Free Crimes of Paris: A True Story of Murder, Theft, and Detection by Dorothy Hoobler, Thomas Hoobler Page B
Authors: Dorothy Hoobler, Thomas Hoobler
Tags: History
much dexterity,” Strauss wrote. 32 The public (and numerous journalists) embraced the idea; many believed that for such a great crime to seem plausible, an
equally great criminal must have perpetrated it.
Worth was quoted as once having said, “All that I ever require is two minutes of opportunity. If I do not find those two minutes,
I give up the job. Usually I find them, and 120 seconds, methodically employed, is enough for a man well-trained in his specialty
to accomplish a great deal.” 33 That was just the way most Parisians imagined the daring robbery had been carried out. Indeed, the criminologist Bertillon,
well known for approaching every case from a scientific viewpoint, had placed a replica of the
Mona Lisa
on the wall of the Salon Carré and checked how long it would take to remove it from the wall and carry it away. Two men not
accustomed to such work took more than five minutes to do it. However, a museum employee who knew how the hooks were placed
was able to do it by himself in only six seconds, well within Worth’s window of opportunity. 34
Strauss himself was unusually specific about just how Worth had pulled off the heist: “It is he himself who carried off the
‘Joconde,’ and he did not have an accomplice. That is not his way. Nor did he take a train at the Quai d’Orsay terminus [closest
stop to the Louvre]. After crossing the bridge, he turned to the left, with the picture under his arm, wrapped up in a piece
of rep, traversed the Quai des Orfèvres, in front of the Prefecture of Police, and arrived at a friend’s house in the Marais
where he removed his workman’s disguise. He hid his booty, the painted wooden panel, in the double bottom of his steamer trunk.
Then, correctly clad as a gentleman traveler, he drove quickly in a taxicab to the Gare du Nord and got to London by way of
Calais and Dover before Paris had sent its warnings to the English police.” 35 Despite Strauss’s seeming confidence, police investigations failed to turn up any trace of the legendary criminal Worth.
Contributing to the view that professional thieves must have been behind the disappearance of the
Mona Lisa
was a book,
Manuel de Police Scientifique,
published in 1911 by Rodolphe Reiss, a professor at the University of Lausanne. Reiss had for a time served as an assistant
to Bertillon at the identification service of the Prefecture of Police, and his book was graced with an introduction by the
prefecture’s current head, Lépine, so journalists pored through it for indications as to what kind of man the police were
searching for. Assuming the role of a criminal profiler, Reiss wrote:
There are two classes [of
pègres,
or thieves], between which there is a profound distinction in their bearing, their manner of life, their habits, and the
kinds of crime in which they engage. The upper
pègre
reserves itself for the audacious, difficult, profitable thefts or frauds, and leaves the brutal and bloody crimes to the
lower
pègre.
It is notable, in fact, that the great robbers never kill; it is rarely, indeed, that they go armed. They work most carefully,
with even a refinement of art… and they never indulge in those savage and useless acts — the breaking of furniture or the
slashing of pictures, for example — whereby the lower
pègre
satisfies its barbarous love of destruction. Thus the nature of the crime, the aspect of the scene, afford to the police
an immediate clue to the class of malefactor. Even cunning imitation… is not long successful. The touch is not the same. The
robber cannot divest himself of his particular habit of doing things, which has fixed itself upon him more and more firmly
during his long years of malfeasance. 36
That clearly pointed to someone of the same “class” as Worth.
v
The theft continued to inspire newspaper stories for weeks; any report on the case, no matter how trivial, found its way into
print, reflecting the fact that
equally great criminal must have perpetrated it.
Worth was quoted as once having said, “All that I ever require is two minutes of opportunity. If I do not find those two minutes,
I give up the job. Usually I find them, and 120 seconds, methodically employed, is enough for a man well-trained in his specialty
to accomplish a great deal.” 33 That was just the way most Parisians imagined the daring robbery had been carried out. Indeed, the criminologist Bertillon,
well known for approaching every case from a scientific viewpoint, had placed a replica of the
Mona Lisa
on the wall of the Salon Carré and checked how long it would take to remove it from the wall and carry it away. Two men not
accustomed to such work took more than five minutes to do it. However, a museum employee who knew how the hooks were placed
was able to do it by himself in only six seconds, well within Worth’s window of opportunity. 34
Strauss himself was unusually specific about just how Worth had pulled off the heist: “It is he himself who carried off the
‘Joconde,’ and he did not have an accomplice. That is not his way. Nor did he take a train at the Quai d’Orsay terminus [closest
stop to the Louvre]. After crossing the bridge, he turned to the left, with the picture under his arm, wrapped up in a piece
of rep, traversed the Quai des Orfèvres, in front of the Prefecture of Police, and arrived at a friend’s house in the Marais
where he removed his workman’s disguise. He hid his booty, the painted wooden panel, in the double bottom of his steamer trunk.
Then, correctly clad as a gentleman traveler, he drove quickly in a taxicab to the Gare du Nord and got to London by way of
Calais and Dover before Paris had sent its warnings to the English police.” 35 Despite Strauss’s seeming confidence, police investigations failed to turn up any trace of the legendary criminal Worth.
Contributing to the view that professional thieves must have been behind the disappearance of the
Mona Lisa
was a book,
Manuel de Police Scientifique,
published in 1911 by Rodolphe Reiss, a professor at the University of Lausanne. Reiss had for a time served as an assistant
to Bertillon at the identification service of the Prefecture of Police, and his book was graced with an introduction by the
prefecture’s current head, Lépine, so journalists pored through it for indications as to what kind of man the police were
searching for. Assuming the role of a criminal profiler, Reiss wrote:
There are two classes [of
pègres,
or thieves], between which there is a profound distinction in their bearing, their manner of life, their habits, and the
kinds of crime in which they engage. The upper
pègre
reserves itself for the audacious, difficult, profitable thefts or frauds, and leaves the brutal and bloody crimes to the
lower
pègre.
It is notable, in fact, that the great robbers never kill; it is rarely, indeed, that they go armed. They work most carefully,
with even a refinement of art… and they never indulge in those savage and useless acts — the breaking of furniture or the
slashing of pictures, for example — whereby the lower
pègre
satisfies its barbarous love of destruction. Thus the nature of the crime, the aspect of the scene, afford to the police
an immediate clue to the class of malefactor. Even cunning imitation… is not long successful. The touch is not the same. The
robber cannot divest himself of his particular habit of doing things, which has fixed itself upon him more and more firmly
during his long years of malfeasance. 36
That clearly pointed to someone of the same “class” as Worth.
v
The theft continued to inspire newspaper stories for weeks; any report on the case, no matter how trivial, found its way into
print, reflecting the fact that
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