Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison: Fifteen Years in Solitude
silver king. I entered the brougham and drove directly to the Golden
Cross Hotel, Charing Cross, and there registering "F. A. Warren" and
securing a room I left for my hotel. This room at the Golden Cross I
kept for a whole year, but never slept there. It was the only address
the Bank of England ever had of their distinguished customer, Mr.
Frederic Albert Warren.
I did not trouble any more about the other two store people, but looked
about the town, amusing myself. In due time I called and tried the
garments on, and, when ready to deliver, I left the cash with the hotel
people with orders to pay the bill, which was done. There the matter
rested for ten days, when I drove up again, and, remaining in my
carriage, the head of the firm came out to me and I remarked: "I must
have more garments; duplicate that order," and drove off.
A week after I called to have them tried on, and then said that as I was
going to Ireland for a few days' shooting with Lord Clancarty, I would
send down a portmanteau for the garments and call for it on my way from
the hotel to the station. So I bought the most expensive trunk I could
find and sent it to the tailor. When the day came for me to call I
provided myself with six L500 bank notes, five L100 and about fifty L5
notes to go on the bottom of the roll. Before leaving my hotel I had a
large trunk put on the cab, and then taking inside of it all the
dressing bags, rugs, silk umbrellas and canes in the whole party, I
drove to the tailor's, paid my bill with a L500 note and had the
portmanteau put on the cab. I turned to go, but, halting at the door, I
remarked quite in a casual manner: "By the way, Mr. Green, I have more
money than I care to carry loose in my vest pocket to Ireland; I think I
will leave it with you." He replied, "Certainly, sir," and as I was
pulling the roll out of my vest pocket he said: "How much is it, sir?"
"Only L4,000; it may be L5,000;" to which he replied: "Oh, sir, I would
be afraid to take charge of so much; let me introduce you to my bank."
He ran for his hat, accompanied me to the Bank of England, and, calling
one of the sub-managers, introduced me as an American gentleman, Mr. F.
A. Warren, who desired to open an account. A check and a pass book were
brought and the signature book laid before me for my autograph, and I
was requested to sign my name in full, so I christened myself Frederic
Albert. I drove to the North Eastern station and telegraphed the boys at
Barcelona that the thing was done and they could, if they liked, curtail
their excursion and return to England at once.
So the first step had been taken and successfully. We talked of now
giving up all further idea of breaking the law, and starting in London
as brokers and promoters of stock companies. The plan was for me to take
the money of the firm, L10,000, place it all in the Bank of England, and
begin to buy and sell stock and keep my money moving in and out of the
bank. Then George and Mac were to start an office and launch out as
promoters and refer to Mr. Warren of the Bank of England. This would
place them on a footing at once, and I would gradually drop out of the
Bank of England after introducing George and Mac in their right names.
This was a grand plan, and had we only carried it out fortune would have
been ours, and honor as well, but we were too impatient of any delay in
securing wealth and overconfident of our success and cleverness. Above
all, we were anxious to get home again. But I have got somewhat ahead of
my story.
Soon after I had a telegram from George and Mac saying that they would
arrive in time for a late dinner, and for me to wait and dine with them.
At the time I was living at the Grosvenor Hotel, Victoria Station. We
had a pleasant meeting and a good dinner to celebrate it. I exhibited my
check book, and they were eager to know all details of my interviews,
not only at the bank, but with the tailor, and over the wine I related
with great spirit the details of the little comedy. I have to this very
day a vivid recollection of the shouts of laughter that arose from my
companions during the recital. We laughed then, but we did not laugh for
the next twenty years, neither did we partake of any sumptuous banquets.
In the world of crime success is failure, and perhaps never had the
absolute accuracy of that statement been so fully confirmed as in our
own lives.
That merriment of ours ended in anguish too deep for words. For twenty
years I never looked upon a star, nor saw the face of a woman or of a
child; that is to say, from my early years when the heart beats fast
and the blood runs warmly in the veins. That fearful gap of time was
filled to the brim with the peltings of a pitiless storm, hungry,
driven, toiling like a galley slave under the Summer's burning sun, or
thinly clad exposed to every blizzard and all the whirling storms of
Winter, until my early manhood had vanished and the best years of my
prime were all melted away, and at last I came forth from my dungeon,
but with the mark of suffering and desolation burned deep upon me, to
face a world of which I could not but be ignorant.
CHAPTER XV.
PIRATICAL CRUISE IN TROPICAL SEAS.
The way to the bank vaults with their treasures had been laid open, but
there remained many matters of detail to be carried out before we could
enter them. There promised to be a delay of several months, but we were
impatient over the prospect of delay of even six months in securing the
fortunes we wanted, and which we had come to consider essential to our
happiness.
