New Britain Herald Newspaper, September 2, 1927, Page 18

Lady Sholto Douglas, who accepted the beautiful bigamist as a high-born English lady and nearly lost one of her world-famous pearls LONDON. skipped out TEN pretty Dona Rigley was one night with VV sentenced to six months in jail all the valu- by a magistrate in the Maryle- ables in sight. bone Court the other day, she wiped She was away the crocodile tears with which she young and had been trying to play upon his sym- inexperienced, pathies, looked brazenly around upon and she was the court attendants and said, scornfully caught and and slangingly, “Six months? Huh! jailed for that. What's six months to me? I can do it However, it is on my head.” apparent she Which was an amazing and amusing set it down to reversion to type on the part of this ine xpertness, bewildering young woman, who came for the “house- from the London slums; who married maid dodge” is three men to rob them; who hoodwinked one she has and stole from the rich and noble, yet used fre- managed to move for a time in the quently since, politest of social circles; and who ac- whenever she tually succeeded in muking people who found hus mattered believ was the first bands slow in cousin of the : Lady Sibyl walking into Grant, the talented duugnter of the Earl her parlor to of Rosebery. be done. Still, early training and environment Jail did her will tell in a pinch, and in early life the no good. She fascinating Dona was a gamin of the bore the Aus- East End, and “a tough one.” trian a son The particular crime for which she while incarcer- was sentenced this time was stealing ated, and $1,500 from one Laurie Cohen, a trust- promptly sent Ihe Hon. him home to Mrs. Richard She has, before now, however, “done the old folks :Vortom, v._ose a bit” for bigamy, and it is probable to rcar. When Tefusal to recog- that when her current term expires she she got out, DI1Z€ "!he Hon. Mrs. will be re-arrested for some of her other she was a Grant” helped to expose sions. hardened little the charming Dona Rigley and land her in jail ing commission agent. tra In the girl’s lawless carcer one may criminal, anti- find a solemn commentary upon the fluid social, deter- state of London society in these after- mined to make the world yield her any supposed to shed the-war days. easy living. In her once she ma Mrs. Gr. that she was one of the Rosebery merely be that sh the d describe the ul re doesn’t spondingly good. She b not ded if next drink?” and Dona’s pickings - of respectable society. e began to accumulate a wardrobe pretty ‘“heiress. rather more elegant than that of yore, if Women of the world of fashion ac- It was in her role as Hazel Megson n equal. that Dona met Josephine O’Dare, another she of the London Slums, Used Her Charm to Victimize Three Husbands ynically frank disclosures re- The “living” turned up in Notting- up residence in garding herself, she has revealed that ham, in the person of a handsome miner eraded as “the Honorable —his name she has forgotten 1t,” and made people believe taking the trouble to divorce her Aus- known as the ants trian, Dona married the miner and it daughter of Mr. of her name, and the fact went well for a little while. garden of got tired of doing housework for a wife’s wealthy sports- m. reward. When she bore him a child, she man. Before un- to the Conti- sent that baby home to the old folks, dertaking her im- her successes packed her bag, left a note on the bu- personation, she They took reau, took about everything else in the had made sure he nd asked no house, and went away. 7 to give the It had been a good year for the miner, Naturally, the had been corre- thoughtless peo- With her loot, she ple who accept took rooms in a West End hotel and strangers at face The dashing Josephine O’Dare, “Queen of changed her name to “Virginia Dalton.” value were de- the Race Track,” who introduced Dona lighted to do Rigley to the man who was her third and most unfortunate victim Without Then she Megson, a n to move in a fast set on the Occasionally she reverted cepted her wanted to get big o where the big money was. and Fleece Many IMembers of English and French . Society by Posing as a Lady of Noble Birth its skin, and took she was was in India. honor to the to housemaid for a day or two—long Some queer stories are extant con- adventuress, and an excellent foil for enough to steal a little jewelry and fam- cerning that phase of her career. There her. 1 the war was ily plate and convert the stuff into cash is the tale that once, at a party, Lady Josephine was known as “Queen of the nd again she was caught and sent Sholto Douglas mi: ed one of famous pearls. It w philosophy of her own, for when she Megson, the heiress,” suggested that ducted Dona, or “Miss Megson,” into the they put the lights out, as the gleam of mysteries of the turf, and introduced her en better in the to George Bernard Rickaby, the famous her criminal endeavors she dark. It was done as she suggested, and, steeplechaser. sure enough, the pearl was found gleam- George started by giving “Miss Meg- na got a She shook