The Burglar

Summary

A moonless collegiate night, velvet-black, is shattered by the reckless laughter of William Lewis and his fraternity brothers as they jimmy a stranger’s sash-window; what begins as a dare ends in a gun’s bark, a cop’s crumpled body, and the sour tang of cordite braided with panic. Sid, eyes glittering like wet obsidian, instantly pins the mortal sin on Will, who vaults into the darkness of America’s arterial railroads, reinventing himself amid the sooty grandeur of an unnamed metropolis. Years later, the past re-emerges wearing Sid’s wolfish grin: a blackmail note wrapped around a demand to crack the very vault Will now protects as a mild-mannered bank teller. Between the brass teller-cage and the nursery where his daughter Editha’s lullabies hang like fragile crystal, Will must decide whether blood-money can ever purchase absolution, or whether conscience itself is the most relentless burglar of all.

Synopsis

As a prank, college student William Lewis and some of his friends break into a house and are interrupted by a policeman who is accidentally shot. Will's friend Sid accuses Will of the shooting, but Will manages to escape and moves to a large city far away. He meets and marries Alice Hamilton, and they later have a daughter, Editha. Will has a job as a bank teller and everything is going fine--until Sid shows up one day and threatens to expose Will as the man who killed the officer unless Will helps him rob the bank. Complications ensue.