The Napoleon of Crime (18 page)

Fredericka “Marm” Mandelbaum, professional “fence” who played mother and “saloniste” to the New York underworld. This sketch, with plainly anti-Semitic overtones, illustrates Marm’s “heavy features, powerful physique, and penetrating eye.”

American Civil War army document recording the “demise” of Adam Worth on September 25, 1862, from “wounds received at Battle of Manassas” (also known as the Second Battle of Bull Run).

“Marm” Mandelbaum’s dinner party, with the hostess at far right. “She entertained lavishly with dances and dinners that were attended by some of the most celebrated criminals in America, and frequently by police officials and politicians who had come under the Mandelbaum influence.”

Sophie Lyons, self-styled “Queen of the Underworld” and “notorious confidence woman,” whose bestselling memoirs chronicle the career of Worth, her lifelong friend.

Jack “Junka” Phillips, the gargantuan English criminal employed by Worth as butler, bodyguard, and safebreaker. This picture, showing Junka tied to a post, was labeled “an unwilling photograph” by Pinkerton’s detectives.

“Piano” Charley Bullard, Worth’s partner and soul mate, “one of the boldest operators that has ever handled a jimmy” and a virtuoso musician with “fingers so sensitive he could open a combination safe with his hands alone.”

Adam Worth, 1892, in one of the few extant photographs. Note the arranged breastpocket handkerchief, combed hair, and buttoned collar of the incarcerated dandy, after weeks of intensive police interrogation during which he claimed to have been tortured.

Charles “the Scratch” Becker, the master forger of Worth’s gang, seen here in a rogues’ gallery identification card from Pinkerton’s National Detective Agency.

William Pinkerton (seated) flanked by Pinkerton’s detectives in the “bandit-chasing days” of the 1870s. “When Bill Pinkerton went after a man, he didn’t let up until he had got them.”

Joe Chapman, the lugubrious former bank clerk who had “but one vice—forgery; and one longing passion—Lydia Chapman.”

Lydia Chapman, the loyal wife of Joe Chapman and a celebrated underworld beauty who was poisoned in her London home in 1876.