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WHY CRIME
DOES NOT PAY.

BY
SOPHIE LYONS
Queen of the Underworld.

New York
J. S. OGILVIE PUBLISHING CO.
57 Rose Street

Copyright, 1913, by
THE STAR COMPANY

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

The publishers believe that a picture of life sketched by a master hand—somebody who stands in the world of crime as Edison does in his field or as Morgan and Rockefeller do in theirs—could not fail to be impressive and valuable and prove the oft repeated statement that crime does not pay.

Such a person is Sophie Lyons, the most remarkable and the greatest criminal of modern times. This extraordinary woman is herself a striking evidence that crime does not pay and that the same energy and brains exerted in honest endeavor win enduring wealth and respectability. She has abandoned her earlier career and has lately accumulated a fortune of half a million dollars, honestly acquired by her own unaided business ability.

Sophie Lyons was a "thief from the cradle," as one Chief of Police said; at the early age of six years she had already been trained by her stepmother to be a pickpocket and a shoplifter. A beautiful child with engaging manners, she was sent out every day into the stores and among the crowds of shoppers, and was soundly whipped if she came out of a shop with less than three pocketbooks. "I did not know it was wrong to steal; nobody ever taught me that," Sophie Lyons writes. "What I was told was wrong and what I was punished for was when I came home with only one pocketbook instead of many."

As the child grew into womanhood she was conspicuously beautiful, and soon became known as "Pretty Sophie." Then romance entered her life and she married Ned Lyons, the famous bank burglar. Her husband was a member of the great gang of expert safe-blowers who were the terror of the police and the big banks of some years ago.

Women are regarded as dangerous and are seldom taken into the confidence of such criminals as these. But Sophie Lyons was not only welcomed to their councils, but was taken along with them to the actual scenes of their operations. Many of the most daring bank robberies were, indeed, planned by her and to her quick brain and resourcefulness the burglars often owed their success.

Sophie Lyons became famous not only among the burglars who work with dark lantern and jimmy but also among those specialists who are called "bank sneaks"—the daring men who walk into banks in broad daylight, in the midst of business, and get away with great bundles of money. Her fame spread, too, among other specialists—the shoplifters, pickpockets, confidence women, jewelry robbers, importers of forbidden opium, and the men engaged in bringing Chinamen into the country (a very profitable and hazardous field).

For twenty-five years Sophie Lyons was "The Queen of the Bank Burglars," the active leader of many expeditions in various parts of the world, and with her were associated about all of the great criminals of Europe and America. It has been said that she has been arrested in nearly every large city in America, and in every country in Europe except Turkey. She has served sentences in several prisons, and, on one occasion, her husband, Ned Lyons, was in Sing Sing while she herself was confined in the women's wing of the prison across the road. Ned Lyons managed to make his escape and very soon drove up to the women's prison and effected the escape of his wife, Sophie Lyons.

But all this belongs to the past. Sophie Lyons has learned that her new life as a respected woman is the only one that is really worth while. The comfortable fortune she has now honestly accumulated has proved that it is not true that "once a thief always a thief."

The actual happenings in her career have been more extraordinary than the imagination of any novelist has dreamed; more surprising than any scene on the stage.

Yet nearly every one of those whose exploits she has recounted here is now an outcast, has served a good share of life in prison, is in poverty, or has died poor. Surely, as she has asserted again and again—and hopes to abundantly prove—CRIME DOES NOT PAY.

This great truth forced itself upon her after many, many years of profitless life in the Underworld. And her own life experience and her present fortune of half a million dollars, all honestly acquired, have demonstrated that half the industry and ability that great criminals expend will return them richer and more enduring success in honest fields of endeavor.

SOPHIE LYONS
QUEEN OF THE BURGLARS

CHAPTER I

HOW I BEGAN MY CAREER OF CRIME

I was not quite six years old when I stole my first pocketbook. I was very happy because I was petted and rewarded; my wretched stepmother patted my curly head, gave me a bag of candy, and said I was a "good girl."

My stepmother was a thief. My good father never knew this. He went to the war at President Lincoln's call for troops and left me with his second wife, my stepmother.

Scarcely had my father's regiment left New York than my stepmother began to busy herself with my education—not for a useful career, but for a career of crime. Patiently she instructed me, beginning with the very rudiments of thieving—how to help myself to things that lay unprotected in candy shops, drug stores and grocery stores. I was made to practice at home until my childish fingers had acquired considerable dexterity.

Finally, I was told that money was the really valuable thing to possess, and that the successful men and women were those who could take pocketbooks. With my stepmother as the model to practice on I was taught how to open shopping bags, feel out the loose money or the pocketbook and get it into my little hands without attracting the attention of my victims. In those days leather bags were not common—most women carried cloth or knitted shopping bags. I was provided with a very sharp little knife and was carefully instructed how to slit open the bags so that I could get my fingers in.

And at last, when I had arrived at a sufficient degree of proficiency, I was taken out by my stepmother and we traveled over into New York's shopping district. I was sent into a store and soon came out with a pocketbook—my stepmother petted me and rewarded me.

ARRESTED FOR PICKING POCKETS

That was the beginning of my career as a professional criminal. I did not know it was wrong to steal; nobody ever taught me that. What I was told was wrong, and what I was punished for was when I came home with only one pocketbook instead of many.

All during my early childhood I did little but steal, and was never sent to school. I did not learn to read or write until I was twenty-five years old. If my stepmother brought me to a place where many persons congregated and I was slow in getting pocketbooks and other articles, she would stick a pin into my arm to remind me that I must be more industrious. If a pin was not convenient she would step on my toes or pinch me when occasion made her think I was in need of some such stimulant.

One time we went over to Hoboken to a place where a merry-go-round was operating, and my stepmother sent me into the crowds to take pocketbooks and anything else I could put my hands on. A detective saw me take a woman's pocketbook and he carried me off to jail in his arms, my stepmother disappearing in the crowd. I remained in the Hoboken jail several days and was very happy there, for the policemen used to give me candy and let me play around the place, and did not beat me, as my stepmother used to do. A strange woman came and took me home, for my absence was felt because of the loss of the money I used to bring home every night. I was arrested very often when a small girl, but usually got out after a few days, as my stepmother knew how to bring influence to bear in my favor. One time I was sent to Randall's Island and used to play with the daughters of the assistant superintendent, whose name was Jones. The little girls learned from their father that I was a thief, and they used to sympathize with me and make things pleasant, knowing that it was not my fault, but the fault of my stepmother, who forced me to do wrong.

A THIEF FROM THE CRADLE

I did most of my stealing when a little girl by putting my hands into men's and women's pockets, but I also used to cut a hole in the bags carried by women—and then insert my fingers and take out the money or other things I found there, as I have already mentioned. Hardly a day passed when I did not steal a considerable sum of money, and many days I would take home more than a hundred dollars. Sometimes I would forget my work and be attracted to a store window and buy a doll for myself to pet. When I went home to my house and sat down on the steps to cuddle my doll my stepmother or my brother would come out and catch me up and give me a good many hard knocks for neglecting my duty—and the only duty I knew in those days was to steal, and never stop stealing.

More than once when I would dread going home I would have myself arrested by stealing so a policeman could see me do it. But it didn't help me much, for my stepmother never failed to get me out of jail within a few days after my arrest. It seemed so natural for me to steal that one time when I was arrested the policeman asked me what I was doing, and I said frankly, "Picking pockets." He asked me how many I got, and I said, "I don't know; I gave them all to my mama."

