CHAPTER XI
THE BOGUS SIR RICHARD DOUGLAS
The most remarkable fact about Richard Douglas, professional swindler, was that he kept a record of every one of his crimes, as well as a profit-and-loss balance-sheet, which he drew up at the end of each year. His diary was an astonishing document, and had it not been for the craft and obvious guilt of the impostor it might have been used as evidence to prove that he was not quite right in his head. Douglas, however, was too resourceful a thief to be a lunatic, and for some years he victimized all classes in London, where he posed as a baronet and committed depredations upon the trusting and unsuspicious.
The impostor was a man of venerable aspect, with kindly blue eyes and a soft, ingratiating manner. He was born with the name of Douglas, but as his father was a small tradesman in a Surrey village Richard thought he had better disown him, and when he had failed many times to earn an honest living he blazoned forth as "Sir Richard Douglas of Orpington House, Kent," and made his two elder sons partners in his criminal enterprises.
He was an insinuating rascal, and the tradespeople whom he interviewed were easily taken in by his plausible tongue. When he went to a well-known jeweller in Bond Street to select a "present for my wife, Lady Douglas," he had not the slightest difficulty in persuading the merchant to let him have a five hundred guinea diamond necklace on approval. Most swindlers would have been content to disappear with the necklace and realize its value, but "Sir Richard" was more ambitious and greedy, for he was back again in the shop the same afternoon, and, greatly to the gratification of the jeweller, announced that "her ladyship" had been fascinated by the necklace, and that he wished to pay for it there and then.
The impostor drew a cheque for six hundred pounds, and, remarking that his own bank would be closed before he could get to it, induced the jeweller to give him a receipt for the necklace and seventy-five pounds in cash. Of course, the cheque came back marked "No account," and not for many a long day did he see his customer again.
While the "baronet" was busy on swindles of this nature his two sons were equally active. They lacked, of course, the suave polish of their father, but they were bright, intelligent youths, and they could pose as army officers anxious to spend the generous allowance their father, "Sir Richard Douglas," made them. The credulous traders willingly cashed cheques for the young Douglases, and were left eventually with bits of paper as their only souvenirs of their simplicity and trustfulness.
A few months' swindling provided Douglas with sufficient capital to rent an expensive house at Ascot, which became his headquarters, and it was to it that he would retire every week-end from the stress and strain of London. Every Monday morning, however, he would be driven in his carriage to the station to catch the train to London, and to start another week's "work." He dressed for each swindle, and played many characters. On one occasion after having entertained some of the leading people at Ascot to dinner he returned to town the following morning, donned the attire of a broken-down clergyman, and cajoled a large sum from the credulous by a story of ill-health and poverty and a starving wife and children. But generally he was the well-dressed man of the world, and boldly swindled tradespeople under the name of "Sir Richard Douglas."
He had, of course, many narrow escapes. Once he absent-mindedly entered a jeweller's shop—diamonds and gold and silver articles specially appealed to him, because they were easily convertible into hard cash—which he had defrauded only a fortnight earlier. The moment the proprietor saw him he identified him as the man who had given a worthless cheque in exchange for a diamond ring worth a hundred and fifty guineas, but he pretended not to recognize the self-styled "baronet," and he entered into negotiations with "Sir Richard," who was plainly on the warpath again. Now Douglas had that morning told his elder son, Philip, to hang about in the vicinity of the shop, so that when he emerged from it he might unostentatiously pass on to him the spoils, as the impostor intended to steal a few rings, as well as obtain others by false pretences. The wary jeweller, however, was so unusually alert that "Sir Richard" realized the situation.
He was in a tight corner now, for in addition to the presence of the proprietor of the shop a brawny assistant was keeping guard at the door. The "baronet," however, exhibited no sign of fear or mental distress. He just casually glanced out of the window, and raised his handkerchief to his left cheek and brushed it lightly. It was a signal to his son on the other side of the road, and it meant that he was in difficulties.
Philip Douglas was a real chip of the old block, and in a moment he devised a plan to save his venerable parent. Walking briskly into the shop where "Sir Richard" was the only customer—of course, the impostor always selected the least busiest part of the day for his frauds—he peremptorily laid his hand on his father's arm, and in curt tones expressed his delight at having at last captured him.
"It's a bit of luck for you that I was passing and recognized this fellow," he said to the astonished jeweller. "Do you know that he is one of the greatest swindlers in London? I have been looking for him for over a year. Take my advice and see if he has robbed you of anything."
Immediately the door was locked, and the "detective" and the other two men stood round the pale-faced and trembling culprit, who at that very moment held in his hands a diamond tiara which was worth a thousand pounds. But he was so terrified now that he seemed not to know where he was and what he was doing.
The jeweller was so excited at the prospect of getting even with the man who had swindled him a fortnight before that he instantly preferred a charge against "Sir Richard," and, furthermore, at the suggestion of the "detective" added another one, accusing him of trying to obtain the tiara by false pretences. This was just what both the rogues wanted.
"Then you will be good enough to make a parcel of that tiara," said the "detective," with an air of authority which was irresistible. "You will carefully seal it too. I shall have to hand it over to my superior officer to be used as evidence at the trial. Of course I will give you a receipt for it."
The jeweller hastened to obey, and ten minutes later Philip Douglas left the shop and stepped into a four-wheeler with his father and the diamond tiara. The "detective" shouted out the address of a police station, nodded curtly to the jeweller, and drove off. That night at Ascot the family gloated over the acquisition of a prize which would bring them in six hundred pounds at least, and leave a big profit for the receiver of stolen goods.
