True Stories of Crime From the District Attorney\'s Office written by Arthur Train

A >> Arthur Train >> True Stories of Crime From the District Attorney\'s Office

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17

With them and all they had, 'twas lightly come and lightly go; and
when we left them my master said to me: "This is thy first lesson,
but to-night we shall be at Hamburgh. Come with me to the 'rotboss'
there, and I'll show thee all our folk and their lays, and
especially 'the loseners,' 'the dutzers,' 'the schleppers.'" ...
"Enow!" cried I, stopping him, "art as gleesome as the evil one
a-counting of his imps. I'll jot down in my tablet all these
caitiffs and their accursed names; for knowledge is knowledge. But
go among them alive or dead, that I will not with my good will."

--THE CLOISTER AND THE HEARTH.

TRUE STORIES OF CRIME
FROM THE DISTRICT ATTORNEY'S OFFICE

BY ARTHUR TRAIN

FORMERLY DISTRICT ATTORNEY
NEW YORK COUNTY

1908

PREFACE

The narratives composing this book are literally true stories of crime.
In a majority of the cases the author conducted the prosecutions
himself, and therefore may claim to have a personal knowledge of that
whereof he speaks. While no confidence has been abused, no essential
facts have been omitted, distorted, or colored, and the accounts
themselves, being all matters of public record, may be easily verified.

The scenes recorded here are not literature but history, and the
characters who figure in them are not puppets of the imagination, but
men and women who lived and schemed, laughed, sinned and suffered, and
paid the price when the time came, most of them, without flinching. A
few of those who read these pages may profit perhaps by their example;
others may gain somewhat in their knowledge of life and human nature;
but all will agree that there are books in the running brooks, even if
the streams be turbid, and sermons in stones, though these be the hearts
of men. If in some instances the narratives savor in treatment more of
fiction than of fact, the writer must plead guilty to having fallen
under the spell of the romance of his subject, and he proffers the
excuse that, whereas such tales have lost nothing in accuracy, they may
have gained in the truth of their final impression.

ARTHUR TRAIN.

CRIMINAL COURTS BUILDING,
NEW YORK CITY,
April 20, 1908.

CONTENTS

I. THE WOMAN IN THE CASE
II. FIVE HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS
III. THE LOST STRADIVARIUS
IV. THE LAST OF THE WIRE-TAPPERS
V. THE FRANKLIN SYNDICATE
VI. A STUDY IN FINANCE
VII. THE "DUC DE NEVERS"
VIII. A FINDER OF MISSING HEIRS
IX. A MURDER CONSPIRACY
X. A FLIGHT INTO TEXAS
XI. A CASE OF CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE

ILLUSTRATIONS

Envelope on the back of which Parker's forged order was written
Parker's order on Rogers, Peet & Co., in the name of Lang
A letter-head "frill" of Mabel Parker's
Examples of Mabel Parker's penmanship, regular and forged
Practice signatures of the name of Alice Kauser
The check on which the indictment for forgery was brought
Parker's copy of the signature of Alice Kauser
One of the sheets upon which Mabel Parker illustrated her skill
One of Miller's Franklin Syndicate Receipts.
Ammon's deposit slips and a receipt signed by Mrs. Ammon.
A group of H. Huffman Browne's forgeries
Last page of the forged Rice will of 1900
The forged cremation letter
Forged assignment and Rice signatures
First page of the "Black Hand" letter written by Strollo

I

The Woman in the Case

On a sultry August afternoon in 1903, a dapper, if somewhat anaemic,
young man entered the Broadway store of Rogers, Peet & Company, in New
York City, and asked to be allowed to look at a suit of clothes. Having
selected one to his fancy and arranged for some alterations, he produced
from his wallet a check for $280, drawn to the order of George B. Lang,
and signed E. Bierstadt, and remarked to the attentive salesman:

"I haven't got quite enough cash with me to pay for these, but I have
been intending to cash this check all the afternoon. Of course, you
don't know me or even that my name is Lang, but if you will forward the
check to the bank they will certify it, and to-morrow I will send for
the suit and the balance of the money."

"Certainly, Mr. Lang," replied the salesman. "I will hold the suit and
the money to await your orders."

The customer thanked him and took his departure. The check was sent to
the bank, the bank certified it, then cancelled its certification and
returned the check to Rogers, Peet & Company, and the store detectives,
having communicated with Police Headquarters, anxiously awaited the
arrival of Mr. Lang's messenger.

[Illustration: FIG. 1.--Envelope on the back of which Parker's forged
order was written.]

