“Yes, sir. It was in Paris in 1903. He asked me what other girls I knew of who had suffered at the hands of White. I told him I had heard of the ‘pie girl,’ whose name was known to both of us. A girl at the theater had told me about it and that night when White came to my dressing-room I asked him about it. He asked me where I had heard the story. I told him a girl had told me. Then he told me all about it.
“There was a stag dinner, he said, and the girl was put in a big pie with a lot of birds. She was very young--about 15 years, I think he said. He also told me that the girl had a beautiful figure and wore only a gauze dress. He helped put her in the pie and fix it, and said it was the best stunt he ever saw at a dinner. When the girl jumped out of the pie the birds flew all about the room.
“‘But I came near getting into trouble about it,’ he said. ‘We put gold pieces in the girl’s shoes and in her dress and a lot of people heard of it. All the newspapers got hold of it. I stopped it at all the newspapers but one, but I could not stop it there. I got a friend to go see them, though, and we finally got them to stop it, too. We kept it out of the papers, but it was close.’”
“I told Mr. White I had heard he ruined the girl that night, but he only laughed.”
The names of other girls ruined by White were whispered by Mrs. Thaw to Jerome, but not made public.
“When did Mr. Thaw next talk to you about such cases?” asked Delmas.
“The next time was in Pittsburg, when we were married. He told me that the girl was dead. He said he had investigated the story and that it was true; that afterward the girl married, but her husband heard the story of her connection with Mr. White and that he cast her off and she died in great poverty and disgrace.”
“Did you and Mr. Thaw often speak of these girls?”
“Yes, there was a constant conversation. I could not possibly tell you every place and every time we discussed it. He told me something ought to be done about the girls. I told him I could not do anything. He then said I could help him. I tried to get his mind on other things and then he would say I was trying to get out of it. He said White ought to be in the penitentiary; that he got worse and worse all the time and something had to be done.”