But the biggest coup of all was achieved by the "baronet" posing as a messenger. It happened that he was chatting with the manager of a diamond merchants shop when the latter observed that Lady Chesterfield had given them an order to reset a collection of very valuable stones which she had just received under the will of a relative. They were reputed to be worth twenty thousand pounds, and that afternoon the manager was to call at her ladyship's town house to receive the precious parcel. On hearing this "Sir Richard" brought the interview to an end, murmured that he was due back at his country seat to entertain a Cabinet Minister and his wife, and having got outside rushed to the nearest post office, obtained Lady Chesterfield's address, and drove to it. His respectable appearance was in his favour, and he was admitted at once, but her ladyship's secretary would not hear of handing over the diamonds until "the manager" established his identity. It was a critical moment, and had Douglas not been an accomplished swindler he would have bolted, but he held his ground, and by sheer personal magnetism won the secretary over. He had a good memory, and he was able to recall many of the statements the manager had made to him, retailing intimate details of previous transactions with Lady Chesterfield which convinced the secretary that he was what he represented himself to be.
Within a week the whole of the stones were in the possession of a well-known Continental "fence," whose place of business was in Amsterdam, and the Douglas banking account was increased by nine thousand pounds. Every morning for weeks the happy family at Ascot enjoyed the newspaper references to the great mystery, and congratulated themselves that the secretary's and the manager's descriptions of the swindler resembled anybody but the bogus "baronet."
Continual success so impressed the impostor that he came to the conclusion that he was under the special protection of Providence. He began a diary, and the entries that followed were both amusing and amazing. Some are worth reproducing, for the police subsequently captured two of these astonishing compilations, which gave a complete history of his swindles and impostures.
"Jan. 5th. Phaeton and horse seized. Fear exposure at Ascot, and chance up there. Fear we must cut."
"Jan. 7th. All day ill. Row about stable. Forcible possession taken of it. Row all day with one person or another. Fearful how things will end. Three boys at home idle, all ordering things."
"Jan. 18th. Went to boys' to dinner. Champagne. Very merry. Providence not quite deserted us."
When he raised three hundred pounds in two days by means of worthless cheques he celebrated the "triumph" by writing in his diary:
"My labours ended for the week. Over three hundred to the good. Paid off local tradesmen—genuine cheques. Gave notice to cook. Must get some one who understands serving fish. Looking forward to a quiet week-end. Must read Bible regularly."
He was really fond of reading the Bible, and he spent his leisure at his home in studying it and keeping his diary up to date. When his sons went off to the races he would potter about in the garden, apparently the most respectable and virtuous man in the kingdom.
But every Monday morning Douglas would descend upon London, and when the diaries were bulging with records of swindles of all descriptions, and almost every tradesman in the West End was on his guard, he turned for a time to begging-letter writing, at which he proved himself an adept. He was the starving widow with eight children; the lonely widow of an Indian officer; the one-legged and one-armed hero of half a dozen campaigns; the old woman who had worked for the poor all her life, and was now in poverty herself; and a dozen other characters. These rôles produced plenty of money, not large sums, but enough to pay expenses at Ascot and pass the time until "Sir Richard Douglas" and his greater misdeeds were forgotten by the public if not by his victims.
On one occasion he resumed his clerical garb, and went round collecting subscriptions for an aged missionary and his wife. By working ten hours a day for a fortnight he collected several hundred pounds, and he even persuaded two bishops to contribute through their chaplains, although as a rule bishops are very careful to make inquiries before patronizing anything of this sort. Douglas' sympathetic air, however, clinched the matter, and by showing the bishops' subscriptions he was able subsequently to swindle scores of persons who would not otherwise have been taken in.
By now the police were on the look out for the bogus baronet who had ruined more than one shopkeeper by his frauds. But Douglas was a quick-change artist, and his keen eyes were ever on the watch. He walked freely about London, and he always spotted the detectives, and decamped before they recognized him. Some of the best sleuths were put on his track, but he fooled them all.
He was once tracked to a house where he was trying to persuade the occupant, a rich old lady, to buy a tract of land in Scotland which he did not own, and it seemed certain that the impostor would be captured, but, scenting danger, he ran upstairs into a room, where he found some female clothes, and shortly afterwards he walked through the kitchen—where a policeman was keeping guard—and out of the house by the side door. The policeman explained later that he thought "she was the cook going for her afternoon out."
This escape, however, was so narrow that the "baronet" returned at once to Ascot, and lay low for a month. Meanwhile, his sons had been making the money fly. Thousands of pounds went to the bookmakers at Ascot and other racecourses, and all three of them were engaged to girls with expensive tastes, which had to be satisfied. No wonder the old hypocrite recorded in his diary:
"It is sad to think of the extravagance of youth. If we misuse the money Providence has given us we will experience poverty. I have spoken seriously to the boys, but they will not heed me. Note. Special hopes for the success of the A.T. scheme."
The latter was, however, not successful, for it was an attempt at a religious swindle which failed owing to the activities of the police.
Another failure was his short-lived matrimonial agency, which was to be stocked with three "baronets," who were supposed to be on the look out for wives. The "baronets" were to be impersonated by his sons. It came to an abrupt termination by the theft of the preliminary prospectus by a servant, who had to be bought off later at a cost of five hundred pounds, an item of expenditure which nearly broke the old man's heart, according to his diary.
These and other matters contrived to make "Sir Richard" nervy. His sons were devoting more time to pleasure than to business, and the knowledge that the authorities were doubling their efforts to catch him was ever-disturbing. But he could not remain inactive, for his brain was always teeming with plans for swindles, and he entered details of several in his diary, some of which he put into execution.
Amongst his acquaintances in London was a widow of fortune. She was in the late fifties, but despite that was not averse to marrying again, especially a man with a title, and "Sir Richard's" advances were not repulsed. Mrs. MacCormack had been left ten thousand a year by her husband, and the lady maintained a costly establishment in the neighbourhood of London. Douglas was fascinated by her money. He knew that once she was his wife he would be able to get complete control of her and her fortune. She would obey him implicitly, and he could live at his ease, make his sons handsome allowances, and thoroughly enjoy life.
