Well, Shinburn did hear from it. The inner door could not be opened, try as the cashier would. A great mystery seemed to confront the bank people. What had happened to the combination? It had worked well hitherto. It did not occur to them that some one had been tampering with the lock. Unable to open the vault, the Lillie Lock Company was telegraphed to forthwith send on an expert to make an examination. In the meantime, the bank’s cash being locked up, not much business was done. The expert came, and, after working several hours, solved the mystery.
“Burglars,” he said, with a snap, as he held up to the bank people’s astonished gaze our “Little Joker.” “I found it on the dial of the money safe. Your bank would have been ‘touched’ within a few hours. Some one bungled the lock on the second vault door and that gave the snap away.”
The amazement of the bankers was taken for doubt by the expert, so he went on to a further explanation.
“We’ve long suspected something of this kind, but could never get our hands on it. Through this discovery we’ve done a great service to the banking people of the country. Any number of banks have been robbed by the mere opening of the vaults and safes with combination numbers, all of which were supposed to be kept secret; only known to one or two officials or employees of a bank. This is a great discovery.”
And the expert was right. If it so happen that these pages meet the eyes of any one using these locks with the same dials to-day, he will at once realize how utterly worthless they are as a safeguard against the real professional burglar. I know positively that the “Little Joker” was the cause of many alterations in the Lillie locks, and its loss to me greatly interfered with my hitherto easy access to bank vaults and kept not a little funds away from me.
Having been defeated by no one but himself, Mark reported to me, and feeling much chagrined over the failure of our “on-the-side” job, he returned to New York and we continued our scheming for the millions in the Ocean Bank.
Mark had played a lone hand and lost. I was sorry, and of course he felt badly enough over his bungling, so nothing was said. None of us is infallible.
I have no doubt that my readers will readily believe that shortly after the opening of the Ocean Bank vault on the morning after our departure there was a considerable stir in the financial world, especially that part of it located at the corner of Fulton and Greenwich streets.