Unusual Detective Cases

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CASES

THE CASE OF. THE CLEVER' RACKETE ERS I WAS A LOVE CULT SLAVE _ I

ODDS-AND HE odds are against the criminal. Nick Harris, the famous Pacific Coas-t detective, addressed the Boys' Club of the All Nations Foundation at Los Angeles. He dealt with famous cases that he had solved. Suddenly he turned to the boys and said: "Never forget this, fellows. I can make a thousand mistakes and still catch a criminal. He can make but one, and I have him."

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Crime does not pay. crime.

THE CRIMINAL

By the Reverend G. Bromley Oxnam Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church of the Omaha Area

Nobody knows how much crime really costs. The National commission of Law Observance and Enforcement, better known as the Wickersham Commission, said, "It is wholly impossible to make an accurate estimate of the total economic cost of crime to the United States." Sanford Bates, using the 'best available figures, submits an estimate of $1,070,000,000 as the annual cost of crime in the United States. Criminolog-ists differ a s to the causes of c r i m and the proper treatment of the criminal. The statistical data a t hand do not justify the generalizations drawn by many so-called students of crime.

Sheldon and Eleanor T. Glueck, in the volume entitl,? "Five Hundred Criminal Careers, one of the truly scientific studies in this field, reach an entirely different conclusion. Doctor Richard C. Cabot, who wrote the foreward to this study, states, "T'he most important fact established in this book is that out of 510 men who left the MJassachusetts Reformatory during the years 1911-1922, 80 per cent were not reformed five to fifteen years later, but went right on committing crimes after their discharge. This is a damning piece of evidencenot againat that reformatory in particular, which probably stands high among institutions of its kind, but against the reformatory s y s t m in

DOES crime pay? I have met many criminals. I ,have yet t o talk to one who thinks crime pays. Of course, the persons one meets have been caught. How those who avoid the law think, I do not know. The fundamental question, however, is not, "Does crime pay?" but "Must we continue to pay f o r crime rather than pay to eliminate crime?" In 1917, the juvenile delinquency maps of Los Angeles showed that the highest concentration of delinquency was in a uertain restricted area. Year after year ]boys and girls had been arrested, placed upon probation, or com~mittedto institutions. The community continued to produce delinyency. Boys' clubs were organized In that section, and, under the leadership of Charles S. Thompson, the clubs grew, until a t last a thousand boys 'belonged to the various cluibs of the A11 Nations Foundation. I t is interesting to note that delinquency has been reduced to a negligible minimum in that section of the city.

We pay for

Marcus Kavanagh, in his volume "The Criminal and His Allies," states, referring to men who have been in prison, "Two-thirds of t h m a r e cured by their confinement." He fails to present bhe evidence upon which ,this generalization is based.

pre-hending and convicting criminals, do not remove the causes. The institutions to which the criminal is sent fail to reform h i m

Bishop Oxnam: "I have met many I have yet to talk criminals. to one who thinks crime pays".

general. Here i t does not work. No one knows that its works any better elsewhere." The sentimentalist is thought to be the person who wishes no criminal coddled. Is it not possible that the sentimentalist is also a person who relies upcrn an nndemonstrated method of reducing crime? Apparently after-conviction treatment of the criminal is not too s u d l . Fundamental causes continue to produce criminals. Law enforcement agents, even though successful in ap-

'I%e Gluecks say: "It i s poor statecraft and worse economy for us to spend most of crur enerrgies and income in tinkering with the machinery that deals +th existing criminals. The best thought, the most zealous effort, the richest purses, should rather be expended in attacking i%ose problems whose solution will tend to reduce the number of new delinquents and crimimk." Sanford Bates concludes his book, "Prisons and Beyond," with this statem m t : "The end and aim of the penal system is the protection of Society

. .Our c a m u n i t i e s a r e entitled to protection; they are not entitled to vengence. If we are to achieve our portion of this abject, we shall do i t by a w a t e r mderstanding and c w p eration among all crime-reduction agencies, by a n intelligent and frequent use of scientific discoveries, through the enlistment in our work of loyal and devoted pnblic servants and by never for one moment losing our faith in the ultimate worth and possibilities of redemption of the human soul." .

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CONTENTS I

CAS~

.' OTS FOR CLlp::g:l~ ~~nsworth

GIRL Hollman I WASBy A SLAVE

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Anna P ASLEE THE THIEF r~L1nes I

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By Gor 0 OF T HE GYPPERS ......._....... _ .._ _ WAS QU EEN Lawlon ... ....

OR S By Agnes AP ALE CHE MURDER F h Martin

I By Charlot e GIRLS FOR VOODOO . Grace

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By Mane GALLOW T HETravIs . ._......._... _ Y HONEYMOON hn IN Sunny

M By Mrs. Jo ON CANVAS _ . I COMMITTED. FORGERY e Danton "'''-.'

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FOR CRIME I WASBy A Maunc SALt::.Sg~~n... .. _.........., By Mar ' HATE AMOURS OF,s Sprague

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Street, Toronto ,

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By Deom • ICE WRD MERICA S V_ . _ _ _ CRUSHINGd ~ul1ivan

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By Jo n OTLEGGING QU WAS A FILM BO t Hallett

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I CLIPPED BIG SHOTS FOR CASH '

By CEClllA WAINSWORTH She made society pay for her humiliation-but the Law demands payment, too. I PHONEDJake Conners and asked him to tip me off to some places he knew where I could do a little gambling.

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DEVELOPED wy craving for precious stones right at the sourc-the fabulous diamond mines of Kimberley. As a baby, I followed my father from one mining camp to another in the South African veldt, to which I mveled in my swaddling clothes, after my mother's death a t my birth in New York. My father found a simple native woman of Basuto to act a s combined mother and nurse to me. She was the only gentle companionship I knew for seven years. Gun fights, stabbings, violence in every form are a part of my earliest memories. In 1923, shortly after my seventh birthday, my father sent me to live with his sister, Cora Wainmorth, in New York. She was a apinster lady who cut something of a figure in the social world, living on fashionable Murray Hill. As I walked down the

gangplank of the liner that brought me from Ehgland, she gave me a horrified glance and said: "Cecilia, you're nothing but a.little barbarian from the veldt. Your father's a very wealthy man, land he's probably going to be much wealthier in a short time. You must learn to take your rightful place in society when you grow up." She q e a n t that I had to attend a private school for girls d my age, later a finishing school, and perhaps, in time, t o a fashionable college. For eight years I suffered a t Miss Parker's Academy on Park Avenue, and when I was fifteen I was sent to a finishing school on the Hudson, a few miles north of the city. Father came home twice on visits while I was struggling through a course of studies whose only purpose to turn us -it seemed to me-was into hothouse flowers. On one of his visits, while he was spending a few days with u s at Aunt Cora's, I got him out of her hearing. I protested bitterly over $he way I was being brought up. "My business is getting solidly establidhed, Cecilia dear," he said.

"Suppose you just go on a s you have " been for two or three more years. Then we'll have a (home,together, just you and me alone." With that prospect in front of me, I stopped my complaints. And on my eighteenth birthday, Father came home to stay. He had aIways brought me gifts of jewelry on his visits- home, and by the time I was eighteen, when I was studying fashion design, I had accumulated' a modest little fortune in gems. They weren't all diamonds. Father had established trading offices in Johannesburg, London, Amsterdam and New York, where he also bought and sold white and blue sapphires, emeralds and pearls. For my eighteenth birthday, he brought me a string of pearls. I n an offhand way one night, when we were coming from the opera, he said to me, touching the pearls around my neck: "Cecilia, be a little careful where you wear that gift. It's a little more valuable than the other stones I've given you. But they really don't do justice to your beauty." Several days later, when I was put-

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I CLIPPED THE BIG SHOTS

Miami police had arrested Romero boarding a plane for Rio, a n d found h e . w a s in possession of my jewels.

ting my jewels away in Aunt h r a ' s wall safe, Father's words of warning about my pearls returned to nly mind. I kept out the pearls, and put them in my bag. I went to a famous firm of jewelers in midtown ,Manhattan "I want to get some pearls appraised," I told one of the floorwalkers, who was dressed to resemble a European diplomat. I gave my name, and in a p ~ i v a t esitting-room was introduced to one of the firm's officials, attired even more formally than the other man. His eyebrows arched a t the mention of my name, but he said

nothing until I put the pearls on his desk. "Aren't you the daughter of Mr. Philip Wainsworth?" "That is right. How did you guess?" "Partly from your name," he answered, smiling. "But chiefly because these pearls are-well, something out of the usual line. Then I must confess that once o r twice I have seen your photograph in the society pages of the newspapers." I t was true. My picture had appeared on the society pages. Aunt Cora had forced me to serve on com-

mittees of debs and sub-debs who set out to raise funds for worthy causes -and usually ended up by spending altl the proceeds on a ball a t the RitzCarlton. "What can we db for you, Miss Wainsworth?" "I want to get these pearls appraised." "Did you want to dispose of this necklace? Because ,if so, that might be one price. If you want the replacement value, that might be higher or lower, depending on the market." "Yes," I said, "that's axactly what I want to know. I don't want to s d l

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I CLIPPED THE RIG SHOTS

THE JEWELER-told me that to replace the pearl necklace would cost in the neighborhood of $25,-' 000.

After a few moments, he reclasped the pearls around my neck. He leaned over, when we had returned to our seats, and whispered: "About thirty thousand dollars. But .don't tell that to everybody." I was so mortified I couldn't keep my mind on tne play ! Here I had gone to all the trouble and expense to get my pearls copied and then, on the first night I planned to wear the replica, I had committed the blunder of wearing the genuine What an idiot I was! stones As soon a s I reached home, I rushed t o Aunt Cora's wall safe and took out my jewel box. When i t came to judging stones, Mr. Pollock was certainly a n authority-but I wanted to prove to myself what a fool I had been. I took out the two cases, and opened the one where I kept the real pearls. The real necklace was there! Mr. Pollock might be fooled, but I could not. My initials had been minutely engraved on the clasp of the genuine necklace. There were no initials on the replica I decided to tell Father the story. Could he explain how his partner, James Pollock, an expert with an international reputation, could have been misled so easily? "Well, there's a couple of things t o take into consideration," my father explained. "First, that's a very fine replica you had made. The firm that made the copy knew you were my daughter, and they probably lost money on the commission in the hope of getting some really important business from me. "Also, remember that a s Jimmy told you in the theater, the light was very poor. Experts a t work usually examine pearls under a very strong white light that is even more penetrating than bright daylight. And fianlly, Cecilia, we're all human and a t times we all make mistakes." "But father," I pursued, "just suppose I had told Mr. Pollock that night that I wanted to sell the necklace right away, and that he could make an easy $10,000 for himself by buying the pearls from me for $15,OM)? Wouldn't he have jumped a t the chance? Wouldn't you?" "No. In the first place, our friend Jimmy doesn't carry $15,000 around in his wallet. And in the second place, he would certainly have examined the stones under a light before handing over the cash. And the light would have immediately exposed the truth-that the 'stones were false pearls, worth perhaps $500. And the next thing he might have done would be to call the.police. So stop daydreaming." My father dismissed the subject. But in my mind the question persisted. What if I offered such a "bargain" to a man who wasn't a gem

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them, but what would i t cost to replace them if I lost them somehow?" The jeweler adjusted a magnifying glass to his eye, switched on a brilliant light, said nothing for a moment. Then returned the pearl necklace to its case, and handed i t to me. "Were we asked to replace the necklace," he said, "the cost toryou would be in the neighborhood of $26,000." "Did you say $25,000?" I asked, staring a t him. "Thereabouts," he replied, and smiled. "Does that surprise you?" I don't know what t o "Well say. I t makes me realize that perhaps sometimes I've been rather careless where I've worn the necklace--to the movies. even to racetracks with my father!;' The ieweler laughed. Then he said, "why don't $U have a copy made? Then you'd have no worries. Of course, doubtless Mr. Wainsworth has these covered by insurance, but t h a t doesn't cover their sentimental value, if they were stolen or otherwise lost."

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I N A WEEK'S time I was in possession of a copy of my necklace, a t a cost of $425. The next day Father told me that one of his associates in the Wainsworth combine, James Pollock, had asked to take me to a play one evening that week. "Would you care to go?" Father asked. I could remember Mr. Pollock vaguely from childhood days in the diamond fields. He used to send me

littlre presents, from time to time. and once when he came to New York on business he had taken me to the circus. But there was something indefinable about him that I didn't like. I had never been able to bring myself to "Uncle Jim," which he had suggested I do years ago. "All right," I told Father. I didn't want to say no to anything he suggested. As i t turned out, I was glad afterward that I had gone to the theater with Mr. Pollock, although not for the usual reasons. That evening, for the first time, I wore the copy of my pearl necklace. Like my father, Mr. Pollock was a n expert on precious stones. During one intermission, when we were in the smoking-room, he nodded a t my throat and said: "That's a lovely necklace, Cecilia." I explained that i t was a gift from Father. "Just for fun, Mr. Pollock," I said, taking the pearls off my neck and handing them to him, "what would you say they were worth?" "Now, young lady," he protested, "maybe your father doesn't want you t o know. And I'm not going to risk his displeasure." "Oh, no," I said, truthfully. "I know what they're worth. I've had them appraised. I just wanted to see whether the appraiser knew his business." "Very well, then. But understand, the light here isn't very good. And also that I haven't a n examining monocle with me. But sometimes people in our business, after long experience, can tell a s much by the tips of their fingers a s by their eyes."

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,xpert? And then I began to laugh aloud; in the privacy of my bedroom, thinking what my prim teachers a t the finishing school would have saidand especially Aunt Cora-had they known the workings of my young mind ! For the next six months I lived in a paradise. Father purchased a house in the East Sixties that was ideal for the two of us. Now that he had returned to the United States for good, Father demanded some relaxation and entertainment. We went to nightclubs, to Broadway plays, to the races. Father deemed to have friends in all walks of life, and he was a wonderful mixer. He did everything to see t h a t I was surrounded with lots of attractive young men, although I wasn't so much of a simpleton not to recognize t h a t some of these ardent males, who tried to make love to me a few minutes after their introduction, were more enamoured of Father's money than with me. But then-there was Romero. He was a s different from the others a s night from day.

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I HAD met Romero Vargas in 5n unconventional way, but to be quite truthful the fault wasn't really mine. Nor his either. Father and I were a t a nightclub, when a waiter brought the phone extension to Father to answer a call. After a few minutes' conversation, he turned to me. He looked worried. "I must leave immediately on something important, but I don't want to spoil your good time. I'll ask the Reynolds .to bring you home when they go, so will you join their table?" "All right, Father. Don't worry, I'll be all right." After he left, a young ,man came to my side, smilingly took me in his

TEIE BRACE-

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S in view evcery time I re:rched o U t put my ips on a mber I a S seeing ,U to that. L _

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arms without a word, and we began to rhumba. I had never danced with anyone so graceful, so sure of himself, and so good-looking. His eyes were large and a deep brown, his sleek black hair was perfectly groomed, and his complexion suggested a life in the open, yet he wore his evening clothes a s though he had been born in a New York nightclub. While he held me in his arms, toward the end of the nuhber, I said: "I've met so many people tonight I confess I've forgotten vour name." "I'm IlOmero Vargas," he saiil, bending his head over me deferentI too have someially, "and-well, thing to confess. I didn't have the privilege of being presented to you tonight. But I have been looking a t you all evening and-I just had to take a chance." "And besides," he continued, "if I hadn't grabbed you the way I did, you can be sure I would have met you somehow. We must have mutual friends here tonight." We both began to laugh a t his own impudence. Then he pleaded for the next dance. "All right," I said, "but I shouldn't. I'll have t o introduce you to the Reynolds first. My father h a s just left, and I'm now with their party." Romero's manners were perfect, and h e proved to be a charming and witty addition to our table. The Reynoldses seemed impressed with him. He came from the Argentine where his father was a well-to-do exporter and rancher. Romero acted a s head of the New York office of the Vargas firm. He said he had spent most of his life in the saddle on his father's cattle ranches, and t h a t he was eager t o return to a healthy out-of-doors life. d

In my happiness over bhe new house, I failed to notice father's growing preoccupation with his business affairs. And I was myself becoming more and more preoccupied with b m e r o . He symbolized all my childhood dreams of the romantic ways of a caballero. I soon realized that I was desperately in love with Romero. He had the impetuousness of all Latins, but when he spoke of serious things his manner was quiet and earnest. About a month after our meeting, Romero took me to a fashionable benefit held in one of the ballrooms of the Waldorf-Astoria. I wore a good deal of jewelry. Two or three times Romero had said to me, on other evenings we went dancing together, t h a t the amount of jewelry I wore sometimes made him apprehensive for my safety. I laughed away his fears, and explained that most of the time I wore copies of my more valuable stones, and t h a t - i n addition all of the jewellry was insured. I asked him that night to come inside for a few minutes, and have coffee. We went to my upstairs sitting-room. I prepared the coffee myself, and then began taking off my jewels. I had worn my diamond and sapphire necklace, two bracelets of complementary stones on each wrist, and a ten-carat square-cut diamond. Father had placed our wall safe in this room. I oaened i t and drew out my jewel-case. I asked Romero to serve the coffee, and began putting my jewels away in the case. Suddenly I thought of the increasing amount of time that he and I were spending together, and of what the future might hold. I asked him : " h m e r o , how can you afford to spend so much time with me, away from your business?" He came across the room and sat down on the couch beside me. For a moment he was silent, then he took one of my hands. "Cecilia derest--you a r e the most important business in my life! Surely you knew it?" Then I was in his arms. For a long moment he held me so closely t h a t I could not breathe. I could feel the excited beating of his heart. Then he whispered : "We must marry, dearest, right away. Tomorrow. Don't spoil this perfect moment by saying no. I will call in a few hours, and ask your father. Goodnight, darling Cecilia.

. .Then . he was gone. 1,

Faint with joy

'at his words, I went to my bedroom, undressed, and went t o bed to hug my happiness. I was to live forever with Romero, his arms would always be there to embrace and enclose me. At last I fell asleep, to dream of my Latin lover.

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I CLIPPED THE BIG SHOTS [In the morning, one after the other,

I suffered two devastating blows. My world collapsed with a heartrendering crash about me!

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FIRST THERE came a special de-

livery letter. I t was from my father. "Dearest Cecilia: I could not come last night, and face you with my disgrace. I am completely innocent, a s my lawyers will explain, but nevertheless some of the shame and humiliation must touch you. "I am too distraught now to say anything more than to ask your forgiveness for what I am about to do. *'Your Father." Yet it That meant he was-dead! couldn't be true. My father was not the weak sort of person wko would take his own life. In another fifteen minutes, two of my father's lawyers were in the house. They told me they were going to deposit $25,000 in cash for me under an assumed name, in a place where i t could not be impounded by either the government or creditors. They wanted to see that all the gems in th'e house were safely deposited someplace, under the same assumed name. YO;~ father told us that he had given you about $5Q,OQ0 in stones," the lawyer said. "Is that right?" "Something like that," I replied. "I keep them u p there in the safe." The eyes of the lawyers and ~ l n e turned to the wall. The safe was open! I began a frantic search around the room. I remembered that I had taken out the jewel-case the night be-' fore and, in the glow of happinessafter Romero's departure, had gone straight to bed. A sickening fear began to clutch a t my heart. I could not bring myself to telephone Romero a t his small hotel downtown. The lawyers insisted, and one of them phoned. "Cecilia," he said, "this loaks very bad. I don't know what to say-I don't want to give you another shock after what you've just gone through. But-well. Vargas left his hotel about 2 zm., with all his luggage, and left no forwardinp: address." Romero! ,Only a few hours before he had spoken of marriage. MY FIRST move was to get copies "I've telephoned the police. Ce'cilia, made of all my most valuable pieces . I don't know what this man meant of iewdrv. to you, but I had to do it." secknd step was to call upon * * * the three leading jewelers of the IT STILL tortures me to recall the town. My story to each of them was next few days after the lawyers' the same. I said: "From time to time I want you to visit. The publicity was cruel. I tried to protect mysdf from report- lend me somle of the finest jewels ers by hiding in a hobell. \but they in your collections. I will wear them cornered me a t my father's funeral. to the opera, a t Newport, Piping Poor Aunt Cora, bewildered by events, Rock, Pdm' Beaeh, and a t dinners chose this time to remain in bed and parties to which I am invited. The stones, of course, will remain your and pass away. I was left al'one. The Miami police arrested Romero property, and ithe insurance you alon a Pan-American plane bound for rwidy have will cover any risk of Rio de Janeiro. He was in possession loss.

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of my jewels. I told the .police that a s long a s I had the jewels back, I would not prosecute. However, this was not permitted. I was forced to appear in court to identify my gems. The tabloids had a fieldday over "Arrest of Scneietyk Belle's Gigolo Lover," and they dragged in all the sickening details of my father's suicide, Pollock's bail-jumping, and the govmment's seizure of all the assets of Wainsworbh, Ltd. City marshals and creditors pursued me from one hotel to another. . . I resolved to get even, to avenge myself on the society that had dealt me two staggering blows, that was even now hounding me to death. I was by no means broke. True, there was only $10,0010 insurance, that went to pay many small obligations which I cculd not ignore. But there was also the $25,000 cash given me by the lawyers, and I owned about $50,000 in stones. Anld most important, my name was cleared completely of any complicity in the bankruptcy. Most of my society friends s>twckloyally by me. A month later, I began my careeT of revenge against society. I ibecame a m$ of female Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hy&.

"In return, I will do everythmg I can to bring you c1ient.e. When friends and acquaintances compliment me on my gems, I will tell them that they come from your firm, and speak of others i n your c o l l ~ t i o nAnd you will pay me a commission on any d e s that you make through me." Two of the three dealers l interv i e d were quick to consent Once these stones were lent to me. , I had the most expensive of them copied. I employed severd firms for this purpose^, since I dared not arouse suspicions. I made it a mint to be seen frequently in society. I gave ealmt little parties myself. I t was most important that, for a while at k s t , I keep faith with the jewelers from whom I was "borrowing" bhe jewels, because I needed quite a few "pairs" -originals and their copies-before befme I {began to strike back a t the world. A t Saratogo, one August, father had introduced me to one of his odd acquaintances, a bigtime gambler whose name was Jake Connors. I had no easy way of gwtting in tow% with Jake, since our worlds were far apart, but i t didn't take a detective agency long to learn his whereabouts. I wrote him, recalling the circumstances of our meeting ami asked him to telephone me. We made an appointment to meet the next day in the cocktail bar of my apartmenthotel. "I was sorry to hear about your father," he began. "F'hil Wains'worth and I were old friends. Back in Rhodesia, years ago, we used to shoot dice togrerther. What can I do for you?" I explained,. "I'd like to do a little gambling. You know-mulette, hcarat and :so on. I h o ~ e dYOU d h t know where to direct me." Jake refused at first, but I soon wheedled his consent. "I will give you a list of p h e s , herre in New York and e l s e h e m , and then 1'11 send out word that you're okay. But please understand, you are doing 'this on your own responsibility. I don't want anything on my conscience." I t was then early December, and I packed two trunks and Mt immrediately for Miami. Jake had arranged that I was to useanother name than my own. I was amazed at the ease with whieh I flexed my first victim. The s e c ~ n dnight in Miami I put on a good deal of jewelry and took a taxi to a place oalled t h LClu~bCallant.

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I BOTJGHT $500 worth of chips and had won Itbout $600 when some man began ,to play over my sthodder. T'here its a friendly atmosphere in places of this sort-something like that on shipboard-and i t is not dif-

I CLIPPED THE BIG SHOTS ficdt to strike up a n acquaintanced i p . But I wanted to do i t i n a particular way. I was wearing a diamond bracelet and my pearl necklace. The ;bracelet was in view every time I reached out to place my chips on a number. finally the man behind m s a t down in the next chair when i t was vacated. He was staking as much as $500 on every spin of the wheel. I los t a couple of times, and then with a show of petulance took off my bracelet. "Isn!t that exaswrating!" .I said to my neighbour. "f think %his bracelet must be giving me bad luck. Have y o u a light, please?" My prospective victim was J 1 attention. He drew out his lighter. "Surely nothing so beautiful a s that bracelet could bring anyone bad luck," he protested. "But maybe you should ,stop for a while. I don't wish to intrude, but would you care for a glass of champagne at the 'bar? That might change your luck." We went to the bar. He introduced himself a s a Mr. Carlhn Brown of Washington, D.C. My name, I said, was June Lambert. We talked about nothing in particular for fifteen minutes, and then he said: "I could not help noticing your beautiful necklace and bracelet when we were playing a t the table. I take it you a r e very fond of jewelery?" I explained that my father had been a dealer in 'gems. in London, and that on his death I inherited a good - many &tones. "But i t always astonishes me, Mr. Brown, how appraisers vary in the values they set on stones. For example, this pearl necklace. I've just had it made up for me, and I really should get i t appraised, but down here in Maimi I just don't know where to turn." My tone of voice suggested that I needed a strong protector. to lead poor little m e to an appraiser. Mr. Brm,,jumped a t tlhe h i t . "Well now, he said, "I'm sure we can arrange that. Why don't we have luncheon tomorrow? And meanwhile I'll make inquiries. After luneheon, we'll go to the best appraiser in town!" After luncheon we went to the Miami branch of a well-known firm of New York jewelers. "Miss Lambert," the appraiser said, "at today's market you could sell the bracelet for about $10,000. The piearl necklace is worth considerably more. \Ve would appraise i t a t about $30.WO. That's a total of $40,000. If you care t o sell we are a t your service.'' Mr. Brown of Wlashington, D!(;*., was obviously impressed. At luneheon the following day, we arranqed to meet a ~ a i nin the evening a t the Club Gallant. I returnled to my hotel, packed my trunks and

CM them through to New Y o k I made xwervations for the earliest plane the following morning. That night at the club, Mr. Brown's luck seemed to hold. I held his hand under the taible and he whis-pered, "You're bringing me luck." We left to go to tlhe bar for a few minutes and- I said: "W!hs can't I win like you do, Carlton? i f you keep this bp, you'll be as rich as Croesus i n another week!" "You're doing all right, June. I saw you rake in $400 on one turn." "Well, I'd like to play a s you do tonight. But I haven't $he cash wfwith me." I loaked unhappily intn my bag. "Look dear, do you want to lend me some money tonight?" "But of course! how much do you want?" He pulled out his wallet. "I want to play for high stakes. &uld you give me $15,000? I could give you a check tomorrow morning, or even the cash if I go to the bank, but (supposeright now I put my pearl necklace in pawn to you?" he began, as he "It isn't $hat-" counted out fifteen thousand-dollar bills. "But I insist!" I said, kissing him on the top of his head. "All right, June, if you say so." I stuffed tJIe Mlls in my bag, and he put the fake necklace in his wallet. We walked together to the tables and began to play. I t was ~bhenabout five in the morning. The first plane left a t six. I sent a page-by to Mr. Brown with a note saying I was feeling ill from the cigarette smoke, and would he call me first trhing in the morning? Before noon, I was back in ManI had my pearl necklace, hattan. and after deducting expenses I was richer by almost exactly $15,000! somehow I felt that I had struck back a t Romlero and Pollock, a s I counted my cash and deposited i t a t my bank. How Mr. Carlton Brown felt, I didn't care. . . My Maimi victim ms only the first of a succession of Carlton Browns with different. names in Palm Beach, Newport, New York, Pinehurst and Some of them were Bar H a h r . more difficult to swindle than Mr. nat many. After every Brown-but such coup, I hurried back to New York and lost myself in the social whirl of Park Avenue. For a long time no one thought of associating June bambert, the girl who appeared a t out-of-town e m b l i n g dens, with Miss Cecilia Wainsworth, the New York Socialite. But the time came when, despite my careful plannine; one of my victims caupht un with me. In this instance, I had foolishly neglected to discover in what 'business a Mr. Goldfarb of Baltimore was engagd. It developed he was a jeweler! It took

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him a year to trace the manufacturer of a fake necklace, but in the end he found the copyist and had him a m % & . The frightened copyist described lrte in such detail that the New York police didn't have the slightest difficulty i n identifying me. When they also found the real necklacemry dead father's gift to me on my reighteenth birthday-as well a s four copies of it and replicas of other of my jewels, I decided it was futile to plead not guilty. But because I was able to make partial restitution, I received a senten= of only five years. But five years is a long, long time. I t is 1825 days, or 43,800 hours. I often wonder here whether my revenge on society was worth the price. And whether the reward of thnlls is enough t o pay the costs of living dangerously. Romero's in jail, too. I wonder how he feels about it. .

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THE DOCTORapproached, and I started to swoon and fall to the floor.

EXPOSING I

THE

VICIOUS DEVIL WORSHIBPERS CULT ANNA HOLLMAN HE girl lay on the ebony

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couch and her naked body quivered with pulsating shudders. The lights in the vast room were soft, a twilight haze of rose and gray. She wasn't alone. Men in evening dress and beautiful women in exquisite gowns stood around the altar. They, too, were motionless, save for that same pulsating quiver t h a t ent m r d s in a throaty voice. There showed on their sex-crazed faces was a rhythmic tempo to his garbled words, a tempo that seemed to and twitching fingers.

Their eyes were on 8he girl, on the graceful outlines af her body; on the breasts that were heaving with rhythmic regularity and on the long, slender legs that lay so easily and with su& abandon Behind that couch stood a robed figure. He was mumbling incaher-

time the twitdhing and shuddering of Dhe men and women and the rise and fall of the nude girl's bosom. And then From the semi-darkness leaped a creature of white. I t was a goat. Stopping in front of the couch, i t ~ h r e wits head back and pitiful bleats came. from its throat.

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The robed figure s t a w d to chant:

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"On, P a n , 10, P a n give me the sign of the $pen eye and umrds of madmess.

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Every person in the m m took up the weird chanjt and it rcse to a frenzy of diabolical fury. And then women started to scream. Champagne bottles popped wen A man tore a dress from a m m m , tore i t with the beastfulness of a savage, and the woman screamed

I WAS A I

SLAVE

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I WAS G SLAVE GIRL louder and laarped far his a m . Other men and women were stripping, tearing from fieir bodies suits and dresses that cost hundreds of dollars A woman was rushing for the terrified go&. She had a dagmr in her hand. One swift stroke, sure and deadly, slashed the goat's throat. I t lunged forward, went down on its four legr;, blood gushing in spurting strertms from its jugular. The sight of blood raised the frenzy of the crowd to an insane fury. A wuman sprang like a tigress to the nearest man, her teeth sinking deep in his bare shoulder. He struck her in the face, knocked her back, and she laughed diabolically and fell. Others were dipping hands in the gushing blood. The goat was on its side, the last spasms of life passing through its body. Hands dripping with blood were raised high and the blood splattered over the girl who still lay motionless on the couch. . Weird and ghastly came the .words of the black-mbed figure. " I m p I rend . everlasting in the might of Pan love, love, always b l o d and the world without md. The mad-lashed men and women didn't hear him.. They were groveling on the floor, on couches, in unbridled orgies. The screamis of, the women had given way to moans and men cursed and then groans groaned ! wine and drugs . bodies wribhing and twisting as one. And on the ebony altar lay the girl, her soft white skin dripping crimson from the gwt? b l t ~ d .

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THIS didn't happen in some foreign country where pagan rites are substituted for Christianity. I t h a p pened right in this country, in a great city and on an avenue noted for wealth and breeding and c u l t u r e a n avenue where rents run into six figures. The men and women that groveled and writhed in animal lust were not prostitutes or procurers from red light districts. They were members of America's elite society, boasting of family trees that went back hundreds of years. This particular ceremony was the f 23;nous Black Mass of the Devil Worshippers, one of the largest and most P Tverful Love Cults in the world, a cult that originated in Germany before the World Wlar and which has sprmead to every civilized country in the world. '1"he Devil Worshippers, however, =W -- - only one of a hundred love cults wh ich practice their strange and hea~thenishrites weekly in every large citj7 of America. PL great many readers will shrug ant1 say such a thing is impossible, tha t in a civilized country like ours, such things simply couldn't happen.

If these doubting Thomases could have a look a t the police records of the different cities, from Miami to San Francisco, to Vancouver and Montreal, they would hear a story that is one of the most amazing and shocking in the annals of crime. But these persons won't see the police records. The story is so ghastly and so hideous that the police don't dare permit We real facts to be known. The girl that lay on the ebony altar, stark naked and with her white flesh covered with goat's blood, received one hundred dollars for her part in that night's performance. She wasn't a love eult member. She had nothing to do with the orgy of sex that followed. She is what these cultists call: "The excitement girl." The blood that gushes from the goat, and which serves as a stimulant to the patrons, is spattered over her body as a part of the pagan ritual. I have served a s the excitement girl for many of these orgies. For seven years I was in the power of the blood worshippers. I am free now, but my brain is seared with hideaus memories, that haunt my waking and sleeping hours. BUT before I tell my stcnry, it might be well to classify love cults and what is really behind t h e m Love Cults first jumped into the picture of American life thirty years ago when Alister Crowley, who called himself, "The Beast of the Apocalypse," established his cult in the old building that once stood a t Number 1 University Place, in Greenwich Village. A Canadian branch was located in Toronto, Ont. Crowley left this country years ago, for obvious reasons, but the stories of the ghastly orgies that went on in his studio are still remembered. He preached a strange religion. Crowley called himself, "Beast Number One," and the creed of his new religion was, "Do what thou wilt, shall be the whole of the law." Beautiful girls, many of them from the ranks of New York's elite society went there. Many of these girls were branded with the mark of the beast on their breasts with a red hot iron. Branding was only one form of Crowley's strange form of worship. The others consisted of sex orgies, too hideous to describe. After Crowley came Gurdjieff and his "Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man." His Cult originated in Fontainebleu, France, and i t was there that Katherine Mansfield, novelist and poet, died. Gurdjieff arrived in this country with a boat-load of dancing girls and whirling dervishes. He didn't make a great impression in New York, but today his eult still flourishes and his strange ceremonies of love still a r e practised.

