Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison: Fifteen Years in Solitude
her cold, calculating nature was capable of feeling.
Van Tromp speedily found his dream of bliss blown to the winds, but he
was not so blind as not to see that his wife not only did not love him,
but was false to him as well. Poor old Van Tromp felt he had made his
last throw for happiness, and hoping against hope, dreamed she in time
would learn to appreciate his devotion and would love him, and so tried
to persuade himself of her truth. The first anniversary of the marriage
found them at Baden-Baden, and there the unhappy husband, thinking to
give his wife a pleasant surprise, entered her chamber at an unusual
hour bearing a diamond necklace for a present, and found her in a
position which could no longer leave any doubt as to her faithlessness.
Seizing a chair he felled her companion, who never stirred again; but
the shock was too great for the husband, who himself fell to the floor
and instantly expired--the doctors said of heart disease, and I think
they were right. This event was only a few weeks old. The will had been
read, and it was found that he had literally left everything "to my
wife, Elizabeth."
Here my friend, the chief of police and a distant relative of Van Tromp,
came to the front, determined quietly on his own account to investigate
Lady Van Tromp. He found this last was at least her third venture on
the stormy sea of matrimony. He had a fancy that some one of her
husbands might still be living and undiscovered. If this could be
proved, then her marriage to Van Tromp was no marriage, and the ducats,
dollars and diamonds bequeathed by Van Tromp to "my wife, Elizabeth,"
would instantly melt into air--into very thin air, so far as the
Countess was concerned; provided, of course, they had not actually
passed into her clutches. In fact, they were legally hers, for the will
had been admitted to probate. Those of the family objecting could offer
no valid opposition, and she had been put in possession, but, by a
strange neglect on her part, left everything intact, save a deposit of
300,000 gulden in the Bank of Amsterdam, which she secured and set out
for Naples with a new lover.
The detective--whom I will call Amstel--discovered that she had first
been married when only 15 years old to a young Swiss in Geneva, who soon
left her and fled to America. He had subsequently returned to Europe,
but Amstel was unable to discover his whereabouts or if he was living.
He suspected that the Swiss was not only alive but in communication with
the Countess, and that she, in fact, might be his legal wife. He had
followed the Countess from Naples to Paris. There she left her lover and
was now on her way to Nuremberg, as Amstel believed, to meet her first
husband, but she had arranged to remain a few days with some old friends
of hers. Every movement she made there would be watched, while Amstel,
going on to Cologne to look up some clues, intended to wait there until
informed that she had departed, and when the train arrived at Cologne he
proposed to enter it and follow my lady on, hoping to witness a meeting
between her and the much hoped-for husband. Happily we had arrived at
Cologne at this point in the story, and as Amstel was to remain here we
had to say good-bye; but for the whole twenty minutes of my stay we
walked up and down the platform talking eagerly of the case. I had
become much interested, so deeply, indeed, that had I had leisure I
certainly should have turned amateur detective and joined Amstel.
The train started, and, promising to write me in New York the outcome of
the case, we shook hands warmly and parted. He wrote me twice, and the
following year I returned to Europe and met Amstel at Brussels. We had a
very delightful time together, during which he told me the sequel of the
Van Tromp episode. Instead of one, the Countess had two husbands living;
but the Van Tromps preferred to buy off the woman at a good round sum
rather than have a public scandal.
Amstel interviewed the Countess, and gave her the choice between arrest
and a full release of all claims on the Van Tromp property for the sum
of 100,000 gulden. She made a hard fight, but at last gave in
gracefully. But my chapter has grown too long already, and I will close
it with the remark that I myself met the lady at Wiesbaden in 1871, and
became acquainted with the brilliant adventuress. She will appear again
in the sequel.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE MERRY SUMMER OVER AND NO HARVEST STORED.
From Cologne to Frankfort is about 140 miles, and swiftly our train sped
along up the Rhine--the lovely stream about which poets have raved for
twenty generations. What classic ground! What scenes have its waters
reflected, its mountains looked upon! In the old days its rolling floods
made a deep impression on the stout Roman heart. More than one army,
carrying with it the hearts of the Roman world, had crossed that river
and plunged into the unknown forests beyond, only to go down in the
shock of conflict with the brave but barbarian foe, leaving not one
solitary survivor to carry back tidings to Rome of the fate of her army.
And down through all the linked centuries the history of the Rhine has
been the history of giant armies marching against each other, and of
brothers slaughtering brothers. To-day the plains of Germany and France
bear a million of armed men, ranged face to face, with only the Rhine
between, eagerly awaiting the signal to pour a deadly rain on each
other. And for what?
The last face that I saw at the Cologne station was that of Amstel, lit
up with smiles as he waved his hand in adieu. Sitting cozily in the
corner of the carriage, eager to see all that was to be seen, I found,
as all tourists do, much to charm and delight. But my thoughts were on
the bonds I had to sell, and I was glad enough when at 5 o'clock our
train drew into the depot at Frankfort.
