Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison: Fifteen Years in Solitude
Of course, Mac and George not being known at the bank need not care, but
it might easily be serious for me.
When the explosion came, fifty people in and about the bank would
remember my face. But if I brought Noyes on the scene to act as my clerk
I need only introduce him to the paying teller of the bank, and to Jay
Cooke & Co., the American banking house, where I proposed to buy
enormous quantities of United States bonds, paying for them in checks on
the Bank of England. Of course, the bonds being all bearer bonds, would,
with our knowledge of finance, be as good as so much cash.
So, knowing Noyes, if he would embark in the enterprise, had plenty of
nerve and could never be bribed or bought into betraying us should he by
any failure of our plans happen to be arrested, we determined to send
for him. A short time before we arrived at this conclusion I had sent
this precautionary letter to him:
"Grosvenor Hotel,
"London, Nov. 8, 1872.
"My Dear Noyes: You will be surprised to hear from me from London, but
the fact is I have been here with George and a friend of ours for a
year, and have made a lot of money from several speculations we have
embarked in. In fact, we have been so successful that we have determined
to make you a present of a thousand dollars, which find inclosed. Please
accept the same with our best wishes.
"We may be able to give you a chance to make a few thousands, if you
would care to venture across the ocean. Perhaps we can make use of you.
If so, I will send you a cable. If I do, come any way, as we will pay
all your expenses should you determine not to go in with us on the deal.
Be cautious and preserve absolute secrecy when you leave home as to your
destination. Will explain the reason for this when we meet. Keep your
weather eye open for the cable. It may come any hour after you have
this.
"Hoping you are quite well, I remain," etc., etc.
* * * * *
A few days later we sent him this cable (it was afterward produced in
court in evidence against him): "Edwin Noyes, New York. Come by Atlantic
on Wednesday; wire on arrival at Liverpool; meet at Langham."
He arrived ten days later, and at a little dinner given in his honor we
told him our plot. He was astounded, and for the remainder of the
dinner, and for the day, too, for the matter of that, he acted like a
man in a dream, and we three were amazed that he did not instantly fall
into our plan.
Here was the dramatic representation of the poisonous effect of
wrongdoing. We three had by degrees become accustomed to look upon a
fraud committed by ourselves with equanimity. I say by degrees.
Insensibly we had been sinking deeper and deeper, until, our moral
senses blunted, we found excuses to our own consciences. But here was my
companion and friend; he was no Puritan, but, like ourselves but a few
brief months before, regarded crime with detestation, and now, when the
men he trusted proposed he should become a party to a crime, his mind
revolted in horror. Well for him had he yielded to the prompting of his
own conscience and fled from us and the fearful temptation of sudden
wealth. At last he said he would consider it. After a day or two of
silence he began to question us as to our mode of operation, then his
mind became more and more familiarized to the thought, until at last,
fascinated by our association, he acquiesced, saying: "I will do it. I
want money badly. The Bank of England, after all, will not miss it. So
I'll go in for this once."
By our direction he went to an obscure hotel in Manchester square, and
then purchased clothes more suitable for his new position than the
fashionable tailor-cut suit he wore from New York.
On several occasions I had gone to Jay Cooke & Co. in Lombard street and
purchased bonds under the name of F. A. Warren and giving checks in
payment upon the Bank of England. So one day I went there with Noyes and
purchased $20,000 in bonds, giving my check for them. I then introduced
Noyes as my clerk, directing them to deliver any bonds I bought to him
at any time. The next day he called and they gave him the bonds which I
had given my check for the day before, so there was no necessity any
longer for me to come in person to make purchases. Noyes could appear
there any day, give an order for bonds, secure a bill for them, and in
half an hour bring a Warren check for the amount of the bill,
pretending, of course, that he had got it from me, but really getting it
from Mac, leaving the check for collection and to call the next day for
the bonds.
The same day that I introduced him to Jay Cooke & Co. I took him to the
Bank of England at a busy time of day, and while drawing L2,000, I
casually introduced him to the paying teller as my clerk, requesting the
teller to pay him any checks I sent. Then for the next few days I had
Noyes take checks to the bank and had him order two or three small lots
of bonds from Jay Cooke & Co., so that they became familiarized with
seeing him come on my business.
The plan was complete at last. Everything was ready to carry out our
scheme in perfect safety to all, and, as related in the beginning of the
chapter, I was now on my way to the bank for my last visit, with the
Rothschild bill in my hand. Many accounts were given of this famous
interview in the English press just after the discovery of the fraud
and prior to my arrest, also when the details transpired at the trial.