Their efforts were rewarded a couple of days later by the appearance at
the store of a lad who presented a written order (Fig. 1 and Fig. 2)
inscribed upon the back of an envelope bearing a cancelled stamp and
addressed to Geo. B. Lang, No. 13 West Twenty-sixth Street, New York
City, which read as follows:

ROGERS, PEET & Co.

Please give to bearer the clothes I purchased on
Tuesday--suit--pants--S. coat, and also kindly put change in
envelope in inside coat pocket. Trusting the alterations are
satisfactory, and thanking you in advance for the favor and for past
courtesies, I am,

Resp. yours,

GEO. B. LANG.

[Illustration: FIG. 2.--Parker's order on Rogers, Peet & Company, in the
name of Lang.]

The boy was immediately placed under arrest, and after proclaiming his
own innocence and vociferating that he was only doing an errand for a
"gent," who was waiting close by, was directed to return with his bundle
as if nothing had occurred. This he did, and Mr. George B. Lang was
soon in the clutches of the law.

Interrogated by his captors, the supposed Lang admitted that his real
name was James Parker, that he lived at 110 West Thirty-eighth Street,
and only requested that his wife be immediately notified of what had
happened. At Headquarters the prisoner was identified as a gentleman who
had been very actively engaged during the preceding months in passing
bad checks throughout the city, his more recent operations having
consisted in cashing a check on the Lincoln National Bank for $160 on
July 20th, one for $290 on the same bank on July 30th, still another for
$510.50 on August 4th, and one for $440.50 on the National Shoe and
Leather Bank, "to bearer," on August 8th. This last, in some
inexplicable way, had been cashed at the very bank itself.

Believing that the forger had at last been caught, the precinct
detectives later on, during the evening of Parker's arrest, visited no
West Thirty-eighth Street, and on inquiring for "Mrs. Parker," were
introduced to a young girl of attractive appearance to whom they
delivered their unwelcome message. Mrs. Parker seemed overwhelmed at the
news and strongly asserted her confidence in her husband's innocence of
any wrong-doing. Having performed their errand the officers departed.

A certain ineradicable jealousy has always existed between the
plain-clothes men of the various precincts and the sleuths attached to
the Central Office, and in this instance the precinct men, having gained
the credit for the arrest, it did not occur to them as necessary to
communicate the knowledge of their acquaintance with Mrs. Parker to
Detective Sergeants Peabody and Clark, originally assigned at
Headquarters to investigate the case.

It seemed, however, to Peabody very unlikely that Parker had conducted
his operations alone, and he therefore at once inquired at the Tombs
what character of visitors came to see the prisoner. The gateman replied
that as yet none had arrived. At that very instant a young girl stepped
to the wicket and asked if she could be allowed to see Mr. James Parker.
It took the detective but a moment to run across to the Criminal Courts
Building and to telephone the warden to detain her temporarily and then
to refuse her request. Five minutes later the girl emerged
disconsolately from the Tombs and boarded a car going uptown. Peabody
followed her to 110 West Thirty-eighth Street, not for an instant
supposing that the girl herself could be the forger, but believing that
possibly through her he might learn of other members of the gang and
secure additional evidence against Parker himself.

Of course, no intelligent person to-day supposes that, outside of Sir
Conan Doyle's interesting novels, detectives seek the baffling criminal
by means of analyzing cigar butts, magnifying thumb marks or
specializing in the various perfumes in favor among the fair sex, or by
any of those complicated, brain fatiguing processes of ratiocination
indulged in by our old friend, Mr. Sherlock Holmes. There are still,
however, genuine detectives, and some of them are to be found upon the
New York police force. The magnifying glass is not one of the ordinary
tools of the professional sleuth, and if he carries a pistol at all it
is because the police rules require it, while those cases may be
numbered upon the fingers of two hands where his own hair and whiskers
are not entirely sufficient for his purposes in the course of his
professional career.

The next morning Peabody donned the most disreputable suit in his
wardrobe, neglected his ordinary visit to the barber, and called at 110
West Thirty-eighth Street, being, of course, at this time entirely
unaware of the fact that the girl was Parker's wife. He found her
sitting in a rocking chair in a comfortable, well-furnished room, and
reading a magazine. Assuming an expression of sheepish inanity he
informed her that he was an old pal of "Jim's" who had been so
unfortunate as to be locked up in the same cell with him at
Headquarters, and that the latter was in desperate need of morphine.
That Parker was an habitual user of the drug could be easily seen from
the most casual inspection, but that it would prove an open sesame to
the girl's confidence was, as the detective afterward testified, "a
hundred-to-one shot."

"Poor Jim!" exclaimed the girl. "Couldn't you smuggle some into the
Tombs for him?"

