The Mammoth Book of Roaring Twenties Whodunnits

by Mike Ashley

  X

  By two o’clock the first brief accounts of the affair were on the streets. The late afternoon editions carried the complete story. And it was a story!

  As a feature we had no competition that day. Jake the Canvasser had certainly delivered the goods. Mme Storey and I read the newspapers, chuckling.

  It appeared that the chief source of information was a customer who happened to be in the store at the time. The clerks, as before, were too flustered to give a coherent account of what had happened.

  I shall not give the newspaper story in full since I have already described what happened. The best part of the story was that it was true, except for certain artistic details added by the narrator. As when he said he heard the bandits address their leader as “Duchess”.

  There was a clever touch! The soubriquet stuck, of course; we never appeared in the newspapers after that but Mme Storey was termed the Duchess, or the Duchess-Bandit.

  What a marvelous thing is publicity! Only start it once, and it rolls up like a snowball. Every day some new story of the Duchess’s exploits appeared.

  People claimed to have seen her here, there, everywhere. Moreover, the newspapers all carried indignant editorials asking what was the matter with the police that such things were allowed to go on. That was good publicity, too.

  In that first story every possible detail concerning Mme Storey was played up; her elegant appearance, her extraordinary coolness, the humorous remarks that she addressed to her trembling victims. The fact that it was our second descent on the place was not omitted.

  Fantastic were the accounts of the loot we had secured. It appeared that so far as the more valuable part of the stock was concerned, Fossberg’s was completely cleaned out. In point of magnitude it was the greatest jewel robbery that had ever taken place in New York.

  Two policemen added their quota to the story. Officer James Crear said:

  “I was on fixed post at the corner of Broadway and – Street about ten thirty this morning, when a fellow ran over to me, and said there was something wrong in Fossberg’s jewelry store on the corner. Said he heard shooting and yelling inside as he passed by. So I ran over there, and I found the store closed, and a notice on the door reading: ‘Closed on account of death in the family.’

  “I thought this was funny, because I had seen folks going in and out just a few minutes before. I could hear a racket inside, and I rapped on the door with my stick. Pretty soon it was opened by one of the clerks, who was so scared he couldn’t tell a straight story. But I understood there had been a hold-up, and the bandits were making their way out through the apartment house lobby in the rear of the store.

  “I ran around outside to the door of the apartment house. It was locked. I forced it, and inside I found the elevator boy tied up and gagged. He told me the gang had gone up in the elevator. I ran up the stairs after them. They went over the roof, and down through the adjoining apartment house. They bolted the roof door after them, and I lost more time forcing it. When I got down to the street they were out of sight.”

  Officer William Rohrback said: “I was patrolling the west side of Broadway at – Street, when I heard Officer Crear rap for assistance. I was two blocks away from his post. When I got there I found a crowd milling around Fossberg’s jewelry store. I was told that a hold-up had taken place and that the bandits had gone upstairs in the apartment house, and with the help of Officer Regan, who had also run up, we put a watch at every exit from the house.

  “The janitor came up and told me there was a way over the roof into the adjoining house, so, leaving the others on watch, I ran around into the next street. When I turned the corner, I saw a woman getting into a limousine car. It was such an elegant looking outfit I hesitated; but when it started down the street at forty miles an hour or better, I fired three shots in the air. The car failed to stop.”

  The “customer” in Fossberg’s who supplied the real story to the reporter had this to say about the Duchess:

  “She was a woman of about forty-five, but well preserved. Must have been a beauty in her youth. In figure still as slender and active as a young woman. She looked more like one of those fashionable dames than a bandit; and more like Park Avenue than Upper Broadway; the real thing. She had the hardest boiled face I ever saw on a woman. I mean by that, she meant business. A desperate character. I wouldn’t have thought of opposing her.

  “As she was standing squarely in front of me all the time we were herded over at the side of the store, I had plenty of time to size her up. She looked at us as if we were dirt under her feet. The most striking features about her were her eyes, the pupils of which closed up to mere slits, like a cat’s eyes in daylight. It gave her a terrible look.”

  You see how cleverly he blended fact and fiction.

  An amusing outcome of the affair was, that two days later a committee of West Side merchants waited upon Mme Storey in her office, and did their best to persuade her to take the job of running down the Duchess. My mistress smilingly declined.

  But I am getting a little ahead of my story. On the night of the hold-up we telephoned ahead to the Boule’ Miche’ asking for a private room. Such detailed descriptions of all of us had been published, it was no longer prudent to appear in the general room. We entered by a side door, and were taken upstairs by a private stairway.

  In the “Diamond Room”, as they called it, we held a sort of reception, which lasted half the night. Everybody “in the know” – that is to say, every shady character who frequented the place, came up to congratulate us. Our fame was great in the underworld; the Duchess had thrown the Bobbed-Hair Bandit in the shade.

  When Jake the Canvasser came to us that night, what an exchange of compliments took place! For once Jake lost his cagey air; enthusiasm carried him away. He held Mme Storey’s hand in both of his, and gazed in her face like a lover.

  “Finest thing I ever heard of!” he said. “Finest thing I ever heard of! You’re the queen of them all!”

