FOLLOWING Galvin forward through the train, I soon discovered the
detectives and their prisoner in one of the forward cars. The prisoner
was a most unpromising specimen for so unique a deed, short,
broad-shouldered, heavy-limbed, with a squarish, unexpressive, dull
face, blue-gray eyes, dark brown hair, big, lumpy, rough hands—just the
hands one would expect to find on a railroad or baggage smasher—and a
tanned and seamed skin. He had on the cheap nondescript clothes of a
laborer; a blue hickory shirt, blackish-gray trousers, brown coat and a
red bandanna handkerchief tied about his neck. On his head was a small
round brown hat, pulled down over his eyes. He had the still,
indifferent expression of a captive bird, and when I came up after
Galvin and sat down he scarcely looked at me or at Galvin.
Between him and the car window, to foil any attempt at escape in that
direction, and fastened to him by a pair of handcuffs, was the sheriff
of the county in which he had been taken, a big, bland, inexperienced
creature whose sense of his own importance was plainly enhanced by his
task. Facing him was one of the detectives of the road or express
company, a short, canny, vulture-like person, and opposite them, across
the aisle, sat still another “detective.” There may have been still
others, but I failed to inquire. I was so incensed at the mere presence
of Galvin and his cheap and coarse methods of ingratiating himself into
any company, and especially one like this, that I could scarcely speak.
“What!” I thought. “When the utmost finesse would be required to get the
true inwardness of all this, to send a cheap pig like this to thrust
himself forward and muddle what might otherwise prove a fine story! Why,
if it hadn’t been for me and my luck and my money, he wouldn’t be here
at all. And he was posing as a reporter—the best man of the _Globe_!”
He had the detective-politician-gambler’s habit of simulating an intense
interest and enthusiasm which he did not feel, his face wreathing itself
into a cheery smile the while his eyes followed one like those of a
basilisk, attempting all the while to discover whether his assumed
friendship was being accepted at the value he wished.
“Gee, sport,” he began familiarly in my presence, patting the burglar on
the knee and fixing him with that basilisk gaze, “that was a great trick
you pulled off. The papers’ll be crazy to find out how you did it. My
paper, the _Globe-Democrat_, wants a whole page of it. It wants your
picture too. Did you really do it all alone? Gee! Well, that’s what I
call swell work, eh, Cap?” and now he turned his ingratiating leer on
the county sheriff and the other detectives. In a moment or two more he
was telling the latter what an intimate friend he was of “Billy”
Desmond, the chief of detectives of St. Louis, and Mr. So-and-So, the
chief of police, as well as various other detectives and policemen.
“The dull stuff!” I thought. “And this is what he considers place in
this world! And he wants a whole page for the _Globe_! He’d do well if
he wrote a paragraph alone!”
Still, to my intense chagrin, I could see that he was making headway,
not only with the sheriff and the detectives but with the burglar
himself. The latter smiled a raw, wry smile and looked at him as if he
might possibly understand such a person. Galvin’s good clothes, always
looking like new, his bright yellow shoes, sparkling rings and pins and
gaudy tie, seemed to impress them all. So this was the sort of thing
these people liked—and they took him for a real newspaper man from a
great newspaper!
Indeed the only time that I seemed to obtain the least grip on this
situation or to impress myself on the minds of the prisoner and his
captors, was when it came to those finer shades of questioning which
concerned just why, for what ulterior reasons, he had attempted this
deed alone; and then I noticed that my confrère was all ears and making
copious notes. He knew enough to take from others what he could not work
out for himself. In regard to the principal or general points, I found
that my Irish-Jewish friend was as swift at ferreting out facts as any
one, and as eager to know how and why. And always, to my astonishment
and chagrin, the prisoner as well as the detectives paid more attention
to him than to me. They turned to him as to a lamp and seemed to be
immensely more impressed with him than with me, although the main lines
of questioning fell to me. All at once I found him whispering to one or
other of the detectives while I was developing some thought, but when I
turned up anything new, or asked a question he had not thought of, he
was all ears again and back to resume the questioning on his own
account. In truth, he irritated me frightfully, and appeared to be
intensely happy in doing so. My contemptuous looks and remarks did not
disturb him in the least. By now I was so dour and enraged that I could
think of but one thing that would have really satisfied me, and that was
to attack him physically and give him a good beating—although I
seriously questioned whether I could do that, he was so contentious,
cynical and savage.
