HOW I ESCAPED FROM SING SING, AND OTHER DARING ESCAPES FROM PRISON THAT
PROFITED US NOTHING.
It is not easy to get out of Sing Sing Prison. Ned Lyons, the bank
burglar, my husband, got out, and so did I. We were both serving
sentences of five years at the same time.
Ned Lyons was a desperate man, and he had no notion of remaining long
in any prison. Although his body was already considerably punctured
with pistol bullets, he did not welcome the idea of inviting the rifle
balls from the armed sentries who patroled the prison walls on all
sides. A dash for liberty was out of the question--if he was to escape
it must be through some adroit scheme which would not make him a target
for the riflemen who surround the prison.
My husband and I had a comfortable home on the East Side in New York,
but I had very little peace of mind because of the activities of
Lyons and his energetic companions. As I have said before, these men
had found it very convenient to have my assistance in their various
enterprises, and so it was that my husband and I both got into Sing
Sing at the same time--Lyons was confined in the men's prison and I was
in the women's prison just across the road.
It was the Waterford, N. Y., bank that had been robbed of $150,000,
and in the party were George Bliss, Ira Kingsland, and the famous
Jimmy Hope. Of the whole party, Hope alone was not caught. Just how my
husband got out of Sing Sing I am able to explain, because I myself
planned the escape.
The day I reached Sing Sing I was turned over to the prison physician
for him to find out what my physical condition was, and what kind of
work I was best fitted to do. This doctor's name was Collins. I shall
never forget him for he was one of the kindest hearted men I ever knew.
In my hope of being assigned to some easy work where I would be able
to assist in my husband's plans for escape, I pretended to him I was
suffering from all sorts of ailments.
PLANNING LYONS'S ESCAPE
"Why, Doctor," I said, "I'm a sick woman, and besides I don't know how
to do any kind of work. I've never had to work for a living."
"Well, my good little woman," the doctor replied, "you'll have to learn
to work. You're in here for five years, and nobody is allowed to play
the lady in Sing Sing Prison, you know."
"But, Doctor," I said, "you wouldn't have Sophie Lyons be anything but
a lady, would you?"
"I'd like to make an honest woman of you, Sophie--that's more important
than being a lady," he answered gravely, "and I'm going to try. I've
got enough confidence in your sense of honor to give you a position
as assistant nurse in the prison hospital. If you profit by your
opportunities there, you can learn a good trade which will enable you
to make an honest living when your term is up."
Nothing could have suited me better. A position in the hospital is
the easiest work the prison offers, and it would give me just the
opportunities I needed to help my husband escape. But I tried not
to let Dr. Collins see how delighted I was and pretended to be very
tearful and penitent as I thanked him for his kindness.
My husband was allowed to come and see me once a week under guard of a
prison keeper. My conduct was so good and had given the matron and Dr.
Collins such confidence in me that Ned and I were soon permitted to
talk without any prison official being present to listen, as the prison
rules required.
On these visits we had opportunity for discussing various plans for
escape, but we both agreed that no one of them would probably succeed.
I favored trying to get a forged pass--a counterfeit of the passes
given to visitors, which the keeper at the prison door must have before
he allows anybody to leave the building. But my husband had serious
doubts.
About this time the matron's two children were taken sick and I was
assigned to her house to take care of them. So faithfully did I nurse
them back to health that the matron became quite fond of me and wanted
me to remain there permanently as her personal servant.
When Ned Lyons came to see me again he was amazed at my good fortune in
receiving a position which was the next best thing to liberty itself.
It not only gave me all sorts of liberties but it enabled me to dress
like any servant girl instead of in the regulation prison costume. This
last fact would prove of tremendous advantage when my opportunity to
make a break for liberty came.
"RED" LEARY LENDS AID
Besides this I was allowed a little pocket money to buy candies, fruit,
and occasional trinkets for the children.
