WILLIAM HATCH, ESQUIRE, DAY WATCHMAN
After the ingenuity of a master cracksman has been taxed to its
utmost in an effort to get the combination numbers of a presumably
impenetrable vault, and success seems assured, is it not most
provoking, and disheartening too, when the unexpected pops up and
thunders down failure upon his head? It was thus in my attempt to
possess the millions kept in the vault of the Corn Exchange National
Bank of Philadelphia in the winter of 1872 and the spring of the
following year.
In December of 1872 Detective McCord, my friend of the New York
Detective Bureau, asked me to call on Frank Gleason, the shrewd partner
of Andrew Roberts, the notorious bond forger and “fence” keeper.
Gleason, so Jack McCord told me, had a large job in the Quaker City, in
which I could use a “right” day watchman. I saw Gleason and was given
a letter of introduction to Peter Burns, a Philadelphia crook of no
small reputation in his neighborhood. I was informed that he possessed
a snug fortune at one time, though I will not vouch for it. I do know,
however, that he was a protégé of Detective Josh Taggart, of the
Quaker City Police Department, one of the slickest Hawkshaws of the
period.
As to my introduction to Peter Burns, it led to an acquaintance with
the day watchman of the Corn Exchange Bank. His name was William Hatch,
though I never called him other than Billy. He was a friend of Burns’s,
so you will observe that it was first through McCord, a detective, next
Gleason, a forger, then Burns, a crook, who was a friend of Taggart,
another detective, that I finally reached the man who was to play a
first-class crook part in my attempt to rob the bank. Perhaps it was
Detective Taggart who tipped off Jack McCord. Who knows? I won’t say.
Perhaps Billy’s early training made him a most intelligent crook. For
aught I know that was the case, though I won’t pretend to affirm so,
but I will declare, however, that he was a politician before he became
a bank watchman. He was of middle age, not over strong physically, but
passably good-looking, and perhaps a little proud of the latter. Now,
watchmen, as a rule, have to be corrupted _after_ becoming accustomed
to a life in a bank--which nearly always means mingling with those who
have much to do with large sums of money. There comes a yearning for
wealth, and temptation usually plays havoc with a fellow when it finds
him in that mood. With Billy it was different. He seemed to have been
corrupted before he alighted at the bank watchman’s station. At all
events, I found him ripe for almost any crooked scheme in which he
could use his position in a bank as a means to financial success. How
I employed his pliable talents and with what willingness he used them,
and with what degree of success, I shall in due time demonstrate.
The Corn Exchange Bank, one of the most conservative, yet strongest,
financial institutions in the Quaker City, was situated on Chestnut,
at the corner of Second Street. It had a large patronage and was never
without watchmen inside, two at night and one in business hours. The
watchmen employed at night were on duty from six in the evening until
seven in the morning, with the exception of Sundays and holidays, when
they were called on for day duty as well. But to business.
My first move was to learn something about the vault. It was on the
main banking floor, in the open, and constructed of heavy solid
masonry. This, almost impregnable because of its excellent workmanship
and thickness, was further guarded inside by a wall of steel T rails,
such as are used for railway tracks. Leading to the vault there was
an especially strong door of fine steel, and still another of steel
lattice work. In the vault were two steel safes, in each of which was
a strong box, or money chest. In these chests were stored the millions
of cash and paper constituting the entire funds of the bank.
The outer door to the vault was secured by an improved Yale combination
lock, and the inner door was guarded by a Yale key lock. The receiving
and paying teller each had charge of the combination of his respective
safe, and each had the key to the money chest in his safe. What I found
early in the game, of considerable import to me, was the fact that
Billy had, as the day watchman, practically entire control of the bank
for an hour or less every business morning. As I have said, the night
watchmen finished their work at seven A.M., when they were relieved by
Billy. The clerks reported for duty an hour later.