However the story was finally extracted, and a fine tale it made. It
appeared that up to seven or eight months preceding the robbery, this
robber had been first a freight brakeman or yard hand on this road,
later being promoted to the position of superior switchman and assistant
freight handler. Previous to this he had been a livery stable helper in
the town in which he was eventually taken, and before that a farm hand
in that neighborhood. About a year before the crime this road, along
with many others, had laid off a large number of men, including himself,
and reduced the wages of all others by as much as ten per cent.
Naturally a great deal of labor discontent ensued. A number of train
robberies, charged and traced to dismissed and dissatisfied
ex-employees, now followed. The methods of successful train robbing were
so clearly set forth by the newspapers that nearly any one so inclined
could follow them. Among other things, while working as a freight
handler, Lem Rollins had heard of the many money shipments made by the
express companies and the manner in which they were guarded. The
Missouri Pacific, for which he worked, was a very popular route for
money shipments, both West and East, bullion and bills being in transit
all the while between St. Louis and the East, and Kansas City and the
West, and although express messengers even at this time, owing to
numerous train robberies which had been occurring in the West lately
were always well armed, still these assaults had not been without
success. The death of firemen, engineers, messengers, conductors and
even passengers who ventured to protest, as well as the fact that much
money had recently been stolen and never recovered, had not only
encouraged the growth of banditry everywhere but had put such an
unreasoning fear into most employees of the road as well as its
passengers, who had no occasion for risking their lives in defense of
the roads, that but few even of those especially picked guards ventured
to give the marauders battle. I myself during the short time I had been
in St. Louis had helped report three such robberies in its immediate
vicinity, in all of which cases the bandits had escaped unharmed.
But the motives which eventually resulted in the amazing singlehanded
attempt of this particular robber were not so much that he was a
discharged and poor railroad hand unable to find any other form of
employment as that in his idleness, having wandered back to his native
region, he had fallen in love with a young girl. Here, being hard
pressed for cash and unable to make her such presents as he desired, he
had first begun to think seriously of some method of raising money, and
later, another ex—railroad hand showing up and proposing to rob a train,
he had at first rejected it as not feasible, not wishing to tie himself
up in a crime, especially with others; still later, his condition
becoming more pressing, he had begun to think of robbing a train on his
own account.
Why alone—that was the point we were all most anxious to find
out—singlehanded, and with all the odds against him? Neither Galvin nor
myself could induce him to make this point clear, although, once I
raised it, we were both most eager to solve it. “Didn’t he know that he
could not expect to overcome engineer and fireman, baggage-man and
mail-man, to say nothing of the express messenger, the conductor and the
passengers?”
Yes, he knew, only he had thought he could do it. Other bandits (so few
as three in one case of which he had read) had held up large trains; why
not one? Revolver shots fired about a train easily overawed all
passengers, as well as the trainmen apparently. It was a life and death
job either way, and it would be better for him if he worked it out alone
instead of with others. Often, he said, other men “squealed” or they had
girls who told on them. I looked at him, intensely interested and moved
to admiration by the sheer animal courage of it all, the “gall,” the
grit, or what you will, imbedded somewhere in this stocky frame.
And how came he to fix on this particular train? I asked. Well, it was
this way: Every Thursday and Friday a limited running west at midnight
carried larger shipments of money than on other days. This was due to
exchanges being made between Eastern and Western banks; but he did not
know that. Having decided on one of these trains, he proceeded by
degrees to secure first a small handbag, from which he had scraped all
evidence of the maker’s name, then later, from other distant places, so
as to avoid all chance of detection, six or seven fused sticks of giant
powder such as farmers use to blow up stumps, and still later, two
revolvers holding six cartridges each, some cartridges, and cord and
cloth out of which he proposed to make bundles of the money. Placing all
this in his bag, he eventually visited a small town nearest the spot
which, because of its loneliness, he had fixed on as the ideal place for
his crime, and then, reconnoitering it and its possibilities, finally
arranged all his plans to a nicety.
