Little Women

Life in Nahant, Mass., 15-year-old Roberta McCauley remarked, was dull. Seventeen-year-old Eileen Jeffreys agreed. Sixteen-year-old Marilyn Curry added: "The kids at school are terrible." The three girls, who were baby-sitting at the time in the home of a Dr. Albert Covner, decided to run away to New York.

The Covner baby was sleeping so hard, as Roberta put it, "that you couldn't wake him up with a meat cleaver," and the girls hurried upstairs, forthwith, to steal some of Mrs. Covner's dresses for the trip. They made a heady discovery--the doctor, for reasons best known to himself, had hidden $18,000 in small bills in a box in the bedroom closet. Gasping with conspiratorial joy, the girls bundled clothes and money into a suitcase, swiped some lipstick, hustled out of the house and took a bus to the big city.

Off to Mexico? They registered at the Endicott Hotel and counted out $1,000 apiece. After stuffing the rest of the money in a paper bag, they went to Grand Central Terminal, and pushed it into a rented locker. Then, moving from one swank Fifth Avenue shop to another, and handing startled taxi drivers $5 to $10 tips in the process, they engaged in a surrealistic shopping spree.

Roberta bought a $235 Christian Dior suit of purple faille, Marilyn a $100 strapless aqua cocktail dress with a rhinestone-trimmed jacket, and Eileen a lavender, gold-embroidered blouse and a black velvet skirt. The girls bought $50 blouses. They bought expensive shoes. They bought gloves. They bought piles of lingerie. They bought stockings. They went to a beauty parlor and Roberta became a blonde and Marilyn a redhead. They hurried to the hotel, decked themselves in their finery, and went to the Latin Quarter, a big, gaudily-decorated Broadway nightclub.

They drank cocktails, ate dinner and then, still ravenous for excitement, departed--leaving only $1.13 for the waiter because he had been "so snooty"--and sallied forth into the night. Three youths whistled at them. A few minutes later, boys & girls were seated in a Broadway bar. After a drink, Roberta excitedly told the tale of the hidden $15,000. The boys jeered. Roberta pulled out the locker key and waved it. A little later she went to the ladies' room, leaving her bag on the table. The boys soon drifted away.

The girls didn't care--they had met two other men, 22-year-old Prize Fighter Wayne Eckhart, and 21-year-old Housepainter Leo Cousson. All of them congregated at the girls' rooms and Roberta told the tale again. Before the night was over, she gave Cousson her key, and directed him to go get the money and buy an automobile. Next day, they all agreed, they would go to Mexico. Cousson left. Eckhart and Roberta went off to the Dixie Hotel and registered as Mr. & Mrs. John Daly of Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Eileen and Marilyn went back to their rooms.

The Wrong Key. Came the dawn. At 8:30 Eileen rose and went for a walk. A detective spotted her, followed her back to the hotel, identified her and found Marilyn. Just then Roberta called from the Dixie Hotel. Soon she and Eckhart found themselves under arrest. Where, cried the law, was the money? A fella with long eyelashes, Roberta informed them, had gone to get it. Before the police could set out on his trail, Cousson showed up with a sad story.

He had gone to Grand Central. Roberta's key did not fit the locker. He had gone to Penn Station. The key did not match lockers there either. Finally, after consulting the American Locker Co., he had discovered the awful truth: the key belonged to a locker at a bus station, and the locker it matched was empty. Listening, Roberta recalled the first youth to whom she had told her story. Had he switched keys on her? The cops hurried the girl off to Grand Central Station; she pointed out her locker and they opened it with a passkey. The bag full of money was gone.

Eckhart and Cousson were tossed into jail. When they were arraigned the next day, Cousson faced the judge, sobbing uncontrollably, and pulled off his shirt. His back was bruised and discolored. The cops, he cried, had suspected that perhaps he had switched the keys himself. "They kicked me, beat me with blackjacks," he wept. "They had a rubber hose and a piece of steel. I ain't got the money. I don't want to be beat any more." A detective present gave the standard answer: he fell down a flight of stairs.

A Tip for the Cop. The girls, being held for extradition to Massachusetts, went right on qualifying as dizzy dames, junior grade. They seemed delighted to tell reporters of their exploits, pleaded with photographers to take some "real cheesecake pictures," and talked of their shopping tour with eye-rolling satisfaction. When they were served coffee and sandwiches, Eileen asked: "Should I tip the cop?" She followed the question with the curtain line of the week. "Don't say I've been smoking," she pleaded with newsmen. "My father would kill me if he knew."

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