Alighting I took a cab and drove to the Hotel Landsberg, and, although
tired, the scenes and surroundings were too novel for me to think of
sleep. So I dined and went out to view the city, but as I will have
occasion to refer to the place again, I will leave any description of it
until another chapter.
In London there was an American banking house that has since failed, but
which at this time was doing a large business in the way of issuing
letters of credit. The firm was patronized chiefly by Americans. It
issued credits, or letters of credit, without inquiry, to any one
applying for them. While in London I called at their office, 449 Strand,
and paying $750 was given a credit for L150, which I took under an
assumed name. I wanted this letter to serve as an introduction to some
of the bankers at Frankfort, and to open the way for the negotiation of
the bonds. The Frankfort correspondents of the London firm were Kraut,
Lautner & Co., on the Gallowsgasse. The next morning I repaired to the
office of this firm, and producing my letter was very cordially
received, and invited to make my headquarters in their office during my
stay at Frankfort, which for the next day or two I did. However, I
called on several other bankers, also feeling the way, and finally
selected the firm of Murpurgo & Wiesweller, bankers widely known and of
enormous wealth. I had several talks with Murpurgo, and told him I was
arranging to purchase a number of copper mines in Austria, and if the
deal was closed I should sell a large block of American bonds and use
the cash I realized to pay for the purchase of the mines. I suppose he
thought to make a good thing out of it, and was eager to purchase.
My reader will recall that payment upon all United States bonds payable
to bearer, as mine were, could not be stopped, and so far as the
innocent holder was concerned he was perfectly secure. But the custom
among bankers was, whenever any bonds were lost by theft or fraud, to
send out circulars containing the numbers, asking that the parties
offering them might be questioned and held. But as American bonds were
sold in millions all over the Continent, and were passing freely from
hand to hand, as a matter of fact, little or no attention was paid to
such circulars, but, of course, had strangers of disreputable appearance
offered bonds in large sums, the lists might have been scrutinized and
awkward questions asked. Therefore I felt a trifle nervous, and
determined to run no chance of losing my bonds--at least not all of
them. So I resolved to go to Wiesbaden, some fifteen miles away, stop at
some hotel under a different name, leave the bonds there, and take the
morning train for Frankfort, conduct my negotiations, and return to
Wiesbaden every evening. It was at this time easy to lose one's identity
in Wiesbaden, for the town then was, along with Baden-Baden, the Monte
Carlo of the Continent, and adventurers, men and women, from all over
Europe flocked there in thousands to chance their fortune in the
gambling halls. Although a little in advance of this portion of my
history, I will here relate an adventure of mine there, some years after
the period of which I am speaking.
I will, however, preface my narrative with a brief account of the
history of the place. The city of Wiesbaden, previous to the
Franco-German war of 1870, was the chief town of one of those petty
principalities which were plentifully sprinkled over the face of Europe.
Since the old Roman days the town had been famous for its hot springs,
and consequently for its hot baths, and a good many people--during the
Winter particularly--resorted there to bathe and to drink the waters. As
a matter of course, the townspeople, as the custom of such places is,
have recorded many a marvelous cure, ranging all the way from headache
to hydrophobia. But still the town was of little importance save
locally. The petty ruler, with a title longer than his income, lived in
the pretentious castle, beguiling the time by smoking cheap cigars or
ordering on banquets whose piece de resistance consisted of Gebratene
Gans und Kartoffeln, the unlucky bird being tribute in kind from the
farmyard of some peasant subject living in a miserable hut on black
bread.
But a change was impending. A mighty wizard had visited the place, with
an eye quick to see the possibilities of the situation, with a brain to
plan and a hand to execute. His name was Francois Blanc, the head of the
great gambling establishment at Homburg. Vast as were his ambition and
achievements, he was a man of the simplest tastes.
To see him--as I often have--in his seedy coat, his old-fashioned
spectacles on the tip of his nose, one would have taken him for a
country advocate whose wildest dreams were of a practice of two thousand
thalers a year, with an old gig and wheezy mare to haul him around the
country side from client to client. Before his Wiesbaden days he had
been the guiding spirit in the direction of the splendid gambling halls,
the Casino at Homburg. Blanc was impervious to flattery; a hard-headed,
silent man, a man without enthusiasm and without weaknesses, who kept a
lavish table and ate sparingly himself, who had a wine cellar rivaling
that of the Autocrat of All the Russias and yet contented himself with
sipping a harmless mineral water; who kept and directed a huge gambling
machine--a mighty conglomeration of gorgeously decorated halls, wine
parlors and music rooms, crammed day and night by giddy and excited
throngs, but himself never indulging in anything more exciting than an
after-dinner game of dominoes or a quiet drive with his wife through the
country lanes.
Thus this Francois Blanc, with perfect equanimity, watched the thousand
thousands of butterflies and moths of society scorch their wings in the
terrific flame that glowed in his Casino, while he looked on, a cynical