I determined to begin my scheme at once by making a call on Billy at
the bank, and it wasn’t an unexpected one either, for I had conferred
with him. Accordingly I journeyed there and was ready to be admitted
when the night watchmen took their leave. I was careful that they
should not set eyes on me, as there was a big job ahead and big game in
it, and I knew the greatest amount of caution was necessary. I waited
in sight of the Second Street door, the main entrance being kept locked
until the arrival of the clerks. Scarcely had the night watchmen’s
footsteps died away, when the Second Street door was cautiously moved
ajar, and Billy’s head popped out. Making a careful survey of the
surroundings, and evidently satisfied that the moment was favorable, he
motioned me to enter.
I grunted with satisfaction. It was a long way to success, it occurred
to me--getting inside of an institution of this character. The thought
was but of the moment, for I had work to do and precious little time in
which to do it. Directly I had taken in every detail of the bank room.
I made a clear negative of it, and, so to speak, stowed it away in my
optical gallery, for future observation when perhaps daylight might not
be at hand. The vault, as Billy had told me, was a tower of strength.
In fact, I can’t recall of ever having seen a stronger one. Added to
this was another obstacle to be overcome, and that was the situation of
the vault. It was in plain sight, through a window, of any one passing
in Second Street. I carefully examined its outside mechanism and took
pencilled notes and mental ones also. I did all I could before the time
arrived for the clerks to come on duty. Having made a general survey,
and, in fact, studied the situation fairly well, I knew that my next
move would necessitate a return to New York. Therefore, bidding Billy
be of good cheer and assuring him that everything looked hopeful, I
journeyed back forthwith.
First, I paid a visit to the Yale Lock Company’s salesroom,
representing myself to be a down-town business man in search of a
first-class combination lock of American manufacture.
“I want,” said I, to the gentleman who attended me; “an American lock
for one of my correspondents in Glasgow, Scotland. It is to be used in
a banking office.” The salesman was certain he could accommodate me and
did, by permitting me to examine many intricate locks at my leisure.
“This one will suit me,” I concluded at length. It was a duplicate of
the Yale lock on the outside door of the Corn Exchange Bank vault. He
offered to forward it to Scotland, but as that didn’t serve my purpose,
I paid him two hundred dollars and said I’d take it with me at once.
In a few hours I was back in Philadelphia, and the next few evenings
I made my headquarters at Peter Burns’s house. For the time being
I became the professor, and Billy, the day watchman, the pupil. He
was very apt, I must confess,--far ahead of John Taylor in the Ocean
Bank job, though the latter was most satisfactory under instructions.
I put Billy through the same course of study to which Taylor had
been subjected. I told him of the part Taylor played in the Ocean
Bank job and the profit that came to him through its success. In an
exceedingly short time I had the day watchman well taught and almost
to the bursting point with enthusiasm. Having him so well in hand, I
instructed him to try his luck on the vault lock. It wouldn’t surprise
me, I told him, if he wasted many hours before attaining success. It
was agreed that I wait near his house in Spring Garden Street, each
evening, in quest of his report. Accordingly I was on hand. Several
times I met the lad, only to know by his face, before he could tell me,
that he was meeting with disappointment. It was, perhaps, the tenth
evening after I had given him his first lesson on locks that I was in
the vicinity of his house, anxiously waiting for him. Presently I saw
him coming, a considerable distance away. The street lamps shed none
too much light, yet I could divine, from his general manner, that he
had good news. When he drew near so that I could see his face, it was
lit up with the fire of success. I knew it right away. He was excited
to the limit.
“I’ve got it, for sure. I’ve got it,” he exclaimed. His enthusiasm
would not have been inappropriate in a better cause. I hadn’t time to
ask him how it was accomplished, when he continued:--
“When they unlocked the vault this morning, I felt certain that I’d got
my eye on the right combination numbers.”
“And you’d like to have tried the door right away?” I asked, and my
eyes twinkled with mischief.
“My Lord!” he exclaimed, “it seemed I couldn’t wait till they all got
out. I wasn’t fit for my regular work the rest of the day.”
“Well, the clerks went away, and you--”
“When they’d all gone,” interrupted Billy, “I tried my numbers, and
they opened the lock the very first time.”
“How do you know you unlocked the vault door?” I inquired, half
seriously and half teasingly.
“I proved it,” he whispered in my ear; “I proved it. I threw back the
bolts and opened the door. Isn’t that proof enough?”