  “I had A-I support,” she said, including us all in her glance.

  “Are you satisfied with the way we handled it?” asked Jake. “Of course, there’ll be a lot of new stuff in the morning papers.”

  “More than satisfied!” said my mistress. “The man who got up that story was a genius!”

  “Of course, we put our best man on it,” said Jake. “I may say he is a well-known literary guy, who just does this on the side. But at that, he couldn’t have done a thing if you hadn’t given him the stuff to work on. Say, that notice, ‘Closed on account of death in the family,’ and the little cigar, and that trick of lighting a match with your thumbnail while you kept the crowd covered; that was better than anything he could invent.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” she said, not to be outdone: “that name he hung on me, ‘the Duchess’, that was a masterstroke. To a professional person a good name is more than half the battle. And that touch about the cat’s eyes; it couldn’t have been bettered. I hope your people are pleased with the way we pulled the thing off.”

  “I haven’t had any communication with them yet,” said Jake, “but I know they must be. In fact, the affair reflects credit on both sides. It shows that we were just waiting for each other; you feel that, don’t you?”

  “I’ll never make a move without consulting you,” she said.

  Later, Jake contrived to get all outsiders out of the room, so that he could talk business with my mistress.

  “Have you any notion what the stuff is worth?” he asked eagerly.

  In respect to this matter, Mme Storey intended to string Jake along as far as she could, of course.

  “Not yet,” she told him. “I’ve got good people working for me, and the stuff is all in their hands. But there’s so damn much of it it’ll take a while for the market to absorb it. They have paid me twenty-five thousand on account. I brought yours.”

  It was paid, over in twenty-five crisp hundred dollar bills. I may say that this money was not marked. In dealing wit
h men so astute as Jake and his employers, it would have been too risky. But we had the numbers of the bills, of course, and hoped to be able to trace them by that means.

  Jake put away the money.

  “Well, how about our next grandstand play?” he said, rubbing his hands.

  “Oh, give us a chance,” laughed Mme Storey.

  “Oh, there’s no desire to overwork you,” said Jake, in his oily way; “no, indeed! But we mustn’t miss the psychological moment, either. This thing that we’ve started will run along for a week or ten days without any help from us. They’ll all be workin’ to hand us publicity. But when she begins to slack off, that’s the time we’ve got to strike again, and strike hard in a new quarter. And we’ve got to be ready.”

  In my mistress’s eyes I could read the determination: Not if I can help myself! But Jake could not see that. For all her cool and careless airs, Mme Storey was fully aware of the terrible risks we ran in staging these affairs, and she had no intention of attempting fate any oftener than was absolutely necessary.

  “Well, it’s no harm to talk over what we’re going to do,” she said carelessly. “I’m always open to suggestions.”

  With the lines we had out, we hoped to have Jake and the men who were back of him lodged behind the bars before another such affair could be made ready. But in this, as you will see, we were disappointed.

  XI

  In order to avoid repetition, I will combine the gist of several of Madge Caswell’s reports into one.

  For a number of years, she said, Jake the Canvasser has been a widely-known character throughout the white light district of Broadway. He passes there as Jake Golden, which is his right name. He has two brothers, prosperous manufacturers, and belongs to a widespread family connection, with which he keeps in close touch.

  None of these people have any reason to suspect his association with the criminal world. Indeed, so open and aboveboard appears his whole life, that even after watching him for two weeks, I should not have succeeded in turning up anything suspicious, had it not been for the information you gave me in the beginning.

  He passes on Broadway as a “sporting character,” i.e., a man who makes his living by promoting and backing sporting events and theatrical enterprises. As a matter of fact, he has various small interests in these lines, but not anywhere near enough to support him in the lavish style in which he lives. He has a comfortable apartment in the – Hotel, one of the best in town, that he leases by the year. He has hundreds of friends in every walk of life, who believe that they know him well. The only mystery about him is, where does he get all the money he spends.

  In sporting circles individuals come up and disappear with great frequency; men’s memories are short, and none of Jake’s present associates remember, if indeed they ever knew, that Jake Golden served a sentence in Sing Sing for swindling, some years ago. Previous to that he had been confined in the Elmira Reformatory.

  I have three operatives besides myself engaged on this job. We all have a number of disguises, so there is no danger of his being struck by seeing the same face about him day after day. We have been somewhat handicapped by your instructions that we are not under any circumstances to allow him to suspect that he was being followed.

  Once or twice we have had to let him slip when we seemed to be about to learn something interesting. However, it probably would not have been definite. He has his tracks too well covered. He does not yet suspect that he is being watched. It is second nature with the man to take the most elaborate precautions to keep his real business secret.

  I am prepared to assert that he has not in all this time met his principal. I believe that it is the corner stone of their whole system of defense, never to meet. Every day he drops into some pay station or another to call up his principal. It is always another pay station that he calls up, and every day a different one.

  It is usually a call to Newark, Paterson, Hackensack, White Plains, Flushing, Jamaica, et cetera; some large town on the outskirts of New York. Once or twice, by getting the next booth, we heard his conversation over the phone, or a part of it. But as the details of the affairs that he reports are already known to you, this throws no fresh light on the matter.