Peabody took the hint. Of course he could. It would be a hard job--those
turnkeys were so suspicious. But _he_ could do it for her if anybody
could. He rambled on, telling his experiences with Parker in the past,
how he had been in Elmira Reformatory and elsewhere with him, and
gaining each moment valuable information from the girl's exclamations,
questions, and expression. He soon learned that she was Parker's wife,
that they were living in comparative comfort, and that she was an
exceedingly clever and well-educated woman, but she said nothing during
the conversation which would indicate that she knew anything of her
husband's offenses or of any persons connected with them.

After a few moments the girl slipped on her coat and hat and the two
started down to the Tombs, where, by prearrangement with the officials,
the detective succeeded in convincing her that he had been able to send
in to her husband a small hypodermic syringe (commonly called "the
needles") which she had purchased at a neighboring drug store.

The apparent success of this undertaking put Mrs. Parker in excellent
humor and she invited the supposed crook to breakfast with her at the
Broadway Central Hotel. So far, it will be observed, Peabody had
accomplished practically nothing. At breakfast the girl inquired of her
companion what his particular "graft" was, to which he replied that he
was an expert "second story man," and then proceeded to indulge his
imagination in accounts of bold robberies in the brown stone districts
and clever "tricks" in other cities, which left Mrs. Parker in no doubt
but that her companion was an expert "gun" of long experience.

Then he took, as he expressed it, "another chance."

"Jim wanted me to tell you to put the gang 'wise,'" said he.

The girl looked at him sharply and contracted her brows.

"Gang?" she exclaimed. "What gang? Oh, perhaps he meant 'Dutch' and
'Sweeney.'"

Peabody bit his lip. He had had a close call.

"Don't know," he replied, "he didn't say who they were--just to put them
'wise.'"

A second time the detective had made a lucky hit, for Mrs. Parker
suddenly laid aside all pretense and asked:

"Do you want to make a lot of money?"

Peabody allowed that he did.

"Do you know what they have got Jim for?" asked the girl.

"'Phoney' paper, wasn't it?"

"Yes," said Mrs. Parker, "but Jim didn't write those checks. I wrote
them myself. If you want to go in with me, we can earn enough money to
get Jim out and you can do a good turn for yourself besides."

The detective's blood leaped in his veins but he held himself under
control as well as he could and answered indifferently.

"I guess not. I never met a woman that was very good at that sort of
game."

"Oh, you don't know _me_," she persisted. "Why, I can copy anything in a
few moments--really I can."

"Too dangerous," remarked Peabody. "I might get settled for ten years."

"No, you wouldn't," she continued. "It's the easiest thing in the world.
All you have to do is to pick the mail out of some box on a corner. I
can show you how with a copper wire and a little piece of wax--and you
are sure to find among the letters somebody's check in payment of a
bill. There at once you have the bank, and the signature. Then all you
have to do is to write a letter to the bank asking for a new check book,
saying yours is used up, and sign the name that appears on the check. If
you can fool the cashier into giving your messenger a check book you can
gamble pretty safely on his paying a check signed with the same name. In
that way, you see, you can get all the blank checks you need and test
the cashier's watchfulness at the same time. It's too easy. The only
thing you have to look out for is not to overdraw the account. Still,
you find so many checks in the mail that you can usually choose
somebody's account that will stand the strain. Do you know, I have made
_hundreds_ of checks and the banks have certified every single one!"

Peabody laughed good naturedly. Things were looking up a bit.

"What do you think I am, anyhow?" he asked. "I must look like a
'come-on.'"

"I'm giving it to you straight," she said simply. "After you have made
out a good fat check, then you go to a store, buy something, tell them
to forward the check to the bank for certification, and that you'll send
for the goods and the change the next day. The bank always certifies the
check, and you get the money."

"Not always," said Peabody with a grin.

"No, not always," acquiesced Mrs. Parker. "But Jim and I have been
averaging over a hundred dollars a day for months."

"Good graft, all right," assented the detective. "But how does the one
who lays down the check identify himself? For instance, suppose I go
into Tiffany's and pick out a diamond, and say I'm Mr. John Smith, of
100 West One Hundredth Street, and the floorwalker says, 'Sorry, Mr.
Smith, but we don't know you,' what then?"

"Just flash a few letters on him," said the girl. "Letters and
envelopes."

"Where do you get 'em?" asked Peabody.

"Just write them, silly, and send them to yourself through the mail."

"That's all right," retorted the "second story man." "But how can I mail
myself a letter to 100 West One Hundredth Street _when I don't live
there_?"

Mrs. Parker smiled in a superior manner.

