This strange coincidence of the marked piece of silver more than ever
convinced me of the necessity for keeping something ahead so I wouldn’t
be forced to go out and take long chances for short money. With enough
in my pocket now to last me a month, I gave the town a thorough
canvassing for something worth while. I found many places that appeared
to be advertising for a burglar, and the most promising was the big
general store. It was packed to the roof with merchandise, and the
owners, to save floor space, had placed the safe behind stairs, where it
could not be seen from the street. I “pegged” the spot for a week and
satisfied myself that after the store was closed at night no one entered
it till opening-up time in the morning.
The expression, “I have him pegged,” which has crept into common usage,
is thieves’ slang pure and simple, and has nothing to do with the game
of cribbage as many suppose. The thief, to save himself the trouble of
staying up all night watching a spot to make sure no one enters after
closing hours, puts a small wooden peg in the door jamb after the place
is locked up. At five or six o’clock in the morning he takes a look. If
the peg is in place the door has not been opened. If it is found lying
in the doorway, that means somebody has opened the door in the night. If
he finds the place is visited in the night he must then stay out and
learn why and at what time and how often. He now has the place “pegged”
and plans accordingly or passes it up as too tough.
Dynamite and drills were to be had for the taking at any mine. I invited
my friend, the waiter, to “come in on the caper,” but he declined for
the very good reason that he had “done enough time.” Compared with the
work I had put in getting the mine payroll this was simple and I went
against it alone, confident of success and glad I wouldn’t have to split
the money with anybody. The “box” was of a make that has long been
extinct. It was an experiment on the part of the manufacturers, and a
costly one, for the “box men” soon found a fatal weakness in its make-up
and hungrily sought them out till the last one went into the junk pile.
The one I had designs on looked more like an old-fashioned clothes
closet than a receptacle for money. Its four wheels rested on a heavy
wooden platform that served to reënforce the thin floor of the
storeroom. The work of putting a hole in it, placing the “shot,” and
laying a five-minute fuse took an hour. The man that does this kind of
work alone must now take a look at the street to be sure there are no
late stragglers around. When he satisfies himself on this point he
returns and lights his fuse. While it is burning he goes back to the
street some distance away and plants himself in a hall or doorway till
he hears the explosion. Then when he is satisfied there is no alarm, he
goes after his money.
I was in the door of an all-night saloon when my explosion arrived.
Nobody appeared on the street and after a few minutes I went back to the
store to finish the business. Inside, I saw that my “shot” had resulted
in something entirely unforeseen. The outer plate of the door was torn
from its place and lying to one side, bent and twisted. The force of the
explosion had shifted the ponderous box from its platform. It had
fallen forward on its face and ten sturdy burglars couldn’t have turned
it over. Had it remained upright the money would have been mine in five
minutes. Lying on its face, its contents were as safe from me as if they
had been in the town bank. The next day a gang of men turned it partly
over and one of the clerks finished opening it with a crowbar I left in
the store.
The storekeepers said “there was nothing in the safe anyway.” My friend,
the waiter, who stood by when it was opened, said they hurried to the
bank with a fat package and “what was in it was plenty.”
This failure took the heart out of me for a few days, and I don’t know
what depths of despondency I might have wallowed in but for my friend.
He suggested, with the best intentions I am sure, that I take a job
washing dishes in the place where he worked. This was a jolt to my
pride. Of course I had nothing against dishwashers or dishwashing. I saw
that any able-bodied dishwasher would have more to show for his ten
years’ hard work than I had for mine, and if I had been in the notion of
going to work I would have taken that kind of job as quick as any. But
the thought of working was as foreign to me as the thought of burglary
or robbery would be to a settled printer or plumber after ten years at
his trade. I wasn’t lazy or indolent; I knew there were lots of easier
and safer ways of making a living, but they were the ways of other
people, people I didn’t know or understand, and didn’t want to. I didn’t
call them suckers or saps because they were different and worked for a
living. They represented society. Society represented law, order,
discipline, punishment. Society was a machine geared to grind me to
pieces. Society was an enemy. There was a high wall between me and
society; a wall reared by myself, maybe—I wasn’t sure. Anyway I wasn’t
going to crawl over the wall and join the enemy just because I had taken
a few jolts of hard luck.
