So, as a matter of precaution, my husband mounted guard with his revolver over the watchman, while Dave solved the combination of the safe. Nothing further happened to interfere with our plans and by daybreak we were well on our way toward the Canadian border.
We had expected to get at least $30,000 from this robbery, but when we came to empty the satchel in which Dave had placed the plunder, we found there was not quite half that amount. It was all Dave's fault, as we learned later from the newspapers. He had carelessly overlooked a bundle of currency containing $25,000. I had always considered Dave Cummings a thoroughly careful and reliable man, but this expensive oversight of his rather shook my confidence in him.
My husband and I returned to New York with our share of the booty. There, a few days later, we were arrested, but not for the bank robbery in Montreal. The detectives who had been searching for us ever since our escape from Sing Sing had found our hiding place at last, and they took us back to prison to serve out our terms.
In our prison cells, once more, we had ample opportunity to consider how fruitless of results our escape had been. For all the risks we had run in getting out and for all the worrisome months we had spent in dodging detectives we had nothing to show except the fleeting satisfaction of a few days with our children. What had we gained? Nothing.
HOW BULLARD GOT OUT
A criminal's reputation for cleverness among his fellows depends very largely upon his ability to escape—or to help his friends to escape. Mark Shinburn used to take more pride in the way he broke into the jail at White Plains, New York, to free Charley Bullard and Ike Marsh, two friends of his, than he did in some of his boldest robberies.
After reconnoitering the ground and carefully planning the jail delivery, Shinburn and his companion, Raymond, put in a hard night's work burrowing into the jail. They took Marsh and Bullard out, but what was gained? Marsh was soon in trouble again and Bullard was taken again and ended his days in prison.
And now one more instance—a very curious one.
Of all the ways by which thieves have cheated the law out of its due, the most ingenious was probably the way "Sheeney Mike" brought about his release from the Massachusetts State Prison. He feigned illness so cleverly that the eminent physicians of the State Medical Board pronounced him suffering from a mysterious and incurable disease and ordered his release after he had served only three years of his twelve-year sentence for one of his daring burglaries.
It was the robbery of Scott & Co.'s silk warehouse in Boston that sent "Sheeney Mike" to Charlestown Prison, from which he so ingeniously escaped. He discovered that the watchman was vigilant all through the night except between the hours of 12 and 1 o'clock, when he went out to get something to eat. Mike secured a false key which unlocked a door to the warehouse, and arranged for two trucks to be on hand at a few minutes past 12 one night.