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Show r Fayne Moore Lewis, ;"v N from a Photograph 'iSKSp " ii Taken Shortly Before the Famous "Badger Game" ''Mm H Trial ra BE if By Ward Greene A LMOST every year of her life, ne of the -ichest women in the world uscel to travel 2000 miles to eat Christmas dinner with her old mother in America The war changed the schedule of these pilgrimages. The latest visit came this rammer. The rich woman began these pilgrimages soon after the time, 20 years ago, when she stepped ). from the stage of the London Gaiety Theatre h l into the arms of the Diamond King of Kimberley. For eleven months in the year she divides her time between her palatial London home, her Eng-1 Eng-1 lish country estate, Tans and the Riviera, but for one month she packs her trunks, crosses the Atlantic and journeys far into the sunny South just so she can sit down in a small, one-story cottage and care the Christmas turkey for a W white-haired old lady who calls her "my littl ! girl, Pet' A Strange Life Drama The life story of this woman reacn like fiction. The "toast of the town" in a big southern city; a principal in a "badger ' game in which a New York millionaire was the victim, the wife of a convict 'sentenced to 20 years in Sing Sing, the sensation of Parisian boulevards because she threw a bottle at a marquis; a London chorui girl; the bride of the Diamond King these might form the titles to lurid chapters in her career. The South knew her as "the sweetest girl in Dixie." New York calied her "the beautiful blackmailer." In London and Paris she was a stage favorite with a reputation for temper a; well as for looks. She is chiefly famous today for the $300,000 rope of pearls she wears in London Lon-don drawing-rooms But to the little old lady, her mother, she will always be just "Pet. Mrs. Fayne Strahan Moore Lewis to give "Pet" her full name is the daughter of the late fudge Reuben Scott Strahan, who was chief justice jus-tice of the state of Oregon when "Pet" was born ijr 'here 35 years ago. Her mother was Sara Wil son, a daughter of the famous Kentucky Wilsons, the bluest blood of the Blue Grass. That "Fatai Gift" Almost from infancy "Pet" was beautiful. "When she was a little girl," says her mother, "her hair fell below her knees in a thick rope of gold. It was the richest, finest hair Pc ever seen, and her eyes were a peculiar greenish blue. She had beautiful white teeth and everyone agreed her figure was perfect." "Pet" still retains that beauty today, for, according ac-cording to her mother, she has alwas taken the most scrupulous care of her looks, dieting when she threatens to become fat, so that she never allows herself to weigh more than 115 pounds. But it was her beauty, too a ruinous beauty that brought "Pet" sorrow and tragedy as well as fame and riches. - She was living in the city of Atlanta, where her mother moved because of her health after Judge Strahan's death, when she first felt the lure of the footlights. Already she was considered consid-ered the most beautiful girl in a city of beautiful girls. Staid citizens who today are judges of courts and prominent in the business world of Why Beautiful Fapo Mooro Comos Back America The Extraordinary Life of the Principal Figure in a Notorious "Badger Game" Trial, Now Married to the "Diamond King, " and Who Once Again Has Crossed the Sea to Visit 1 The Cottage Home of "Pet" Strahan's Mother in Atlanta, Ga Atlanta used to sit for hour- on the Strahan porch, playing thcr banjos and mandolins for the benefit bene-fit of little "Pet." She danced in Atlanta's Kirmess so gracefully that, says her mother, in a week she had three proposals And sha was only 18. When she was 20 "Peti went to New York to study art. That was in the early eighties. There she met and married William A. F. 111 A Much-Talked-of Photograph of Fayne Moore Taken Eefore Her Celebrated Trial. Moore, a relative of the wife of the late Senator Mark Hanna. Then came the episode that stirred the country as no criminal case has since, with the possible exception of the Thaw trial. Mr and Mrs. Moore were arrested on a charge of attempting to blackmail Martin Mahon, a New York millionaire, out of $50,000. The old "badger game" was said to be the means they used. The trial was the sensation of the decade. According to tho testimony, "Pet" was or- Nrwipnpcr Jt'cnturr SflTi Ire . 1919 dered by her husband to undress to her chemise in the hotel room they occupied and to telephone downstairs for Martin Mahon, who owned what was then one of New York's most pa!atial hostelries. Mahon, even then an old man, entered ihs room and closed the door behind him. Almost before he had time to say anything, a double rap sounded at the door. The woman motioned tD him to creep under the bed and Mahon. bewildered be-wildered and frightened, did so. Enter then William Moore, who called to him to come out, threatened to shoot them both, and finally, Mahon testified, agreed to "keep quiet" if the old man gave him a check for $50,000. Mahon signed the check then and there, but it was never cashed. Two minutes after he had left the room the pair were arrested. Moore was