Evening Star Newspaper, March 30, 1930, Page 101

A jewel thief leaving New York for France is spotted by a stool pigeon and the information is re- tayed by cable to the French Surete in Paris. At the famous French watering resort the thief from overseas steals a valuable necklace from an unsuspecting, pleas-: ure-mad matron, but his crime is wit- nessed by the shadow of the Surete. BY R. S. FENDRICK. GANG of “Slippery Dan's” pals, all jewel thieves like himself, had discreetly gone down to the pier in New York to see him off on his . holiday. - & For “Slippery Dan,” cough aggravated by a damp Winter, his frail body fatigued by the nightly pursuit of pretty sparklers and his nerves shaken by his sweetheart quiting him, had decided to go over to the sunny Riviera for a few weeks of rest. “Watch your step over there, Danny,” his sidekick warned him earnestly as the last bell sounded for the gangplank to be pulled in. “Don't try to pull any jobs. You'll be in a strange country, where you don't know the lay, and I hear ®at the French plain-clothes bulls are pretty good.” "pr. you know I'm not going for that” “Slippery Dan” snapped back, “but me afraid of those French bulls, huh! I never saw one of the flatfeet yet that could catch up with me. See you all in April.” The crook was still at sea, blissfully ignorant that a stool pigeon had reported his departure, when a cable went buzzing under his ship from a French secret service man, in contdct with the New York police department, to the surete .generale in Paris: I learn that Dan K——, notorious American jewel thief, sailed on the liner for Cher- bourg last Saturday. He is traveling under the name of Charles P. J—— on an American passport, No. ——, that was fraudulently pro- cured for him by an accomplice. He is os- tensibly going to France on a vacation, but if allowed to land sould be carefully watched. His specialty is stealing necklaces, rivieres and brooches from women at fashionable danc- ing establishments. Photograph on passport authentic. THE surete generale in Paris receives cables like this from agents all over the world almost every week, and the occasional Ameri- can detectives who come over here on some job are astounded to see with what finesse, with what superb technique and with what complete invisibility the most formidable crime- preventing and crime-detecting organization in existence receives such guests. To understand its success, one must know something of the background, the traditions of the Surete and its predecessors, the politi- cal police, during the last 500 years. “If I see three men talking together in the street,” boasted one of the founders of this service,” I can be sure that one of them be- longs to me.” “I have my spies in every rank of society, from dukes down to lackeys,” explained an- other chief, D’Argenson, after proudly repeate- ing to Louis XIV one day some gay story the King had told several intimates the previous morning. And there was Sartines, chief of the politi- cal police of Louis XV, who made a bet with a prominent judge from Lyons one day that not a single person could enter or leave Paris without his knowing it within several hours, A year later the judge had some business in Paris and he thought he could win his bet with Sartines. He told no one that he was leaving Lyons, and upon arriving at Paris at nightfall stopped at an obscure little hotel on the outskirts of the capital under a false name. He was positive that his presence was mnot known at the Surete, but a lackey in royesl THE SUNDAY 'STAR, “WASHINGTON*'"D. C, " "MARCH/'30, 1930. The ship is notified by radio to watch this man, lest he attempt to steal some of the valuable baubles displayed by wealthy woman passengers. Hozw Secret Police of Paris, the Famous French Surete, Are Directed by One Master Mind Who Co-ordinates an Entire Nation’s Agencies of Crime Repression. A scene along the world-famous Riviera, where millions of dollars’ worth of jewels are paraded by wealthy visitors and guarded against the theft by agents of the French Surete. livery woke him up at daybreak to deliver the following invitation: “Monsieur de Sartines hopes you have had & pleasant journey and requests your presence at luncheon today.” Last and greatest of them all was Napo- leon’s chief of the secret police, Fouche, whom Gloria Swanson immortalized in her picture, “Madame Sans-Gene,” several years ago. But the good old-fashioned days, when the chefs de Surete specialized in collecting scan- dals and reading amorous correspondence for the King's edification, have passed, and Mon- sieur Roquere, the present chef, has more seti- ous things to do. Imagine a master detective sitting in a big office in Paris, supported by a highly trained headquarters staff, directing 2,000 “inspecteurs” scattered all over France. He has 200 men in Paris, although Paris has its own detective force; 1,000 attached to “mobile brigades,” lo- cated in 16 provincial cities, and another 800, mostly in ports, frontiers and railway sta- tions. The chef has only to lift his voice, for he is in constant telephonic communication with all his men, and every frontier of France is opened or closed on the instant. Unlike America, where every city has its own police and with little or no co-opera- tion among them, here in France all the forces of crime repression are carefully co-ordinated. If the Surete wants a man, heaven help him! The chef does not have to move out of his chair to spread his net. In front of him is his own superb organization. Behind him a library of photographs and descriptions of more than 2,000,000 French and foreign criminals and suspects—the most com- plete bureau of its kind ever compiled. At his right hand a liaison agent with the special Paris detective force, known as the “judiciary police.” At his left a Maiscn agent with the gendarmerie, national uniformed police force of 28,000 men under the control of the war ministry, used for policing small towns