Detective Fiction Weekly. Vol. 44, No. 5, September 28, 1929

Liverpool Jack by Charles Somerville

When the Two Best Sleuths of the Tenderloin Go to Public School the Underworld Learns a Thing or Two

If there were ever two vexed, irritated, bothered, worried and chagrined man-hunters they were Detectives Ed Burgess and John Fitzpatrick of the New York force on a certain night back in 1912!

These two were, at the time, the star sleuths of the branch bureau of headquarters established at the West Forty-Seventh Street station, in the heart of New York’s new “Tenderloin” district, known also as the Great White Way and the “Roaring Forties.” It draws vast crowds from all over the nation and from all over the world — people with lots of money in their pockets, lots of jewelry on their persons. It becomes, therefore, a Mecca for all the experts of crookdom. A detective in that district has his work cut out for him working his wits against the razor-edged ingenuities of the fastest criminal performers on earth.

Working together, Burgess and Fitzpatrick had achieved an imposing record for difficult cases well handled. They had solved several very knotty mysteries and bagged many dangerous criminals. They had sent the vicious “One-Eye” Lynch, otherwise known as “The Eel,” to the electric chair after long and implacable pursuit. They had taken the million-dollar thief of the American Bank Note Company affair. They successfully laid the mysterious crime of the murder of the West Side philanthropist saloonkeeper, “Paddy the Priest” at the door of “Happy Jack” Halloran, and sent him to the chair for it. They had pursued the youthful thug and plunderer known as “The Crusher,” and closed the bars of prison upon him for a long stretch of years. They had landed “Stutters,” a wizard at burglary, notorious “dinner” and “theater” thief, who pillaged the homes of wealthy New Yorkers of more than a quarter of a million dollars before Burgess and Fitzpatrick got a chance at him. They had raided and routed the thieves’ resort of “Scush” Thomas, fence and gunman, who himself was in the end “taken for a ride” in New Jersey by fellow desperadoes. On the tiny clew offered by the scratch on the side of a stolen gem they had stopped an up-State society woman in the beginning of a career as a jewel thief.

But the Law, in its pursuit of malefactors, frequently gets some hard bumps itself.

Burgess and Fitzpatrick had been long organizing a corps of tipsters, or “stool pigeons,” working underground in the underworld. All detectives must establish such liaisons with the secret lanes, byways and resorts of crime if they are to be successful in their careers. These two detectives had displayed fine tact and ingenuity in playing one crook off on another while maintaining friendly and confidential relations with both. Important as had been many of their captures after the commissions of crimes, even more important had been their ability to nip numerous criminal projects in the bud.

And it was when bent on such a task that from one of their secret sources of information came news of an impressively dangerous mating up of three certain criminals for the purpose of bank robberies by safe breaking.

“Bugs” Reilly, they learned, was one of them. But Bugs was the smallest of the game. He was little more than a stripling in years. He was no “touch system” adept, or expert in the use of the explosives employed in the crashing of the heavy steel doors of bank vaults and safes. Bugs would rank as not much more than a “lobbiegow,” an errand runner, a lookout on the job during its performance and a “toter of the tools.”

But another member of the combination was to be “Connecticut Blackie” Blake. That was very different. Very. Blackie had done several prison stretches to be sure, but he had left a trail of smashed bank vaults from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and from Canada to Mexico, and even in Mexico itself. He was a yogi among yeggs. Expert, daring, reckless in the use of gat or rod when cornered.

Big game as Blackie Blake was, bigger yet, however, would be the capture of the third member of the mob, if it might only be achieved. This would be the leader beyond doubt — the master mind truly. To bag Liverpool Jack Walsh wouldn’t be merely a feather in a cop’s cap — it would be a plume, and a red one at that.

For Liverpool Jack had a reputation as a highly skilled safe-breaker that was world-wide. The very neatness and precision and swiftness with which he handled his steel tools and explosives left his trade-mark indelibly on all his jobs. He had robbed banks in the United States, England, Belgium, Holland, France, Austria, Italy, India, Australia, China and several of the nations of South America. He had “done time,” as had Connecticut Blackie Blake, but more sparingly, in very small degree, indeed, considering the large number of his depredations, the riches he had taken in plunder. His greatest disaster had befallen him in Australia. There Liverpool Jack was taken red-handed and meted an eight-year term which he was compelled to serve to the bitter end.

