Perhaps it may be in keeping with my desire to assist the banking world to say, right here, “Follow me closely, and benefit thereby, if I show any carelessness on the part of those who had the keeping of the combination numbers of the Corn Exchange Bank.” My varied experience in manipulating combination locks and with those in charge of them made me confident that I could find recorded, somewhere, the numbers of the tellers’ safes. I had always believed that nine tellers out of ten would not tax their memories with lock numbers, but would, instead, record them on a slip of paper, or in a private memoranda book; so on this supposition I determined to make an investigation ere I resorted to the use of explosives on the money safes. What was more reasonable than that the records were kept in a private drawer?
Again was Billy to be useful. I started him on a silent hunt with instructions to “Wait, be patient, and take advantage of the simplest thing.” For several days, he kept the keenest sort of watch. Finally, to our joy, the paying teller left his key, quite accidentally, in the lock of his private drawer; and Billy improved the opportunity and most effectually. He got a wax impression of it, doing it slyly enough, and I made a duplicate. It required a few trials and a number of extra rasps of the file to make the key right, but, persevering, we eventually were rewarded. One morning Billy opened the drawer, and, as I hoped, discovered a slip of paper containing three numbers. He made a copy of them, and when I tried the series on the paying teller’s safe, the door came open, and we found ourselves right up to the money chest. As to the latter, why, a bandbox would be no easier to break! This much accomplished, my faithful Billy and I turned our attention to the receiving teller’s safe. Ten days later we had mastered that by the same methods. Naturally we felt elated--we were down to the two strong boxes which contained the cash. No doubt we could have gotten duplicate keys to the chests, but, as I have said, they could easily be forced. Thus concluding, I wouldn’t put myself to further trouble on that score. Besides, it was dangerous work--this frequent injecting of my uninvited presence in the bank’s vault. By some unforeseen accident I might be discovered in the midst of our secret work.