I did go over the wall in the end and take my hat off to society and
admit I was wrong, but I didn’t do it because of discouragement, because
I was afraid of the future, because of the police. I didn’t do it
because I realized I was wrong; I knew I was wrong years before. I did
it because—but that’s a separate story, to be told later, in its place.
So, instead of following the waiter’s advice, I busied myself with a few
careful hotel burglaries, got a small bankroll together again, bought
some presentable clothes, and kept looking around for a decent piece of
money. The booming mining town had its share of gamblers, women of the
night, thieves, and hop fiends—nearly all of them renegades or fugitives
from the “American side.” Their leisure time was given to drinking or
smoking hop. I had weaned myself from gambling. I was naturally a light
drinker. So it fell out that, in this town of no amusements, the hop
joint claimed me.
One afternoon as I lay smoking my day’s portion of hop a voice, a
woman’s voice, strangely familiar, came to me through a thin partition
from the adjoining room. When she finished talking to the Chinese boy
that attended the hop layouts, I fell to wondering who the speaker could
be. My contact with women had been very limited, and it didn’t take much
elimination to fix the voice as that of the street girl of Chicago, the
girl from whose crib I had carried the dead man; the girl I avoided
because I believed she had carelessly killed him with an overdose of
some drug. Just to satisfy myself that I was right, more than anything,
I got up and stepped into her room. No mistake; it was she. She knew me
instantly and I needed no introduction, no sponsor.
Irish Annie had changed. She was now a well-poised, confident woman. The
world had treated her better than it does most of her kind, and yet she
was not spoiled. She instantly referred to “that awful night,” and
sincerely acknowledged the service I had done her. We compared notes
roughly. She had left Chicago to avoid going to jail for a theft, and
after many hardships and adventures found herself in this British
Columbia mining camp. A lucky prospector in the mines, finding himself
rich overnight, had bought an establishment for her and she was
prospering.
To show her gratitude to me, she gave a blowout at her place, introduced
me to her “girls” as “an old friend from the States,” set a room apart
for me, and insisted upon me making her home my home. The Chinese boy
brought meals to my room, a hop layout was procured so I could smoke
in peace and security. My room was more comfortable than any I could
have had in a hotel, the meals were better than at the restaurants, I
was treated with deference by everybody in the place, so I remained
there. I paid the rent on rent day, ordered the liquors and
provisions, and “slipped” the town marshal his “once a week.” The
Tenderloin, the marshal, and his deputies accepted me as Annie’s
protector and the man about the place—something I was not and did not
aspire to be. I didn’t take the trouble to enlighten them. I preferred
to have them believe anything rather than the truth. This would make
my stealing easier.
This soft life that loomed before me in Irish Annie’s had about as much
lure for me as the dishwashing job. Without taking her into my
confidence, I went on with my burgling. That was my trade and I would
not leave it for a job in a restaurant, a “job” in Annie’s, or a
position in a bank.
Winter came with a rush and a roar. I had thought of getting away from
the North, but it came before I was prepared and there was nothing to do
but stick it out with the others.
Of all the gamblers that found their way into this camp “Swede Pete” was
probably the cleverest. I knew him from towns on the “American side,”
where he played in all the big poker games with more or less success. He
submitted a scheme to me that looked very good. His plan was to buy a
box of playing cards, mark each deck, and have me, as a capable burglar,
go into one of the big poker rooms, open the card locker, and substitute
his box of marked cards for a box of legitimate cards belonging to the
house. I looked at the place and saw my end of the business would be
simple. He went to work on his cards, and after many days and nights of
patient toil put his “work” on them so he could read them from the back
as easily as from the front. When he had replaced the seals on each deck
and on the box that contained them, he put them in my hands and it was
but an hour’s work for me to put them in the locker and return to him
the full box that his had replaced.