As his criminal moniker or alias indicates, he was of English birth. His Rogues’ Gallery picture, long a vain exhibit in that of New York headquarters, displayed a well-featured, refined countenance. One examined it without reward for any of the asymmetries of eye and mouth and eyebrows exploited by the Lombroso. There was a well-shaped, high forehead, evenly and widely set, keen, rather large eyes; a high-bridged nose in no way aslant; a firm jaw, but not outstandingly large, a full, finely molded chin. A gray mustache concealed his mouth. Further description stated that he was tall and rather heavily built. He was getting along in years at the time Detectives Burgess and Fitzpatrick turned their attention to him. Computed from the Headquarters Identification Bureau’s record, Liverpool Jack was then past his fifty-sixth year.

It will be seen then that if Connecticut Blackie was a yogi among yeggs, Liverpool Jack Walsh was the Grand Guru himself.

Burgess and Fitzpatrick were hot to land him. No lion or tiger hunters ever experienced keener fever of the chase.

They began a patient, tireless espionage of the movements of Liverpool Jack, Connecticut Blackie and their satellite, Bugs Reilly. They trailed them from different criminal “hangouts” west of Broadway day on day, but without more result for several weeks than to learn the situation of the obscure hotel where Connecticut Blackie and Bugs were living, and to shadow Liverpool Jack to an apartment in the upper Eighties, where he lived with his wife and a son about ten years old. He was evidently in funds.

The apartment house where he lived was of a class commanding a monthly rental of at least one hundred and twenty-five dollars. He dressed very well himself, his wife wore fashionable attire, and their little son was equally well cared for. Liverpool Jack, however dangerous he might be to society at large, was a good family man. Certainly he was tremendously fond of his little son, spending hours at play with him along Riverside Drive daily before joining up with his newly adopted partners, Connecticut Blackie and Bugs Reilly, at the thieves’ resorts further down town.

Detective work in large part is dreary business. It is very much of a waiting game. He who cannot school himself to infinite patience would find the profession intolerable. Only the big game hunter can have a sympathetic understanding of the fascination of the work which keeps a spirit of eagerness awake in man-hunters through long, monotonous sterile periods of watchful waiting.

In this case there was six weeks of it, day and night, before action came.

Burgess, shadowing the hotel where Connecticut Blackie and Bugs Reilly lived, saw Bugs leaving it one afternoon about four o’clock. Blackie accompanied him as far as the lobby. Burgess noted that the older crook’s words at the parting were swiftly and decisively spoken. What interested the detective even more was that which dangled from Bugs’s right hand. Dangle is hardly the word. It was a satchel of costly black leather, and it hung heavily. In fact, its weight caused him to put it down on the floor until Blackie’s talk ended. When he picked the satchel up again it required a sturdy heft of his shoulders to lift it. And Bugs lost no time in engaging a taxi on leaving the hotel. In another cab Burgess, of course, followed. The trip ended at the depot of the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad. There Bugs made straight for the parcel room, heaved the heavy satchel on the counter and checked it. He made no purchase of a railroad ticket at the time, but returned again by taxi to the hotel.

In following Bugs, Burgess had not left Blackie unwatched. Detective Charles Flaherty remained to hold Blackie under espionage. When Bugs rejoined his pal, Burgess consigned the two of them to Flaherty and returned to the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad station and to the package room. There a show of his shield quickly obtained him the privilege of examining the bag Bugs had deposited there. He shook it and the jangle of metallic contents gave him a thrill. A kit of burglar tools doubtless. The newly formed trio, with the masterful Liverpool Jack in command, were, in all probability, planning an out of town trick.

He wished he might look into the bag and confirm the ring of metal that had come out of it. But he dared not tamper with the lock, he figured. It would advertise to Bugs of a certainty that strange hands had been upon his possession. Still, there was the possibility that the bag hadn’t been locked. It was worth testing. Burgess tried the catch, and smiled. The bag was open! Greater his satisfaction when full confirmation of his deduction presented itself. Brace and bit, hammer and chisel, soap and “soup” — nitro-glycerine — in vials in sufficient quantity to wreck the entire railroad station if it exploded — he found in Bugs Reilly’s bag. But the vials were packed well in pads of cotton and waste, so that Burgess had no misgiving in allowing them to remain where they were.

