In case of sudden emergency, "Mother" Mandelbaum could gather up any diamonds or stolen goods which might be incriminating, pull down the false chimney back, which fell down over the fire, stow away the telltale valuable in the hidden dumb-waiter, push the dumb-waiter up out of sight into the chimney, and push back into place the false chimney back. This simple operation concluded, "Mother" Mandelbaum was then ready to face a search or a holdup.
If ever anybody lived in the proverbial "glass house," surely it was "Mother" Mandelbaum—and she knew it. Her establishment was ostensibly a general store and a pawnbroker's office, which she maintained in the front room, but Mrs. Mandelbaum also dealt in stolen goods of all kinds and planned robberies with thieves and often sheltered, protected, and hid thieves in times of trouble.
"Mother" Mandelbaum was never seen in the front room, where a clerk was always kept on guard. She kept out of reach in an inside room, behind the window with the steel grating. Her false chimney and secret dumb-waiter arrangement, as already explained, was in this room. In another room, "Mother" Mandelbaum kept two or three employees busy removing stolen jewels from their settings and engraving designs to cover up and hide monograms and identification marks on watches, jewelry, and silverware.
"MOTHER'S" GLASS HOUSE
In an adjoining room were kept bulky articles and stolen goods, such as fur coats, etc. Here, too, the price tags, factory numbers, and other marks were always removed from stolen furs, laces, and silks. One of the back rooms contained beds where thieves were lodged when occasion demanded. Still another room was a store room where crates and cases of stolen goods were packed up for shipment to her customers. At the end of the passageway leading to one of the rooms was a secret trap door. In case of a raid by the police, and if her front and back doors were guarded by detectives, she could use the trap door to let thieves escape down through a hole in the basement wall which led up into the house next door, which "Mother" Mandelbaum also owned under another name.
Gradually "Mother" Mandelbaum's clientele of crooks increased in number and importance until she had only one real rival, John D. Grady, known as "Old Supers and Slangs."
Grady had a more distinguished body of bank burglars under his sway than had "Mother." Bank burglars are the aristocrats of the underworld, just as pickpockets are the lowest.
When the Manhattan Bank robbery was planned and executed, "Mother" Mandelbaum was much humiliated that she could not command the financing and planning of the splendid project. It was Grady's funds which financed the undertaking, and poor "Mother" lost her one pet and star, "Western George" Howard. Howard, in many ways, was the greatest of bank burglars, and he was rated by many as superior to Grady's Jimmy Hope. In another chapter I told you how "Western George" made the Manhattan Bank robbery possible and then was murdered.
After Grady's tragic death, "Mother" Mandelbaum was the undisputed financier, guide, counsellor, and friend of crime in New York.
For twenty-five years she lived on the proceeds of other people's crimes. During that time she made many millions. But these millions slipped away for the most part in bribing, fixing, and silencing people.