The following night he sat in the game as usual. Whenever he lost a pot
he threw the unlucky deck on the floor and ordered a fresh one. After a
night or two of this, the gamekeeper had to open a fresh box. This was
our box and Pete’s luck changed at once. In a couple of nights’ play he
got the long end of the money in the game. From what I heard and saw I
estimated his winnings, or stealings, at three thousand dollars. It was
understood that the money should be split evenly between us. When he
gave me my end of it he declared he had won but fifteen hundred and that
he had to have a man in the game with him and the money had to go three
ways. I took the five hundred dollars knowing I was getting the worst of
it and wondering how I could get even.
Pete was a big, six-foot, blond giant, good-natured, generous, and with
a laugh you could hear a block. Everybody liked him; he was a good
spender and a good loser. He carried a bankroll of several thousand
dollars, as I knew, but the thought of robbing him never entered my mind
till he burnt me in the marked-card transaction. He was interested in a
saloon and had a game of his own in a rear room. I watched him carefully
and learned that when the game and the bar were closed for the night he
put his bankroll in the cash register, locked it, and went to bed in a
comfortable little room that adjoined the big barroom. Apparently his
money was safe. He left his room door open; the register could not be
opened without waking him.
After thinking the matter over pro and con, I decided to beat off the
barroom, carry the register out and into the alley and smash it open
with an ax. Every night for a week I watched him from across the street
and saw him make up his cash for the day, then put his own money in the
register, lock it carefully, and go into his bedroom. Satisfied on this
point, I now kept away from his place so as not to be too fresh in his
mind on the morning after I got his money.
At last a stormy night came that drove everybody off the street. I kept
out of the neighborhood of Pete’s place till four o’clock in the
morning. I had no trouble getting into the barroom through a door
opening into the hall that separated the saloon from the hotel office.
Carefully removing a lot of glasses from around the register, I lifted
it and placed it on the bar. Then I had to go around the bar, pick it up
again, and carry it out into the hall where I put it on a table while I
went back to close the door. All the while Swede Pete was snoring like a
horse.
Lifting the heavy weight again, I made my way slowly to the sidewalk.
Groping along in the blinding storm of snow and sleet, I missed my
footing and fell flat on my back with the heavy register fair on my
chest. Its sharp edge dug into my ribs and although I never went to a
doctor, I believe to this day a couple of them were cracked or
splintered. Unable to lift it again, I tied my handkerchief in the grill
work at the top of the thing and painfully dragged it to an opening
between two buildings and down into the alley where I had planted an ax.
I was morally certain Pete’s money was in it. I saw him put it there the
night before, but on this last night I had kept away, not caring to be
seen about his place. There was one chance in a million that he hadn’t
locked the register, so before attacking it with the ax I touched one of
the keys. The bell did not ring, but the cash drawer opened. But to my
dismay it did not slide out with the slow, labored, obese movement of a
cash drawer loaded with heavy gold and silver; instead it shot out with
a thin, empty, hollow jerk that told me there was nothing in it.
With numb and freezing fingers I explored the little cups only to find
them bare of coin. The compartments in the back gave up no fat bankroll.
The thing was as empty and as inviting as a new-dug grave. This last
blow was too much for my philosophy. Cursing the snow and sleet and
every organic thing, I started back determined to go into Pete’s bedroom
and search for his money. I was too late. At the door I looked into the
hall and saw the porter limbering up for another day’s work.
Sad and sore I turned away and trudged through the storm to my room at
Irish Annie’s where I found food and drink and light and heat and the
consoling hop layout.
I was out early the next afternoon to find out what had happened at
Swede Pete’s that caused him to shift his money. He was around town
drunk as a ragman, going from one bar to another, buying drinks for all
hands, and telling with great relish how he had saved his bankroll from
the “burglars.” I heard his boisterous laugh as I was passing one of the
saloons and went in to get an earful. He threw an American twenty-dollar
piece on the bar, and as it bounced up and down, roared: “Yump, you
beggar, yump! Many times I ha’ to yump for you.” Then everybody was
invited to drink and listen to his tale.