STRANGE COSTUMESsuch a s that below, are worn by members of the fantastic Devil Worshippers.

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Pierre Barnard, who dubbed himself, "W,the Omnipotent" was one of the most amazing of all the originators of love cults. Barnard was born in Leon, Iowa His parents were respectable, conservative, middle-west individuals. At

I WAS A SLAVE GIRL twenty-one, Bamard was a Lemon picker on the west coast. %Later he became a barber and finally drifted to Leonia, New Jersey. He married a vaudeville dances who knew several ariental dances.

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AND from them original

$an-

came the love cult he established in Nyack, N.J., a cult financed by Mrs. W. K. Vanderbilt to the tune of two hundred thousand dollars and a cult that drew to its teachings such prominent persons a s Lady Paul Duke, formerly Mrs. Ogden Mills, and others equally prominent. Amazing, utterly impossible, you say, that a me-time lemon-picker could organize a cult that caused the most prominent and famous society people of the country to shower money on him and adhere to his religious requirements, that before anyone joined his cult they had to confess to him all seorets, all hidden desires, all inner thoughts, arid sign his Tontrik Vow. Impossible, I admit, but just the aame it is true. Why? There m e a number of answers to be given, all of them making up a part of the sol@ tian to this puzzling mlystery. Love cults and their practices a r e hideous, inhuman and end in l u s t orgies that place a human being lower than the lowest animal; but the fact must not be overlooked that in Gurdjieff, IZamrd, Garland, and even in Growley was the ability to show a certain sincerity in their religious oonceptions, warped as they were. There is intolerance, sometimes stark brutality in the religion we a r e taught as- children. When we a r e in trouble and w m t understanding, we get cursed and certainly no kindly understanding to help us. Gurdjieff and Crowley and Garland and countless others capitalized on bhis weakness of our religions. I t was this that enabled the cultists to me in their power, and once in the power of the Devil Worship pers you a r e always there. -

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SEVEN years ago I was Wentyfour years old. I was a typlcal mother of the middle west. My child was two years old. My whole life, mid my whole background, was consen7ative and impeccably moral. My marriage, however, had nut been a success. My husband was a small town business man, cold and intolerant and almost a religious fanatic. In fairness I will admit that part of the trouble was my fault. I simply could not stand the strict and unrelenting life of my husband. My soul -my body -everything about me rebelled, but after the Tebellion and I left him, I was alone and frightened and helpless. I didn't know what Do do or where to m. I suffered a mental and nervous

breakdown. I went to a doctor in a large mid-west city, famous for his treatment of nervous disorders. The day I walked into his office, I knew absolutely nothing about love wlts. For personal reasons I cannot use the name of this doctor. He is dead now. H e died by his own hand, just s ~ sthe police were closing in on him. His family is still prominent and because there was no conviction, i t would be dangerous to mention his name. There was little about his office to indicate the strange orgies that went on behind closed doors. His office looked like any other of the thousands of successful doctors in the middle west. There was a seoretary a t the desk. She was dark-haired and dark-eyed. She was beautiful, one of those women that you instinctively feel is above the ordinary. The smoldering black eyes, the ivory-like pallor of

eyes. His voice was kindly and reassuring and that is what I needed then. "Yau are in trouble," he said quiet-

ly before I had a chance to speak I looked a t him in surprise. I had 'not expected this. I had $believed there would be a physical examina- , tion and questions. "Yes," I answered, "I am in trouble, Doctor. I am very unhappy." He did not keep me long that day. He walked over to me and took my hand and said: "You must not worry. You must know that the best of us are but mere ants in a strange world. We need guidance and we need love. Love cures all things-love, pure and undefiled." If anybody--doctor or otherwise-would say that to me today, I would get up, t r y to be polite, and tell t h a individual I could tell him more about love than he is likely to ever know and that such speeches always preceded things hardly consistent to pure living. But I was too inexperienced to see that then. I was carried away with the doctor - wholly and helplessly. For the first ltime in a long while I had heard somebody speak words of kindness to me. I thought he was an angel on eath. He was smart enuugh to see that I ' felt that way, but on that first visit there was nothing crude, nothing improper about his manner or the way he acted. He remained the physician - professional, kindly, and ;understanding. He was that way for several weeks. . I went to see him a s often as I could. 2 i s words soothed me, paralyzed my sense of reality. I looked on him a s my master, my savior. Foolish-uterly idiotic for any intelligent woman, but a t that period of my life I wlasn't exactly intelligent. I had suffered too much, had too many disappointments. And remember this : the. doctor a t that time was k n m a s one of the great authorities on nervous disorders. He treated famous actresses, Anna Hollman, the girl who confesses. writers, and society women. His was a reputation demanding respect and the face, caught your attention and confidence.. How many of these famous women made. you wonder. "You wish," she said in a softly that went to him ever knew what lay modulated voice, "to have an appoint- behind bhose many doors that led ment with the doctor?" She spoke from his office to the rest of the great house, I do not know. But I do know quietly, professionally. When I entered Dr. Latson's office, that some women, whose fame was i t was a typical conventional physi- international, went behind those doors cian's office. Nothing exotic about it; -just as I was destined to do. In those several weeks I had seen nothing to indicate the real purpose behind it. Neither was there any- a number of things that told me that thing a b u t the doctor that would all of the doctor's interests were not cause m e to believe he was other than in the front office. I had seen strange and beautiful women coming out of a successful physician. He W rather handsome, with a those doors; women the doctor hastround face and large eyes. Ead I ened to tell me were his nurses. I not been so naive, I might have seen had seen dances in the other office something sinister in those languid t b t wem savage and beautiful.

I WAS A SLAVE GIRL I was completely under his dominance. His words soothed me. I know now that I .believed then I was in l w e with him. I also know that he had watched my emotional reactions to his words and planned every move with consummate skill. So when he asked me to disrobe, I felt no repulsion, no fear. Naturally I was embarrassed. My rigid religious training caused me to blush red. He smiled professionally and led me from his office into a large room that was bare af furniture. I stood in the center of this room, conscious that his eyes were on me, watching every move. I did not hesitate long. Slowly I began to disrobe, taking one garmmt off a t a time until I stood there completely naked. I felt shame naturally, because I had never done such a thing before, but his voice soon caused all shame to leave. He walked toward me, s l m l y and his lazy eyes took in the lines of my body greedily. His hands wen6 on my shoulders. The touch of his bare skin on mine sent strange thrills through my body. My breath came in short 'gasps. His hands went d m my arms, slowly and creeping-like. I thought I wmld swoon. Then his hands touChed my body. I fainted. I had been married five years, but never before had I redly felt that strange thrill. The next thing I remembered, I was on a much. The lights over me were soft m d glowed redly. The doctor was standlng over me, his lean face silhouetted in the strange light. "Love" - he was muttering in a voice that seemed f a r away. 'Love love always love . divine

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I didn't understand what he meant. I had mooned, but I knew he had not touched me and he was making no move to do so. "Exquisite - perfect," he gasped, "You would move the gods . yes yes the gods you move I cannot resist they canme .not the blood of

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THAT night I lay again on that ebony couch. Again I was naked, but this time I wasn't alone. The doctor stood behind me. He was wearing a black robe. He was mumbling words that didn't make sense. 'I'he room was filled with men and women in evening clothes. Then the goat came. Its throat was slashed, and after that an ongy of lust that brought the men and women in that room lower than beasts. But it didn't sicken me, a s the memory does now. I was in love, madly d insanely, and the presence of the ctor behind me, even though mv:d with black robes, raised me to renth heaven.

The next day came the nude awakening and the ghastly horror of what hung over me. The doctor was changed. There was no more love-no words of kindness. "You need never worry about money," he said to me in a cold and matter-of-fact way. "You have passed the test of the Devil Worshippers. From now on you will be their excitement girl. I will explain to you what that means." His explanation left me cold and terrified. He didn't mince words. But briefly and to the point, he said that from the first my body had attracted him. P a r t of his business was to find women whose bodies attracted him. He didn't t r y to hide the story of the Devil Worshippers. It was a love cult that boasted of a world wide membership of over a hundred thousand persons. He was the high priest in his city. In the luxurious rear rooms of his office the sex rites were held. I t was important, and he explained this casually, to secure women whose bodies excited men accustomed to naked bodies. When such a woman was found, she was invaluable. "For your information," he added, "T know every detail of your life story. I have investigated. You have a child and you don't want to lose that child. If it were known that you lay naked on that ebony couch, you would lose the child forever. In five minutes I can have the whole story i n k o u r husband's hands by wire. Do you wish that? His face was wkite and twisted strangely. Two nurses entered the room. The dark-eyed secretary was with them. No words were spoken. The secretary gralhed my shoulders and pulled me back against the chair, holding me in such a way that I couldn't move a muscle in my body. A nurse ripped the sleeve from my waist. There was a sharp pain in my arm a s a hypodermic needle pzmctured the skin. And then. I didn't struggle any more. P e a c e soft and delicious, spread over me. It gushed through my Mood streamsending sensations to my brain that chased away every worry. Then I was picked up. I was being carried somewhere. I didn't care. I didn't care when I was laid cm a n operating table. I didn't feel anything when a hot iron branded the mark of the Devil Worshippers on my shoulder. I soon learned that little black devil on my shoulder was more deadly and more terrifying than the F1eu.r de !Lis on persons when they left prism in France. The Fleur de Lis branded --. the criminals to a world that didn't want to hurt them; I was marked to a limited few, but i t narked me for a fate, swift and terrible, if I betrayed those few.

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d was paid my hun,dred dollars promptly. I lived a t a luxurious hotel. The bills were paid by the doctor. In that month I was doped every day. I t broke all resistance. I had no worries-nothing. I craved the dope. I had to have it. I didn't think a h t my child. I didn't think about anything and I lay on the couch naked and with no feeling of shame. Narcotics were a part of the orgy. I suppose they accounted for a part of the doctor's profit, but I know now that he was too smart ever to use them himself. At tihe end of the month, however, my body had lost its attraction for that particular cult. The doctor had made a fortune out of me, and he sent me to a large western city, to another cult. There are many readers that will ask why I went. Why I didn't flee? There were two reasons why I didn't. The first should answer both questions. If I had fled, if I had shown any tendency to do so, I wouldn't have gotten a block from my hotel. The Devil Worshippers are today one of the most vicious, one of the most deadly organizations in the country. The members, all rich, are in reality merely pawns-and very lucrative ones for the men running the orgies.

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BY THE end of the month drugs had deadened every sense of right I ever owned. And I wasn't permitted to be without them. Added to these two reasons is a third, powerful and overwhelming. It was the sense of shame. There were times when I rebelled against the slavery my body had been thrown into, but always there came the haunting consciousness that if I talked, every thing I valued in life-home, child, good name - would be gone forever. So when the month was up, I left for the western city willingly and without protest. I left with the grim sceptre of death hanging over me and my brains under the numbing effects of narcotics. It was the same in the western city. Ebony cauch and goat blood over my nude body. ,Orgies that even exceeded those of the doctor's cult. I remained there five weeks and then another city and a repetition of the same shameful experiences. It was while there that I heard of the suicide of the doctor who had ' lured me into the love cuIt. Police had suspected him. They raided his offices. They found him a suicide in the love m l t room. They didn't get any of the members because they had fled through secret doors. The doctm knew he couldn't flee because the furnishings and the room wmld be w e d against h i m He blew his brains out.

I WAS A SLAVE GIRL All 'this changed when I went to the third city. There I learned the law and bestial levels to which human nature can fall when the emotion of sex rules the mind. There I was to learn d the sadistic cruelty of human beasts. I was to see what the Devil Worshippers really were, stripped of the more n o m l desires. Even during the World War, when Ehgland and 'Germany were in the death struggle of life, the Devil WorL shippers transcended all national bounds. German and English members would meet in Holland to carry on their horrifying practices, not caring that their own countrymen were ' dying on the field of battle. The abnormal urges that are practised by these cults were greater bonds than patriotism. The brand on my shoulder was my recommendation wherever I went. All I had to do was to find the leader of the cult, show him that brand and I was given work. In a centain city the headquarters of the cult were in a suburban home that must have cost a hundred houssand dollare. There were spacious lawns and a great stone fenae to hide the house from the streets. It was isolated. I t had to be for the screams of the members in their dope and sex-crazed orgies could be heard for blocks. The leader d this cult was not a He' w m a tall and thindoctor. faced man, dark of complexion and with the mannerism of a Hindu. He w&e long flowing mbes of white and a white turban. He called himself "Oga, +he Great." Hs received me wiith his beady little eyes taking in my form quickly. He m e from a couch and snapped: ''Disrobe." I did. He walked around me, sixdying every pafi of my figure. His fingers touched me, like a man would touch a horse. l3k didn't like my shoulders and told me to stand stra4&ter. Then he called two assistana in. They were heavy-faced thugs. They laughed coarsely when they saw my nakednew. Oga ordered them to stand back. They did, but I knew fmt their eyes that I would have more trouble with them. That night there was a meeting of the cult. I t was different from the other meetings a t which I had served. The room was large and incense burned and strange perfumes came floating through the air. There was a great throne behind 6he ebony couch. Oga, the Great, did not wear black robes. He sat on the throne and mmbled the words of Pan. I lay on the ebony much. The men and womenimany of therm1 internationally k n m for their d a l fame and their wealth, squatted on the floar. They chanted with

Oga, but there was not the hysterical frenzy af other meetings. That is, not at first. No goat came charging out of the darkness. Oga was chanting samething I had never heard before. "Pan . Pan his voice was mumbling. "Give us Iove and give blood . . give us love everlasting to the ead of all time . Iove love . . love to the greatest, 0, Pan, will ,give us blood human blood. Blood! Human blood! My body froze with a sudden terror! There was a scream, a pi%iful scream of a young girl. I t came from the darkness. It rose b a crescendo that sent chilb of horror down my back. Every person in that room Itxiped up. They were screaming with the girl. Then two brutelike men, stripp d to the waist came out of the darkness. They were carrying a young girl on a board. She was naked. And on the b a r d were short spikes that bored into the flesh of the girl. Oga had jumped t o his feet and w a s striding toward me. I had raised myself up a little. His eyes were !blazing with a strange lwk. In his right hand was a knife, a lung, thin~bladedknife! The screams af the girl were shattering wery nerve of my ;body. They rose over the din of the men and w m n in the roam. Oga got to me. His knife came up. I fell back on We coudh. I closed my eyes. There flashed t h m & m.y consciousness the terrifving: m m o r v af bhe famom evil -worshippeT's Death Mass! Had I walked into i t ? If I had' there was no escape. A human body t o those blood-crazed fiends wad nothing more than a loaf of bread. There was a shalrp pain down my right side and then a sharp stinging pain over my breast as something hot struck! Then consciousness left with a whirl of screams and shooting pains.

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indistinct, but I gathered that the fiendish lbrutsrlity of the Blood Mass had been too muoh for him. (Later I was to learn that he was a m m b e r of one of America's most socially and financially prominent familks and had frequently been in mental institutions.) These men took me to a side entrance to the house of worship. A moment Lter and a large black sedan had swiftly pdled np to the door. I was wrapped in a blank& by the men, who huddled on the floor as bhe chauffeur wheeled the car away on screaming tires Again I fainted.

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HOW MANY hours .or how many I shall never know. days p&, When I finally regained my full senses, I came to to discwer myself in a hospital-like room, with a starched nurse in attendance. She was a hard-faced woman with peculiar yellow eyes, who never said a word. There was something almost ghoulish about the creature. Several times I tried to quesbion her, but she merely s h r e d at me and said nothmg. On the other hand, once a day for the nexk two weeks, a doctor came in and dressed my wounds. I was well taken care of and given everything to read I wanted-with the exception of newspapers. I had no idea in what city o r state I was. I &athere in that strange roam1 for a month. Never once did I see a soul. At last I regained my health and I began to grow curioua as to whak was to be my ultimate fate. And then I hmad a visitor. It seems to me now that the man who came to my room must have ben someone I had met ~hfore. At the time, his +ace and his voice were completely strange. He entered the charniber ak dusk one night, and for several minutes stood looking down A t last he spoke. a t me. '"You feel all right now?" he ded. I nodded, and &served that he was immaculately d r d ; a man of perhaps fifty years of age, with graying temples and a strong lean body * * * and eyes whioh had an odd fanatical I SHALL never know whether it glare to them. His voice reawsured was my agonized scream, o r the lat- me but his eyes frightened me. "I would like Q go,: I said, a t ent chivalry of two of the men in that terrilble chamber of agncatic sex the same time, m n d e n h g where I worship which did it. But suddenly, was and where I could p. "You will be able to go soon," he with foam a t his lips and his knife again upraised, Oga tripped 'back- told me. "But in the meantime I We ward and fell to the floor. At first am sending in some clothes I thought he Bad fainted from the shall have dinner and a talk." It was a strange, u n ~ e a l dinner. pure tense e w h y of his sexmaddenWe sat alone .in a Iona: room with ed brain. But then I &mrvd two forms almost no furniture. The food was A second excellent and i t wais served by a sweep a c m %he m m . I&r I was freed from my couch and peculiar little man who never opened in the terrible confusion of the m- his mouth. He moved silently and left ent, I was half dragged and half us alone most of the time. The few glasses of sparkling wine I d o 4 carried from the chamber. One of the men a t my si& was seemed heady and strong. My ,host questioned me at h@ babbling and crying. His words were

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I WAS A SLAVE GIRL about Gy a d a t i o n with the Devil Worshippers. I guarded my words, but even then I told him a great deal. He seemed sympathetic. At last, when I was 'through answering his questions, I asked him a few. "Tell me," I said, "where I am and how I happen to be here. And who are you?" He smiled and i t was a pleasant mile. "I cannot give you my name," he said. "I can only tell you that a t one time I, too, was a member af the cult. Since a certain night, I no longer attend its meetings." There was something about the way in which he said i t that made me alize that this man must have been le of the pair who had rescued e from that nightmare-ish episode hen I had been stabbed by the mad :a. 'At present," he contihued, "I n leading a quiet life and one re~ e dfrom the world. And . ." he sitated for a hrief moment ". . I snt you to lead it with me." I t was a strange remark. I realXI that this man was certainly l t normal. There was something cious, OT rather, not so much vicioius as sinster, about his approach. miis was no ordinary proposition. "Live with you?" I questioned. * Lnd what does that entail?" Instead of answering, he stood up and walked toward me. He towered over my chair. For some reason I was suddenly paralyzed with fri~ht. "Stand up." It was neither a request nor quite a n order. I PUSHED back my chair and ruse t o my feet. My host, wham! I later was to learn to call Seigal, reached forward. His two lonq arms went He pulled me around my waist. close to him and his head leaned over me. It was s o u n u m l for me to have a man again approach me in a normal way, that I tossed badk my head and slightly opened my mouth. For a half instant his lips ;brushed mine. Suddenly I was tense with excitement. I pressed close to him. I t was like a slap across the face. It came so suddenly. And ftihen he struck. I cannot, even now, tell you of the unutterable horror of that next hour. The man was worse than a b t and had the etrength of six. Time and apain I &came unmmious, only to recover when he held a glass of chamvame to my lips and caressed mv fore'head. 1ind every time I would come to, thai t lashing, snake-like ;belt would a e%inzing through the a i r and lash amw s my white, throbbing body. He _L _ od over me and I could see, during those few lucid m e n t e while I TVBB conscious, fiat he was getting

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m e tremendous, awful and psychopathic gratification from the terrible beating he was administering. Finally even the wine failed to revive me. I mast have been carried back to my room upstairs. The nurse was in attendance when I ultimately found consciousness. Strangely enough, what with the careful attention I was given and the complete rest, my wounds quickly healed. The pain a t times was intense, but I realized later that i t was only during the periods the morphine I was constantly being forced to take, wore off. Within ten days the last of the welts had disappeared and again I was ready to leave and make my way out into the world-if I could leave. And again I had a visdt from my atrange host. This time he sent the nurse from the room and locked the door after her. He was in a dressing gown and slippers. Frightened half to death, I looked up a t him. I wondered if there was nothing of human kindness in this &range creature that I would be able to reaclh. I began to plead with him in a soft, quivering voice barely above a whisper. A t once he put up his hand for me to stop. "I have come," he said, "to talk with you. You have my word I shall hot touch you." And then he sat on the bed and talked. For several seconds I was afraid to a s much a s listen, but then I began to understand what he was saying. In a soft. well cultured voice he told me about himself. He told me that I was to consider him! not a s a criminal, and myself not as a captive. He said he would give me a great deal of money and that he would never really injure me. That he was a stranpe man and had strange desires. He told me that he was immenselv wealbhv and could buy anything he wanted. He told me that he had no satisfaction out of a normal life. That in order to live, .it was essential &at he beat the woman he was with. And then he smiled a t me and paused for a moment. "But that is not all," h e continued. "Undoubtedly a t this moment you bate mle and feel vengeful. And so ." again he smiled and so, now you can beat me!" He must have noticed the look of complete revulsion on my face, for he added: "Do not worry. I shall not b w t you or strike :-ou back." I refused. T told him I forpave him for everything. T h a t I didn't want to ;beat him-I only wanited to p t out of his house. I promised him that I would never s a y a word to anyone about what had happened i n I that terrible and strange place. h l d him that i t was a closed book

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Just please let me out. I felt no desire for vengeance. This time he carried a long catanine tails. The handle was loaded and there were nine cruel slender whips of raw hide a t the end. There was a small diamond of steel tied to each separate whip. He handed i t to me and leaned omer. "Either strike me with that-hard! --or I shall whip you to death!" Kis voice was like nothing human. His eyes were misty this time and not glaring. And suddenly I realized that this was no normal civilized being I was dealing with. I realized t h a t unless I beat him a s he had beaten me, he actually would beat me to death. I took bhe whip from his hand. After t h a t first lash across his back, when I saw those large welts af Mood-red flesh suddenly rise, I became violently nauseated. But he would not let me stop. "Harder, harder, more!" he yelled a t me. He had superhuman strength. I soon knew that the only wav in which I ever should be able to desist from this savage rite was to strike so hard that he would lbecome unconscious. Again and again I lashed out. The man was made of stone. Did I feel a n y unusual excitement - d u r i n g this ghastly nightmare? No. I felt only a terrible and devastating humiliation a t the knowledge that I was not only witnlessin~,but contributing to the degradation of a fellow creature-if you call such a man a fellow creature. I t seemed t l a t my arm would turn parailyzed before I could ston. But suddenlv his lbodv m e sharplv in a great quiver of emotion, and ltihen he screamed once and slumped to the floor. The strangv, cold nurse must have been watching every second durinq that awful scene, for the moment he dropped. she enterecl the xmm She must have had a key, as well as the master of $he house. Without a word she picked him up bodily snd vlaced him on the 'bed. She motioned me t o follow her, and I did, in a Mind daze of unmality. Thak night I was locked in a r m in another part of the house. There is no m i n t in talking. of trhe next few months. Everv couple of weeks wag a brutal repetition of those first experiences. First I would undergo a horrible beatine: a t the hands of that monster; then, a s soon a s I was suftdicientlv rpcovered, he would force me to beat him. One d g h t , after he had only &ruck me once, h e put his whip away. He leaned d a w n over the bed in which I lay at%r~bbin~q and shiverina with fear. For a few minutes he merely stared a t m. And then he dropped across the bed and started to weep. For the f i m t time since I had known

I

I WAS A SLAVE GIRL him, I had a peculiarly tender feeling for that unusual, maladjusted person. !My arm fell across his scarred tshoulders. I t was a f k r midnight when I was bundled into the back of a large, curtain-drawn limousine. My host had disappeared and I was accompanied only by the nurse and a chauffeur. It was so dark I had no way of knowing where I was. We drove for hours and I !began to feel very drowsy. I reoall only that just before daylight, I felt a sudden stab in my right arm. The nurse was at my right. I t was a&in night When I came to. I knew I had been doped. I was lying in a k d , t~bviouslyin a hotel rOOm

The rest of this story can 'be told in a couple of \brief paragmphs.

I l e a d that two ~ t r a n g e mhad checked me into one of New York City's (better known hotels late that night. They had explained to the desk clerk that I was intoxicated. I was never able to trace them. In a purse on the dresser I found ten onehundred dollar bills and nothing else. There was a suit case in fihe room and i t was filled with a complete wardxibe. But every p s a b l e identifying mark had been torn from the clothing. I discovered a t the desk that I was registered under the name of Miss Mice Smith. There are two more things to tell. I talked with an assistant distrid attorney i n New York City. I told him of my experiences. I told him of the Devil Worshippers and later of Seigal.

But ithere was nothing he could do. He informed me that police files -$l over the country 'were filled w t h data of the strange sex cults. That Federal men as well as local police officers damped down every time they had a chance. But as f a r a s individuals such as Seigal were concerned, nothing could be done unless the victims themselves were able to sutpply definite information a s to who they wwe and where (they were.. 'Since those bitter and unreal days I have been living a quiet and secluded life in New York. Police still watch my movements, in fihe hopes they will dbtain m m lead. I am waiting for the day that I will a e i n contact one of the members of the cults, and be able t o inform the proper authorities.

THE THIEF FELL ASLEEP By GORDON JONES From the luggage depalrtment he took four nice new suitcases, and stuffed them with men's, boy's and women's clothing valued a t $600. However, when he tried to leave via a fire escape, he found the doors all locked. At the same time he was havdifficulty in dadging the night N ADDITION to his penchant ing watchman. for other folks' belongingsA t last he came to the furniture Peter P. Pastick has a predis- department, where decorators had position toward that form ' of labored to set u p a model bedroom. nocturnal esercise which makes It was an outfit which appealed to an alarm clock a household ne- Peter Pastick from the moment he eyes on it, and while he realized cessity. And his fondness for laid a t once that he couldn't lug it out sleeping has got Peter into with him, he saw no reason why he trouble up to his neck, which is shouldn't put i t to his own use only about five feet off the floor. temporarily, a t least. So he flung the h g s untder the bed According to New York police, and lay down to take a knap. With Pastick boasts that he has robbed the coming of daylight, he figured, every big department store in the he would surely be better able to find metropolis, but his system bogged some way out of the store. dokn like Rummel's African push However, when daylight came Peter when he tried it out in a big Brooklyn store. It's gone back on him on was snonng lustily. Making his other occasions, too, his dossier a t rounds the watchman heard him and headquarters listing convictions for investigated. Then he phoned police. unl?wful entry on four previous ocDetectives who answerd his alarm casIons. relieved Peter of the four stolen bags Peter walked into the Brooklyn and their contents. They were about store, and when employees shut the to lead him off to headquarters for place for the night they locked him a personal appearance in the morning inside too, although, of course, they lineup when they noted they had not were unaware of that. After the last shorn their lamb of all his booty. charwoman had finished her chores, Peter had found that shoe rationing was cramping his toes and had helped Peter got busy.

I

himself to a new pair of brogans without Coupon No. 17. As a guest of inquisitive police,. Pastick turned coy. How he managed to hide in the store and escape surveillance of clerks and watchman, he said, was strictly a trade secret which he would keep to, himself. He appeared the following day in Felony Court, where he faced Magi5 trate Joseph B. GBblocki for arraignment. The judge scanned Peter's record of four six-month t e r n in the past and held him for the grand jury without bail.

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TRAVELING in a barrel may be , no unique expeztence for those of the card-playing gentry, but i t took a Tennessee prisone~ to demonstmte bhe worth of an oversized keg as an escape disguise. An oil company truck delivered 12 barrels of mineral spirits to the state penitentiary in Nadhville, and an equal number of supposedty emp'ty barrels were hauled away after the delivery w a s made. When he stopped the first time on the rkturn trip from the p r i m , the truck driver noted t h t the heads had been batted out of two of the barrels,. and he guessed the reason why. He notified prison authorities. Sum enough, a check showed Cletus Stone, 33, a long-termer, absent. He stowed away in one of the barrels.

AS

A hand wked out from a narrov opening i n the bathroom door. I t was a left hand, Lefty Peltier's hand, in fact; I could recognize it. And it clutched an automatic. It was pointing toward Vic and me. Then vic moved back and i t was just pointing toward me, standing there with my back to the door.

QUEEN

THE BATHROOM door m e c l wider and Lefty walked out. He still held the gun on me. There was a wide grin on his face. "Hello, Ag," he said. "Hot ain't i t ? Now that we're here, let's talk it over like gentlemen-and ladies." "Sure," I said. Lefty got into his suit coat. "This is the way it is," he said. "I've raised the ante. Everybody else is out. Stern's out. too. Just ns three. Be reasonable,'~g. After all, we steered you on to Moore." My ears were straining to the steady tramp of feet getting louder. "But I haven't jpt it here," I stalled. Lef ty walked "Haven't h&?" around me and wked the pun in mv side. "Take her change a%ay, ~ i c , " he said. "And what does Lefty says?" I didn't move. Vic grabbed my bag, "We split. Four ways." slid out the wad of bills. "Ain't got "Salit what?'' it here, huh?" he chuckled. "I guess ~ i E ' seyes were contemptuous. 6 t ~ 7 myou just forgot you brought it. You not talking riddles. Kid ~ o o mgave wouldn't lie, pal-we know that." you a grand to bet on High Play. In I pinioned his arm, struck out with the fifth a t Tia Juana. - You didn't put i t on High Play. You got i t my other hand. We tangled, and rolltogether on the floor. Y LITTLE apartment was down on Storm King. Storm King edLeftv's pun was wavering above on the second floor. I o p won a t twenty to one. /So you've got us.- ~e k&t yelling, " ~ r e a E away, twenty grand that we're cutting up. ened the door. Vie Terazzi Vic. "1'11 drill her!" Me, YOU, Lefty and Stern. After all, sat fwing me, his legs cocked we introduced you to Moore." I clung t o Vic. We rolled together to the wall, then I tore myself l m e , up over my packed grip. That was true. J'd made . . . . . *ntv -. . leaped to the light-switch, clicked He didn't say anything as 1 grand that afternoon betting som; off. came in. I noticed the window one else's money. Kid Moore had i t Lefty'e gun spoke in the dark. given me a grand to bet High Plng Plaster splattered my hair. I crouchwas Open, showing part Of a to win. But I followed mv hunch. ed in a corner. My fingers came upon rusty fire-escape. picked a long shot and W&. F& something soft. It was my wad of chance of me giving that all up, or money. I slid the money inside my I feigned surprise. "Well, Vic, any part of it. &em, spoke evenly: what brings you her?" "It's bhis way, Vic," I explained, "I'm going out of here. Going owt "I can't let Moore down. This just Shut the door, Ag." on my feet. Alone I've got six isn't my dough." slugs that are going with me. If you I turned a quarter t~ on the "You said a mouthful. It ain't all want a souvenir, start rushing me!" bolt. It clicked loud a s ~t locked. yours, and i t don't belong to that That part about me having a gun Then I gave i t another quarter turn. was a lie, but I prayed they'd believe Softly. My door was unlocked again. punk pug moo re, either." I picked up my grip, backed to the it. I stood in front of it, hoping desperdoor. I bpened fhe dbor with my left ately to cover my play. Vic came toward me. His thick, hand, wriggled backwards a step and3 Vic's laugh was nasty. "What's hair smelled of tonic. His was catapulted back into the room. your hurry? Nervous?" He gave blue-black voice got low and husky. "So you'd A bcdy hit me sideways. I Yell my grip a kick. run out?" against the light-switch. It clicked I looked around the room. "Make I got free of him, c a ~ e f u lto keep on. i t snappy," I said a s casually a s my back to the door. Kid Moore erOoocf in the center of possible. I laughed. Did I mean chat laugh? the room, brandishing a rod. His Vic stood up, smoothing the bulge Not any! "Run out?" I repeated black hair dangled over his wild eyes. a t his lean hip, looked a t me with rather hollowly. Lefty and Vic crouching by the bed, eyes that had changed to blaok ice. Lefty's gun was in his hand. l'Yeah," Vic said coldly. "Run out." "You're dealing us in." l4Stav down!" Moore screamed He showed his teeth. They were deliI laughed gaily. But inside I wasn't and fiFed. cately pointed, neatly white. "But gay. "If the terms suit me, Vic" A piece of ahoe-heal slithered over you ain't doin' it, Ag." He raised the floo~. That's how close the bullets "Fine." Vic smiled. His eyes stay- his voice slightly. "Okay, pal-show missed me. ed hard. "Then do a s 'Lefty says." her that she can't do that to us."

OF THE

GYPP

AGNES LAWTON

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The wrong crowd swept her into a life of biotous living, perverse gambling and high. stepping. The next step landed her into the vicious rackets.

and get married. I laughed inwardly. Maybe I could have done worse than marry him, though. He'd been running in bad company, but was fund* mentally an honest guy. I'd have been in less jams in my life if I'd married him. But I wasn't the romantic kind. I used men just to outwit them We had a few drinks together, and it was easy to slip away from Kid Moore and later to slip out of town.

