“MISS AMETHYST.”

Star (Christchurch), Issue 19968, 7 June 1920, Page 6

“MISS AMETHYST.”

END OF THE DIAMOND QUEEN. EXTRAORDINARY CAREER, “They’ll never get me alive” is a common boast when criminals talk of their exploits and of the hand on the .shoulder which cacii one momentarily expects to feel. But very few of them make good their threat to commit suicide rather than submit, to arrest. After all there lire worse tilings than a few years in tho penitentiary, and there is always the hope of escape or pardon Antoinette Pinck Peek was one- of tho exceptions (says the New York iiiliniie ). 'When Detective Toni bmythe, ’from Headquarters, arrested her recently in an office on the fourteenth Hoor of Jo, Park Row. .she pressed a small rial to her line and a lew minutes later was dead. 'She had taken cyanide of potassium, one of tho most deadly of poisons* Inns died Miss Amethyst, the dinmond queen,” and with her death there ended an amazing nine-year career of crime that had made her internationally notorious. It was not alone amazing because the police of two continents had sought her in vain for vears. but there was also the mvsterv of why this young woman, previously beyond reproach, had suddenly embarked upon A SUCCESSFUL AND PROFITABLE CAREER OF CRIAIE. AVas it love ol adventure, love of diamonds, or love of a man, thatcaused the girl so suddenly to (change the whole character of her life? Examinatiqn of tho known facts of her life indicate it was a combination of the three. r Jlio man m the case was Joseph brecher-Klisenger, a Rumanian. It was in Ins office the suicide was staged, and when the body of his partner of nearly ten years was started for the morgue, ho was taken to the Tombs, and m court Magistrate Marsh held nm m £2(X) tad on a chareo of grand larceny. Diamonds found 'in the office safe ol the man were impounded. Ten years ago Aliss Bonner, a stenographer, opened the office door of Klisenger’s establishment near Maiden Lane. The proprietor’s real name was Brecher, and the sign on his door indicated that his business was having and selling diamonds. The woman then r ‘; ls apparently about twenty-five years old. She was sallow oomplexioned! but there was an alluring flash in her larre black eyes The man, then about fortv. engaged the applicant for work A few months later the threads of their lives were tangled together inextricably. In addition to bonds of affection the two were linked in a scheme to gam nmek fortune from the jewel brokers of Maiden Lane. A GOOD SALESWOMAN. In 19i;i Aliss Bonner succeeded in establishing a large credit with the precious stone dealers. 'Tutored bv luisenger, she had become a connoisseur ot diamonds. She also became a remarkably good saleswoman. Tho merchants with whom she dealt called her Alias Amethyst. Klisengcr conducted his business bv obtaining stones tram Maiden Lano nierchants“to sell on commission. It was said of him that lie closed many of bis sales bv whispering to Ins customers that the stones he offered them really had been stolen, so that lie could afford to part with them ut n bargain price. Aliss Bonner obtained her stones in similar fashion, hut nor sales wore made on a. better foundation than avarice. the two occupied a- handsomely furnished suite of offices. The woman habitually appeared ornamented with diamonds easily worth £4OOO. Tho stones fascinated her. Finally tho pair became so highly thought of in tho diamond market that they wero able to get stones without other security than their credit. DISAPPEARED WITH GEMS. Then on a day when there were diamonds in their possession valued at £30,000 they disappeared, but discovery did not come until November, 1913. when Francis E. Cocks, of 7, Maiden Lano, was arrested for failing to account for £17,500 worth of jewels be had obtained on memorandum from other dealers. He pleaded that ho had lot them cut on a, similar arrangement/ tn the firm of Klisengcr aud Bonner. I heir offices were closed and the man and woman had disappeared.’ Then began a chase that led to Paris, to Bucharest, and other European capitals. lu the meantime the grand jury indicted the pair on tho charge ol grand larceny and detectives recovered about £SOOO of the jewels from pawnshops. Other brokers who had suffered big losses lb rough faith in tho pair hesitated to complain to the police. lest their own credit suffer because of their gullibility. In -May, 1914, tho Paris police cabled that they had arrested them, lliey were not extradited until nearly a \e.u latei. and then on the specificcharge of theft of a £125 bit of jewellery. They were acquitted because of a (law in the indictment, and it was impossible to try them on other stronger charges without violating the extradition treaty with Franco? I They disappeared after that and did I not again come iu contact with the I police of the United States until recent!}. a non George M. Cummiims manager of the New York Novel tv Co reported to tho police that ho was =us'picious ot die intentions of a woman who had induced him to lot her have £490 north oi diamonds ou a, memorandum to sell to a, “Air Lucas!” and that when he jjmd demanded the return of his stones he had been curtly rolused. She had given 15, Park Row, as her address, arid when j Jet active Tom Smytlie arrived there he was surprised to discover that tho “Diamond Queen” and her partner had selected quarters on the same floor and next door to the office of the United States Department of Justice. TO PRISON AT LAST. Tho editions of the newspapers that chronicled tho end of Miss Amethyst also told ol the sentence to prison' of Kitty Dowell, another woman crimuia! who has been extrnonlinarilv success, iul in keeping out of gaol. ' She ivri convicted m Special Sessions of .stealing a £5 beaded bag and sent to Sum Sing lor nob less than six months no? more than three years. This was her first conviction hut it was tho one-hundredth time she had been arrested, according to Miss Alan gan, tho probation officer w ho had in' vestigated her record. At various times Kitty had been charged with blackmailing, picking pockets shoplifting and bail jumping. But somehow she always managed to escape the consequence of her acts. Sometimes jurors wore susceptible to her te.ua.

sometimes the victims relented. "Whatever Kitty's system, it was effective, bho was arrested in Januarv. 1910, on the comi>lainf of Warner M". Van Xorden formerly president of the Van isorden Trust Company. ll® said she had taken £o(i(X) from a wallet in his evening coat. In telling; how it happened Mr Van -AOrdoii said that he paused in front of the Waldorf-Astoria to’ pick up a woman’s handbag and that when ho handoa it to her, after straightening up, she threw her arms about him in what appeared to bo a half-tipsy embrace of gratitude. The police never did manage to "put Kitty away,” ns they express it, and tho fact that she had been convicted fit last, and for the theft of a £5 bag u inch wouldn t have won a second glance from her ten years ago, is evidence that Kitty is losing some of her cunning and much of her discrimination. At the time of the Van Xordcn incident she was tho proprietor of a respectable rooming bouse, and associated with her was a woman known as ‘•■Chicago May.” In spite of her name she was a native of Now York, tho daughter of an East Side baker. CHOKED "WITH HIS OWN BEARD. I rom selling rolls over the counter of her lather’s store she became a singer in a music hull, and there she began her under-world career. Hers was not a sweet nature. At police headquarters her “envelope” contains an account of how she held up one man and tried to choice him with hia eivn beard. One of her practices was to lean her head affeejinnately on the shoulder of un Intended victim, and then, when be was qmic unsuspecting, reach round and bite oif the top of his tiepin. Tll.lt sounds a bit difficult, bbt “Chicago May" bad a sm, of steel pliers that fitted inside her month and tiic edges hit through gold as easily as she would bite a piece of bread with her own teeth.