Ned brought good news this time. He had pondered over my suggestion
of a forged pass and the more he thought of it the more it seemed a
promising scheme. But there were several important things that must be
done, and done well, to make the plan reasonably sure of success.
Lyons, in prison, could not personally attend to the necessary details.
He must have outside help. Usually, in such emergencies, I was the
one who was relied upon to attend to matters of this kind--but,
unfortunately, I, too, was in prison and under close watch.
So, in casting about for a reliable friend, Lyons decided to ask the
help of "Red" Leary, the bank burglar, who had been associated with my
husband in the famous $3,000,000 Manhattan Bank robbery. Word was sent
to Leary and, on the next "visitors' day," a gentleman with high silk
hat and black gloves and a lawyer's green bag drove up to the prison
and sent in his card to the Warden--could Ned Lyons's "lawyer" see his
imprisoned client?
In this guise "Red" Leary, high hat, lawyer's bag and gloves, swept
into the prison and was courteously allowed an interview with my
husband. Ned explained that two important things were needed--a
visitor's pass properly signed with the Warden's signature, and a
carefully selected disguise for the escaping man to use. Could "Red"
Leary attend to these two matters? "Red" Leary could, and with much
pleasure--and the first move in the proceedings then and there was to
carefully chew up his pass into a wad and tuck it behind his upper
molar teeth.
Ned Lyons was led back to his cell and his "lawyer" put on his silk hat
and arose to leave. He began searching his pockets and his green bag
for his missing pass. An attendant helped him. Then the keeper at the
door took a hand and looked through his pocketbook and papers while the
"lawyer," in much distress, turned his pockets inside out. But no pass
could be found.
At last the principal keeper, Connaughton, was called and he
reprimanded the "lawyer" severely for his carelessness, but finally
allowed the visitor to depart--and behind "Red" Leary's back teeth
was the pass that was so much needed in forging a fresh one, with the
proper day and date on it Leary returned to New York and enlisted the
services of a friend who was an expert check forger and soon had a
pass that the Warden of Sing Sing himself would not know was a forgery.
And this precious piece of paper was smuggled in to Lyons and he hid it
in a crack in the floor of his cell. Ned planned to use this pass in
making his escape if he could get a wig to cover his closely cropped
head, a false beard to disguise his face, and a suit of clothes to
replace his prison stripes in time for the next visitors' day.
"Red" Leary was to call to see me the next day and I was to arrange
with him about securing these necessaries. They were to be left in an
obscure corner grocery outside the prison where a "trusty," whom my
husband had befriended, would claim them and smuggle them into Ned's
cell.
It was a Wednesday I had my last call from Ned. Through one of those
mysterious underground channels which keep the inmates of every prison
in such close touch with the outside world, my husband had learned
that on the following Tuesday, which was a visitors' day, the Warden
and several other prominent officials of the prison were to be away
attending a political meeting. That was the day he had set for his
escape, provided our friend Leary could deliver the necessary disguise
in time.
I had my doubts about "Red" Leary, who was good hearted enough and
meant well, but was prone to be careless about keeping appointments.
To my delight, however, he was on hand next day and he got permission
from the matron to see me. When I asked him if he had everything in
readiness he burst into a torrent of eager explanations.
"It's all out there in the buggy, Sophie," he said, "tied up in a
bundle that you'd take for anything but what it is. Everything's there
and everything's right. Why, even the shirt and collar are Ned's right
size, and, say, I bet they'll feel good after rubbing his neck for
months against that rough prison stuff."
THE PRISON BELL SOUNDS ALARM
Leary was a talkative fellow and he was going on with a detailed
description of the wig and false beard which he had had made to order
for the occasion, when Dr. Collins and the matron appeared at the end
of the corridor where we were sitting. I signaled "Ned" to keep quiet
and led him over to a window.
There, under pretext of showing him some geraniums I was trying to coax
into bloom, I hurriedly explained where he was to leave the things and
sent him away on the errand which meant so much to Ned and me.