Every day I would wear a different kind of dress so as not to attract attention, in case anybody who saw me steal something the day before happened to be around. My stepmother was wise enough to disguise me in this way, and it enabled me to keep working for a long time in the same place. My stepmother would take me into the department stores and wait outside for me. If I came out with enough money to satisfy her she would say nothing, but march me off home or to another store for more money, but if I came out with less than she expected, then I would get the pin pricks or pinches, and be made to feel that I had done something wrong in not working harder and stealing more.

I was, indeed, as one chief of police once said, "A thief from the cradle." Surrounding my childhood and youth there was not one wholesome or worthy influence. My friends and companions were always criminals, and it is not surprising that in my early womanhood I should have fallen in love with a bank burglar—Ned Lyons.

Following this romance came motherhood and an awakening within me of at least one worthy resolve—that, whatever had been my career, I certainly would see that my children were given the benefit of a tender mother love, which I had never had, and that my little ones should be surrounded with every pure and wholesome influence.

The first few years of my married life were divided between my little ones and the necessary exactions which my career imposed on me. Ned Lyons, my husband, was a member of the boldest and busiest group of bank robbers in the world. Here and there, all over the Eastern States, we went on expeditions, forcing the vaults of the biggest and richest banks in the country. We had money in plenty, but we spent money foolishly. When we crept out of the vaults of the great Manhattan Bank in the early morning hours of the night of that famous robbery, we had nearly $3,000,000 in money, bonds and securities. And from the Northampton Bank we took $200,000, if I remember correctly.

But we had our troubles. My husband, Ned Lyons, was a desperate scoundrel, and was constantly in difficulties. My desire was to be with my little ones, but the gang of burglars with whom I was associated had learned to make me useful, and they insisted on my accompanying them on their expeditions. I will explain fully in following chapters just what my part was in many of their various exploits.

Ned Lyons was hungry for money—money, more money—and the desperate risks he took and his continual activity took me away from the children much of the time.

MY ESCAPE FROM SING SING

Always there was something going on, and I had very little peace. Early one winter Ned Lyons, in connection with Jimmy Hope, George Bliss, Ira Kingsland and others, blew open the safe of the Waterford, New York, Bank, and secured $150,000. Lyons and two others were caught, convicted and sent to Sing Sing Prison.

It was not long before I myself was captured, convicted and also sent to Sing Sing for five years. But my husband managed to escape from the prison one December afternoon, and he lost no time in arranging for my escape from the women's section of the prison, which was a separate building just across the road from the main prison.

I was all ready, of course, and when my husband drove up in a sleigh, wonderfully well disguised, wearing a handsome fur coat, and carrying a woman's fur coat on his arm, I made my escape and joined him. I will tell the details of how my husband and I got out of Sing Sing in a subsequent article.

We both went into hiding and made our way to Canada, where Ned, being short of funds, broke into a pawnbroker's safe and helped himself to $20,000 in money and diamonds. With these funds in our pockets we returned to New York, and I kept in hiding as well as I could until my husband, with George Mason and others, robbed the bank at Wellsboro, Pennsylvania. Shortly afterward my husband was arrested while engaged on a job at Riverhead, L. I., and $13,000 worth of railroad bonds were taken from his pockets.

My husband could not let drink alone, and one day he had a street fight with the notorious Jimmy Haggerty, a burglar, who was afterward killed by "Reddy the Blacksmith" in a saloon fight on Houston Street and Broadway. During the fight between Haggerty and Ned Lyons Haggerty managed to bite off the greater portion of my husband's left ear. This was a great misfortune to him as it served as a means of identification ever after. On another occasion, in a drunken dispute, Ned Lyons was shot at the Star and Garter saloon on Sixth Avenue by "Ham" Brock, a Boston character, who fired two shots, one striking Lyons in the jaw and the other in the body.

My husband soon had the bad luck to be caught in the act of breaking into a jewelry store in South Windham, Conn. As soon as he knew he was discovered, my husband tried to make his escape, and the police shot him as he ran, putting one bullet hole through his body and imbedding another ball in his back.

He was also caught in the burglary of a post-office at Palmer, Massachusetts, where they took the safe out of the store, carried it a short distance out of the village, broke it open, and took the valuables. As I have already said, the men had found me very helpful and insisted on my accompanying them on most of their expeditions. Always, if an arrest was made, I was relied upon to get them out of trouble. This took time, money, and resourcefulness, and kept me away from my little ones against my will.

During this time my children were approaching an age when it would no longer do to have them in our home. Our unexplained absences, our midnight departures, our hurried return in the early morning hours with masks, burglars' tools, and satchels full of stolen valuables would arouse curiosity in their little minds. One thing I had sworn to do—to safeguard my little ones from such wretched influences as had surrounded my childhood. With this in view I sent my little boy and my little girl to schools where I felt sure of kind treatment and a religious atmosphere. And I paid handsomely to make sure that they would receive every care and consideration.

I SEE WHY CRIME DOES NOT PAY

I had scarcely gotten the children well placed in excellent schools in Canada when my husband was caught in one of his robberies. I busied myself with lawyers and spent all the money we had on hand, to no avail, and he was given a long prison sentence. Just at this unfortunate moment I was myself arrested in New York and given a six months' term of imprisonment.

On my account I did not care—but what would become of my children? My sources of income had been brought to a sudden stop. I had no money to send to pay my children's expenses. Then, for the first time, I felt the full horror of a criminal's life. I resolved for my children's sake to find a way to support them honestly. I realized the full truth that crime does not pay.

As I went on day after day serving my term in prison my thoughts were always about my little ones. The frightful recollections of my own childhood had developed in me an abnormal mother love. At last I resolved to write to the institutions where my boy and girl were located and explain that I was unavoidably detained and out of funds, but promising to generously repay them for continuing to care for my children.

But I was too late. The newspapers had printed an account of my arrest, and when it reached the ears of the convent and college authorities where my boy and girl were stopping it filled them with indignation to think that a professional thief had the audacity to place her children under their care. So they immediately took steps to get rid of the innocent youngsters, in spite of the fact that I had paid far in advance for their board and tuition. The boy was shipped off in haste to the poorhouse, and my dear little girl was sent to a public orphanage, from which she was adopted by a man named Doyle, who was a customs inspector in Canada at the time.

When my six months were up my first thoughts were of my children, and I started off to visit them, thinking, of course, that they were still in the institutions where I had placed them. I called at the convent, and when they saw me coming one of the sisters locked the door in my face. I was astounded at this, but determined to know what it meant. As my repeated knocks did not open the door, I resorted to a more drastic method and began to kick on the panels quite vigorously. The inmates of the convent became alarmed at my persistence and feared that the door would be broken open, so they thought it best to open and let me in. I then demanded to know the cause of their peculiar conduct, and one of them spoke up, saying:

"You are a thief, and we do not want you here."

"Oh, is that it?" I replied. "Well, where is my little girl? I want to see her."

"Your child has been placed in a respectable family, and you will not be permitted to see her," answered the sister.

Then my blood began to boil with fury, and I demanded to know why they had sent my girl away without letting me know, especially as I had given them considerable money, and they knew all her expenses would be paid. But she refused to give me any satisfaction. In desperation I sprang at her. She screamed and called for help. The mother superior then made her appearance and, dismayed at the sight of the determination I had displayed, she reluctantly gave me the address of the man who had my little girl.

I did not have a dollar with me at the time, but started off to walk to Mr. Doyle's house, which was some distance in the country. After a few hours' walking I met a man driving by in a buggy, and he stopped and offered me a ride. I, of course, accepted his invitation and got into the buggy. He asked me where I was going, and I said I was searching for a man named Doyle. He wanted my name and the nature of my business, but I said that information would be given to Mr. Doyle himself, and nobody else. He then said his name was Doyle, and asked me my name, and I told him I was Sophie Lyons. As soon as he heard this he stopped the horse and ordered me out of the buggy, and shouted:

"You are a very bad woman. I have your little girl. I'm going to keep her. You are not a fit mother, and should be kept in jail, where you belong."