I gathered from it that his cash register “bane on the bum.” Something
got wrong with its locking arrangement the night before, and Pete took
his money to bed with him. “Ay take the old bankroll and throw her under
the mattress and lay my two hundred pounds Swede beef on her,” he
finished with a roar. Then, bouncing another gold piece on the bar, he
ordered it to “yump” and the house to drink. If he suspected me he
didn’t show it, and I went out not relishing his talk or his liquor. I
thought of sticking him up, but he knew my voice and that wouldn’t do. I
thought of chloroform, but my awful experience with the Chinamen warned
me against it. I had no desire to get tangled up with Pete’s “two
hundred pounds Swede beef” that wasn’t beef at all, but bone and muscle
he put on in his youth as a laborer in the Northwest lumber camps. After
much thought, I let him go and gave him up as a total loss.
I don’t know what the statistics show, but I should say that for every
five hundred burglaries one burglar gets arrested. On the other hand, my
experiences showed that if the burglar gets what he is after one time in
five he is lucky.
After my bad luck with the big Swede I sat down and gave my system of
stealing a good overhauling. As near as I could calculate ten thousand
dollars had slipped out of my hands since I left Los Angeles. I wasn’t
satisfied to put this down to tough luck entirely. I saw that
carelessness had something to do with it. I should have planted the mine
payroll in a safer place. A more careful and experienced “blacksmith”
would have taken measures to prevent that big safe from falling on its
face and burying the money beyond reach, and in the matter of Swede Pete
I was careless and overconfident, in not checking on him the night I
went after his money. Figuring that my luck was about due to change for
the better, I resolved to pull myself together, tighten up my system,
and look around me for something else.
If business houses took as much precaution in protecting themselves from
thieves as thieves do in protecting themselves from the police, the
business of burglary and robbery would reach the vanishing point in no
time. Thieves are occasionally careless; business men are habitually so;
both pay for their carelessness sooner or later.
In looking about for some worth-while endeavor, I came upon an instance
of carelessness on the part of a business man that I never saw equaled
in all my years of stealing. It cost him a small fortune in diamonds and
sent him into the bankruptcy court. The Christmas holidays were coming
on, and the jewelry store in this mining camp spread out a display of
stones that would have done credit to any large city. I was naturally
attracted; and began investigating the jeweler’s system. I found that he
slept on the premises in a room back of his storeroom. He testified in
court later that he carried no burglary insurance, that he could not get
fire insurance because the town had no fire department, and that he
slept in his store to protect himself in case of fire or attempted
theft. I watched him closely through every business hour of the day—from
seven to eight o’clock one day, from eight to nine the next, from nine
to ten the next—and so on through the entire day from his opening hour
till he closed at night. I found that he left his store in darkness to
save on the light bill, and to my amazement I also found that, instead
of locking his safe carefully and completely at night, he gave the
combination knob only a quarter turn, leaving it “on the quarter,” or
only partly locked and at the mercy of any one with a working knowledge
of combination locks.
This putting out of the lights and careless locking of his safe was
entirely due to a feeling of security because he slept in his place of
business.
After gathering every scrap of information available, I was sure I could
“take” the spot if I got a fair break on the luck. The rear room of the
place was used as a workshop. This made it possible to enter the back
door without waking the owner, who slept in a small room between the
shop and the big front storeroom. When I decided to go against this
thing, I sat down and looked far ahead.
The stones would have to go to the “American side” to be disposed of in
some big city. I decided on San Francisco and planned my route there.
Irish Annie was no small problem. I had no intention of confiding in her
or giving her any part of the junk, if I got it. I was under no
obligation to her. Our relations were just those of two social outcasts,
thrown together by chance, and our parting could mean nothing to either
of us. To disarm any suspicions she might have later on, I told her I
planned to go to Carson City, Nevada, for the big fight between
Fitzsimmons and Corbett. This would give me a reasonable excuse for
leaving after the burglary.
With the five hundred dollars I got from Swede Pete and more I had
picked up around the hotels, I was amply supplied with expense money and
had no worry on that point. Two weeks ahead I bought an old Indian
cayuse and a cheap secondhand saddle and bridle, planning to ride across
the boundary line fifteen miles distant, plant the junk, and return
before the burglary was discovered.
