The Mammoth Book of Roaring Twenties Whodunnits

by Mike Ashley

  Beauvoir, as everybody knows, is on the East River front. It consists of an ancient stone building which forms a nucleus for innumerable more or less modern wings spreading in every direction. The office of the hospital, which was our mark, is in this old building, just inside the main entrance.

  There are other entrances for patients and their visitors. The main entrance is used principally by officials of the hospital, and those doing business with them. Unfortunately for us, the old building fronts on a courtyard, which is overlooked by literally hundreds of windows. The grand difficulty would be to get out of that courtyard with whole skins.

  You may gauge the size of the institution when I tell you that the weekly pay roll amounted to nearly seventy thousand dollars. This money was brought to the hospital every Thursday morning by armored car. In the office it was made up into pay envelopes by a force of clerks; payment to the employees was spread over the whole week.

  Our attack was timed for Thursday just before noon, when the clerks would have the money spread out in the office in the act of making up the envelopes. The force consisted of a head bookkeeper, three male clerks and two women. No additional guards were employed. I suppose nobody had ever dreamed of the possibility that a hospital might be attacked.

  The first thing we had to decide was whether or not to take the hospital authorities into our confidence in respect to the proposed raid. We held several anxious consultations with Inspector Rumsey upon this matter.

  It appeared that the cashier, whose name was Tabor, was in full charge of all financial matters, and the inspector volunteered to sound him out. He reported later that Mr Tabor was a testy gentleman, whose whole life had centered in Beauvoir.

  He had an overwhelming sense of the dignity and importance of the institution he served, and the inspector said it would be quite useless to put up any such scheme to him. He would certainly have a fit at the bare mention of such a thing.

  “Very well,” said Mme Storey coolly; “then as far as Mr Tabor is concerned this must be a bona fide hold-up.”

  “Suppose he puts up a fight?” asked the inspector anxiously. “He’s a determined old party. He is almost certain to be armed, and perhaps his clerks also. You have a big enough risk to run from chance shots outside, without facing a point-blank fire inside. I could not permit that under any circumstances.”

  “Pull the right wires,” suggested Mme Storey, “and introduce a man of your own as clerk in the office.”

  This was done. Inspector Rumsey’s man subsequently reported that there was only one gun in the hospital office. This was an old-fashioned revolver in the drawer of Mr Tabor’s desk, which had apparently not been shot off nor cleaned in many years. It was not, however, any the less dangerous on that account.

  Since Mr Tabor made a point of being the first in the office every day and the last to leave, our agent said it was doubtful if he could secure the gun beforehand to unload it; but he guaranteed to seize it when the attack was made. We let it go at that.

  It fell to my part to make the first preliminary examination of the ground. I confess I did not like it at all. Beauvoir Hospital bore too strong a resemblance to a prison.

  The entrance was by a triple gateway from the street. The two narrow side gates were for visitors to the various wards, and the center gate, which was double, admitted to the courtyard and the main building.

  The three gates were divided by two little buildings where guards, presumably armed, were on duty at all hours. Visitors to patients were provided with cards of admission, and it was the duty of these men to examine the cards, and set the holders on the right path.

  If we took our automobile inside the courtyard, the guards had only to close the iron gates to block us. If we left our car outside, we would have to run the gantlet of the guards on foot.

  I should say that the windows of the office looked out on the courtyard; the first shout from the clerks would alarm the guards. In short, it seemed to be just about as perfect a trap as could be devised. I did not like it.

  There was a doorman on duty at the main entrance; but he was a doddering old fellow, incapable of putting up any serious resistance. Inside, a corridor ran right and left throughout the length of the old building. You turned to the right, and the first door on your right admitted you to the office.

  It was an old-fashioned double door of solid wood; it stood open during business hours. The room was about thirty feet long, with an old-fashioned wooden counter running the length of it, topped by a brass grille some three feet high, with several wickets in it.