FOR MY CHILDREN'S SAKE

"We will not discuss that here," I replied. "What I want now is to see my little girl, and I wish you would drive me to your house."

"You shall never see your child, and you had better not come near my house," he cried as he whipped up his horse and was soon out of sight, leaving me alone on the road.

I continued my walk, however, and shortly afterward reached the Doyle house and stood outside the gate, while Doyle, with his two sons and two hired men and a dog, watched me from the piazza. I stood there a few moments, and then Doyle came out and asked me what I was doing there, and demanded that I leave the neighborhood at once. He said: "This is my home, and you must go away."

"It may be your home, Mr. Doyle," I answered, "but my child is in there, and I am going to wait here until I see her."

"I have adopted your girl," he said, "and she will be better off here than with you."

"It takes two to make a bargain," I said, "and you did not get my consent when you adopted the girl."

Realizing that it was useless to try to persuade me, he went inside and left me at the gate, where I stood waiting developments. After another long wait Doyle came out again and said:

"Are you still there? What do you want? You know very well it is better for the girl that she remain with us, and not with a thief like you. I will take good care of her, but you shall not see her."

"I know my rights," I replied, "and I will hire a lawyer and compel the convent authorities to show me their books and explain what they have done with the thousands of dollars I left with them to care for my girl. I will make it hot for you and for them before I finish."

This threat must have frightened him a little, for he then asked me if I had had anything to eat that day, and I told him I had not. Then he invited me into the house to get some food, and said he would hitch up the buggy and drive me back to town. I said:

A MOTHER'S LOVE WINS AT LAST

"No, you will not drive me back to town. I will not go back without my girl."

"Now, be reasonable, Mrs. Lyons," he said. "Your little girl is happy here, and she does not like you because you are a bad woman."

"Well," I answered, "if she does not like her mother then you have made her feel that way; you have taught her to dislike me."

After a little more parleying he went into the house and sent out my little girl to talk to me.

"My darling," I said, "don't you want to kiss your own mother?"

"No," she said; "I do not like you, because you are a thief. You are not my mother at all."

My eyes filled with tears at this, and with sobs in my voice I asked her if she did not remember the little prayers I had taught her and the many happy hours we had spent together. The little dear said:

"Yes, I remember the prayers, but I do not want to see you. You are a thief! Go away, please!"

Those words cut me to the heart—from my own precious daughter. And again I was made to realize that crime does not pay!

I lost no time in setting matters in motion which very soon brought back to my arms my daughter. Meanwhile I hastened to the academy where my little boy had been left and demanded to see him. When my boy was brought out to me he was in a disgraceful condition, he seemed to have been utterly neglected, his clothing was ragged and his face as dirty as a chimney sweep's. I was shocked at this and demanded an explanation from the professor who had charge of the institution. He turned on me angrily, and said:

"You have an amazing assurance to place your good-for-nothing brat among honest children. How dare you give us an assumed name and impose on us in this manner? Get your brat out of here at once, for if honest parents knew your character they would take their children out of the school without delay."

"A false name, is it?" I said to the proud professor. "What name did you give when you were caught in a disreputable house?"

This remark startled him. He changed his manner at once and implored me to speak lower and not let anybody know what I said. I had recognized this professor as a man who had visited Detroit a year or so before and had been caught in a disreputable resort by the police on one of their raids. The professor, of course, did not imagine that anybody in Detroit had known him, and so he thought it perfectly safe to assume the rôle of superior virtue. He apologized for his neglect of my child and begged me to forget the abuse he had heaped upon me. I congratulated myself that the child had not heard his remarks to me, and I departed with my boy.

But my joy over the fact that my little one had not had his mother's wickedness revealed to him was of short duration. I had brought the child to Detroit, where I had begun preparations to make a permanent home, honestly, I hoped. Several persons there owed me money, and among them a barber I had befriended. I tried persistently to get from him what he owed me, but without success.

When I returned home after a little trip I was compelled to make to New York, my boy came up to me, crying, and said:

"Mamma, I don't want to live around here any more."

I wondered what could have caused the poor boy to speak that way, so I patted him on the back and said:

"Why, what is the matter, dearie? Don't you like this street any more?"

"Mamma," he sobbed, "I heard something about you which makes me feel awful bad, but I know it isn't true, is it, mamma?"

"Tell me, child, what is it?"

"Well," he answered, "Mr. Wilson, the barber, asked me the day after you left to go downtown on a trip with him, and I went along. He took me into a large building which I heard was the police station. He asked a man to let him see some pictures, and when he got the pictures he showed me one of them which he said was you; and he said you were a thief and the police had to keep your picture so they could find you when you stole things," and then the boy began to sob as if his poor heart would break.

The man had taken my boy down to the police station and had shown him my picture in the rogues' gallery. And again the realization was forced in on me by the reproachful gaze of my boy that crime does not pay.

For a time I managed to get along fairly well and was able by honest efforts to have a little home and to have my children with me. But my old career came up to haunt me and many refused to have business dealings with me when they were informed of my earlier life. At last I was at the end of my resources—should I lose my little home and my children, or should I go back once more, just once more to my old life?

The struggle between my two impulses was finally settled by a visit from two of my old acquaintances of the underworld—Tom Bigelow and Johnny Meaney. They came to ask my help in a promising job which they felt sure would be a success if they could enlist my services—there would be at least $50,000 for me, they said.

"Big Tom" Bigelow was an old-time professional bank burglar, who had learned his business under such leaders as Jimmy Hope and Langdon W. Moore—men who had never found any bank or any vault too much for their skill. Little Johnny Meaney was one of the cleverest "bank sneaks" that ever lived. He would perform the most amazing feats in getting behind bank counters and walking off with large bundles of money. He was so quick and noiseless in his work that he would never have been arrested but for his fondness for women and drink. When under the influence of champagne he would confide in some strange woman he had met only a few days before, and in order to get the reward some of the women would tell the police where to find Johnny.

He had granulated eyelids, and his inflamed eyes were so conspicuous that he could always be recognized easily. He was married and had several children. His wife never knew the kind of work he did. He had a quarrelsome temper, and always got into some dispute with every woman he met, and usually left them feeling unfavorably disposed toward him. Many of the girls who betrayed him did so more through resentment than anything else. I mention these things to show how personal peculiarities and temperament are often serious menaces to criminals.

Meaney's specialty was day work. He would walk into a bank during business hours and sneak behind the counter and pick up everything he could lay his hands on. He never did any night work, and knew nothing about safe blowing. As a rule, a man who makes a specialty of night work, with dark lantern, mask, and jimmy, will not attempt any sneak work, and the first-class sneak will not undertake night work. The night robber is guided by the moon, and oftentimes a job will be called off because the cracksmen think the moon is not right for the work. The darker the night the better. But the bank sneak prefers daylight of the brightest kind. He often works right under the eyes of a room full of clerks, and the bigger the crowd in the streets the easier for him to make his escape and lose himself among them.

HOW I PLANNED A BANK ROBBERY

It was a "bank sneak" job they had in mind. The bank was in a small New Jersey city, near enough to New York so that we could lose ourselves in our old haunts on the East Side before the detectives should get hot on our trail.

I went to the town in advance of the other members of the party and rented a small cottage, posing as a widow who planned to settle down there and live on the income of her husband's insurance money.

