The Great Taxicab Robbery 3
On an ordinarily quiet morning at Police Headquarters, there will be a
steady stream of people passing into Dougherty’s office. Several
assistants guard the doors leading from two ante-rooms, and marshal the
visitors. Now a group of detectives enters and hears a talk on methods.
Then two detectives come in, make a report and receive further
instructions. Then there will be an interruption, perhaps, while an
assistant soothes and sends away a crank who occasionally turns up with
a purely imaginary affair of his own, and two more detectives pass in
accompanied by a man and a woman who look just like the people one sees
dining at a fashionable uptown restaurant. The woman’s furs are
magnificent, and her hat a costly Fifth avenue creation.
“A couple of taxpayers?” speculates the group of reporters, waiting
outside to get a statement about some important case.
“Two of the cleverest check swindlers in the country,” corrects a
detective, and presently the reporters are called in, and Dougherty
recites names, dates and facts connected with the gang to which these
prosperous “taxpayers” belong, gazing reflectively out of the window as
details come back in memory, and chuckling with the delighted
journalists as the pithy slang and professional names of the underworld
are jotted down on their pads. They fire a scattering volley of
questions at him and depart, and then his secretary announces that the
saloon-keeper who knows a good deal about the Blind Puppy Café case is
outside, but refuses to talk to the police at all.
“Hullo!” is the Commissioner’s off-hand greeting as the cautious
saloon-keeper comes in, and in two minutes the latter is answering
questions freely.
“Why, say!” he exclaims, “I’ll tell _you_ anything.”
Then a humble little woman in a cheap hat and a long cloak is brought
in. For more than an hour she has been waiting outside, with her eyes
fixed patiently on the door leading to the inner office.
“Stand there,” says the Commissioner, with gruff kindness, and he makes
a formal statement about her husband, who has been arrested with a
criminal gang, and is pretty certain to go to prison. He tells her what
has been done in the case, and what will follow, and the little woman
listens mutely. When he finishes, her eyes fill with tears. But she
makes no reply, nor any sound. The Commissioner winks fast as he looks
out of the window again, and then says, sympathetically:
“That’s the best that can be done. But don’t you worry. Come in and see
me again. Keep in touch with me, and don’t worry yourself. Come in and
talk with me—come in to-morrow.” And she bravely wipes her eyes and goes
out with her trouble.
The procession continues.
Police captains and detectives in squads, prisoners and witnesses in
twos and threes, newspaper men in corps and singly, and occasionally a
cautious gentleman who wants to see the Commissioner alone, and is
anxious that nobody say anything about this visit to Police
Headquarters—for he is an informant.
_The First Alarm_
The taxicab robbery took place on a quiet morning like this.
Suddenly, around eleven o’clock on Thursday, February 15, a brief
message comes from the second precinct, stating that a robbery has been
committed in the financial district. A little later there is a fuller
report over police wires. The details are few, as will be seen by the
general alarm that presently goes out over the city:
_Police Department, City of New York_,
February 15, 1912.
To all, all Boroughs—notify the patrol platoon immediately.
Arrest for assault and robbery three men:
No. 1, about 35 years, five feet eight or nine inches in height,
160 or 170 pounds, small stubby dark mustache, dark complexion,
medium build, dark suit and cap, no overcoat.
No. 2, about 35 years, five feet ten inches in height, slender
build, dark hair, possibly smooth shaven, light brown suit, no
overcoat, wore a cap.
No description of No. 3.
Stole $25,000 in five and ten dollar bills, contained in a brown
leather telescope bag, 24 inches long, 16 inches square, from
two bank messengers in a taxicab about 11 this a. m., at Park
Place and Church Street, and escaped in a five or seven-seated
black touring car, top up. Look out for this car, bag and
occupants on streets, at ferry entrances, bridge terminals,
railroad stations. Inquire at all garages, automobile stands,
stables, etc.
If found, notify Detective Bureau.
Before noon, the Commissioner has postponed appointments, assigned
routine business, and is engaged in an investigation that will keep him
busy until that morning, twelve days later, when the first arrests are
made, and the case is, in police parlance, “broken.”
Where do the police begin in such a crime? What do they start with when
there is apparently so little to work upon?
