The wire door swung open noiselessly; Meaney was crouching low; I had lost my view of him as he crept toward the big open door of the bank vault.
On the sidewalk, pacing slowly up and down in front of the side door, was "Big Tom" Bigelow. He was the "outside man" of the job and, although I could not see him, I knew he was on the alert to intercept anybody who might happen in. With some excuse he must stop any clerk who tried to enter through the side door—I myself must intercept any clerk who might chance to return from lunch and enter by the front entrance.
WE GET OUR PLUNDER
With increasing vivaciousness, I rattled along entertaining the cashier. In a few moments I saw the wire door gently open as if by a spirit hand. Creeping low along the floor, a shadow crossed the little corridor to the outside door; noiselessly it opened and closed—the work was done!
And thus this job, which had taken us weeks to plan, was done in less than five minutes from the time I entered the bank until Meaney stole out of a back door with his satchel full of bank notes and securities. Then the three of us quickly made our way by separate routes to New York.
The loss was not discovered until it came time to close the vault for the day, and we thus had nearly three hours' start of the police. A large reward was offered and numerous detectives engaged, but no one was ever arrested for this crime. I am just vain enough to think that the old cashier was probably very reluctant to believe his pretty widow had a share in the robbery, in spite of her mysterious disappearance on the very day it occurred.
Our plunder amounted to $150,000, of which $20,000 was cash and the rest good negotiable bonds. The money was divided and I undertook the marketing of the securities, which were finally disposed of through various channels for $78,000, or about 60 per cent. of their value.
Those squeaky door hinges cost Meaney, Bigelow, and myself about $6,000 apiece, for through the addition of Taylor to our party we had to divide the spoils among four persons instead of three. After paying my expenses, my share of these ill-gotten gains amounted to about $20,000. This I thought ample to provide for the wants of my children until I could establish myself in some honorable business, and I returned to Detroit fully determined never again to risk, as I had, a long prison term.
But my good resolutions were short lived. Two weeks later word came that my husband was in jail for complicity in an attempted bank robbery which had been nipped in the bud and urgently needed my assistance. It took several thousand dollars of the money for which I had paid so dear to secure his liberty, and the remainder soon melted away before the numerous needs of my little brood and my husband's unfortunate gambling propensities.
Here I was again just where I was before the robbery of that New Jersey bank. My money was gone, my old reputation still pursued me, nobody would trust me; "once a thief, always a thief," they said; nobody believed in my sincere desire to abandon my early career and lead an honest life.