The next Tuesday was the longest, most nerve-racking day of my life. I
had slept little the night before. All night long my mind was turning
over Ned's plans--how, by feigning sickness, he would get permission to
leave the shop and go to his cell; how he would change his clothes and
put on the wig and false beard "Red" Leary had bought; and how, just
as his fellow prisoners were being marched in to their noonday meal, he
would mingle with the little crowd of departing visitors, surrender his
forged pass at the gate and walk out of the main entrance of the prison
a free man.
I had approved every bit of this plan--in fact, I myself had mapped out
a large part of it. Yet now, when I considered on what narrow margins
its success depended, I felt it was foredoomed to failure. Ned would be
caught in the act--he would be put in solitary confinement--perhaps he
would be shot dead by some vigilant guard.
I arose unusually early that Tuesday morning and worked unusually
hard--to hide my nervousness.
Nothing out of the ordinary happened to relieve the awful tension.
Early in the morning I heard from one of the other prisoners that the
Warden and his assistants had gone away for the day. This, of course,
coincided with Ned's plans, but it brought me little relief, for I
feared that perhaps the officers left in charge might, in the absence
of their superiors, be unusually careful in guarding their convict
charges.
Noon came and went and still I heard nothing to relieve my anxiety.
"No news is good news," I kept saying to myself, and in this case the
old adage really spoke the truth. If there was no excitement about the
prison it was good evidence that Ned's absence had not been noted.
And if they did not discover his absence until they came to lock the
prisoners up for the night all was well, for by that time I knew Ned
would be safe in his old haunts on the East Side, in New York City.
But there still remained the discouraging possibility that at the last
minute some of his plans had miscarried and he had been obliged to
postpone the attempt.
Night came and I was setting the table for the evening meal when I
heard the sounds of some unusual excitement over in the men's prison,
across the road. There was much running to and fro, keepers were
shouting to each other and presently the prison bell began to ring
frantically. The sound of the bell made my heart jump--it was never
rung, I knew, except in case of fire or when a prisoner escaped.
"What on earth is that bell ringing for?" said the matron. I was just
saying that I didn't know and was trying to hide my excitement when in
rushed Dr. Collins, all breathless and worried.
"Heard the news?" he shouted. And before the matron could say yes or no
out he burst with the whole story.
"Ned Lyons, the bank robber, has escaped!" he said. "He's been gone
since noon and they never knew it until just now, when they went to
lock him in his cell and found nothing there but his suit of stripes.
It's the boldest escape there's been in years.
"According to all accounts he walked right out of the main gate,
stepped into a buggy that was waiting, and drove off like a gentleman.
Of course he was disguised, and so cleverly they say that one of the
head gatekeepers bowed to him at the gate, thinking he was a member of
that new legislative commission from Albany."
A great weight rolled from my heart--Ned was free! I managed to control
my feelings and it was lucky I did, for the next instant I saw the
matron point a warning finger in my direction, and at that the doctor
lowered his voice so that I could hear no more.
NED LYONS IN DISGUISE
The next morning, of course, the whole prison knew of the escape.
"If I get out I'll have you out in a few weeks," Ned had promised, and
every day I was expecting some word from him.
As time went on, the confidence the matron and the doctor had in
me seemed to increase rather than diminish. Soon I was allowed to
accompany the matron's little daughters on long walks through the
grounds outside the prison, and even as far as the village.
On one of these walks my attention was attracted by the peculiar
actions of an old Indian peddler. He was a copper-colored, long-haired
old chief, with Indian baskets and strings of beads on his arms. As
soon as the girls and I stepped out of the prison gate this queer
looking, bent old man singled us out from all the rest of the crowd and
began following us about, urging us with muffled grunts to buy some of
the bead goods he carried in a basket strapped around his neck.
I thought he was crazy and told him very emphatically that I didn't
want any of his trash. But this did not discourage him in the least,
and he dogged our footsteps wherever we went.
