468 
THE STRAND MAGAZINE . 
that the Count had been accused of cheating 
at cards. His two sisters with their titled 
husbands, all of them as smart and good- 
looking as himself, constituted a glittering 
centre of attraction to every moneyed “ mug ” 
anxious for social introductions who crossed 
their path. There was not a shady trick 
which they did not successfully practise. 
They sold old pictures and jewellery, they 
placed bogus mining shares, and acted as 
betting and matrimonial agents. It was this 
last-named expedient, a marriage affair, 
conducted with less than their ordinary 
prudence, which brought them within the 
clutch of the criminal law. Some poor ninny 
in their own rank of life had been induced by 
false pretences to advance money on the 
prospective dowry of a rich girl who had 
never had the least intention of marrying 
him. The victim had even supplied funds 
for the purchase of engagement presents, 
which the Count had pocketed. The penalty 
was not a very severe one — not nearly severe 
enough — but it sufficed to rid a certain society 
of the He C.’s. Do not imagine, however, that 
this gang will now be driven to commit 
burglaries. They will do nothing so foolish. 
A simple change of name, and they will seek 
further dupes in a social circle a little less 
elevated than that which they have hitherto 
robbed, and where they will not be recognized. 
What we police officials notice in a general 
way is that crime increases in proportion as 
its legal repression becomes less severe and 
the public feeling of reprobation diminishes. 
Moreover, each new development of civiliza- 
tion brings in its trail a novel form of crime. 
Take, for instance, the vast new palace hotels, 
the network of which, spread practically over 
the entire globe, is an innovation of recent 
years. The immediate result has been the 
spontaneous creation of a new type of thief 
— the rats d' hotel, as w e call them — “ hotel 
rats.” In view of their relative insignificance, 
I should hesitate to refer to them, were it 
not for the fact that many good people have 
declared them to be creatures of imagination 
invented by the police. 
Their modus operand! , which is always the 
same, consists in introducing themselves 
into first-class hotels in the character of ordi- 
nary travellers, or more often still as domestics, 
and sometimes, when they hunt in couples, 
as master and servant. Having carcfull/ 
studied the situation of the bedrooms and 
the system of locks employed, they select 
their prey. False keys are made and fitted, 
or an accomplice first saws the screws of the. 
locks level with the door. Then in the dead of 
night the “ hotel rat,” having enveloped his 
head with a black veil so as to be invisible 
when slinking along the corridors, and with 
his face hidden by a black velvet mask, 
creeps on all jours into his victim's room 
and rifles clothes and trunks of the valuables 
that they contain. 
The “ hotel rat's ” greatest triumph has 
been the invention of the ouistiti. Tn the 
vocabulary of the zoologist the ouistiti is a 
“ striated monkey,” but in burglar’s argot, 
or slang, it is a little instrument by means of 
which locks can be unlocked as if by magic, 
on condition, however, that the inmate of the 
room has taken the unwise precaution of 
leaving the key inside the lock, under the 
impression that this will prevent the insertion 
of any other key. In the pioneer stage of 
this particular form of burglary a bullet- 
extractor was used, but since all the detectives 
in the world became familiar with it, the 
ouistiti is disguised under the form of a pedi- 
cure’s knife, a boot-hook, or a moustache 
curling-iron, which only assumes practical 
shape after being unscrewed from the handle 
and remounted. The ouistiti then becomes 
a pair of elongated pincers, by which the thief 
is enabled to seize the steel head of the key 
through the keyhole, and thus noiselessly 
and instantaneously to open the door. Is it 
necessary to add that this new school of 
burglary has more to do with the science of 
the perfect locksmith than with the instincts 
and accomplishments that are commonly 
attributable to the perfect gentleman ? It is 
true that when arrested they often claim 
titles of nobility, generally those of the 
families in which they have formerly served, 
and sometimes they have the audacity to 
insist upon them as genuine, even in the 
presence of the judge. Given an imaginative 
reporter, catering for a credulous public, and 
at once you have the “ gentleman burglar ” 
served hot. 
But perhaps it is in one of the famous 
international gangs who specialize in robberies 
from jewellers’ stores that you expect to find 
the “ gentleman ” thief ? I do not refer, of 
course, to those who break into jewellers’ 
premises at night, who would really have no 
occasion for the display of elegant manners, 
however refined their natural instincts might 
be. But I will specify two typical cases with 
which the Paris police were recently called 
upon to deal, both of which occurred at 
jewellers’ stores in the ultra-fashionable Rue 
de la Paix. They illustrate the two classic 
methods of the “ sneak ” thief, and inci- 
dentally explain why the victim often persists 