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I'VE STARTED with the above experience because i t was the hottest, riskiest one of my entire life. But you can't ever be on the wrong side My left leg came back fast, tripped of fie law wibhout taking risks, and "You rat, Lefty, throw your gun &m," Moore shouted, waving the Stern's ankle. We clinched, and I big ones. A good many of my old saw Vic rushing me. Then I fell to associates are underground-and muzzle around. they didn't die natural deaths. Lefty's gun skidded m the floor, the floor. near me. When I got up, the room was full Sure. I've done some pretty shady Moore kept waving hia gun wildly. of cops. things. Things you people in good I thought bitterly: "The one time society wouldn't approve of. q ' m going to kill somebody!'' he It's I ever teamed up with anybody, and all how you look a t it, I'd say. But' yelled. now the law's got me." "Don't, Kid, don't!" I cried. whatever I did I had an alibi for, to Well, luckily for everybody, no myself; whenever a sucker was ripen"You dirty cheat!" he shouted. He kicked the crwohing Vic in one was severely hurt. Moore and ed, and trimmed and cut down. he the shin, and Vic toppled over in Lefty had only superficial wounds. usually deserved it. The fruit of his No one made any complaints own folly. Then there were other agony. Moore ran over to me a s I mouched against anyone else, but, of course, times when i t was just a matter of on the floor. He'd been soft on me they locked us up on general prin- simple justice. for a time. But now he was any- ciples. What did i t all net me? Well, you thing but soft. He shouted, "Get My roll of dough had the cops tell me. up!" puzzled a t first. They thought they How did I get to be a red queen I raised up on an elbow, and he had a gang of counterfeiters. of the gypsies? I'll start from scratch. kept shouting, "I'm going to kill you They kept us all in jail a couple My name is Agnes Lawton. I was and the other rats-" of days until they made sure the born-the middle of three childrenA gun barked, Moore pitched for- money wasn't phony. on a farm in Medina County, Ohio, ward on the rug. A gun slid along In the meantime Lefty had gotten of respectable people, who were fairthe floor. It was Lefty's. I had it. in touch with a lawyer. ly well off. The day after the cops reluctantly I kneeled beside Moore. My gun Both my parents died when I was had Vic and Lefty covered. Now I'd admitted my right to the money, we seventeen. My brother, who was take over-I thought. I'd make a were all of us up 'before Judge twenty, was competent to run bhe clean getaway - with my dough. I Raleigh. farm with the two hired men. My Lefty's mouthpiece had maneuver- younger sister was still in school. backed out fast Do the door. I kept watching lefty and Vic. M m e was ed i t that I did most of the explaining The world of books had no fasstill on the floor, blood trickling before the judge. My story went like cination for me, though I'd finished this : down his arm. high school. I determined to see I'd won a lot of money on a horse, My back was against the door. A hand came from somewhere and took and with my boy friends was celebrat- sometthing of the world. A few days after my father joining, when someone started an argumy gun away. ed mother for their long sleep, I l& ment. "Tie this one," said a voice. \ That was the gist of it. Some of i t home. I saw Stearn'a face, a long lean The approach to P i t t s h r g by train face, in the g l m A long, lean bodq.. was true, a t least. In spite of the D. A's objections, at night was thrilling with its flarHe kept rubbing something u p and the judge ruled I didn't have to name ing blast furnaces set in the sides down my backbone. A muted trumpet W & - d e d from the bookie I betted with, but flned of cavernous hills. A t the cheap hotel, I ran smack inthe night-club across the street. Lefty me twenty dollars for illegal ;betting. He sentenced Vic, Lefty and tb the wwng crowd. They were shopsaid, "Where have you been?" man and his wife and a. Stern said, "I been places." He Stern to the calaboose for gun-toot- lif-a guy who wasn't more than eighteen, kept massaging my spine with his ing. Becanse of M m ' s previous good I'd judged. The older pair told me gun-bamel. "How do you like it, record, the judge let him off with a how easy it all was. I helped them sister?" pull a few jabs, but I could sense suspended sentence. "It's the luck of the Iri&," I s a i d Outside the court I met Moore. I that danger was playing all around I raised my wee. I saw my own since I'd faced all the guns, I me, like lightning, and when the marface reflected in the glass. I said figured was entitIed to the most of the profit. ried couphe got caught and got s "Good-by, pall," to my reflection with- I gave him back stretch, I dhanged my hotel. I liked his original grand. eut making a emnd. The Kid was contrite, and grate- this racket, but I needed more exThen in the glass I saw lefty's face ful that I hadn't bet his money on perience. I'd go honest for a while. make a grimace, saw his M y sag- High Play. The dumb cluck thought Next morning I was out bright and ging against the ohair. I was in love with him! He was ter- early, looking for honest work. PittsI only heard the shot late^, saw the rible sorry to have caused all this burg was booming then. Without any smoking gun in Moore's h a n d mess. He wanted us to get a license trouble I got a job as a salesgirl in -

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WAS QUEEN OF THE GYPPERS the basemat of Skelton's-a big department store. (The h e r e is e n e now, and Skeltont was not its real name.) Ny jab was selling hmiery. I -was happy for a couple af weeks, had found a modest room with another girl, Helm Edwards. Then one day, the lgyear-old shoplifting kid came into the store and insisted on banging around and talking with me. I supposed the store executives knew he had a reformatory record, and when eight pairs of stockings turned up missing from my counter, Miss Gurney, my department head, told me I was wanted in Mr. Sigman's office. Sigman was the hosiery buyer, a good-looking man, but all business. He accused me of getting away %th the stockings. I denied the charge hotly. Anyhow, he told me I was fired. He didn't make any more trouble, for he just suspected me of the theft, couldn't prove it. I was in bad circumstances then, couldn't afford to lose my job. But the thing was funny to me, a s well as tragic. Here I'd been getting m a y with things and hadn't been caught. And now, whn I was being discharged for suspected theft, ,X was absolukly innocent. I ewore to myself that I would get even with Sigman s a n e day. The next morning I said good-by to Helen. I left Pittsburg. I t was my second day in Cincinnd. A crisp November morning., I was walking up Vine Street, when a car like a small-store delivery truck, all black with no letters on its side, eased by, a young fellow in the driver's seat, leaning forward, beckoning me with a finger. I waited until the car came abmast df me. The car angled to the curb. The driver held down a f u r neckpiece to me. "Here! Give me ten dollars for this fox. It's hot," he whispered. It was flashy-looking. But I wasn't interested. I walked on. A little while later I heard the same voice. "Corny, here, miss. I want to talk t o you. H e stopped the car and got out. That's how I went to work for Babe Hackley. Hackley had a bunch of neck-pieces that cost about 75 cents to a dollar a piece wholesale. All paid for; with receipts in his pocket. He'd drive along with me in his delivery truck, stop likely-looking prospects, give them a msh talk, intimating, but never stating in so many words, that his stock was stolen merchandiw, and could therefore be purchased a t a tremendous saving. We had imitation fitdh, kolinsky, fox, racoon, wolf. Hackley would tackle the men. I'd tackle the women. We'd average four sales a day. We make a good profit, ae we'd usmlly get ten dollars

a fur. To ask for less was bad tactics. People wanted to believe they were getting a genuine fur, a fiftydollar f u r for ten! If the suckers found out later that they'd been hooked for a dog, that was their tough luck. It was steady, but mmatanous. We'd average a b u t lfifty a week for ourselves. But after a while the Better Business Bureau got to making it tough for us, and HaaMey's wife made him quit. I went bmk to Chicagd, where Helen was stoppinp a t a hotel on the near North Side. She got me a job in the same Loop store, selling heckties. It lasted till Clhristmss. Then Helen went back home to Pittsburq. I stayed in Chi. I had, in rapid succession, a variety of jobs. I was a window model, displaying dresses; a hat-check 'girl i n a chop suey joint, a receptionist for a Hindoo sage, who, flew the coop, owing me two weeks' salary. However, I managed to salvage an address book with a list of his wealthy patrons, which sucker list I sold to a rival philosowher for thirty dollars. With that I went into business for myself. I bought a few donen neckties, paying about four dollars a dozen. I had them made up with flashy silkback linings. I picked out odd patterns. They looked good by artificial light. I went from night spot to roadhouse. For a while they isold like

hot c a b for a buck and s kdf a p!-. They eost m e a b u k thirkyfive cents each. Ncvt a 'bad profit. But after s while the business played out. Repea0 orders were sanething else. %%eh I -4 to work for Red MCKim. He had a gambling joint on Wabash Street. The loop was wide open them, and MeKiim's bad everything. Blaek-jack, the bird-cage, roulette, a eraptable, a poker game i n the rear, and of course a morning and a i f t e m n line on all the race tracks. My job was bo steer t%e suckers for &he play. It wasn't hard. I'd ask them to play the wheel for me, pressing my own money in their hands. (Of course, M c K h 'gave me extra for t h a t ) Usually they'd They'd go ap &re. lose my few dollars pronto. They didn't want to look c h e a ~ .Thev lald out some of their own to &t i t back. When they got stuck a little, they usually went for their roll. McKim paid me ten dollars a day flat for tihie.

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AFTER a while the boys got wise to m McKim gave me another job, He had connections with other bookmakers in the nearby towns. I'd go to Milwaukee, Racine, to Hammond, Gary, East .Chicago, to all the towns around the Lake, carrying money back and forth that they wanted to lay-off against each other. (When one bookie had accepted too many bets on a horse that he was afraid

I WAS QUEEN OF THE GYPPERS

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might win, he'd turn over some of That's the beta to other bookies. called "laying i t off.") After some weeks of this, McKim put me on a s a "runner." He gaw me a territory on the South Side in Ohi. A dozen places. Hotel cigar stands, a couple of road houses, a taxi-driver's hang-out. A stationery store. Restaurants run by hard-working Greeks. PIaces where bettors gathered to talk horws, figure the odds, and lay the money down. The owners of bhese various places just took the bets. McKim paid them ten percent of their daily take, no matter how tlte play came out. I'd take in seven to ten grand a week collecting for McKim. I'd pay what bets .there were to pay the next mornlng. I was guaranteed one per cent of the take. And McKim? Well, a conservative bookie figures to clear thirty per cent on all business. So after McKim paid off his agents and his runner (all tokl, eleven per cent) there W= nineteen percent profit left. In round figures, McKim was clearing in mv territorv alone everv week a; least Hixteen hundred dollars. Of course he had some unusual expenses. All right, we'll cut McKim's makings in half. Eight hundred a week. Good enough? And remember. he had six more runners besides myself. Just multiply eight hundred by six and what have you got? You've got a mighty big *business. I'm not saying that an individual bettor, if h's m a r t , can't make money on the horses. What I'm trying to bring i t out that the bookie has the edge. A b u t a thirty per cent edge. So after six months of learning the ropes thoroughly, I decided to cut in on the gravy. I held from one hundred to a hundred and a half daily from the bets I collected. I didn't give the money to McKim I made a book on i t myself. Of course I risked the chance of losing. But, luckily for me, I made money the first few days, established a reserve, ahd was never hit so hard that I couldn't pay off. Certainly, I had the advantage of McKim on a percentage basis. I selected all my bets, I'd spread them so +here'd be a n equal play on each horse in every race. The law of averages and takers' odds stood back of me. McKim couldn't spread his bets that way. He had to accept every play. Sometimes a long shot would :come through and cut a dent in the most affluent bookie's roll. I avoided the long shot, discarded (parlays.) I took the cream and let the law of averages work fur me. In addition Do m y c'salarg" from McKimi, I was dlearing about fifty a day for myself. It wasn't long before I had five grand clear.

,

"YOU'RE FIRED!"Sigman pointed to the door. The whole thing was tragic-and funny, too. For this time I was innocent. Right them I decided to triple my play, and then clear out of Chi. How was I going to triple it? All right, laugh. I was going to bet i t on a horse. "In a sucker's game always a sucker," they say. HOWEVER, there's a horse like Mike Hall only once in a life-time, Mike Hall was a freak, no pedigree to speak of. Bought by chance, I believe, for a trifle, by the Ha1 Price Headley stable. Mike Hall liked to run. Never tired of it. A t the end of a race he wasn't even winded. (Later in his career Mike Hall was taken to England and ran in mat& races at the longer distances, two miles and more.) A lazv starter. I t was funny at first, when he began to race, thou& winning, m l e hadn't much faith in h i m His indifferent start, his orthodox style made the players a bit leery of him. But I'd gotten a tip from one I was wre knew what he was talking about. He solid: "They'll be trying with Mike the next time out." That's all I wanted to know. I THREW the scratch sheet away, was just going to get ready for bed. I was all-set fur tomorrow, better get a good night's sleep. Plenty to do. Somebody was knocking a t my door. "Who is it?" I called. "Open the door, Ajgnes." My heart beat queerly. I recognized +he voice. I unbolted the door.

MlcKim came in. "Excuse me," he said. He bolted the door and didn't take off his snapbrim hat. He faced His me siIently, a long minute. eyes were black and gray. I said, "What's up Jack?" It W&S a n effort, but my eyes didn't waver from his look. He m t over to my dresser, examined all bhe drawers. He took out some jewelry. I t wasn't phony jewelry. I'd been socking a lot of my chiseled dough into good rings and necklaces. "Nice stufif," McKim said. "Real. Doing well for yourself,

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PI, 7"

He held out some of f i e jewelry in his hand. He didn't shout. That wasn't McKim's way. "You've been holding out on me," he said. "Tell me-how long?" There was only one way ito face J m k McKim i n a spot like bhis. I took it. "For three months. About a hnndred a day. I've been making the book on that myself." "And picking the sure things. Okay. That's over with. Tomorrow, you're leveling. Understand?" "I understand." He turned to fie door. His e& narrowed a little a s he held it open "There won't be a second time," be said and went out. I turned out Dhe light, lay down. I couldn't sleep. Not even a play for me. I got up again, turned the light on. I looked at myself in the glass. "Don't be a fool," I said. I n the momihg I wined d i n

I W A S QUEEN OF THE GYPPERS

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bookies in Milwaukee, Hsrmnond, Gary-twenty in all-betting two hundred and fifty with each on Mike Hall to win in the Fifth a t Hawthorne. My five G's were down. By noon I'd made the rounds and collected a t the regular spots for McKim. Just a little over two grand. Something inside df me dared me to shoot the works, to take a chance and play it all on Mike Hall's nose. Maybe it was that cold face of Jack McKim challenging me secretly. Did I dare? At 12:30 I was at the Western Union office, wiring McKim's two grand to spots in Cincinnati and Covington, Kentucky. Then I paid off a t my hotel, bought a ticket to Cincy, and was set to hop out fast if the worst happened. But Mzke Hall won. I got the news in Hammond, in a bookie's joint, cashed enoug% in Chat town to get back to Chi before evening and turn over two grand in bets to McKim's off ice. The next morning I travelled up and down the lake, cashing in. Wound up in the evening a t Cincinnati, collected there. I had made over twenty six thousand oh a tip. Sure. I've plunged plenty since, but never oh s w h a sure thing s s Mike Hall. For a few months I took i t easy at h o w I put most of my winnings in land, sent the kid sister to finishing schooL Then I got itchy feet. I went back to Pittsburg to visit Helen. She had gone back to Skelton's but recently lost her job. Well, I had a score to even with

Sigman was that phony, Sigman. now "buying" for the entire basement. Good. I spent one morning looking over the layout in Skelton's. Finally I figured i t out.

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THEXE was a sale of women's purses, prominently displayed near I the door. Flat, thin mdels. bought ON, then went out and scoured hhe town, seeking its duplicate.

Finally a t "Smith's," a mall store in the North Side, I found the same purse on sale. I compared the two minutely. They were identical. Shape, material, trimming, finish. I bought one from "Smith's," put the sales slip inside my purchase, threw away the original Skelton bag, and went back to Skelton's, first having slipped the "Smith" bag up the sleeve of my coat. For an hour I hovered arouhd the tables suspiciously buying nothing. A t last, out of the corner c8 my eye, I saw the store dick trailing me. I edged over to the purse display, apparently oblivious of being watched. I fingered some purses, put them down. Something dipped out of my coat sleeve. I t was my "Smith" bag. I picked i t up furtively, put i t quickly inside my coat. I walked to the door. Not too fast. Near the entrance I was collared by two men. One was Sigman, the other the store dick. They took me upstairs. They took the bag from me, laid i t on the desk for evidence. Then they called the law. I hadn't

23

mid a word all the time. I kept mum now. Pretty soon a plainclothesman from Headquarters came in. They told him their story. "I want you to arrest this woman," Sigman finidhed. I just let him go ahead. I knew I held every ace in the deck, this time. He kept on ranting for a while. "But I paid for the bag," I said when he'd finished. "W!here's your receipt?" Sigman barked. He was dead sure that I couldn't show one. of course. "Open the bag," I said. He did. The "Smith" sales slip - lay neatly folded inside. In lieu of damages for false arrest Chey were eager to settle with me. I finally accepted half a grand. I went West the next day. I took Helen with me. We had good spells and bad ones The bad ones were tough; I won't go into details here. Adding i t all up, I'll say that the bad times outbalance the good ones. When Pearl Harbor came. Helen fell for a sailor in Frisco 'and married him. He had a friend-not too goodlooking, but manly, patriotic-and honest. He proposed the rhird week after we'd met. Ten days later he sailed for the South Pacific. He's taking it. Before he left, I told him all about myself, and he still wanted me. And I wanted him-more than I'd wanted anybhing else in my life. I'm waiting for him to came back. We'll settle down. I couldn't face him if I ever went bavk to the old days.

MURDER FOR SALE, CHEAP Flames Hid a Baffling Double Murder in Life

BY JOHN MARTIN CREAMS and the sound of hammering alarmed neighbors of Mrs. Hazel Wegner, 35, who had only shortly before divorced her fifth husband in Muskegon, Mich. Then her home burst into flames and was destroyed.

S

Near the garage adjoining the house police discovered the body of Earl Austin, 40, who had been Mrs. Wegner's second husband. In the ruins they came upon her corpse. Both had been shot to death.

Witnesses recalled seeing Harry ,H. Wegner drive up to the house and enter i t a short time before the shrieks were heard and the fire observed.. They had also seen Austin emerge from the house, run toward the garage and fall. A search w a i instituted immediately for Wegner, but it was not until the next day, when the ashes orf the building were cooled, that his remains were found among them. Identification was made by means of a belt buckle, the metal rims of his spectacles and the snap of a man's pocketbook Authorities learned that Aus-

tin had visited his former wife in order to see an adopted daughter, and they believed Wegner's attack upon the couple was inspired by jealousy. Wegner and the dead woman were married in September of 1942, and separated a t Thanksgiving. In concluding that he had slain Austin and his ex-wife, officers said he apparently had hammered open fuel oil lines in the house, saturating i t with the inflammable liquid before applying a match and then tunring the gun upon himself.

eggang Queen' I

, a sort ed through the lhoops for "Big shot" 'D NEVER heard of movie was tall and g d ~ I o o k i n g with Even if I saw the a hairline mustache like the more Cartwright. bootlegging. Did you? Prob- of sophisticated actors. Yes, I thought articles of my own, I wouldn't have ably not. The average law- he was just about the tops-at first. recognized them. "Infringment of abiding person has no occasion But don't rush me. I'll get to him Copyright charged." A lot a headline like that would mean to me! to hear about it. And I was just -that four-star phony. The only good thing I can say Maybe you were once like .me. one of the average movie fansabout him today is that he wised me Maybe you used to-and still do!1 spent most of my time in a up to life. He taught me the things swallow the apple sauce of revivals booth outside a movie theatre, that, I realize today, I should keep being brought back "by popular dethieveries, alI mand." I'm not saying this is not selling tickets, and the rest of away from-rackets, the wrong things. but you'll excuse me please possible, the time seeing my favorites on If you had asked me what movie if I'm a little on the skeptical side. the screen. Talk about a bus- bootlegging was, I'd have popped In most cases this hopped-up mullman's holiday! I've never met back and said that probably it meant arkey means that there's a little bicswiping stars from an- ycling afoot! I Don't mind me. a picture-theatre employee who one company outfit, like Twentieth Century- don't want to get technical on you. couldn't give t h e m lessons. other Fox hijacking Clark Gable from M- "Bicycling" is the first term I had Movie-theatre attaches are big- G.M. That's how dumb I was. I ,tolearn in my racket. You see, that's ger movie fans than anybody earned my living in a glass cage of what my racket was-bicycling. a movie lobby, but all I read was the That's the trade name for movie bootelse, daily tabloid, and the only kind of bootlegging I ever read of in that I was a fairly serious girl-rtainly a law-abiding one. Once I'd paper was liquor-which was pass&had my ambitions. I'd started out and tire bootlegging. A little sugar trying to be an actress. I even got a bootlegging, with the war getting hot, small part in a show at one t i m e An and other stuff, too. But who'd ever h e a r d of anyone actress-that's what I thought I was. But what I found out later was that muscling in on the biliondollar movie I was just a girl with a strong desire industry? Yeah, I'd known about to be an actress; I had no real talent. Willie Bioff, but he was only a notI was soon let out, of course, and then suplain and fancy shakedown artist. I had to get a job at something else. After all, $14a-week cogs in the motAll I wanted t o do was to get along, ion picture industry like myself were meet some guy fairly good-looking not likely ,to keep abreast of the and a fair provider, and get married phenaglings of our profession in such to him. Then along came Tom Cart- trade papers a s Film Dailg and Mation Pictwre Herald. I wasn't to w t wright. I thought he was wonderful. He eyes on them until later, when I jump

An Actress is what I thought I was, at the time. But I found out laber that I was j u s t a girl with ;a desire to be an actress-I had no real talent!

k g i n g - - o r , a s the Philadelphia lawyers would put it, infringement of copyright. I'ce got my own name for it, and I ought to know. I call i t downright thievery. Oh, what cute- articles we were! We had everything mapped out. No one was going to yell ''cuf' on our gravy. The movie industry was too busy courting good will from hard-to; handle Congressmen. The F.B.I. was too busy catching spies to nab us off base Nobody was supposed to pay any attention to us a s we went merrily along, sucking the blood out of the world's most fabulous business. How did a little trick like me get mixed up in these high flying shenanigans? Well, as you may have gathered, I'm dealing all my cards face up. I gave you the tip before, and I make no bones about it. I was a girl of 26, getting along in . years, and one of the things I didn't look forward to, but was beginning to get scared stiff of, was being an old maid.

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NOT that my age was starting to I dressed attractively a ~ d tell. wore my hair to advantage. -Maybe I chewed a little too much gum, but I knew how to behave among people who counted. I was no siouch a t dancing. But, as I'm trying to get across, I spent the best years of my life being too choosy. Along came the draft,

I WAS A FILM BOOTLEG QUEEN and all my prospects started getting fitted for uniforms. If you're a girl, or if you have a sister who lets her hair down, you'll understand why I was panicky. The old gents were talkative when they 'bought tickets from me at the Alton Theatre, but they cut no ice with me. I turned up my lip in a brief sniker, and made them grab up their change as though they were afraid I was going to call out the fire department. I always told myself that I'd know 6 the real article when he came along. Then comes this tall, dark man with the latighing hazel eyes, the wavy black hair, with the slightest speckle of gray in it. And flashing white' teeth lik he was freshly cut out of a movie magazine. He just smiles a t

DANGERwas erawling toward I us ara we waited tensely in that developing room, And I feared Tom-with that quick gun hand of hismore than anything.

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"I did not!" I snapped. "And you me the first few times he buys tiokets to the show. "The Million Dol- know I didn't. What kind of a stall lar R ~ b yin the Five and Ten Cent is this, anyhow?" Store. Remember? . "I kept buyHe smiled again. "A fair question ing china until the crowd got wise ." -calls for a fair answer," he said. "I Well, he kept turning on the charm hope you won't get me wrong. I'm full blast, and though I thought the not trying t o flirt with you. I have springs would burst in my heart, I a straight business proposition to wasn't the kind to be picked up for a n suggest to you. Will you have one easy date. I came from a n old fash- drink with me somewhere while I ioned Brooklyn family. And the explain what i t is?" I don't know what et into me. things you're taught when you're very Surprising mywlf, I said I would, and young nearly always stick with you. He wasn't getting to first base in we went to a clean little place in the making my acquaintance. But one nei~hbourhood and had a couple of night when I was through work, he cocktails. And he was a s good a s his comes up to m2 and removes his hat word. He wasn't romantic a t allHe got and smiles. He had what seemed like and was I disappointed! a valuable ring in his hand. "Did right down to business. "Listeq" he said. "You and I hit you drop this ring, Miss?" he a s l d it off pretty well. I admire you a me very politely.

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I WAS A FILM BOOTLEG QUEEN

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I guess you know it by this +p. time. You seem smart. You're the kind of a girl I'd hope ,to marry. And there's no use in any false modesty-I sort of sense that you wouldn't turn me dawn." But -then he wouldn't tell me what the proposition Wa8. He was smart. He knew i t was too.soon to come out with i t cold. He didn't tell me until we'd been out together two or t h e times, dancing and dining, and rolling back to my Brooklyn home in a taxi.

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m k e d Tom across his face with my open palm "I work for a living. I'm not the least bit interested in any kind of thievery !" But he was a smooth talker-the smoothest I've ever known. He began to plead. Nothing really wrong "And I thought in it. AJ1 that you cared for me!" he said. "You're crazy!" I panted. I was weak and weary, and I started to bawl. "But so a m I," I sobbed. "About you, you lug Wihy would you want me to do saaething like that?" "What's wrong wibh it?" he de' m a n W . g'Nobody will be the wiser. You like going to hot spots, living high, don't you baby? The sugar's got to come from somewthere. YOU and I would make a swell team, and well both 'be u p to our ears in the chips. We'll get the dough to get married on."

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HE GOT TO I T before long, of course. He waited till he had my full confidence, and then he sprang it. "I've ben looking high and wide for a girl I could trust," he told me one evening. "I think at last I've found one. I had that feeling the minute I laid eyes on you" Was I drinking i t in! * * * "If I didn't think WB understood YES YOU GUESSED IT. He each other," he continued to prepare me, "I wouldn't even mention this roped me i n But not too easy. to you. But I don't think you're the I told him I couldn't swipe the film, because in bhe first place I didn't kind to like secrets." I agreed, know where to go for it, and -in the "You're darn tootin'!" bursting with flattery. "What a r e second place I was not rmpposed to you drivin gat, Tom? You know be in the movie house when the show was over. I was through a n hour vou can tell me anvthinrr." before the last picture was finished, "You're not gaini to ;et sore?" and the phonograph started grinfing "8ore?" I echoed. "Why?" "Well, I want you to do &e a favor, out, "Remember Pearl Harbour. Excuses didn't impress Tom much, C h a r l o t b a big favor. It means a lot to me, and I think i t will help con- and he said I would haw to find a vince me that you really love me. way. This made me sore all over That's something that I've just got again, but after a week without seeing him I knew I was licked. He to know." "Well, for heaven's sake, Tom knew it, too. Then I found out what Cartwright, out with it," I imh was in the cards for me. Tom had plored. "You know I care for you a been snooping around and noticed that the manager knew I was a good lot." And he knew, I didn't know what to expect. If he efficient employee. his wasn't so well heeled, I'd have figured too, that the manager-Harley, m. he was softening me for a touch. name was-trusted When 'Harley, was was not quite But I didn't earn enough dough to pay for his gasoline for one week. an alcoholic, but suFe liked his liquor, I don't mind saying I was completely sneaked out for a couple of fast ones, I used *to see him from the boxin a fog. Not for long, though. My first re- office when he crossed to a bar and action when he asked me to steal grill. But I never mentioned it t o the film of the feature picture from anybody; I knew that the theatre the projection room was to lose my chain that hired Harley knew he was speech. I just couldn't speak. But a good man, but that he drank. They'd when I looked a t his face, set hard, warned him about drinking, especially his eyes fixed and no- longer dancing, in business hours. "You let me know the place he I knew he wasn't ribbing me. 'Tt's hot for keeps, honey," he goes," Tom said. "The place h? whispered impatiently. I could feel spends his evenings." I was fool enough to tell him, and that he was holding back his temper. He was spoiled, was Tom tcartwright, after the show that night, Tom took used to having his way. And I could me there for a drink. He knew a see he had planned this a long time, girl in the place-a little blond who though I didn't have anv notion of was called Dolly. I know now, but didn't know then, that Dolly was his whatwas behind it. real girl-that he wasn't interested in "We'll have it back bv morninc." me, romantically. But Dolly, the jealhe promised urgently. I was a s sore a s a Iady who hob- m s cat, caught Tom and myself havbles down from the balcony with a ing a drink and talldng pure business Screeno card, onlv to find out a t one evening, and started to work out the stage that she punched the wrong on me. I had never been in a brawl before, and I was between rage and square. I hissed, and I tears a t the indignity of it all. But "You stinker!"

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then I 'started to fight back, and I guess I got .at least a draw with her. Anyhow, Dolly was in the place that night Harley, the manager, was drinking a t the bar, and pretty well barreled up. And-it must have been a t some sort of signal-.Dolly called over to Harley a t the bar, and when he turned around to show his face, some stooge that worked for Tom took a flashlight of him. I undestood Tom meant to use the picture to blackmail Harley. Later, when Harley had sobered up, Tom propositioned him. Tom mid that Harley could keep the riegative for security, but if he didn't want prints of him, drinking in a bar, to get to the head of the theatre chain, he would arrange to turn a certain film can over to me, and I would get i t back to him next morning. He wouldn't be out anything, Ton1 said, and we would be in plenty. Harley wouldn't play ball, though, on a proposition like that. And then I found just how vicious, how dangerous, Tom Cartwright really was. He waited till Harley was talking with me the next afternoon, trying to tell me how much trouble I'd get into by playing along with a rat like Tom Cartwright. Then Tom sneaked up back of Harley and blackjacked him over the head. By the time Harley had recovered, Tom had gotten into the storeroom and taken the film he'd wanted. He carried Harley into the office. Harley had been half drunk, a s usual, and Tom sort of half-convinced him that he'd staggered and fallen and struck his head against the floor. I guess Harley was never quite thoroughly convinced, but he sort of half phyed ball-he haB a wife and children, and he had a pretty good job, and he didn't want to lose it.

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TOM met me with the tin ander his arm. "Come along, babe," he said, "and I'll show vou how this racket is worked." We drove to a brownstone building in midtown, and walked up a flight of stairs, into what I thought was an apartment. I t took only a minute to see that I was in a n elaborate, modern film laboratory. We walked past another door into an immense dark room. All the equipment was Greek to me, but Tom did his best to explain it, as one of the two laboratory men relieved him of the tin, and proceeded to put tihe film into a complicated-looking lighted box, geared and run by electricity, which Tom described a s an automatic printer. "You see," he said with a vain smile, "the film I snatched is a positive. It's ten thousand feet. When we get through, we have a duplicate negative of the picture. We only need the positive about five hours. It

I WAS A FILM BOOTLEG QUEEN takes m less than half a n hour to print a thousand feet. Then we ship the positive back to your theatre, and the picture goes on a t the scheduled time tomorrow with nobody the worse for the wear and tear. In the meantime, the dupe is in the works. And after we have our'negative out, we can turn out as many positives a s the clucks who spent a million bucks producing the picture." I t was a little technical but I was beginning to get a n idea of the fantastic treachery that was abroad. Once in a while, through a dummy theatre, or by bribing a punk manager, he got hold of positive iilms otherwise. He would have copies made while the films were supposedly rented by the theatre that worked in cohoots with him, or he would slip a co-operative manager or projection machine operator half a C for looking the otherway, never noticing that the film can was missing between midnight and 8 a.m. the next morning. I remained in the laboratory for eight hours, watching how the whole routine was done. I was amazed a t the smoothness, and the various processes.

DOLLYcalled over to the manager and when he turned to face her, Tom's stooge snapped him.