  At one side a door made of heavy brass wire gave entrance to the clerks’ inclosure. I noticed that there was no way out for them, except by this door, thence by the door into the corridor.

  I had chosen a Thursday morning for this visit, and they were all busy at a long table in the middle of the room putting the money in pay envelopes. Certainly it was tempting Providence to handle their cash practically in public like that.

  When I reported to Mme Storey the difficulty of getting out past the guards, she said:

  “Well, there must be other ways out of that old warren. We’ll study the floor plans.”

  Inspector Rumsey, who was looking up the police arrangements in the neighborhood, subsequently informed us that since First Avenue had become an important motor thoroughfare, a motorcycle policeman had been assigned to patrol it; and that he spent a good part of his time standing in front of the hospital. Verily, the difficulties surrounding the adventure seemed to be pyramiding against us!

  Mme Storey said thoughtfully: “We have a reputation for originality to maintain. We must do something quite new this time. Let us dispense with a car altogether, and make our getaway by water.”

  XIII

  From the New York Sphere, January –, 192–.

  THE DUCHESS MAKES ANOTHER HAUL

  Beauvoir Hospital the Victim; Loss $67,000

  Boldest Robbery in History of City

  “The Duchess”, that most amazing criminal of modern times, played a return engagement this morning. It scarcely seems possible, but she actually succeeded in capping her own exploits; in exceeding her reputation. This time it was no mere jewelry store that was the object of her raid, but Beauvoir Hospital.

  Everybody in town is asking: What next? In the teeth of all the orderlies, police and armed guards who are to be found around the hospital, she and her gang relieved the office force of the week’s pay roll to the tune of sixty-seven thousand dollars, and made a clean get-away.

  The crime had been carefully planned. The bandits displayed a perfect familiarity with the rambling old building. They made their way out through the rear to the bulkhead adjoining the river, and were picked up by a speedy motor boat. One of their number was wounded in the retreat, but his comrades carried him off. As usual there is no clew.

  Every Thursday morning an armored car brings the money for the week’s pay roll to Beauvoir Hospital. The amount averages close to seventy thousand dollars. Though the institution has doubled and quadrupled in size since those early days, the pay envelopes are still made up in the office in sight of all and sundry, just as they were twenty-five years ago. In some manner this reached the ears of the Duchess, and the inevitable happened.

  At eleven forty-five this morning Emerson Tabor, the cashier of the hospital, and his five clerks were engaged upon this regular weekly task. In another fifteen minutes the money would have been locked in the safe for the noon hour. All six persons were working at a long table in the hospital office.

  They were cut off from the public by a stout wooden counter running the length of the room, upon which is superimposed a heavy brass grill. The whole structure is about six feet high. Four of the clerks were filling the envelopes while Mr Tabor and another checked them. There was no one else in the office at the moment except Rudolph Glassberg, of 400 West Ninety-Third Street, who had called to obtain the address of a former employee of the hospital. It was this accidental witness of the affair
who was able to give the most comprehensive account of what happened.

  Mr Tabor had just told Mr Glassberg that he had no record of the employee in question, when a tall, elegantly dressed lady entered the office. At first glance Mr Tabor was struck by nothing unusual in her appearance, except that she was rather a fine lady to be calling at old Beauvoir. She had an envelope in her hand, which she partly extended toward him.

  In a low, musical voice she asked him in what part of the building that person was to be found. As Mr Tabor put a hand through the wicket to take the envelope, his wrist was seized in a grip of steel. The woman dropped the envelope, and from somewhere about her person whipped a pair of handcuffs.

  In a trice the cashier was handcuffed to his own brass grill. He found himself looking into those baleful cat’s eyes with the narrowed pupils which have been so often described.

  Mr Glassberg happened to be looking directly at the woman. He was dazed by the suddenness of her act. So was Mr Tabor.

  For a moment there was no sound. The clerks in the rear had no suspicion of anything wrong. Then Mr Glassberg heard the woman say in her courteous, well-bred voice:

  “So sorry to discommode you, but I can’t let you get to your gun, you know.”

