“Mr. Miles,” exclaimed my second foreman, John McGurk, as I walked into the stable a few days after my talk with Van Orden, “Charley Meriam has been arrested by Colonel Whiteley, chief of the Secret Service men.”
I knew what that meant, and that there would have to be some pretty tall hustling if I didn’t find myself in the same boat. No doubt Washington had discovered Jim Burns’s steal, and had telegraphed on the numbers of the missing bank-notes and a description of the series. How the clew had led up to me so soon, or rather Meriam, I could not tell. Warning McGurk to keep a close tongue, I hurried to my residence, then at 206 West Twenty-first Street, took from the safe five hundred dollars’ worth of the ten-dollar notes,--all I had left,--put them in my pocket, packed my satchel, told the servant-girl not to admit any one from heaven or hades, and went to a hotel. From there I made a visit to a close friend in Thirty-fourth Street, where I found I could hide, and did for more than two weeks. In the meantime I was kept well informed as to what was transpiring outside. Frank Houghtaling, then a clerk in Jefferson Market Police Court with Justice Cox, daily visited my stables and residence, always returning to the court, thence to my hiding-place in the evening. In this way I furnished bail for Meriam, and laid my plans for getting out of the city on an ocean steamer. I had determined to make a dash for Scotland, where my wife at the time was visiting her mother. The good Scottish people had often invited me to come to them, and I had always promised to. I had to smile when I thought what a mighty excellent opportunity had come to help me keep my word. In fact, I was being almost forced to. Among other things Houghtaling did for me was to purchase a ticket on the Hamburg-American Line steamer _Alimania_, which sailed from her Hoboken pier on the 5th of July. I was listed as a first-class cabin passenger, under the name of Edward Whittle.
In the meantime Colonel Whiteley of the Secret Service and a safe expert had broken through the iron gate at the basement of my home, having been refused admittance by the servant-girl, and, driving in the rivets in the hinges of the safe, went through all my papers. Owing to my care, Whiteley gained nothing for his pains.