Here, as he now told us, just at the outskirts of this hamlet, stood a
large water-tank at which this express as well as nearly all other
trains stopped for water. Beyond it, about five miles, was a wood with a
marsh somewhere in its depths, an ideal place to bury his booty quickly.
The express was due at this tank at about one in the morning. The
nearest town beyond the wood was all of five miles away, a mere hamlet
like this one. His plan was to conceal himself near this tank and when
the train stopped, and just before it started again, to slip in between
the engine tender and the front baggage car, which was “blind” at both
ends. Another arrangement, carefully executed beforehand, was to take
his handbag (without the revolvers and sticks of giant powder, which he
would carry), and place it along the track just opposite that point in
the wood where he wished the train to stop. Here, once he had concealed
himself between the engine and the baggage car, and the train having
resumed its journey, he would keep watch until the headlight of the
engine revealed this bag lying beside the track, when he would rise up
and compel the engineer to stop the train. So far, so good.
However, as it turned out, two slight errors, one of forgetfulness and
one of eyesight, caused him finally to lose the fruit of his plan. On
the night in question, between eight and nine, he arrived on the scene
of action and did as he had planned. He put the bag in place and boarded
the train. However, on reaching the spot where he felt sure the bag
should be, he could not see it. Realizing that he was where he wished to
work he rose up, covered the two men in the cab, drove them before him
to the rear of the engine, where under duress they were made to uncouple
it, then conducted them to the express car door, where he presented them
with a stick of giant powder and, ordered them to blow it open. This
they did, the messenger within having first refused so to do. They were
driven into the car and made to ‘blow open the safe, throwing out the
packages of bills and coin as he commanded. But during this time,
realizing the danger of either trainmen or passengers climbing down from
the cars in the rear and coming forward, he had fired a few shots toward
the passenger coaches, calling to imaginary companions to keep watch
there. At the same time, to throw the fear of death into the minds of
both engineer and fireman, he pretended to be calling to imaginary
confrères on the other side of the train to “keep watch over there.”
“Don’t kill anybody unless you have to, boys,” he had said, or “That’ll
be all right, Frank. Stay over there. Watch that side. I’ll take care of
these two.” And then he would fire a few more shots.
Once the express car door and safe had been blown open and the money
handed out, he had compelled the engineer and fireman to come down,
recouple the engine, and pull away. Only after the train had safely
disappeared did he venture to gather up the various packages, rolling
them in his coat, since he had lost his bag, and with this over his
shoulder he had staggered off into the night, eventually succeeding in
concealing it in the swamp, and then making off for safety himself.
The two things which finally caused his discovery were, first, the loss
of the bag, which, after concealing the money, he attempted to find but
without success; and, second (and this he did not even know at the
time), that in the bag which he had lost he had placed some time before
and then forgotten apparently a small handkerchief containing the
initials of his love in one corner. Why he might have wished to carry
the handkerchief about with him was understandable enough, but why he
should have put it into the bag and then forgot it was not clear, even
to himself. From the detectives we now learned that the next day at noon
the bag was found by other detectives and citizens just where he had
placed it, and that the handkerchief had given them their first clue.
The Wood was searched, without success however, save that foot-prints
were discovered in various places and measured. Again, experts
meditating on the crime decided that, owing to the hard times and the
laying-off and discharging of employees, some of these might have had a
hand in it; and so in due time the whereabouts and movements of each and
every one of those who had worked for the road were gone into. It was
finally discovered that this particular ex-helper had returned to his
native town and had been going with a certain girl, and was about to be
married to her. Next, it was discovered that her initials corresponded
to those on the handkerchief. Presto, Mr. Rollins was arrested, a search
of his room made, and nearly all of the money recovered. Then, being
“caught with the goods,” he confessed, and here he was being hurried to
St. Louis to be jailed and sentenced, while we harpies of the press and
the law were gathered about him to make capital of his error.
The only thing that consoled me, however, as I rode toward St. Louis and
tried to piece the details of his crime together, was that if I had
failed to make it impossible for Galvin to get the story at all, still,
when it came to the narration of it, I should unquestionably write a
better story, for he would have to tell his story to some one else,
while I should be able to write my own, putting in such touches as I
chose. Only one detail remained to be arranged for, and that was the
matter of a picture. Why neither Wandell nor myself, nor the editor of
the _Globe_, had thought to include an artist on this expedition was
more a fault of the time than anything else, illustrations for news
stories being by no means as numerous as they are today, and the
peripatetic photographer having not yet been invented. As we neared St.