Trailing Bugs back to his New York hotel, Burgess sent swift word to Fitzpatrick, watching Liverpool Jack at his uptown home. He left Flaherty at the hotel long enough to get Fitzpatrick on the secret wire of the branch bureau at the West Forty-Seventh Street station by means of the policeman on post in the vicinity of Liverpool Jack’s apartment.

“Looks like a job to-night, Fitz,” he said, “so don’t let Liverpool slip you. Bugs checked a safe-breaking kit over at the Delaware and Lackawanna this afternoon. Yes — sure. He left it unlocked and I got a good full peek into it. All the works there. No, I don’t know where they fix to pull the job. He didn’t buy any ticket. But Flaherty and I have got both Blackie and Bugs covered down here. I’m only guessing that it’s to-night they are fixing on. But it looks good. He’d hardly be taking the tools to leave in a public checking room for any length of time. I’d say they meant to use ’em right away. Well, keep your eyes on Liverpool.”

Shortly after eight o’clock that night Bugs Reilly again left the hotel. Burgess, of course, went after him. Again Bugs taxied to the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad station. This time he made for the ticket office and bought a ticket. He consulted the station clock, comparing it with his watch, and apparently decided there was ample time left in which to board his train, for he went to a newsstand and began looking over the magazines.

When Burgess was certain Bugs was taking no further interest in the ticket window he made his own appearance there and quickly elicited, by describing the purchaser, that Bugs had bought a ticket for the fashionable autumn and winter resort of Lakewood, New Jersey. He promptly supplied himself with a ticket to the same place. Bugs waited till within a few minutes of train time before presenting his check and recovering the kit of vault-cracking tools. Bugs traveled high, having a conductor assign him to a Pullman seat when he boarded the train.

Burgess, who couldn’t be sure that he may not have been pointed out as a detective to Bugs by some fellow crook at one time or another, dared not engage for himself the same luxury. He rode in the common smoker.

There were many stops, and, of course, at each he alighted from the train to see that Bugs didn’t steal a march on him in that way. Especially was he careful to do this, for it is an old trick of criminals to get off a train at a station before or a station beyond a town or city in which they mean to commit a crime. This is done for the purpose of beclouding possible identification by trainmen. Criminals traveling in pairs or trios or quartets frequently get off at different stations so that they will not be grouped in the mind’s eyes of conductors and brake-men.

But Bugs tried no tricks. At least, not on the journey to Lake wood. He rode the full length of the ride. And Burgess, elation still running high, loitered after him as he left the station. It was not policy to place himself too closely at the heels of his quarry, of course. He allowed Bugs a good two to three hundred feet of leeway ahead. But as Burgess came to a crossing ill-luck suddenly befell. Four huge lorries headed with milk for New York hove around a turn and halted Burgess while Bugs had escaped the delay.

When the lorries passed Bugs was gone!

This way and that Burgess looked, hurrying his steps, but man and bag had completely disappeared. Burgess ran from block to block peering down the side streets. No Bugs!

And yet, supposing that Bugs knew he was being followed, supposing Burgess had been identified as a detective to Bugs and that Bugs had caught sight of him at the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad station, or on the train, Bugs could not have done any tall running himself, burdened as he was with a bag full of heavy steel instruments and hampered as well by the caution the presence of nitro-glycerine in the kit made imperative. The implements themselves were all securely held in the bag by strap insets, but there was the danger of a trip and fall as he ran.

Burgess then became certain that if Bugs had gone ahead he must have caught up to him. Somewhere between the station and the place he now stood Bugs must have picked a place of concealment. It was possibly a prearranged place of hiding in some saloon near the station.

So the detective went back over the ground he had already covered. There were several saloons and lunch places in the vicinity of the depot, but these he looked into without result. Bugs had evaporated. Somewhere in the immediate neighborhood, Burgess then bethought him, the mob might have a local accomplice and that to his flat or house Bugs had gone awaiting the arrival of his masters, Liverpool Jack and Connecticut Blackie.

