Burns was to receive two bonds for $25,000 each and three notes for $5,000 each, he says. The bonds, he understood, were guaranteed by a trust company of this city. The notes were for three, five and seven months.
Shortly after the transfer of the property to Cannon it passed into the hands of the Standard Lumber Company, of which White is president and Cannon is vice-president. Burns says he tried to get possession of the $25,000 bonds but failed, notwithstanding repeated demands.
When the first note fell due, on August 20, Burns did not receive the $5,000. Then the man from Tennessee grew suspicious, and on investigation he learned that the bonds were not guaranteed. He learned also, he says, that the Standard Lumber Company consisted of three shares valued at $5 each.
The title to the land subsequently changed hands again, this time to the Southern Lumber Company.
White was arrested, the police say, about five years ago, under the name of Wilce.
Sister sick. No work. Money gone. Everything that could be pawned or sold outright gone. Then Laura Walsington, 20 years old, 14 West Thirty-second Street, took to forgery.
That was in July. Since then she has cashed forged checks for sums from $15 to $75. She was arrested this morning, was taken to police headquarters and there confessed.
Slumped down in a chair in the office of Larry Ghent, chief of detectives, she wept bitterly.
“Sister and I were living together,” she said. “Then she got sick. She had to go to a hospital and be operated on. We had a little money, but that soon went. Then I pawned everything I had, and then everything Sis had. Then those things were gone. Then I lost my position. I was desperate.”
After that, she said, she decided on forgery.
On receipts for supplies of butter and eggs, she had the name of a dairyman of Parkton, Kas. After practicing the name until proficiency had been acquired, she telephoned to a Lakeview bank to inquire if the dairyman’s checks were good. Informed they were, she began, July 23, to cash checks, signed in his name. The Eagle Clothing Company, the Smith Garment Company and the Wilson Coal & Coke Company all cashed checks for her aggregating $119.
The name of the physician who had attended her sister was next. After practice, Miss Walsington issued checks signed in his name for sums totalling $170. The checks were cashed at the London Cloak Company, Peck’s, French Cloak and Suit Company and the Mond Suit Company.