I admitted it was. Billy went on: “This getting combinations to safes
is dead easy. If I could only be inside the vault when the tellers
unlock their safes, without attracting attention, we could soon put the
Corn Exchange Bank out of business.”
Now, surely here was an enthusiastic bank employee with his enthusiasm
misdirected. I saw right away that I must cool him off if I was to
depend upon him for a level head in an emergency. Brains and coolness,
in my business, were the corner-stones of success.
“See here, Billy,” I said warningly, “you mustn’t let your shrewdness
in getting combination numbers give you a big head. Keep your skull
level and leave the combinations to the tellers’ safes to me. I’ll
devise some way to get at them.”
Encouraged by the lad’s good fortune, I began immediately to take
advantage of it.
“Get me,” said I, “a wax impression of the little key to the second
door of the vault; that will be your next job.”
Later in the evening I met Billy at Peter Burns’s, where I gave him the
right kind of wax to make the impression; and, too, I put my pupil
through another course of my art. I showed him, with extreme care,
how to get the impression of a key. Again was he apt in acquiring the
knowledge that all successful crooks, in the bank-breaking line, must
have. At the end of two days he brought me an impression of the desired
key, and from it I made a duplicate.
“It fitted at the first trial,” announced Billy the following evening.
“My work was fine and yours must have been better.”
“It was easy to make a right key from a fine wax impression,” I
replied, in a complimentary way.
The time had come when I must make my second visit to the bank, and
that for the purpose of sizing up the tellers’ safes; so it was agreed
that I should meet Billy at the Second Street door of the bank, as
before. Unto this day I haven’t forgotten that visit. Even now I marvel
at our escape from what seemed to be certain exposure. Withal, I wasn’t
sorry for what happened, as it served to prove the sort of metal out of
which my “right” watchman was made.
The night watchmen leaving the bank at seven A.M. and the clerks’ hour
being eight, it behooved us to keep tabs on the minutes in order that I
be allowed time in which to quit the banking office unobserved. We had
been working on the tellers’ safes for half an hour, so it seemed, when
a sharp rap came on the Second Street door. My hair rose on end, and
as for Billy, he, for an instant, shook like a leaf. I glanced at my
watch--it was just eight o’clock.
“Damn!” I whispered; “it must be one of the clerks. What’ll we do?”
I saw a fairly promising job knocked in the head. For Billy it meant
undoubted exposure, and that was as good as a failure--to me. I’d never
get another watchman of his caliber, I knew.
The main door leading into Chestnut Street was locked and Billy had
no key--which I well knew. As for going out the Second Street door,
the way I had entered, that seemed to me an improbability. I confess I
was stupefied. Though it has taken several minutes to jot down these
impressions, I assure my readers that hardly as many seconds were
consumed in the actual happening. It may have been the fix we were in
that brought to the surface the staying qualities possessed for the
emergency by Billy. The ague which had tackled him for the instant was
quickly shed, and, catching me by the shoulder, he shoved me out of the
vault.
“Close the vault door right!” he whispered, “and get in the vestibule
of the Chestnut Street entrance and wait there until you hear me in
a fit of coughing. Then out you go by the Second Street door. I’ll
let in the clerk--for it’s one of them, I know--and take him in the
president’s office.”
I was in Billy’s hands and so must trust to him. Really, I began to
feel safe. It took only a moment to lock the vault and less time to
reach the vestibule; meanwhile Billy leisurely walked to the door. The
knocking had become of the impatient sort by this time. When he finally
opened the door, it was with the air of one who’d been in a mighty
hurry. I could hear every word said.
“Are you dead, Billy?” was the greeting to the watchman, as the
impatient knocking one stepped in; “it’s after eight, and I’ve been
rapping an hour.”
“Sorry, sir; but I was in the cellar, fixing up the fires, when you
came. I heard you from the first, and hustled for all I was worth.”
This was a bushel-basketful of apology, and, being well put, had the
desired effect. The perturbed clerk calmed down immediately.
“By the way,” said Billy, as he stepped in President Noblit’s private
office, “I saw one of our old friends that used to be employed here. I
met him last night on the way home--poor fellow!”
