BANDITS' SPIES.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 242, 12 October 1929, Page 3 (Supplement)

BANDITS' SPIES.

GIRLS BEHIND GUNMEN. TERRORISING GASTGS. Gunmen! The very name strikes challenge into the hearts and thoughts of order-loving British citizens to whom even the latest exploits of car 'bandits, armed only with jemmies and safe-blowers, read like the last word in outrage. The terrorising gangsters who infest the great cities of America, shooting their way to wealth, murdering as a mode, corrupting Press, police, and public, and scoffing at the executioner, are typical American products which are foreign to our understanding. Yet the Sunday Chronicle" understands that the paid spies of these brigands are already in England testing the strength of the wave oi car banditry that has swept the land within recent year-. The reorganisation of Scotland lard, the strengthening of the Flying Squad, and the expansion in the use of fast police cars and police wireless are matters they are investigating. It is unlikely, almost impossible, that Chicago gunmen and 'Others of that type would attempt to thrust their terror on England. For the "Yard" is incorruptible. The Press is unbribable. The public would never etand for crooks of that kidney. But what many gunmen are thinking, as foreign cities grow too hot for them, is that there may be openings for comparatively mild, placid car bandit crime. Hence the spies. Always Under the Shadow. The spies arrive as best they can_. Some come as bona-fide tourists. Their passports are in perfect order. The last thing in the world you would find in their luggage is a gun. Others, knowing that they would be denied permission to England by the vigilant watchdogs at the ports, follow the trail of many of those who have been deported from England (including several foreigners deported after London's night life was cleaned up) and sneak in without passports through the medium of pleasure steamers running day trips between England and the Continent.

The "third degree," in the office oE an American police chief, is a torture chamber wherein even the most jealouslyguarded secret can be wrung from the lips of a bullied woman, who ds questioned until her head reek, until her brain hammere with the .pain of sheer weariness, until she is driven to a pitch where she must speak or go anad. This the gunman knows. And the moment suspicion falls on Mm, or the moment he is on the run, he knows also, that the tongue of his wonvan must be silenced for ever. The "stool pigeon," 'however pretty, must go to the sacrifice. There was, for example, the case of -L-auline Wilson, a handsome red-haired girl with more "It" than Clara Bow. Ambitious for the gaiety of city life, ehe left the quiet family home in the Kentucky hills for Cincinnati, where she became a "dance girl" at a night club. It was not long before ehe was in the clutches of one, George Murphy, a notorious rumrunner, safe-blower, and all-round cracksman, who had taken a passionate fancy to ihe girl from .the hills.

Money, a luxury apartment, a fine car, jewels and clobhes were showered upon her. Her life wae a serial of sweet surprise until . . . Her lover fell victim in a gang "war." Hie body riddled with machine-gun bullets, was found a in an alley, and all around the scene, mingling with the footprints of men, were the imprints of a woman's narrow heels. The police, seeking the truth, sought for Pauline" But she had disappeared. Later her body was found in the Great Miami River. A 'bullet had shattered through the beautiful red Jiair at the base of the skull. The gangsters who had killed George Murphy knew that dead women tell no tales. A Peril More Terrifying. There was the wife of a bank robber who was burned alive! She was Adeline Zaecard, of Chicago. Her husband was killed when his gang raided the McHenry State Bank at Illinois, following which the police were hard on their heels. Adeline knew who had 'been concerned in the i-aid, and those who had been concerned in the raid knew that ehe knew. The day after the robbery her charred •body was found in a lonely road.

Then there was Mrs. Alta Bonella, wife of one of the four gangsters who killed a policeman after <-i £4000 robbery in Kansas City. The four men were arrested, but a few days before their trial Mrs. Bonella was found 'beaten to death in her apartments. She had been summoned fco give evidence and she knew too much. In this case, however, the sa'crific-e was in vain, for three of the bandits were sentenced to death and the fourth .to life imprisonment.

There is another aspect to the .peril of a gangster girl that is even more terrifying. That is when a girl remains un■harmed but realises that, at any moment, disaster may ovei-take her. This was the experience of a certain beautiful New York night club girl, who, although the possessor of the secrets of three great New York gang tnurdere, lias gone un'harmed. There have been times when, in the crime "underworld, they ihave said that her life is not worth two cents, ibut still she lives, beautiful, vivacious, having a good time, but never knowing when her life will end. Tihere are times, of course, when the life of a gangster girl is not sought after, but, on the other hand, is protected by all the resources at the disposal of the ibandits.

This is when the girl is in possession of evidence that will save a crook from the executioner or from gaol, for there are times when even the basest gunman is wrongly accused, and his "girl friend" can supply the perfect alibi.

Not all the women of the gunmen are merely their mistresses- Many bandits, even those of the deepest dve, have legitimate wives whom they install in l-espec-table apartments far from the field of their crimes. They nave happy little homes, the children are well-educated, but there is one topic that is always taboo. And ithat is where dad gets hie money from, or where he works, or where he goes when he is away from home for days on end. Woe betide the wife of a gunman who makes curious inquiries! Woe betide the wife who craftily discovers his secrets and leaves herself open to cross-examination by v the police in time of trouble. She goes the same way as the painted doll who is the gunman's mistress and "squeals." Altogether, the girls behind the gunmen have lives packed with thrills; packed with glamour. But ie the pleasure worth the price they may be called upon to pay?