[CHAPTER VI]
THE MONTE CARLO TRUNK MURDERESS
When a young woman deliberately embarks upon a career of crime she is certain of a fair amount of success, provided she is pretty enough to attract men to her side. A beauty, however black her record may be, need never want for male assistance. If she is clever and designing she can, as a rule, lay her plans with such discretion that if arrest follows she is able to plead that she was merely the tool of a designing man.
The trick has succeeded nine times out of ten. Juries naturally pity the "weaker sex," and at the Old Bailey I have seen women let off with a few months' imprisonment whilst their really less culpable partners in wrongdoing have been sent to penal servitude for no other reason than that they were of the masculine gender. Thus, it will be admitted that the female criminal has at least one advantage over her male colleague.
But Marie Goold never was a beauty. As a young girl she was plain-looking and her manner repelled. She made no friends, and the passage of time did not bring any improvement in her appearance. She was clever and resourceful, however, and when a desire to mix in fashionable circles and to acquire riches quickly determined her to turn criminal she relied solely on her brains and not on her face. Yet she married three times, and on each occasion above her own position, and from first to last she always had at least one man in tow who was completely dominated by her and obeyed her implicitly.
Her first marriage was the result of pique on her part. There was a youth in her native village—she was born in France—who for some quaint reason fell in love with her. He may have admired her vitriolic tongue and her fearlessness, but the fact remains that he proposed. Marie Girodin refused him, but the youth did not tell his parents of his failure, and they, in their anxiety to save him, began a campaign of calumny against the "charmer." It was a fatal move on their part, for Marie, just to spite them, married their son and then discarded him, because she decided that he could be of no use to her. He was wretched and unhappy, but so hypnotized by his wife that when she returned to him after a long absence he was almost delirious with joy, and promptly handed over his savings. Marie had been in Paris and London in the meantime, but she only remained at home for three months. Her husband died suddenly, and the widow immediately went abroad again. It was perhaps merely a coincidence that the young man expired just when Marie had made up her mind that she would accept the gallant English army officer who had been courting her under the impression that she was free.
Once more Marie ventured on the matrimonial sea. Her second marriage was an improvement on the first, and for a while she was content to spend money and enjoy herself. The captain's means, however, would not stand the strain, and Marie left for a Continental tour by herself. She stopped for a couple of days at Nice and then departed; and when she had gone two thousand pounds' worth of jewellery disappeared with her. There was no proof of her guilt, and she was not molested, but Marie's poverty ceased abruptly, and for a few months she was able to indulge herself.
Then the captain died, for Marie had, curiously enough, grown very tired of him too. His ideas of honour and honesty had disturbed her. She knew that he sternly disapproved of theft and forgery, and to obtaining money by false pretences—one of her little hobbies—the captain was fanatically opposed. Therefore, his death came as a welcome release to her. Black suited her, and if money was scarce she had a collection of jewellery which was her precaution against a "rainy day."
She was now nearer thirty than twenty, and it required all the art of which she was capable to make herself presentable. Her face was thin and marked, her eyes were black and repellent, and her skin sallow. People shrank from her until she began to talk, for then her rippling voice poured forth stories of adventures in which names of famous men and women in France and Great Britain appeared with her own.
Strangers were impressed by her. She never asserted that she was on intimate terms with Presidents and Cabinet Ministers, but she inferred it, and the credulous crowded round her. Once she got them interested she held them. She was clever enough to be able to do that.
But talking did not produce money, and Marie, who owed thousands, began to feel a draught. She did not ask for loans. Such a procedure would be tantamount to suicide, but she resorted to trickery to replenish her purse. Thus she flattered and coaxed an English lady into giving her the position of secretary-companion. Marie protested that she only wanted companionship herself, and that she would not accept a salary, as she had plenty of money lying at her bankers. The English woman, captivated by her chatter, agreed, and a few weeks later was lamenting the loss of six hundred pounds which had "gone astray" while she and her "companion-secretary" were travelling to San Sebastian.