At last--more to be rid of the old fellow than because I wanted
anything he had--I selected from his stock a pair of bead slippers.
As I handed him the money I felt him press a little folded slip of
paper into the hollow of my hand.
Quick as a flash I closed my fingers over it, and in that instant I
recognized--under the old Indian peddler's clever disguise--my husband,
Ned Lyons.
He had come back to the very gates of the prison from which he had
escaped to bring this message to me!
Kate Leary, wife of "Red" Leary, the bank burglar, was coming to see me
soon--so the note said. I was to have my plans for escape all ready to
discuss with her.
Now, the only way of getting out of my prison I had been able to
discover was through a door which led from a little used passageway in
the basement of the matron's house to a point just outside the prison
walls.
This door--a massive, iron-barred affair--was seldom if ever opened.
The big brass key which unlocked it hung with other keys from a ring
suspended at the matron's belt.
Kate Leary could easily have a duplicate of that key made, but first I
must secure a model of the original. This wasn't a difficult task--I
had often done similar tricks to aid my husband in his bank robberies.
I slipped into the matron's room while she was taking a nap and took a
careful impression of the key on a piece of wax.
In due time Kate Leary brought the key which had been carefully made
from my wax model. At the first opportunity I tried it--it fitted the
rusty old lock perfectly! Hiding the key away as carefully as I ever
hid any stolen diamonds, I waited impatiently for the night set for my
escape.
It came at last. Between 6 and 7 o'clock was the hour, because then my
household duties frequently took me into the vicinity of the basement
door. It was a crisp December evening. It had snowed heavily all day,
and it was still snowing and was growing colder.
About 6:30 I heard a peculiar low whistle. That was the signal that the
pair of horses and the sleigh which were to carry me away were waiting
outside.
There was, of course, no opportunity to get my hat and coat. Luckily I
was all alone in the lower house--upstairs I could hear the matron and
her family laughing and talking over their dinner.
Putting down the tray of dishes I was carrying I snatched the key from
its hiding place under a flour barrel and hurried noiselessly along the
dark passageway to the door that led to liberty.
My heart was thumping with excitement--my fingers were trembling so
that I could hardly find the keyhole. It seemed ages before the lock
turned and I stepped out into the cold winter night.
Although every second was precious, I took the time to close the door
behind me and lock it. By thus concealing the way I had gone I would
delay my pursuers just so much.
From an open window above me floated the voice of one of the matron's
little daughters as I picked my way through the snow, bareheaded and
with house slippers, avoiding the regular path.
"Mamma," she was saying; "why doesn't Sophie bring the rest of my
dinner?"
"She'll bring it in a minute," the mother replied.
I heaved a sigh of relief--quite evidently my absence had not yet
caused any suspicion.
Hurling the key into a snowdrift, I ran to the waiting sleigh. Ned was
standing beside the sleigh with a big warm fur coat outstretched in his
arms. Without a word I slipped into the coat, hopped into the sleigh,
and Ned gave the horses a clip with the whip and away we dashed toward
Poughkeepsie.
The long fur coat and stylish hat which Ned had brought made me look
like anything but an escaped convict. After a good warm supper at
Poughkeepsie, we took the night train for New York and reached there
safely the next morning.
And so we were free!
But what had we gained by our escape? We shall see.
When my husband first suggested his escape from Sing Sing he promised
me that if he ever succeeded in getting out he would give up crime and
turn to some honest and honorable work. That promise was made while his
remorse was sharpened by his sudden change from high living to poor
prison fare, and I was now to see how weak his good intentions really
were.
After a few weeks in New York, where we received the warm
congratulations of many friends on our escape from Sing Sing, we went
to Canada to visit our children who were in school there. It was not
long before our funds began to get low. I thought this a favorable time
to remind my husband of his promises and to urge him to get some honest
employment. But he would not listen to me.
"That would be all very well if I had any money," he said; "but I can't
settle down until I have enough capital to give me a decent start. Wait
until I do one more good bank job and then I will think about living
differently."
