Perhaps the most reasonable explanation of the robbery lies in the assumption that Dominie Earle, honest, but simple-minded, did not go up-stairs at all with Crawford, but left him at the foot of the stairs, influenced by his eagerness to get home. Granting this supposition, what would have been easier than for Crawford, left alone at the foot of the stairs, to have turned back with the valise and gone into the back room of some neighboring saloon, or other convenient place, where he could manipulate the label and substitute the bogus package? There is reason to think that the bogus package had been prepared weeks before, which would have accounted in a measure for its worn and slovenly appearance. The time occupied in doing all this need not have been over fifteen minutes, which would not have been noticed at the bank, especially as the robbery occurred after banking hours. It is highly improbable, however, that Crawford could have accomplished the substitution on the stairs of the express office; for, while these are winding and somewhat in the shadow, they are by no means dark, and are plainly in view of clerks and officials who are constantly passing. Besides that, Crawford could not have carried the dummy package concealed about his person without attracting attention, for the original package was quite bulky, being about twenty inches long, twenty inches wide, and fourteen inches thick. The bogus package was not quite so thick, and more oblong, but could not easily have been hidden under a man's coat. Finally, even supposing Crawford did carry the bogus package with him in some manner, he would never have dared to expose himself to almost certain detection by cutting off the label from the genuine package, pasting it on the bogus package, placing the latter in the valise, and hiding the genuine one in his clothes--and doing all this on the busy stairs of an express office where at that hour of the day a dozen men are going up and down every minute.
The sum of all these theories is, however, that, in spite of the fact that the author of the robbery is known and the bulk of the money has been recovered, the manner of the robbery is to this day a mystery.
End of Project Gutenberg's True Detective Stories, by Cleveland Moffett