It didn’t seem to me that Billy had chosen good bait with which to
catch the clerk, but it did the work, so what matter. In a moment I
heard them both in the private room, and Billy was saying something
about the former bank clerk being on his uppers, and that it was a case
sad enough to fetch tears to a marble statue. It may have been that a
shower of tears attacked Billy, for suddenly he was choking like a man
with a terrible case of tuberculosis.
“Good for Billy!” I thought, as, stepping out of the vestibule and
passing within a few feet of the office door, I quickly found myself
in Second Street. Out in the free air again and clear from exposure, I
felt glad, as can well be imagined. And as for Billy, he was a jewel,
from my viewpoint, doubt not. Afterward I learned that not a thing had
been left by us, in our hasty exit, to arouse suspicion. One resolution
I formed immediately, and that was, to keep a more accurate knowledge
of the passing of time. I don’t know that I had ever before, or have
since, been guilty of such palpable carelessness. It might have been an
expensive experience.
Not much was accomplished by the visit, either. I ascertained that the
locks on the tellers’ safes were not of the make to which my “Little
Joker” could be attached and the combination numbers purloined that
way. I confessed disappointment, no doubt, because everything seemed up
to that time to favor me. However, I adopted a unique method to obtain
the numbers, and it shall be seen with what success.
Perhaps it may be in keeping with my desire to assist the banking world
to say, right here, “Follow me closely, and benefit thereby, if I show
any carelessness on the part of those who had the keeping of the
combination numbers of the Corn Exchange Bank.” My varied experience
in manipulating combination locks and with those in charge of them
made me confident that I could find recorded, somewhere, the numbers
of the tellers’ safes. I had always believed that nine tellers out of
ten would not tax their memories with lock numbers, but would, instead,
record them on a slip of paper, or in a private memoranda book; so on
this supposition I determined to make an investigation ere I resorted
to the use of explosives on the money safes. What was more reasonable
than that the records were kept in a private drawer?
Again was Billy to be useful. I started him on a silent hunt with
instructions to “Wait, be patient, and take advantage of the simplest
thing.” For several days, he kept the keenest sort of watch. Finally,
to our joy, the paying teller left his key, quite accidentally, in
the lock of his private drawer; and Billy improved the opportunity
and most effectually. He got a wax impression of it, doing it slyly
enough, and I made a duplicate. It required a few trials and a number
of extra rasps of the file to make the key right, but, persevering, we
eventually were rewarded. One morning Billy opened the drawer, and, as
I hoped, discovered a slip of paper containing three numbers. He made
a copy of them, and when I tried the series on the paying teller’s
safe, the door came open, and we found ourselves right up to the money
chest. As to the latter, why, a bandbox would be no easier to break!
This much accomplished, my faithful Billy and I turned our attention
to the receiving teller’s safe. Ten days later we had mastered that by
the same methods. Naturally we felt elated--we were down to the two
strong boxes which contained the cash. No doubt we could have gotten
duplicate keys to the chests, but, as I have said, they could easily be
forced. Thus concluding, I wouldn’t put myself to further trouble on
that score. Besides, it was dangerous work--this frequent injecting of
my uninvited presence in the bank’s vault. By some unforeseen accident
I might be discovered in the midst of our secret work.
But to proceed. It seemed to me that the time was about near to plan
for the removal of the treasure. The surroundings on the outside of
the bank were such that I could see, from the start, that some smart
engineering must be done. One factor in the coming loot of which I
would not lose sight was my faithful Billy. If the success of my
plotting could be assured through the blame falling on him, then I
was prepared to forfeit all, though I had gone ever so far. He had
been too “square” in his dealings with me to be sacrificed. That I was
determined upon, no matter what others might think. Suspicion should
not fall on him. He was willing enough, though, that the trick be
“pulled off” in his time.
“I’ll take my chances of arrest, George,” he said, “anything to get
away with the cash.” I would not listen to him, though it was advanced
that in the event that he was arrested we might make a dicker with the
bank,--in other words, obtain a sacred promise of his release, provided
we returned to the bank a good-sized sum of money as a ransom.