AN EASY BANK ROBBERY
I agreed to this reluctantly, for I felt a premonition that when this
"one more job" was finished we should both find ourselves back in Sing
Sing again. And, as it turned out, I was right.
It was not altogether lack of money or the desire to live a decent
life which made me plead with Ned to reform. The fact that there was
a reward on both our heads and that at any minute some ambitious
detective was liable to recognize us was beginning to tell on my
nerves. Ned used to try to laugh my fears away by saying that I saw
policemen in my sleep. Probably I did--at any rate, I know that for
months, asleep or awake, I would jump at the slightest sound, thinking
it was an officer come to take us back to Sing Sing. We could not live
natural lives but had to be constantly dodging about, and occasionally
running to cover for long intervals.
The "one more job" my husband had in mind was the robbery of a Montreal
bank. He looked the ground over, found it to his liking, and then sent
for a friend of ours, Dave Cummings, an experienced bank robber, to
come on from New York and help us.
It was really a very simple undertaking for three such expert criminals
as we were. My part of it was merely to stand in the shadow of an alley
and watch for the possible return of one of the bank's two watchmen.
There was small chance of his putting in an appearance, for my husband
had previously cultivated his acquaintance, and on this particular
evening had been plying him with mugs of ale until he had left him fast
asleep in a nearby saloon.
Inside the bank there was a second watchman. He was an old man, but
when he discovered Ned and Dave crawling through the rear window, which
they had opened with their jimmies, he put up such a stiff fight that
they had all they could do to stun him with a blow on the head, stuff
a handkerchief down his throat, and tie his hands and feet with a piece
of rope. As it was, they made so much noise that I nearly had nervous
prostration in the alley where I was crouching half a block away.
"I think I'd better keep an eye on this old chap while you get the
coin, Dave," my husband said, ruefully rubbing a bruised cheek he had
received in the tussle with the faithful guardian of the bank.
So, as a matter of precaution, my husband mounted guard with his
revolver over the watchman, while Dave solved the combination of the
safe. Nothing further happened to interfere with our plans and by
daybreak we were well on our way toward the Canadian border.
We had expected to get at least $30,000 from this robbery, but when
we came to empty the satchel in which Dave had placed the plunder, we
found there was not quite half that amount. It was all Dave's fault,
as we learned later from the newspapers. He had carelessly overlooked
a bundle of currency containing $25,000. I had always considered Dave
Cummings a thoroughly careful and reliable man, but this expensive
oversight of his rather shook my confidence in him.
My husband and I returned to New York with our share of the booty.
There, a few days later, we were arrested, but not for the bank robbery
in Montreal. The detectives who had been searching for us ever since
our escape from Sing Sing had found our hiding place at last, and they
took us back to prison to serve out our terms.
In our prison cells, once more, we had ample opportunity to consider
how fruitless of results our escape had been. For all the risks we
had run in getting out and for all the worrisome months we had spent
in dodging detectives we had nothing to show except the fleeting
satisfaction of a few days with our children. What had we gained?
Nothing.
HOW BULLARD GOT OUT
A criminal's reputation for cleverness among his fellows depends very
largely upon his ability to escape--or to help his friends to escape.
Mark Shinburn used to take more pride in the way he broke into the jail
at White Plains, New York, to free Charley Bullard and Ike Marsh, two
friends of his, than he did in some of his boldest robberies.
After reconnoitering the ground and carefully planning the jail
delivery, Shinburn and his companion, Raymond, put in a hard night's
work burrowing into the jail. They took Marsh and Bullard out, but what
was gained? Marsh was soon in trouble again and Bullard was taken again
and ended his days in prison.
And now one more instance--a very curious one.
Of all the ways by which thieves have cheated the law out of its due,
the most ingenious was probably the way "Sheeney Mike" brought about
his release from the Massachusetts State Prison. He feigned illness
so cleverly that the eminent physicians of the State Medical Board
pronounced him suffering from a mysterious and incurable disease
and ordered his release after he had served only three years of his
twelve-year sentence for one of his daring burglaries.