Tom and I stood over the printer and watched the technician pick a roll of raw, yellow film from a 1,000 foot tin, then place the positive film on top of the exposed film and run them thus together through two rollers into the automatic printer. The technicians's assistant, like his superior paying no attention to Tom or nie, cut notches on the edge of the film. "That's to hit the switch that regulates the number of lights a s the positive print is conveyed to +,he negative," Tom explained importantly. I looked on with rapt interest a s the exposed film wound u p 0x1 one spcml, and the positive film, its function 'fulfilled, rolled up on another spool a t the opposite end. "Gosh!" I gasped. '' You haven't seen anything yet," Tom assured me, pleased a t my wideeyed appreciation of the baffling wonders of the dark room. "That's not a movie winding up there, honey, Tonight it's celluloid, mere gelatin. But tomorrow it's mink and sable on your back." I tingled all over a s the import of the words sank in. I watched the chief technician place the rcl! of expassed film in a can, and smiled a t his

silent efficiency, thinking kindly of him a s a man who was helping to set me u p in a world of velvet. Tom motioned me to follow him a s he walked behind the technician into another, larger dark room, full of equipment. The first process finished, the copy of the positive film was being taken for further processing in the dustless developing r m . The technician walked over a rack, three by .four feet, consisting of two wooden vertical uprights, with four slats, a f m t apart of each, in between. As the technician, a gray-haired man whom Tom respectf'ully addressed a s Mr. Kannen, pinned one end of the film to the edge of the rack, I whispered to Tom: "Look handsome, you're the mastermind in this, and I'm jurrt a dumb girl who's a fugitive from a box office, now that you've maae me quit my job, but watching all this has set me to wondering." Mr. Kannen continued to revolve the film between the two uprights a s I spoke. After running off about 200 feet this way, he broke off the film, and pinned i t up a t the other end. I surmised, correctly, that the film was

WAS A FILM BOOTLEG QUEEI rights in front of a drying dnnm about ten feet in diameter. He protluced a rubber band, a 3 tached i t to one end of the film, and then caught the band on a nail on the side of the drum. With a motion of his hand, Mr. Kannen's assistant started the electrically driven drum spinning. As i t rotated, the fi!m . moved off the rack and onto the polished wood surface of the drum. When the rack was empty, lie attached another rubber band t o the loose end of the film, and tied that around one of the bevel-edged slats on the drum. As the drum revolved, Mr. Kannen's assistant handed him a chamois cloth out of which he made a flat pad by folding i t once over. He sandwiched the end of the film w i t h the pad, pressing on it gently, and ran the whole film through the AS 'ONE who hdtd spent many pad as the drum whirled around, taknights counting the silver shoved over ing off all excess moisture. After the till by movie fans, I began t o half an hour on the drum, the film get a n inkling of what was going on was dry. At this point, Mr. Kannen attached in Tom's mind. IHe must have seen the light of awakening on my face, one end of the film to a reel on a portable dewinding machine, and a s because he added, more tolerantly. "But that's only one trick. We the drum rotated, the spool gathered don't need to, worry a k t markets, all the film. Thus, I saw made a d u p Charlotte. Our big headache is to licate negative, that when later proget the films. We'll have no trouble jected on the screen proved a flawless( counterfeit of a motion picture starunloading them." I nodded mechanically, absorbed by ring two actors whose names a r e the work of Mr. Kannen and his as- household swoon signals all over sistant. After pinning up the last America. Perhaps I nurtured a foolish hope end of the exposed film on the rack, he picked up the rack cardnllv slid that Tom would swing me 'in somei t into a vast developing tank. He let how in the lab. I honestly got a g ~ e a t the film stay there about ten minutes. rise out of watching that work. But Then he took i t out with a s much care that wasn't in the cards. What he a s he placed i t in, and hastily rinsed told me in the dark room proved prophetic. He had my work--cheap, i t in a second tank. dirty work-cut out for me. "What's in there?" I asked Tom. Se he made me a saleswonlan. I "Only water," he smiled proudly. From the water tank, the rack of had to rent and sell bootleg films, film went into the hypo tank for what some of them on biblical subjects copTom called "fixing," a process in ied i n the still of night i n Tom's which the black-an$-white images secret laboratories, to various scho~ls. were brought out as the ree! soaked I always got a s much a s the t r a s c for about 12 minutes in a sodium could bear, pointing out that we were making the films available at a reah yposulphole bath. sonable rate in consideration of tine "Step closer,'' Tom directed. "If you watch closely; $oull see how i t type of institution. I stuck more than takes off the unexposed silver nitrate one such school with the outright sale of films, generally netting $175 on deposit on the films. When i t come. out of the hypo, the film isn't -mp such a deal. This also turned out to be a surefire outlet for "revivals," posed t o have a single yellow spot." which authorities smiled upon a s ault,One thing I was certain of-the men in the lab sweated a heck nf a able for children. lot more than the promoters who pet?dled bootleg movies. Kannen bent WHEN I felt I was getting in too down and withdrew the rack f r o n the hypo, retraced his steps and rc- deep, and started to squawk, Tom turned i t to the water tank, where showed his real self. He was through he permitted the film to wash f o r half doing any acting now. His features were taut, and there was no smile, a n hour under running water. My guided tour-for that's what i t only meanness on his thin lips. He was continued in the drying room, got up and looked at me a s though he where Mr. Kannen carried the rack would like to spit at me. I fell after the allotted time in the water against the back of my chair and tank. Here, for the first time show- watched him in terror. Believe me, ing signs of amusement at my i n h e s t he didn't act a s though - he was ur, to in his work, Mr. Kannen smiled a s he any good. "I don't want any lip from you," set the rack between twe new updeveloped this way in 240-foot sections until the 10,000-foot feature length was taken care of. "You see," I continued, while Tom. bent over indulgently, "what I don't understand is this. Supposing you do make good copies of these pictures. Why would any moviehouse buy them from you? They can get any film they want from the major companies themselves, can't they? Tom cast me a hopeless glance and sighed in exasperation. "Listen, brainstorm," he said with mock patience. "What would you do in their place? Would you give some m p a n y a f a t percentage of your receipts, o r would you rather pay from $15 to $50 a night for the rental of a picture, and keep the rest for yourself?"

~

he shouted at k e , shaking his fist. "You're in this, in it to stay, and in i t to do a s I say Any time you get balky I can arrange a lot of regrets for you. I can fix u p a nice little rap. I can smear you until your reputation is redder thafj, a flag a t a bull fight, and I can Yes, he went on and on, and he made clear in back of all his verbal threats that he would beat me physically if I tried to crawl out. I was sick of the whole thing, fed UP. Movie houses all over the country were being circularized, and greed for ill-gotten fortune put Tom in a fenzy. He got so desperate on one occasion that he hired a gang of thugs to waylay a delivery truck one night and actually hijack five cans of film. He began to take such long chances, for more and more heavy dough, that of course the racket blew up.

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THE AUTHORITIES m c k e d down on u s one day,, when we were in the developing room of the bootleg lab. I saw some of the men scramming, heard that the Federal agents were after us. And then, more than any other time in the racket I was afraid. Believe it o r not, I wasn't afraid for myself. I knew Tom packed' a gun, and I was really more afraid of that quick gun of his than of anything else. If he shot and killed one of the Feds, I'd be a n accessory on a murder rap. I knocked the gun out of his hand, just as the officials entered. I knew I was in for some kind of sentence, but somehow I didn't care if I could only get out of this sinister racket. awav from those sinister pedple. I got a sfiorter sentence khan I'd anticipated. I think the judge sensed that I was more fool than criminal. The expensive laboratory was confiscated, of course Tom Cartwright was forced to make restitution to the companies h e had fleeced. He and Kannen were tried on a n assortment of charges of conspiracy to violate .Section 28, Title 17, of the United Btates Code, and Title 18, Section 88, of the United States Code, representing infringement of copyright, violation of regulations, etc. They got the maximum sentence provided by the law for their crimes. You'll pardon me, I hope, for glorrting, but i t sort of does my heart g& to see 'Cartwright behind bars. I can just vision him there. Let him find out what hard work is, the rat! I hope the prison is a tough one. Maybe it'll make a man out of him. That'll be some job! I'm still looking for a n honest man to marry. I don't care whether he's handsome o r not. All he has to be is square. That's what I'm going to be-right from now on.

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By MIARIE GRACE Editor's Note: There are many who believe that voodooism has been crushed, that the drums have been silenced and the whole evil ritual forced back into the jungle from which it sprang. Others believe its powers have been so curbed that its weird ceremonies can now be found only along the moss-grown bayous of the Deep South. They are wrong. Here is the story of a girl who never has been more than a hundred miles from the towers of Manhattan, yet exoept for the past few months her life has been spent beneath the black clouds of voodooism. It lurks wherever ignorance and superstition can be found, i q the hills, in the lowlands, and in the centers of our most enlightened cities. It has now reached the point where it can no longer be ignored. Not until its vicious practices and influences have been sought 6ut and crushed in every community can we call our country clean.

v

OODOO!

It's a word that suggests the dark, m y s t e r i o u s jungles of Haiti cannibals whirling in a mad, insane dance in the tropic moonlight .the strange heathen worship of strange, heathen gods. There's nothing civilized about the word. B u t Until recently, in the very shadows of Manhattan, there was a voodoo village-wijch doctor and all-where the followers of the great god Damballa held forth and the witch drums murmured in the night.

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That was near Malaga, in South Jersey. A little band of ignorant whites and black people had gathered there, under the sway of a high priest of witchcraft, Doctor Hyghcock. Hidden away in the pine woods, living in caves and shacks, these people reverted to jungle worship. . And that was where I was born. Incredible as i t sounds, I, a white girl, raised within commuting distance of New York, the most modern city in the world, was brought up in a hotbed of voodoo worship. My earliest recdlections are of the muted beat of voodoo drums sounding through the pine woods a t night, and the harsh chants of a papaloi leading the faithful in some macabre secret ceremony. As a child I played about the catacombs and the voodoo church that

had been built near Malaga. Around the sacred ground reserved for religious ceremonies a wall had been b u i l t a wall fashioned out of barbed wire and rusty bed springs and odds and ends of discarded timber. Within this enclosure were the shanties and tents where some of the voodoo worshippers lived, along with the goats and roosters used in gruesome rites conducted by our leader. Underground were the cabins and catacombs, fixed up like tiny cells, each with a broken dawn c>t or mattress. Here others of the followers lived. Chained to posts throughout the holy enclosures were dozens of half starved, half-wild dogs, that used to howl dismally through the night. This was the atmosphere I s a s brought up in. I never knex my real parents, fon I was raised by a n "aunt." Just how, actual this "aunt" was I don't know, but I have since had reason to doubt any actual relationship. At any rate, tilere were never any of the human ties between us that are supposed to exist in normal families. At one time she told me my parents had died before I was a year old; another time she said they feared the voodoo and ran away, abandoning me. What did happen to them I have no way of knowing. Certainly there was nothing in my early childhood to give me any inkling. I can never remember being taken to a physician when I was sick. Instead, my aunt always took me to "Doctor" Hyghcock, and he would compound some sort of magic cure for whatever ailed me. Rank. evil smell-

ing h e h s , o r mysterious, bitter liquids, or some lucky charms fashined from the bones of a dead animal. And every now and again, a t night, the muffled beat of the voodoo d r u m . whispered through the pine woodsand later in the church the voodm ceremonies would take place. There was a n old munuzloda high' 'priestess of the culb-with a black, wrinkled face and piercing snake-like eyes, whom I feared more than I have ever feared anybody, before or since. The thought of her haunted my childish dreams, turning them into nightmares. Once, when I was about six years old, I hid in a dark corner of the church on a night when the drums had warned me that the voodoo ceremonies were to take place. I watched from my secret hiding place while the worshippers gathered, squatting in a semi-circle on the bare floor. There were both black people and white people presenb-some that I knew and saw every day about our little colony, and others that were strangers to me. There was a n open fire in the center of the room. and just behind i t a sort of altar on which was a large copper bowl. The only light in the place came from the tiny, flickering fire. The rest of the room was lost in dark, murky shadows. All the while the muted drums kept up their beating. Tom-ti-ti-tom tom-ti-ti-tom. The worshippers started t o sway back and forth, their bodies keeping time to the drumbeats And then Dr. Hyghcock started a ' chant, the words of which I couldn't understand, and one by m e the others took up the chant, until soon everyone was singing and swaying to the rhythm of the drums.

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I FOUND MYSELF swaying, toq and crooning under my breath, even though I didn't know the words. Suddenly the mamaloi, the one I feared so much, sprang up and into the center of the firelight, her body twisting and swaying. Without interrupting her dance, she made some sort of gesture over the copper bowl and the two or three dishes set about the base of the altar. Then she turned, and stood upright for a

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GIRLS FOR VOODOO

30

"I WAS A VOODOO GIRL" Marie Grace, author of this story, was an innocent victim of the horrible voodoo cult. She saw both blacks and whites enmeshed in the toils of this weird fanaticism. moment, and a shiver seemed t o run the entire length of her body. Even from wherc I crouched in my hiding place I could see the wide, vacant stare in her eyes, and her drooling lips. Then she went on with her dance. I was too young to understand the ragly suggestiveness of it, but somehow, instinctively, I must have realieed that i t was crude and vicious, and unclean. But I couldn't close my eyes to it, any more than I could close my ,ears to the monotonuous bloodstirring .beat of the voodoo drums. I was hypnotized just as I was hypnotized for the next twelve years of my life! I know that when the mamaloi started her dance she was dresseddressed in the shapeless, dirty white garments she always wore. But suddenly that filthy dress was gone, and the firelight gleamed on her naked black body a s she wound her way between the chanting mem and women ewaying on the floor.

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(Suddenly she stopped, her entire wanted to know more about the lives body a-tremble. From out of the of the sort of people I only saw darkness somebody handed her a whizzing by in motor cars on my ocblack rooster, and she stood there casional walks to the main highway. But i t was to be a long, long time holding the bird in her outstretched before I was to find out anything hands, for a long moment. The mumbled chant of the worship about the normal, workaday world pers gYew louder, the drums went on most people know from childhood. K e with their haunting beat, and all a t went to live in a house on 110th once the mamaloi started to whirl Street, in Harlem. A strange house. about-faster-faster-and faster - Just hcw strange I didn't learn until the frightened squawks of the rooster later. As I say, I was about fifteen a t the sounding above all else. The ma?naloi spun the bird above her head, time. For the last year or so in Mathere was one last agonized squawk, laga I had been watched over careand then she stood holding the dead fully by my "aunt," and kept away from one or two boys my age in the rooster over the copper bowl. I saw the "Doctor" pick up a long colony. In Harlem i t was the same knife. The blade glistened in the thing. I wasn't allowed to go out firelight a s he drew i t across the and play with the other children on the streets. At first I thought that rooster's neck. maybe i t was because I was white, I screamed then, and fainted. That was the first time I saw a real but when I asked my "aunt" she just voodoo ceremony, but I was to see shook her head and mumbled some many more of them in the next ten thing about the new papaloi. I never did know what the new years. I was to do more than watch papaloi's real name was. That was them. all we ever called him. Pupaloi. I was to take part in them! But that came later, after we left Father, the King. He had a dark Malaga and moved to Harlem, in New brown skin the color of tobacco leaves, and eyes that were a s black a s ebony. York. As nearly a s I can remember, that When he looked a t me and spoke to was some time in 1933. I must have me with his soft, croor~ing voice I been about fifteen then, although I am seemed to lose control of all my not certain, for I have never known senses. I was hypnotized, without just when I was born. Sometimes knowing it. Since then I have learned that voomy "aunt" would tell me one date, doo is largely made up of hynotism sometimes another. * * * and sexual excitement. But I didn't AT ANY RATE, there was a police know i t then. I don't know wllat investigation of the voodoo colony good i t would have done me if I had, near Malaga, and we left. Before for that matter. We had been in Harlem about six that there had been frequent raids on the place. Every once in a while months when suddenly I became the State Troopers would come and aware of strange, mysterious happensearch the place, but they were never ings in the house where we lived. The able to-catch us a t any of the voodoo papaloi came often, and sat for hours ceremonies, and I guess there was talking with my "aunt." And always nothing much they could do about I was conscious of his eyes watching me steadily, searchingly. Then he US. But in 1933, there was a more rigid started asking me all sorts of intiinvestigation than ever before, and as mate questions. Some of them 1 una result my "aunt" got frightened destood, and some of them I didn't, and decided to leave. I remember but they made me uncomfortable all that I was all excited about the pros- the same. * * * pect of leaving that gruesome hovel ONE DAY he said to me, "Do you that was the only home I had ever known. I was curious about what believe in Damballa, the Almighty?" Mutely, I nodded my head. All my the outer world would be like. I

Whif e disciples of voodooism took a strange, perverted delight in seeing a white girl lead the weird dancing. For that reason m i e was forced to remain in the cult.

GIRLS FOR VOODOO life I had heard about Damballa, whose soul dwelt within the Green Snake. And I had heard about EzilBe, Damballa's mistress, who sits a t his right hand. They are the two allpowerful gods of voodooism. Only they can protect you from the demons. So, with the papaloi's eyes holding mine in an hypnotic stare, I nodded my head in answer to his questions. "Would you like to become a manzalei?" he went on. "Would you like to become one of the favored who a r e one with Damballa?" I kept on nodding my head. I think if he had asked me if I wanted t o die, then and there, I would have nodded. Somehow i t seemed impossible to do anything else, under the spell of his eyes. Well, all that, he told me, mould oome later. First I must prepare myself to enter the "inner circle." That ceremony took place the following week, in one of the cecret voodoo meeting places. I Gas taken there by my "aunt," and left alone in the holy room with the papabi. First of all my clothes were removed, and I was made to bathe myself from head to foot with oddsmelling oils. The floor a t the base of the altar had been strewn with a thin covering of palm leaves, and on this bed I had to stretch out, flat on my stomach. The papaloi stood over me, and sprinkled oil and wine and ashes about me, all the while chex&ng a prayer to Damballa. Some of the words I could understand, and some I couldn't. "Damballa, thou a r t king of the sky Damballa, I bring thee a ." maiden And then, for three days and three nights, for seventy-two long, painful hours, I had to stay thore in that position! Naked a n d shivering, stretched out flat on my stomach, I had to remain until I was properly "cleansed" for the great god Damballa. The long hours passed in a daze. Sometimes I seemed to lose consciousness, and other times I would be aware of the papaloi chanting somewhere near me. And sometimes I had queer visions, in which I saw green snakes and heard strange voices. I was weak and faint from hunger and thirst long before the three days were over. What happened t o me after that has always, seemed like a weird nightmare. A nightmare I t r y not to remember! I know that there was another ceremoney, with a voodoo dance, and the rich red blood of sacrificed animals. Warm blood that I tasted for the first time. . . And all this, mind you, was not in some African jungle. Rut in NW York! I n the most modern, up-tothe-minute city in the world-!

For that matter, I know today of a drug store on 72nd Street where voodoo powders and charms a r e sold openly. And in Harlem itself are dozens of places where nbthing but magic potions a r e sold. One place specializes in "Quangas," a sort of love-fetish. Naturally, the man who makes them is a papaloi. He takes two sewing needles, and places them side by side, the point of one needle beside the eye of the other. Then he winds the two about with strands of wool, and wraps medicine leaves around them. Then the charm is sewn in a leather pouch and worn around the neck. If i t is a girl who wants the charm, she goes to a mawtaloi instead of a papaloi, but the charm i s the same. I used to make those, and other

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charms, before I broke free from the voodoo spell that held me. I t was a long time before I understood fully why I-a white girl-was taken so deeply into the voodoo cult. I don't think the old papaloi ever really trusted me. I know that many of the mysteries that were known to the others were kept secret from me. But I guess I served my purpose. And that purpose was to bring more white converts into the cult. Not just any white person, you understand, but wealthy ones: Neurotic wives with too much time on !heir hands. Sensation-seekers. Sadists. Rich men and women whose appetite for normal things was long since dulled. And white girls who can be trained for voodoo work are in ereat demand, becabse they appeal to these people. Naturally, I didn't realize any of this a t first. If I thought at all about

it, I probably thought they were all sincere worshippers. The voodoo ceremonies t h e s e wealthy white p e o p l e attended weren't quite the same a s the ones I had been brought up knowing. In Malaga t h music and dancing and everything only served to lead up to the blood sacrifice. That was the allimportant thing. The sacrifice. But with this new group in Harlem, the group that catered to white converts, i t was somehow different. The papaloi used hynotism and voodoo magic, just a s he always had, but the dances became more important than ever. The papaloi's one idea seemed t o be to drive the new converts mad. Mad with desire! That was where I came in. For always, a t these ceremonies for the whites, I did the dance of the manzaloi. For weeks I was carefully and painstakingly trained, until my body was a s lithe and subtle in its movements a s that of a cobra. I t was the papaloi himself who taught me how t o lose myself in the spell of the voodoo drums, until the beating of my blood and the beat of the rt~usicbecame one. . Let me describe one 04 these voodoo ceremonies for the whites. Usually they took place in some secret hide-away in Harmlem, but several times we met a t the home of a wealthy, socially prominent woman who had a large estate on Long IsIand. Always there were the drums. The drums that first summoned your body and then your senses. While the drums called the worshippers together there was liquor to drink. A strange mixture of fiery rum and .sweet cocoanut milk and another mysterious ingredient that I have since been told was probably some form of hasheesh. In the center of the wall a t one end of the room the papaloi set up his altar, with its copper bowl waiting for the sacrificial blood. Group.ed about the base of the altar were shallow bowls containing cornmeal and oil and wine.

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FROM besnning t o end there was the beat of the voodoo drums. Tomtom-ti-ti-tom. Monotti-ti-tom onous, insistant, over and over again. tom-ti-ti-tom. Tom-ti-ti-tom The worshippers squatted on the floor in a semi-circle, sipping their drugged rum, swaying a s their bodies took u p the tempo of the drums. The papaloi traced a cabalistic design with cornmeal on the floor in front of the altar, three circles representing the earth and the sky and the sea. Forked marks connected the circles, some pointing towards the worshippers, others radiating towards the altar. These were the symbols of the invisible paths through which

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32

GIRLS FOR VOODOO

CALL OF THE JUNGLE Out of the black depths of Africa came the voodoo rites which today dominate the lives of thousands in this country. Above is a modern cuIt in South Africa

the gods and the mysteries would move. In the earth circle the p a p l o i sprinkled oil and meal and wine, while we who were the true worshippers chanted a prayer to Wangol, master of the Earth. Rum and ashes were then scattered in the sky circle, and we prayed to Damballa, the All Mighty, master of the Sky. Then last of all, he poured water in the sea circle ,while we sent u p a chant to Papa Agoue, master of the Sea. AI1 the while the tom-ti-ti-tom-ti-ti-tom of the drums kept up, beating, beating, !beating against your wnses. And the chanting continued; one prayer following bhe other in a monotonous cadence. The worshippers swayed back and forth like hypnotized snakes. Then it was that I began my dance, a t a signal from the papaloi. Moving out of the dark shadows where I had hidden myself, I glided into the circle of firelight. A t the beginning of the dance I wore a single sleeveless garment of white, something like a nightdress, and a crimson sash about my waist. Already the beat of the drums was in my blood, and my body trembled and quivered in a n ecstasy of anticipation. The first movements of my dance were slow, langorous, provocative. Then the chant of the worshippers ohanged to an ancient song of love. A song t h a t became a very part of md

I remained in one spot, my f w t not moving, while from the hip upward my body writhed like an angry snake. Slowly a t first, and then faster and faster, working up .to a climax of ecstasy. The beat of the drums, the ehaht of the worshippers, urged me on. I no longer seemed to have any control over my body. Instead i t became a n artful slave, obeying the insistent demands of some strange mysterious master. Every individual muscle seemed t o tremble and quiver in supplication. My fingers fumbled a t m y scarlet sash. My dress slipped from my cascaded shoulders to my waist in an abandoned heap on the floor. The firelight flickered over my body, but I had no thought of my nudeness. I had no thought of anything but of my body obeying the ancient call of love and desire and priimitive passion. The insistent beating of the voodoo drums drove me on and on, until my senses seemed to scream like some thin, unutterably high note on a violin. And what that ecstatic, sense-maddening height of the dance had been reached, one of the black d r l s would thrust a white rooster into my hands. It was the signal for the end, a signal for the papuloi to take his long thin knife, that glistened in the firelight, and sever the head of the bird with a single blow. A shuddering cry went u p from the worshippers. A sigh that rose and fell like a

...

moaning sob of desire. But .my work had been done., I had no place in the revels that followed. And I had no strength for anything but to steal out of the room and drop exhausted on my couoh;

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IT WAS sheer hypnotism, I know True enough, i t was the now. d m a that kept me dancing, but i t wasn't the drums that taught me to dance the way I did. For, God knows, I didn't know anythina a t that time of love or desire of primitive passions. I knew of voodoo charms and black magic and the strange powere of mysterious gods, but that was all. For years I had thought the sensuous orgies I had seen from childfhood were only a part of the I mean, I had voodoo wremony. never connected them up in my mind with love, or desire, o r any natural thing. Well, for that matter, they are a part of the voodoo ceremony. And a s f a r .as the white folks go the most important part, I guess. Strange, how even now I speak about "white folks," although I am white myself. Perhaps i t is because I have always known, deep down within me, that white people had no place in the voodoo ceremonies. Perhaps i t is because, subconsciou$ly, I felt that I had forfeited my right to my race by being what I was. T h a t sounds a s though I had s t o p ped to think about it, but I didn't, for a long time. Not until after my "aunt" died. In the meantime, for

GIRLS FOR VOOM)O SLOWLY I made up my mind' to over three years, I took a n active escape. Maybe i t sounds as though part in the voodoo ceremonies. it should have been easy-$hat eecape. Then I discovered that I wasn't the only white girl in Harlem doing a s though all I had to do was to walk out of the door and into the crowdthe same thing. I was never allowed to meet any , of these white girls, and all of my questions concerning them were answered evasively. Once, though, when I threatened to make a spell against one of the negro attendants, he told me that the white girls were hired a s dancers just to entertain the white folks who came to the voodoo ceremonies. Then he said that these white girls soon joined the voodoo cults because they were under the spell of the witch-doctor. I knew what the spdl was-half hmnotism and half drug habit forced upon these unsuspecting girls by the papaloi. Oh, he was clever, fiendishly so. And many a girl who came for the "thrill" found herself caught in the mesh before she knew what was happening to her. It's still going on. I once heard somebody say that over a quarter of the people in Harlem are voodoo worshippers. I don't know how true that is, but i t isn't hard to believe. m a t is hard to understand, though, is the number of white people who bribe and beg There were plenty of people of my and plead to attend those ceremonies. race that came to the voodoo ceremonAt first some of them do i t for a &S, but the sort' of white people who thrill, I guess. And afterwards they voluntarily throw themselves back come back, again and again, because into primitive beasts a r e not the they have found something to whip sort you ask for help. up their jaded appetite. Or maybe I didn't know anything about thev just want to forget themselves. work or how to go about getting it. I If i t is the latter, then they are only knew about one thing. Voodoo. successful, most of them. For after And i t was voodoo that gave me a n hour or so of the drums and the a way out. With my "aunt" dead, dances and the drugged rum, most of I had to have some way of making a them go back ten thousand years few pennies, and the papaloi told me into the jungles. I have seen women I could make love "ouangas" for those whose names and pictures were on who wanted them. I was supposed. the society pages every other Sun- to turn whatever money I got over day, rip their clothes from their M- to him, in return for the few clothes ies in a mad frenzy. an,d food he gave me. From what I was able to discover, But instead I kept p a r t of the the scheme for recruiting white girls money, until I had nearly fifty doli s simplicity itself. The girls are lars saved. I thought that was a hired to dance, or even just invited to fortune, and more than enough for be present a t some voodoo ceremony. my needs. That was a mistake I White men frequently make the ar- didn't discover until too late. rangements, so that often the girl Late one night I tied my few bedoes not even know what she is get- longings up in a bundle and slipped ting into. The papapaloi then induces out of the house I had lived in for the victim to drink a "magic portion," the past six months in Harlem I mostly hasheesh, after which even had never ridden on a n elevated o r a bhe strongest-willed a m easy sub- subway in my life, and I didn't know jects for this hypnotism. Tcw, or anything about buses, so I walked, three ceremonies such a s this and for what seemed miles. Two minutes the girl no longer has a will of her after I left the house I was Iost but own. She becomes a slave, just as that didn't matter. I was. I was away. J u s t b e f m I broke loose from the I had read about Broadway, and voodoo spell I saw an actress who knew vaguely that there were cheap ' 3 famous both here and abroad slithhotels in the neighbourhood of Times r out of her evening dress and do Square. Only I was afraid to ask , dance that made even me pause a policeman where Times Square was. ina all^ "lsked a newsboy, and nd turn away. And after the dancing there were he told me. other things. Things I can't d d b e It took a long time for me to gather here. u p enough courage t o go into a small

hotel and ask for a room. The clerk looked a t me in a funny way, a s though he couldn't make up his mind whether to let me in or not, but finally gave me a room after making me pay in advance. I realized then for the first time how funny the shapeless house dress I wore must look. It was when I started to buy clothes the next day that I discovered how pitifully little the money I had amounted to. And after that came the long weary days of looking for work. And all the time I was frightened, fearing that a t any minute the papaloi would appear a t my side and take me back with h i m Well, 1 was lucky. After a week I found a job a s a waitress in a cheap restaurant. I lost it three .days later because I was clttmsy and nervous, but even so I learned SOthing. My second job I kept for a week k f o r e I was fired. After that i t was easy. I have been told I could get work as a dancer in a night club or on the stage, but I wouldn't like that. I am afraid. Not of the men, but of the music.

Honey 3 the They hiet-They Married-He Went to the Galllows A11 in a Few Swift Weeks By MRS. JOHN SUNNY TWAVPS

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M

Y HONEYMOON the sweetest period in the average girl's life-became a tragedy of horror, death and ,murder. Mp honeymoon was spent with a husband who moved with the steps of destiny closer and closer to the gallows! As I write this the gibbet still seems to cast its dark shadow over me, for the husband that I loved my Johnnie was "hanged by the neck until he was dead" on March 21. Only a very short .time ago I was a bride. And now-a widow.

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I married the man I loved at the doorstep of death. I became part of him a s a n innocent minister lay dying i n the loneliness of an abandoned coal mine, a helpless victim sent to his death by three criminals--my husband among them, they say. I am still in my teens-nineteen years of age, to be exact-yet in the space of a few weeks I have spent a lifetime of misery, heartbreak and shame. I am, in brief, the wife--no the widow-of John Travis, kidnapper and killer of the Rewrend James I. Seder, who was one of the most beloved citizens of Huntington, West Virginia. I t was a terrible crime when that aged man was kidnapped and mistreated so that he died a s a result. But three men paid with their lives for that crimemy husband among them. Johnny's earthly troubles are over. But 1-1 must go on, must suffer all my life. I can never escape from those terrible thoughts

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Unaware that her bridal happiness was short-lived, Sunnv Travis, danced gayly with Johnny Travis a t this little roadside tavern while a n aged minister lay near t o death

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MY HONEYMOON IN THE GALLOWS To many persons all over the United States I am not Sunny Travis, who loved her husband beyond all reason, who still believes in him and loves his memory for the things I know Be did in an effort to free Doctor Seder. I am, instead, the blond wanton of Huntingdon, who broke the hearts of her respectable parents to marry a murderer and a kidnaper. I am the headstrong girl who spent a honeymoon with a kidnaper, while his victim lay dying in pain and agony. I caroused and danced while my kidnaper-husband jeered a t the fate of an old and beloved man. I too, in the public mind, have been convicted of this terrible crime. I knew of the kidnaping, they say, but did nothing about it. You who read this will decide the guilt of Sunny Travis - who was never tried but was convicted just the same. Here, too, in these pages you will read for the first time what actually took place between my husband and Doctor Seder in that abandoned coal mine, what actually happened in those tragic days between November 1 and November 12, 1937, when the entire nation wondered about the fate of Huntington's beloved first citizen. I was born in Accoville, a small town in West Virginia's famed Logan County, known everywhere for its extensive and rich deposits of coal. There is little I can recall until I was around nine years old. I do remember, however, that I had had very little trouble getting what I wanted. In other words, I was a spoiled child. One day, a s I was approaching, my tenth birthday, I suddenly decided that I didn't like Accoville. The thought had come to me after listenina for davs to the boasting of another kid that her family was moving to a big city, where i t would take weeks to see all the movies. Sunny wasn't going to ?Xleft out in the cold. One n i ~ h tI asked Daddv why he didn't move out of Accoville. "Snnnv, I can't verv well. My business is here," Daddy told me. "I don't care. This place is so dirtv and frill of dust." I t may seem incredible, but i t is true that five month.: later father had moved to Huntin~ton, West Virdnia., A spoiled &ild had had her wav. I t was l i k ~a transfer to Paradise. The brivht lights, the rushinq street cars, the straw seats that I slid on with great ylce, the movies, the stores. pnd loads and loads of welldressed ltids that I could play with. I was enchanted. The days slinped by ,fast, for ?hey were days of hapniness. of ~ucitement. It seemed no time a t all until I was fourteen. I was f a r from a \ model child o r a morlel pupil. And a t fourteen I 'began having

dates with older boys. I had outgrown the early teens gawkiness My parents began to reprove me for going out nights. But I went outand soon got fed up even with Huntington. There were other places of glamor and excitement. There was the North. People, places, things like I had never seen before. There magnifiwnt! I was New York-the wanted to go, badly. I would.

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I CORNERED Dad one evening. "Daddy, I want to go to school away from Huntington. I'm tired of this place. I want to go to school up North. There are a lot of good ones in New York." Daddy tried to wave me off. "Don't $be$foolish, Sunny. I can't afford to send you off to school.""They're not all so expensive," I insisbed, disregarding the fact thab Daddy might need that money for better purposes than t o satisfy a whim. "There's no use talking. I can't do it, Sunny," Daddy said. And because i t began to appear that here was something Sunny couldn't have, I became all the m o x determined to get it. Two weeks later I was packing in high excitement. Daddy had given in. I was to go to school in New Jersey afid live with some relatives of my mother. I knew the place wasn't f a r from New York. And I knew t h a t school there would only be a necessary evil - from which there were a lot of ways to get out from under. I was right. I was a t school only a month before I went to my first night club in New York. How I loved it! Within a few weeks I was trying t o see a s many night clubs and visit a s many of the glamorous places a s possible. I began meeting men by the dozen-men of all sorts. Men who were very different from the niountain people of my own State. Men who were glamorous and attractive. Mzn who appeared to have stepped straight from a movie screen. Strangely enough, I had had none of the "crushes' that are part of the sweet m e ~ o r i e sof a young girl. I began wondering what was wrong with me. And then i t happened - one Autumn ni+t a t a party a t Westche~ter. He was tall. extremely handsome, and with the graying temnles t h a t appear so terribly romantic to a young girl. All durinq the party I noticed that he kept staring a t me. Finally, when the nartv was about to break up, he danced wieh me. He was a wonderful dsncer. Then we walked out on a balcony. "Your name is Sunny, isn't it?" he began.

"Yes," I said, "but I can't m m ber your name." I saw him hesitate a moment.