"I'm glad I can put you wise to a new game, I invented it myself. You
want letters of identification? In different names and addresses on
different days? Very good. Buy a bundle of stamped envelopes and write
your own name and address on them _in pencil_. When they arrive rub off
the pencil address. Then if you want to be John Smith of 100 West One
Hundredth Street, or anybody else, just address the cancelled envelope
_in ink_."

"Mabel," said Peabody with admiration, "you've got the 'gray matter' all
right. You can have _me_, if you can deliver the rest of the goods."

[Illustration: FIG.3.--A letter-head frill of Mabel Parker's.]

"There's still another little frill," she continued, pleased at his
compliment, "if you want to do the thing in style. Maybe you will find a
letter or bill head in the mail at the same time that you get your
sample check. If you do, you can have it copied and write your request
for the check book and your order for the goods on paper printed
exactly like it. That gives a sort of final touch, you know. I remember
we did that with a dentist named Budd, at 137 West Twenty-second
Street." (Fig. 3.)

"You've got all the rest whipped to a standstill," cried Peabody.

"Well, just come over to the room and I'll show you something worth
while," exclaimed the girl, getting up and paying their bill.

"Now," said she, when they were safely at no West Thirty-eighth Street,
and she had closed the door of the room and drawn Peabody to a desk in
the bay window. "Here's my regular handwriting."

She pulled towards her a pad which lay open upon the desk and wrote in a
fair, round hand:

"Mrs. James D. Singley." (Fig. 4.)

"This," she continued, changing her slant and dashing off a queer
feminine scrawl, "is the signature we fooled the Lincoln National Bank
with--Miss Kauser's, you know. And this," she added a moment later,
adopting a stiff, shaky, hump-backed orthography, "is the signature that
got poor Jim into all this trouble," and she inscribed twice upon the
paper the name "E. Bierstadt." "Poor Jim!" she added to herself.

"By George, Mabel," remarked the detective, "you're a wonder! See if
you can copy _my_ name." And Peabody wrote the assumed name of William
Hickey, first with a stub and then with a fine point, both of which
signatures she copied like a flash, in each case, however, being guilty
of the lapse of spelling the word Willia_m_ "Willia_n_."

The pad now contained more than enough evidence to convict twenty women,
and Peabody, with the remark, "You don't want to leave this kind of
thing lying around, Mabel," pretended to tear the page up, but
substituted a blank sheet in its place and smuggled the precious bit of
paper into his pocket.

"Yes, I'll go into business with you,--sure I will!" said Peabody.

"And we'll get enough money to set Jim free!" exclaimed the girl.

They were now fast friends, and it was agreed that "Hickey" should go
and make himself presentable, after which they would dine at some
restaurant and then sample a convenient mail box. Meantime Peabody
telephoned to Headquarters, and when the two set out for dinner at six
o'clock the supposed "Hickey" was stopped on Broadway by Detective
Sergeant Clark.

"What are you doing here in New York?" demanded Clark. "Didn't I give
you six hours to fly the coop? And who's this woman?"

[Illustration: Fig. 4--The upper signature is an example of Mabel
Parker's regular penmanship; the next two are forgeries from memory; and
the last is a dashing imitation of her companion's handwriting.]

"I was going, Clark, honest I was," whined "Hickey," "and this lady's
all right--she hasn't done a thing."

"Well, I guess I'll have to lock you up at Headquarters for the night,"
said Clark roughly. "The girl can go."

"Oh, Mr. Clark, do come and have dinner with us first!" exclaimed Mrs.
Parker. "Mr. Hickey has been very good to me, and he hasn't had anything
to eat for ever so long."

"Don't care if I do," said Clark. "I guess I can put up with the company
if the board is good."

The three entered the Raleigh Hotel and ordered a substantial meal. With
the arrival of dessert, however, the girl became uneasy, and apparently
fearing arrest herself, slipped a roll of bills under the table to
"Hickey" and whispered to him to keep it for her. The detective,
thinking that the farce had gone far enough, threw the money on the
table and asked Clark to count it, at the same tune telling Mrs. Parker
that she was in custody. The girl turned white, uttered a little scream,
and then, regaining her self-possession, remarked as nonchalently as you
please:

"Well, clever as you think you are, you have destroyed the only evidence
against me--my handwriting."

"Not much," remarked Peabody, producing the sheet of paper.

The girl saw that the game was up and made a mock bow to the two
detectives.

"I take off my hat to the New York police," said she.