Our plan to ease the bank of a million or two of her forty million
sterling was, roughly stated, to borrow from day to day large sums upon
forged securities, the bad feature of the plan, from our point of view,
being the fact that the bank, as a matter of course, would retain these
documents, which could be produced at any future time to found a
criminal charge against us, provided justice ever had the opportunity to
weigh us in her balances.
Protected as we were by the police in New York, we felt that the chance
of our identity ever becoming known was remote. Still, there was an
element of chance we wanted to eliminate entirely. In our recent raid on
the bankers of France and Germany we never exhausted our letter of
credit, but had the amount of cash we drew indorsed upon it, and brought
the actual forged document away and instantly destroyed it. Had we been
arrested in Europe, no doubt, under the laws prevailing there, they
would have made us suffer upon the verbal statement of the banker; but
in America to convict one of forgery the document itself must be
produced in court.
I paid several visits to the bank, depositing and drawing out various
sums of money. I had talks with the sub-manager, and, on various
pretexts to get information, I interviewed bankers and money men in the
city. Finally, after many conferences, we came to the conclusion that
the boasted impregnability of the bank was imaginary, and that the
vanity and self-sufficiency of the officials would some day prove a
snare to the institution they ruled over.
The next conclusion we arrived at was that, easy as it might be to
defraud the bank, yet there was an infinity of detail which would
require six months of preparations to carry out. Then, again, the word
forgery began to look black in our vocabulary. We knew John Bull was an
obstinate fellow when he once got his back up, and we began to think it
wise to keep beyond his dull weather eye.
Finally, as the result of many debates, we resolved to abandon the Bank
of England matter temporarily, possibly forever, because it was too
dangerous, and the delay would be too great. Our new plan was to go to
South America on a buccaneering expedition. There being no cable in
1872, and it took, as we ascertained, forty days to send a letter from
Rio de Janeiro to Europe and get a reply; so that, if we executed an
operation boldly and well, we might hope for anything. We resolved to go
to South America, but to leave my account stand in the bank, and if our
success was as great as expected, we would let the Bank of England keep
the million or two we wanted, and continue her century-long slumber
until the time came when some adventurous but unscrupulous mind should
accept the temptation she held out to seize some of her bags of
sovereigns.
Our plan was, in the main, similar to the one we had lately used with so
much success in Germany and France. Only in this case we proposed to use
the credit of the London and Westminster Bank, and, therefore, obtained
the documents required to carry through such an operation successfully.
The steamer Lusitania of the Pacific Steam Navigation Company was
advertised to sail on the 12th, and we determined to go by her. Our plan
was to go on the same steamer, to be ever within supporting distance of
each other, and yet pretend to be strangers, or if associating together,
to act so as to make all observers think our acquaintance merely casual.
Mac had his tickets in the name of Gregory Morrison. He carried letters
of introduction to Maua & Co., who had branches in all the coast cities
down the coast, including Montevideo and Buenos Ayres on the east coast,
and Lima, Valparaiso and Callao on the west.
The steamers of the Pacific Steam Navigation Company, leaving Liverpool,
touch at Bordeaux, Santander and Lisbon, then are off 6,000 miles away
to Rio, never slowing the engines for a moment during the voyage. Two
days at Rio to discharge cargo and take in coal, then off again to
Montevideo, discharge cargo, and coal again, then away round the Horn,
and thousands of miles up the west coast, touching everywhere to land
mails and passengers; finally after 14,000 miles of sea travel they
reach Callao, then take the home track for Liverpool.
Modern buccaneers, indeed, were we, engaged in a nineteenth century
piratical descent upon the shores of South America. Instead of the
burly, much-beweaponed pirate of other years, we were mild-mannered,
soft-spoken, courteous youngsters, yet our steel pen and bottle of ink
were more deadly instruments or at least of surer fire and of better
aim, than the long toms and horse pistols of the piratical braves of the
seventeenth century. Our hopes of gain were high, and we counted on an
ample return for the trouble of our adventure. I say trouble, for danger
we feared none, so confident were we of our ability to carry off
everything with a high hand, and so complete was our faith in each
other that we had no anxiety as to the result, but simply regarded our
trip as a pleasant voyage into tropic seas--a happy change from the
March wind and sombre skies of England to the bright skies and balmy air
of the tropical world in the Winter months.
I had a balance in the bank of L2,335, and we, as a matter of policy,
wanted to have our capital ready at hand. The bank has a rule that a
depositor must never have less than L300 to his credit. My friends were
somewhat skeptical as to whether the bank did not regard their new
customer, F. A. Warren, with some suspicion and as a depositor to be
watched. My personal relations with the bank people convinced me
everything was all right, but to convince my friends I determined to
give them a proof that the bank would break their rule on my account.
The Monday before we sailed for Brazil I called at the bank and told the
sub-manager that I was going to St. Petersburg and on to Southern Russia
for a time to inspect some work I was doing there, and I purposed to
withdraw my account. He begged me not to do so, said many flattering
things to me, and urged that it would be convenient to have an open
account in London.