Somewhat was Burgess’s chagrin ameliorated by the thought of the last two criminals being securely under the espionage of his side-kick, Fitzpatrick, aided by Flaherty. After all, what was there to worry about? Bugs was only the underling, the toter of the tools. The expert, the actual performers, had to get on the job before anything could happen, any crime be committed. Fitzpatrick and Flaherty would be on the heels of the adepts, and this would lead them to the place where Bugs was to make rendezvous with them, the place to which he had so suddenly and blankly disappeared. His own job would be to pick up Fitzpatrick and Flaherty. He and Bugs had arrived on the next to the last train which would come to Lakewood that night. They had got in at eleven; there’d be another train at midnight.

But it was doubtful if Liverpool Jack and Blackie would use the railroad. Rather, they would come in a car, because they would reckon an automobile as their swiftest manner of escape after a robbery. His deduction as to a motor car was quite correct. But as for the rest! The rest was entirely another story.

Fitzpatrick had the satisfaction of trailing Liverpool Jack, making a beeline — as nearly as possible in a taxi — for Blackie’s hotel. Blackie was awaiting him in the lobby, cap and overcoat on, waiting to go. No time was lost in starting when Liverpool Jack arrived. Outside there sat a little ferret-faced fellow at the wheel of a big, eight-cylindered motor car, not too new nor conspicuous, but a machine of fine lines and in fine condition, as the detectives were soon to find out.

It was apparent the crooks did not think they were being spied on, for the car was parked directly in front of the hotel, and Liverpool Jack and Blackie did not so much as cast a glance over their shoulders to see if any one was noting their entrance to the machine.

To this day Detective John Fitzpatrick, and Detective Charles Flaherty and Ed Burgess, too, for that matter, would dearly like to learn the identity of that little, ferret-faced chauffeur!

He didn’t, on this night, at once show his stuff. The detectives in the high-powered car which Flaherty had planted on a side street near the hotel, had no trouble in keeping the other in sight.

But, it is to be remembered, in those days there was no automobile tunnel connecting New York and New Jersey. The detectives had, perforce, to run their car onto the same ferryboat which carried the crooks across the North River to the Jersey shore. The sleuths drove their car on last so that there were several vehicles between them and the crooks’ car which had been the first to slide over the gangplank and upon the ferryboat.

On leaving the ferry the crooks gave no evidence that the detectives had been recognized as fellow passengers aboard the ferry. They probably had not. For no effort was made by the car ahead that might be taken to mean an attempt to shake off pursuers. But some time between leaving the ferry and Jersey City and about five miles out of Newark — when truly rural sections were beginning to be traversed — discovery of pursuit was certainly made by Liverpool Jack’s conveyance.

It was then the little ferret-faced chauffeur began to “do his stuff.” An amazingly intimate knowledge of the New Jersey roads he soon displayed, not only of the highways, but of all the byways. He snaked in and out of remote dirt roads and through woodland roads no wider than lanes. He had the police chauffeur in the car following dazed and wall-eyed in an effort to figure his moves and keep the car in sight. Frequent halts had to be called while the detectives alighted and made out the freshest of the tire tracks ahead. And finally the little man at the wheel of the crooks’ car completely outwitted and outgeneraled the driver of the car.behind. What the crooks’ helmsman didn’t know of New Jersey roads could be fully jotted on a thumb nail. He lost the police car so far off the beaten roads that it took the detectives nearly an hour at that time of night to get the information that set them once more on the right highway for Lakewood.

Approaching the resort city, they slowed the car to reconnoiter. They were by no means despairing of a capture yet.

“They were wise that they were being followed,” said Fitzpatrick, “but not until after we followed them out of New York. But they are not wise that we know where they are heading for — that we have the dope that their job is to be at Lakewood. They think they’ve lost us and will go ahead with the business. But I think we ought to park the car and do the rest of it around the town on foot. The sound of another automobile burring around the streets here at this hour of the night” — it was nearing two o’clock in the morning — “would be all the warning they’d need to figure that we were wise to Lakewood, too.

“Besides, there’s Burgess on the job. They are bound to meet Bugs with the tools. And Burgess has Bugs in sight. He’ll be on deck when Bugs meets Liverpool and Blackie. Their arrival will tell him we must be somewhere around and, anyway, if he spots them enter the bank he has only to get the Lakewood police busy and make the bag. So it’s not so bad after all.”

This burst of optimism had no more than passed the lips of Fitzpatrick when a voice called from behind a tree on the highway, the car having come to a complete halt:

“Hey, Fitz!”

