CRIME: Firewoman

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For the last three weeks every arsonist out of jail in Chicago has been shivering in his boots. Reason was a fat, squat little grandmother named Bertha Warshovsky who was comfortably seated in an armchair at the State Attorney's office telling her life story.

Into the business of arson enter three parties: 1) the owner of a well-insured establishment. 2) the middleman, 3) the firer. An arson-bound store owner can find many a middleman who, for some $2,000, will arrange a fire. But the middle-man can find few skillful firers. Bertha Warshovsky, Chicago's most expert firer, knows most of arson's middlemen. Some ten years ago she began to make money by fabricating and selling to arsonists a gadget consisting of a short candle tightly bound with kitchen matches. Price: $5 to $10. Later when she found that women were less suspect in arson cases than men, she began to use her own gadget. Her price was anything up to $250 per fire.

Last June Chicago police rounded up many a middleman, announced that they had smashed a "million dollar" arson ring. Three weeks ago they decided to tidy up the last stray clue by picking up fat Bertha, whose only connection with the case seemed to be that her son-in-law had been arrested. Much to their surprise, she began to talk. Last week she was still talking, spouting a voluble stream of names, addresses, dates, fees.