Louis Galvin began to see the import of this very clearly, and suddenly
began to comment on it, saying he “guessed” we’d have to send to the
Four Courts afterward and have one made. Suddenly his eyes filled with a
shrewd cunning, and he turned to me and said:
“How would it be, old man, if we took him up to the _Globe_ office and
let the boys make a picture of him—your friends, Wood and McCord? Then
both of us could get one right away. I’d say take him to the _Republic_,
only the _Globe_ is so much nearer, and we have that new flashlight
machine, you know” (which was true, the _Republic_ being very poorly
equipped in this respect). He added a friendly aside to the effect that
of course this depended on whether the prisoner and the officers in
charge were willing.
“Not on your life,” I replied suspiciously and resentfully, “not to the
_Globe_, anyhow. If you want to bring him down to the _Republic_, all
right; we’ll have them make pictures and you can have one.”
“But why not the _Globe_?” he went on. “Wood and McCord are your friends
more’n they are mine. Think of the difference in the distance. We want
to save time, don’t we? Here it is nearly six-thirty, and by the time we
get down there and have a picture taken and I get back to the office
it’ll be half past seven or eight. It’s all right for you, I suppose,
because you can write faster, but look at me. I’d just as lief go down
there as not, but what’s the difference? Besides, the _Globe’s_ got a
much better plant, and you know it. Either Wood or McCord’ll make a fine
picture, and when we explain to ’em how it is you’ll be sure to get one,
the same as us—just the same picture. Ain’t that all right?”
“No it’s not,” I replied truculently, “and I won’t do it, that’s all.
It’s all right about Dick and Peter—I know what they’ll do for me if the
paper will let them, but I know the paper won’t let them, and besides,
you’re not going to be able to claim in the morning that this man was
brought to the _Globe_ first. I know you. Don’t begin to try to put
anything over on me, because I won’t stand for it, see? And if these
people do it anyhow I’ll make a kick at headquarters, that’s all.”
For a moment he appeared to be quieted by this and to decide to abandon
his project, but later he took it up again, seemingly in the most
conciliatory spirit in the world. At the same time, and from now on, he
kept boring me with his eyes, a thing which I had never known him to do
before. He was always too hang-dog in looking at me; but now of a sudden
there was something bold and friendly as well as tolerant and cynical in
his gaze.
“Aw, come on,” he argued. He was amazingly aggressive. “What’s the use
being small about it? The _Globe’s_ nearer. Think what a fine picture
it’ll make. If you don’t we’ll have to go clear to the office and send
an artist down to the jail. You can’t take any good pictures down there
tonight.”
“Cut it,” I replied. “I won’t do it, that’s all,” but even as he talked
a strange feeling of uncertainty or confusion began to creep over me.
For the first time since knowing him, in spite of all my opposition of
this afternoon and before, I found myself not quite hating him but
feeling as though he weren’t such an utterly bad sort after all. What
was so wrong about this _Globe_ idea anyhow, I began suddenly to ask
myself, in the most insane and yet dreamy way imaginable. Why wouldn’t
it be all right to do that? Inwardly or downwardly, or somewhere within
me, something was telling me that it was all wrong and that I was making
a big mistake even to think about it. I felt half asleep or surrounded
by clouds which made everything he said seem all right. Still, I wasn’t
asleep, and now I didn’t believe a word he said, but——
“To the _Globe_, sure,” I found myself saying to myself in spite of
myself, in a dumb, half-numb way. “That wouldn’t be so bad. It’s nearer.
What’s wrong with that? Dick or Peter will make a good picture, and then
I can take it along,” only at the same time I was also thinking, “I
shouldn’t really do that. He’ll claim the credit for having brought this
man to the _Globe_ office. I’ll be making a big mistake. The _Republic_
or nothing. Let him come down to the _Republic_.”
