A DANGEROUS WOMAN. By a Secret Service Committee.

Te Aroha News, Volume IV, Issue 160, 10 July 1886, Page 1

A DANGEROUS WOMAN. By a Secret Service Committee.

In January, 1863, the Secretary of the Treasury was notified that a new and dangerous counterfeit on a Cincinnati National Bank had been put afloatjin Boston. The Detective Bureau being notified in turn, I was detailed on the case and left for Boston the same day. About 2,000 dols. of the queer had been floated in one day, and the work had been done by a woman. At one place she had purchased 600 dols. worth of diamonds ; at another a diamond bracelet. The goods in all cases were such articles as could be sold again for at least half their value. Each victimised party described her differently. At the first place she was a blonde plainly dressed. At the next she was a brown-haired woman in mourning ; at the third she had black hair, was showily dressed, and claimed relationship to a wellknown family. After a day spent in taking notea and making deductions, I came to the conclusion that there was only one woman in the case, and that she had aeturned disguises. Boston was thoroughly searched for her, and I had not yet found a clue when the chief telegraphed me that she had appeared in Philadelphia. I reached that city, to find that she had purchased 1,600 dollars worth of diamonds at : one place and 800 dollars worth at another, pajing, of course, in the counterfeit bills. The first jeweller described her as a showy woman with gold in her upper front teeth. The second jeweller described her as very plain and demure, and that he was sure she had no gold in her teeth. { I had set out under the belief that I had only one woman to deal with, and I would not now admit there were two. I looked Philadelphia high and low for females bearing the description, and at the end of four days received another telegram from head quarters. She had appeared in Pittsburg, where she had made three different purchases of jewellers. I hastened to the smoky city as coon as possible, and lo ! the three descriptions given were so entirely different that one was almost sure there were three women at work floating off the counterfeits. One jeweller had been mashed on his customer, and had therefore taken particular notice that her eyes were blue, her hair brown, and her height medium. She had gold in her upper front teeth, and was affected in her ways and speech. The second jeweller wasn't mashed, but he was an old detective, and he noticed that she had brown eyes, dark hair, a mole on her chin, and plain, white teeth. There was nothing affected about her. The third jeweller could swear that she had black hair, gold in her lower teeth, a slight squint to one eye, and stammered a bit as she talked. I hunted Pitteburg for three days, but met with no success. Believing thut she would turn up at Indianapolis, I started for that city without orders, taking a sleeping car on a night train. It was a woman who had the lower berth next to mine, and as I looked her over I made up my mind she | was a school teacher and an old maid. She had red hair, dressed plainly, and paid not the slightest attention to anyone When the porter came to make her berth he placed a rather bulky satchel belonging to her on the seat at my feet, and she found a temporary seat at the other end of the car. The jar of the cars jostled the satchel to the floor after a bit, and, as I stooped down to pick it up, I found the floor covered with wigs, cosmetics, f>mall brushes, pieces of crayon, and false teeth. There were three wigs of different colours, and two upper and two under sets of teeth. In one the gold was in the upper ; in the other it was in the lower. Well, you may believe that with my mind full of the mysterious woman and her disguise, I was not long in concluding that I had stumbled upon the person wanted. 1 replaced the articles in the satchel, and walked over to her and made known my errand. She gave me a terrible tongue-lashing, and called on the passengers for protection ; but when 1 revealed my identity and emptied the contents of the patchel on a eeafc, she gave in. We got off at Steubenville, and, when I had her searched, over 4,000 dols. in the counterfeits wa« brought to light, but her purchases were not to be found, she having shipped them to confederates. She was the wife of the notorious "Black Dan," and the pair were the most dangerous couple in America at that time. We got her husband in a week or two, and, while he got a sentence of twenty, two years, she got off with seven.—" Detroit Free Press."