It was the robbery of Scott & Co.'s silk warehouse in Boston that sent
"Sheeney Mike" to Charlestown Prison, from which he so ingeniously
escaped. He discovered that the watchman was vigilant all through the
night except between the hours of 12 and 1 o'clock, when he went out to
get something to eat. Mike secured a false key which unlocked a door
to the warehouse, and arranged for two trucks to be on hand at a few
minutes past 12 one night.
When the truckmen arrived they found Mike at the door of the warehouse
coolly smoking a cigar. Quite naturally they thought he was the
proprietor. After helping the men to load the trucks with $20,000 worth
of expensive silks, "Sheeney Mike" turned out the lights, locked the
door, and drove away to Medford, a suburb of Boston, where the goods
were unloaded.
Before Mike found an opportunity to ship his plunder to New York he was
arrested, found guilty, and sentenced to fifteen years in prison.
He tried every means of escape he could think of without avail. At
last, in his desperation to get out, he began drinking large quantities
of strong soap suds. This made him deathly sick and unable to retain
any nourishment. His sufferings became so intense that he had to be
removed from his cell to the prison hospital.
In the prison hospital the doctor in charge began watching his patient
to be sure that some trick was not being played on him. A careful
examination of Mike revealed no organic trouble--the doctor could find
no reason for the strange symptoms. And yet right in front of his eyes
Mike would be taken with violent pains in the stomach, followed by
vomiting.
The prison doctor was worried. He gave stomach tonics. Still the spasms
and nausea continued. He put his patient on a cereal diet--but his
vomiting was not lessened. He changed the diet; he gave beef juice; he
changed it to milk and brandy--nothing brought relief.
The prison doctor was worried. Here was this once vigorous man wasting
away to a pallid skeleton in spite of his best efforts. The doctor
was a conscientious man and he called a consultation of two outside
physicians at his own expense. They patiently went over the record of
the case and examined "Sheeney Mike" minutely--there was nothing to
account for the patient's alarming condition. Still, it might possibly
be this or that, and so they would recommend trying a few things that
had not yet been tried by the prison doctor.
"SHEENEY MIKE'S" ESCAPE
"Sheeney Mike" thought that the time had come for some new
manifestation of his mysterious disease which would still further
puzzle and frighten the doctor, so, as the new treatment of the
consulting doctors was begun, Mike made preparation for some new
symptoms. He scraped an opening in his right side and each night rubbed
salt and pepper into it. He soon had an angry looking inflammation
which shortly produced a flow of pus. When Mike had reached this
achievement with his sore he languidly called the doctor's attention to
it.
This new development was enough. The doctor sadly shook his head.
Things were going from bad to worse.
"My poor man," he said, "you probably haven't a month to
live--certainly not in this prison. You might improve if you had your
freedom; I don't know. I am convinced that it would be murder to keep
you here. I shall at once recommend to Governor Butler that you be
pardoned. I decline to have your death on my conscience any longer."
On the ground that the patient could not possibly live more than a few
weeks in prison all three doctors solemnly certified to the Governor
that "Sheeney Mike" was a dying man and recommended immediate pardon.
Governor Butler approved the recommendation, and next day out walked
"Sheeney Mike" free, pardoned and restored to full citizenship. Soap
suds, a little salt and a sprinkling of pepper had opened the bars for
him.
But what did "Sheeney Mike" gain by all this? Nothing.
He had his freedom and a laugh on the doctors--but his astonishing
persistence in his soap-sud poisoning had so undermined his health
that he never recovered his strength and he finally died in Bellevue
Hospital in great agony after a long and painful illness.
And now one more case--also unusual and remarkable.
Of course, the escape of Eddie Guerin, a few years ago from Devil's
Island surprised everybody and attracted a great deal of attention.
