True Stories of Crime From the District Attorneys Office | Page 5

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.]
[Illustration: FIG. 5.--Practice signatures of the name of Alice Kauser.]
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 her
age, with the result that while still in her