Flynn’s Weekly Detective Fiction. Vol. 27, No. 2, September 24, 1927

At any rate, he or some one else suggested that George Graham Rice, mining stock promoter, winner and loser of millions of public money, had fine offices in West Fifty-Seventh Street, wherein were located lists which are said to have been productive of millions of dollars for various Rice promotions.

What this list had cost Rice is a matter of guesswork, but that it had an intrinsic value aside from income possibilities is a certainty, for each name on a good list represents an expense of from ten dollars upward.

In Wall Street, it is estimated that it costs a broker an average of sixty dollars to land each market trader on his books. This expense arises from postage, telephone calls, advertising matter and time involved in personal solicitation of the individual.

Consequently, it was out of the question that Rice would lend his precious list, carrying many thousands of names, to the Broadway bandits. Ergo, they had to devise another means of obtaining it. And that means turned out to be downright burglary.

At first the boys considered bribing the watchman of the building to enter Rice’s offices at night and purloin the list. But that plan had to be abandoned, for upon cultivation by one of the gang, the night watchman proved to be a steadfastly honest man, above lending himself to a crooked deal and liable to spoil the scheme by informing Rice that some one had designs upon his property.

So, on the theory that there are more ways of killing a cat than by choking it with butter, Quinn, et al, decided to make the watchman a party to their plan without his knowledge.

Thus, on a selected night, the advance man, who had been cultivating the acquaintance of the watchman, appeared at the building and engaged the guardian in friendly conversation. Then he suggested a friendly drink and, by this means, lured the man away from his post of duty. It was not long before the man was drunk, helpless and unaware that he had been betrayed by his supposed friend.

This all sounds very melodramatic, but we must keep in mind that truth is stranger than fiction and that this particular crowd of swindlers — at least one of whom was involved in the fleecing of a New York State banker, who since has gone to his grave — is given to dramatics.

While the watchman lay helpless a few blocks away, guarded by one of the gang, others gathered at the building. For lookout purposes, while two were ransacking Rice’s offices, they used a beautiful young woman, a former stage and screen notable who was at that time acting as hostess in a night club.

The List They Stole

She, dressed in splendid evening finery, stood outside the building chatting merrily with two young men in dinner suits, to throw off police or others who might become inquisitive. In due time the men who had committed the burglary rejoined the group on the sidewalk and all left the vicinity of the crime.

After getting the list, the swindlers hid it away for several days, then they opened an office, using names identical with those of several prominent banking firms in Wall Street.

The list which they had obtained was that of people who had invested in Idaho Copper stocks, one of several then being promoted by Rice. The attorney general has charged that Rice, owning the bulk of this company’s stock, purchased at ten cents a share, had created a fictitious market for it by “rigging” it on the Boston Curb from fifty cents at the start to as high as six dollars per share; and that in that way, he had swindled the public out of millions of dollars.

The fact remains, however, that at the time Rice’s list was stolen, the stock was quoted at several dollars per share and, therefore, of immense value to the hundred per centers who had looted the promoter’s office.

Gigantic in Potentialities

When they had opened offices, the swindlers went to work on the persons who appeared on the list as shareholders. In complaints which were received by Winter, it was alleged that these men called their victims by telephone and represented themselves as Rice; that they represented a forthcoming drop in the market and urged the owners of the securities to send them in to such and such banker for deposit and disposal at the best possible figure.

How much stock was sent in to the swindlers probably never will be known, but it is a fact that at the time their plot was blown up they were awaiting the receipt of several hundred thousand dollars’ worth.

As soon as this stock should get into their hands, they would sell it on the Boston Curb and present to the shareholder utterly valueless stock in some other proposition. Thus, whatever they received for the Idaho Copper shares on the Boston Curb was all profit.

Naturally, this was a game which had to be worked fast, because George Graham Rice is himself too shrewd an operator to remain long in ignorance of the fact that something was wrong, whether he was aware of the theft of his list or not.