Soon after settling in my new quarters, I visited the bank and opened a small account. I found the cashier a man who fitted in perfectly with our dishonest designs. He must have been nearly seventy years old and he could not hear or see so well as he should for the security of the funds in his charge.

I saw right away that he was very susceptible to pretty women and was quite willing to drop his work at any time for a half hour's chat with such a comely widow as I looked to be. My task was to look the ground over, find out where the cash was kept, and how and when access to it could best be secured. It was the simplest thing in the world to get these facts after I had worked my way into the cashier's good graces.

I quickly saw that the most favorable time for the robbery was between the hours of 12 and 1 o'clock, when the other two men in the bank went to their homes for lunch, leaving the institution in the charge of the old cashier. At that time the door of the vault was open, and the bundles of currency and securities lay there in full view, ready for us to take away.

It would be an easy matter for Johnny Meaney, who was a small, wiry fellow, light and quiet on his feet as a cat, to slip in through a side entrance while I held the cashier's attention with one of my harmless flirtations and gain access to the vault through the door in the wire cage, which was almost invariably left unlocked. Even if it should be locked on the day we set for the robbery, it would be a simple matter for Johnny to get inside with the aid of one of his skeleton keys.

Accordingly I sent word to my two comrades that the coast was clear and to come on at once. They arrived in due time and, after looking the ground over, confirmed my own judgment that the robbery was an easy one and could be carried out with little risk according to the plan I had made.

The following Tuesday was the day set, because on that day, as I had found out, the bank generally had a large amount of cash on hand. The time fixed was between 12 and 12:30 o'clock, when the assistant cashier, the bookkeeper, and practically all the rest of the town were at their noonday meal.

Everything was definitely settled unless my visit to the bank on Monday should reveal some unlooked-for hitch.

The cashier had become thoroughly accustomed to the "pretty widow's" habit of dropping in on him every day at the noon hour, and he was exceedingly glad to see me when I entered as usual, Monday, and began a series of questions about some fictitious investments of mine in the West. Alas! how well I remember how that vain old man enjoyed his innocent flirtation, little suspecting that the object of his regard was there only to make sure that nothing had happened to disarrange the plans for to-morrow's robbery.

WHAT DELAYED OUR PLANS

Luckily for me the bookkeeper was just starting for lunch when I took my accustomed place outside the cashier's window. I had seen the door through which he had to pass to get from inside the wire cage to the outer part of the bank opened and shut a hundred times; and I had always noted with satisfaction not only that it was seldom locked but also that its hinges never gave even the slightest squeak.

But at this moment a most unexpected thing happened.

As the bookkeeper turned the knob of the wire-screen door and opened it a most unearthly scream came from the iron hinges.

The clerk passed on, and the door lazily swung back behind him with another piercing screech that filled me with dismay.

No watch-dog could have sounded a more certain alarm than those hinges. My heart sank as I realized how impossible it would be for Johnny Meaney to pass in and out of that creaking door without detection. Bringing my conversation to a hurried close, I went to tell my comrades how our hopes had been dashed by the unexpected development of a squeak in those bothersome hinges.

The difficulty seemed insurmountable until Johnny Meaney, always a quick-witted, resourceful thief, showed us a way out. His suggestion was that the robbery be postponed for a week and that in the meantime we call in the aid of another well-known bank sneak named Bill Taylor, to fix those refractory hinges.

This seemed the only possible solution of the problem, as that squeaking had to be stopped, and it was not safe for either of my companions to attempt it. Accordingly, Meaney went back to New York to make the necessary arrangements, and a few days later Taylor appeared on the scene as the suave, well dressed representative of the company which had built the vault for this bank.

On presentation of his neatly engraved card, Taylor was readily given permission to inspect the vault. During the afternoon he spent in the bank he called attention to the squeaky hinges and suggested that he apply to them some very excellent machine oil he had with him. This he did and the door moved as noiselessly as before.

And incidentally, while Taylor was masquerading as the traveling agent of the safe company and had the freedom of the bank that afternoon he took occasion to fit a key to the wire door. Not that Johnny Meaney could not attend to this himself in case he found the door locked, but Taylor thought he might as well make everything as smooth as possible for Meaney.

Everything was now in shape, and we decided to rob the bank next day. Just at noon, as the big clock on the Municipal Building was striking 12, I came up the steps of the bank and greeted the old cashier with my customary smile. The bookkeeper and the four other clerks were passing out of the side door to their lunch. Suddenly I spilled out of my hand right in front of the cashier a handful of large coins in such a way that two silver dollars rolled past him and dropped on the floor inside the wire cage. As he laboriously stooped to pick them up I strained my neck and eyes to examine quickly everything inside the cage to make sure that all the bank clerks had gone out—that nobody remained behind the wire railing except the aged cashier.

Moving over as far as possible to one side of the cashier's window, I drew the old cashier's attention to a photograph of a little child in a locket. This brought the back of his head toward the side door of the bank. As he leaned his face down to see it more closely I caught a glimpse out of the corner of my eye of the shadow-like form of Johnny Meaney.

Noiselessly he had come in through the side door. Like a cat he crept to the wire door. With my ears strained for the faintest alarm from those treacherous hinges, I listened as I kept up a rapid fire conversation to hold the attention of the aged cashier.

The wire door swung open noiselessly; Meaney was crouching low; I had lost my view of him as he crept toward the big open door of the bank vault.

On the sidewalk, pacing slowly up and down in front of the side door, was "Big Tom" Bigelow. He was the "outside man" of the job and, although I could not see him, I knew he was on the alert to intercept anybody who might happen in. With some excuse he must stop any clerk who tried to enter through the side door—I myself must intercept any clerk who might chance to return from lunch and enter by the front entrance.

WE GET OUR PLUNDER

With increasing vivaciousness, I rattled along entertaining the cashier. In a few moments I saw the wire door gently open as if by a spirit hand. Creeping low along the floor, a shadow crossed the little corridor to the outside door; noiselessly it opened and closed—the work was done!

And thus this job, which had taken us weeks to plan, was done in less than five minutes from the time I entered the bank until Meaney stole out of a back door with his satchel full of bank notes and securities. Then the three of us quickly made our way by separate routes to New York.

The loss was not discovered until it came time to close the vault for the day, and we thus had nearly three hours' start of the police. A large reward was offered and numerous detectives engaged, but no one was ever arrested for this crime. I am just vain enough to think that the old cashier was probably very reluctant to believe his pretty widow had a share in the robbery, in spite of her mysterious disappearance on the very day it occurred.

Our plunder amounted to $150,000, of which $20,000 was cash and the rest good negotiable bonds. The money was divided and I undertook the marketing of the securities, which were finally disposed of through various channels for $78,000, or about 60 per cent. of their value.

Those squeaky door hinges cost Meaney, Bigelow, and myself about $6,000 apiece, for through the addition of Taylor to our party we had to divide the spoils among four persons instead of three. After paying my expenses, my share of these ill-gotten gains amounted to about $20,000. This I thought ample to provide for the wants of my children until I could establish myself in some honorable business, and I returned to Detroit fully determined never again to risk, as I had, a long prison term.

But my good resolutions were short lived. Two weeks later word came that my husband was in jail for complicity in an attempted bank robbery which had been nipped in the bud and urgently needed my assistance. It took several thousand dollars of the money for which I had paid so dear to secure his liberty, and the remainder soon melted away before the numerous needs of my little brood and my husband's unfortunate gambling propensities.

Here I was again just where I was before the robbery of that New Jersey bank. My money was gone, my old reputation still pursued me, nobody would trust me; "once a thief, always a thief," they said; nobody believed in my sincere desire to abandon my early career and lead an honest life.