“Good! There’s Burgess now!” said Flaherty.

“Hello, Ed!” said Fitzpatrick. “Maybe we’re not glad to see you! Lost our guys!”

“You did?”

“Yes. They had a trick chauffeur that knew all kind of funny things about the New Jersey roads. It was like following a pinwheel — or trying to. But where did they show up at? Where did you trail Bugs? Are they together now? Maybe we’re just in time — hey? Have they started their job?”

“Search me!”

“What?”

“Lay off yelling like that,” said Burgess, “or they’ll hear you if it’s in Atlantic City. They lost you. Bugs lost me! That’s the sad story. Don’t take it too hard.”

Groans chorused from the car.

“Well, if Bugs got wise to you, they got wise to us,” said Fitzpatrick, “so I guess it’s all off for the night.”

“No,” said Burgess, “I don’t think Bugs got wise to me at all. He never by the least action betrayed that he was. It was simply that damn string of lorries that stopped me in my tracks. But it was for hardly more than a minute. I didn’t think it worth while running around behind them because I didn’t want to hang too close to Bugs, of course. But when they had passed — no Bugs. It’s simply that wherever he was bound for must have been near the depot and he disappeared into ft. But I’ve looked into every dump in the neighborhood and watched every house and not one of those showed a light. So then I figured they’d be along in a car as we had doped it out and you’d be after them and. of course, that would lead you to Bugs and all would turn out fine.”

“Did you see anything that looked like them?”

“I didn’t have any idea what they looked like, did I? I didn’t know what make of car they’d have. There were two or three hundred cars moving along this road until about an hour ago.”

“Sure — that’s true enough,” admitted Fitzpatrick. “But the main thing is that you are pretty certain Bugs didn’t suspect he was being followed!”

“I am,” asserted Burgess.

“Then perhaps we are still in line. For Liverpool and Blackie are certain they shook us and if Bugs doesn’t say he was followed here, they’ll go ahead. We’ll park the car up that side road and hit down into the business sections where the banks would be.”

“That’s a hunch!” agreed Burgess.

Which is what they did.

Lakewood boasts several banks. The New York detectives found them and their vaults and their watchman all intact.

In the vicinity of Lakewood are the estates of many wealthy men — some the mansions of the fabulously wealthy. So the detectives telephoned a warning to the State Police headquarters. Probably one of these modern palaces was the golden “rarebit” the mob was after.

Then a hunch hit Burgess.

“By God! The post office!”

“Liverpool Jack never played one in his life,” protested Fitzpatrick.

“No — but Connecticut Blackie has. It’s been his principal lay.”

“That’s right. A post office would be soft for Liverpool, too. No harm to look.”

No outward sign of depredation could be seen at the post office. But the Lakewood police chief at word from the New York detectives as to the distinguished character of the criminal visitors to his city, soon had the doors of the institution open. And the inquirers were a minute later gazing at the wreck of a big safe. Aroused from sleep, the distraught postmaster was soon computing the loot up to at least thirty thousand dollars.

“Fast work!” grunted Fitzpatrick.

“Under our noses, Fitz! I’ve a blamed good mind to resign overnight. Lord, what a kidding we are in for all around — newspapers, headquarters—”

“Lay off the wailing! We’re not dead yet. Back to New York for us as fast as the car can take us. They’ll head for New York sure. I’ll bet if we work fast enough we can hop back to New York and pick Liverpool Jack out of the hay in his West Side flat!”

“There’s a chance,” put in Flaherty. “Let’s get a move on!”

It was something after five o’clock in the morning when the police car slid up in front of the apartment house where Liverpool Jack with his wife and small son had been making his home.

The first move there would be to awaken the superintendent or janitor for admission quietly to the apartment of Liverpool Jack. Flaherty meanwhile was despatched to the street in the rear of the apartment to gain entrance to the backyards there and guard the fire escapes of the Liverpool Jack apartment house.

But the detectives did not have to awaken the superintendent. On the first touch of the bell, he was at the door, eyes glaring with anger, hair mussed, suspenders of his trousers drawn over his pyjama jacket.

“Say, what the hell’s the matter with people to-night?” he demanded. “I just manage to get back to bed when along comes somebody else and—”

The glint of the hall lights on two gold police badges choked off further utterance of indignation.

“What’s happened that’s got you all worked up?” asked Burgess.