He therefore proposed to Mrs. MacCormack, who accepted "Sir Richard" with an emotion akin to enthusiasm, and immediately began to prepare to go through the marriage ceremony a second time. But Douglas insisted upon the engagement being kept a secret, pointing out that it was only for her sake that he did so.
"You will be accused of marrying me for my title, dear," he said in a sympathetic tone, "and that would hurt me terribly. Thank God, no one can accuse me of marrying for money. Your fortune may be large, but I think that it does not exceed the rent-roll of my Scottish estates."
Mrs. MacCormack was touched by his kindly forethought, and really kept the secret, although she was anxious to impress her acquaintances with the fact that she was about to become "Lady Douglas."
It was settled that the marriage should take place at St. George's, Hanover Square, and "Sir Richard" told the widow that the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London had promised to assist at the ceremony if their engagements permitted. At the last moment it happened that both these prelates were detained elsewhere, at least Douglas said so, and to the rector was given the honour of officiating.
On the morning of the ceremony "Sir Richard" dressed himself with extreme care in the room he had taken at the fashionable West End hotel. It was eleven o'clock when he descended, and he was due at St. George's at twelve. A carriage was to take him there with his best man, who was his eldest son Philip, and the young rogue was posing for the occasion as a friend and not a relative of the bridegroom-baronet.
Now, Philip Douglas, who was keenly interested in his father's matrimonial adventure, had out of mere curiosity made a few inquiries about Mrs. MacCormack, and he learnt that it was really true that she had ten thousand pounds a year, but on the day of the ceremony he discovered by sheer accident that under the provisions of her late husband's will she was to be deprived of every penny if she married again. So at half-past eleven Philip Douglas dashed into the hotel, seized his father by the arm, and drew him into a corner. There he confided to the old sinner the information that he was going to marry a woman, ancient and ugly, who would be penniless the moment the knot was tied. "Sir Richard" gasped, and then burst forth into imprecations against the widow for her "deceit." With tears in his eyes he said she had not been honest with him, and when he had regained his composure he and his son drove away to catch the train back to Ascot. Mrs. MacCormack arrived in due course at St. George's, Hanover Square, but the "baronet" never appeared, and she reached home in tears and feeling that she was the laughing-stock of London. Douglas entered all the details of the misadventure in his diary, and he severely censured the widow for not having been "honest" enough to tell him the truth.
For some reason, however, the "baronet" went to pieces after the abandonment of his wedding. Money suddenly became scarce, and creditors more persistent. A sheaf of debts contracted by his sons took him by surprise, but they had to be paid, and Douglas was left with only a few pounds in hand.
In the midst of the crisis he remembered having heard about a benevolent clergyman of the name of Hamilton, who had a large fortune, which he was in the habit of sharing with the poor. Douglas decided that he would get a slice of it, and to achieve his purpose he became a clergyman again. This time he was supposed to be an elderly priest who had fallen upon evil times, and to play the part properly he took lodgings in a slum house owned by a friend and humble confederate. From there he wrote to Mr. Hamilton asking him to call upon a sick and poverty-stricken fellow-clergyman, who had no friends and no hope left in this world.
The appeal was cunningly worded, and the setting of the stage for the comedy was perfect. Douglas knew that if only Mr. Hamilton called he would be able to work upon his feelings to the extent of two hundred pounds at least. Anxiously he waited for a reply, and his joy was great when the owner of the house informed him that a clergyman was approaching.
The sham priest instantly returned to bed, and assuming a pained look prepared to receive the visitor. He heard the knock at the front door, and braced himself for the interview. Presently footsteps sounded on the stairs, and then the door opened and a clergyman entered, whose expression seemed to indicate a generous and credulous disposition.
Douglas was murmuring a prayer when the clergyman came to his side and looked down at him. Then he opened his eyes.
"You—you are the saintly Mr. Hamilton?" he asked in a quavering voice.
"No," was the startling answer. "I am Inspector Allen, and I hold a warrant for your arrest, Sir Richard."
It was a neat capture. The impostor was unable to extricate himself, and at the ensuing Sessions he and his sons were sentenced to imprisonment, and after that catastrophe nothing more was heard of the venerable swindler until a newspaper recorded his death in 1858.
CHAPTER XII
THE ENTERPRISING MRS. CHADWICK
There had been a sensational forgery in a certain Canadian town, and when the police announced that they had captured the criminal a huge crowd sought entrance to the Court where the case was to be tried. Those who managed to squeeze themselves in were astonished when they saw a slim, fair-haired girl, with dark, alluring eyes, standing in the dock, for Lydia Bigley, aged sixteen, was the forger!
The magistrates could hardly believe the evidence for the prosecution. It seemed incredible that such a beautiful girl could be an expert forger, but the police had accumulated all the facts, and there could be no doubt that the demure maiden who looked so modest, and who occasionally favoured the bench with a sweeping glance from beneath her long eyelashes, was the person who had tried to raise five thousand dollars by imitating a wealthy acquaintance's signature on a cheque.
The large-hearted men who judged Lydia did not intend to send her to gaol if they could help it, and after a brief consultation amongst themselves they acquitted her on the ground that she must have been insane when she committed the crime with which she had been charged.
It was a remarkable decision, and it did more credit to the magistrates' hearts than to their heads, but Lydia's magnetic eyes may have had something to do with Lydia's first escape from prison. For years afterwards those fascinating orbs were busy at work. There were to be greater triumphs in store for her ere she was run to earth. The girl developed into an extraordinary woman. When she stepped out of the dock with an alluring smile her brain was busy evolving a method by which she could live luxuriously without having to work, and she deliberately chose a life of crime. For a year or two, however, she contented herself with blackmail. It was always easy for her to persuade some rich man that she had lost her heart to him, then get him into a compromising position, and afterwards proceed to levy blackmail as the price of her silence. The money so obtained did not provide her with more than her current expenses, and she was anxious to launch out as a society woman.