I did not feel vindictive at the sneers at my protestations of a desire to earn an honest living—I could not blame anybody for doubting my sincerity. But my home and my little ones, dearer to me than life, what was to become of them? Was there no way to escape from my wretched career? If ever a woman and a mother realized that crime does not pay, I was made to learn that truth.

It is a long and difficult road—the narrow path that leads from crime to honest living. I have traveled it, thank heaven! but it was hard, it was slow—and many times I strayed from the path.

Some of my companions of the old days traveled that road with me. A few, a very few, succeeded as I did at last. Many gave it up, turned back. A thousand episodes of my career and of their misguided lives all illuminate the one great inevitable fact that crime does not pay!

CHAPTER II

THE SECRET OF THE STOLEN GAINSBOROUGH—AND THE LESSON OF THE CAREER OF RAYMOND, THE "PRINCE OF SAFE BLOWERS," WHO BUILT A MILLIONAIRE'S RESIDENCE IN A FASHIONABLE LONDON SUBURB AND KEPT A YACHT WITH A CREW OF 20 MEN IN THE MEDITERRANEAN

It was on the morning of May 15, several years ago, that the manager of Agnew's great art gallery in London turned the key in the lock of the private gallery to show an art patron the famous "Gainsborough." His amiable smile faded from his lips as he came face to face with an empty gilt frame.

The great $125,000 painting had been cut from its frame.

Who stole this masterpiece? How was it stolen? Could it be recovered?

The best detectives of Europe and America were asked to find answers to these questions. They never did. I will answer them here for the first time to-day.

The man who cut the Gainsborough from its frame was a millionaire, he was an associate of mine, he was a bank burglar. Adam Worth, or Harry Raymond, as he was known to his friends, did not need the money and he did not want the painting—he entered that London art gallery at 3 o'clock in the morning and took that roll of canvas out under his arm for a purpose that nobody suspected. I will explain all this presently.

I have said that Raymond was a millionaire, and I said in previous chapters that crime does not pay—how is it possible to reconcile these two statements? We shall see.

Among all my old acquaintances and associates in the criminal world, perhaps no one serves better as an example of the truth that crime does not pay than this very millionaire burglar, this man who had earned the title of the "Prince of Safe Blowers." For a time he seemed to have everything his heart could desire—a mansion, servants, liveried equipages, a yacht; and it all crumbled away like a house of cards, vanished like the wealth of Aladdin in the Arabian Nights. And so Raymond, most "successful" bank robber of the day, lived to learn the lesson that crime does not pay.

Raymond was a Massachusetts boy—bright, wide awake, but headstrong. Born of an excellent family and well educated, he formed bad habits and developed a passion for gambling.

RAYMOND'S FIRST CRIMES

Unable to earn honestly all he needed to gratify his passion for gambling, Raymond soon drifted into the companionship of some professional thieves he had met in the army. From that time his downfall was rapid; he never earned another honest dollar. Like myself and many other criminals who later achieved notoriety in broader fields, he first tried picking pockets. He had good teachers and he was an apt pupil. His long, slender fingers seemed just made for the delicate task of slipping watches out of men's pockets and purses out of women's handbags. Soon he had plenty of money and a wide reputation for his cleverness in escaping arrest.

Aside from his love for faro and roulette, Raymond was always a prudent, thrifty man. In those early days he picked pockets so skillfully and disposed of his booty to the "fences" so shrewdly that it was not long before he had enough capital to finance other criminals. The first manifestation of the executive ability which was one day to make him a power in the underworld was his organization of a band of pickpockets. Raymond's word was law with the little group of young thieves he gathered around him. He furnished the brains to keep them out of trouble and the cash to get them out if by chance they got in. Every morning they met in a little Canal Street restaurant to take their orders from him—at night they came back to hand him a liberal share of the day's earnings.

But even the enormous profits of this syndicate of pickpockets were not enough to satisfy Raymond's restless ambition. He began to cast envious eyes at men like my husband (Ned Lyons), Big Jim Brady, Dan Noble, Tom Bigelow, and other bank sneaks and burglars whom he met in the places where criminals gathered. These men were big, strong, good-looking fellows. Their work looked easy—it was certainly exciting. They had long intervals of leisure and were always well supplied with money. "If these men can make a good living robbing banks," thought Raymond, "why can't I?"

It was through Raymond's itching to get into bank work that I first met him. One day he came into a restaurant where my husband and I were sitting, and Mr. Lyons introduced him to me. I myself saw little in him to impress me, but when he had gone my husband said: "That fellow will be a great thief some day."

AMBITIOUS TO BE A BANK BURGLAR

It was hard for a young man to get a foothold with an organized party of bank robbers, for the more experienced men were reluctant to risk their chances of success by taking on a beginner.

"No doubt you're all right," they told him, "but you can see yourself that we can't afford to have anybody around that hasn't had experience in our line of business. It's too risky for us, and it wouldn't be fair to you."

"But how am I going to get experience if some of you chaps don't give me a chance?" Raymond replied; but still he got no encouragement from my husband and his companions.

"All right," he finally said one day. "I'll show you what I can do—I won't be asking to be taken in with you; you will be asking me."

So Raymond, in order to get experience, cheerfully made up his mind to make his first attempt in that line alone. He broke into an express company's office on Liberty Street and forced open a safe containing $30,000 in gold. The inner box, however, in which the money was kept, proved too much for Raymond's limited experience. To his great disgust, daylight came before he was able to get it open.

Tired and mad, Raymond trudged home in the gray of the morning, dusty, greasy, and with his tools under his arm. The newspapers printed the full details of the curious failure to reach the funds in the express company's safe, and Ned Lyons and his companions guessed very quickly whose work it was. Meeting Raymond a few days later, they accused him of having done the bungling job. He admitted that the joke was on him, and they all laughed loudly at his effort to get some experience.

"You're all right," said Big Jim Brady. "You've got the right idea—that's the only way to learn; keep at it and you will make a name for yourself some day."

His next undertaking was more successful. From the safe of an insurance company in Cambridge, Mass., his native town, he took $20,000 in cash. This established him as a bank burglar, and he soon became associated with a gang of expert cracksmen, including Ike Marsh, Bob Cochran, and Charley Bullard.

ROBBING THE BOYLSTON BANK

Raymond was very proud of having gotten a footing among the big bank burglars, whom he had long looked upon with respect and envy. After several minor robberies Raymond became uneasy, and declared that he wanted to do a really big job that would be worth while—something that would astonish the police and would merit the respect of the big professional bank burglars.

ROBBING THE BOYLSTON BANK

Being a native of Massachusetts, he decided to give his attention to something in his own State. He made a tour of inspection of all the Boston banks, and decided that the famous Boylston Bank, the biggest in the city, would suit him.

And, in picking this great bank, Raymond had indeed selected an undertaking which was worthy of his skill and daring.

On Washington Street Raymond's quick eye at once discovered a vacant shop adjoining the Boylston Bank. He rented this shop, ostensibly for a patent medicine laboratory, filled the windows with bottles of bitters and built a partition across the back of the shop. The partition was to hide the piles of débris which would accumulate as the robbers burrowed into the bank next door; the bottles in the window to prevent passersby seeing too much of the interior.

When news of this clever ruse of Raymond's came out in the papers after the robbery, I made a note of it and used the same idea years later in robbing an Illinois bank at its president's request. That is an interesting chapter in my life which I will give you soon.

Careful measurements had shown where the tunneling through the thick walls of the bank could best be bored. Work was done only at night, and in a week's time only a thin coating of plaster separated them from the treasure. The robbers entered the vault on Saturday night, broke open three safes which they found there and escaped with a million dollars in cash and securities. After this crime America was not safe for Raymond, so he and his comrades, including Charley Bullard, fled to Europe.