At this time, apparently, no thought of denying her guilt had entered
her mind, and at the station house she talked freely to the sergeant,
the matron and the various newspaper men who were present, even drawing
pictures of herself upon loose sheets of paper and signing her name,
apparently rather enjoying the notoriety which her arrest had
occasioned. A thorough search of her apartment was now made with the
result that several sheets of paper were found there bearing what were
evidently practice signatures of the name of Alice Kauser. (Fig. 5.)
Evidence was also obtained showing that, on the day following her
husband's arrest, she had destroyed large quantities of blank check
books and blank checks.

Upon the trial of Mrs. Parker the hand-writing experts testified that
the Bierstadt and Kauser signatures were so perfect that it would be
difficult to state that they were not originals. The Parker woman was
what is sometimes known as a "free hand" forger; she never traced
anything, and as her forgeries were written by a muscular imitation of
the pen movement of the writer of the genuine signature they were almost
impossible of detection. When Albert T. Patrick forged the signature of
old Mr. Rice to the spurious will of 1900 and to the checks for $25,000,
$65,000 and $135,000 upon Swenson's bank and the Fifth Avenue Trust Co.,
the forgeries were easily detected from the fact that as Patrick had
_traced_ them they were _all almost exactly alike and practically could
be superimposed one upon another, line for line, dot for dot_.[1]

[Footnote 1: See _Infra_, p. 304.]

[Illustration: FIG. 5.--Practice signatures of the name of Alice
Kauser.]

Mabel Parker's early history is shrouded in a certain amount of
obscurity, but there is reason to believe that she was the offspring of
respectable laboring people who turned her over, while she was still an
infant, to a Mr. and Mrs. Prentice, instructors in physical culture in
the public schools, first of St. Louis and later of St. Paul, Minnesota.
As a child, and afterwards as a young girl, she exhibited great
precocity and a considerable amount of real ability in drawing and in
English composition, but her very cleverness and versatility were the
means of her becoming much more sophisticated than most young women of
her age, with the result that while still in her teens she gave her
adopted parents ground for considerable uneasiness. Accordingly they
decided to place her for the next few years in a convent near New York.
By this time she had attained a high degree of proficiency in writing
short stories and miscellaneous articles, which she illustrated herself,
for the papers and inferior magazines. Convent life proved very dull for
this young lady, and accordingly one dark evening, she made her exit
from the cloister by means of a conveniently located window.

Waiting for her in the grounds below was James Parker, twenty-seven
years old, already of a large criminal experience, although never yet
convicted of crime. The two made their way to New York, were married,
and the girl entered upon her career. Her husband, whose real name was
James D. Singley, was a professional Tenderloin crook, ready to turn his
hand to any sort of cheap crime to satisfy his appetites and support
life; the money easily secured was easily spent, and Singley, at the
time of his marriage, was addicted to most of the vices common to the
habitues of the under world. His worst enemy was the morphine habit and
from her husband Mrs. Singley speedily learned the use of the drug. At
this time Mabel Prentice-Parker-Singley was about five feet two inches
in height, weighing not more than 105 or 110 pounds, slender to
girlishness and showing no maturity save in her face, which, with its
high color, brilliant blue eyes, and her yellow hair, often led those
who glanced at her casually to think her good looking. Further
inspection, however, revealed a fox-like expression, an irregularity in
the position of the eyes, a hardness in the lines of the mouth and a
flatness of the nose which belied the first impression. This was
particularly true when, after being deprived of morphine in the Tombs,
her ordinary high color gave way at her second trial to a waxy paleness
of complexion. But the story of her career in the Tenderloin would
prove neither profitable nor attractive.

[Illustration: FIG. 6.--The check on which the indictment for forgery
was brought.]

The subsequent history of the Parker case is a startling example of the
credulity of the ordinary jury. The evidence secured was absolutely
conclusive, but unfortunately juries are generally unwilling to take the
uncorroborated word of a policeman against that of a
defendant--particularly if the defendant be a young and pretty woman.
Here at the very outset was a complete confession on the part of Mrs.
Parker, supplemented by illustrations from her own pen of what she could
do. Comparison showed that the signatures she had written without a
model upon the Peabody sheet were identical with those upon the forged
checks (Fig. 6) and with Mr. Bierstadt's and Miss Kauser's handwriting.
When Mrs. Parker's case, therefore, came on for pleading, her counsel,
probably because they could think of nothing else to do, entered a plea
of _insanity_. It was also intimated that the young woman would probably
plead guilty, and the case was therefore placed upon the calendar and
moved for trial without much preparation on the part of the prosecution.
Instead of this young person confessing her guilt, however, she amused
herself by ogling the jury and drawing pictures of the Court, the
District Attorney and the various witnesses.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17