The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1904-12-17
left the pouch in his Office, ready to
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He prepared the usual letter Of
transmittal to be sent by separate
mail, the letter giving list of the
currency package. But the postmas-
ter altered the end figures of some oi
these bill numbers.
"His idea in doing this was shrewd
one in one sense. He knew that the
numbers of the bills as given in his
letter of transmittal would be used to
trace the bills, and, as he intended to
spend those bills himself, he purposely
changed the numbers so that there
would be, as he thought. no possibil-
ity of tracing the bills to him.
"That same night, while there was
party going on at the postmaster's S
home, he slipped down to his Office,
cut hole in the bottom of the fasten-
ed pouch to give an air of verisimili-
tude to the job, as it were, abstracted
the package of currency, put tn c
-sssvsscy ~ llis f,Uri<cr snti ttIcE returu-
ed to the party. The pouch started
on its way to Washington without the
hole in the bottom being notice for
some time.
when the money failed to reach
Washington along with the letter of
transmittal, I was the one chosen to
go out and investigate the case. After
the very first glance at the letter of
transmittal, / knew that the postmas-
ter himself was the thief.
I peered around his Office for day
or so, just to throw him off his guard
and then I corralled him in his office.
/ had couple of solid men with me.
Mr.. r., I said to the postmaster,
producing his letter of transmittal,
which was in his own handwriting,
you wrote this letter, didn't you?'
Why, certainly, 1 did he replied,
perfectly cool.
Are you quite sure that you got
the numbers of the bills right in each
instance?' l asked him.
Why, / don't see why / shouldn't
have he replied, less confident in
manner.
Well, " said, then there is some
thing very curious about the figures
in this letter of transmittal. Permit
me to tell you something about the
numbering of United States currency
which you are perhaps not familiar
with
II could see that the postmaster
was beginning to wriggle.
"'The serial numbers on the bills
of the respective denominations, I
went on, are divisible by certian num-
bers, some denominations by the num-
Der 8, others by the number q, others
by S, and SO on. Now, a peculiar
thing about the bill numbers in this
letter of transmittal ofyours is that in
several cases they are not divisible by
the figure of the denominations to
which the bills respectively belong,
and, therefore, since you admit that
you yourself wrote the letter of trans
initial, and that there could be no
p0sslDiilty oTmistaKe as ~ 50 many or
the numbers on the bills, it would
seem that
"'That I took the money, and pur
posely changed the bill numbers III the
letters oe transmittal-and that is
right, put in the postmaster, covering
his face with his hands and breaking
down.
LAS say, the accusing finger need
only be pointed at a slant at the guilty
man, and he will quickly succumb,
unless he be habitual criminal, and
for this reason the work of detectives
in most cases of dishonesty is a great
deal easier than it is commonly sup
posed to be-"