Quite frequently bank burglars devote as much as three or four months of hard labor in preparing for an important robbery and, in a large percentage of cases, they find that, after all their patience and industry, it is impossible for them to execute the robbery they have so carefully planned and all their work goes for nought. Sometimes, too, they are interrupted in their work and have to flee, leaving behind their kits of valuable tools. Watchmen's bullets are ever threatening their lives and prison walls constantly loom up before them.
In view of these facts one would imagine that the money which the professional criminal makes at such great risk and expense and with so much difficulty would have an enhanced value in his eyes. But this is not so. Not only is the professional criminal an inveterate gambler, as I have repeatedly pointed out, but the great majority of them are generous to a fault.
While this generosity is almost universal in the underworld, those unfamiliar with the workings of the criminal heart would give it very little credit for such impulses.
My experience in the underworld has thoroughly convinced me that no criminal is wholly bad. I know that beneath the rough exterior of many of the desperate criminals with whom I came in contact beat hearts that were tender. To-day I shall relate some of the more striking incidents which come back to me and which illustrate some of the good qualities possessed by the notorious criminals with whom I associated.
I am reminded of an experience I had with Dan Nugent, the bank burglar. I may say incidentally that this man Nugent was absolutely fearless and would resort to any measure, however desperate, to accomplish his purpose. He was a man to be feared and it was dangerous to cross him. But that this criminal had some very excellent qualities will appear from the following incident, now told for the first time.
While in Kansas City I robbed a bank, securing some four thousand dollars. As I was leaving the bank—it was in the day time—I saw Nugent going in. Evidently he had planned to rob the bank himself. We did not speak.
Within a few minutes after my departure the robbery was discovered. The doors were at once closed and no one was allowed to leave without first undergoing the scrutiny of the detectives who had been summoned by telephone. Poor Dan was caught in the trap and his identity being established he was at once arrested on suspicion of having been implicated in the robbery, if not the actual perpetrator of it, although the only evidence against him was the fact of being on the premises.
Dan was kept in custody for some hours, but at length the police were compelled to let him go, being unable to strengthen their case against him.
Later that day I happened to run into him.