Guerin is a well-known thief who has operated in England, America and
more or less all over Europe. Guerin, with a companion, robbed a bank
in Lyons, France, of $50,000, and a little later stole $30,000 from the
American Express Company in Paris. These two jobs were too much for the
French police, and they grabbed Guerin.
Guerin, traveling under the name of Walter Miller, and assisted by an
accomplice, entered the American Express Company's office in Paris
under the pretense of transacting some business. The other man busied
himself attracting the attention of the agent while Guerin sprang
across the counter with a drawn pistol. At this moment the agent and
a couple of clerks noticed Guerin's peculiar activity, but they were
unable to make any outcry or move because Guerin's accomplice kept the
express company's employees covered with a couple of revolvers. Guerin
helped himself to $30,000 which was lying within reach in an open safe,
and then the two thieves coolly walked out the door.
Guerin was caught and convicted of the express company robbery, and
sentenced to fourteen years' imprisonment in the French penal colony on
Devil's Island, off the coast of South America. This is the place where
Captain Dreyfus, the French army officer, was imprisoned, and it has
been the boast of the French police that nobody can escape from Devil's
Island.
Guerin had served four years of his sentence before he succeeded in
maturing a plan for escape. He had the friendship of a notorious woman
known as "Chicago May," who collected a fund in New York's underworld
and managed to get the money into Guerin's hands on Devil's Island.
By the judicious use of this money Guerin arranged for the escape of
himself and two other prisoners, French convicts, whom he decided would
be helpful to him in the journey through the swamps and wildernesses
after they left the penal colony.
The prison officials who had been reached by Guerin's fund arranged to
have him and his fellow convicts sent under guard to the outermost part
of the Island, which is a dense swamp, full of malaria and poisonous
snakes and insects. The next day the guards, who had been well paid,
buried a dead convict in the prison cemetery, and over the grave
they set up a headboard bearing the name "Eddie Guerin." This was to
complete the records of the prison, and a duly certified copy of the
prison record, telling of Guerin's death and burial, was forwarded to
France.
This much accomplished, Guerin and his two companions were allowed to
get away from the guards and they were soon lost in the swamp. They
were allowed to carry some tools, water, and provisions. While the
guards made a feeble and perfunctory search in the swamps the three
convicts set to work busily completing a boat and paddles. When these
were finished they loaded the boat with their food supplies, launched
it and headed along the South American coast for Dutch Guiana, the
three men paddling and sleeping by turns.
I have heard Guerin's own account of his escape, and I will repeat it
just as he told it.
Guerin was armed with a revolver and cartridges, fortunately, as
otherwise all his planning would have been in vain. After a day or
two in the boat he noticed that his two companions were growing very
chummy. They were astonishingly willing to do the paddling and let him
sleep.
So one night Guerin feigned to be asleep but kept an eye and both ears
open. Presently he heard his companions talking together in Spanish,
which they had no reason to believe he understood.
The men whom he had helped out of prison had made up their minds that
he had a lot of money left. They were conspiring to slit his throat as
he slept, rob his body and feed him to the sharks. The men lost no
time in putting the enterprise into operation. But, as they crept upon
him, knives in hand, they found themselves looking into the muzzle of
his revolver.
"For three days and nights," Guerin has told, "I could hardly lower the
muzzle of my revolver, and for them to stop paddling would mean only
prolongation of the agony of our escape."
At last all were so exhausted that they decided to try to rig a sail by
tying their shirts to an oar. A breeze had sprung up and a moderately
large sea was now endangering the craft. Everywhere about the boat were
big man-eating sharks. These creatures swam around the boat, frequently
whirling over on their backs and snapping their jaws within reaching
distance of the little craft.