She did not, of course, confine herself to Canada. The rich country of the United States presented a promising field to her, and in turn she visited many of the principal cities, where she posed in turn as the daughter of a British general, the widow of an earl, the niece of a former American president, and so on until she had at one time or another claimed close relationship with many of the mighty ones of the earth.
All this, however, only prepared her for the great and final swindle, and a very brief career as a "society clairvoyante" in an Ohio town was merely an incident. Lydia was much more ambitious now. It took an immense amount of hard cash to coax fashionable dresses and fascinating hats out of the shops, and she simply loved both. In the hour of her desperation, when two former victims declined to part with any more cash, and her clairvoyance business was closed by the police, she remembered her first exploit in criminality, and decided to chance her luck again as a forger. But she was not going to be content with a small sum now. She was the most popular woman in the district where she temporarily resided. She set the fashion, and was determined to live up to her proud position.
Up to this time Lydia had not found a man sufficiently rich to make it worth her while to marry. She had had numerous affairs with married men, and not a few bachelors had actually proposed to her, but there was something against every one of them, and it was not until she met handsome and popular and well-to-do Dr. Leroy Chadwick, of Cleveland, that she consented to change her name. But if she had been dangerous as Lydia Bigley, she was doubly so as Mrs. Leroy Chadwick, because her status as the wife of the respected practitioner gave her almost unlimited opportunities for swindling, and she took full advantage of them.
Her extravagance knew no bounds. She bought on credit thousands of pounds worth of jewellery and furs. If she met a girl she liked she would take her to Europe for a pleasure trip. Once she brought four young ladies with her to London, Paris, and the principal Italian and German cities. The trip cost four thousand pounds, but it was none of her cheapest experiments in trying to get rid of money. For instance, she and her husband occupied a large house standing in its own grounds, which she insisted upon refurnishing, regardless of expense. A little later she decided to have it redecorated throughout, and she agreed to pay a fantastic price to the contractors on the understanding that they began and finished the work while she was watching a performance at the local theatre! They managed to keep their word, and Mrs. Chadwick's house became for the time being a show place.
Another of her fads was a habit of giving costly presents on the slightest provocation. To impress a local piano dealer with her importance she walked into his showroom one day and counted the number of instruments he happened to have in stock. There were twenty-seven of them all told, and Mrs. Chadwick promptly gave him a list of twenty-seven of her friends, and told him to deliver one of his pianos to each with her compliments. Although somewhat taken aback at such an order, and hearing that Mrs. Leroy Chadwick always paid for her eccentricity, the piano dealer dared not doubt her word, and promised to deliver the instruments. Again she ordered a dozen costly clocks, one of which was made of gold, works and all. She kept the latter for herself, and gave away the others. Her servants came in for many of her gifts, and she decked out her cook with so many costly clothes that the good dame grew too big for her job, and gave notice on the ground that the work was undignified, and tended to ruin her wardrobe!
Of course, these ventures in extravagance could not have been accomplished without a considerable amount of ready money. American tradesmen are not all "mugs," and no matter how beautiful Lydia Chadwick may have been, had she not been in a position to pay her tradesmen, they would have spoiled her little schemes by pressing for the settlement of their accounts.
Dr. Chadwick could not, however, keep pace with her expenditure, and she fell back upon forgery, and now she began her greatest exploit, which, before it landed her in the dock of an unsympathetic criminal Court, enabled her to handle nearly a million dollars.
One day she drove in a costly carriage, with coachman and footman in attendance, to the bank, and with impressive dignity walked in and requested the manager to advance the modest sum of fifty thousand pounds. Naturally the official asked for security. Mrs. Chadwick yawned and opened her purse bag.
"I presume you have heard of my uncle, Mr. Andrew Carnegie?" she asked sarcastically.
The banker declared that he knew a great deal about the millionaire, whose name will for ever be associated with Pittsburg iron and free libraries.
"Well, then," said the lady, with her nose in the air, "here are two notes signed by him. You can see they are worth £150,000. Perhaps you consider them sufficient security for such a paltry sum as I want you to lend me for a few weeks."
They were, of course, ample security, but the manager, a shrewd business man, determined to take no risks. He, therefore, politely hinted that while he would not dare to doubt the genuineness of the signature of the famous millionaire, "just for form's sake," he would like to have a responsible person swear that the writing was Mr. Carnegie's. He rather expected Mrs. Chadwick to be offended, but she merely told him that the gentleman who had delivered the notes to her that morning was still in town. "And as he is Mr. Carnegie's New York lawyer I think he ought to know his handwriting."
The lawyer was fetched, and he not only identified the signatures, but added the overwhelming testimony that he had been present himself when Mr. Carnegie had drawn up and signed the notes. After that there was nothing to be done but to credit Mrs. Chadwick with fifty thousand pounds, and deposit the precious securities in the safe.
A month later the whole of the money had evaporated. Clamouring tradesmen had had to be satisfied, advances from money-lenders liquidated, and scores of persons to be impressed by large orders for various goods, for which cash was paid. Meanwhile the Carnegie notes rested securely in the strong room of the bank, for it was some time ere the manager was to know that they were worthless forgeries, and that Mrs. Chadwick did not know Mr. Carnegie, neither had she ever seen him in her life!
Mrs. Chadwick certainly displayed a very masculine ability in her criminal exploits. It was a stroke of genius to carry a bunch of important-looking papers to one of the leading banks, and hire a special safe by the year, for the rent of which she obtained a receipt. Armed with this she was able to persuade quite a number of rich and fashionable Americans that she had a million pounds worth of securities in the safe which she did not wish to dispose of because the markets were low, and to sell out would have been to invite a heavy loss. She varied her story as occasion demanded, one of her favourite yarns being that the securities were bequeathed to her on the condition that she did not sell them outright. She could, however, promise very large interest to those who trusted her, and it was an offer to pay twenty per cent that induced one millionaire to hand her his cheque for two hundred thousand dollars and not ask for anything more than a written receipt.