  The cashier gave a shout of warning, and yanked at the chain; his clerks jumped up, knocking over their chairs. At that moment the rest of the gang entered swiftly and quietly from the corridor.

  Mr Glassberg tried to leave then, but was harshly ordered to remain where he was. He frankly confessed that he squeezed into the farthest corner, not daring to make a sound, nor to stir during what followed.

  It was the same gang which held up Fossberg’s jewelry store last month; four good looking, well-dressed lads, showing none of the obvious marks of the gunman, none of them over twenty-five years old, and one a mere boy; and the showily dressed, red-haired girl who appears to be the Duchess’s first lieutenant. The four men, as if performing a well rehearsed drill, leaped on the edge of the counter, and vaulted over the brass grill.

  Mr Tabor shouted to his clerk, William Hughes, to get his gun out. Another clerk, Edward Ensor, beat him to it. Ensor had only been working at the hospital for a few days. He snatched the gun out of the drawer where it was kept and fired at the oncoming bandits.

  The shot went wild. Immediately two of the bandits dived, and, tackling Ensor low, flung him to the floor. He was disarmed before he could recover himself. Of the two women clerks, Miss Mary Phillips fainted dead away at the sound of the shot, while Miss Gertie Colpas dived under the table, where she kept up a continuous screaming until all was over.

  Mr Glassberg said what with the screaming of the woman, the shouting of Mr Tabor, and his frantic efforts to free himself, the noise in the room was deafening. The bandits coolly disregarded it. No sound escaped from any of them.

  Two of the men covered the clerks, while the other two producing black silk bags from under their coats, started sweeping up the money and the pay envelopes on the table. All moved as by clockwork.

  When the gang entered, the Duchess coolly closed the door from the corridor. She and her woman aid took up their places one on each side of the door, ready for any one who might enter. The Duchess produced the inevitable little cigar while she waited.

  Mr Glassberg said she watched what was going on within the clerks’ inclosure with a half contemptuous smile, as one might look at a second rate play. There was something about the woman’s unnatural coolness that froze his very blood, he said.

  As on the former occasion, the Duchess’s attire expressed the very acme of elegant simplicity. She was wearing a severely cut costume of brown, which set off her slender figure to perfection. Inside the collar of the coat was wound a gaily colored silk scarf, and a handkerchief to match it, peeped out of her breast pocket.

  Her hat was one of those smart little recent importations that closely outline the shape of the head. Her shoes were smart English brogues, and a pair of chamois gloves completed the ensemble.

  Within a minute or so the money was gathered up, and the four men as one, leaped back upon the counter, and vaulted over the brass grill. The Duchess opened the door, and they all ran out into the corridor. Mr Glassberg peeped around the door frame to see what became of them, but did not dare to follow.

  At the entrance to the building was stationed John Staley, the doorkeeper; but as he was a man of sixty-nine, and unarmed, he could do nothing to stop the bandits. However, six or more of the husky orderlies for which Beauvoir is famous came tumbling down the stairs from the wards above, attracted by the noise.

  Though these men were unarmed, they boldly ranged themselves in a line across the corridor to block the bandits. The latter instantly formed a flying wedge with the biggest among them, the one who resembles an Englishman, in the center, and charged, bowling the orderlies over like nine pins.

  It was at this point that the bandits revealed their uncanny knowledge of the premises. Instead of turning out of the main entrance, where they would presently have run into half a dozen armed guards, they opened a door under the stairs, and charged down a concealed flight into the basement.

  The basement of the old building at Beauvoir is cut up into a multitude of serving rooms: laundry, kitchen, pantries, storerooms, and the like; nevertheless, the bandits made their way out unerringly, while the orderlies who were in pursuit of them got lost. The bandits burst through the kitchen, bringing terror into the hearts of cooks and dishwashers, and ran out into the open space between the hospital and the river.