In Paris Bullard opened a gambling house, and there Raymond lived when the criminal ventures from which he was amassing his first fortune permitted.

And now there entered into Raymond's life a very remarkable romance, which almost caused him to reform.

In one of the big Parisian hotels at this time was an Irish barmaid named Kate Kelley. She was an unusually beautiful girl—a plump, dashing blonde of much the same type Lillian Russell was years ago. Bullard and Raymond both fell madly in love with her.

The race for her favor was a close one, despite the fact that Bullard was an accomplished musician, spoke several languages fluently, and was in other ways Raymond's superior. The scales, however, were surely turning in Raymond's favor when the rumor that he was a bank robber reached Kate's ears.

Raymond admitted this was the truth. But he never attempted to take advantage of his friend Bullard by telling Kate that he also was a thief. That was characteristic of the man. Criminal though he was, he never stooped to anything mean or underhanded, and would stand by his friends through thick and thin. Instead of trying to drag Bullard to disappointment with him, he pleaded with Kate to forgive his past and to help him make a fresh start.

"Marry me," he urged, "and I'll never commit another crime. We'll go to some distant land and I'll start all over again in some decent, honorable business."

But Kate would not be persuaded. She could not marry a self-confessed thief—no, never! A month later she married Bullard, little dreaming how glad the American police would be to lay their hands on him. Raymond was best man at the wedding, and to his credit it should be said that the bridal couple had no sincerer well-wisher than he.

RAYMOND'S GREAT DISAPPOINTMENT

Kate never realized how she had been deceived until several years later, when Bullard was given a prison sentence for running a crooked gambling house. She got an inkling of the facts then and her husband confessed the rest. By this time, however, she had two little children, and her anxiety for them impelled her to become reconciled to the situation and stick to her husband. After his release they left the children in a French school, returned to this country, and took a brown-stone house at the corner of Cumberland Street and De Kalb Avenue, in Brooklyn. Here they installed all the costly furniture, bric-à-brac, and paintings which had made Bullard's gambling house one of the show places of Paris.

Soon afterward Raymond also came to America, although there was a price on his head for his share in the Boylston Bank robbery. He lived with Kate and Bullard until the latter's jealousy caused a quarrel. Then he went to London and laid the foundations for the international clearing house of crime which for years had its headquarters in his luxurious apartment in Piccadilly.

With Raymond's cool, calculating brain no longer there to guide him, Bullard became reckless and fell into the hands of the police. He was sentenced to twenty years in prison. For her own and her children's support his wife had nothing except the rich contents of the Brooklyn home. She tried various ways of making a living, with poor success, and was at last forced to offer a quantity of her paintings for sale in an art store on Twenty-third Street.

In this store one day she met Antonio Terry. His father was an Irishman, his mother a native of Havana, and he had inherited millions of dollars in Cuban sugar plantations. Young Terry was infatuated with Kate's queenly beauty, and he laid siege to her heart so ardently that she divorced her convict husband and married him. Two children blessed this exceedingly happy marriage. Before Terry died he divided his fortune equally among his wife, his own children, and the children she had by her first husband. Kate Terry lived until 1895, and left an estate valued at $6,000,000. She passed her last years in a magnificent mansion on Fifth Avenue, surrounded by every luxury.

Kate Kelley's refusal to marry Raymond was one of the great disappointments of his unhappy life. He married another woman, but I am sure he never forgot the winsome Irish barmaid who had won his heart in Paris. "What's the news of Kate?" used to be his first question whenever I arrived in London, and his face would fall if something prevented my seeing her on my last visit to New York. Had this woman become Raymond's wife I am confident that the whole course of his life would have been changed, and that the world would have something to remember him for besides an unbroken record of crime.

PLANNING THE GAINSBOROUGH ROBBERY

As I have said, Raymond had not been long in London before he had forced his way into a commanding position in the criminal world. The cleverest thieves of every nation sought him out as soon as they set foot in England. They sought his advice, carried out his orders, and gladly shared with him the profits of their illegal enterprises. Crimes in every corner of the globe were planned in his luxurious home—and there, often, the final division of booty was made.

No crime seemed too difficult or too daring for Raymond to undertake. It was his almost unbroken record of success in getting large amounts of plunder and in escaping punishment for crimes that gave the underworld such confidence in him and made all the cleverest criminals his accomplices. Another reason for his leadership was his unwavering loyalty to his friends. Raymond never "squealed"—he never deserted a friend. When one of his associates ran foul of the law he would give as freely of his brains and money to secure his release as if his own liberty were at stake. It was his loyalty to a friend—a thief named Tom Warren—which led to his bold theft of the famous Gainsborough portrait for which J. Pierpont Morgan later paid $125,000. Here is how it came about:

Warren was in jail in London for his share in one of Raymond's forgeries. He was a great favorite of Raymond's and Harry vowed he would have him out before his case ever came to trial. This, however, was no easy matter, because England is not like this country, where almost anyone can furnish bond. The bondsman in England must be a freeholder and of good reputation.

While Raymond was searching his fertile brain for some way out of the difficulty, he and an English thief named Jack Philips happened to be walking through Bond Street and noticed the large number of fashionable carriages stopping at Agnew & Company's art gallery. To satisfy their curiosity they entered the gallery and found that everybody was crowding about a wonderful portrait of the Duchess of Devonshire, painted by the master hand of the great artist Gainsborough.

It was Gainsborough's masterpiece, and the Agnews were considering a number of bids that had been made for the painting. They had one offer of $100,000 from an American, but they were holding it on exhibition in the belief that a still better bid would be made.

Raymond stood long and thoughtfully on the edge of the crowd, studied the painting, took in the doors, walls, windows, chatted with an attendant, and slowly sauntered out, swinging his cane.

"I have the idea," exclaimed Raymond the instant they were in the street again. "We'll steal that picture and use it as a club to compel the Agnews to go bail for Tom Warren."

"You don't want that picture," said Philips. "It's a clumsy thing to do anything with."

"Of course I don't want the picture—but Agnew does," Raymond replied. "If I get it and send word that Tom Warren, who is in jail, knows where it's hidden—don't you suppose Agnew will hurry down to Old Bailey Prison, bail poor Tom out mighty quick, and pay him something besides if Warren digs up the picture for him?"

"He might," admitted Philips.

"Why, of course he will," persisted Raymond. "And it's the only way I can see to make sure of getting Tom Warren out before he is called for trial. When they try him they'll convict him; and then it's too late."

Philips was not enthusiastic over the scheme. In the first place he thought it too risky. Even if they did succeed in getting the picture he feared it would prove an elephant on their hands. Raymond, however, was a man who seldom receded from a decision, no matter how quickly it had been made. He argued away Philip's objections and with the assistance of Joe Elliott, a forger whom they took into their confidence, they proceeded with their plans for the robbery.

HOW THE GREAT MASTERPIECE WAS STOLEN

It was decided to make the attempt on the first dark, foggy night. Elliott was to be the "lookout" and keep a watchful eye for any of the army of policemen and private detectives who guarded the gallery's treasures. Philips was to serve as the "stepladder." On his broad, powerful shoulders, the light, agile Raymond would mount like a circus performer, climb through a window and cut the precious canvas out of the frame. It was a job fraught with the greatest danger, for the gallery was carefully protected with locks and bars and, besides, no one could tell when a policeman or detective might appear on the scene.

A thick fog settled down on the city the night of May 15, 1876. Under its cover the thieves decided to make their descent on the gallery early the next morning.