In the meantime we were entering St. Louis and the station. By then,
somehow, he had not only convinced the sheriff and the other officers,
but the prisoner. They liked him and were willing to do what he said. I
could even see the rural love of show and parade gleaming in the eyes of
the sheriff and the two detectives. Plainly, the office of the _Globe_
was the great place in their estimation for such an exhibition. At the
same time, between looking at me and the prisoner and the officers, he
had knitted a fine mental net from which I seemed unable to escape. Even
as I rose with these others to leave the train I cried: “No, I won’t
come in on this! It’s all right if you want to bring him down to the
_Republic_, or you can take him to the Four Courts, but I’m not going to
let you get away with this. You hear now, don’t you?” But then it was
too late.
Once outside, Galvin laid hold of my arm in an amazingly genial fashion
and hung on it. In spite of me, he seemed to be master of the situation
and to realize it. Once more he began to plead, and getting in front of
me he seemed to do his best to keep my optical attention. From that
point on and from that day to this, I have never been able to explain to
myself what did happen. All at once, and much more clearly than before,
I seemed to see that his plan in regard to the _Globe_ was the best. It
would save time, and besides, he kept repeating in an almost sing-song
way that we would go first to the _Globe_ and then to the _Republic_.
“You come up with me to the _Globe_, and then I’ll go down with you to
the _Republic_,” he kept saying. “We’ll just let Wood or McCord take one
picture, and then we’ll all go down to your place—see?”
Although I didn’t see I went. For the time, nothing seemed important. If
he had stayed by me I think he could have prevented my writing any story
at all. As it was he was so eager to achieve this splendid triumph of
introducing the celebrated bandit into the editorial rooms of the
_Globe_ first and there having him photographed and introduced to my old
chief, that he hailed a carriage, and, the six of us crowding into it,
we were bustled off in a trice to the door of the _Globe_, where, once I
reached it, and seeing him and the detectives and the bandit hurrying
across the sidewalk, I suddenly awoke to the asininity of it all.
“Wait!” I called. “Say, hold on! Cut this! I won’t do it! I don’t agree
to this!” but it was too late. In a trice the prisoner and the rest of
them were up the two or three low steps of the main entrance and into
the hall, and I was left outside to meditate on the insanity of the
thing I had done.
“Great God!” I suddenly exclaimed to myself. “What have I let that
fellow do to me? I’ve been hypnotized, that’s what it is! I’ve allowed
him to take a prisoner whom I had in my own hands at one time into the
office of our great rival to be photographed! He’s put it all over me on
this job—and I had him beaten! I had him where I could have shoved him
off the train—and now I let him do this to me, and tomorrow there’ll be
a long editorial in the _Globe_ telling how this fellow was brought
there first and photographed, and his picture to prove it!” I swore and
groaned for blocks as I walked towards the _Republic_, wondering what I
should do.
Distinct as was my failure, it was so easy, even when practically
admitting the whole truth, to make it seem as though the police had
deliberately worked against the _Republic_. I did not even have to do
that but merely recited my protests, without admitting or insisting upon
hypnotism, which Wandell would not have believed anyhow. On the instant
he burst into a great rage against the police department, seeing
apparently no fault in anything I had done, and vowing vengeance. They
were always doing this; they did it to the _Republic_ when he was on the
_Globe_. Wait—he would get even with them yet! Rushing a photographer to
the jail, he had various pictures made, all of which appeared with my
story, but to no purpose. The _Globe_ had us beaten. Although I had
slaved over the text, given it the finest turns I could, still there on
the front page of the _Globe_ was a large picture of the bandit, seated
in the sanctum sanctorum of the great G-D, a portion of the figure,
although not the head, of its great chief standing in the background,
and over it all, in extra large type, the caption:
“LONE TRAIN ROBBER VISITS OFFICE OF GLOBE
TO PAY HIS RESPECTS”
and underneath in italics a full account of how he had willingly and
gladly come there.
I suffered tortures, not only for days but for weeks and months,
absolute tortures. Whenever I thought of Galvin I wanted to kill him. To
think, I said to myself, that I had thought of the two trains and then
run across the meadow and paid the agent for stopping the train, which
permitted Galvin to see the burglar at all, and then to be done in this
way! And, what was worse, he was so gayly and cynically conscious of
having done me. When we met on the street one day, his lip curled with
the old undying hatred and contempt.
“These swell reporters!” he sneered. “These high-priced ink-slingers!
Say, who got the best of the train robber story, eh?”
And I replied——
But never mind what I replied. No publisher would print it.
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