  In the summer this is a pleasant grass plot. It is surrounded on three sides by tier above tier of balconies, where, in pleasant weather the patients are wheeled out to get the air.

  At this season there were few patients on the balconies; but the doctors, nurses, and orderlies ran out to see what was the matter below, adding their shouts to the uproar. Several shots were fired from the balconies at the fleeing bandits, but none took effect.

  They made straight across for the bulkhead alongside the river. Here they met with a check, for their boat could be seen stalled a hundred feet or so out in the stream, the mechanic working frantically to start his engine. A shout of triumph went up from the watchers on the balconies.

  At this moment it was touch and go with the Duchess and her pals. Six armed guards had made their way through the hospital, and the bandits were cut off between the buildings and the river. The guards did not immediately rush them, but stood close to the building, firing as fast as they could pull the trigger.

  The bandits returned their fire without effect. Finally the Englishman dropped, wounded. Heartened by the sight, the guards charged across the open space, firing as they ran.

  However, by this time the motor boat had come alongside the bulkhead; the bandits leaped in pell-mell, carrying their wounded comrade, and the boat shot out into the river.

  The guards continued to fire after it, but as the occupants all flung themselves into the bottom of the boat, it is not likely that any more of them were hit. In a moment they had disappeared around the end of a long pier.

  The motor boat was a rakish, sharp-prowed mahogany tender of great speed. It had the look of a millionaire’s playing, and was, no doubt, stolen for the occasion, though no such loss has as yet been reported to the police. Her name had been painted out. All the observers agreed that the craft was not one which customarily frequents the East River.

  Police launch A-22 is stationed in a slip immediately to the south of the hospital, and in less than five minutes she was in pursuit. But the bandit craft was already out of sight down the stream. The police launch was no match for her in speed.

  They caught sight of her again off Corlear’s Hook; but by that time she had been abandoned, and was already awash. When the police reached the spot she had sunk, leaving only a patch of oil on the surface. What happened to her cannot be known for certain; the police hold to the theory that she was deliberately scuttled.

  Children playing in the park at
Corlear’s Hook told the police that they had seen the mahogany launch come alongside a waiting tug, which had presently passed on, leaving the launch to sink. The tug was too far offshore for her name to be read.

  The police are questioning the captain and crew of every tug in the harbor, but it is admitted that the chance of picking up a clue by this means is a slender one. Once again the Duchess appears to have vanished into thin air.

  XIV

  Such was the first account of the affair. Later editions of the newspapers only amplified and elaborated the story. While a conventional horror of the deed was expressed, you can see by reading between the lines that the ultimate effect of these stories was to glorify the daring and successful bandit.

  Such is the evil effect of too much publicity. If a man becomes famous enough, thoughtless persons do not stop to inquire into the quality of his fame.

  During the days that followed our gang had to lie very close, for the police were roused to a fury of activity by this “outrage”. I suspect that Inspector Rumsey had a very difficult part to play, for he was put in charge of the case. Of all the force, only he and the commissioner were in on the secret.

  One problem that faced us was how to return the money to the hospital without giving the whole game away. We solved it by having the same millionaire who had loaned us his automobile on a former occasion come forward and donate to Beauvoir Hospital the sum they had lost. He got great credit for this act.

  Stephens was carried to a sanatorium up in Westchester to recover from his wound, which was not a dangerous one. Falseface and Tony were sent under care of Abell to rusticate in a camp belonging to another of Mme Storey’s friends in the neighborhood of Saranac Lake.

  Abell’s real job, of course, was to keep them under surveillance until we were ready to order their arrest. Young Farren was sent off to amuse himself down in Florida.

  Mme Storey and I were perfectly safe working in our office every day in our own proper characters; but as she was obliged to keep in touch with Jake the Canvasser, we had to disguise our disguises for the evening. Madge Caswell’s reports still held out no hope of reaching the principal through Jake, and it was necessary to take other measures.