And it was when bent on such a task that from one of their secret sources of information came news of an impressively dangerous mating up of three certain criminals for the purpose of bank robberies by safe breaking.
“Bugs” Reilly, they learned, was one of them. But Bugs was the smallest of the game. He was little more than a stripling in years. He was no “touch system” adept, or expert in the use of the explosives employed in the crashing of the heavy steel doors of bank vaults and safes. Bugs would rank as not much more than a “lobbiegow,” an errand runner, a lookout on the job during its performance and a “toter of the tools.”
But another member of the combination was to be “Connecticut Blackie” Blake. That was very different. Very. Blackie had done several prison stretches to be sure, but he had left a trail of smashed bank vaults from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and from Canada to Mexico, and even in Mexico itself. He was a yogi among yeggs. Expert, daring, reckless in the use of gat or rod when cornered.
Big game as Blackie Blake was, bigger yet, however, would be the capture of the third member of the mob, if it might only be achieved. This would be the leader beyond doubt — the master mind truly. To bag Liverpool Jack Walsh wouldn’t be merely a feather in a cop’s cap — it would be a plume, and a red one at that.
For Liverpool Jack had a reputation as a highly skilled safe-breaker that was world-wide. The very neatness and precision and swiftness with which he handled his steel tools and explosives left his trade-mark indelibly on all his jobs. He had robbed banks in the United States, England, Belgium, Holland, France, Austria, Italy, India, Australia, China and several of the nations of South America. He had “done time,” as had Connecticut Blackie Blake, but more sparingly, in very small degree, indeed, considering the large number of his depredations, the riches he had taken in plunder. His greatest disaster had befallen him in Australia. There Liverpool Jack was taken red-handed and meted an eight-year term which he was compelled to serve to the bitter end.
As his criminal moniker or alias indicates, he was of English birth. His Rogues’ Gallery picture, long a vain exhibit in that of New York headquarters, displayed a well-featured, refined countenance. One examined it without reward for any of the asymmetries of eye and mouth and eyebrows exploited by the Lombroso. There was a well-shaped, high forehead, evenly and widely set, keen, rather large eyes; a high-bridged nose in no way aslant; a firm jaw, but not outstandingly large, a full, finely molded chin. A gray mustache concealed his mouth. Further description stated that he was tall and rather heavily built. He was getting along in years at the time Detectives Burgess and Fitzpatrick turned their attention to him. Computed from the Headquarters Identification Bureau’s record, Liverpool Jack was then past his fifty-sixth year.
It will be seen then that if Connecticut Blackie was a yogi among yeggs, Liverpool Jack Walsh was the Grand Guru himself.
Burgess and Fitzpatrick were hot to land him. No lion or tiger hunters ever experienced keener fever of the chase.
They began a patient, tireless espionage of the movements of Liverpool Jack, Connecticut Blackie and their satellite, Bugs Reilly. They trailed them from different criminal “hangouts” west of Broadway day on day, but without more result for several weeks than to learn the situation of the obscure hotel where Connecticut Blackie and Bugs were living, and to shadow Liverpool Jack to an apartment in the upper Eighties, where he lived with his wife and a son about ten years old. He was evidently in funds.
The apartment house where he lived was of a class commanding a monthly rental of at least one hundred and twenty-five dollars. He dressed very well himself, his wife wore fashionable attire, and their little son was equally well cared for. Liverpool Jack, however dangerous he might be to society at large, was a good family man. Certainly he was tremendously fond of his little son, spending hours at play with him along Riverside Drive daily before joining up with his newly adopted partners, Connecticut Blackie and Bugs Reilly, at the thieves’ resorts further down town.
Detective work in large part is dreary business. It is very much of a waiting game. He who cannot school himself to infinite patience would find the profession intolerable. Only the big game hunter can have a sympathetic understanding of the fascination of the work which keeps a spirit of eagerness awake in man-hunters through long, monotonous sterile periods of watchful waiting.
In this case there was six weeks of it, day and night, before action came.
Burgess, shadowing the hotel where Connecticut Blackie and Bugs Reilly lived, saw Bugs leaving it one afternoon about four o’clock. Blackie accompanied him as far as the lobby. Burgess noted that the older crook’s words at the parting were swiftly and decisively spoken. What interested the detective even more was that which dangled from Bugs’s right hand. Dangle is hardly the word. It was a satchel of costly black leather, and it hung heavily. In fact, its weight caused him to put it down on the floor until Blackie’s talk ended. When he picked the satchel up again it required a sturdy heft of his shoulders to lift it. And Bugs lost no time in engaging a taxi on leaving the hotel. In another cab Burgess, of course, followed. The trip ended at the depot of the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad. There Bugs made straight for the parcel room, heaved the heavy satchel on the counter and checked it. He made no purchase of a railroad ticket at the time, but returned again by taxi to the hotel.
In following Bugs, Burgess had not left Blackie unwatched. Detective Charles Flaherty remained to hold Blackie under espionage. When Bugs rejoined his pal, Burgess consigned the two of them to Flaherty and returned to the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad station and to the package room. There a show of his shield quickly obtained him the privilege of examining the bag Bugs had deposited there. He shook it and the jangle of metallic contents gave him a thrill. A kit of burglar tools doubtless. The newly formed trio, with the masterful Liverpool Jack in command, were, in all probability, planning an out of town trick.
He wished he might look into the bag and confirm the ring of metal that had come out of it. But he dared not tamper with the lock, he figured. It would advertise to Bugs of a certainty that strange hands had been upon his possession. Still, there was the possibility that the bag hadn’t been locked. It was worth testing. Burgess tried the catch, and smiled. The bag was open! Greater his satisfaction when full confirmation of his deduction presented itself. Brace and bit, hammer and chisel, soap and “soup” — nitro-glycerine — in vials in sufficient quantity to wreck the entire railroad station if it exploded — he found in Bugs Reilly’s bag. But the vials were packed well in pads of cotton and waste, so that Burgess had no misgiving in allowing them to remain where they were.
Trailing Bugs back to his New York hotel, Burgess sent swift word to Fitzpatrick, watching Liverpool Jack at his uptown home. He left Flaherty at the hotel long enough to get Fitzpatrick on the secret wire of the branch bureau at the West Forty-Seventh Street station by means of the policeman on post in the vicinity of Liverpool Jack’s apartment.
“Looks like a job to-night, Fitz,” he said, “so don’t let Liverpool slip you. Bugs checked a safe-breaking kit over at the Delaware and Lackawanna this afternoon. Yes — sure. He left it unlocked and I got a good full peek into it. All the works there. No, I don’t know where they fix to pull the job. He didn’t buy any ticket. But Flaherty and I have got both Blackie and Bugs covered down here. I’m only guessing that it’s to-night they are fixing on. But it looks good. He’d hardly be taking the tools to leave in a public checking room for any length of time. I’d say they meant to use ’em right away. Well, keep your eyes on Liverpool.”