Just as the clocks were striking three, Raymond stole cautiously into the alley at the rear of the Agnew gallery. Then he was joined after a judicious interval by his two comrades.

Elliott remained near the mouth of the alley to watch for "bobbies." Raymond and Philips stealthily made their way over the back fence and to a rear window, whose sill was about eight feet from the ground.

Straining his ears for any ominous sound, Philips braced his big body to bear Raymond's weight. Then he made a stirrup of his hand and Raymond sprang like a cat to his shoulders.

Crouching in the darkness, Elliott watched and waited while Raymond applied his jimmy to the window. "Click" went the fastenings—but not too loud. The sash was cautiously raised and Harry Raymond dropped to the floor inside.

Unluckily for the owners of the Gainsborough, the watchmen were asleep on an upper floor. Raymond, with the clever thief's characteristic caution, first groped his way to the front door to see if he could unfasten it and thus provide a second avenue of escape for use in an emergency. But the locks and bars were too much for him and he gave up the attempt.

By the dim rays of his dark lantern he could see the gallery's pride—the famous Gainsborough, hanging on what picture dealers know as "the line"—that is to say, about five feet from the floor.

The place was as quiet as the grave. A sudden sound gave Raymond a start—but it was only a cat that came mewing out of the darkness. Outside a cab rattled by and the heavy tread of a policeman's feet echoed through the street.

Raymond procured a table, which he placed before the portrait. By standing upon it he was barely able to reach the top. With a long, sharp knife he carefully slashed the precious canvas from its heavy gold frame.

At one of the bottom corners Raymond's knife made a series of peculiar zigzags. Later he cut from the portrait a little piece that matched these jagged lines. This was to send to the Agnews as evidence that he really had the picture.

HOW RAYMOND CUT THE FAMOUS "GAINSBOROUGH" OUT OF ITS FRAME.

After cutting the picture out, Raymond rolled it up carefully, tied it with a string, and buttoned it underneath his coat. Then he went out the same way he had entered, being careful to close the window behind him. With his companions he returned to his Piccadilly house and hid in a closet the picture which he hoped would prove his friend's ransom.

Next morning all London was in a fever of excitement over the loss of the Gainsborough. The Agnews offered $5,000 for its return and soon increased the reward to $15,000. A hundred of the best detectives in Scotland Yard scoured the city for clews.

The crime was shrouded in mystery. The doors of the gallery had not been tampered with. The fastenings of a rear window were broken, but the watchmen averred that no thief could have entered there as they had been sitting close by all night.

In all London the only persons who had no theories to advance as to the Gainsborough's fate were Raymond, Philips, and Elliott. They quietly waited for the excitement to subside, realizing that with the public mind in its present state it was altogether too hazardous to think of attempting to negotiate for the picture's return.

Meanwhile something happened to make the Gainsborough of no use to Raymond—his friend Warren was released from jail through the discovery of a technicality in his indictment. The famous portrait now became a veritable "white elephant." Raymond dared not return it—he feared to leave it in storage lest some one recognize it. So he carried the roll of canvas with him about the world until later, when, through "Pat" Sheedy's aid, he returned it to the Agnews and secured $25,000 for his pains.

PAT SHEEDY'S PART

And that is the history of what happened to Gainsborough's famous "Duchess of Devonshire" painting, which is now in J. Pierpont Morgan's private art gallery on Madison Avenue, New York. As I said earlier in this article, Raymond, who stole it, neither wanted the picture nor the money it represented. Raymond cut that painting from its frame as an act of loyalty to a fellow thief who was in trouble—to use it as a powerful lever to make sure of getting Tom Warren out of prison.

And right here, before going further with the episodes of Raymond's remarkable career, let me explain the mystery of how "Pat" Sheedy, the New York gambler, happened to be the person who sold the stolen Gainsborough back to the Agnews.

Long before that "Pat" Sheedy and Harry Raymond had done much business together. After Sheedy had accumulated a fortune by gambling, he built up a large and exceedingly profitable business in the sale of stolen paintings. Through his wide acquaintance he formed a convenient connecting link between the rich men who could afford to buy rare paintings and the clever criminals who knew how to steal them. Raymond took up the stealing of paintings when he became too old and too well known to the police to attempt more profitable kinds of robbery, and it was through Sheedy that he disposed of most of them.

A number of years before Raymond died he met me in London and asked if I could do some business for him. Being in need of ready money, I readily agreed. He took me to his apartments and handed me two paintings which showed at a glance that they had been cut from their frames.

"I got these from a cathedral in Antwerp," said Raymond. "I want you to take them to New York and sell them to Pat Sheedy for $75,000. If he won't give that, bring them back to me. I'll pay you well for your time and trouble."

Accordingly I sailed for New York. By wrapping the pictures in some old clothes at the bottom of my trunk, I got them by the customs inspectors without any trouble. I had then never met Sheedy and it occurred to me that if I had to leave the pictures with him he might try to take advantage of my ignorance of art by substituting copies for the originals. So, before setting out for Sheedy's office in Forty-second Street, I took an indelible pencil and marked my initials, very small, on the back of each canvas.

As I had expected, Sheedy asked me to leave the pictures until the next day as he was not sure he could afford to pay $75,000 for them. The next day he put me off with some other excuse, and so it went on for two weeks until I felt sure something was wrong. Then one morning he handed me two pictures, saying:

"Sorry, but I don't think these are worth more than $10,000. If you'll take that for them, I'll buy them."

RAYMOND AND HIS YACHT

Of course, I told him my instructions were not to accept a cent less than $75,000, and if he didn't want to pay that I would have to take them back to London. I was about to roll them up when I chanced to think of looking for my initials. They were not there—Sheedy was trying to palm off cheap copies on me in place of the originals. Quick as a flash, I pulled out the revolver I always carried in those days; shoved it right under Sheedy's nose, and said:

"Come, Mr. Sheedy—hand over the original paintings I left with you, or I'll blow your head off!"

He was considerably amazed at this warlike nerve on my part, but still had nerve enough left to argue that those were the pictures I had given him. But I was not to be tricked like that. Finally he went into an adjoining room—I after him with the gun in my hand—pulled open a drawer and took out the canvasses which had my initials on the back. I carried them back to London, where Raymond sold them for $75,000, of which he gave me $10,000. I sold many stolen paintings to Sheedy after that, but he never tried to take advantage of me again.

Raymond often used to tell me that all his bad luck dated from the night he stole the famous Gainsborough. If the portrait really was a "hoodoo" its evil influence was a long time in taking effect. The two or three years after his robbery of the Agnew gallery saw the most daring crimes of his life and the money they yielded made him a multi-millionaire. Even his heavy losses at Monte Carlo could not seriously affect a fortune which was being steadily increased by all sorts of illegal undertakings.

He lived like a prince in London and Paris, owned several race horses and maintained, besides a sailing yacht, a palatial steam yacht with a crew of twenty men. He liked to vary the monotony of his cruises by deeds of piracy as sensational as any Captain Kidd ever attempted. On one such occasion he robbed a post-office on the island of Malta; on another he attempted to loot a warehouse on the docks at Kingston, Jamaica. This last exploit would have ended in his capture by a British gunboat which pursued him for twenty miles had his yacht not been a remarkably speedy craft.

RAYMOND'S EXPERT ON SAFE CRACKING

Raymond was a natural leader of men, and he had a sharp eye for able assistants. In his gangs were the greatest experts he could collect around him. Raymond was not a technically educated machinist, and he felt the need of an expert mechanic. For a number of years he watched the work of various other bank burglars and gave especial attention to any work that showed peculiar mechanical skill in getting into locks and steel safes.