One of Guerin's companions began to complain about his eyes, and the
reflection of the fierce tropical sun on the water had almost blinded
all three convicts. Suddenly this man stood up in the boat and pressed
his sun-burned hands to his eyes. He groped for a moment about him like
a blind man, and then lost his balance and fell to the side of the
canoe. The boat heeled over and began to take water over the side and
Guerin and this companion were thrown into the water. A shark close by
made a dash for Guerin's companion, and this gave Guerin a chance to
clamber back into the canoe, as another shark swept around the stern,
narrowly missing the American burglar.
HORRORS WORSE THAN DEATH
The tragic end of one of the party terrified Guerin and the remaining
convict, and put an end to the conspiracy against Guerin. But the
straining of the canoe when it had nearly upset and the rising sea had
made the boat begin to leak. Guerin and his fellow voyager decided that
they could not risk it any longer in the boat, but must make a landing
and continue their journey through the swamps and wildernesses and run
the risk of encountering hostile natives.
After the canoe was beached they hauled it up on shore and hid it
among the trees so as to leave no track in case a searching party
should follow after them. They had no very definite idea of the
proper direction to follow--knowing only that they were on the wild
coast of Dutch Guiana, and must travel inland several miles to find a
settlement. Both men were as thin as skeletons, worn out with bailing
and paddling the leaky boat, and their scanty food supply was scarcely
fit to eat. They plunged haphazard into the tropical forest and swamp.
They had nothing to mark the time but the sun, which was sometimes
completely hidden by the dense foliage. Threading cautiously through
the swamps and forests filled with treacherous death traps, they were
terrified and tortured by the constant presence of poisonous snakes
and venomous insects and lizards. Describing this trip, which lasted
several days, Guerin said:
"After a while we seemed to be struggling through an endless maze, that
was leading in the end to nowhere, and this sort of thing went on and
on. Sometimes the undergrowth, waist high, would rustle as an invisible
snake took flight before us. The next moment we would be floundering
in a quagmire, not knowing whether to go back or to the left or to the
right, and conscious of sinking deeper with each second of indecision."
"With throbbing head, burning skin, chattering teeth, aching and leaden
limbs, we were inclined to throw ourselves down to miserably die, and
we knew that the swamp fever was upon us."
Finally, Guerin and his companion reached a river and concluded that
they would follow its bank in the hope of coming upon a native camp,
where they would take chances of a friendly or unfriendly reception.
Before long their bloodshot eyes beheld a hut. As they approached it,
swaying and trembling from their hunger and hardships and fever, a
black native emerged and set up a shout which soon collected many other
blacks from neighboring huts, who rushed at them with spears.
Guerin could not understand their language, but endeavored to explain
to them that they wanted food, rest, and a guide. Guerin's companion,
in an effort to make plain their willingness to pay for what they
wanted, showed a couple of francs in silver. This was an unfortunate
move, because it excited the cupidity of the blacks, who promptly fell
upon them and searched them and took away everything they had of
value, after which they were pushed into a hut and kept prisoners.
Sick, weak, almost discouraged, Guerin and his companion managed to
escape, and, stumbling through the treacherous morasses, emerged in the
neighborhood of an Indian village. Unlike the blacks, these natives
greeted the strangers in a friendly manner and invited Guerin and his
companion to stay with them until they were rested and able to continue
their journey. After a few days Guerin and the other convict were given
a guide by the Indians and he piloted them to a seaport, where they
embarked on a boat loading for New Orleans. From New Orleans Guerin
went to Boston, and then took passage for England, hoping to find the
woman he had been in love with when he was sent away to Devil's Island.
Guerin found her, but she was then the sweetheart of another. In the
row that followed this woman and her lover tried to shoot Guerin.
And so Eddie Guerin escaped--but he purchased his freedom at a
frightful cost of agony and ruined health.
Does crime pay? Nobody will claim that it does if the criminal gets
into prison. But criminals often escape from prison, it is urged--what
then? And it is to answer this question that I have endeavored to take
the public behind the scenes and show them the real truth about a few
famous escapes from prison, and how the escaped convicts profited
nothing, but were, indeed, worse off than they were before.