of the Department of Justice, to say nothing about this matter. All were warned, under no circumstances, to say anything about it, no matter if there should be an investigation on account of the robbery having taken place at some other point. The United States Secret Service had put into effect here, on this train, a plan upon which it was accustomed to depend, and this plan must not become public.
The man’s nerve and assurance were without limit.
When he had finished, he requested the express agent to return to him the dummy package of marked bills which he had given him to put into the safe. Any one else in the world would have hesitated to have the safe opened, and would either have removed the dummy envelope when he took out the packages of money, or would have left it; but not Mooney. He had set out to do every detail in this undertaking with precision and order, and he did not intend to leave any item unaccomplished.
The express agent opened the safe, took out the envelope, gave it to him, and locked the safe again. And at the next station we shook hands with everybody and got down.
We took a through train east, having carried out what I felt at the time, and what I now feel, to have been a criminal adventure of unequaled assurance. So successful was it that we never heard anything more about it. Nothing concerning it was ever published or made known so far as I have been able to find out.
The robbery, of course, appeared when the packages of currency were delivered at the bank. But nobody knew at what place this robbery had been accomplished; whether it was done at the point of shipment, some place along the line, or where the packages were delivered to the banks.
It was likely that neither the sheriff nor any of the train officials ever said anything about the government agent who took charge of the express car on that night. There was no reason for them to give any information.
Was it not the work of the United States Secret Service? And had they not been warned to silence?
CHAPTER V
The Big Haul
It was a soft October night with a bare threat of frost in the air; the sky gray with stars, and a vast silence.