The Little River news., 1922-05-27
True Detective Stories MASTER CRIMINAL

Copyright by The Wheeler Syndicate, Inc CHORTLY after Allan Pinkerton O founded the detective agency
 which was destined to be feared by so many criminals, a number of banks and financial institutions throughout the country were made the victims of particularly clever gang of crooks headed by Walter Eastman Sheridan, the man whom Pinkerton in his memoirs declares was the clev- crest criminal he ever tracked.
 The operations of the Sheridan or ganization were marked by a simplic- ity which was almost startling. Their favorte trick was to plant one of their members in a line leading to the win dow of the receiving teller of a prom inent bank shortly before the closing hour. The man so planted would take up position behind someone who held in his hands large roll of bills, and would wait until the depositor had al- most reached the window. Then he would tap him on the shoulder, call his attention to bill which "he had dropped on the floor" and the man would naturally stoop to pick it up, in nine cases out of ten placing his money on the tellers shelf as he bent over. The criminal would then snatch the money and make off.
 While the hauls secured in this man. ner were, of course, of varying sizes, Sheridan and his men picked up $75,- GOO as the result of less than five minutes work at Baltimore bank.
 After several other coups of a sim liar nature, Sheridan tried the same game at the First National bank of Springfield, H., but was arrested. He promptly skipped his bail, however, and the next that Pinkerton heard of him was when he assisted at the rob- bery of q Cleveland bank which net ted the gang some $40,OOO. This was followed by raid upon the Mechan- ics' bank of Scranton, Pa, where Sheridan and one of his men got away with $30,OO0 worth of negotiable bonds.
 Ills next eXplOit-one which took more than four months of careful planning-was the footing of the Falls City Tobacco bank in Louisville, Ky, when upwards of $30O,0OO was se- cured
 As a result of these operations to- gether with the shrewd manner in which he had invested his money, Sheridan was worth fully $250,0OO.
 Feeling certain that his past ex- plOits had left no clue to his connec- tion with the robberies, and having obtained his acquittal of the only charge on which he had been arrest ed, Sheridan joined in a series of the most gigantic frauds ever known in America-the issuance of bonds pur- porting to be worth more than $5,000,- OOO. These fOrgeries were so clever ly executed as to deceive even the officers of the companies involved, and the discovery of the Swindle ruined scores of Wall street brokers and pri- vate investors.
 On the eye3f the day on which the bubble burst, Sheridan quietly cashed all his assets, closed his office at No. 60 Broadway, and sailed for Belgium, which at that time provided safe refuge from eXtradition. Had he re- mained there, he would have died a free man. But he could not resist the lure of gambling with the law, and he slipped back into America under the name of William A. Stewart, estab- fishing himself in business in Denver, and finally opening a bank of his own in Rosita, Colo.
 Even up to this time Pinkerton had no idea that the master criminal had returned to the states. Pinkerton, however, chanced to have busi- ness which carried him into the min- ing districts of Colorado, and it was on the streets of Denver that he came face to face with the man whom he was certain was Sheridan.
 Investigation developed the fact that Stewart" had been leading an apparently upright and honest life, and beyond his arrival in Denver short ly after Sheridan had left Brussels, there was nothing to connect him with the bank robber and bond forger.
 Realizing that Identification Ander the circumstances would be extremely difficult, Pinkerton determined to re- sort to a ruse which would serve a double purpOse-that of proving whether Stewart and Sheridan were one and the same man, and at the same time duplicating him, if guilty, in the planning of new crime. Ac- cordingly, Pinkerton sent two of his best men to Colorado with instruc- tions to make the acquaintance of the bank president at Rosita, and finally to lay before him the details of a huge swindle which they were SUD- posed to be planning.
 "If Stewart is really honest" ar gued the detective, "he will not listen to such q proposal. But if he is the man I think he is, he will not be able to resist the bait, and will come to New York to participate in the fraud.n