True Detective Stories from the Archives of the Pinkertons

Оглавление

Moffett Cleveland. True Detective Stories from the Archives of the Pinkertons

The Northampton Bank Robbery

The Susquehanna Express Robbery

The Pollock Diamond Robbery

The Rock Island Express

The Destruction of the Renos

The American Exchange Bank Robbery

Отрывок из книги

At Susquehanna, Pennsylvania, are located the great shops of the Erie Railroad, where fifteen hundred men work throughout the year. These men receive their wages on a fixed day toward the end of each month, the pay-roll amounting to many thousands of dollars. It was customary, fourteen years ago, for the company to have a sum of money sufficient for this purpose shipped from New York by express a day or two before the date when the wages were to be paid. Following out this practice, on the night of June 20, 1883, the Marine National Bank of New York shipped by the United States Express Company a sealed package containing forty thousand dollars for the Erie Railroad Company, in care of the First National Bank of Susquehanna. The package contained United States currency and bank-notes, almost entirely in small bills, none larger than twenty dollars.

The usual precautions were observed in shipment, a trusted clerk of the Marine Bank carrying the package to the express company's office and taking a receipt for it from the money-clerk, who examined it first to make sure that the seals of the bank were intact and that in all respects it presented a correct appearance. Having satisfied himself on these points, the money-clerk placed the package in one of the canvas pouches used by the United States Express Company, sealed it carefully with the company's private seal, and attached a tag bearing the address of the company's agent at Susquehanna.

.....

After a brief delay the pouch was delivered to express messenger Van Waganen, who saw it placed in one of the small iron safes used by express companies in conveying money from city to city. The messenger rode with the safe to the train, and then remained on guard in the express-car, where the safe was placed, as far as Susquehanna, at which point he delivered the pouch to Dwight Chamberlain, a night-clerk and watchman in the joint employ of the Erie Railroad and the United States Express Company. The train left New York at 6 p. m., and reached Susquehanna about midnight.

Watchman Chamberlain, having received the pouch at the station, carried it into the ticket-office and locked it inside a safe belonging to the Erie Railroad Company. He remained on duty the rest of the night, and at seven o'clock the next morning a messenger from the First National Bank of Susquehanna came to get the package. Chamberlain unlocked the safe, took out the pouch, opened it, and then emptied its contents on the table. To his great surprise the package containing the forty thousand dollars was gone, and in its place were several bundles of manila paper cut to the size of bank-bills and done up in small packages as money is done up.

.....