The Holbrook news., 1922-06-16
LADY ASTOR FIGURES IN MOST
 ROMANTIC CRIMINAL EPISODE
Through Her Influence Charley Smith, Who Shot Noted Bank Robber, Eddie Guerin, Is Set Free in EngIand- Guerin, World Famous for His Escape From
 Devils sand Now Broken Man.

1901, when all Paris and it's guests was basking at the little tables of the boulevards, the distinguished Ameri cans planned more spectacular and richer haul. Around the corner from the Cafe de la Paix, the busiest and most famous corner in all Paris, and in the very shadow of the great opera house, were the offices of the American Express company.
 With them now were Kid McManus. young Eastsider who had ascend ed from the prosperous state of a New York saloonkeeper to the con- panionship of Eddie Guerin, and Dutch Gus Miller, a notorious Ger man-American criminal.
 Their booty from the express rob bery consisted of only 3O,OOO francs, then worth about $6,OOO. They had overlooked or had been unable to break the larger safes.
 The four accomplices left Paris on different days. Kid McManus went later arrested for another crime and spent seven years in a Canadian peni- tentiary, emerging mental wreck. Dutch Gus Miller and Chicago May were arrested as they left on differ ent trains. And on June 13-"thir lucky number for him-Eddie Guerin was arrested just as he reached the French border and brought back to Paris
 Chicago May was sentenced to five years of penal servitude. Dutch Gus to imprisonment "at hard labor" for life.
 AS the sentence was pronounced Chicago May threw her arms about Eddie Guerin and kissed him long and passionately. Eddie was affected. But he learned later that it was she who, in order to gain a lighter sen tence for herself, had given the in formation which led to his arrest.
 Guerin and Dutch Gus were shipped to that penitentiary which is the hor- TOT of French criminals-Devirs Is- land, that ghastly strip of land off the coast of South America in French Guiana, where trOpic sun beats down mercilessly on steaming clay and pestilential swamp.
 But then came the most sensational episode in all Guerin's sensational career. From Devils Island," the hopeless saying is, mo man ever es- capes."
 But Guerin escaped!
 The true story of the way in which he effected it has never been told. In all probability it never will be. The generally accepted version is that Pat Sheedy, New York's famous gambler and patron of art" who had con- ceived a real liking for Guerin, gave or collected a fund of some $50,OOO which was sent secretly to Guerin on Devils Island, and used to bribe his guards.
 Guerin reached New York in the early summer of 1905, just four years after the court in Paris had sentenced him to imprisonment for life. He was seen at his old resorts. In the autumn he revisited his boyhood haunts in Chicago-and then he dropped out of sight.
 Charley Smith Appears.
 Two years went by before the po- lice found him troublesome again. By this time, Chicago May had completed her f1ve-year term in a French prison and had gone back to London, where she had rented fiat in Cover street, in the sedate Bloomsbury neighbOr- hood, and was back at her old game, it was said, of blackmailing wealthy admirers. But now it was no longer Eddie Guerin who acted as her male accomplice in the business. It was a slender, curly-headed young American who sometimes gave the name of Sabine Jackson and sometimes that of Charley Smith.
 Eddie Guerin suddenly reappeared in London. With him was a woman known as Emily Skinner, who passed as his wife, at times.
 Guerin had been in London for at least six months before their old quarrel broke out violently. This was