Her swindle was, of course, only a copy of the Humbert fraud, and, considering that she put it into operation a year after the sentence on the famous Madame Humbert, it is extraordinary that she should have been able to find victims. The only explanation that has been advanced is that of hypnotism. Mrs. Chadwick had undoubtedly "hypnotic eyes," but it is doubtful if they alone charmed nearly a million out of some of the most astute business men the land of dollars has produced.
But her story of a vast fortune in a bank safe was generally believed. When she informed a keen-witted New York millionaire that if he advanced her twenty-five thousand dollars she would repay him twice as much within the year—the safe, she declared, was to be opened on a certain date, and the contents distributed as she decided—he actually took her word, and parted with the money he was never to see again. And this did not happen long ago. The date of the transaction was 1904, and that same man must have read all about Madame Humbert's trial and conviction less than twelve months previously.
It is not necessary to give further particulars of this "safe" fraud. Mrs. Chadwick simply took the cash, and had a "high old time," and day and night her mansion was filled with guests. Her tradespeople were delighted. The fact that she paid them cash, and that most of them were too wary to take "shares" in the "safe" exploit, proved that some people at any rate ultimately benefited by the woman's amazing imposture.
One of her most fiendish exploits was to invite a well-known financier to dine with her and a few friends. This gentleman had declined to advance money on the strength of the mythical securities, and she had resolved to get even with him. She therefore retained friendly relations with him and unsuspectingly he accepted her invitation. When he arrived Mrs. Chadwick's only other guest was a pretty young girl, the daughter of a New York physician.
The dinner was a pleasant affair, but towards the close the financier became sleepy, greatly to his surprise, as he did not suspect that his hostess had purposely drugged both him and her only other guest. Anyhow, in the early morning, when he woke up, he found himself stretched on the floor, and a moment later Mrs. Chadwick appeared, and tearfully explained that in his "excited condition"—she meant intoxicated, but refrained from using that vulgar word—he had grossly insulted her girl friend. The long and the short of it was that he had to pay ten thousand dollars in blackmail, and of this sum the woman gave her girl confederate two hundred.
But at last the morning dawned when a certain victim of hers set out for the Wade National Bank in Cleveland, and presented the manager's receipt for the hire of the safe, together with the key and a written order from Mrs. Chadwick that the bearer was to be permitted to open the safe and take from it the valuable securities she had deposited there. Her emissary was a creditor to the extent of eighty thousand dollars, and he was naturally very anxious to recoup himself for his outlay. Mrs. Chadwick had instructed him to select sufficient stocks and shares to realize his account plus twenty thousand dollars for interest, and then to send the rest to a firm of stockbrokers in New York with instructions to realize.
It must have been a very dramatic moment when the credulous creditor turned the key in the lock and the safe door opened on its hinges, and he must have felt pleased with himself when he saw the pile of important-looking documents which seemed to him to be valuable share certificates. But a moment later he realized that he had been grossly swindled, for the papers proved to be worthless.
The bubble had burst! Mrs. Chadwick was from that moment known as the Madame Humbert of America. How her creditors howled! How they were chaffed and ridiculed! A few would not reveal themselves once they guessed that there could be no redress. Nevertheless, stern measures were adopted, and a warrant was issued for the impostor's arrest.
Mrs. Chadwick had taken up her quarters in an expensive hotel in the early part of December, 1904. She intended to pass Christmas there, and the management had already consulted her as to her ideas of a really Christmasy entertainment. She was paying one hundred dollars a week for her rooms, and she had arrived with a fortune in jewels, and half a dozen personal servants. She was the uncrowned queen of the hotel, where the other visitors stood in groups and discussed her wonderful personality in awed accents.
She was destined, however, to spend that Christmas in gaol. One evening when Mrs. Chadwick, resplendent in a marvellous Parisian creation, and wearing jewels which must have cost fifty thousand dollars at least, was chatting at the dinner-table, the manager came to her and respectfully intimated that a couple of gentlemen wished to see her. She graciously answered that she would receive them in her drawing-room. Visitors were every-day occurrences with her, and these, she thought, were local celebrities, who had come to enlist her support for their Christmas charities.
Without the slightest suspicion that anything was wrong she entered her luxurious drawing-room, and with a smile inquired the strangers' business. Now American detectives have a habit of being brutally frank, and they lost no time in informing her that she was their prisoner, and that the charge against her was that of having obtained nearly a million dollars by fraud.
The news stunned her, and for a moment or two she stood motionless. Then she collapsed in a faint, and it was some time before the two detectives could get her downstairs and into the waiting cab.
Mrs. Chadwick had started her criminal career with a triumph over the soft-hearted Canadian magistrates who had so obligingly decided that she was too pretty to be evil, and, recalling that triumph, she resolved to fight for her liberty with her eyes and not her tongue. When she was brought into the dock she fainted again, knowing that she looked quite bewitching when in that state, and that her forlorn condition must wring pity from even her worst enemies. But her programme did not work out as she expected it would. Instead of a host of sympathetic men crowding round her and proffering good-natured advice, she was roughly brought to by a couple of hard-featured wardresses. Then she was installed in the dock again, and compelled to listen to the story of her life as told by a prosecuting lawyer, who was quite unaffected by Mrs. Chadwick's "magnetic eyes." He mercilessly raked up her past, recounted how she had ruined scores of men and women, how she had been one of the most dangerous blackmailers in America, and how she had adopted Madame Humbert's "safe" swindle, with disastrous results for scores of impressionable men.
It was a formidable indictment, and the recital of it blotted out at once the beauty of the prisoner. She was shown to be an utterly unscrupulous impostor, a woman who had declared war against society, and who had repaid her husband's love by making his name a byword throughout the land.
She had, of course, a clever lawyer to plead for her, and every possible effort was made to secure an acquittal, but there was no question of insanity now. She was too clever to be an imbecile, and the judge had not the slightest hesitation in giving her ten years' imprisonment.