The old horse was staked out in a corral where I could get him at any
time. I even rode to the “American side,” crossing the Columbia River,
which marked the boundary, on the ice, and picked out a place to plant
my stuff. A week ahead I rented a front room in a lodging house across
the street and from my window watched every move in the store every
evening. I saw the boss go out to dinner, leaving the place in charge of
his clerk and an apprentice boy. I saw his man in the repair shop go out
and away. I saw the boy go home after the boss returned, and later saw
the clerk depart. An hour after, the owner began gathering the most
valuable articles from show window and show cases, placing them in
specially made trays and boxes that fitted snugly in the safe. Then the
big door swung shut, and a quarter turn of the knob locked it so that it
could be opened quickly in the morning by the lazy, careless owner, or
just as quickly at night by an industrious, careful burglar.
My mistake in not checking Swede Pete the night before was not repeated
here. When the final night came I stood in the snowstorm outside the
window, cap pulled down and overcoat buttoned up, looking carelessly at
the cheap articles he left there overnight. When he locked his safe as
usual, I went back to my room across the street and saw him secure his
front door, put out the lights, and go back into his bedroom.
At one o’clock I was at the back door of the store and after a few
minutes of the most careful work I stood in the warm workshop where a
big stove still glowed in the dark. The doors inside were open to allow
the warm air passage into the sleeper’s room and the front room beyond.
I had all the luck at last.
There was no serious obstacle. The sleeper slept on. The safe door
opened as easy for me as for him. The inside of the safe was like a
beehive—fifty watches, wound up, ticked noisily. Some years ago jewelers
thought watches should be kept running all or part of the time to insure
perfection. I believe this is no longer done. For fear their ticking
should wake the sleeper when I passed through his room on my way out, I
wrapped them in their box in my overcoat. Taking nothing else except
some gold rings, all the stones, and what money was in the cash drawer,
I closed the safe, went back out the rear door and, closing it
carefully, departed unseen.
All my junk went into a grain bag at the corral, where I kept the old
cayuse. He was gentle as a dog, but the ticking of the watches almost
drove him frantic. He reared and pawed and snorted in fear. I couldn’t
get into the saddle, and had to snub him up to a tree where, for ten or
fifteen minutes, I let him listen to the ticks and get over his fright.
At last he cooled off and allowed me to mount him and turn his head
south toward the “line.” Riding away, I looked back over the night’s
work and thought with satisfaction that no human being could possibly
suspect me of it.
In the small town across the line I planted the stones and cash
carefully in the plant I had prepared, but put the watches in another
place where they could tick themselves out in security. At seven o’clock
in the morning the faithful old horse was back in the corral, well fed
and rubbed down, and I was in my room at Irish Annie’s. In the afternoon
she came in with the small town “Extra” paper. I saw that this burglary,
one of the simplest and easiest of my life, was by far the most
profitable. Diamonds valued at twenty thousand dollars, wholesale price,
fifty watches, five hundred dollars cash, and a parcel of gold wedding
rings roughly outlined the loss. I immediately “pooh-poohed” the
business to her, telling her I knew enough about burglary to see that it
was an inside job and that it was done by the storekeeper to beat his
creditors. She believed me and no suspicion whatever found lodgment in
her mind.
The next day’s paper questioned the burglary. It was hard to believe
that any sane man could be guilty of such carelessness as the jeweler
frankly admitted. He also admitted that the stock was taken on
consignment, that the stones were not paid for, and that if they were
not recovered he would be broke and bankrupted. The town was divided as
to whether he had robbed himself, and the marshal and his deputies
remained dormant.
I paid another week’s board for the old horse, and another week’s rent
for the room opposite the jeweler’s. I had no use for them any more, but
thought it safest not to give either of them up too soon and chance
arousing suspicion.
After a restless month I said good-bye to Annie and to the “Canadian
side.” Leaving the watches and rings where they were, I dug up the plant
of stones and cash, and went into Spokane, where I threw away my good
clothes, put on overalls, a mackinaw coat, a lumberjack’s cap, and
bought a cheap ticket to Seattle. There I changed again, buying an
expensive outfit of clothes and other things necessary for the traveler.
