The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1891-02-11
THE SWINDLERS OF PARIS.
Astounding Outrage in n Partisan Hotel
The Extraordinary Adventures of Ex-
Governor Mccormick and n Cracked
Vase-sEabby Streets and shops.

Ano HNNOhtuACs Va La
Governor Mccormick and n Cracked
Vase-sEabby Streets and shops.
The astounding adventure of a very
we'll known young woman OF this city,
saws a New York letter, with two diamond
vendors in Paris has just come to the
knowledge of few OF her friends 1t was
in the Hotel Continental, one pleasant
morning not so very long ago, and the
young woman in question was enjoying to
the full her coffee-and-roll sleep, as the
French say when something seemed to
compel her to emerge from dreamlaud
long enough to open her eyes on the dain-
ty bed chamber.
What she saw was enough to make her
shrek ten times over, but she didn't. Sur
prise 60: the better of her horror as she
saw leaning over the sides of her bed two
old women, hideous, yellow-skinned and
hook-nosed, very eager old women withal,
each holding q handful of diamonds in
her withered palm, and each pouring from
her skinny lips an incoherent torrent of
supplications-wh seemed half threats
that la belle Americana would buy her
wares.
How did they get there? Who were
they? What did they want? And oh,
where in the name of wonderful Paris,
even, did they get so many brilliants? If
there were other questions than these
which rushed through her still semi-som-
nolent brain, the young woman didn't al
low them to alarm her. 1t was still the
nineteenth century in the fin de steele
capital, even if these harpies did look like
ghous out of the Arabian Nights"
At last she managed to understand, each
of her hideous hays still clutching at one
Of her wrists as they profieIed the gems,
that she had the honor OF receiving visit
from two of the agents of a certain well
known diamond house in the Rue de ).
and that the bargains they were then and
there offering her were so very seductive
that she couldn't resist buying, even had
she not already as many diamonds as she
could use.
What is more. she began to lose the
feeling of intense horror at her surround
ings and aversion to the physical pres
ence of the Harpy-like diamond brokers
She was certainly growing wider and
wider awake, she thought, and yet at the
same moment she seemed to be doing
back into a blissful, dangerous haze,
through which the fairies appeared offer
ing her the treasures OF GolcOnda at her
own terms. How could she help accept
ing such generous kindness, she thought,
and presto. while one of the hays offered
her a page of legal looking paper the other
put a pen into her right hand. She
signed, and they bowed themselves
swiftly and silently out, leaving handful
| of gems on the bed.
When the young American maid came
in five minutes later she found her mis-
tress in tears, indeed almost in conyul-
siOns. When she came to herself and
described what the hideous old diamond
merchants had done, her maid assured
her that she had been hypnotized, and
advised that the police be called in. But,
| after all, there didn't seem to have been
any great amount of harm done. None Of
the young woman's money was missing
| from her portemonnaie on the dressing
table, and her jewel case in the tray of
her trunk had not been tempered with.
Beside all that, there was the handful of
| diamonds the hypnotic hays had left on
the bed.
Examination showed quickly enough
| that the stones were yellow, uneven and
faulty. The stamped paper in which they
were wrapped bore the name OF a diamond
house of which every body has heard. 1t
was easy enough to 20 and explain that
the young American lady didn't really
want the diamonds after all that in the
| dim light of her bedroom, when they
were so mysteriously exhibited 10 her
| without even a 'by your leave" they had
seemed much handsomer than when
viewed later on in the calm, clear sun
| light, and that, beside and above all, it
was an outrage demanding legal redress
that two of their disreputable looking old
diamond vendors should force their way
| into the bedroom OF a guest at the Hotel
| Continental and intrude upon her privacy
so shockingly, to say the least of it.
This was all done without delay, and
without other result than the calm an
nouncement by the Frenchman that his
agents had received from mademoiselle q
written receipt for the stones, with an ex-
| plicit promise to pay $1,000 francs month
| for them until their total price, $4,000
| francs, had been paid that a bargain was
! n bargain, and mademoiselle, having
| bought the stones and received them,
must nav for them "rhe trade is made,
v'la!" and that was the end of it!
The hotel people expressed polite sur
prise that any one should have been able
| to enter mademoiselle's apartment while
| she slept and while her maid was in ear
| shot. II mademoiselle said so, they be-
| lieved her, of course, but as the lock
showed no signs of having been forced
and as no robbery or personal outrage
had been committed. while they regretted
the whole affair, what could they do?
Mabel Jordan, for the fair American was
no other than this we'll known woman of
| the world and ex-actress, next consulted
| Vice. Consul General Hooper. Miss Jor-
| dan is a sister of Ed and Charles Thorne,
| and daughter OF Mrs. John Cham berlin.
Mr.. Hooper was enraged at such extraor-
dinarily debased and dangerous meth
dds of plundering his fellow countrymen.
| That some hypnotic influence had been ex-
erted by the two old women on his fair
Young countrywoman there could be little
| doubt, since the reaction had lett her in a
dangerous condition of nervous collapse.
Yet, as no personal violence had been
| offered her, no money or property taken
from her and no direct threats made to
her, it was exceedingly difficult to see
how to take helpful action in the case.
| An eminent lawyer was retained at a cost
| of $500 francs, and, after racklng bis brains