When she had been convicted, and before she tottered from the dock into the oblivion of the gaol, the interesting fact was mentioned that she had been in the habit of wearing a belt containing ten thousand dollars, with the object of taking to flight if her liberty was ever threatened. The celerity with which the police had acted, however, resulted in the capture of this little "nest egg" for her creditors, although it is to be feared that each of them received a very small proportion of the amount he lost through his faith in the word of the greatest female impostor since Madame Humbert was convicted. It should be recorded that her husband had nothing whatever to do with her frauds. He was, in fact, one of her victims and when he married her he had no idea that she was then an ex-convict.
After the failure of her attempt to secure a new trial Mrs. Chadwick was sent to the Ohio State Penitentiary at Columbus, and there she died on Oct. 10th, 1907, at the age of forty-eight.
CHAPTER XIII
THE MILLION DOLLAR RANCH GIRL
One summer day a beautiful Mexican girl was sitting motionless on horseback gazing across the ranch of which her adopted father was the owner, when a young man, tall, of good appearance, and pleasant address, came up and respectfully raised his cap. The girl instantly smiled a welcome, for in that remote region strangers were few, and it was the custom of the country to welcome and entertain them. But this young man had no desire to be taken to the ranch house. He wanted to have a chat with the beauty, and as he was handsome and ingratiating the impressionable girl readily consented to give him half an hour of her time.
James Addison Beavis, for that was the stranger's name, told a wonderful story to the dark-eyed damsel, who listened as if spellbound.
"This is not the first time I have seen you," he said in a pleasing, confidential manner that was delightfully intimate and brotherly. "I have often watched you galloping about on the ranch, but I wanted to be quite certain that you are the person I have been looking for for years before I spoke."
"Looking for me!" she exclaimed in wonderment.
"Yes," he said quickly, and dropped his voice. "Do you know that your real name is Peralta, and that with my help you will soon be the owner of lands in Arizona and New Mexico worth one hundred million dollars?"
She gasped. Could it be possible? She was half-Spanish, half-Mexican, and therefore hot-tempered and romantic, and it was easy for her to persuade herself that she was something better than the adopted daughter of a Mexican ranch-owner, who had taken her into his house out of pure charity. Dolores felt that she had been meant for something better.
Beavis, who was a cute man of the world, and possessed of an eloquent tongue, sat beside her on the trunk of an old tree, and explained why it was that a huge tract of land was awaiting an owner, land which would make its eventual possessor a multi-millionaire. He said that hundreds of years ago a Spanish king had made over the rich lands of Peralta to a certain Spanish nobleman, whose descendants had enjoyed the revenues, until, owing to various misfortunes, there seemed to be a lack of heirs. The property had then been taken charge of by the United States Government, and its revenues had been, and still were, accumulating, but he had been inspired to make an independent research, and he could now prove by legal documents that Dolores was the only living descendant of the last owner of the huge estate. He promised to produce the necessary birth and marriage certificates which established his contention that Dolores Peralta was the legal proprietor of an estate half the size of Great Britain.
Dolores herself had only a vague idea as to how she had become an orphan, but the fascinating and persuasive Beavis had the whole story at his finger-ends. He declared that when she was an infant her parents had been drowned whilst crossing a river, and that Dolores had been rescued by an Indian squaw, who had later on abandoned her. After passing through various hands she had come into the keeping of the Mexican who had adopted her, and with him she had spent the last fifteen of her eighteen years, passing as his daughter, and generally understood to be his heir.
But now that she was told by Beavis that she had only to trust her affairs to him to become worth £20,000,000, the ranch seemed but a poor and sordid affair and unworthy of her. She wanted to obtain her rights and to take her place in society, and the more she listened to Beavis the more inclined she was to give him not only charge of her affairs, but also the keeping of her heart. For Beavis was an expert talker, and Dolores was not the only victim of his honeyed tongue.
They made a compact there and then that Beavis was to go ahead with the task of obtaining the property for her. Dolores had, of course, no money to advance for expenses, but this did not worry Beavis. He went to New York, and obtained an interview with Mackay, the famous millionaire, who earned the name of "The Silver King." Mr. Mackay was so impressed that he advanced sufficient capital to enable Beavis to proceed to Spain to prosecute his inquiries.
Of course, the whole affair was a barefaced swindle. There was certainly a Peralta estate awaiting a claimant and it was worth twenty million pounds, but Dolores, the girl of the ranch, was not a Peralta at all. Beavis, however, meant to get that huge fortune, even if he had to share it with the girl. It was in his opinion a stake well worth risking much for. He was an expert forger, and his knowledge of human nature was immense. Besides that he had the great gift of patience, and he was willing to spend years if necessary perfecting his plans before putting them into execution.
It was easy enough for him to forge birth, marriage and death certificates, as well as a deed of gift conveying the property to the Peralta family, but he wanted something else besides documents. Dolores, who was in reality of obscure birth, looked the aristocrat to the life. She was undeniably beautiful, and her carriage was the last word in haughty aloofness, though the girl was a charming companion when with those she liked. Beavis had found her delightful, and whilst he was prosecuting his inquiries in Spain he never forgot the beauty of the lonely ranch.
Day after day he toured the curiosity shops of Madrid, delving into dusty cellars and examining everything, picture, paper, or curio, which bore the stamp of age. Only Beavis would have devoted so much time to a single detail when practically his case was ready, but his perseverance was rewarded when he came upon two ancient miniatures which were strikingly like Dolores. They represented two Spanish ladies who had existed a hundred years earlier, and they might have been mother and daughter, judging by their resemblance to one another, but they interested the impostor for the reason that their features were exact replicas of Dolores'.