“The darnedest thing ever happened since I’ve had anything to do with apartments! Of course, I could hardly say nothing against it. He had always been a good tenant, always paid his rent regular, always been a darned fine sort of a man to have in the house. His little kid and my kid were good friends and his kid was a dandy kid — used to let my kid play with the things he had that I couldn’t afford to buy my kid. But, goshall gee, starting to move out at four o’clock in the morning, waking up everybody in the house — not but what he made the movers work as quiet as he’ could — but, say, that’s not the sort of thing to do, is it?”

“Who are you talking about?”

“Mr. Lawrence Preston — an Englishman, a limey, but a mighty nice fellow exceptin’ for what he pulled about an hour ago.”

“And he shows up to move out at five o’clock in the morning?”

“Yeh? Can you beat it?”

“What’s his hurry — did he explain that to you?”

“Yes, he did. But I’m pretty dopey with sleep. I only got a hazy notion of what he was talking about. It was something about getting a hurry call from the old country that his father’s dying and he’s got to make a boat in the morning and can’t leave his wife and kid behind and has got to get his furniture out and put in storage, and he has only got a blamed little time left to do a whole lot of things. I’m sore as a boil. But he slips me a fiver at that. And, like I say, he’s always been an all right tenant.”

“How about the van that came to get his things? Did you see it? See the name on it? See where it came from?”

“I just seen it from the window — that’s all. There were two of them. But not like regular moving vans. They was open top. Like them big lorries you see going around down at the water front loading off ships. I figured he must have gone down to the ship line dock and scared ’em up somehow.”

“Borrowed from the Silk Loft gang,” opined Burgess to Fitzpatrick.

“Sure.”

“What about the dog — the kid’s collie? Leave him with you?”

“Lord, no! That kid of theirs would have died of a broken heart if they ever took that collie away from him. The dog goes with him and his wife and kid into a car.”

“A taxi?”

“Not from where I was lookin’ it didn’t seem to be a taxi. A private car — a big touring car.”

“Lawrence Preston — that was his name, hey?”

“Yes.”

“Well, of course, after to-night he got wise we have been spotting him here and he’s come straight back from the job and bolted,” said Burgess.

The discomfited detectives went in the rear to call Flaherty off, and the three were once again in the car and the chauffeur had just started the engine whirring when Burgess suddenly commanded, “Stop!”

He jumped out and called the superintendent, who had turned to go back indoors.

“Just a minute,” he shouted. “What was the name of Preston’s kid — the first name?”

“Jack.”

“Thanks.”

“Well, what?” demanded Fitzpatrick when Burgess got back into the car.

“You mean asking the kid’s name, I suppose?”

“Sure.”

“Can’t you get it?”

“No.”

Burgess whispered into Fitzpatrick’s ear.

The older detective clapped him on the shoulder.

“The bean is working,” he said in a congratulatory manner.

When they returned to the branch bureau there was a report on the desk of the senior detective, Fitzpatrick. When he read it he grimaced sourly.

“Some lucky breaks we are getting on this job!” said he to Burgess, handing him the paper.

The report came from Police Headquarters, Jersey City. It conveyed the information that a few hours before Connecticut Blackie and Bugs Reilly had actually been in the hands of the State police somewhere in the vicinity of Newark, and had slipped out of them!

By what method, in what other automobile Liverpool Jack made his get-away from Lakewood that night was never found out. But the evidence was plain he had parted from his accomplices, and that Blackie and Bugs, driven by the ferret-faced marvel, returned to New York in the car in which Blackie, Liverpool and the tricky chauffeur had traveled to Lakewood.

On the return the car was overhauled by a State Road Inspector. The trio in it were probably on the point of throwing up their hands or — drawing their pistols. But the inspector’s words were merely:

“What about your tail-lights there and what’s the matter with headlights — only one going? That don’t go around these parts, New York.”

Blackie, probably with the thirty thousand dollar post office loot under his legs in the tonneau as he spoke, talked fast and well. He emitted apologies in the most polite manner. He asked the inspector to believe that it wasn’t neglect or scorn of the laws of motor travel in so intelligent a State as New Jersey that had caused them to offend. The matter of the lights had been an unavoidable misfortune of motor travel. The bulbs had failed back and front. There hadn’t been sufficient extras to fix things up properly and they had been anxiously on the lookout for an all-night oil station or garage in which to repair the deficiency. Blackie got by. The inspector told the crooks the situation of the nearest oil station and had waved them on their way.