Finally Raymond got his eye on a very promising young burglar named Mark Shinburn, who turned out to be a perfect wonder as a safe opener. Shinburn had served an apprenticeship in a machine shop and soon got a job in the factory of the Lilly Safe Company. Locks and safes had a peculiar fascination for Shinburn and he rapidly mastered the whole scheme, theory, and practice of lock-making, and knew the weak points not only of the locks his own company made but also of all the other big safe makers whose locks and safes were on the market.

Shinburn was just the man to fit into Raymond's band of experts. He had the peculiar and valuable technical knowledge that Raymond lacked. Raymond would select a bank, study the habits of the bank clerks, survey the situation, and lay out the plans for the job. Raymond would execute all these preliminaries and would lead his men into the bank and face to face with the safe; but at this point Shinburn would bring his genius into action and Raymond would stand by holding his dark lantern and watching Shinburn with silent admiration.

Raymond and Shinburn were the moving spirits of the bold gang which robbed the Ocean Bank in New York of a million dollars. With them were associated Jimmy Hope, who later led the attack on the Manhattan Bank; my husband, Ned Lyons, George Bliss, and several others.

On his return from a series of bank robberies on the Continent, Raymond took apartments in the house of a widow who lived with her two daughters in Bayswater, a suburb of London. He became in time much attached to this woman and her children, and lavished every luxury on them, including the education of the girls in the best French schools. For years this family never suspected their benefactor was a criminal, but supposed him to be a prosperous diamond importer.

When the eldest daughter's education was finished Raymond married her. She was a beautiful woman, but a weak, clinging sort of creature—very different from strong, self-willed Kate Kelley. Although passionately fond of her, Raymond's attitude toward her was always that of the devoted father rather than the loving husband.

After his marriage Raymond made many sincere attempts to reform. He became a student of art and literature, and for months at a time would live quietly in his London home or on board his yacht. Then the old life would call him—he would mysteriously drop out of sight for a few weeks, and with the aid of some of his old associates add another crime to his record.

On one of these occasions he and John Curtin, a desperate burglar, went to Liège, Belgium. Their object was the robbery of a wagon which carried a large amount of valuable registered mail.

Raymond had fitted a key to the lock on the wagon and had sent a decoy package, whose delivery would necessitate the driver leaving the mail unguarded at a certain place. Curtin was to delay the driver's return while Raymond climbed up on the front of the wagon and rifled the pouches.

TREACHERY AND TRAGEDY

But Curtin carelessly failed to carry out part of this arrangement and the driver caught Raymond in the act. He was arrested, convicted, and given the first and only prison sentence he ever received—eight years at hard labor. With the loyalty for which he was famous Raymond steadfastly refused to reveal the identity of the confederate to whose folly he owed his own arrest, and Curtin escaped to England.

Soon after his sentence began, rumors reached Raymond in prison of the undue intimacy of his wife and Curtin. He investigated the reports and found them true. Raging with indignation at his wife's weakness and his friend's treachery, he broke his lifelong habit of loyalty, confessed to the authorities Curtin's share in the attempted robbery and told them where he could be found. Curtin was brought back to Belgium and sentenced to five years in prison.

Mrs. Raymond's mind gave way under its weight of remorse, and soon after her husband's release she died in an asylum. This was not the only crushing misfortune the released convict had to face. Through unfortunate investments and the dishonesty of friends he had trusted, his fortune had dwindled to almost nothing. He had to sell his yachts, his horses, and his London house with its fine library and art galleries in order to raise enough to provide for the education of his three children. He sent them to America, where they grew to manhood and womanhood in ignorance of the truth about their father.

With an energy worthy of a better cause, Raymond at once set about making a new fortune. The whole world was his field-forgeries, bank robberies, and jewel thefts his favorite methods. But the nervous strain under which he had always lived and the long prison term were beginning to tell on him. His health was poor—his hand and brain were losing much of their cunning. Each crime made the next one more difficult, as the police got to know him and his methods better, and at last he was forced to abandon the bolder forms of robbery and devote his time entirely to the theft of famous paintings.

Yet, in the face of these handicaps, Raymond made in those last years of his life several fortunes. But one after another they were all swept away as quickly as they were made, and he died, as I have said, penniless.

Did crime pay Harry Raymond? He invested his natural endowment of brains, resourcefulness, daring, energy, and perseverance in criminal enterprises—and died a hunted, hungry, trembling outcast. One-half his industry and intelligence expended in honest business would have insured him a great and enduring fortune and a respected name. If crime does not pay for the really great criminals, how can the small criminals have any hope?

CHAPTER III

HOW I ESCAPED FROM SING SING, AND OTHER DARING ESCAPES FROM PRISON THAT PROFITED US NOTHING.

It is not easy to get out of Sing Sing Prison. Ned Lyons, the bank burglar, my husband, got out, and so did I. We were both serving sentences of five years at the same time.

Ned Lyons was a desperate man, and he had no notion of remaining long in any prison. Although his body was already considerably punctured with pistol bullets, he did not welcome the idea of inviting the rifle balls from the armed sentries who patroled the prison walls on all sides. A dash for liberty was out of the question—if he was to escape it must be through some adroit scheme which would not make him a target for the riflemen who surround the prison.

My husband and I had a comfortable home on the East Side in New York, but I had very little peace of mind because of the activities of Lyons and his energetic companions. As I have said before, these men had found it very convenient to have my assistance in their various enterprises, and so it was that my husband and I both got into Sing Sing at the same time—Lyons was confined in the men's prison and I was in the women's prison just across the road.

It was the Waterford, N. Y., bank that had been robbed of $150,000, and in the party were George Bliss, Ira Kingsland, and the famous Jimmy Hope. Of the whole party, Hope alone was not caught. Just how my husband got out of Sing Sing I am able to explain, because I myself planned the escape.

The day I reached Sing Sing I was turned over to the prison physician for him to find out what my physical condition was, and what kind of work I was best fitted to do. This doctor's name was Collins. I shall never forget him for he was one of the kindest hearted men I ever knew. In my hope of being assigned to some easy work where I would be able to assist in my husband's plans for escape, I pretended to him I was suffering from all sorts of ailments.

PLANNING LYONS'S ESCAPE

"Why, Doctor," I said, "I'm a sick woman, and besides I don't know how to do any kind of work. I've never had to work for a living."

"Well, my good little woman," the doctor replied, "you'll have to learn to work. You're in here for five years, and nobody is allowed to play the lady in Sing Sing Prison, you know."

"But, Doctor," I said, "you wouldn't have Sophie Lyons be anything but a lady, would you?"

"I'd like to make an honest woman of you, Sophie—that's more important than being a lady," he answered gravely, "and I'm going to try. I've got enough confidence in your sense of honor to give you a position as assistant nurse in the prison hospital. If you profit by your opportunities there, you can learn a good trade which will enable you to make an honest living when your term is up."

Nothing could have suited me better. A position in the hospital is the easiest work the prison offers, and it would give me just the opportunities I needed to help my husband escape. But I tried not to let Dr. Collins see how delighted I was and pretended to be very tearful and penitent as I thanked him for his kindness.

My husband was allowed to come and see me once a week under guard of a prison keeper. My conduct was so good and had given the matron and Dr. Collins such confidence in me that Ned and I were soon permitted to talk without any prison official being present to listen, as the prison rules required.

On these visits we had opportunity for discussing various plans for escape, but we both agreed that no one of them would probably succeed. I favored trying to get a forged pass—a counterfeit of the passes given to visitors, which the keeper at the prison door must have before he allows anybody to leave the building. But my husband had serious doubts.