McCaffery-Ed McCaffery. You'd better forget the last part because I from now on I'm just Ed-and intend to see you a lot," he said, with quiet assurance. TVe stood still, side by side, and stared a t the soft glow that hung in the heavens, high over Manhattan. Suddenly he placed his arms around me and kissed me. I began seeing a great deal of Ed. He became terribly attractive to me. Just what position he held, the work he did, I did not know. Aas a matter of fact, he appeared to have a great deal ef leisure time, but alwavs had plenty of money and dressed like a model in a clothes advertise ment. After s e ~ e r a lweeks of 6ourtShig Ed asked to marry me. I told him I would write to Mother. I did, that Tery night, but back came a stronn letter of disawwroval from Mother. " Yen a r e f a r too J O ~ R to marry a man of 38, Sunny, a man whom you admit you know nothing about and who does not wish to ten you anythina about his past life o r his work," Mother wrote. As usual, s'he was right, but I wo.nldn't admit it. I decided to marry Ed. Sunny could do as she pleased. & .

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THE night ef our enpagement Ed took me to a gorgeous house. It was one of the most beautifully furnished houses I had even been in. Ed turned en the radio and brought me a drink. We s a t d o m on a sofa in the spacious living-room. Ed kissed me. Suddenly I heard the front door open and a woman's heels clinkinp in the hallway. Then a stylishly gowned woman stood hefore as. her l i r s smiling somewhat disdainfullv. She was beautiful. with raven-black hair and deepset blue eyes. I turned a questinninq dance to Ed. He sat stone-still. I saw the muscles in his jaw pulsate. "Sorry to interrupt, Ea." srnilcrl the wompn in a cool fashion. "It was ~ m f u l l vthoughtlew of me not .to b l l you I was coming home so soon." Mv heart dronped a t t'he imnlicatin? of her words. "nTho are you?" I finally m a n a d to ask. "T hanpen to be Mrs. McCaffery, child," €he woman said, a 'bit more gently. Hot tears beaan scaldins down m y cheeks. I ran to the door-out into run and hide. the Mack void-to I ran like a n insane person for hlwk after block, onlv v a ~ u e l vconscious ~f people who stared a t me. FinalIv, comaletelv worn and exhausted, my heart like a stone weight. I stumbled i n b We house. F o r weeks aftexwar& I stayed

MY HONEYMOON IN THE GALLOWS away from all parties and dances. They seemed empty, holow. Then Time, the great healer, pronounced me cured. I started back into the gay swing of partiw and night dubs. One night 4 met a charming girl by the name of Mary-Lou Brown. Through her I met Jimmy--Jimmy Davis, 22, with the build and good looks of a Greek god, and who seemed to like the good times I did. We began dating a great deal, and the inevitable hau~ened. I fell madly in love with J i m m y d r so I thought. There were wonderful days together. Jimmy became more and more attractive to me. I thought here a t last was the man I loved. And then i t happened--as if Life was saying: "Sunny, you've had enough of happiness, it's time for a Jimmy was growfew heart-a&='' ing tired of me. I could see it in his eyes. I knew what was coming. I could hear those terrible words "We're through, Sunny !"

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I DECIDED nat to wait and hem those words. I packed a s quickly as I could, declining to explain to my

worried relatives, and started for I had friends there who Detroit. I knew would welcome me. My one burning desire was to get away and forget Jimmy. I thought $hat there was only one way-the way that many a girl has tried with disastrous results. Once in Detroit I entered into a ceaseless whirl of men, dates, dances and parties. Three months later I became dreadfully ill. I was taken to a Detrmt hospital, where I lapsed into a eemcoma. When I recovered eonscioumess, I saw mother sitting 'beside the bed, weeping silently. A terrible, heart~ h a t t e r i n g fear came over me. 1 didn't want to die! Life, even with its heart-aches. was sweet and dear! "Mother, am I going to die?" I asked. , Mother tried ;torepeak She couldn't. A doctor came and led her away. Through a window I saw a tree. bare of -leaves, swaying k f o r e the wind, I felt icy cold. My heart beat slowly, heavily-I wanted to scream o u t 1 wanted to shout out that I wasn't ready to die. I couldn't. My thraat, my face, my whole body was numb. There must be someone to k e q me from dying. The despxate thought whirled through my mind. The= was. The one Being I had least thought of during the gay days that had flowed down the spillway of my life. C

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I KNEW little of prayer. But I prayed witih all my heart and mul. All night, as the tears coursed dawn my cheeks, I prayed. Then I became unconscious. My last fleeting

The hot spots seemed cold to Sunny Travis when death loomed for the man she loved, and she sought the wmpanionship of her parents, shown with her here. .thought aa the breath s e d to leave my body was: "Sunny, ybu didn't deserve to live !" Then, one morning, I awoke. Sunlight was streaming into bhe room. I saw Mother sitting beside me, smiling through her tears. The doctor was grinning down a t me. 'Hdlo, Sunny!'' he greeted me, smilingly. "You ran a great race. You'll .be going home soon." How sweet those words sounded. Home! No longer distasteful or abhorrent. I wanted to go home, this' time with an almost passionate long-

ing. I was glad to get back to Huntington, to feel once again the cheerful friendliness of a Southern city. I never dreamed that within a few short weeks I would be scorned and reviled by the same friends whe greeted me so cordially. momentous The first of July-a date for m e w a s hot and sultry, and the night brought little relief. Mother asked me to accompany her to church. I n past days I would have been quick to plead some excuse. But the past was m. If worship d Him was one

Y HONEYMOON IN TH& GALL0

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way of expreesing my gratitude, then I would gladly spend everv night a t church. During the sermon my glance strayed about. Suddenly a n electric thrill went through me! Sitting a few seats back was the most handsome bov I had even seen. A t least he seemed so to me. He had blond, wavy hair, blue eyes and finely chiseled features. When services were over I watched him leave, my heart beating fast, like the time when Ed McCaffery stood with me on a Westchester balcony. I saw that he walked with a slight limp --and my heart did a double flip when I noticed that he looked back several times. The following Sunday I saw him again, sitting in the same seat. I looked back boldlv once or twice. I could hardly breathe when he smiled openly. TVe met on the steps of the church following services. Mother was engaged in conversation with some of her friends. I stood alone. But not for long. Someone spoke softly behind me. I turned. . Listen, don't think me rude, but I've tried to find someone to introduce us, and I can't. So I'm going to introduce myself. I'm Johnnie Travis." He smiled, half-f earfully, half-wnbarrassed. I wondered if he could hear my heart beating so loudly. "My name is Verla Belcher," I finally managed t o my, "but only Mother knows that, I g u e s S. Everyone calls me 'Sunny :' " From then on we began talking with a bit more ease. I invited him on a weinie roast, w'hich was supposed to take place the following night. He accepted. The next night was a bit of heaven that I had never found in the night dubs of New York . m e swaying pines, the crackling fire beside the rippling stream, the mountains in the distance leaning against the starlit sky. It was like a dream. And when we were driving home I pitied the world and all those who oould not taste of the mpreme happiness that I f e l t J o h n n i e , just before leaving. the vrounds, had told me that he loved me! FROM then on we saw &h other day and night. Two months later Johnnie asked to marry me. "1 love you, Johnnie--any time, any place," I told him. "I'd like to, tomorrow, Sunny-but I haven't a job. I guess we've got t o wait," he said slowly. The days passed quickly. I was with Johnnie almost everv moment WE could get to~ekher. Then came the day of November 1, 1937-a day I &all never forget, a day when, mknown to me, the fuse was lit h i c k w a s to shatter our world.

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On &at day Dot Lockheart, Johnnies sister, and I had decided to go into town. I wanted Johnnie to go with us, so we strolled over to his house. I was surprised a t his somewhat short refusal. While we were talking the telephone rang. Johnnie picked up the receiver. I heard a muffled voice on the other end. Then Johnnie said, in a low tone: "Call me back a little later, Orville, I can't talk to you now." Johnnie hung up the receiver. A dread suspicion swept over me. "Johnnie, was fhat Orville Adkins?' I asked. Johnnie looked a t me curiously, then nodded his head. "Yes, i t was." "What a m you doing being friendly with him, Johnnie? He's been to prison-he's an ex-convict!" Johnnie's face seemed to tighten. "Say, we're not married yet. Start dictating my friends when that happens, not &fore!" he reVurned angrily. The tears sprang to my eyes. This wasn't the Johnnie that I knew. I turned to Dot, suggested we'd better leave. Throughout the afternoon I wondened just why Orville Adkins had called Johnnie-and Why Johnnie had wanted him to call back. When I returned home I telephoned Johnnie, but he wasn't a t home. And that night, for the first time, he fail. ed to put in an appearance a t the usual time. As the minutes dragged on I began to envision all manner af things-another girl, a gambling party, an accident. Not for a second did I dream of the horrible, shocking task which a t that very moment the boy I loved was thoughtlessly undertaking. All the next day I helped Mother with her work, trying to get Jo%nnie off of my mind. I was worried-and hurt. Around six oclock in the evening I heard footsteps and loud laughter oh the porch. I went to the door. I t Orville Adkins. It was Johnnie-and was easy to see they had both been drintlcing. "Hello, honey," mid Johnnie, "I just dropped by to tell you we're going out tonight to c e l e b r a t e a n d we're going to get marriled and gm on a big honeymoon !" The grin died away from Owille Adkins' unshaven face. He took Johnnie by the a m "Come on, kid, you've told her, now let's go," he said curtly. kenly as he Johnnie waved d w a l M away. ' ' G o T b y ,hon, see you tonight." I went back into the house, my mind whirling. I was angry and hurt. It was the firat time I had seen Juhnnie drunk. What was he going to celebrate? And what was taking plate? Why was Orville Ad-

kins so intimate with J o h n i e ? A t first I decided not to go with Johnnie if he called. Then I decided that if i t was humanly possible I would be the buffer between Johnnie and Orville Adkins. Somehow I suspected that Adkins would be along with Johnnie. J6hnnie was still intoxicated when he called for me. I got in the car and Orville was behind the wheel, grumbling that his girl friend was out somewhere "two-timing" him. We went to the "pozy Rest," a hurdy-gurdy night club in Huntington. Try a s I might I couldn't persuade Johnnie to stop drinking. He kept mumbling that the occasion called for a great deal of celebration. Weren't we going to get married? " ~ u tyou haven't a job yet, Johnnile, I protested. "Nevermind. I'm goin' to have plenty money. J u s t you wait and W!" That night, urged by Mrs. Travis, I stayed a t the Travis home. The next day, when Johnnie got up and came out into the living-room, I saw that he was restless and j i b tery. I attributed it to the effects of the heavy drinking. He apologized t o me for his actions the previous night. "1'11 forgive you if you promise not to go with Orville Adkins any more," I told him. "Oh, honey, he's all right. Just because he was in prison-remember, I was in some trouble, too, once upon a time," he protested. "Yes. but that was entirelv different.;' "Oh, don't be grumpy, darlina. Remember we're getting married! In f a d , we're: going to get the marriage license r i h t now!" I thrilled a t $is words. "Let's ge downtown now, I said happil?. The smile vanished from his face. He hesitated a moment, then said: "Hon, I don't feel so hot. Suppose you go downtown and get it. Here's the money."

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I WAS disappointeci, and yet I was glad to go. I would have gone to the farthermost p a r t of the earth for him, iif necessary. That evening I went home with Johnnie and told mother of our plans t o get married. She didn't say a word, merely turned and walked inte another room, closing the door. I knew what was wrong.. Mother didn't want me to get married, believing I was entirely too young. Johnnie remained with me untii around three o'clock in the morning. I pressed him a s to just where he was going to get the large sum d monev for our honeymoon. "Oh, its a business deal, honey. You trust m, don't you? he asked. "Of course I trust you, darlinl whirpmd back, blinded by my 412

MY HONfiYMOON IN THE GALLOWS

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Later i n the evening b e went to visit my parents. Mother seemed to relent a bit, but she remained chill and somewhat aloof. That night, back a t Johnnie's home, h e told me that we would have to - - 4 p o n ~ our honeymoon. 'l Why, Johnnie?" I asked, puzzled. 61' It'll just be temporary," he said. "Th at business deal is still on, Sunny, and I can't say yet when 1'11 get the money." "Johnnie, what business deal is it? You sound so ~mvsteriousabout everything." Johnnie m k e d me with a kiss. "Listen, ho;; everything is going to be all right. I've got a prospect of a job in Burnwell. We'll go over there tomorrow." He gave me a kiss, and everything else was swept from my mind . . .

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I thrilled a t his words, "Let's go downtoum" nem. On ThurSday morning all Huntington seemed agog over the news of the Reverend Doctor James I. Seder's strange disappearance from his home. The world now knows the initial events of that terrible happeningof how ihe lights burned all day in Doctor Seder's home; attracting the attentio~l of his neighbors, of how police arrived to find his apartment deserted, the bedclothes strangely missing, as were his three white canes, and how a State-wide search was being undertaken. As for me, I merely glanced a t trhe headlines. Th~erewas t r a s d y in the outside world; but tomorrow meant the sumeme dav of happiness for Sunny. The next evenina. a t six o'clock, a s B f l a m i n ~sun sank softly over the West Viginia hills, Johnnie and I were married. When he took me in his arms and kissed me, I believed that hereafter nothing could destroy the happiness that was mine. I believed that!

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SATURDAY and Snnday were b s u t i f u l days, crisp and flooded with sunshine. Bill Lucas, Johnnie's cousin in Burnwell, had welcomed us warmly; and even though nothing elabora t e marked his welcoming o r the first days of my honeymoon, I was immensely happy just being with Johnnie and meeting his friends. On Monday Johnnie went out and returned with a disappointed expres,sion. I asked Bim what was wrong. He told me the job had failed to pan out. "Don't worry, darling, we'll look around. There may be another here samewhere, " I consoled him. The next morning Johnnie went out and came back in 20 minutes' time with several newspapers. Wikhout saying a word he sat down and began reading intently. "Did you have any luck, darling?" I ventured. "I'm lookinc in the "Help Wanted" columns now," he retu&ed rather shortly. without looking up. A few minutes later he tossed one of the papers on the floor. I picked i t up. Suddenly I noted that the .paper had never k e n opened up. Johnnie had been reading the front pare-where there were a lot of pictures of G-men walking to the courthouse, to Doctor Seder's home, and of Lieutenant Swann talking with Reed Vetterli, the well-known Federal agent from New York. The newspaper reported that the G-men were swarminq into Huntington because certain evidence had been discovered leading t>h~emto believe Doctor Seder had bepn kidnaped! "Darlinr, the newspaper here says Doctor Soder was kidnapned," 1 remarked by way of conversation. Johnnie brushed a hand throuzh his hair. "Oh, that's a lot o f stuff! I don't think he was-probably wandered off somewhere, like some of the newspapers a n d Lieutenant Swann said before. . . . Anway, I've decided to go back to Huntington !"

On the way back, Jolhnnie barely spoke to me. He seemed etxremely mo y, worried. "1 hat's wrong, Johnnie?" I asked. "Nothing," he said shortly. When we arrived in Huntington Johnnie learned that his sister, Dot, was alone with her sick child, so we decidled to go over and stay with her. From then on, events passed with stunning rapidity. T h a t night, around eight o'clock, a s we talked with Dot, we heard newsboys shouting: "EXTRA! EXTRA!" Something important must htve happened, I thought, for the Huntington papers seldom issued an Extra." Johnnie arose, went to the door and whistled for a b y . A few seconds later he returned, bent over the paper. There was an odd expression in his face. "Why what's happened, Johnnie?" I asked. "The Seder relatives got a ransom note from the kidnaper!" he replied tonelessly. "That poor man!" Dot said. ' 3 e n he was kidnaped after all! -I wonder who would be as mean as that!" Johnnie picked up his hat. "I'm going out for a beer. Any of you want anvthing?" We shook our heads. "Johnnie's been acting so strallgely," I remarked to Dot when he had left. "Maybe you know your brother better than I do. What is wrong Dot? H a s he discovemd he's not in love with me?" Fearfully I awaited her answer. Dot laughed. "Don't be foolish, honey. I guess he's worried about not having a jab, and being married and not being able to have a real honeymoon." The next morning Johnnie seemed to be in better spirits. At Dot's supgestion we decided to walk over and insnect a cute little house near by, which was vacant.

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I T WAS a darling house, and I envisionled the days of happiness we were to spend there together. About an hour later we returned to Dot's house to find Mother Travis standing in the living-room, her face sickeningly white. She seemed to have aged ten years. Tears were streaming down her face, and her eyes were pools of misery. From the near-bv bedroom I heard Dot sobhing. Daggers seemed to stab through my 'heart. "What on earth has happ e n ~ ? , Mother?" I manaped to ask. "The police--the G-Men-this Vetthe detectives came terli felfow-and to the house last n i ~ h tand told me to tell Johnnie to ~ i v ehirnqelf up!" she said in a choking voice. I felt a s if I had suddenly turned to stone! For a minute my lips refuqed to move. "Why-What hasJohnnie done?" Wordlessly Mother 'Travis sank

'

MY HONEYMOON IN THE GALLOWS t o get some money from his landlord, Doctor Seder, by taking him away and holding him for ransom. We talked and drank a lot. but I remember that Booth didn't drink so DOCTOR SEDER FOUND NEAR much. DEATH IN ABANDONED MINE "That night; Booth said h e was ARNETT BOOTH CONFESSES going to l h r r o w his fathers car, that KIDNAPING he had all the plans laid, and all we NAMES JOHN TRAVIS AND O R had to do was to help. Booth came .... VILLE ADKINS AS A C back with the car, drove us down COMPLICES t o Eighteenth Street and Tenth AveThe room reeled around me. There nue, and told us to wait for him. I was no feeling in my face, my kept telling Orville we'd better get on hands. My heart seemed to give a home, but neither of us had any cargreat beat, then stop completely. . fare, so we decided to wait for Booth. The tears suddenly flooding my face. In a little while he d r o w up in the roadster. Some one was sitting np "It's not true!" I screamed. "It's not true! I was with Johnnie all in the roadster. He called out: "Let the time. How could he have done Travis ride the rumble. H$ drunk and making too much noise. i t ?" I got in hte rumble, qnd Orville Mother Travis raised her head, looked a t Johnnie with swollen eyes. got up front. Then we drove off. I heard them talking up front, then a Jo'hnnie stool still, silent. "Johnnie, is this true? Did you sudden commotion. The car stooped, help this Booth kidnap Doctor and I heard Booth say: "One of Seder?" Mother asked, the tears still you birds put your coat over his head. quick!' " rolling down her cheeks. "I jumped out of the car. It was I saw Johnnie's lips tremble; then parked on the highway leading to he hung his head. "Mother, it's true," he said husk- Wayne. I saw this old man with ily. "I didn't know what I was do- white hair and glasses. It was Docing. I was drunk. Booth had made tor Seder." I wanted to yell, but the sound Orville and me drink over a pint of whiskey apiece. Neither of us knew wouldn't come. I heard Johnnie sayihg : what we were doing." "I *told Booth I wasn't going to The awful realization hammered a t my brain. My 'hus,knd-the man I throw a coat over the old man, that lowd so dearly-a kidnaper! I he'd better give u p the whole job. couldn't .believe it! It was all a Booth got mad and hollered: 'What the Hell i s the matter with you?nightmare. I would awake soon. But the misery, the rising terror getting yellow?' Doctor Seder bein Johnnie's voice were too real to Ean pleading with him to release him. Booth threatened to hit him with be a dream. He turned to me. ''What his fist if he didn't shut UD. shall I do. Sunnv?" he. asked. . -* * + "Finally Booth started &e car up 1 LOOKED at him through m again and we drove off. Some time almost blinding film of tears. later we pulled into a field and stop"Tell us what happened, Johnnie. ped beside a log cabin. All of us Then we can better decide what you went in. Doctor Seder was so frightmust do." I managed to tell him. ened he could hardly talk. He kept And so Johnnie, 'his eyes like a hunt- pleading with Booth to let him go ed aniv'al. began to pour out to back, that he would ,be caug'ht and Mother and mle the details of that punished for what he was doing. terrible event-details which, I feel But Booth only told him to shut up. sure, are told in these pages for the Rooth got from Doctor Seder the infirst tirre in their entirety. formation that he had some money "MotFer," Johnnie said, "you re- hidden in the pantry, so he and Admlembcr I not up around noon on kins decided to go back after it. that first day of November. After Before leaving Booth turned to Dr. breakfact I met Orville Adkins and Sedcr and said: we T T P ~ ~ : P over ~ to Arnett Booth's '"We don't w a n t you to croak on agartmmt. I had m e t Booth u s too soon, Doc, so we'll bring you t h r o ~ ~ ~Orville. ht and he was alwavs some bedclothing back. It won't be talkinr ahout his schemes to make any too comfortable where we'll put somp eacv morlPv. He painted some you.' Thev went out, leavinc me to prpttv victures." guard Doctor Seder. I felt the He turned to me. "And, Sunny, I whisk-- bepin dying off, and Doctor wanted sonle mnqey quick, so we Seder asked me who J was and who uid PO+ married ! Anwav, ,we be- mv parents were and whv I was don drinkinv a t Booth's place. We ina this. I told him I ma.: from Deank iln mhat he had, and then he troit. He told we all this was a nt ont for some more, urg-ing me t ~ r r i h l e t'hinq. and asked me if I drink. thpt all the w h i s k was on would pray with him. I told him I him. I vaouelv remember he b e ~ a n would. I made him comfortable as I talk ing about how easy i t would be c'ould by placing some old clothes on into a chair, buried h e r * f a c e in her lrms, held out a newspaper towards me. I snatched a t it, saw the huge, screaming headlines:

the floor. Then he prayed an awful nice prayer for me. He began asking me a s to who the other men were, and said he was almost positive that the baldheaded one was a man by the name of Booth, and one of his tenants. "In a little while, that is, somewhere around midnight, Booth and Adkins returned with some bedclothes and some more whisky. We carried Doctor Seder out to this abondoned coal mine. Booth told me to stay with the Doctor and h a m him write a ransom note. When they left I fixed the bedclothes for Doctor Seder, put an overcoat around his legs, and told him t h a t he could write the note in the morning. Neither of us slept t h a t night. "Several times Doctor Seder knelt in prayer, and two or three times I joined him. When morning came I told Doctor Seder he could write the note. Shortly afterwards, Booth and Adkins came back. I gave Booth the note and he began cursing about a double-cross. Said that doctor Seder had put in the note he was being held in a cave twenty miles south of Wayne, West Virginia. Booth handed me a tablet with a pencil and told me to have Doctor Seder write this, a s well as I can remember: " 'I have ;been kidnaped. Four men forced me into a car. I was on an allnight drive from Huntington. I don't know where I a m at. They want $30,000. F o r my sake meet their demands for you know what it means.' "All this time Booth stayed at the top of the mine and didn't come down I got the note and took i t up t o him. Booth read i t and handed me a n envelope with a special delivery stamp on i t and told me to tell Doctor Seder t o address it; then he wrote out a note for me to recopy and reword, giving the denominations of the bills, demanded. I gave the envelope to Doctor Seder, and he addressed i t to his son, a t St. Paul, Minnesota. "Booth told me to come on out, that he'd ride me back to Hnntington, and that Doctor Seder couldn't porsihly crawl out of the cave alone. When we r o t back to Huntindon he took f i e letter in the snecial-delivcrv envelone and said he'4 mail it, bnt for me to be sure and write the other note and mail it. T'his I never did. That ransom note the P e d ~ r s p.nt must have comle from Booth. He kept calling me and Adkins and tried to get me to go to some bridye with him. His idea, Mother. I'm sure. was to bum^ me 04. Tuesday Orville and I staved drunk. Tho next dav we talked about rescuing Doctor Sleder. hut that afternoon Root"l met us a t Fourtwrlth and Tenth and told us he had killed Doctor Seder after beating him! up! You know the (Continued on page 5 0 )

SAT in the tiny gallery at the rear of the a r t shop nervously smoking a cigar and waiting impatiently for the arrival of the Countess. Pictures covered the walls and were stacked to the ceiling in the rear of the shop. Some of them were worth moderate sums. Some of them worth absolutely nothing. But that was a fact I kept well concealed from t h e art lovers whose names adorned my sucker list.

I

I glanced down my watch. The Countess was late. If she failed in her mission I was going t o be out a hatful of money. Whereas, if everything went according to my plans, I was going to turn the swiftest and hugest profit of my shady career as an a r t dealer. My heart picked up a beat as I heard footfalls in the front of the dhop. I jammed out the cigar in a hammered silver ashtray. I adjusted my conservative gray cravat. I drew a deep breath, assumed my most professianal manner and left the gallery. In the gloom of the shop stood the Countess, her little gloved hand nesting on the arm of a distinguishedappearing man of middl? age. The melandholv of the dimly lighted room m e w h a t by the was dispelled presence of the counkss. She was tall and slender. Her hair was dark, her face pale. Her lips were flashing red. She nodded to me coIdIy, in a manner of the nobility greeting a tradesman, and said, "Monsieur Danton, bhis is Mr. Wentworth;, He is interested in your VeIasquez. I gave out witrh my maximum bow. I rubbed my hands and assunned my m& obsequious expression.

9

"Ah," I said.

''me Velasquez. I negret greatly that I have not yet taken possession of the masterpiece. But if Mr. Wentwoirth will come shall in again-say, in a week-I have i t for him." Some of the yielding softness disappeared from the eyes of the Countess, and she glared a t me. I ignored her, transferring all my at, tention t o Wentworth. \Ventworth stroked his chin thoughtfully. "Naturally," he said, "before investing a large sum of money in the picture, I must be sure of its authenticitv." " ~ u tnaturally," I agreed. "If I can show you that I purchased i t from Mr. Ralph Dusken, you would be sure of the genuineness?" " D u s h n ?" said Wentworth. "Why, of course." Which, considwing t h a t Ralpk Dusteen was one of the top a r t experts .qf the country, wasn't at all surprising.

"Very well," I said. "In a week, then. Of course, I must ask you to be discreet, but I shall prove to you t h a t Dusteen is selling me the painting." The Countess was still glaring a t me'as Wentworth, taking her arm, walked her out of the shop. I went back t o the ga!lery, lit another cigar and felt as happy a s any man who stands on the threshold of a hundred thousand dollars. HALF an hour later, the Countess returned. She strode into the g a l l a q , and shed her regal manner. "Listen you dope!" she said. "What's the idea? I never heard of What anyone as screwy as you. you t y i n g to pull. The old doublecross. Her a m t s were Brooklyn rather than a o s e of the Court .of St. James. She was good and mad. She kept storming away a t me-and- all I did was to look down a t her and keep

Many more "Old Mastersware sold for big money than ever were painted !

smiling blandly. "You'll get your cut," I told her. "I'm arranging this set-up. there'^ a pile of dough a t stake, and I'm ing i t m there'll be no slips a t all. "What was the idea of telling Wentworth you didn't have that phony picture?" she demanded. "I know very we11 it's stacked over there against the wall. I went to a lot of trouble contacting that guy, and I'm not going to have-" I waved her to silence. "I M1 you everything's O.K. Wait a week and col~lect. In the meantime, don't ask questions." She regard&,, me suspiciously. "Well, all right, was her final d s cision. "But don't t r y to pull any-" "Go back to your castle in Bensonhurst, Countess," I told ,,her. "1'11 call you when I'm ready. Counkss' beautiful lips The framed an ugly word and she left indigantly. I grinned after her and puffed luxuriously on my cigar. On this particular sale I had worked out a brand new fool-proof angle. The Countess would eat her ugly word before i t was over. Two days later the Countess, still baffled by my lying to Wentworth about m y possession of the Velasquez, happened to be in the gallery when Ralph Dusteen entened He nodded to me curtly. He was an honest a r t expert. He didn't approve of chislers like myself. "Danton," he said, "I hea: you've a ~ e n u i n eVelasqm for sale. "Right,' I said. "The price is me hundred thousand dollars." The Countess stared a t me a s if I were insane. I knew what was going on in her head. To sell Dusteen a phony Velasquez was, on tfne face of A half hour's exit, utterly mad. amination in his laboratory would demonstrate the picture was a fake. I dug out the picture, placed i t on an easel and turned on the bright light. Dustsen squinted a t it. But that didn't worry me. From the viewpoint of the naked eye, the painting was dose enough t o the real thing to fool even Dusteen. I t would be a differeht matter in his laboratory. Dusteen grunted. "Wdl," he said at last, "1'11 ta,k" it oh trhe usual terms, of course. The usual berms meant simply h t Dusteen grave me his aheck while I

I

p-

I

41

1 COMMITTED FORGERY ON CANVAS gave him a form contract which prcvided that if the picture in anyway dissatisfied him he could return i t for a full refund. This is usual with most a r t dealers when transacting business among fiemselves. Dusteen wrote out the check and departed with the picture. The Countess grabbed my a m and swone. "You fool! Dusteen will know that's a phony within the hour. You'll have to give him back that check or we'll all go to the can. You-" "I fully intend giving him back &he check," I told her. "Just keep calm."

out a check for one hundred thousand dollars. I marked i t on the back FOT Velasquez Painting. A few days later, I called the Countess. "All right," I, told her. ",Get in touch with Wentworth. Tell him I have the Velasquez for h i m Bring him in tomorrow." Mr. Wentworth arrived the following day, along with the Countess. He took a long look a t the Velasquez. He took a longer look a t the canceled check I had ,given Dusteen when Dusteen had returned the phony Old Master.

appeared-who could doubt the validity of the picture? Certainly not a dilletnate like Wentworth. Yet Wentworth was still cautious. He told me he'd forgotten an appointment nearby, that he'd be back well within an hour. He had some business to attend to that he couldn't attend to by telephone. "Why, certainly," I told him. "I'll still be here." I let him go out-and again the Countess stormed a t me. But I told her not to worry-that Wentworth would be back

She stared a t me, bewildered. ''Then why did you sell i t to him? Why didn't you hold i t for Wentworth? He'd never know it was a fake." "Take it easy," I said;, "I'm going to sell it to Wentworth. At that moment I refused to tell her more than that. Enraged, the Countess went home to Brooklyn. Two days later Dusteen returned, as I had known he would. Passing several derogatory remarks about my business ethics, he gave me back the phony Velasquez and demanded his money back. Without protest I wrote

I had retrieved the canceled voucher, of course, had it in my gallery. I t showed that one hundred thousand dollars had been paid to Ralph Dusteen, the eminent a r t expert, and the back of the check bore the line, For Velasquez painting, and also bore the signature of Ralp Dusteen. Wentworth himself had done business with Dusteen, and could see that the signature was not a forgery, that i t was absolutely authentic. Dusteen was beyond reproach. If he had sold me the Velasquez for a hundred grand-as i t most certainly

And back he came-in a little more than fifteen minutes. I sensed what he had done-contacted the bank to see that the hundred-thousand-doll a r check really had been deposited by Dusteen, a s of course i t had been. Wentworth handed over his own check for one hundred and five thouextra supposedly sand dollars-the representing my profit on the dealand took the Velasquez home with him The Countess, now that she understood my complicated machinations, stared a t me in sheer admiration.

THE TRICKSof the Countess would

fool most of our male patrons.

42

I COMMITTED FORGERY ON CANVAS

YOUNG BLAKELYknew how to handle women the -and Baroness seemed to like him.

"Danton," she said, "you're wonderful! Let's celebrate." We did, and in fine style.

Her tricks-and she had a bagful of them-would fool most of our male a r t patrons. * * * There are, in New York City, a r t dealers. Of course,, MacI SPENT several years in the a r t many Rehn, Neumann, Kraushaar, racket. Some of those years were beth, Walker, Ferargil, Alfred lush, some were bad. But they were Maynard Stieglitz, Bernard Bereson, and some never a s good as since the advent of others, are absolutely authentic. But Hitler to power. are more numerous a r t dealers, All over Europe, masterpieces dis- there I'd say, who would not hesitate to appeared. In all probability they transact a little shady business. went to furnish the luxurious palaces These shady a r t dealers exact exof the Nazi masters. Anway, they disappeared from the museums and orbitant commissions from painterschateaux where they had hung for sometimes a s much as one-third of the purchase price - for making sales. so long. Refugees poured into this country. They are guilty of polite misrepreSome of them had salvaged legitimate sentations, market rigging, promotion paintings as their stake in the new of incompetent artists and mainteworld. Some of them carried worth- nance of fantastic valuations on less paint on worthless canvas. But ,worthless canvases which guillible coleither way i t was gravy for the ille- lectors have somehow been convinced a r e master-pieces. gitimate a r t dealer. For the suckers, those wonderful These tricks, of course, a r e among little art-loving suckers on whom we the milder sort of swindles. The preyed, firmly believed any tale we major duplicity is practised by antold them about the refugees' paint- other large group of which the Counings. We'd been running pretty thin tess and myself were not the lowon stories to account for our sudden liest members. For instance, we had our clever possession of European masterpieces, but the arrival of the refugees gave young painters who could copy the us one, written, edited and all ready masters so well that the masters themselves wouldn't know the differto go to press. The Countess, nee Annie Whalen ence. Not all of that hundred grand of Bensonhurst, who had been work- I collected for the Velasquez went into ing with me since I started, quite my own pocket. In addition to the Countess' cut, a often impersohated a refugee herself. She would use tears to prevent the big slice went tq Walter Blakely, a sucker from examining the supposed- brilliant young artist who had forged ly smuggled masterpiece too carefully. the painting. Then there was the

matter of forged references and attestations to the genuineness of the picture which supposedly had been issued by reputable a r t critics. The number of phonys which have been foisted on wealthy a r t morons is utterly incredible. For instance, a t least 2,000 Van Dycks have been bought in America in the past fifty years. I t is a well known fact that Van Dyck painted only 70 pictures in all his lifetime!