The game was a big one, and, being set on making it a clean sweep, not
unlike that of the Ocean Bank, I held to my own ideas and proceeded
accordingly. Although it was thought by the bank officials that the
two night watchmen remained at the bank during the daylight hours of
Sunday, while Billy was absent on leave, it was not so entirely. One of
them occasionally would absent himself for several hours, usually going
to his home in Pine Street. My plan was to profit by this watchman’s
negligence--loot the bank in his absence. We would then have only one
watchman to deal with. Outside of business hours, as I’ve said, the
Second Street door was the usual entrance to the bank. It was secured
on the inside. The Chestnut Street door was never open on Sundays or
holidays unless President Noblit chose to use it, for he carried the
key. On an occasion or two, so I learned, he’d surprised the watchmen
by coming in that way. It happened seldom, however. So, with one of
the watchmen out of the bank for two or three hours on Sunday morning,
it seemed to me that the loot could be done. We could better get at
him, I argued, if one of my associates got inside before the victim
really knew who his visitor might be. If an entrance were gained by
the main door with a key, he might, momentarily, be thrown off his
guard in the belief that it was President Noblit coming in. There was
another argument which seemed to favor an entrance by that door: it was
infrequently used out of business hours, and therefore would get less
attention from the watchman. He would more than likely linger in the
vicinity of the Second Street door, if he had any inclination at all
to perform his duty faithfully. Thus believing, I planned to overcome
the lone watchman. Accordingly I made a duplicate key to the Chestnut
Street door from a wax impression supplied me by Billy.
About seven o’clock in the morning of a Sunday in February, two
associates and I were waiting near the bank. I had with me Tall Jim
and Little Dick Moore, both of whom I could depend upon in almost any
emergency. I had the Chestnut Street door key, and the surroundings
were such that I felt confident of soon having in my possession the
long-contrived-for cash. But it is the unexpected that is always
popping up to make one glad or disappointed, as the case may be. I had
schemed to overcome one watchman or possibly more, inside the bank,
but I hadn’t looked for interference from a watchman on the outside
who had no connection whatsoever with the bank. It so happened that
Tom Davis, in the joint employ of several warehouses not far from the
bank, was on his way home that morning after a night’s work. Confound
his eyes, I would that they’d been full of sleep, but they weren’t!
Upon seeing three strange-looking men lingering at different points
near the bank, he became curious. The greater his curiosity, the more
dangerous he was to our game, for soon he grew suspicious. It wasn’t
policy for any of my party to run, for that would set afloat the rumor,
or even worse, the truth, that an attempt was being made to rob the
bank, so we stood our ground. It didn’t avail my associates--they
couldn’t bluff it through. I did--somehow. They were charged with being
suspicious characters and locked up. When Tall Jim was searched, a pair
of handcuffs and a set of false whiskers, the latter very much like
those worn by one of the night watchmen of the bank, were found on him.
This, as I feared, gave rise to the impression that the prisoners were
plotters against the bank. To make matters worse, a few days later
another suspiciously acting stranger was arrested in the neighborhood
of the bank. He proved to be Big Kid Wheeler, an escaped convict from
the state prison at Auburn, New York. He was a well-known crook among
the grafting fraternity. The trio went to prison, and thus was my force
depleted.
But I didn’t let the lads go to prison without an effort to save
them. The day after Little Dick and Tall Jim’s arrest I went to my
influential friends, who introduced me to Colonel Bill Mann, the
district attorney. I had been told he was a very pleasant gentleman
and usually open to a deal. I had twenty thousand dollars, one half of
it for him and the other to put up as cash bail, but he declared it
was impossible to accommodate me. The bank officials, he said, were
pressing him too hard, and that to consent to bail for the prisoners
would seem like tampering with justice. With evident regret, he said:--
“I need the money, young man, but I can’t take it.”
I urged him with all the persuasiveness I possessed to come to my
relief, but he, with repeated regrets, said he must not. So Tall Jim
and Little Dick went to prison for two and a half years, and the Big
Kid was returned to Auburn prison.
Thus came to naught, for the time being, the energetic work of Billy
and my planning for three months. But I wasn’t discouraged--the game
was too large. I would not go down to defeat so easily.