  Two of his talks had to do with “Kate Arkledon”. He has no suspicion that she is other than she seems. He merely reports what has happened since the day before, and receives his instructions. In speaking over the phone, he never names the man he is talking to. At the end of the talk he receives the number that he is to call next day. He comes out of the booth with his lips moving, as if to commit it to memory. As he never writes it down, there is no way in which we can learn that number beforehand.

  On Monday last he called up – Passaic. I sent one of my boys over there as quickly as possible. It proved to be the principal drugstore of the place. Now, as it is somewhat out of the common for a man to wait around a pay station to be called up, one of the clerks happened to remember the incident. The call came in for “Mr Wilkins”, and a large, well-dressed, good-looking man of about forty-five stepped forward to take it, the clerk said. He had dark hair, dark eyes, he said; couldn’t say if he was bald because he kept his hat on.

  Clean shaven; gentlemanly manner; looked like a retired business man. I send you this description for what it is worth. It would fit about one hundred thousand men around New York, I suppose.

  On Tuesday Golden called up St George–. This is the municipal ferry station on Staten Island. Got nothing there. On Wednesday it was another drugstore, this one in Flushing. We were there forty minutes afterwards, and a clerk remembered the call coming in.

  It was for “Mr Adams”. This clerk described the man who received the call as middle-aged and “funny looking”. Was unable to explain just what he meant by funny-looking. Thought his eyes were blue, and that he had a heavy mustache, but couldn’t swear to it. Yet it was undoubtedly the same man. Very few learn to use their eyes.

  However, this clerk added one more item to our store of knowledge. After “Mr Adams” had finished talking he got into a fine limousine car at the door. It had a chauffeur in livery. Of course, he would have to have a car if he’s going to get around from Passaic to Staten Island to Flushing day after day.

  It was in sending money to his principal that Golden evinced the greatest ingenuity. Golden maintained accounts in four different banks up-town. In each place his credit was high. None of these banks were aware of his other accounts.

  By splitting his business into four like this, the volume of it did not appear large enough to excite suspicion. You told me on the night of the twenty-third Golden was handed eighteen hundred dollars in cash at the Boule’ Miche’ by a man known as Hutch Diver, and you asked me to trace what became of this money, if this were possible.

  Well, I am able to report that he deposited the money in the – National Bank on the following morning. He puts all cash in the bank as received, so there is no use trying to get him by marked bills. He may draw it out later.

  One of his favorite stunts is to buy American Express Company checks, and mail them to his principal. These checks are being more and more widely used by automobile tourists and others who do not wish to carry cash on their travels. They have to be signed when purchased, and again when cashed; but Golden’s unknown principal has no difficulty in making a passable imitation of his agent’s signature when he cashes the checks.

  A number of these checks have been returned paid to the head office of the Express Company, and I have traced them back, but without results. Anybody will cash such checks without question; banks, hotels, stores, et cetera. They are for moderate amounts, consequently the transactions leave no impression on the memories of the parties who cash them.

  These checks have all been returned from towns near New York, the same towns, in fact, that Golden calls up on the telephone. Another method that Golden has of transmitting money to his principal is to draw checks to bearer, and have his bank certify them. Such checks are as good as cash anywhere.


  Golden mails these checks to his principal by means of the mail chute in the hotel corridor outside his apartment. As it is impossible for me to keep a man on watch in the corridor, I cannot catch him in the act of mailing them, consequently there is no way in which I can recover the envelope and get a sight of the address. I know, however, that the checks are mailed in plain envelopes, and that Golden keeps a typewriter in his room for the purpose of addressing them.

  XII

  From the foregoing report, which embodies several of the same tenor, it will be seen that we had been brought to a stand. We were between the devil and the deep sea. We could neither go forward nor back.

  Consequently, when the suggestion came through from “headquarters” that we prepare to hold up the Beauvoir Hospital on the day that the payroll was made up, we had no choice but to agree. Alas for my vow, that I would never do it again! I could not abandon my mistress. Feeling a sickness of the heart, I had to go in with the rest.

  Beauvoir Hospital! In the mere naming of it you will perceive what a stupendous task we had been given. Up to this time nobody had ever thought of holding up a hospital. And Beauvoir, the great charity hospital which spreads over several city blocks, was by far the largest and the best known of them all.

  With its psychopathic cases, its accidents, its victims of murderous assaults, it is continually in the news. In fact, it receives more publicity than all the other city institutions put together. Beauvoir is an essential part of the fabric of New York life.

  Imagine being asked to attack such a place. Why, it is a very hive of industry, with crowds entering and leaving at all hours; police bringing in accidents’ cases; police sitting at the bedsides of wounded prisoners. It seemed to me like a bad joke on the part of Jake’s employers.

  I wondered if perhaps they had not penetrated our disguises, and were using this ingenious means of bringing about our downfall. But Madge Caswell’s reports continued to assure us that they did not suspect us; and Mme Storey, after a study of the problem, considered that the trick might be turned, though it was appallingly difficult.