“Ed,” said Fitzpatrick, “if that kid hunch of yours doesn’t pan out, we’re licked.”

“If Liverpool Jack sticks to New York I’m thinking it’s bound to work out. We’ll have to wait, say, four or five days. I figure the Silk Loft crowd stored Jack’s stuff for him for a day or two till he could rent another apartment, then give him and his family two to four days more to get settled in their new home, and then we’ll try the scheme out.”

As a matter of fact, Burgess bided his time for a week. Then he went to the public school little Jack “Preston” had attended in the Riverside section and consulted the principal.

“Have you transferred any pupils from your school to the others in the city recently — within a week?”

“Three,” said the principal. “I’ll get the registry book.”

Of the three entries was one stating that Master John Preston had been transferred to a school in West One Hundred and Twenty-Sixth Street. It recorded the change of address of the boy, and the new one led the detectives to an apartment directly opposite the schoolhouse which Master John Preston was marked to attend in the future. The name “Preston,” necessarily retained by the fugitive criminal in order to effect the school transfer, appeared in the hallway letter box. The apartment was on the top floor.

Then Burgess and Fitzpatrick “went to school.” At all hours. That is to say, they consulted with the principal, taking him into their confidence, and he afforded them a small room on the top floor of the schoolhouse which had a window directly overlooking the windows of the Preston apartment. For three days they watched, observing the comings and goings of Mrs. Preston, and the gambolings after school of Jack and his big, festive collie. But no sign was vouchsafed of Liverpool Jack.

If he were warily remaining away for a time while he established a counter-espionage on the detectives to find out if they were tracing him to his new abode, his measures had been ineffectual. Because on the fourth night of their vigil — they watched at night more assiduously than in the day, because it would be at such a time Liverpool Jack would be most likely to appear at his home — they saw a tall man, one who fitted Liverpool’s description, step down the street and enter the apartment house opposite. It was past two o’clock in the morning. Not a light was showing in any of the windows of the big flathouse. But shortly after the big man had entered below a light flared from the front windows of the Preston apartment. The sleuths trained night glasses on the windows, but the curtains were of a heavy silken material, shutting off a view of the room.

They were first tempted to go directly over and arrest the man. But caution warned them against acting hastily. Supposing the man should prove not to be Liverpool Jack, but a crook friend sent by Liverpool from his place of hiding to convey a message to his wife? That would be only tipping their hand and sending Liverpool off on another route of escape. They felt they must be absolutely certain that the man they had seen enter was none other than Liverpool before pouncing on him.

They “spelled” each other in watches through the night, each snatching short sleeps on a cot they had installed in their tower room.

Somewhat after nine o’clock in the morning, and just as Burgess was going out to snatch a bite of breakfast, after which Fitzpatrick might allay his appetite, Fitzpatrick, at the window, called Burgess back.

Fitzpatrick already had his eyes screwed on glasses trained on one of the windows of the Preston flat. The heavy curtains had been completely drawn aside. A florid-faced man with a big gray mustache was sitting in full sight behind the pane. He was ensconced in an armchair, smoking a long, fat cigar and reading the morning newspaper.

“Liverpool Jack, all right,” said Burgess.

Just then the man’s hands flickered in turning the pages of the newspaper.

“No question about it, Ed — two fingers of the left hand missing!” exclaimed Fitzpatrick triumphantly.

That had been the most striking detail in the headquarters description of the international safe-blower.

When Burgess and Fitzpatrick entered the Preston apartment the only individual in it who was all for “giving the bulls a battle” was little Johnny Walsh’s big collie. But Liverpool Jack called him off imperatively and chased him into a rear room.

He accepted matters quietly, as did his wife. At headquarters he was suave and dignified.

“I would like to oblige you by answering all your questions,” he told his inquisitors, “but you gentleman will understand that I would be very foolish to talk before consulting my lawyer. I think you will also understand that I am too experienced in these matters to be worth trying the third degree on. I should tell you the finest pack of lies you ever heard. So if you don’t mind, I’ll finish reading the newspaper till my lawyer arrives, not that I blame you for interrupting me as you did this morning of course.”

