Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 102, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 April 1912 — Would you rather be robbed by a woman? [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Would you rather be robbed by a woman ?

by STERLING HEILIG

5 JMk HOSW who recognize her bolt their bedroom C# HjxJ doors. Then they examine the bolts. _ ■ It is needless; tampering with bolts is , V*“rats’ ” work; and / \ Countess Manola has 1 I abjured all made co-op-V J eration. “Men are poor creatures,” she said,' on quitting the Abbey of Clairvaux in the Ulustrons Valley. “Men are clumsy, noisy, big-mouthed, violent, impulsive, ■without patience, without self-control. If you want trouble, take a man.” None will recognize her In Cairo, Naples, Rome, Vienna, Botzen, St. Moritz, Como, Lugano, Madrid, Tangiers. The severe elegant, intellectual great lady, well on toward middle age, will promenade her melancholy hauteur to only sympathetic and admiring glances. American tourists, beware; death Stalks invisible beside her, mystery, suspicion, loss of Jewels, travelers’ checks, bank notes and letters of credit She can strike at a distance. After she has left a fashionable resort, rich tourists who admired her may wake of a morning, safe in their rooms, and Cnd they are robbed, stripped, destitute. Let them be happy that they wake. The gouine is out and loose again upon the world. The Jirmouichs are jailed and scattered; but the shadowy filocheuse de colls, the “glider in the hallway," has her choir of wicked virgin nymphs to Btay behind and do her ■will, while she moves on, with the new perfume in their hands. By day, they may be English old maids, French blue stockings, plain dressed yet with an air of ease, cold, aloof, yet capable of impulsive kindnesses when touched by friendship lor the rich and inexperienced. They may be pathetic young widows, Russian or Italian, seeking forgetfulness round Casino gambling tables, at concerts, teas, subscription balls and hotel dances, where the most modest tourists flash their diamonds. If an observer, you might be struck by their eyes, the eyes of nyctalops, of great or little animals that see by night, the eyes of mice, mice, mice! The great old mother gouine loved to frequent the Villa des Fleurs at Nloe or the public rooms at Monte Carlo, where fortunes are won in an evening, too late to be banked. She moved from table to table, noting the great winners, smiling as the roulette ball whirled. Then the Countess Manola nods an aristocratic good night, pulls her sables about her, steps into the autolimousine and speeds home to the rich botel. So the haughty English old maids, severe French bluestockings, feverish Italian widows, with their eyes of nyctalops. They lock their bedroom doors and ■wait. The noises cease, the lights go out They doff their frou-frou dinner gowns, however sober, crackling paillettes, tinkling Jet rustling batißte and silk. They dress again, you would say for deep mourning; black stockings, black slippers, black gloves, black skirt and coat of softest wool, and round their heads, covering their faces, covering their mouths and noses, a veil of black mousseline descending below the neck and carefully tied round the shoulders. Is It the Countess Manola? Is it the Honorable Helena? Certainly no; It is gouine who turns out 4 the ■electric light of her bedroom. A feeble light struggles through the transom to the ceiling like a phosphorescence. ■Gliding past the long mirror of the wardrobe, she glances at it and doeb not see herself. Satisfied, she turns up the light Naught Jars in the costume. From her trunk she takes what seems a curling irenof-dull bronzed steel, .only both pincers are convex; and then another with the pincers longer, •similar; and a little instrument with -steel teeth, like a comb, that push bff«ir on slight pressure and spring out again, marvel of mobility and changing forms; and then three slim steel picks, as if for dentists. Each slips into its compartment of a velvet bag, not to tinkle or rattle. Finally, she takes a phial of liquid. She turns out the light again and stands before the mirror. All is dark and silent. Hve minutes pass. ' Ten minutes. Is it Countess Manola? Is it the soft. Sorrowing Marcheea? No. certainly; for she begins to see herself, quite clearly, in the darkness, in the mirror. It is the nyctalop who opens her room door with a ferocious smile—the hotel mouse who glides -down the corridor. / She knows the plan of the hotel. She has picked out three rooms to try —rooms of big winners, rooms of <Mr\ tentatlous tourists sporting diamonds, rooms of heavy spenders, cashing large notes; rooms of modest, solid tourists who have shown travelers' She is before the victim’s room. Most travelers imagine it a safeguard