sentenced to 20 years in Sing Sing prison, but "Pet" went free. Thc evidence was strong against her. but her old friends from Atlanta fought hard in her behalf. A young Atlanta lawyer, .one of her suitors, now a supreme su-preme court judge, traveled to New York to defend de-fend her gratis. The jury was so moved by her beauty that one juryman, interviewed after she was acquitted, declared that no judge or jury in the world would believe anything ill of such a wide-eyed, innocent looking girl. Her Career in London The world next heard of "Pet" abroad, when her portrait appeared in some of the sensational newspapers of the day, under such captions as this. "This lady will be remembered as the wife of the gentleman who is at present lingering in Sing Sing for having attempted, with the assistance of his wife, to 'badger' the late Martin Mahon out of $50,000. For some reason the subsequent case against Fayne was not pressed, and she is at present in Paris, where she recently proved herself, in a cafe, a perfect lady by hurling a bottle at a marquis who, she considered, was staring at her too strenuously Then she repented re-pented and asked the waiter to introduce the marquis, nnd all went merry as a marriage bell a simile which should not be taken too literally. Fayne Moore and Florence Crosby, also in Paris and 'very popular,' according to the cable dispatcher, dis-patcher, have met and taken a great liking for each other, each of them no doubt acting as a restraint upon her companion, in case of excess of exuberance. Shortly after the Martin Mahon affair Fayne was engaged to appear at Koster & Bial's Music Hall in ' 'Round New York in Eightj Minutes,' but changed her mind at the last of the eighty minutes and moved to Europe. Oh, woman, in our hours of ease!" Another paper hail the following item: "Fayne Moore, the woman who once upon a time declared that she would stay in New York and tight as long as she lived for the pardon of her husband. William A E. Moore, who is serving a sentence of 20 years in Sing Sing prison for attempting at-tempting to 'badger Martin Mahon out of $50,000. But the charming Fay ie was altogether too young ami vivacious to enact for any considerable consider-able length of time the role of a martyr. She prefer- a livelier type and, according to report, is playing a small part under an assumed name in 'The Messenger Boy,' now running at tho Gaiety Theatre in London It is whispered also that she will soon marry again." Arain a Bride That "whisper" came true, Tor In less than three weeks after he hael secured her part at thj Gaiety, "Pet" Strahan, divorced from her convict-husband, convict-husband, had become the bride of Henry D Lewis, son of Isaac Lewis, who, with the late Barney Barnato, is reputed to own the biggest diamond mines in the world, the famous Kimberley and De Beers mines in South Africa The wedding was an international sensation, i Her Aged Moth er in Atlanta. I I xjt J' Mother of Airs. Fayne Moore Lewis as She Looks Today. but in marrying a millionaire while she was X chorus girl, "Pet" Strahan only ran true to form, for the Gaiety girls have ever been famous for just such alliances. From this theatre such famous fa-mous actresses as Edna May, Fanny Ward, Madge Leasing and Helen Ward all went into homes of 1 wealth, the brides of rich Englishmen. Of them all, however, none got a richer prize than did "Pet" Strahan Moore and Fanny Ward, for they married into the same family and some idea of its wealth may be gained when it is stated that the Barnate-Lewis interests paid more than $100,000,000 in war tax alone to the British empire. Fanny Ward married an uncle of "Pet's" hus-baml hus-baml and u brother of Isaac Lewis. And th3 strange part of the story is that Fanny Ward's daughter Dorothy, at the age of 17, married Barney Barnato's son. Capt. Isaac Barnato, an officer of the Royal Air Force who served with distinction in the Dardanelles. Romance at the London Home The two met in the London home of "Pet" Lewis, and it was she who engineered the marriage, mar-riage, which was performed secretly at her home. But, like her own first marriage, it was doomed to tragedy Young Barnato died after he and his girl bride had had only one Christmas together, to-gether, leaving Dorothy grief-stricken, but with some consolation in the two millions to which she fell heir. It is a notable fact that the biggest things ir. the lives of these two famous women, Fanny WTard and "Pet" Lewis, is the love of the one I for her daughter, and of the other for her mother. J t nlmort the same time that Fanny Ward was crossing the ocean to England to console her httle girl over the death of her husband and to see to the settlement of the estate, "Pet" Lewis was crossing the ocean in the opposite direction to isit her old mother. The two had been separated for four years because of the war four years when "Pet" was not able to come home for that annual Christmas feast in the little vine-covered cottage. But the last thing she said as she left her mother in Atlanta to return to England after a visit of ten day.- this summer was: "I will be back to eat Christmas turkey with you." J; |