I was amazed at the bold ingenuity of this plan and the matter-of-fact way in which he presented it to me. This was the first I had ever heard of a bank being robbed by request of one of its officials. Later I came to know that it is not an uncommon thing for dishonest presidents and cashiers to conceal their thefts by hiring robbers to break into their banks. The difference between what is actually taken in one of these robberies by request and what the police and the newspapers say is taken covers the amount which the embezzling official has lost in Wall Street or some other speculation.
WHAT HAPPENED WHEN WE ROBBED A BANK "BY REQUEST."
At that time such an idea was so new to me that all sorts of suspicions crowded into my mind. Probably it was a trap for me, I thought, and I positively declined to have anything to do with it.
But the old banker would not take no for an answer. He urged me to think it over and a week later he called again.
By this time the fear of the disgrace which threatened him and his family had made him a nervous wreck. He begged so piteously for me to help him save his good name that my womanly sympathies got the better of me and I finally consented.
All my feeling for him, however, did not quite free my mind of the fear that the whole affair might be a trick, and I determined to protect myself and the robbers who would assist me with all the shrewdness I could.
"We must have a written agreement," I said at the very start.
The banker objected to this, fearing, I suppose, that I might use the paper against him later for blackmail. But I insisted that I would not do a thing until I had it.
"If you can't trust me to that extent I can't trust you," I said firmly—and at last he told me to draw up the paper and he would sign it.