against pick locks to leave the key sticking In. In truth, It permits the use of the oustiti pincers. Feeling her way delicately with them, the gouine catches the key barrel in a grip of steel —and tranquilly, silently, gently unlocks the door. Footsteps In the corridor? Upright, Immobile, she presses Into the corner, where fall the black shadows. Weary guest or sleepy chambermaid pass and see nothing. Noiselessly she opens the victim’s door, slips in and shutß it Is there a dim night light? She glides to a flickering shadow, listens to the sleeper's breathing. It Is regular; and she glides toward him. She has the phial in her band. Even now, oppressed by alien presence, should wake and struggle to a sitting position, she has time to back out like a filmy blackness, before he collects his thoughts and touches the electric light She wants no struggle. She Is no Jirmouich, armed with stiletto or eelskln sandbag. The gouine has but her phial of liquid, and her ear for rhythmic breathing. Should the victim vaguely wake she will wait in the shadow or the darkness for the sleeping rhythm. Now she is close to him. She has wet one of his towels with liquid from her phial. She holds her head away from it in fear. Even that filtering veil of mousseline might not protect her from the fumes of the new perfume. Now she has him inhaling from the wet towel! Bending over the victim with the vulgar chloroform was the clumsy jirmouich, the male, the hotel rat, always covered h*s mouth with a rubber band, not as self-protection against fumes, but not to wake the sleeper at the critical moment by breathing on his face or neck. Most sleepers are peculiarly sensitive to such a sudden local change of temper ature. The mouse, of lighter breath, had her veil instead of mouth band, and it remained as a pure air breathing Back and partial filter against fumeß when she got the new perfume into her wicked hands. How did the old mother gouine get hold of it? Mystery, some say, of old friendship; other pretend that.a criminal figure called “the mage,” a scientist perverted by a Sadie streak, is cynically making the bad perfume for its adepts, who must be all women in black, who have abjured men, as busbands, brothers, lovers. Its effects are more rapid than chloroform; two Indrawn breaths put the sleeper in a sort of coma. The dampened towel is spread under his chin; and the terrible woman tranquilly collects the valuables. On quitting the room she throws the window open and replaces the towel on the rack. She does not wish the victim to succumb. She dreads the scandal of a death, which very seldom happens. The pare air of the open window revives the stricken one and chases the faint, fragrant fumes away. He awakes In the morning, sunlight beating on his eyeß, and asks himself* astonished, “Now, how did I leave that window wide open?” Is it not better than stiletto or black-jack if you happen to turn in your sleep? Such were the resources

of the male hotel rats who were scattered or rounded up with Countess Manola and Baron Frandin at Nice in 1908. Previously they had made a trip to Algiers, where a well-known American millionaire went to bed, locked and bolted his door, heard nothing In the night, and awoke bereaved of rings, studs, buttons and chains worth $90,000 and $6,000 cash. In any case, one night at Nice Inspectors Henlc, Benoit and their men smashed In two bedroom doors, flashed lights and discovered Monsieur Bawqr In black tights, a rubber'band over his mouth, stiletto and - eelskln at his belt, filling a black silk sack with Jewels and money. The man they belonged to spored on peacefully. His face looked queerly pink and white. Quickly Benoit pulled the race off— It was a chloroform mask, most reckless and brutal death risk. In a nearby bedroom Frandin pst up a terrific fight, laid out a plain-clothes man with his eelskln (sand hag), jlu-jitsued Henic to a broken arm and almost got away by stabbing, when a hotel porter knocked him down. In his room were found the gang’s utensils. Today the brutal males are still In jail or frightened out of the business. The “King of the Hotel Rats” operating at this moment in Paris seems not to have done a single job In the 1$ fashionable hotels of the American quarter where he made such rich hauls. But as his sublime sneaking utilizes certain mechanical effects of the true jirmouichs, it Is Important to be posted. Besides, the stalwarts will get back to work one of these days. The male rat laughs at bolts. He tries to get a room next to his victim’s. European hotels are built with communicating doors, that any number of rooms may be thrown into a suite. These doors are kept locked and bolted on both sides. Of course, of course. The rat’s first work Is to gimlet tiny peep holes Into a door or partition. If decided to go on the job from what he sees, be unlocks the communicating door when the victim is out, jimmies the inside bolt, injuring it as little as possible, enters, removes the screws, replaces short screw tops, putties, paints the dummy bolt as “shut,” and slips out the room door on the corridor, where a confederate Is on guard to keep the coast clear. In the old days, if the rat could not get an adjoining room he picked the corridor lock In the daytime, when the victim was out, and “fixed” the corridor bolt In the same way, warned by confederates. An accordion was the 'outside signal. Striking up a certain air meant that the victim was returning. Finally, If Interrupted, there was the stiletto —and the jirmouich knew where to strike. Wbuld you not prefer the modern work of ladies? The old gouine and her choir of virgins in black veils seem almost sympathetic, scattering perfume. Yet as you slept the door swung open as the nail heads quit their holes. In slipped the stalwart, garbed In black tights, sandbag and stiletto at his belt To rise in bed meant death. To lie still meant the brutal chloroform mask held tight as you woke struggling to the sound of deep hells ringing in your ears; and then forget fulness—perhaps forever. Bolt your room door today, the hotel mouse will pass you -by. The mouse Is all for gentleness and confidence. A bolted door already means suspicion.