True Stories of Crime From the District Attorney's Office. Arthur Cheney Train

      Published by Good Press, 2019

       [email protected]

      EAN 4057664188540

Table of Contents

       PREFACE

       ILLUSTRATIONS

       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 [4]

       X

       A Flight Into Texas

       XI

       A Case of Circumstantial Evidence

PREFACE

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      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.

ILLUSTRATIONS

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      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

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The Woman in the Case

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      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,