From the moment they became Beavis' by purchase he called them miniatures of two of Dolores' ancestors, and he exhibited them as her great-great-grandmother and a remote aunt. They were Peraltas, and bore the Peralta cast of countenance—at least Beavis said so, and he professed to be the only living authority on a famous Spanish family which had come upon evil days.
Every week he heard from Dolores, and it ought to have been obvious to him that the girl was thinking less of the twenty millions than she was of her "gallant knight errant." She was really more concerned with his welfare than with the prospect of becoming the richest woman in the world. Beavis smiled as he read her somewhat artless compositions. It was the money he was after, and he was too clever an adventurer and impostor to have any time for love-making, although Dolores was undoubtedly a beauty.
Thanks to the financial help of "The Silver King," Beavis was able to do his work thoroughly in Spain before returning to the United States, and when he arrived in New York he brought with him a pile of documents bearing on the Peralta family. The two miniatures occupied a prominent place, and the forged deed of gift, so skilfully executed that Beavis confidently handed it over to experts for examination, was also to the fore. Those who had heard of Beavis' activities were greatly excited, for it is not often that a claimant comes forward to an estate worth in American money one hundred million dollars.
But before he came into Court on behalf of Dolores there was one important thing to be done. Beavis had devoted years of labour to the task. He was going to risk a year's imprisonment, and he considered it only right that, to make assurance doubly sure as far as his reward was concerned, Dolores should become his wife.
It was a casual remark in a New York restaurant that decided him to propose to her. A friend, who was a world-renowned handwriting expert, and who had pronounced the forged deed of gift to be genuine, laughingly tried to estimate the number of proposals the heiress would have when it was known who and what she was. That night Beavis took the train to the town nearest the ranch, where by arrangement Dolores met him to hear all about his adventures.
The meeting was a strange one. Beavis was full of the subject which engrossed him day and night, and he wanted to go at once into details, but Dolores seemed to be uninterested in everything and everybody except him. She wished to know how he was, and if he was well and happy, and as she sat beside him her dark eyes constantly travelled in his direction, and there were tears in them sometimes.
Dolores was, as a matter of fact, desperately in love with Beavis. At the back of her brain there was a shrewd suspicion that there was no Peralta estate, and that she was only his partner in a gigantic swindle, but she loved him, and that was sufficient for her. It was of no importance if the Peralta property was a myth. Beavis had won her heart, and she had spent months of anxiety, fostered by a growing jealousy, because she feared that in the luxurious cities of Europe he would meet a girl who would make him forget the wild beauty of the ranch.
Beavis quickly realized the situation, and with a merry laugh and a few compliments asked her to marry him. He was not prepared for her answer. No sooner had he spoken than she flung herself at his feet, and passionately announced her intention of devoting the rest of her life to his welfare.
It was a real love romance within a sordid, miserable fraud. Beavis, who prided himself upon his knowledge of men and women, could not understand the love he had aroused in the breast of this veritable child of nature. He, who would have sold himself body and soul for money, was astounded that Dolores should be happier as his fiancée than as the prospective owner of twenty million pounds. She would look bored when he spoke of their future splendour when they came into the Peralta money, but if he referred, however obliquely, to her as his wife her face would light up and her manner change at once into that of a happy, delighted girl.
The old ranch-owner offered no objection to the match, and the marriage promptly took place in a remote town, none of those present being aware that this ceremony was to be the prelude to one of the biggest law cases in the history of the United States. Beavis was not in love with his bride. He wanted her money, but Dolores was enchantingly happy, and had she not known that she would have displeased her husband by the suggestion she would have asked him to retire from the Peralta case and let them find and make their own happiness in a little ranch away from the poverty and crimes of cities. But to Beavis nothing mattered except the Peralta millions, and the day after the marriage ceremony he took his lovely bride to New York, where they established themselves in one of the leading hotels, there to await the opening of the suit before the Court of Claims.
The smooth and persuasive tongue of the bridegroom and the beauty and naturalness of the bride carried all before them in New York. Beavis had certainly done his work well, but when level-headed lawyers, suspicious by nature, met Mrs. Beavis they immediately capitulated. There is no other explanation of the extraordinary number of adherents they made for their cause.
They entertained lavishly, using the money which their guests had subscribed for the presentation of Dolores' case before the Courts. It might have been supposed that the ranch girl would have been at a disadvantage in such society, coming as she did from the heart of prairie-land, but because she insisted upon being herself she scored social triumph after social triumph.
The impostor was, of course, the happiest man in New York. It seemed impossible that he should fail. In fact, everybody agreed that the trial would be the most formal of affairs. His cleverness and Dolores' beauty were irresistible, and he would have to be a hard-headed, unfeeling judge who could resist the appeal her eyes made.
Backed by some of the leading business people in New York, his case, presented by a firm of lawyers justly renowned for its ability, and with his wife to cheer him on, Beavis went into Court certain that he would leave it one of the richest men in America. Dolores and he sat side by side whilst counsel argued before the judges and endeavoured to prove that the adopted daughter of the Mexican ranch-owner was the descendant of the Counts of Peralta, who had originally come from Spain. Beavis gave his evidence with confidence and, of course, courage. When a man is playing for such a stake as twenty millions he requires both in abundance.
The end of the first day of the case foreshadowed an easy victory. Beavis was overjoyed, and Dolores was happy just because he was. By now, however, she had seen enough of the documents to guess that the whole claim was bogus. She was the daughter of nameless parents, and, no matter what the Court decided, she would never know who her forbears really were. It did not matter much to her, yet because she loved the impostor she became even more anxious for success than he was, and she knew that if anything went wrong it would break her heart.
Had the estate not been so enormous the United States Court of Claims would not have so doggedly resisted Beavis' claim, but the officials realized that it would be best for all concerned if the question of ownership was decided once and for all. Because of that they took the precaution to despatch an expert in pedigrees and old documents to Madrid, to go over the ground that Beavis had covered and to inquire especially into the history of the all-important deed of gift.
