The dicks often can name the dame on description. But, if they collar her, she gives them the horselaugh. No corroboration.
After a touch in one hotel, hustlers usually move on to others, to avoid running into the victim, though when they do, little can be done about it.
Time and again, when arrests are made, the bottle of chloral hydrate is found in the suspect's handbag. That still isn't convicting evidence.
Most of the saps, of course, really are married. And they are people of some standing back home. They will lie to avoid prosecution, which would invite publicity, even when the thieving broad is caught with their watches which have their full names engraved on the cases.
The drug, without which the entire clockwork would stand still, is not too difficult to get. Chloral hydrate is a recognized and respectable anodyne, in the pharmacopoeia, prescribed for quick insensibility when a patient has convulsions, and in drastic cases as a painkiller. It cannot be had ethically except on a physician's prescription, but there are underworld druggists as there are underworld medics, and both serve out the stuff knowing how it will be used.
An overdose can be fatal, and women who feel secure in mulcting men do not want to chance a murder rap, which would set the bulls working in full cry. So they often have the powder put up in capsules with just the right dose, and they open the gelatinous envelope, spill the contents into the hand and drop the container into the drain.
All this gives you some idea of the intensive forethought and preparation expended to turn the ancient and never-too-honorable calling from whoring to robbery.
While the two have long been associated, only of late has it become the custom not only to give the sucker no even break, but no break at all. A glib grifter in this streamlined system could work it indefinitely and retain her virtue.
Newspapers continually dig up new versions of the "meanest thief." We nominate this one!