Why crime does not pay

by Sophie Lyons

But alas for all my good intentions! Just before I reached Springfield I happened to recall that this was where an old school friend of mine lived. She was a thoroughly respectable woman, the wife of a hard working tradesman, and I determined to stop off and surprise her with a visit.

As luck would have it, I found her house locked, and one of her neighbors told me that she was away visiting her mother in Worcester. Knowing no one else in Springfield, there was nothing for me to do but kill time for two or three hours until another train left for New York.

I was strolling leisurely along one of the main streets as innocent as one of my babies of any intention of wrongdoing, when I happened to notice something wrong with my watch. The hands had evidently stuck together, and it had stopped more than an hour before. Just across the street I saw a large jewelry store. I walked over there to see about my watch. It was the noon hour and the store was deserted except for an old man whom I judged to be the proprietor, and, at his bench far in the rear, a lone watchmaker.

The proprietor was arranging some trays of diamonds in one of the showcases when I approached him and stated my errand. He said my watch could be fixed in two minutes, and started off with it to the watchmaker's bench. His back was no sooner turned than I took in the fact that he had neglected to close the sliding door of the showcase. Inside there, within easy reach of my long arms, were two, three, a dozen trays of costly diamond rings, brooches, and necklaces.

Forgetting all my recent resolutions and regardless of the consequences I reached my hand across the showcase and down inside. It took a powerful stretch of my muscles to reach the nearest of the trays. But at last my fingers closed securely over its edge, and, with a skill born of long experience, I drew my arm back and the tray of rings came with it.

This was an operation that required a good deal of care, because in my position the tray was not an easy thing to handle without letting some of its precious contents fall clattering to the floor and give the alarm. In less time than it takes to tell, however, and before the proprietor had fairly reached the watchmaker's bench, I had the tray safely concealed in my handbag.

The proprietor returned with my watch. It was only a trivial matter to adjust it, he said, and there would be no charge whatever. I thanked him and hurried out, shaking inwardly for fear he would discover the absence of the tray of rings before I could lose myself in the streets.

After getting his plunder a thief's first thought is to get it out of his possession. What he wants is a temporary hiding place—a place where he can conceal it until whatever outcry the theft may have caused has had time to die down and he can safely dispose of his booty to one of the numerous "fences" who are to be found in every large city. Whenever possible, the prudent thief selects a temporary hiding place before he actually lays his hands on his plunder, and loses no time in getting it out of his possession, so that, in case the police arrest him soon after the robbery, they will find nothing incriminating.

This crime of mine, however, was so entirely unpremeditated that I had not the faintest idea what I was going to do with my tray of rings when I walked out of the store. Down the street a few blocks I saw the railroad station, and this suggested a plan. I would check my bag there and hide the check in some place where I could easily recover it whenever the coast was clear.

This was a plan I had often followed with success, and it is a favorite with thieves even to this day. I saw by the newspapers that the misguided young man who robbed the New York jewelry firm of $100,000 worth of gems the other day went straight to the Pennsylvania Railroad Station and checked the suitcase containing the plunder which had tempted him to his ruin.