and country districts. These police organizations have innumerable informers, and once the word goes out millions of eyes in every corner of Prance are looking for the wanted man. In its entirety, this system of a national police force is certainly mot practicable in America, for France is a small country with a centralised form of government, but it has many fine features that the American police could study with profit. TH! Surete has two distinct duties. One is to run down the authors of all serious common-law crimes committed outside the Paris metropolitan area. The other is to watch over the security of the state, and this means guarding all ports, frontiers, military, aerial and naval establishments, running down coun- terfeiters and watching for the illicit use of airplanes, carrier pigeons, radio and a host of other things that may affect the national se- curity. It is also on the lookout for plots, treason, armed uprisings, foreign spies, French traitors, anarchists, Communist agitators and conspiracies hatched in France against foreign rulers and states. It guards foreign sovereigns visiting France and sends men abroad on a host of missions. The visiting crook, unless he is an old-timer with experience, steps into this far-flung, finely meshed police net without the slightest idea that such a thing exists. When a cable from New York announces that “Slippery Dan” is en route, a subchief will probably inquire: ‘“‘Shall we turn him back?" The chef—chef is simply Prench for chief— will twist the end of his mustache for an in- stant, recall various souvenirs of his long career and meditate on the advantages and disadvan- tages of letting “Slippery Dan” get off the boat. “Let him land,” he will generally say in the end, “but keep him under strict surveillance as long as he remains in France. These visiting thieves sometimes have the addresses of fences here that we’ve never turned up, and it-may be interesting to watch this rascal and see with whom he associates.” From the moment “Slippery Dan” stepped ashore at Cherbourg he was like & fly ventur- ing Into the spider's web. An invisible recep- tion committee welcomed him in the person of a Surete man at the maritime station, who also found time before the liner salled to make & few discreet inquiries on board to see if the crook had any friends with him. When he When the jewel thief disembarks at ChPrirourg he is followed by two men from the Surete and keps : under surveillance in Paris and to the Riviera. Later that night, while the thief is es- timating the value of the plunder in his hotel room, an agent of the ever- watchful Surete softly opens the door with a passkey and captures him. presented his passport for the French debarka- tion stamp, another Surete man hastily copied the photograph on it. Two minutes later the passport was handed back with a polite and reassuring bow. If there had been an urgent necessity, an English-speaking detective would have accom- panied the crook to Paris, probably posed as the agent of a tourist bureau and talked him dry, but in this case the local Surete chief simply waited until the boat train had left and then telephoned Paris headquarters. “That American crook you told me about yesterday left here on the boat train at 2:30 this afternoon and is due at Paris at 8:30,” he told one of the subchiefs. “He is in the first compartment of the first coach and has two_ black suit cases. You will have some one meet him, of course? “His speaking likeness (portrait parle) is medium height, flat nose, retreating chin.” THE speaking likeness is one of Bertillon's inventions that has survived the master crime expert, whereas his principal discovery, the anthropometric system of identification er measurement of different parts of the body, has been entirely superseded by the fingerprimt system. . 4 : . Thanks to this speaking likeness, the police no longer trouble to send out a long, complicated description when they want a man picked up. It would only be confusing. In< stead. they simply note several of the man's outstanding facial characteristics. When “Slippery. Dan” arrived in the St. Lazare railway station, in Paris, he was met by another invisible reception committee com- posed of several.Surete men on duty at the station itself, and they had a baggage porter carefully listen what hotel he wished to be driven to. Even if he had deliberately changed his mind en route and gone to another hotel, the police would have quickly located him. Every hotel guest in France—in fact, in all Europe—must fill out a slip for the police and show his passport. These are collected every morning. ' It “Slippery Dan” had gone to a private apartment, the concierge or doorkeeper would have mentioned it to the policeman on the beat, who would, in turn, mention it to head- quarters. The concierges of Paris know the innermost secrets of the lives of all their ten- ants and they are a great asset to the police. “We have seen your man safely to the Hotel X, and we will turn him over to you now,” the Surete office at the railway station telephoned the Surete headquarters in the ministry of the interior. At this moment the real surveillance begins. A special type of shadow man, called “limier,” or bloodhound, is put on the crook’s trail to watch him. To start with, the bloodhound will give his headquarters a complete deseri of the crook for their records. If no finger= prints are available from New York, it is so easy to get them here. The bloodhound will get a waiter in a cafe to serve “Slippery Dan” 8 drink in a glass with an invisible coating of wax, which allows an excellent reproduction when a certain black powder is blown over it. There are a dozen tricks of getting a man's prints without his knowing it, especially if ke is intoxicated. A few hours later the director of the Bertillon Bureau at the Surete.will be rubbing his hands in delight, like a stamp collector who has just picked up s rare speei- men. 2 3 [ 4 o