In spite of the wide popular interest in police and criminal matters,
the average citizen has no very clear idea. Even the newspaper reporter,
following police activities every day, is not well informed in technical
details. Some information is necessarily withheld from him, and he is a
busy young man, with his own technical viewpoint, working hard to get
his own kind of information.
This lack of knowledge leads to a feeling of mystery, helplessness and
terror after a sensational crime, and to criticism of the police. They
are at work, skillfully, honestly, diligently. But results take time. It
would do little good to make arrests without evidence. The citizen’s
sympathies are aroused by brutal lawlessness, and he urges that somebody
be caught and punished. If results are not at once apparent, he jumps to
the conclusion that the police are “demoralized.” He would be startled
if he could see how quickly and persistently the underworld takes steps
to strengthen him in that conclusion, and use him to discredit the
police.
Sixty detectives are immediately called into the case. Five of them go
down to the scene of the robbery, with orders to work there until
further notice. They make a thorough search of the neighborhood,
following the route taken by Montani’s taxicab, and questioning
merchants, newsdealers, porters, truckmen and other persons likely to
have information as eye-witnesses. They go through the streets that may
have been taken by the escaping robbers, and work over the whole ground.
This search through one of the busiest sections of New York in a busy
hour, amid the excitement created by the crime, may appear like hopeless
business. But, as will be seen presently, it yields important results.
Other detectives search garages for the black automobile without a
license number in which the robbers are reported to have got away. Four
uniformed policemen on beats along the route taken by the taxicab are
questioned. Other detailed inquiries of the same nature are started.
But the most important work of the first day centers at Police
Headquarters, where a conference is held by Commissioner Dougherty and
his assistants, and in the examination of Montani, the taxicab driver.
Strip all the labels off a suit of clothes and lay it before a committee
of tailors. In a few moments certain points would be agreed upon. It may
be a new suit, or an old one, a fine piece of tailoring, or a cheap
hand-me-down. The committee could often identify the cheap suit and tell
the name of its manufacturer, while with a seventy-five-dollar suit it
might be possible to determine the maker’s name. This holds true of many
other lines of work, and it is particularly true of criminal
investigation.
Who cut and made that suit of clothes?
The conference sat down to determine this, judging the robbery strictly
as a piece of workmanship. Names of known bank criminals were brought
up, one by one, and details gone over. It soon became clear that none of
the men identified with bank crime were likely to have the brains, skill
or organization to plan and execute so complicated a robbery.
The criminals had known the habits of the bank in conveying cash uptown.
They knew the route, and were aware that the guard was only an elderly
man and a seventeen-year-old boy, both unarmed. They had boarded the cab
at the best point, and evidently made arrangements for stopping it.
There was team work in every detail. It showed marked insight, for
instance, to provide additional men to boost each assailant in at the
doors. For young Wardle, the bank employee, had made a plucky attempt to
shove his robber out and shut the door, and might have succeeded had
there not been an outside man. Robberies are committed under exciting
conditions. They sometimes fail because criminals balk. That outside man
was there not only to help his “slugger” into the cab, but to _force_
him in if he shrank, and make certain he did his work. Whoever planned
such details, it was agreed at the conference, possessed more cunning
than the ordinary bank criminal.
_Montani is Examined._
When Montani, the taxicab driver, arrived at Police Headquarters, he was
willing to talk, and seemed anxious to help the police in every way. He
knew suspicion might be directed toward himself, but did not resent
that. He talked like a man confident of the truth of his story, and
certain that he would be found blameless.
Montani is an Italian, from the northern part of Italy, about 30 years
old, five feet six inches high, rather stout and thick-set, with very
dark complexion. The striking feature of his countenance, his large,
intelligent brown eyes. Commissioner Dougherty found himself thinking of
Napoleon in connection with Montani.
The first examination lasted all afternoon, Montani going out to lunch
with the Commissioner. Hundreds of questions were asked bearing on the
robbery, the appearance of the criminals, and Montani’s past and
personal affairs. The story was gone over again and again, and different
questioners relieved each other. Yet the taxicab man never lost his
temper or patience, and did not contradict himself in any important particular.
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