MARK MAKES PI OF LOCK TUMBLERS
Too many irons in the fire spoiled an opportunity to add a few thousand
dollars to our cash capital. This occurred in that busy year, 1869.
Mark Shinburn and I got word of a bank at Lambertville, New Jersey,
that seemed to hold out golden inducements, so he went to make the
strike, while I remained in New York to keep an eye on more important
matters, but ready to answer his summons for the final attack.
The failure was, I believe, unique in every sense of the word. Neither
before nor after did anything like it fall to our lot.
Shinburn said that if I would have a double team for a “get-away” he’d
do the inside work. I did my part forthwith. The plan was to get the
combination numbers of the first vault door one evening, and the next
enter the bank as soon as business was over and the doors locked.
Getting the “dust,” it appeared, would be thus accomplished without
much effort, and relocking the vault door, leaving nothing in sight to
indicate our visit, we would be four or five hours on our way to New
York before the discovery of the robbery.
Our planning would have been carried out to a dot had not a piece of
gross carelessness on the part of the bank’s cashier occurred. In
closing the vault he left the second door to it unlocked. When Shinburn
got through the first door, he found the one leading right up to the
very safes unfastened. This seemed to be an unexpected piece of good
luck. As a matter of fact, Shinburn was able to place our “Little
Joker” on the dial of the inside safe, and thereby accomplished in one
sitting what might have required two or more. He got the combination
to the second door of the vault, obtaining it by means of a steel
wire, which he inserted in the rim of the tumbler, thus pushing back
the spring that held the combination numbers in position, but in
getting them Shinburn “pied” the tumblers, as the printer would term
it, which necessitated resetting them. Having the original numbers
and being pressed for time, he did it hurriedly and left the bank.
Everything seemed to be working toward the certain looting of the bank
the following evening. Mark had been on the way a few minutes when it
occurred to him that he had possibly made an error in computing the
numbers of the pied combination. In some manner he believed he’d set
the last tumbler at thirty-five instead of thirty-six. It was too late,
if that were the case, to remedy it, so there was nothing to do but to
wait and hope for the best. If the mistake had been made, there would
be plenty evidence of it when the cashier attempted to unlock the
vault in the morning.
Well, Shinburn did hear from it. The inner door could not be opened,
try as the cashier would. A great mystery seemed to confront the bank
people. What had happened to the combination? It had worked well
hitherto. It did not occur to them that some one had been tampering
with the lock. Unable to open the vault, the Lillie Lock Company was
telegraphed to forthwith send on an expert to make an examination. In
the meantime, the bank’s cash being locked up, not much business was
done. The expert came, and, after working several hours, solved the
mystery.
“Burglars,” he said, with a snap, as he held up to the bank people’s
astonished gaze our “Little Joker.” “I found it on the dial of the
money safe. Your bank would have been ‘touched’ within a few hours.
Some one bungled the lock on the second vault door and that gave the
snap away.”
The amazement of the bankers was taken for doubt by the expert, so he
went on to a further explanation.
“We’ve long suspected something of this kind, but could never get our
hands on it. Through this discovery we’ve done a great service to the
banking people of the country. Any number of banks have been robbed by
the mere opening of the vaults and safes with combination numbers, all
of which were supposed to be kept secret; only known to one or two
officials or employees of a bank. This is a great discovery.”
And the expert was right. If it so happen that these pages meet the
eyes of any one using these locks with the same dials to-day, he will
at once realize how utterly worthless they are as a safeguard against
the real professional burglar. I know positively that the “Little
Joker” was the cause of many alterations in the Lillie locks, and its
loss to me greatly interfered with my hitherto easy access to bank
vaults and kept not a little funds away from me.
Having been defeated by no one but himself, Mark reported to me, and
feeling much chagrined over the failure of our “on-the-side” job, he
returned to New York and we continued our scheming for the millions in
the Ocean Bank.
Mark had played a lone hand and lost. I was sorry, and of course he
felt badly enough over his bungling, so nothing was said. None of us is
infallible.