Q. And you always made sure to give him a key that would not open the box?
A. Yes, sir; the reason of that is that we gave him a key that fits the box with the money in, and that would not fit the box that had the brick in.—Vol. iii., pp. 2,613-5.
There were many ways of swindling the unfortunate guy. When once they are hooked, they can be played with to almost any extent. In this, as in higher regions, the saying holds good—
Faith, fanatic faith, once wedded fast
To some dear falsehood, hugs it to the last.
A guy will pay his money down and expect the notes to be sent to his order. When they fail to turn up, he will come back and buy some more, which are to be expressed to him. When they do not arrive, he will come back the third time and do another deal, and see them checked at the station with his ticket. The baggage-man is accused of stealing the money, and the guy comes up for a fourth time. In this final purchase he never allows the box or bag to go out of his own hands. Not until he opens the precious parcel and finds the brick or counterfeit notes or rolls of paper, does it dawn upon him that he has been done.
The need for great secrecy and the importance of getting a long way off the city before opening the box do not seem unreasonable to a man who knows that he is engaged in a more or less fraudulent transaction. It is the knowledge of the guy that he is doing a more or less crooked business which enables the gang to plunder him with such impunity.
Some such methods are probably familiar to the police of all the cities in the world, but that which was peculiar to New York was the arrangement made for carrying on this business, not merely with the cognizance of, but with the active co-operation of the police. This partnership was so close that in McNally’s case all the business was carried on in conjunction with a police captain of the name of Meakin, who had as his agent at headquarters a detective of the name of Hanley. It is difficult to repress a smile on reading, at the very opening of Applegate’s evidence, how things were worked.
Every now and then, when the newspapers made too much fuss concerning the scandals of the Police Department, the authorities would order what is known as a “general shake-up”—i.e., the captains would be shifted all round, the assumption being that a new broom would sweep clean, and that by changing the captains from one precinct to another the abuses that had created any fuss would be rectified. Unfortunately the whole system of blackmail and corruption was so elaborately organised that the shifting of the captains made no change. Each newcomer succeeded to the business, and carried on the collection of blackmail without losing a single day. “Business carried on as usual during alterations” might have been posted up over every police-station in New York; but in the case of Green Goods men, their business was too profitable to be lost by the captain who had once got hold of it. The consequence was that, when the shake-up took place, and Captain Meakin was transferred from the “down-town precinct” to Harlem at the other end of the island, he carried all the Green Goods men with him up to his new station. As soon as the order was given that the shake-up was to be enforced, Captain Meakin sent word to McNally that he must follow him to Harlem. McNally thereupon told all his writers, Bunco steerers and Turners that they must pack up their traps, and follow the Captain to the precinct to which he had been transferred. The notice was short, and for a moment it seemed as if the smooth course of the Green Goods business would be interfered with, for several victims were on their way to the rendezvous fixed by the writers in Captain McNally’s old precinct. The resources of roguery are not so easily exhausted; the Bunco steerers were ordered to bring their victims from the down town precinct to some saloons in Harlem until the gang had arranged with the Captain as to where the victims were to be plundered in the new precinct.
The saloon in which the confidence trick was played, and the room in which the victim was relieved of his money, was known as the “Joint,” or the place where they “beat the victim.” The first thing necessary was, therefore, to find out a saloon that would be available for the purposes of the gang. Captain Meakin was a man of resource. He and his wardman met McNally at a drug store, and arranged with a saloon-keeper of the name of Hawkins that the joint should be opened in his saloon. The arrangement made with Hawkins was that he should have a sovereign for every man that was fleeced at his place.
Very little time was lost in bundling the boxes, with the bricks and all the other paraphernalia of the craft, into an express waggon. The King drove up in his carriage with the bank-roll and his liveried coachman, while the Turners followed by the Elevated Railway. As soon as the arrangement was fixed up with the King and the Captain and the Saloon-keeper, the signal was given, and the victims, who were planted at various saloons in the neighbourhood by the Bunco steerers waiting until the Police Captain and the King had fixed up arrangements as to the joint, were brought down and fleeced. Thus, without the loss of a single day the business was transferred, and was running merrily under the protecting ægis of Captain Meakin and his police.