*

*

*

IN the old days is was a simple matter to doctor a freshly painted canvas with resin and lime juice so that i t took on the appearance of antiquity. With modern methods of detection, this is easily exposed. The new ways are more complicated, but well worth the trouble if it means unloading a n alleged Old Master on a n unsuspecting a r t lover. The safest method today is to first procure a genuinely old, but worthless, painting. The forger will then trace the pattern of the age cracks, later washing off the paint. Next, using pigments of the period-and that is most important, as I found out to my sorrow-he paints a picture characteristic of a Master. Before the new painting has dried, a pinpoint is used to scratch the pattern of cracks traced from the original. Then, like one of mother's pies, the canvas is put in the oven to bake. This baking process causes the pigments to crack where they have been scratched. Mellowed tints to give the impression of great age a r e achieved by skilful applications of wood ashes, smoke and licorice juice. Phony fly specks a r e created by spattering a mixture of gum and India ink on the picture. A mildewed appearance is easily brought about by simply leaving the canvas in a damp cellar for a month or more. I n my years in the business F had resorted to all these devices and several more. However during one prosperous period, we didn't even have to bother to doctor the pictures. Late in 1941 the Countess met a Baroness. The Baroness, though, was legitimate Almanac de Gotha, a pretty blonde woman from Belgium whose husband had died in an air raid. The Baroness arrived in this country broke, owning only a few clothes. However, the Countess discovered that their chateau had contained, a t one time, several thousand dollars' worth of old masters. Of course, they had all been stolen by the Germans, but a s the Countess figured, who could ever prove that? Subtly, the Countess had broached the matter of a deal to the Baroness only to be indignantly turned down. Thereupon, the Countess arranged a little party to soften the Baroness up. I decided to stage the party in the stndio of Blakely, the a r t forger. In

,

I COMMITTED FORGERY ON CANVAS addition to being handy with a brush, Blakely was tall and rather goodlooking. And, believe me, he had a brrific "line" and could make himself most appealing to women. He was absolutely unscrupulous. Blakely had his studio looking its b s t . I stood the expense on the drinks and the eats. A t the outset the real noblewoman was cold and distant. However, the ahampagne soon loosened her up. I got her alone in a e r n e r of the stud10 and made my business proposition. "Baroness," I said, "you have no money. And money's a very important. thing. You'll agree to that, I think. Now, what I am about to suggest will bring you relatively large sums and you will have nothing to do expect to announce that you salvaged a number of those paintings from your chateau when the Nazis came in." "But 'why?" she asked. "How can that bring me money?" L'Be~au~e," I told her, "we'll have Blakely here forge them. If you guarantee them as genuine, a s the pictures you brought with you from Belgium, you'll,,have no trouble disposing of them. She shook her head vehemently.

She would have nothing t o do with such a crooked scheme. I fillecl the glasses again. I t developed into quite a party. One of the developments was that Blakely made a sketch of the Baroness. Nearly always he dressed like a conservative young businessman, but he was just phony enough to put on a velveteen jacket and a tam. He knew how to excite the admiration and attention of women. We left him alone with the Baroness, and they continued to chat and drink, and talk over Continental life, and he won the Baroness completely over. We'd never have any trouble with her again. With her guarantee backing every forgery from Walter's brush, we had no trouble disposing of our phonys to those society a r t lovers who would -never doubt the word of a fullblooded Baroness. POSSIBLY the most baffling ang!e to a layman regarding the a r t racket is the fact that experts admittedly can not ell the true from the false on many occasions. The scientist, dealin such matters a s pigments, utilizing infra-red ray, will be f a r more accurate.

43

Well, then, you ask, if this is true, what is the value of a painting? The a r t dealers have a n answer t o that. A painting is worth whatever you can get for it. Possibly the greatest swindle was perpetrated by Jean Charles Millet, grandson of the famous artist. Jean Charles inherited a number of canvases painted by pupils of his grandfather-all, of course, done in the Millet style. Millet, junior, went into partnership with Cazot, a house painter of uncanny proficiency, and set up a s a dealer in masterpieces. First they signed the elder Millet's name to the pupils' paintings and had little troubl? in disposing of them. The racket went along so well that they branched out and not only forged Millet's name but that of Carot, Manet, Sisley and the other members of the Barbizon school. These pictures were sold t o dealers for sums ranging from six to ten thousand dollars. The dealers, in turn, resold them a t staggering prices. One was sold t o a "connoisseur" for $60,000. A British Museum dug down into its bank account and laid $97,000 on the line for a guaranteed Millet. Later, the grandson boasted i t was a fake and proved i t before the redfaced assembled experts who had pronounced it genuine. Other experts, ridiculed and harassed in the courtroom, conceded i t was impossible t o tell the originals from the forgeries, t h a t it was impossible to estimate how many phonys had been sold. There is, in New York City, a man that a r t dealers fear and respect. He is Dr. Maximillian Toch, known a s the Old Master detective. Dr. Toch applies the scientific method to uncover fake paintings. A t this task he has been eminently successful. Paints, to estimate their age and composition, are subjected t o various tests by Dr. Toch. Photomicrography, X-ray, ultra-violet ray and infra-red a r e a few of the scientific devices utilized to expose the fakers. One of the most important clues in the detection of a fake masterpiece is "brushwork." The brushwork of all great painters is absolutely distinctive. Each lays on the pigment in his own way, which is almost a s individual a s fingerprints a n d can not be duplicated by a forger. Rere, photomicrographs of X-ray a r e used. Perhaps the most famous of these tests was proving that Virgin of the Rocks was a genuine Da Vinci-a fact which had been seriously questioned. Examination of the brushwork demonstrated conclusively that the pail ing could only (bet h a t of the Itali master.

44

SALESGIRL FOR CRIME

T

HIS'LL teach you to talk Jackie," he said slowly, punctut w much!" With a vicious ating his words with blows, lunge the heavy-set man "you'll know enough to not go slapped the pretty young girl around spilling your lip!" Tom had been standing'lookimg on squarely across the face. She in enjoyment, his eyes thin slits of "Ben, Ben!" the girl pleaded miser- sadistic exultation. He smiled evilly screamed in pain 'as he shook her ably, and fell the g r d . and nodded. Without a word he and threw her against the car Ben turned to the man with him. dragged the ,girl into the car and got by which they were standing. in. "Get her away from 'the park her:; Ben watched him drive off, then "Maybe next t i m e, Miss You know What to do with her. Tom. ! turned back to our car. S is eyes

T h e g0 a 1

MY EVENINGS were spent wilbh Roy in a whiirl t pleasure.

swept over me as he spoke. "And you, sister!" he sneered in tones that made me cringe. "Now maybe you'll know, too. You'll know when you've got to be quiet.," He sat in our car and motioned for Roy to drive aff. We sped down the road of Mill Creek Park, in Youngstown, Ohio, that evening and ahead of us I could follow the berms of light from the car Tom was dl-iving, the car in which the little redhead, beaten up so brutally, had been dumped. Suddenly those lights turned off up one of the side r d a I sat there in the front seat of our car, numb and silent. Hours later I was pacing my room. What must I do? How could I go on with this? How had i t all begun? But a s I thought i t over, it seemed to we there was no certain day when it had all begun. There was no time I could say it all started. Everything had just happened from day to day.

. ..

+

MAYBE it all started away back in my home town. I was discontented in that sleepy little village in southern Ohio. I t was dull, ,I thought, stodgy and depressing. Poverty hung over the whole town and blanketed it. There was never any excitement.. Our town was just a little blot on a worn-out agricultural section. When, a t 16, I finished high school, I determined that eome way or other I was going to get away. It wasn't h t I was particularly

SALESGIRL FOR CRIME

was rich old maids, the game a racket unpopular. I was, they all said, the 'prettiest girl in our graduating class. Rut I didn't have the things the other girls had. My clothes, for instance. And I had no real "dates" while I was in high school. Everybody said 1 was too young, since most of my class was a year o r so older than I. And then I hadn't the clothes or money to go around much. My mother had died eight years before; and I d d remember my father only by what others said of him. I had been shifted regularly between two of my uncles' homes there in town. They felt they had done their duty in getting me through high sdool; the extras they couldn't bother zbout. This was why i t was such a wondenful thing to me when I came to one of my uncles one aftern'oon to find that a cousin of my mother's had sent fer me. He ran a bakery in 'Canton, Ohio, and dnce his wife was going to have a baby, he thought I could come to stay with them and work in the bakery where his wife had been helping out. I lost no time in getting ready to go. [But when I reached Canton I found out the real reason Cousin Fred had written. The bakery was doing so .badly he couldn't afford a regular clerk a t the usual salary. I was a last resort, for they figured I could live with them and they'd save by not having to pay me a salary. In the mornings I had to do the housework a t home, then I would go to the bakery to wait on customers in the afte~moon. And after the baby came i t grew to be tacitly understood I would have the night shift most of the time, which meant I worked a t the !bakery until eight or nine in the evening. But even though I was working hard, and even though I had as little money as [before, I was happier. I was a t leaet started on my way. And

I still had ideas of a better futzre.

was Roy. I kept saying it -er to For months we held on at the bake- myself. His voice rang in m y ears. ry, stinting and scrimping. It was "Ny name's Roy, Beautiful. Don't during those months I met Roy. I forget it, because you're going* be can remember clearly the first time saying it over a lot from now on!" I saw Aim. I was coming down the The third time b y came in he askstreet carrying flour and sugar and ed for a date. Asked is hardly the practically ordered eggs. I t had reached the point with word for it-he us where instead of being able to buy me to meet him on the corner in front in quantity we had to pay cash a t of the bakery that evening a t nine. the grooery store for five-pound That afternoon I pretended to fight sacks of flour and sugar. with myself a long time, but I knew When I reached the door af the I would meet him. My cousin aad his bakery, I shifted my packages to wife never heard me come in a t home, one ann. But suddenly the door anyway, since their room was a t We opened before me. A man was stand- back of the apartment and I slept in ing )beside me, smiling down at me. I a small room off the front hall. I stared up wNit21 fascination into a h e w I could do it. And dates had pair of the bluest eyes I had ever been too few in my life. I had always seen. It was not until long later had to work too hard. I realized the true description of them I was waiting on the corner that was ice blue. night a t ten minutes to nine. "Well," drawled the man, grinning, I t was not long before all my even"are we going to stand out here all ings were spent with Fay. I spent day?" my days wondering about him. I "Thank you," I stamanered in con- knew so little of him. When I asked fusion. him about his work he said vaguely, I stepped into the bakery. The shop "Contracting." I didn't think mu& was empty. I looked again a t the about it then. I wa's glad he was man. I could feel myself blushing. free to m e by the bakery so much "No girl with a face like yours during the day. I even resented it s'ould ever have t o carry all these when customers came in and took up packages," he laughed. my time while I muld be tdking to He reached out and took my Roy. bundles. My arms tingled a t his Then one morning a t breakfast touch. He put the things on the Cousin Fred told me the worst. He counter and then turned back to me. had decided there was nothing t o do "I just want to get change for this but close the bake*. And, of course, bill," he said. Silently, I got it f o ~ I would have to go back home, since him from the cash register, and he thev could no longer keep me with amiled and said, "This was my lucky t h e m five, I think. 1'11 be back. I was suddenly panic-strioken. My All that afternoon after he'd gone one fear was leaving Roy. In despair I was in a haze, Twice Cousin Fred I stood behind the counter a t the bakcalled me down for not waiting cm erv all dav waiting for Roy to come customers quickly enough. Once he b< He ;sually passed m time said I tried to short-change a c m - during the morning and sametimes in tomer. I don't really know what hap- the afternoon. But this time I didn't pened. get to see him until late in the evenI t was the se2cmd time the man ing. I didn't notice thzt he seemed came by that he told me his name grave and upset. I was too worried

SALESGIRL FOR CRIME

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with Roy . to have a n easy job and new clothes. When Roy took me home late that night, it was with the plan that he would not see me until the next evening, Saturday, when I was to be all packed to go. I was to put a few things into a small bag and hide them in the bakery. I could leave from * * * there wheri I locked up for the night. I HAD never met any of Roy's The next day passed at a snail's friends, and I was a little em- pace. A thousand times I glanced barrassed. a t the old clock on the bakery shelf. "Ben, this is Martha," said Rg. t o It was only a.few minutes before it one of the two men who were waiting was time for me to leave that I suffor him in a dingy rooming house. fered any qualms as to whether I The man called Ben looked up from should tell Cousin F'red and his wife. his game of solitaire. He was f a t I knew that if I had told them of it and greasy. His eyes slid slowly and that morning they would haye objectmeaningfully along my figure. I ed and tried to stop me. But I knew, wished instinctively I had worn more too, that they would be genuinely worthan the light revealing dress I had ried a t my disappearance. 'So I wrote on. After ogling me for what seem- a short note to them and placed i t beed ages, Ben turned to Roy with a side the cash register, where I knew wink. F'red would see it when he came in for "iSome looker, Fy," he said. the half day Sunday. I said in the "Younger than Jack~e,but maybe we note that since things were going so can use her anyhow." Then he turn- badly with them I would go on home ed to me, winked again and put a now and avoid the usual good-bye heavy paw on my arm. '%aybe we'll scene. get along all right, kid," he said. "We Then I waited for Roy. It was algot a soft job waiting for a girl like most nine o'clock, and I had been you." ready to close up for an hour or Tom, the other man in the room, more. I was impatient when any cusremained silent. ZIis gaze was fast- tomel's even stopped to look in the ened on me, and his look .seemed to windows. Nine o'clock passed, then me to be bhin and dharp as a knife nine-fifteen. I was on pins and blade. B was uncomfortable with needles. these two men, yet I didn't want to A shadow fell across the door. I leave. I couldn't leave Roy, now, and started up impatiently t o wait on h i d e s the promise of a soft job was whoever ik was. But it wm Roy! Simusic to my ears. I had to have lently I threw myself into his arms, work, and after what I'd been doing trembling with relief and joy. I hastan easy job sounded more than won- ened to the closet and pulled my bag derful to me. from it. Roy stood a t the cash regRoy began to do the talking, since ister, reading my note to Cousin Fred. he noticed my hesitation. They had A s I turned back to him, he looked a place for me, he said, and they felt at me. "You got any cash, baby?" he sure I was just the girl to fill the asked. bill. It was a n easy job, and bhere "Ca~h?" I echoed, nonplussed. "I've would be a lot of money in i t for me. about two dollars in my purse." Besides, they m l d buy me new "Better take what you can from clothes to start out with. They want- this, then," Roy said, tapping the ed me to go to Youngstown with them, cash register. since they had to travel in their h s i I stared a t him in amazement. "But, mss. b y , " I protested slowly, "that's not "I guess we do have to travel," my money. That's Cousin Fred's, Tom said with a peculiar smile. and when he comes in tomorrow for "After what that Jmkie done here, the Sundav half dav he'll*count it first we can't do any good in this town, thing." If I ever get my hands m that double&P'S lips curled a s he looked a t me. crossin' little--" I shrank-back and for an instant I Quickly Roy interrupted. Our plans wished I could back out of the whole here in Canton were upset by some- thing. Then Roy laughed a t me. thing that happened today? he said "Why, look, kid, I'm not trying to to me. "But you can fill the bill okay. make you do anything wrong. You We'll all get out of this burg and go ought t o kntow that. But I've watched to Youngstown." you work here long hours doing hard He turned to the others, and while work that you don't get paid anything I sat there they talked in low tones. for. I just want to see that once in There were insinuations and half your life you get what's coming to pauses in their conversation which I you." m l d n ' t understand. But my mind "But, Roy-" was whirling with its own th~u~ghts. "Icome on, baby))) he said. "You Not to have to go home, but to go need me mound all the time, I ,guess, about my own problems. I n a rush of words I told' him a11 about everything. Roy's mood cleared instantly, and he reacted magnificently, I thought. Before I knew what i t was all about he whisked me into his car, waiting around the corner;, and took me to see two friends of his.

to see that yau get what's coming to you." He took my arm and put my hand on the cash register. "Go on," he said. "Do it. Don't be scared." Slowly I unlocked the register. We took out of i t the 11 dollars in bills that had been there. "We'll leave the small change for Dhat tightwad!" Roy laughed. "Now just put a line in that note lthat you took enongh for your fare home." Silently I added the words to my note. What Roy had made me do had upset me. I did have i t coming to me, it was true, but I could scarcely believe even then that I had done it. If only I had had the courage to stop then, to back out! If only I had realized that I was getting mixed up with one of ,the vilest groups of spongers! But willfully I put all such thoughts out of my head. This was the chance I'd been asking for. I was going to be with Roy. And I was going to have new clothes, an easy job. Besides, in a way, Roy was right about the money, I tried to reaaon to myself.

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IT WAS late at night when we pulled into Youngstown. For when Roy and I had met Ben and Tom, who were driving in anobher car, they insisted on showing me the things they had bought for me that day-a suitcase, some of the little things I'd always wanted aht never had, even a couple of dresses which seemed to be just about my size. Finally we were on the road. I snuggled close to Roy, the lights of the obher car gliding on ahead of m. We got into Youngstown, and went into an all-night restaurant for coffeek. As we sat in our booth, talking, both Ben and Tom were making me nncomfortable, the way they looked a t me. I was glad it was Roy sitting next ts me. Then Ben began to explain my "job" to me. They had picked eut a place in Youngstown where I was to rent a room. The place was the home of the Grant sisters, two old maids who had saved up a good-sized sum of money but still rented out rooms in their home. I was to tell the sisters I was enrolled in business college. According to Ben, I was just to be his "in" so that I could talk about him a s my "uncle" and later introduce him; then he'd get to work after my glowing reports of h i m He'd sell them an interest in his "Msnufacturers' Institute." Later I learned just what that non-existent organization. was. They were sup~osed to own vending machines placed all over the state, and Ben's sales talk was about the enormous profits accruing each day, enough so that any investor could winter in Florida and summer in ;Msine.

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SALESGIRL FOR CRIME

She was instinctively afraid of 11 his friends her conscience 11 bothered her but this did not deter a sordid life of criminal conspiracy until-

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"I can just see that Paisley dame to sleep to forget the things I'd heard waitin' in Buffalo now for her coming them say. wlnter in Floricia," Roy chuckled. The next afternoon I went around to the h m e of the Grant sistew. "She's going to have some wait!" "It's a good thing we work only on Luckily a t the moment they had no old ladies," Tom commented. "Other- other roomers, so they welcomed me wise they'd have been on our trail with open arms. I liked them, too, the long ago, the way you guys spill your moment I saw them. They were plain and simple, the kind of 'persons I'd mouth all the time!" Both Roy and Ben looked a little always wished my own relatives were. And it was easy to talk to the sisters, sheepish. Ben turned to me. especially t o Miss Emily. "That 'winter in Florida' line is In fact, I found i t difficult not to just a sales talk I pull on all the old tell them too much. That first day girls," Ben explained to me. "It's I had to watch myself continually to just one of the things I tell them." keep from making any slips. I told "Listen to what he's tellin' ya, kid," Miss Emily a great deal,.though. All Tom said to me sharply. "It's the about how my uncle was putting me kind of line you'll have to be gettin' through businem college, how he aloff to them sisters soon." ways helped everyone in our family. "Sure, that's it, Martha," Roy said Uncle Ben was making money hand to me. 'See, you get on the good side over fist, I said. For all that morning of these old ladies. You tell them Ben had talked to me again about what big money your 'Uncle Ben' here the line 1 must get off to the Grant makes from his company bhat owps sisters and how it must scem casual. all these machines. And then you inIt was only long after ;that I realtroduce Ben to the dames. He'll do ized the horror of our s ~ t t i n gthere ~ the rest." that quiet $Sundaymorning and cooly "Just leave that part of i t t o me, discussing plans to rob helpless ladies kid," Ben leered. of their life savings. At the time I "Then we'll hit another town, just stilled my conscience by saying I was a s soon as we've done the job hers," only doing *at I had to do, that I said Roy. "You're in the big time could not back out then! Blindly I now, baby. Swell clothes, anything forced myself to go on with it. you want, and almost no work for you The days went by. I left th? house to do." mornings to "go to school." What I "Smart peaple can live by their really did was to meet I b y downtown brains," Ben went on. somewhere and we'd go to the movies They talked about my beauty and or for drives. But every day we my "quality" and how well fitted I would eat supper a t the diner where was for the job. Ben and Tom hung out inost of the "Even better than Jackie," Tom time. Then, a s we sat in ~aurbooth, agreed. "She don't look so wised up I'd have to tell Ben just what progas that witch did." ress I was making with the sisiers. My head was whirling as I listened Several times I talked to the sisters to them. I wished I were back in Canthe Manufacturers' Institute, ton. I wished I were back in my own about something within me kept me little sleepy home town. But down but underneath I knew I wanted to go from saying as much as Ben would demand I say. Every night he kept on with this. I wanted my chance a t .asking me just how much I had acsome of the things I'd always yearned I'd keep trying to turn for, and I had to be near Roy. After icomplished. t off by saying i t was my first job all, I could keep my hands clean. It was early that morning when we and I needed more time a t it. And Roy backed me up. "Sure the went to a hotel, and I went to my roc)m immediately to retire. I was kid needs more time at it, Ben," ha stil1 confused, and my thoughts were said. "She ain't used to it,, the way all disordered. If only I had been Jackie was. Let her learn. "Yeah!" Tom sneered. "Let her h01nest enough to admit to myself an t k t their work was just a vile spend a couple of months learnin' and leme to swindle helpless old ladies! still we may not grab more than four it resolutely I went to bed and tried or five thausand outta these Grant

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dames !" Each time I after that his coming back to five thousand ." dames.

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talked to the Grants mocking words kept "grab four or me outta these Grant

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THEN it, happened. I had met Roy downtown that Wednesday after: noon and we had gone to a movie. We came out that evening about six-thirty and were starting down the street to the car. I was talking to Roy about the movie when I almost bumped into a girl on the sidewalk. I looked up to say something, then noticed the girl standing stock-still in front of me, staring a t Roy in terror. ".Jackie!" Roy muttered. The pretty red-haired girl gasped, Abruptly Roy but said nothing. grasped her am9roughly, in a vicelike group. "Don't say a word!" he commanded. "Keep you trap shut!" Stepping alongside the girl, he turned her around and forced her along with us toward the car. There were others on the street then, of course, although no one was near us. but I don't believe anyone there n* ticed anything unusual about our actions. As Roy shoved Jackie into the car he looked quickly up and down the street. No one was watching us. Quickly Roy drove by the diner where Ben and Tom were uusally to be be found a t this time of day. He honked for them to come out. Tom stuck his head out the door. When he saw the girl sitting between us in the front seat, he turned back. I n a few seconds Ben and Tom had c o w out of the diner and were in their car, motioning us to follow in m s . We were silent a s we sped a l o ~ g after them. Roy was intent on following the car racing ahead, and Jackie sat next to him in terrified silence. We drove out to a deserted section of Mill Creek Park. It was just dusk, beautiful and serene, a s we entered the park. Suddenly Jackie's stiff silence broke and she burst into tears. Hysterical sobs welled from her throat. "What are you going to do with me?" she shrieked, grabbing Roy's arm in a sudden clawing motion. We swerved wildly to the edge of the road, heading for a rock-strem ditch. I reached over and fotcibly pulled Jackie off RoY a s he jabkd her sharply. Sobbing, she fell back onto the seat between us again. "Sit still," 1 commanded her, alt h o u ~ hI didn't know yet what w m going to happen. Jackie turned to me. She laughed hvstericallv. "So now they're using "you? ~ h &can always someone to string along with them in 1;heir damn no-good schemes! But wai t 'til you get sick of it all and try to get --

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SALESGIRL FOR CRIME away! Just wait! And then you'll remember what happened to me! You'll get She screamed as Roy struck her full across the mouth. He stopped the car beside the road. Roy got out, and I did, too. The other car stopped near us and Ben leaped from it. He dragged Jackie out of the car. She fell back against the door. Tom started the radio in his car going full blast. Again and again, then, Ben struck the luckless Jackie. His blows rained across her face, her shoulders and her chest. She shrunk away from him, whimpering, but with oaths he reached out and continued to beat her. Jackie sank down to the running board and then to the ground. She lay there moaning. Her light summer clothes hung in tatters. Ben stopped and turned around. He was breathing hard. He straightened his tie and without a backward glance a t the half unconscious girl lying on the ground he walked over to our car. I drew away a s he stepped by me. Rut he paid no attention tn me. He sat down in the front seat d the car. In a moment he spokk. "You know what to do with her." he said to Tom, who had been standing there with a cruel smile on hls face enjoying the spectacle. Then Ben motioned us to wt in the car with him. Roy climbed in behind the wheel, and slowly I opened the door to the back seat. I heard the other car start off. But Ben p t his arm out and closed the door before I could get in. "Come on u p here in front and sit next t o me, baby," hr. said. "I like your company." Trembling, I got in beside h i m That ride back to the Grant home was an unending nightmare. Now I did know. I knew that I could fool myself no longer about what I was doing or just what kind of men I was mixed up with. I looked a t Roy covertly and saw that he was smiling to himself. For the first time I realized how icy cold his eyes really were. All my passion, all my longing for he him was gone. I saw G m now really was. I realized what a fool I'd been. As I sat here, silent, hearing only snatches of the conversation of the two men, I realized what a stupid child I had been. Starved for affection,.thinking only of my own selfish wishes, I had brought this on myself! I was sick inside, sick with horror and fear. Begging off with a headache, I said I could not eat any supper. I asked them to drive me to the corner near the Grant home and let me out there. Without any remonstrance, they did so. Ben looked a t me piercingly as I got out of,the car. I heard him call to me a s I hurried down the sidewalk, ~ h It began to run toward the friendly lights of the Grants'.

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PREPARING---for M that night, I determined t e fight. MISS EMILY was sitting waiting in ,the parlor when I came in. "I was beginning to be worried about you, child," she said. "You're so mu& later than you've usually. been." "Yes," I stammered. "I was working late a t school this evening. I didn't notice how late it was." Miss Emily looked a t me over her glasses. "Your face looks quite pale," she said. "Have you had your supper?" "I ate a little," I lied, "on the way here." "You donn'twant to work too hard." She smiled. "Why don't you come in

here and sit with me. We'll listen to the radio." Just then I knew Iwould go mad if I had to sit quiet and listen. "No!" I said rudely and loudly. '"No!" Then I saw t;hat Miss Emily looked hurt. 'What I mean is," I hastened to explain, "I have a little headache, and I think I'll run upstaire to lie down." I was already running up the stairs a s I finished speaking. For a long time I sat on the edge of my bed. suddenly I .rae and began hurriedly to pack my things. My mind was working none too weH, for I was nervous and kept forgetting

SALESGIRL FOR CRIME what I would take. My one thought w w to get away. Then( a s I went toward the window to pull down the blind, I stopped and stood still in stunned terror. A familiar car was parked across the street. Beside it a man loitered, looking up a t my window. Tom! Even under that uncertain glow from the street lamp his eyes seemed to me to be evil incarnate. I pulled down the blind with a snap and fe!l shuddering onto my bed. Evidently he had already "disposed of" poor Jackie. The next hours were dreadful. I knew that dawn had cume, but I dared not raise the shade on my front window. Every time I glanced from behind the drawn shade the car was there. Much later, 1heard the ,Grant sisters g e ~ t i n gup and going about their morning tasks. I stayed in my room, tell~ngthem I was too sick to go to school. The Grants must have come up to my room a dozen times that morning. They brought me tea, they brought me hot milk, they brought--me m l k mixed with honey, they brought me some sort of special "drops." I began to feel I couldn't stand taking another thing. Finally in desperation I told them I was going out, to town. It was afternoon. I slipped out the back door and across a yard onto the nest street. Hastily I glanced about. I thought about going back, then I decided my only cllance was to pretend to be playing their game. I climbed into the car next to Pay, tryixg to smile a t him. "Kid, I thought you weren't going to show up today," Roy said suspiciously. "Why'd you come out this way ?" "They wanted me to empty the garbage," I said weakly. "And this morning one of them was sickly, so I stayed in to see to her." I watched them i n the car mirror and saw them indicating me and talking. What were they going to do with me? Ben and Tom got out of their car. In relief I saw them start into the diner. Roy came back to me and we joined Ben and Tom in the diner. Evidently they believed my story. I hoped they did. "Don't l'et what you saw yesterday worry you," were the first words Ben said to me as we sat down in a booth. "Play the game with us and we'll see you're well taken care of." "And if ya don't play i t our way,'' interjected Tom. "we'll see you're well taken care of, then, too." There were snickers from the other two. I tried to smile. "I think she had i t conling to her," I said. "That's a smart girl." Ben nodded pproval and looked a t Tom. "She :arns quick."

He turned back to me and got down to business. "What about the Grant dames? We been here a b u t long enough now. You ought to have that build-up pretty well started. Don't forget I got a list including Akron and Wheeling and ~Columbus. We gotta move on so we can get some real dough together." !'I think they're almost ready." I said, nauseated inside a s I talked. Hurriedly I talked on and on, telling Ben how much I had said to the Grants, how eager they were to know more about it. I t was all lies, but I think he and Roy believed me. Only Tom sat silent, watching me coldly. "I wouldn't be surprised if they drew their money out of the bank any time now," I ended up. "They're getting so anxious." "We're not going to worry about iron bars, now," said Ben. "The kid, here, ain't afrald." Then we left. If the hours of the night before had been torture, that night was worse. Still the car was parked across the street, still Tom was there. I was desperately afraid to tell the Grant sisters, as I had considered doing. How despicable they would think me! And prison would face me, too. All this, I knew, had come about through my own wilzul folly.

SATURDAY dawned clear and beautiful. I went downstairs early, looking so haggard t h a t Miss Emily commented on it. I felt listless, a s if my life were zlready ended. When Miss Ernily mentioned. going to the bank downtown, I jumped a t the prospect of going with her. I t was my one chance to get out of the house without being picked up by the gang. I bought a ticket for *Cleveland. Luckily Roy had given me back the money I had taken from Cousin Fred's cash register the day I moved in with the Grants. I had enough for a ticket to Cleveland, with a b u t six dollars left over. Besides, I saw a bus for Cleveland waiting in the station. I got in the bus and impatiently waited for it to leave. I was sitting there when the two cars came tearing up. Ben had Roy in one car and Tom was in the other. They passed the bus station and the bank, then turned around. I pulled my hand down farther over my face. Just then Miss Emily c a n e out of the bank and stood there on the sidewalk, alone. I prayed for the bus to leave, and bent oyer a s if tying my shoe. The bus pulled out. The men had not yet located me, but they must have guessed, for the next moment the cars were following the bus. They passed us twice, looking closely to be sure I was on it. I didn't dare look up, but since the bus wasn't a t all crowded I knew they would recognize me.

Again their car slowed down and we sped past them in the bus. As I turned around to see what had happened to them, they spurted up again. We were going up hill now, and they soon overhauled us. They gazed straight a t me, for foolishly I had taken a seat on the left side of the bus. They kept alongside, not taking their eyes off me. I t was this concentration on me which prevented them from seeing the car racing down the hill ,toward them. Too late, Roy glanced up and made a frantic dive to turn the steering wheel in Ben's grasp. There was a terrific roar, a smash of steel against steel. The two cars careend crazily down the hill and lurched over an embankment. I was standing, louking 'back, when we went over the crest of the hill and continued on our way. "Will you please sit down, lady?" the driver asked me irritably. In Cleveland, the first thing I did was to get a room a t $2.50 a week. And luckily, I got a job that first afterhoon addressing envelopes by hand. Late Saturday evening I worked, writing a s fast as I could, for we were paid by the piece. I read in the paper that night that one man had been killed and another injured in the wreck. That still left Tom on the loose, I knew. I was d e s perate, remembering that beating of Jackie's, remembering his threats to me. He must not locate me! The other girls with whom I worked considered me very crabby and unsocial. For instead of going to the drugstore for lunch I always worked strai&t through, nibbling at a eandy bar. Fear drove me on, made me starve myself. In a few weeks I haci money for a bus ticket East. I couldn't go home. I cauldn't go back to Canton, but I must put miles between me and Tom Not many months later I was a real business college student, going to school nights and worklng days as a theatre cashier. After six months of hard work a t school I managed to get a jab as a stenographer. I had long before sent back to my Cousin Fred double the money Roy had forced me to take from the cash register. But I asked them not to try to write to me, not to try to get in touch with me. I still felt unsafe. I t was not until a few weeks ago that I read of a roundup of a gang, and of the death of a certain man, "alias Tom Lawson," that I felt safe once more. I can breathe easily once more. I can go about my work nteadily and surely, doing my job to the best of my ability. For one of the most important things I have learned from all this is that a good job requires hard work. A soft job and easy money don't just drop into your lap. You pay for them. There's no other way.

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MY HONEYMOON IN THE GALLOWS

50 (Continued from page 89)

rest!" When Johnnie had finished, Mother Travis said softly: "Come, Johnnie, let's go home now." I shall newer forget that look in her eyes-like a wounded animal who knows that life afterwards will be a living death of hurt and torture. We went home. Mother Travis picked up the telephone and called Police Headquarters. "This is Mrs. Travis. MP son is here now."

