I cautiously, but opportunely, displayed an elegant gold Secret Service shield, which had been given to me by Colonel Whiteley, the chief of the service. It clinched matters. This shield had done me much good service on many occasions. After lighting cigars,--my companions,--all being ready, we went to the St. Nicholas Bank. We arrived there a trifle too early. The man in charge of the vault hadn’t come in, but we were admitted to the rear room, where the vault was, Davidson and his friend in the lead. I got a seat at an angle favorable to my purpose--I could get an excellent view of the lock. We didn’t have to wait long, for the employee we were awaiting came in presently, and our dupe told him Detective Davidson wanted the box of securities. The unlocking began right away. With a trained eye and a ready perception, rendered acute by experience because there was much depending upon them, I took in each turn of the hand at the lock dial. Now it went forward, now backward, and again forward, while I took careful mental notes by which to figure out the combination numbers. When the vault door had been thrown open, I knew I had the number at which the dial spindle had been placed at the beginning of the unlocking, and where it had stopped at each reverse. The remainder of the task could be accomplished outside the bank. As I saw the great safes through the open vault door, I wondered about how many days would pass ere I could be the master of all I surveyed in the vault. How different would be the conditions then. By the time the box was in Davidson’s hands, I signed him everything was lovely, and, bidding his friend adieu, we went away. What a dupe the man had been, but of how much use after all. We walked up Broadway toward the court-house to Cedar Street, where we turned to Nassau, and from there we doubled back to our rendezvous. While we’d been scheming to obtain the combination numbers, a close watch had been kept on one of the bank’s night watchmen, William Price, the one upon whom the success of our enterprise much depended. It was essential that we know his habits; and in fact, we soon had him well in hand and knew he had at least one bad failing,--he frequently absented himself from duty and spent an hour, and sometimes two, in a neighboring saloon. It was ascertained, also, that he was the watchman who guarded the inside of the bank. That knowledge had been gained from the vantage of a stairway on the outside of the Stock Exchange building. One of the landings afforded us an excellent view, through a rear window on the New Street side, of the interior of the banking office. This window, we ascertained, was seldom locked. It was our opportunity.