ARTHUR.T Stories ------The Woman in the Case --I---Page 03

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.]

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