Soapy Smith gambling house. Legend has it that above the entrance of the stairway leading upstairs to the gambling games was a sign that read "caveat emptor", Latin for "let the buyer beware". Smith's younger brother, Bascomb Smith, joined the gang and operated a cigar store that was a front for dishonest poker games and other swindles, operating in one of the back rooms. Other operations included fraudulent lottery shops, a "sure-thing" stock exchange, fake watch and bogus diamond auctions, and the sale of stocks in nonexistent businesses. Because of bribes, some of the police officers patrolling the streets would not arrest
Beware the Creeper continuity), DC released "Beware the Creeper", a five issue limited series, under their Vertigo imprint in 2003. Set in 1925 Paris, "Beware the Creeper" tells the story of Judith and Madeline Benoir, twin sisters, one a surrealist painter, the other a playwright. After Judith is raped by Mathieu Arbogast, a man from a rich upper-class family, a woman calling herself the Creeper begins to terrorize the Arbogast family. The Creeper uses methods that appear to be based out of the surrealist movement. The situation quickly spirals out of control as the Arbogasts begin to seek revenge in turn, and lives