her Dona Rigley and Vir- ing on achair where it emphatically had son” a tip, and ended by giving her a fully mnia Dalton personalitics as a snake is not been a moment before. the pearl could be s Copyright, 1027, y Jobnson Features, Ine. S—— cuous marrying and ?er cle her world- Race Track,” and had more horse own- s vory embarrass- ers professional woman obvi- ing. It looked as if the guests might riders and plain touts on her calling list orison term puzzling out have to submit to search. Then “Miss than she could shake a stick at. wedding ring and a cute little house in the suburbs. All the boys at the track agreed it was a pretty romance. Rickaby thought himself mighty lucky, and took real pleasure in introducing his little bride about; for the short time that she remained his bride, that is. With two ex-husbands loose in Eng- land, the fair, calculating Dona evidently decided that her cue was a quick clean- up and a getaway. She went to work on Mr. Rickaby’s considerable fortune at once and, considering that her previous experiences had been with a miner and a not particularly wealthy alien, she did very well. The day after they were wed she ‘started charging things, and she kept it up. All the stores knew George, so there was no question. She charged fur coats and silk dresses. She charged dia- monds and pearls. She even charged a snappy little roadster. For three weeks she kept hard at it. Some of her plunder she kept in the house. Some she pru- dently stored away elsewhere. Then, when she knew the bills were about due to arrive, she packed up all her own pluckings, George’s ring, watch and cash, and departed while he slept. The disillusioned steeplechaser made no effort to find her, once he realized he had been taken in, but the law was not so forgiving, and eventually she was taken to the Surrey Assizes and sen- tenced to eight months for bigamy. ‘When the eight months were up, Dona Rigley lost herself in London for twenty- four hours, and emerged from the fog as “the Honorable Mrs. Grant”—her most ambitious impersonation. The fascinating little impostor lin- gered in London for a while, going about with people who thought she was a rela- tive of Lady Sibyl Grant, and living partly on the loot she stole from Rickaby and partly on the money she had made while employing the “house- maid dodge” on the good burghers. It was while she was masquerading as the mysterious but alluring “Mrs. Grant” that she met most of those real society folk who are now trying to explain how she took them in. And it was as “Mrs. Grant,” it is suspected, that she came by occasional pearls, rings, watches and so forth, missed by their aristocratic own- ers, but never officially reported as lost. With an eye-filling wardrobe, plenty b Dona Rigley, the fair young bigamist, now serving a prison sentence for her promis- ver victimizing of her luckless husbands and many members of French and English society ’ of jewelry and money, she finally de- cided to set forth in search of new worlds to conquer, and went to Paris. Dona, the girl from the slums, con- ducted herself with circumspection, if not always with propriety, and the peo- ple of the French capital found her sufficiently amusing. With English tourists she did not fare so well. The Honorable Mrs. Richard Norton, for example, said bluntly that she had never seen “the Honorable Mrs, Grant” before her arrival in Paris, and didn’t believe she was a relative of Lady Sibyl and the Earl of Rosebery. Then the Honorable Joan Yarde- Buller, who is to marry young Noel Guinness, gave “Mrs. Grant” the cold shoulder, and Pa began to wonder. It was the beginning cf the end of a glorious adventure for the daring girl from nowhere, and a few days later she quietly closed her apartment and re- turned to London, badly in need of cash. As on more than one previous occa- sion, her mind turned again to the ‘“housemaid dodge,” and when Mr. Laurie Cohen, the commission agent, ad vertised for a domestic, she donned her servant-maid make-up and went forth to turn a dishonest dollar. Cohen was charmed by her neat, respectable ap- pearance and her meek demeanor. He gave her the run of the house. It took her a week to find out where he hid his money, but it was worth the trouble. She took a little better than $1,500 when she went away. With the memory of her West End and London triumphs still strong, and the desire to be “somebody” rampant, Dona spent $750 at once on new clothes and was preparing to step out again as a social butterfly when the police stepped in and told her she was wanted. During her last trial (her latest, at least) she tried to move the court to tears as she told of a third baby coming. But the court did not believe her. And, anyway, her record as a mother is bad. Finding sentiment of no avail, she re- verted to type, as related at the begin- ning. She became again the tough little P girl of the East End streets. Six months? Just time enough to rest up and do a little planning. She’d show these blokes who was hard. Six months? Easy. Standing on her head. i e T P o 55 e e = ——— e ————— e Ao Y s