The claimant was not aware of this, if he had been it might have disturbed the serenity with which he faced the Court. But everything was going his way, and there was always his lovely and devoted wife to whisper that they were winning and that their suspense would soon be ended.
It is doubtful if there has ever been a case where an impostor has failed by such a narrow margin as Beavis did. The Government officials had been receiving regular reports from their emissary in Spain, and each one strengthened rather than weakened the claimant's case; accordingly, the presiding judge was actually drawing up a judgment in favour of Dolores when at the eleventh hour a report came from Madrid which pointed to the fact that the Government agent had discovered that Beavis' deed of gift was a barefaced forgery.
Once that was known there was, of course, no chance for the impostor. It naturally followed that the history of all the other documents presented by Beavis was inquired into, and then the system of wholesale forgery came to light. Step by step his progress in his greatest imposture was traced. His numerous birth, death and marriage certificates were shown to be worthless; the dealer who had sold the miniatures to him was produced, and gave damaging evidence, and the impostor was left without a leg to stand upon.
The case came to a dramatic finish, the judge announcing unexpectedly that it was dismissed. The Court gasped. Beavis pretended to be astonished, and he glanced around with a smiling face, but his eyes were searching for detectives, and he identified two in the men who now stood by the door of the Court. They posed as ushers, but the impostor realized that their business was never to let him out of their sight until they had clapped him into a cell.
Poor Dolores was most affected by his arrest, which Beavis chose to regard as an official blunder and one which he would soon put right. The girl who loved him, however, knew that it would be a long time ere he was free again. He would have to pay the penalty for his gigantic imposture, and as she thought of the years of separation her tears flowed.
As in the case of the claim to the Peralta estate, Beavis bore himself well at the criminal trial. It was, of course, easy for the prosecution to prove his guilt, and the leading citizens who had backed him felt particularly foolish when they understood how they had been tricked. It was, perhaps, only human that Dolores should find herself without a friend when the judge sentenced her husband to a long term of imprisonment. The society that had fawned upon and flattered her now gave her the cold shoulder. But the lonely wife did not mind. She had determined to work hard and wait patiently until the man she loved returned to her.
Some years ago when an English nobleman was sentenced to five years' penal servitude his wife took up her residence as near as possible to the gaol in which he was incarcerated. Dolores Beavis went one better. She toiled so that she might have the means to start her husband in business when he came out of gaol; and to achieve her object she underwent toil and trouble and insult.
When, later, he was removed to another gaol she would give up her employment and follow on foot, afraid to spend any of her savings on railways, and denying herself sufficient food in order that the precious "nest-egg" might not be diminished.
Beavis knew what she was doing for him, and the knowledge of it changed his nature. Money ceased to be his god. He had not appreciated Dolores when he had her all to himself, but whilst he sat in his lonely cell and remembered that she was outside the gloomy gaol working herself to the bone for him his nature softened, and he fell in love with her. Better men have inspired less devotion; fewer have known such love as Dolores bestowed upon the man to whom she had surrendered her heart.
Once Beavis, maddened by inaction, determined to escape, and he managed to communicate his intention to his wife. She implored him not to make the attempt, which would be certain to fail, and which would therefore result in an addition to his term of imprisonment. He took her advice, and a day later found that one of the party of convicts who had planned a simultaneous dash for freedom was a spy in the pay of the governor of the prison, so that there never had been the slightest chance of success.
But even the longest sentence must come to an end, and after a period of separation which had seemed like eternity to both of them Beavis walked out of the prison gates a free man. The first person he saw was Dolores, dressed simply in black and looking more beautiful than ever. Without a word they went away arm in arm to begin life anew.
Beavis had a sense of humour, and he must have realized the funny side of the scene when Dolores proudly told him that she had scraped together the large sum of forty-eight dollars! To the man who had once refused to think of anything under a million this was a descent from the sublime to the ridiculous, yet the impostor, who had paid for his sins, could find himself regarding her fortune with enthusiasm, and he could spend hours debating as to the best way to lay it out with advantage to themselves.
It was Dolores who decided their future. She had been brought up on a ranch and away from the crowded centres, so she voted for a small farm in a remote corner of the great United States, and Beavis willingly submitted. The Peralta estate and its twenty million pounds seemed like a dream now, and he would not have troubled to devote even an hour to a similar scheme even if it promised to produce twice as much.
Thus it was his wife's love that saved James Addison Beavis from himself, and made his name unfamiliar to the police. His one great adventure in crime had met with disaster, and ever afterwards he was content with the fortune the labour of his hands earned for him.
CHAPTER XIV
JAMES GREENACRE
According to his own description of himself, James Greenacre was a very respectable grocer, a lenient creditor, and one of the most popular residents in the parish of Camberwell; and to prove the latter statement he pointed to the fact that he had been elected one of the overseers of the parish by a substantial majority.
But the plain truth is that, during the greater part of the fifty-two years which comprised his span of life, Greenacre was a hypocritical scoundrel who preached virtue and practised vice and whose egregious vanity found an outlet in seconding the notoriety-seeking eccentricities of politicians of the Daniel Whittle Harvey type. Greenacre presided at Harvey's meetings when the latter was Radical candidate for Southwark, and there is a certain grim humour in the fact that three years after Greenacre was executed for murder his political confrère was appointed commissioner of the metropolitan police. Greenacre was prospering when an offence against the inland revenue entailed unpremeditated emigration to America, and after a brief sojourn in New York and Boston he returned to London in 1835 and began the manufacture of "an infallible remedy for throat and chest disorders." He was struggling to make this venture pay when he met Hannah Browne.
Greenacre had regained his reputation for solvency when he astonished his numerous friends by hinting that he would not mind undergoing the ordeal of matrimony if a woman with plenty of money could be found for him. He said that, as he was a rich man, it would be only fair if the other party to the contract brought a fair fortune into the common pool. In fact, with him marriage was a business deal and nothing else, and he made no secret of his opinion.