Three days later I was in San Francisco, safe, secure, and unsuspected.
My first act was to put the stones in a safety box, tear up the receipt,
and plant the key in a safe, convenient place. Then began the toughest
part of the business, getting the stones off my hands and into cash.
Day after day I sorted out the larger ones and in my room “unharnessed”
them from their settings. Other articles, clusters and sunbursts, were
left intact in their settings—to remove them would depreciate the value.
I had many of the best stones reset and sold them for fair prices openly
to bookmakers, prize fighters, jockeys, gamblers, and women about town.
My money went into the bank, and for the first time in my life I carried
a check book.
I was careful, kept clean and sober and away from the hop joints and
thieves’ hangouts. For once in my life I managed to get a fair price
from pawnshops for some of my junk. Taking one of the reset rings that
was perfectly safe and impossible of identification, I would step into
the pawnbroker’s at lunch time and always when there were other patrons
in his place. The average thief is duck soup for the hockshop man. He
will walk by the hockshop and look in. The hockshop man sees him and
knows he has something “hot,” or crooked. If there is anybody in the
place but the employees, the thief waits till they go out before going
in. This convinces the pawnbroker he has a thief to deal with and he
offers him half what he would offer an honest man with a legitimate
article.
Instead of sneaking into a hockshop, taking a ring out of my pocket, and
saying, “How much can I get on this?” I walked in confidently, held out
my finger with the ring on, and said: “I want to pledge this ring for
one hundred dollars till pay day. My name is so-and-so. I work for such
and such a firm. I lost some of my employer’s money at the race track
and must have it to-night.”
I always asked for a sum far in excess of what I expected, but that
served to convince the pawnbroker I knew nothing about pawning things,
that I was honest, that the ring was mine and that I would probably
redeem it. After inspecting it, he would offer me much more than if he
thought it was crooked. If it was redeemed he would get his big
interest, and if not he would still be safely below the wholesale price,
which is the dead line for him.
In one way and another I unloaded most of my stones to advantage. I
could go about with them one at a time in safety; they were impossible
of identification when out of their original settings. While I was
trying to find some safe way of selling the pieces I had left in their
settings, I met by chance a young chap I had known on the road. He had
settled down, got married, and was making a semi-legitimate and
uncertain living gambling. He was square enough, and I arranged with him
to sell them for me. He was in San Francisco when the burglary was
committed and was in no danger of being charged with it if he did get
arrested.
He got rid of them quickly to his friends in the Tenderloin and to small
pawnshops, getting a price that satisfied me and left him a good profit.
I cleaned everything up and quit with eight thousand dollars in the bank
and several very nice stones that I wanted to keep. Of late I had
thought of buying a saloon some time and leaving the burglary business.
Now, as I looked over the small dives and joints with their
hangers-around, their discordant pianos and beery-voiced singers, and
drunken, bedraggled women, I found they had no attraction. Now that I
could have one of those places I didn’t want it.
The notion of going into any decent business never occurred to me.
Without any definite notion of what to do, I settled down to have a few
months of ease and relaxation. The race tracks and gambling houses were
running wide open, but I kept away from them and didn’t get hurt. The
wine dumps, the “Coast,” Chinatown, and the dingy dives that fascinated
me when I first saw them, no longer held anything of interest.
I’m not finding fault with these brave days of jungle music, synthetic
liquor, and dimple-kneed maids, and anybody that thinks the world is
going to the bowwows because of them ought to think back to San
Francisco or any other big city of twenty years ago—when train
conductors steered suckers against the bunko men; when coppers located
“work” for burglars and stalled for them while they worked; when
pickpockets paid the police so much a day for “exclusive privileges” and
had to put a substitute “mob” in their district if they wanted to go out
of town to a country fair for a week. Those were the days when there
were saloons by the thousand; when the saloonkeeper ordered the police
to pinch the Salvation Army for disturbing his peace by singing hymns in
the street; when there were race tracks, gambling unrestricted, crooked
prize fights; when there were cribs by the mile and hop joints by the
score. These things may exist now, but if they do, I don’t know where. I
knew where they were then, and with plenty of money and leisure I did
them all.