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OVER the wire came a muffled shout: "Keep !him there, Mrs. Travis!"' "There's no question of keeping him here," replied Mother, in trembling tones. "He's here, and he's not running away from anyone." Only a few minutes later there was the scream of brakes in front of the house. Then the tramp of feet on the porch. A loud, preempotry knock. Johnnie got up stood trembling like a leaf. Mother opened the door. There were five o r six men. I recognized only Detectives Hagley and Farris. "All right, Travis, let's go; a man with slick Mack hair said. I ran to Johnnie, threwmyself into his arms. "Don't let me down, Sunny." he whispered. "Never-never!" I cried. "I'll fight for you, Johnnie-fight like no other woman has ever fought!" The next day came the tragic news that Doctor Seder had died in the hospital a s the result of Booth's beating and exposure. All efforts to save him had been in vain. Arnett Booth, O ~ i l l eAdkins and Johnnie were to be tried on charges of first-degree murder. "I'll hang every one of them!" said Prosecutor Ernest Winters to the newspapers. Murder! Hanging! The words struck further unholy terror to my heart. You who live quiet, peaceful lives can hardly conceive of the limitless terror in those words--especially d e n the man you love stands on the brink of the boiling cauldron that seethes over those two words. In the flaming days that passed, I fought for Johnnie with all my I tried to raise heart and soul. money from all mg relatives, to get the best lawyers available. I sought to find witnesses, to prove that Johnnie wasn't as black a s Mr. Winters painted him. I conferred every day with my reporter friend, 'Joe Klaman, of the Huntington Advertiser, whose solace and advice I shall always r e m e t m k . Days of work, worry, scorn, contempt, revdsion, rebuffs-days that had been resemed for our honeymoon of h a p piness (became a honeymoon of horror ! On December 5, Arnett Booth. the

The BOOK OF TORTURE

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Edifed by ARNOLD E. HIRSCH, M.D., F%.D. A Historical Encyclopaedia on the Science of Abnormal Brutality, Revealing All the Savage, Oriental, Ancient and il1odel-n Methods of Sadistic Rites i n the Lust of Torture. This is a unique and unusual book on diabolical savagery and flagellant executional worship, and it is of special interest to members of the profession, police ofEcials, and cultured students of anthropology. IT IS THE ONLY BOOK O F ITS KIND PUBLISHED! NOTHING ELSE LIKE IT! Contains ncarly 100 Rare, Amazing, Esoteric Illustrations. Sold to adults only, and age must be specified when orde~-ingotherwise i t cannot be shipped. '

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bald-hleaded, ringleader and plotter of the kidnaping, went on trial in Cabell County Courthouse, in Huntington. The lfollowing Saturday the jury brought in a verdict of ,guilty of murder i n the, first degree. Booth must die on the gallows! Two days later Johnnie and 'omille Adams went on trial. Johnnie's atconfidence that betorneys cause of mitigating c.rcumstances he ,be the death penalty. But little did we realize the full Winters' power and Time after time Mr. thundered that Johnnie and Omille mercy* that they have saved Dr. Seder's life*that had they repented they have d a h d and caroused at the "KozS' Rest." ' On Friday I watched the jurv file out, my heart in my throat Fortyfive !minutes later they returned. There was a death silence in the high-vaulted courtroom, packed with wople. Then came the verdict: Guilty a s charged! Death on the scaffold! Through scalding tears I saw Johnnie, his attorneys, the entire audience, stare a t the jury in entire disbelief. Then Johnnie fell to his chair, racking sobs shaking his ; M y . I ran to him, tried to stifle my own tears in order to comfort and console him. A few minutes later the blood-congealing words had been pronounced -"hanged by the neck until you are dead!"-, and they wem leadins Johnnie away. I suddenly felt a s if the chill hand of Death itself was clutching at my shoulders, holding me from fleeing from a worse torment to come.

extent of

Toronto 1, Canada Once more I fought to stifle my fear and d d , to fight for Johnnie's life with every weapon I could muster. Many persons tried to persuade me to renounce him, that I could go my way and soon h free of any stifgma. They could not realize the extent of a woman's love. I fought, I I pray&--ra~ed for my Johnnie. I, who thought I had !oved the big-city hot spots and meet~ n gnew, interesting people, spent most of the time in the companionship of my parents. But all our fighting proved useless. every al~peal was denied. Slowly we watched every opportunity, every hope vanish Closer and closer came the day of doom, the day of Death On March 21 my husband, the man I llov&, d i d on the g.allows in Moundsvilte, several miles from Huntington. Sometimes, when the pain i n my heart eases a little, I like to think that the prayer Doctor 'Seder said for Johnnie will help just a bit. I know in v y heart that he had no conception of the terrible thing he was doina. I shall never ;believe other than Johnnie thought he was enkring upon a lark, the pleasure and profit of which were heightened to him with the fumes of alcohol. This + b v that I loved and who loved me c0111d not know that i t was to ;be a lark with Death!-Death, who does not know how to play! I know that the blood of Doctor M e r is on his hands, a s i t is on Arnett Booth's and Orville Adkins'. Yet somehow I like to feel that in the Beyond he and the kindly minister have met again, that a bestowal of forgiveness has been made by the man - who died so terribly, and so needlessly.

. ..

OF H A T E

. ..

AN VELGO hated women and he took his revenge by making love to them, torturing in his own way, cruelly, sadistically, with lecherous cackles at the squirming nude victims whom he forced to parade before him and do his biding. A judge, an honored man, a great citizen in public. A warp& fiend, a monster who took revenge for b o y h o o d slights, who lusted like a beast . in private. Yet for half his fifty-four years he was able to be two men at once, to laugh at the Justice he was supposed to uphold, to mock the Czeckoslovakian ideals he was supposed to present.

J

.. .

..

. .

Jan Velgo, the bad Czech . the disgrace of his country, had grown to be fifteen years old in the normal manner. The son of a poor, but honorable family and the eightih child. his life had been none too brilliant, but i t had been gay and contented. He was rather handsome as a lad and quick witbd and popular. At fifteen, when he was on the verge of putbing adolescence behind him and stepping across the boundary into young marhood, where his charms mi&t lay a foundation for future success, he beoame ill. Out of his i l l ~ l ~ came ss a grotesque curvatme of the spine and a distortion of his face This appaling calamity befalling a youth of so much prmise, embittered him. Where once the girls had fawned upon. him, i h women avoided him, shunned him, distressed by the ugliness of his twisted body and his drawn, lop-sided face. No longer was he popular, except among those men 10 had been 'his intimates as a

ild.

He began to f i r s t for Even*. He knew that any power he mizht thereafter enjoy lay strictly in money. Money and power. If he couljd amass wealth, he could command power. So he buried his bititerness within his wa.rped being and set his face for his goal. Knowledge he must gain first, then by this, power and wealth.

He was a brilliant student. Having no outside interests whatsoever, he was able to concentrate on his studies. He finished his preparatory education in his native city of Brno, Czechoslovakia, in two years, half the time allotted to the d i n a r y student wit21 the ordinary ambitions Such was bhe quality of his determination.

*

*

*

BEiFORE he was half way through his m n t i e s , he had acquired considerable property. He also had gained a LW degree and he had learned the gaudy artifices of politics. Before he was thirty he was a magistate in and mdem bgah to look beyond the warped exterior of his body and to hurl their fair hughters a t his misshapen head. Now, with these daughters being offered him in marriage, he ,became more and more cynical. They had not been offered him a t the usual tim2 of marriage for the young men of his country. They had not been offered him then because he was ugly and malformed and bitber and, most important of all, he reasoned, he didn't have money and he didn't have pros-

1)

1

Now, he told friends, many girls wanted to marry him Why? because he could give Wem position, future, security. He knew, he said, that none loved him for himself. He knew that, for all their beauty and good heeding, they were playing a game and he was the ugly pawn. He knew that they were hiding within th~eir own beautiful selves their repulsion for him that they, or their families, might gain in worldly things.

So he went on into his thirt.ies, hating and saving. He climbed ehe political ladder rapidly and his fortune gmw and grew. He lived comfortably, from exterior appearances, but actually he nursed his gains like a miser. He ate sparingly, paid his m servant meamrlv. - - , was careful with his clothing, made only s ~ t c h public appearances as were either free or of great direct benefit to him golitically or financially. his wealth and power grew, SO dild his fascination for the opposite

DENNIS SPRAGUE

Europe's notorious case of the Jekyll~HydeJudge

AMOURS OF HATE The ginl went, but r&e did return. She returned often. Then, one night when she could no longer bear her shame which was becoming evident on her slim figure, she went to a river at &e edge of their town and hurled herself in.. Her body, swollen from the effects of the immersion and b r condition, was found h o days later and the story was out. But J a ~ lVelgo was powerful. He quashed criminal action with a word. Then he circulated the story that he had discovered the girl was mfaithful. She had a young lover. He had sent the young lover out of the town because he feared, M e n the truth became known, that $is life would be endangered. "I am an old man, crippled and helpless," the whined, or bellowed, &epending upon the circumstanws. "How could I seduce one so young and so lovely?" He was not so old, however. He was in fact, just thirty-seven although bemuse of his affliction and the bitterness in his face and the l m g hours of tail and misery he had gone through Q attain power and mcmey he looked year8 older.

* *- *

sex. He sat in his home and smirked

ta himself, or cackled aloud a t the imnipotence of money and position. Women all but threw themselves a t his feet and when the time cotme that he was aware of this, he decided that the iron was hot. He could strike, now. He would exact his revenge on all womankind. He would humiliate and debauch them and then he would laugh a t their misery as they had laughed a t his. His first overt act to come to public notice was the seduction of a sixteenyear-old girl. She was the beautiFul daughter of an excellent but impoverished family and he had pretended to be interested in her as a future wife. He called on hkr formally and then was seen with her in

publi'c places. He had b e c m a judge now wibh a seat in the town's inner councils and he wielded tremendouq judicial influence. After a courtship of two months, the young girl suddenly found herself enceinte. She dared not tell her parents, she was afraid to see the family physician. She went, instead, to tihe agency of her embarrassment and told him they would have to be married a t once. He laughed in great glee. He was amused. He was, truthfully, downright tickled. "You who are so young aad beautiful want me, old and bent and ugly, to 'believe that you gave yourself only to me," he scoffed a t her. "Ho, ho, ho-and now get out and never come back"

THE incident af the s i m year old suicide did not detract from the man's political ,pawer. A s a matter of fact, he lost nothing whatsoever, but actually gained. Within a few m o n t h he became a district judge in T d e n , Cm&as1ovakia, a mu& bigger and more powerful position. This was in 1920, shortly after khe reorganization of the Caeeh republic and, opportunislt that he was, he was climbing with great rapidity in the nation's important judiciary. In Tesahen he carried on his campaign against all womankind. Instead of being warned by the deaf3 of the girl, he seems to have been encou~aged. Becauw he was not able to conbct prospects rapidly enough any other way, he inserted an advertisement in the local newspapers. In it he offered to advance, without interest or obher commitments, smal! loans to what the advertisement describing as "deserving girls." He was not reluctant to identify his judicial name with this enterprise. As a matter of fact, it was such identification that drew suspicion away from it. Such an offer, without some

D

AMOURS OF HATE good name behind it, unquestionably

would have flushed up a n instant and highly indignant suspicion. But with the impeccable Judge Velgo's name behind it, i t was ackpted as the dharitable gesture of a great and good man whose heart bled for the misfortunes af underprivileged girls. And indeed thnC!.was a place in his heart for them. I t was not, however, a place where the milk of human kindness flowed as fulsomely as his duped fellow citizens suspected. Such milk as there was, was well tainted with the wormwood of bitterness and hatred and abnormal revenge. Since Czechoslovakia was a country just rising from the ashes of the 1or.g anld destructive last war, (and now a ' country without a name), poor and overcrowded with love starved women and short on men because of war's toll, the good judge's offer of finencial assistance to those in distress met ~ 3 % a n imtaneous response. Girls of all ages flocked to his chambers and pleaded to be helped over certain embarrasing mileposts, most of theni not entirely unrelated to impending motherhood. Judge Velgo, with that directness of purpose that lifted him to the political peaks and prompted him to seek out his fair victims by the unwavering line of newspaper advertising, a t once began to separate the sheep from the goats and the black sheep from the white. If one of MS clients already was enceinte, he furnished her with the price of .an operation. He dso supplied her with the operator. After the operation, and due time for recovery, she was to return to him. She would then be required to yield to his desires, which were many, and also to repay his money. The judge covered that in &er ways. Those who were not expectant mothers, were endowed with small loans to carry them over current trmblea, all of whidh was to be returned, the principal in currency, the interest after the established fashion.

* * * [S honor had managed to work r considerable trade in Teschen I he was unexpwtedly b l e d upthe political fates once more. time he was promoted to super-

ior circuit judge in charge of divorce matters and returned to Brno. Not only was Brno a larger city than Teschen and his home town, but i t also was the seat of a provincial government aad hie seat m the circuit court was a noble distinction, indeed. Since tbe divorce d o n of the ciruuit court also included those torts concerned with all manner of domestic and morals problems, Judge Velgo was in .a position to indulge his appetites. If m y of his victims felt impelled to take any morals action against him, they wod'd be obliged, by the nature of the judicial structure, to take i t before him. If there remained any lingering doubts a s to What the judge's verdict in any case against himself might have been, let them be suppressed a t on*. In h he audQciously reestablish-

ed his brokerage in young flesh. He inserted the usual a d v e r t i s e m t and opened his chambers for the =me sort of business as had proved so rich in Teschen. Whether or not news travels slowly in Cmchoslovakia or it. women care less allergic to the sort of abuse they get from the J a n Velgw of this world is problematical. Whatever i t was, there was no lessening of the ardor with which the ivomen of Brno fell in with h k planned debauchery. In Brno Judge Velgo's singular mania reached its ludhest flowering. Not only did he collect the usual inter& rates, but he took to making visual records of his vengeful con.quests. He required his viatims not only to satiate his sex appetites, ut also to pose for his amateur photography. in the nude. In f a d , he re quired them 60 pose first in full

AMOURS OF HATE attire and in the hude, a form of depraved tittilation that later received considerable publicity.

b o a But he wasn't half as sur- &em as one admirer of art to another. prised as he would have been if he He made no effontrr to press his had known all there was to know faint advamtage. He behaved in the about Marie IEavlick, or as he was manner coumtly. But he could not In addirtion to these photographic recards of his exploits, the judge kept going to be when he found out just m i s t the temptation to impress his guest with the eroticisms of hi6 a diary. It was a most fortrhiright a few of those things. Marie was petite and wise. She private photography collection. and explicit diary. Not even the dumbest jury of Slavic' peasanb could had diwovmd at the tender age of He showed her some of his moat have misunderstood it. He listed the fifteen how to make use of her bodily prized nudes. names, ages, weight, height, contours, charms. Because of her beauty and Marie played her hand perfectly. complexions, etc., in this record and piquancy, she had been able, thr011g11 She quit the apartment in hi& dudin the space neserved f w remarks he a succession of nine more c& less well geon.. She refused even to wait for , acquire her educat- him$ taking a taxicab at his door. made a notation of the peculiar tal- placed - l o ~ sto ents of each of his partners in ion and to secure for herself a pos- She went hame and refused to answer ibion with an important Brno banlr- his letters or his calls for three long amour. Thus Jan Velgo, secure in his om- ing house. So excellent was her job weeks. nipotence a s the circuit court judge at her current age of twenty-one tbat Then she saw him again and to whom the crimes he was so ar- she was in a position to give her again mid yet amin, but always she 1 dently commdtting were made respon- charms even more leeway ~ a 1 ever demanded the utmost respect. Finally, sible, went on and on until, a t the before and to hold out for the best four months later, she visited him price and man, great or small, had to age of fifty-one, which! was in 1934, ak his apartment and found there a he came to a detour on his fleshly offer. girl nanned Heda ReichR1. Helda lrsd The judge didn't h o w these things. been1 one of the judge's brokerage amtrail. * * * If he had, he probably would hlve ours for some time. We was young' taken to heel. Rut he was =CL and quite pretty. The judge, after I T WAS spring and the judge was to vyoung and very inexperienced waking in the park. He had long and very poor girls who needed his seve~al h o u ~ sof gayety, suggested since corrected much of the earlier money more than they needed honor that the two pose for nude phot* graphs He was using W, already spinal affliction. Money and his iron or self respect. As a result his familiar with the experience, as a deteronination had done that for him. experience, for all its m a s s qual'ty, b y . Now hb made a not wholly unaktract- W n ' t beem specially educational. Heda stripped with maidenly reive figure of judicial stxength and M&e graciously made dates wilh tluctrtnce and ultimately Mark, after debonair dignity as he strolled, jauntly swinging his cane, his silk topper Velgo, then failed to keep them. S1 e much skilled blushing and many shy becomingly aslant, his pincenez cord met him by designed accident innum- protestations, likewise stripped. They dangling rakishly fmm his high fore- erable times, praaticed her wiles as- posed for the photos and then Marie siduously at such times,'then broke quickly redmed her attire and behad. other engagemenb. Now she told As he strolled, the judge, much in him never to bother her amin. Now came once mone the elusive minx she always had b e e n - 4 t h the judge. the manner of the tribune of the she liked him enormously, but di2n't Maud Muller piece, suffered his eyes If the judge had been h w l e s d y believe in going out with men, esto dart hither and yan in search of fascinated by the girl prior to the pecially such worldly men, on such photomaplh incident, he was now appetizing feminine flesh. As he pastranced her, again he affronted her. 8ed a bench, he noticed that a rather no thin^ less than supinely mad abcut p ~ t t ygirl with big brown eyes ~ n d her. TO him she L m k at once a combination of Cleopatra, Ninon I'Ena challenging air was occupying one clos, and Lola Montez. He offered FOR three years is kept up. NOW end of it. The judge, never one to her riches, position, everything but and then she lunched with % h Oc. stand on ceremony where women were marriage. involved, sat down and asked her if casionally he t w k her to the theatre, Then the time came when his apshe could lend him a pencil. She pro- a necessity which pained him deeply. duced the pencil and they began to H was not used to suuh exwnses. But petites, never before denied their utstill his love remained a brown eyed, most demands, overcame him and he talk. He discovered that the girl's name provoking, impregnable wil1-o-the- pleaded with her to marry him. Craftwas Marie Havlick and that shr wisp a d he remained a defeated, de- ily Marie led him on until he twice put his plea in writing, mailing the was a janitor's daughter. He also signing, lecherous sucker. Finally, on an August afternoon, letters to her home with the headless disoovered that she worked a s a SWhe was rewarded, a t least in part. abandon of a sorely smitten mind. retary, sometimes, and that she spoke Slavic, German and somt En- The bewitching bezom consented to Immediately Marie became another glish, not to mention a bit of French visit him in his apartment. m a n . This, osten~ibly,hiad been Velgo, Ibo be sure, showed her his hr g d . For all his years (he was end a smattering of Polish. He was greatly surprised to find such learn- etchings. But he showed them with- two years older than her father) hie ing in c.m young and so modestly out the usual trimmings. He showed was wealthy and had positim He

AMOURS OF HATE m, indeed, er big nuin in Czechoslovakian jurisprudence and destined, apparently, to grow btgger. Also, he was old and for iaill his grim determination to live and 'tre strong, his h d t h was not of the be&.

TWO weeks aftr they became engaged, Mairie, with the coy grief of a conquered maiden, yielded her charms to her slavering suitor. It all happened in his apartment amd it happened amid Crapings of Roman splendor. The man 1hta.d outdone himself in the matter of wine and edibles and esoteric trappings. He had the finest of sandle wood to bum in his incense bowls, the house was filled with roses and all manner of aromatic flora and an African howboy in an exotic Eabit noiselessly trod the carpeted corridors m bowed obsequiously to their comw d a If the eabh W less d u r i n g to the judge than the chase, he did not, at mce, @many signs of it. His lovemaking was fully a s avid and as chiro g r a p h i d a s i t had been before and when, one night M;arie announced that her parents were objecting bitterly to her marrying one so much older, he was utkrly distrait. Jcin Velgo was incredulous. He, one uf the powerful judicial figures of the republic of Gzechodovakia, unsuitable for the daughter of a humble janitor? A m m of wealth and pasition and power an undesirable husband for the working daughter of one who amounted, in the still feudal Slavic socilal scale of a middle European nation, to a servant? He was both shacked md furious. His sudden anger quite overwhelmed Marie Havlick. For f i e first time she began to fear she had overplayed her clever litble hand. Sfhe found herself the supplicant. She found herself agreeing to a most ignoble marriage contrmt. It a i d , in effect, that she was to be his wife, Mat she waa 60 bear him, the child with which ,.she .already was pregnant and that she ivas to turn the child over to him after its binth wilihout m y questions m

d e c1.

To add to the mystery of the marriage, the ceremony was performed a t

six o'dmk in the morning, an hour selected by Judge Velgo because of the opportunity for privacy.

the dignity of bhe pLished bell pnll, and as they waited far a response, they gwt a most unexpected one.

It was at this juncture ehat the calculations of both these scheming people began to backfire, although the bride's errors began to be manifest fir&. Velgo, with an income of 4,000 crowns monitMy, gave his bride exactly 200 crowns monthly for her support. This was to provide her with dothing, medical attention required because of h condition, f d , quarters and all the little luxuries to w k i h one of her station was en-

The sound of a mildly muffled pistol shot broke through the door and smote upon the flabbergasted ears. A t once they forced the door. They whu?d into the V d g a music salon and there, with his body still riggling nauseatingly, blood streaming from his temple to the rich, new rug, lay We& Cerny, a pistol a few feet a m y. Even a s the offiwrs rushed to Cerny, there oame m d s of a feminine bleating from an adjacent bathroom. A woman was crying that her dear man had been .attacked, that burglars had entered the place. The officers found the bathroom door Iwked on the outside. They d o c k e d i t and discovered Marie Velgo inside, b a t i n g her breast and appa~entlyin great distress. She rushed out d s t m d at the prone 3nd bloody figure of Cerny. Then she painbed dramatically to a n open window a t the rear of the house and smamed that the marauders had escaped-in that direction.

titled. Obviously this dowry was not ccmsisknt with the bride's original expectations. She was not, in fact, as well stationed, financially, as she had ' been a s a working'girl. Bwt #he was not one to be easily de.feattl She had other irons in the fire and they were m n g hatter by the hour. I n her peregrinations h and about the Vdgo ho&old she had made the acquaintance of a strange, bald, thickset gorilla named Wemzel Cerny. Cerny was the adored of the Velgo laundress and likewise a man of considerable muscular endowments and compa~.cltivelyno brain pan whatsoever. Marrixi ztnd the father of a seventeen-year-old son, Cerny nonebheless persist&! in his amouxa with the slatternly Velm w a s h e m a n and through this attachment he came under the influence of the judge's ~ e t t young y bride. Marie, still pretty and as aroh s wen& as ever set s man's heart to palpi'tating, went to work on Cerny. She told him, and he agreed unreservedly that the judge was a maunte')haink, a miser and a cad because of his stinginess with her. Gerny agreed that he ~ J W Sall of these things and l i h m in a few more of his own invention, just to be sure that the eminent tribune was properly catalogued. Then one night a high government official, liviflg next door to the judge, held an altercation of such mnnifestly vident proportions that he notified the gendarmerie. The police arrived on the double quick and as they confronted the Velgo door, heard a piano playing raucously. They rapped smartly on the door, ignoring

As two officers l w p t nimbly through the window and bayed the alleged spaor of the fleeing brigands, Marie directed the remaining two to another bathroom. "They put him in the-my poor, dear man," she cried. "He's in there." Again there was signs of a bathroom dool- having been secured on the outside and once more the officers twisted the key and entered. In the tub, the head submerged and his hands amd f& bound, lay the twisted (body of Jan Vel,go.

A MEDICAL examiner was called, but he could do nothing for t'he proud jurist. Another physician ordered Cerny to a hospital. There it was found that (hiswound would not prove fatal, but that he undoubtedly would 1the sight of one eye, the pistol bullet having crashed through his skull striking the right optic n k e . With these findings came also the word of the arrest of Cerny and

AMOURS OF HATE M a r k Velgo for the murder of Judge Velgo. The police, wi'th a deplorable lack

ef trust in their fellow man, and especially dheir fellow woman, had refused to be taken in by the burglary shy. A t once Marie changed her stmy. S h put the blame squarely upon Cerny'a gorillaesque shoulders. She did it on the hope $hat Ceniy, a notoriously bad shot, had been worse than usual in attempting to inflict a minor scalp wound on himself and had fatally wounded himself. 'Such was not the case howewr. He lived. Cerny, informed of Marie'e story, prduced a promissory note made out by her. It promised to pay him 5,000 ~rcwpns down for certain unnamed, but broadly 5$ntecI a t services. A$ter the services were performed, it promised yet other monies, totaling another 5,000 krona, after the services "known only to the payee and myself" had been satisfacturily perform!&. The case went m trial. Shortly it wemt to the jury, a jury of honcrable, but impressionable men. Within two hours they returned to the courtroom. n e y had reached a verdi& 'The court asked to hear it. "We find Wenzel Cerny guilty of murder," the foreman said. "And Mmie Velgo?" "We find Marie Velgo not guilty," the foreman intoned, blandly, then %it down, d 1 pleased with h i d f . Later he was called upon for an explanation He said #hiat the jury had concluded h t Madame Velgo waa under irresistable force when she committed the crime, which they admitted @he h d a definite part in, and thus was not guilty under the laws of the country. It was sort of equivalent to a self defense finding in our own counts ?rhe prosemtor was nort only he was terribly, terribly hurt. He amailed himself of a facet of the Czechoslovakian law that migh twell be q i e d here. It provided that in an event of a jury is fixed, or suddenly ,goes emotirmally ga-ppr such as thii one ostensibly had under the influence of Marie's coquetry &e defendant may be placed on trial again and the law's demand^ more adequately &fied. MARIE went on t r h l again. This

kui,

'

time the c& made irt clear that the irresklibte force was not to be considered. There WBS no intimation that she had ;been irresistibly farce3 to do anything. The evidence either said she and Clerny %d put the judge in the bathtub or Cemy alone M dohe it and the 'had bkem no part in the ceremony. The verdid aame back quickly. Marie was guilty. she wrus sentenced to serve twelve years in prison. The court, well pleased, took occasion to deliver a brief rebuke and a bit of sound advice to women of Marie Vdgo's peculiar e n t h u s i m s . The learned judge had admitted the phatogra.phic collection of Velgo into the evidence, also his diary. Upon these exhibits he based his Iscture. "Our fair defendanv5" he caid gallantly, "was both Mndwme and clever. But she was, unfortunately, too cever. Had she come %to f i i s court with these exhibits (indicating

~~ of

photos and diary) and pleaded that &e had slain her husband when he abtenp+ed to add to her shame by forcing her to pose, in her o b v i d y delicate condition, in the nude, then she could readily have proved irrestible force. But she did not. She p h n e d twro well. She first attempted to convince the police and this w u r t that there had been a burglary and hter she elected to throw the guilt on her stupid dupe. "Marie Velgo W= scheming and clever, but rshe was not wise. Perhaps she will learn the wisdom of simplicity ih the 12 years before her in whi& she will have time to reflect and grow gradually old." Marie went to prison for 12 years and b r y was given a similar sentence. And w%en m e was s k n ~ n c e d to 12 years in prison in Czechoslovakia, m e nat only served 12 pars, he served an e v d dozen. They were very pmtimh on that point then. thg

I

by ED, SULLIVAN 1

Her burning eyes stared at t!he wall. Suddenly she stiffened: a dry gasp rattled in her throat. "He's coming after me! Fernand's after me!" she cried. "Don't let him get me! He'll kill me!" The nurses held her d m as she shuddered at a horrid vision they could not see. Thus did Franc- King, the darkhaired butterfly girl who thought she could outsmart life, in a hospital cot in Chicago seven years ago.

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HE girl's eyes were pits of agony. Her face, glistening with sweat, was as white as the pillow on which she - tossed. The doctors shook their %ads. There was no hope for er. The poison she had taken as searing her vitals like a hite flame. All they could do as ease her pain with morhine.

RLO'OD STREAMED down the little dark man's face, dripped from his slashed stomach as he staggered d m the alley, his hands spread out before him like a sleepwalker. He st~m~bled for half a block, hold- and he died at the emergency hospital, ing onto the house-fronts. Finally he refusing to name !his killer. fell in a blwody heap, in the flaring * * * circle of a street-lamp. THE YOUNG CHINESE blinked "I must go on," he muttered through the bubbling blood-froth on his lips. with embarrassment, behind his thick "They mustn't find a m near Fer- spectacles, as the little white girl, hardly more than a child, pulled- the nand's place!" "I'hose were almost the last words scarlet evening gown over her head Louis Nimois, the French-Canadian and stood brazenly before h i m . gambler, ever spoke. Hours later "You seem so young-you don't they found him lying in that San ' m m to belong here," he said. "SureFrancisco alley in a welter of blood, ly you're not working here from

CRUSHING AMERICA'S CRIME LORD

58 \

.

The police were powerless to cope with the political powerful crime magnate, until the Federals choice. And why-" He gestured a t the tell-tale Ilsedfe punctures on her white arm. A shadow passed over her pititrd painted mask of a face. "I can't leave here," she said. Fernand wouldn't let me. He'd kill me. I took up the junk so I can get svme sleep, without nightmares-" Then, a s a footstep sounded in the corridor outside, the m a k was on again. She stretc(hed enticingly, smiled invitingly at the yellow man. This, seven years ago, was little Bunny Anderson, the girl from Portland who was the favorite of San Fran.cisoo's Oriental brothels. A few months ago she was let out of the county jail after serving her latest term for using d w a n old, olld woman a t twenty-three

e

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FERNAND. Fernand le Corss. Through these and a hundred other sordid tragedies of the shadow-world, runs tthst name of fear. The name of Juseph F a m m d Ondella, alias Fernand le Corse-Fernand the Corsican-for years in San Francisco was a syabol of vice, degradation, crime and sudden death. The squat, enormous-jowled, sluglike Corsican ruled an empire of fear, shame, and pain. He fancied h i m d f a worthy counterpart of his countryman, Napoleon Bonaparte. He was a Luciano of the West Coast. His tentacles reached to New York, to Montreal, to the sewers of Paris. America truly proved itself the land of opportunity for this alier.. He amassed a fortune, built on the broken bodies of wme.n and the ruined lives of men. He widded power such as few men wield. In presenklay San Francisco. he held hundreds of men and women in the grip of terror unpwelled since the heyday of the Mafia in Sicily. He was a unique phenomenon, able to exid only in a cosmopolitan and

gxaft-ridden city like San Francisco. Like A1 &pone, -he was immune from interference by the police. Even when iMue s e n s a t i o d Atherton graft investigation ripped the lid partially off Sah Francisco's sordid mess of corruption several years ago, no evidence could be secured against him to warrant s criminal inclicement. Fear sealed the lips of witnesses. But Uncle Sam at last caugnt up \ ~ 5 t hF d the C o r s i h , just as

he dM ~ 5 t hAl C a p o n e n o t for his flagrant crimes but for a minor violation of federal law on which an ironclad case could be built. For months, investigators worked in mcret, and i t is only now that the complete revolting truth about San Francisco's f a t vice lord can be told. F e r n d w w never as notorious as AI ,Capone. In fact, his name wldom golt into the newspapers. Few respectacle citiaem ever heard d him.

LUSHING AMERICA'S CRIME LORD

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But in the devious b ~ y ofs the Barbary Coast and the Tenderloin, of Chinatmm and North Beach, h:s name was a fearsome watchword. His victims were not people whose misfortunes would cause any public oultcry. They were poor prostitutes living under the thumb of grafting police, white-faced pimps eking out, a miserable existence in the trade of ultimate shame, illiterate aliens cowering in fear of deportation. People whom Fernand could kick around with little fear of a comeback. Men and women who are a n integral part of society, but to whom society a1fords little protection. Nevertheless, th'y were human beings, their flesh was human fledh, and the beating they .took from Fernand hurt them jnst ss much as i t would hurt you or me. In the room of one of the investigators who was largely responsible for h smashing of Fernand, hangs a framed quotation from W& Xhitman's poem, "To a Common, Prostitute" : "Not till the sun excludes you do I exclude p u ; "Nat till the waters refuse to glisten and M l e for you, will my words refuse to glisten and rustle for you." ' This has been the keynote in this mfan's work of investigating graft and corruption, and results have proven that his sentimentalism, if i t be such, is iron-fisted. ,So, here is the story of Fernan3 the Corsioan, the sleepy-eyed slug who grew fat and gross on the proceeds of shame and disease:

JOSEPH FERNAND ONDELLA was barn in 1879 in the liktle sea-

part of Ajaccio in Corsica-imically, the self-same town in which Napoleon was born. Atscrape with the authorities in early youth sent him fleeing to Paris, where h lost himeelf in the underworld among thousands of his kind. &dowed with a villanioua imagination and absolutely no txruples, he soon became a full-fledged Apache of the Paris gutters. Among the AWJG m, pimping is an honorable way of . making: a living. The heavy-eyed Corsican youth had no difficulty in attrading the Cocottes of the cafes

to him, and he built up a profitable string of girls. The wanderlust hit him, and perhaps he had a little more vision, in his twisted way, than his cronies of the gutter. About 1901, he came to New York with his favorite girl, a blowzy, big creature, whose name will prdbably remain forever unknown to history. He had libtle trouble finding MS own element in New York. He pilt the @rl in a cheap brothel, and with her earnin'gs opened a cafe cm Ylst Street between Sixbh and Seventh Avenues. n i s place ,became a hangout for the Frendh underworld-for prostitutes, p i m p S, pickpockets strongarm men. The word went o ~ that Fmmand was a "right guy," and it was not long before he was onerating a haven for criminals whc fled from Paris. Murderers, gangsters, big-time robbers paid himrnfancy snms for taking care of them in New York until France cooled off for th.m. He got together a little gang c l his own, to take care of any outsiders who might step on the toes of his friends. A few unsolved murders and disappeammes went down on the

books. Then the law cleahedl him out. The French gan,g&s were getting a little meribold, and Fernand the Fixer w m not yet big enough bo be well

59

entrenched with Tamtmany. In fact, he had overlooked the little detail of greasing tlhe police and the administration. Consequently, when the newspapers clamored for a cleanup, the police sent Fernand and his coterie of Apachw high-tailing out of New York, bag and baggage. Fernand had heard lurid tales of San F r a n c i s c w f its wide-open Barbary Coast, its lax law enforceme~lt, its large foreign colonies. So to Sah Francisco he went, with the f a t bankroll he had accumulated, and opened a little cafe and hotel for French people on Broadway, between Powell and Stockton streets. This was in 1907, wheh the earthtquake-devastated city was in the throes of the great graft prosecution in which fie late William J. Bums bared the entire Board of Supervisors .as 'bribe-takers, dominated by Abe Ruef, a Pttle weasel-faced man who held every racket and graft in the palm of his hand. Ruef and his machine were in the pmcew of being broken, so neither the police nor t!he politicians bothered the young Corsican who was going about things in his o w n quiet way.