Deny it as they may, your metropolitan detective holds in secret respect such renowned law-breakers as Liverpool Jack Walsh. None knows better than the detectives the chances these men take, the daring they must display, the odds they battle against. They are fools, of course, but with a recklessness and an ingenuity that are sometimes incomparable.

Liverpool Jack was allowed to await the coming of his lawyer in peace. After all, it was a matter for the New Jersey authorities. Over there the notorious safe-cracker went swiftly to trial and was as swiftly found guilty. His advanced years got him no mercy. He was sentenced to a fifteen years’ stretch. But he didn’t serve it. The New Jersey State prison at Trenton was only able to hold him within its steel confines for two years. Then he escaped. How the prison authorities were so reluctant to tell the news that the dangerous Liverpool Jack was once more at large did not become public till long after the celebrated crook had vanished from prison yard, workshop, mess hall and cell.

Indeed, the particulars of the manner in which he effected his “French leave” were never really told. If you listen to the underworld, the explanation will be to the effect that it was simply a matter of a rather heavy financial transaction with one of the keepers.

But within less than six months after Liverpool Jack melted through the bars of Trenton prison, there occurred in the yard of a large factory in Brooklyn at eleven o’clock one night a desperate duel between a yegg and a policeman.

The policeman, a rookie, was on post near the factory when a citizen reported to him that from the window of his home near by he had seen intermittent flashes of an electric lamp in the factory yard. It appeared as if burglars were prowling about seeking a window by which to make entrance, the citizen thought.

The factory yard was surrounded by a high wooden wall. The young policeman obtained a tall ladder from a near-by garage and mounted it. As he looked over the fence the flash lamp flickered twice near the factory wall. The zealous young cop dropped over the wall into the yard and yelled:

“Come out of that!”

At the same time he leveled his own lamp in the direction where the light had shone and saw the face of a tall man staring at him. He noted a big, gray mustache.

The next instant an automatic pistol began spitting bullets at the rookie. He let go with his own. But when the battle was over the young policeman was on his back with four bullets in him, two of which had inflicted wounds bound to prove mortal.

He died only half an hour later in the hospital. But he was able to make a statement in which he said he was positive his own shots had struck their mark — that he had wounded his man at least twice.

But if his man had been wounded, the yegg had yet been able to escape. Of course, if he had comrades there had also been a waiting automobile to which they could have borne him. They had no need of climbing the tall factory fence, for they had jimmied the door in it which opened on a side street where their get-away car was doubtless parked.

On the fourth night following the deadly encounter of the rookie with the yeggs an hysterical woman ran into a Brooklyn police station. She was nearly incoherent, but finally the desk lieutenant was able to make out that in her apartment near by a man was lying unconscious and dying from the effect of three bullet wounds.

“He’s my brother,” she sobbed. “And— Oh, I may as well tell you — what’s the use of hiding anything now? He’s a... he’s Liverpool Jack Walsh!

“He came into my house the other night looking terribly pale and could hardly walk. He asked me to keep him for a few days. And... well, he’s my brother. So I put him to bed. Then I saw that his body was covered with blood. I saw he was terribly hurt. And I wanted to get a doctor. But he begged me not to do it. He said the minute I got a doctor it would mean the police would be on him, and that he really wasn’t so terribly hurt. But each day he got weaker. He couldn’t eat. He couldn’t hold anything on his stomach. But when I’d speak again of a doctor he’d curse me with all the breath he had left in him.

“Then he went out of his head in a kind of delirium and then — now — he’s unconscious and I’m sure he’s dying!”

Liverpool Jack breathed his last in the ambulance. He had three bullets in him, one in his stomach, two in his right lung. A grim discovery the ambulance surgeon made was that Liverpool Jack had saved himself from bleeding to death within a few hours after the duel by plugging the bullet holes with wads formed of cigarette papers. And thus he had lain in a bed in his sister’s house till gangrene and fever assailed him. He must have realized that the murder of the young policeman could mean only one finish for him if he gave himself up and survived his wounds — the electric chair.

Connecticut Blackie and Bugs Reilly made good their get-away for the Lakewood affair. Bugs disappeared as an underworld habitué. Blackie, some three years later, was caught in a Long Island post office job and was sent away for a long term. Little or nothing of the Lakewood plunder was recovered.