In the meantime affairs had been looking bluer and bluer. At the rising of the jury our fate would be known. The last day of the sitting came, and with it came Frank Houghtaling, chief clerk of City Judge Russell of New York, with a warrant for our arrest charging about everything on the calendar but murder. He served the paper on Sheriff Smith, alleging that it must take precedence over the Addison robbery or any claim put in by Detective Watts of Buffalo.
“I’ll take the prisoners back with me or know the reason why,” he said to the sheriff. “We know these men, and they are as desperate a pair of rascals as ever belonged behind prison bars. New York wants them and must have them. We can put them away to a certainty, while you fellows may not have a case against them here or in Buffalo. If they go at large, why, the blame will be on your heads. So you see the strength of my claim.”
It was the duty of the sheriff to determine which warrant would take precedence. I was in doubt as to the outcome, but Mr. Rumsey said Sheriff Smith would, as a favor to him, recognize the New York warrant.
We were waiting for the grand jury, along about one o’clock, when the sheriff called me aside and said, “I have no further claim on you, but there are two warrants for you boys, one from Buffalo and the other from New York.”
I asked him which one he would recognize.
“As Detective Watts’s was first placed in my hands, I suppose I must give him the preference. He is in town now and has asked me to turn you fellers over to him so he can get away on this evening’s train.”
“Why this, sheriff?” I asked, trembling over the turn of affairs. “Lawyer Rumsey assured me you would, as a favor to him, give the New York warrant the preference.”
He put up a bluff at this and said, “Let me say that I’m running the sheriff’s office of this county, and not Lawyer Rumsey.”
It was perfectly plain to me that he was fishing for money and that Detective Watts had made some kind of a cash offer, otherwise he would not have intimated to me that he’d ignore Mr. Rumsey’s request; he would have stated straight from the shoulder what he would do. I realized that prompt action must be had, or in the last deal of the cards Shinburn and I would be swamped with trumps.