He operated the same sort of place for the worst element of the French for the wast element o fthe French underworld, a hideout for cut-throats who came all the way from Paris to

CRUSHING AMERICA'S CRIME LORD

tle circle. No one could complain to the authorities, and the police on the other hand paid little attention to what went on among the foreigners. Thus the FrendhrItalian Syndicate came into being-the close-knit organization,that has been an integral and sinster part of San Francisco's underworld for a quarter of a century. Fernand and a few others were the organizers; their watohwords were silence and fear. With the aid of their strong-arm men, they persuaded the less bold of the vice and gambling operators that the way to prosperity and security lay in sticking together, with Fernand as the "fixer" for them all, and his place the clearing-house

A t first, Fernand's ring was of modest size. To expand his business and to insure a steady flow of white flesh for the lust-driven frequenters of the Coast brothels, Fernand left San Francisco for a few years and did organizing work in other cities. I n Butte, Montana, he found a large French colony; he stayed there for a while an,d made his influence in. San Francisco known He established a regular route for the shipping of girls from the hrothels of Butte to the Barbary Coast. Then he went to Montreal, where he followed his usual procedure and set up a headquarters f y French criminals. His pimps sought out choice morsels from the Montreal

brothels and Fernand sent them to Butte and to San Francisco. They dealt only with French girls-Fernand in his youth was smarter than he turned out to be later, and he had sense enough to keep in his own cirde and not tempt fate. The French girls were less likely to squeal t.a the American a u t h a r i t i a

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FERNAND WAS ROLLING in money a t this time; he oast off Marie and took several young girls into his menage a t the same time, to replace her. He liked them younghis favorite mistresses were always under twenty years old. He splurged at the night-allrbs ahd the race-tracks. He remerted to a

USHING AMERICA'S CRIME LORD quaint litble habit he had learned in Paris, and added to his bankroll by picking pockets at the race-tracks. Instead of stealing money, he stole tickets from men who were known to be smart wagerers, and often cashed in scores of stolen tickets on a winner. Race-track detectives caught up with him, and he was thrown out of several eastern tracks. His white-slave route well-established and running smoothly, he returned to San Francisco about 1913, went back to active operation gf the Syndicate. Then came the Red Light Abatement Act and the end of the Barbary Coast and the segregated district. San Francisco was undergoing a ClVlC ' ' bat!hi Most of the vice operatot's 1-an for cover, thinking their world had come to a n end; but not so W ,,,.and ornc le Corse. Ondella s a y in the righteous upheaval a New DeaJ for his Syndicate. The brothels could no longer operate legally; they we= outside the law now, and in order to run they would have to be protected. They were no longer confined to a few blocks now-the whole city was his hunting-ground. The madamee, prostitutes, and pimps who had operated flagrantly on the Barbary Cosst wodd now be forced into furtive byways, dominated by 'Fear. It was the psychological moment for a man like Fernand to step in as their guardian angel. The broken "system" of the A& Ruef had been succeeded by a new graft ring. Saloon-keepers and bailbond brokers, close to the police, were the go-betweens. There were several saloon men in particular, a s unscrupulous a s Fernand, who encouraged c m k s to frequent their places, then sold them out to the policethen "fixed" the cases, "chilled the beefs"-collecting a f a t fee from both the crooks and the police. Fernand made friends with these men, througlh them arranged for protection of the French-Italian vice houses. The protection money cleared through him, and a goodly part of it clung to his pudgy finger's. -

He made more trips to Montreal. Once he lured two young sisters

from their homes in the Canadian city, brought them t o Butte and trained them to h prostitutes. About 1919, when they were thoroughly broken in and their spirits cowed, he brought them t o San Francisco. He set them up in a little rooming -house a t Broadway and Stockton, catering exclusively to Orientalsto Chinese from teeming Chinatown, Which adjoins the French-Italian colony, to Filipinos and to Japs. More and more, Fernand was realizing the profit that lay in selling white flesh to yellow mlen.

As he once told a friend: "The Chinks a r e better. They don't stay long, they come back oftener, and they don't get drunk and raise a riot like w'hite men." The rooming-house operated in high-gear unttil Fernand had a quarrel with one of the sisters. Shortly after that, the girl disappeared, and her sister, sworn to silence by Fernand wen3 back to Montreal. Fernand was getting a little older now, fatter and grosser, and his taste for young girls seemed to grow in inverse proportion. He was a

CRUSHING AMgRICA'S CRIME LORD

62

veritable satyr; s p W by the absin-

the which h e drank in Gargantuan quantities, he kicked and beak them in sadistic orgies that were the talk of North Beach.

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I N 1922 H E PICKED UP a beautifd little blande in Montreal- a stareyed girl m m e d Odede. He brought her to San Francisco m the pretext that &he w d d be his Number One mistraw. Then, instead of keeping her in his c m luxurious apartment, he put her in the Del Cleo Hotel on Broadway, where the woman keepe r held her a virtual (prisoner and taught her how to please the Filipino trade. The gifl became pregnant in a few weeks, and refused to submit to an abortion. She threatened to go to the federd auKhorities. Fernand, who had had big p h s for her, shipped her back in disgust to her parents in Monitred. In another case, the father of a Montreal girl complained to the immigration aubhorities. F e n a n d heard and beof it through hi~~~grarpevine, fore tiha inspectors could act he gave the girl, a little blonde named Simone, a roll of money and sent her home, under threat of death if she talked. She never talked1 With Prohibition, Fernand opened a new establishment-a little bootlegging -- - -place on Stevenson street near Twelf th-a hole-in-ehe-wall, off a dark d k y . Here, f a r from the Barhry Coast, he transacted most of h i s impantant business. It. was here, about eight years ago, that Louis Nimois, a bigdshot French gambler, got into an a r g w n e d with another Frenchman and was hornibly slashed afid shot three times. Blind with blood, Nimois staggered out into the b e e t , [bent only on getting away f ram Fernand's place-he did not know he was dying, and he was afraid of Fernand's vengeana w e if he should be the cause of the N i c e vissiting the place. The bartender slammed the door M i n d him. Nimois staggered h d f a block, fell in the gutter. Hours later, a truck-driver found him and h o k him t o the emergency hospital, where he died. Meanwhile, Fernand's bartender

and the other patrons had swabbed fie blood from the floor and obliterated the trail of blood outside the door. To all appearances, Nimois had been killed in the street. The case was e t t e n on pddw records as unsolved. The killer, whose name is h m n t o several persons, fled to Chicago and was never troubled .

bail-bond men, who split it with grafting police. In return, Ondella's houses wem rarely troubled. Fernand Ondella was not a Napoleon for nothing. H e could promise protection, and give it. His word was law among the aliens. When a pimp wanted to move his girl from one house to another, h e did so with Fernand's sanction-and paid Fernand. The code cd~ the French-Itdian underworld was absolute silence and loyalty--ithat is, among the lesser operators. The doubBe-crosser, the potential squealer, was swiftly and deftl'y bandled by Fernand's strongarm men.

FERNAND AND T H E SYNDICATE were now running full blast. Most of the police g r a f t payoffs were handled by the office of a bail-bmd broker, a former Barbary Coast s d oon-keeper, in the shadow of +Se Hall of Justiae. But Ferhand himself was above Fernand handed the collections even the code. H e double-crossed his from the French-Italian houses, own people right and left, and got turned p a r t of the money over to the away with it. He exitorted huge

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CRUSHING AMERICA'S CRIME LORD

ly to Wentals. He took in as silent partner a naturalized French-Italian who had e d e a fortune in the sale of white flesh. The Italian would put up the money, Ondella would do the fixing, and the take would be split three ways-between On&lla, the French-Italian, and the "resident manager" of tlhe place. Fernard en,gaged in profitable deals with Manie "Ma" ,Pappens, ope r d o r of a number of h,ouses in North Beach and the Tenderloin. When Mrs. Pqppens was sent to Tel.achapi Prison a few years ago for conkributing to the delinquency of mtimrs, in a particularly disgusting Fernand managed many of case, her affairs for her unitil her triumphant ereburn to the brothel business. Abopt 19130, Fernand met a fascinating girl named Frances King, and made her his Nu,xntber One Girl. He kqxt her for himself, and lived with her in a hotd on Pine Street. girl What the slender, reed-like eveF sans in the grass, sloppy Cur-'--R, will never be known. a t any , she was soon disillusioned and ened by his bestial lust. But her it was broken, and she stayed with him, for fear of what might hapipen if she crossed Km. -L.----

I

He took her on several eastern away, but Fernand treated her like trips-once bought expensive furs for a princess, wining and dining her till her in Montreal-and once brought her head reeled. Then he put her her younger sister from Chicago and through ,the mill-tau&$ her how to put her to work in a n Orienial minister to the lust of the Orientals. how. She stayed in the hotel, a prisoner of Finally a quarrel flamed and Fran- fear and shame. ces fled, Fernand shaking his fist after her and swearing dire vengeance. She went back to her mother H E SHIFTED HE,R from house in Chicago, gasped out the whole re- to house. To stifle the shame that volting story to her, then swallowed cried out i n her dreams, 'She took a corrosive p ~ s w nand died in agony to narootics, a s have many of the a few days later, screaming for fear Corsican's girls. of Fernand Le Gorse. Today, at henty-three, Bunny ?Jhrowing caution to the winds, A ~ d ~ e r s o is n a n aged wreck of a Fernand now made fewer trips to woman. Mon(trea1, and instead put young Then Fernand took up with a woAmerican girls in the Syndicate's man nearer his own age--one Nini houses. Perallaud, former wife of one of One flagrant case was that of 16- the bartenders. I t was probbly more year old Bunny Anderson, who hitch- of a business partnership than a love hiked dwwn from Portland to find a affair, h t i t lasted longer %an had job in San Francisco and made any of the Corsican's previous confriends with a cab d r i v e , wlho prom- nections. ised to find her a place tn live. He Fernand set u p his headquarters took her to the Bronx Holtel, one of i n a bar and cafe on Clay Street, a the lowest Oriental dives on North stone's thraw from the Hall of Justice Beach. F e ~ n a n d , pleased with the and the office of his bail-bmd broker luscious new arrival, gave the cab- fixer. He placed Nini in charge of man five dollars for his senices. the Orierutal brothel upstairs. Bunny Andferson wanted to ,run The Corsican was riding higih now;

CRUSHING AMERICA'S CRIME LORD thousands of dollars poured i n from , hisc graft collections, from the piti-

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ful earnings of his women, from +.he sale of false citizenship papers, false passports, etc. Then came the graft explosiontoudhed off by the revelation by Jcvhn V. Lewis, International Revenue Collector, that he had collected huge income tax arrears from crooked San F~ancisoopolice officers. The District Attorney hired Edwin N. Atherton, former G-man, a s special investigator to make an impartial probe of graft and report to the grand jury. Atherton laid bare f i e huge bank accounts of a number of officers, and, when they refused to testify before the grand jury, thirteen of them were dismisskd f m the force. One of Atherton's undercover uperatives, Ben Belasco, was convinced that the alien vice operators, standing in fear of deportation, constituted the city's biggest g r a f t problem-the police and men like Fernalid could extort a s much a s they wanted from them without fear of plaint. Belasco heard Fernand's name whispered again and again a s the Napoleon of the Syndicate. Belasco recruited the services of a n underworld woman whom we shall call Betty, and with her went to Fernand on the pretex that they wanted to open a brothel. Big, sloppy Fernand welcomed them royally a t his Clay street clearinghouse, treated them to important abh dnthe. "Fernand a n fix anything!" he boasted, and offered to set Betty up in a ihotel on Market street, for $500. He detailed how he would arrange police protection for then, take care of any trouble. Belasoo egged him on, pmtending to disbelieve in his power a s a fixer. Fernand bragged of how he had squared a shooting affray in a Kearney street brothel, a block from police Headquarters. "Well, anyway," Belasco told him, "there's one fellow you can't fixand that's the Old Man with the Whiskers!" "Bah!" Fernand exploded. "I can fix him too!" He went on to detail how a Cor-

sican brothel-keeper named "Herbert" Convinced that criminal convictions had been deported, and how he had could nmot be obtained in the state arranged for his return. me man courts, Atherton turned over his was now running a Kearney street evidence to the Federal immigration place unmolested, he said. authorities, who immediately launchBelasco left Fernand, promising to ed a n investigation of their own come back and close the deal; swiftly When Fernand heard Belasa, was he made the rounds of North Beach, working for Atheton, he was furfound that the man known a s Her- ious. He called him up, threatened to bert was one Abel Ducayla. kill hi,% offered to meet him anywhere With operatives Howard Pbilbrick, and fight i t out. Belasco arranged Lw Niuhols, and Ed. Hall, Belasco a street-corner meeting. arrested Abel Ducayla for questioning. Fernand drove up to the appointed The harrassed little man broke dovn spot, approached the operative with and talked. He explained that he his hand under his coat. had re-entered the country illegally "1'11 kill you," he hissed. through his m ingenuilty and not "I dton't think you'd want to do through any help from Fernand. He that out in public, here." Belasco told details of police payoffs. On the soothed him. "Come around the strength of this story, two afficers corner, to the hotel-" were arrested on bribery charges, but He grabbed Fernand's arm. The later acquitted when Ducayla, in mor- big Corsican, yellow a t heart, trerntal terror, refused to take 6he stand bled and shook loose. Muttering against them curses, he ran back to his car.

CRUSHING AMERICA'S CRIME LORD

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A F E W DAYS 'I~ATER,in midOctober, 1936, a posse headed by Philbrick and Belasco arrested Fernai~d, questioning him for hours. He talked rather freely, boasted of his connections, refused absolutely to take the stand against anyone. Then the i,migration authcrities moved in, asked Fernan'd for a detailed statement of his stay in t h e United States. He said he had first come here from Calgary, Canada, in 1922, and had not been out of the Unitred States since then. He knew the immigration lawthat any alien who entered the country, legally or illegally, before July 1,1924, canot be deported. llhe immigration inspectors che.:k-

ed up, found ample evidence that Fernand had left and reentered + I I ~ United States many times since 1924, on his trips to Montreal. He had brazenly used his own name, never dreaming he would be tripped up. He was charged with making a false statement, and was released on

bond. The Federal Bureau of Invetiglooked into Ondella's history, wit11 a view to White Slave prosecution for the Canadian and Montana trips, but no direct evidence could be secured; witnesses would not talk. The GMen were finally satisfied to let tne a shrewd counsellor when his girlcase rest with the immigration au- fniend, Nini, died suddenly. thorities, who had iron-clad evidetlce His loss was balmed,' however,, by of violation of the immigration lams. the fact that she died without a will, The f a t Corsican had falslen a t leaving a sizeable fortune--estimate? last. Immune from the police, he by some at $20,00&which he took couldn't fix the Old Man with the over. F e r n a ~ d le Corse wriggled and Whiskers. squirmed, tried every legal dodge, to The immigration men were also no avail. His pal, Big Jim Coleman, working on Abel DucayEa. They was no longer on hand to help himfound that he and his consort, Auna he had retired from the force and Roberts, had registered under false fled the city a t the s t a r t of bhe innames a t the last national election. vestigation. Ducayla and . the girls pleaded Finally, after months, during which guilty. ~ u c a ~ was l a sentenced to a h e arranged the affairs of his shatyear and a day in McNeil Island, and tered Syndicate as best he could, was deported to France on his reledse Fernand was ordered deported. . few months ago. Anna Roberts was Federal men are still a t work it on probation on condition thzt smashing the alien Syndicate. TEpy e leave the country' immediatcly, have arrested Olga Manzi, proprietiich she did. I ' ress of a notorious brothel in the ernand, Praiting for trial o r Je- shadow of the City Hall. She w a s " ation ac.tion, was deprived of charged with having fraudulently

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obtained citizenship papers in 1933. She was also ordered deported. She was a close friend of Fernand; she had found to her cost that he could not square the federal cost for her. The grip of the Syndicate is 'broken, and the hand of Fear is lifted from San Francisco's underworld with the lifting of the f a t shadow of the Corsican He is still getting revenue f n m three Oriental houses-for such places have J w a y s existed, and probably always will-but the empire of vici is smashed. Fernand was comparibively lucky. Instead of sitting in an Alcatraz cell like AI Capone, he can end his days in his native Corsican, trying to figure out why he couldn't chill t i e beef with bhe Old Man with the W#hiskers. Provided, of course, that he's still alive over there.

When Convicts Become Too Smart For Their O w n Good, Fireworks Are Bound to Result.

Y

OU'D think that the strict

supervision over convicts would make i t impossible for them to carry on rackets inside the walls. But there are many crooked things a crooked mind can originate, whether its possessor is behind bars or free. Any prison-wise guard would attest the truth of this.

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The moment an experienced prisoner gets "on location" in the job to which he i s assigned, he looks around to see how he can use it to his own advantage. A forger whom I knew, Easterday by name, was no differen* from the rest. When placed in the office of the record clerk, he quickly saw something his predecessors in that office had overlooked. Easterday began to circulate among prisoners known to ,be members of "swdll mobs" still operating, who might be willing t o pay well for any benefit to t'heir unfortunate brother in stir. In a short time he had some good connections, and promptly went to work on ,his new racket. About six m m t s s later a detective oame to the institution for a talk

with "Wild Bill" Murbha. He thought Murbha, who had been sent up from his city, might give him some information he needed. The detective was informed by the deputy warpen that Wild Bil(1 had been released following the expiration of his sentence six months or so before. "That's funny," the detective said. "I figured he had still another six months t o serve." The deputy sent for Murtha's commitment and other papers. "Here i t is," he explained. "He got sentence of four years which expired six months ago.'' "Four years!" exclaimed the officer. "Why, he got five years. I ought to know. I worked on the case and was in court when he was sentenced." The deputy warden sensed something was wrong. He put in a long distance call to the clerk of the court had M convicted. in which Murthurtha What he heard caused him to make an immediate investigation, and t o suspend the release of all prisoners until it was completed. The investigation revealed that Easterday was conducting a nice little racket in the record clerk's office

a

which was bringing him huadreds'of dollars in good U.S. min. Ris procedure was simple enough. First he would miake a contact with a prisoner, and ask him how much it would be worth if he got a year 'cut from his sentam. For a price agreed upon and deposited with a friend of Easterday's on the outside, the forger would alter the records and cut a year off the man's sentence. I t wasn't a t all difficult. All Easterday did was to change the commitment and whatever additional papers there were in the case, to mice them appear that 8he sentence was one year less than i t actually was. When the list of prisoners going out for each day was made u p and handed o v a to the officers who "dmssed out" such men, the name of the one who had bought a year's freedom would be on the list just that much ahead of the real date. The usual routine check of the papers would show IAe date to be apparently correct. A half dozen other prisonem besides Murtha had received simi~lar "cornmutations" of sentence through the ingenious efforts of this chronic racketeer.

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The By ANN STUAEIT And so began th,e plannin'g of the perfect crime. The two men went back to Ornaha and in May, 1900, began their preparations. They rented a house in -a.suburb. Da+n,r six . . --" months' rent in advance. ~ e x t Clrowe bought two h m s and a covered carriage, stabling them in a shed by the side of the house. Each day for two months they drove t h i s carriage past the Cudahay home, but catching sight of young Edward a d a h a v . men on ~~~~b~~ 18. the& chance 'came. On this afternoon as they drove past, the door opened and Edward came out and began t o walk down the street. As he turned the corner, out of sight of the house, e o w e drove the carriage u p to him. Calahan jumped down and grabbed young Edward by the shoulder. "WE WANT you, Eddie McGee," shouted Crowe. "We're police officers. We know you're on the run from a reform school.'' Edward protested that his namle was Cudahy. It was useless. Crowe said he would have t o go with them to the station for identification. So the boy shrugged his shoulder? ---

YOUNG man stood in a small street in Omaha, Nebraska, fiercely shaking his fist at a shop on the other side of the road. He was talking out loud in his anger, swearing vengeance against its owner Edward Cudahy, *soonto became known throughout America as the meat-packing,king.

at young man was Pat Crowe, and he believed that Cuclahy hac for& him out of business. On that day, many years ago, he decided that Chdahy should pay the price. Ther. Thirteen years one day Crowe picked up a paper and read that Gudahy's son was sixteen. A plan of revenge began to take shape in his mind.

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'WILL YOU help me to get $25,000?" he asked Calahan, a pal of his. "I'd go through fire and water for a tgnrth d that," declared Calahan.

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and climbed into the carriage, thinking that the mistake would be easily cleared up when they reached the police station. But the second she entered the car, riage a coat was flung over his head and a a n thrust in his side. "Keep @.et, do a s you're told aud you won't be f~urt," Cmwe warned him. "But make a sound and 1'11 !,ut a bullet through When they reached the ho~lsethe frightened lad was bundled inside. Before they lit a lamp a bandage was tied r o d young C'udahy's eyes. He was warned not t o remove it if he valued his life. Then Crowe s a t down to write a ransom note t o his father. It was a brutal note. It demanded $25,000 in gold. If the money was not handed over, Edward was t o be blinded with acid before being sent back home. Mr. Cudahy was ordered to take his carriage and drive out of town the next night a t seven o'clock until he came to the bridge over the Papio River. A lantern would be burning there. With him he was to take a sack, containing the money in gold

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To#daya seventy#year.oldman sits in a hotel, at peace with the world, Yet he committed one of the most amaziag crimes in the world!

THE PERFECT CRIME coin, which he A s to drop by the lantern, and then drive straight back t o town. If he made this journey accompanied by police, o r if there was any attempt to capture the kidnappers--well, Edward woultl lose his TYING THE NOTE to a stick, Crowe walked past the Cudahy mansion and flung i t on to the lawn. When darkness fell, he went ol;t to the bridge and lit his lantern. Then h e hid himself in a little copse overlooking the bridge, holding his gun cocked. Soon a carriage approicl-ed, 2nd stopped by the bridge. The driver and Cudahy got out and carried a heavy sack to the lanterfi, stepped back in@ their carriage and drove off. Crowe came out of the copbe and advanced, to the sack. He 'opened it, ran his hands through dully gleaming gold pieces-the ransom hati been paid. He was revenged on Cudahy! He carried the money home, where Chlahan excitedly helped him to count it. I t was all there, so they took Edward, put him in the carriage and drove him to within three streets of his home. They let him crut and drove off. After dividing t h e gold the kidnappers separated. Calahan went to shelter a t a friend's house, and Crowe rode out of town to a farm, where he planned to stay until the hunt had died down. The police and Pinkerton's dreaded detective agency were determined to capture the criminals, and things began to grow too warm for Crowe. He made his way to the coast and shipped for South Africa. Then began one of the comedies of American justice. Calahan began spending gold twenty do!lar pieces. He was arrested. Edward Cudahy recognized his voice. Gradually a damning case was built up against him. But when the case came to' trial, strangely enough the jury acquitted him. Crowe went on a trip and returned a year later--only to learn t h a t he was still suspected. For several years he dodged the police. Then he grew ' weary and decided to give himself up. He was sent back to Omaha t o be tried. S

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$1.98 Shipped Prepaid GOLDEN BOOKS OF AMERICA 135 Yonge St. The case lasted two weeks. Among the evidence was a letter written by C r m e t o a friend confessing the crime. And no defence evidence was put forward. A conviction seemed a certainty. The jury were out of the court for four hours. When they came back they gave the verdict of "Not guilty!"

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I T WAS THE most amazing decision of any American court. It turned P a t Crowe into the man who commited the perfect crime.

Toronto 1, Ont. He kidnapped a boy, got the ransom money, confessed his crime, yet was set free without a stain on his character-and allowed to keep his share of the ransom money! Whether he got off scot-free because he was popular in Omaha, or because the jury considered he had not harmed the boy, no one will ever know. To-day, Crowe, aged seventy, sits in a New York Hotel a t ,peace with the world. And in Omaha, now a prosperous business man, is Edward Cudahy - - o n e the victim of the perfect crime.

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en Conversion Is By

the Reverend Roy

W.

oamat'ion Merrificld

Pastor of the Congregational Christian Church,

Urbana, Illinois

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Not only in reformatories, but in all walks of life from the highest to the lowest, misguided people have slipped into the habit of jeering a t religion a s a solace for the soft, a s something sissy. On the contrary, Ieligion is reason grown heroic. Genuine religion is the hero in a man. I t girds him to hold his highest standards against all odds. The man of real strength is the man who possesses the true spirit of Jesus which carries him through ail temptations with the highest possible courage.

MAN who lacks moral standards and who never has found it in his heart to cultivate the spiritual values of life is likely to fall below the standards of the law at almost any time. Many fall, but not all are caught. Here lies the danger of thinking that crime is an easy life which can be carried on indefinitely with impunity. From this beginning grows the habitual criminal, whose chances for complete reforination are none too good.

Presenting religion a s a challenge to strength and service annoys maxy people. They insist 011 being coddled in their spiritual laziness. Religion should ,be accepted as a vital factor in everyday life; not a s a mere belief of a protector on high, standing ready to fulfil1 every wish of a spoiled child. True reIigion place God's will in the forefront.

As a former chaplain of' the Indiana State Reformatory a t Jeffersonville, where the inmates were from 16 to 30 years of age, I encountered many of this type. But I found that in the younger ,boys, convicted for their first misdemeanors, was more hope for salvation. A reformatory needs cultivation of the religious spirit in order to send thesc boys back into Society as useful citizens of our country and of the Kingdom of God. How can this great and important task be translated into practical action? Ey long hours of personal contact with the inmates, by religious services and education a t these institutions of correction. Boys can be helped to feel a sense of responsibility for others and for duties entrusted t o them. Sometimes a sadly deflated ego can be bolstered up in a boy who feels that he has gone so f a r down-hill that nothing could matter. This can happen when he knows that someone is interested in him. This method warked with one youngster named Claude who was sentenced to the reformatory from one to thirteen years. Claude didn't have the background of a criminal. Wanting to keep him segregated a s much a s possible from more hardened inmates, I made him my messenger and he had the run of the institution. Shortly I discovered Be had violated this trust by smoking. Instead of censuring him, I talked over the situation with him and made him a promise. If he would cease smoking and carrying tobacco around while working for me, I would not report him.

The Reverend Merrifield : "Creais the world's most tive religion powerful preventive of all crime".

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,Clande proved that he deserved the responsibility I placed in him, behaved well and received his parole. Letters I received from him for many years afterward assured me that he was keeping straight.

BOYS may not admit it, but they want sympathy. If only we could touch the tender spot in their personalities! Many of the first offenders haven't done anything terribly wrong. And in a few cases they have been railroaded into the institution, hard a s i t may be t o believe. I learnec! more froM the boys than did the prison officials because I respected their confidences and nothing they ever told me was used against them. These boys who have not strayed f a r from the path of decent living can be raabilitated. If they can realize that there is a force ready 40 work for them and to help them !f they truly give their hearts to God, Who yearns to be their daily comrade, then they find the true reformation. Only in this way can they be led into the victorious way of life.

Every correctional institution has its share of inmates bordering oli feeble-mindedness. They present a problem with very little chance of solution. More enlightcned knowledge and widespread practise af eugenics eventually would solve the problem of these mental misfits for whom the future is so hopeless. They ought not to be allowed to propagate their kind. In addition, many inmates come from homes where the parents a r e divorced. They never have experienced decent home life, never have been exposed to the character-building influences of the Church. The greatest menace of a reformatory or prison Iies in the mingling of first offenders vrith the older, hardboiled criminals incarcerated there. That is why it is important for boys to be apprehended the first time they break the law and to have a chance to be traightened out before $hey become crime addicts. The plan of putting first offenders on probation is excellent, providing they seem worthy of such t~ust. .Can anything be done about these men who have become steeped in crime? Their chances look poor because the usual way of these felons is to continue in criine until they die in prison, are murdered by one of their own kind or die of disease. Jt

(Continued on back of cover)

is true, however, that some of t l ~ e good. He himself m h t want to be lowest and most depraved have saved; !his heart and mind must be changed their lives, have been gen- touched somehow. uinely. conve$ed. But sometimes the work brings Success and the iron of religion enters The chaplain i n one of these in- the soul of these hu,man zeros and stitutions m m t not visualize these transforms them into the integers of men In their present condition but decent individuals. must love them for what they may But prevention is a hundred times be in their hearts and bodies and souls. I t requires much imagina- better than a (belated cure. Mothers tion and perseverance to work this and fathers would be wiser these days vision into a reality. It means spend- if they encauraged the manifestation ing hours with them day after day of the religious spirit in the home and week atfter week. Even these where it would 'become a p a r t of efTorts may lbe futile when a man everyday life. They should estabhas implacably closed his mind to all lish family devotions in the home

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e3iich a r e so very important; the

~ i l ysaying of grace, a time set aaide for prayer. Their dhildren &&uld have the beneficial experience ttending church school and the h service. en, ~ h ~ i lthey e are yaung and ,,,&ive to character-building influences, they would absonb creative religion, which is the world's most powerful preventative of all crime, sorrow and futility. Then there would be fewer in~matesof prisons and ref~r~matories. T H E E'ND

ODDS AND THE CRIMINAL Continued from inside front cover

I s there some way whereby we can give the criminal offender care that is a t once brotherley and intelligent, and a t the same time protect Society from the acts af the criminal? I s i t possible to go further and remove the fundamenbal causes of crime? There is no easy solution to this p r ~ b lem. We must recognize the menacing fact revealed in the following from the Gluecks: "It might (be argued that eve? case, no matter how 'hardened, slhould ,be regarded a s promising of reformation. So f a r a s experience goes, however, this contention will not hold water. A deplorable proportion of criminals never reform. The reason for this may ;be our vwy imperfect technique. But a t any rate, with thle methods thus f a r tried by civilized Society, there has always been a considerable residue af persons who do not respond to any known form of correctional or punitive treatment. Social facilities are limited, and emphasis must therefore be placed on the most promising humtan material. The great social need is to evolve through exprimmbtion, more efficient methods of analyzing and remaking the human personality. But that is a task of colossal proportions; and until such time a s definite progress in this direction has been reflected in a fundamental reconstructioh of our correctional instruments, the existence of a portion of the criminal population, not only unamenable to modern rehabilitative methods, but permanently dangerous to Society, must be reckoned with."

THE pmblem of crime must be seen whole. There is a section d our population that is "permanently dsn-

gerous to Society." J. Edgar Hoover was called upon to face this element. He has been misrepresented and made to appear out of sympathy with constructive efforts for the reformation of the criminal. As a matter of fact, Mr. Hoover has said: "I do not know of a n y other experienced law enforcement officer who has, and certainly I have never myself, questioned the wisdom and desirabihty of parole a s a p a r t of the program, for the reformation and rehabilitation of criminals. On every occasion when I have referred to the problems of parole, I have stated specifically and emphatically that I believe in the principal of parole, but I have c o n d a n e d in strong language, and I shall continue to condemn in just a s strong language the maladministration*?f the parole system. Y

There is no s i ; h p p r o a c h to the problem of crime. Just a s we unite the research students of the laboratory, t%e physicians and surgeons in applied medicine, the public health officials, and numerous other agencies to combat disease, so too we must unite all those forces that a r e e ~ e n t i a to l the removal-& bhe causes of'.-e and the rehab'litation of the criminal himself.

Dcrime p d ? Of course not. I doubt t h a t it is satisfying even to the successful criminal. He lives in fear. If he has intelligence, he knows h e i s a parasite. There can I be no basic satisfaction here. have sought to show the necessity of uniting; all the forces necewary to eliminate the terrific burden of the cost of crime. Roscoe Pound in hBs ",Criminal Justicre i n America" says: "In criminal law this problem takei the %m

of quest for a workable balance htween the general security and the individual life As to systematized individualizalation, the very conception of law, of a government of laws and not of men, calls for a system, while the whole trend of psychology and penology indicates individualization, making the penal treatment fit the offender, dealing with a dangerous man rather than the dangerous act a s the line of progress. Here again i s a prablem in which there *must ;be co-operation of social scientist. psychologist, physiclan and lawyer. Indeed, the philosopher may well contribute, for this problem runs back to one w h i d is fundamental in social, in legal, in penal philosophy. It comes to the problem of the division of labor and allocation af activities in a complex society, reconciled with that spontaneous initiative and free quest for individual ends which is a main source of progress."

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Religion #maymake a fundamental contri'bution to this solution. I t insists upon building a just social order. I t calls upon us to surround the rising generation with all known influences that make for good citizenship and rich personalitiw. ICnowing that the truth makes us free, it calls upon us to face scientific facts as revealed by sincere students and ,bewilling to recognize the power of environment and heredity in causing crime. Hysteria has no place in this field.

It calls for the integrated personality religion produces seeking to serve a brother whose personality is a t war with itself. I t would likewi,se remove the causes that produce such a personality.

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