The facts were simply these: I presented myself at the bank, and,
sending in my card to the manager, was ushered at once into his parlor.
After a few remarks upon the money and stock market, I produced the
bill, remarking that I had a curiosity to show him which had been sent
me by a correspondent in Paris. It was certainly a curiosity; it was a
thing entirely unknown in the history of the bank to have a bill of
exchange bearing the signature of a Cabinet Minister certifying that the
internal revenue tax had been paid on it. This, along with the
circumstance that the bill was made payable to myself, evidently made
considerable impression on the manager and confirmed him in his good
opinion of his customer. The unusual features of this bill of exchange
led him to relate some of the inner events of the bank's history, during
which I asked him what precaution the bank took against forgery. He told
me a forgery on the bank was impossible. But I asked: "Why impossible?
Other banks get hit sometimes, and why not the Bank of England?" To that
question he gave a long reply, ending with the assertion that "our wise
forefathers have bequeathed us a system which is perfect." "Do you wish
me to understand you have not changed your system since your
forefathers' time?" I said. To which he emphatically replied: "Not in
the slightest particular for a hundred years." In conclusion I told him
I should be fully occupied looking after my different business
interests, but would give him a call if I found time. I also said I
would have the bill discounted and take the cash away with me, instead
of having it placed to my credit. He called an attendant, gave the
necessary order, and the cash was handed me. Bidding the manager
good-bye, I repaired to our meeting place and showed the notes for the
discounted bill. Even George was satisfied that my credit at the bank
was good for any amount of discounts on any sort of paper.
Everything now was ready for my departure from England. For some weeks
my partners had been busy preparing for the completion of the operation.
The first lot of bogus bills were ready to go into the mail at
Birmingham as soon as I was out of the way--it having been decided that
I should then be out of the country. So one Monday late in November I
packed my baggage, and, after many warm hand shakings, I bade my friends
adieu. We had had many talks about the happy future. We had planned
pleasant things in the future, and spoken confidently of our
four-in-hands, our Summer cottages at Saratoga and Newport, of our town
house, fine suppers and our boxes at the opera. After that I saw them
for a brief hour on the coast of France and once more said adieu. When
we met again it was in Newgate. I need hardly say that for the next
twenty years we had no boxes at the grand opera, no four-in-hands, nor
yet any fine suppers, but all that which was merely external passed
away, consumed in that fierce flame, but all that was manly and true
remained; that is, our devotion and courage and our high resolve to
conquer fate and live for better things.
Before leaving London we had squared up our cash account. It was
something to make one stare to see how our money had melted away. It was
arranged to send in the first lot of bogus bills on Thursday, giving me
two full days out of the country. Here I made a fatal mistake in
determining to go to the West Indies, then on to Mexico. As George had
planned I should have gone at once to New York, stopped at the best
hotel in the city and registered in my right name. By taking this course
I should have been safe and could have laughed at any attempt of the
bank authorities to extradite me, for the first lot of bogus bills could
have been held back until I had actually arrived in America. Then there
could not have been found a single particle of evidence against me.
I say "if I had come to New York." But there is some mysterious spell
over men embarked in crime that blinds their eyes to the plainest
dictates of common sense or prudence. This has been proved in a thousand
dramatic instances, but never more forcibly than in our own. It would
seem as if clever, daring men do almost impossible things with ease, but
there is a Nemesis which blinds them to trifles, fatal if overlooked,
causing them to make mistakes of which a schoolboy would be ashamed.
When we first got our combination together I thought we had found a
short cut to fortune, and never doubted of our success to the very end,
and amid many mishaps, that either crippled or ruined our schemes and
lengthened this short cut to fortune, I maintained my confidence until
on that day down in blazing Rio, when the letter "c" in lieu of the "s"
in indorse came to the front to crumble our "sure thing" into ruin. I
remember that in the stupefaction which for a few minutes settled down
on us, I felt we were really fighting against fate. A fate that like the
fiat of Deity says "Thou shalt not," to all wrongdoing.
For some time after that "indorce" takedown a feeling took possession of
me that such short cuts to fortune were risky, and that if success did
come the success would in the end prove a failure. But there is so much
in companionship and such magnetism in human association that when we
all three met in Paris and went in and out together, then, under the
stimulus of our union, I forgot all my forebodings and began to think
the unforeseen fatal something would not happen, and that we could
conquer fortune whether she would or no, and by any method on which we
chose to enter. But, as will be seen in the sequel, when reveling in an
unheard-of success, literally loaded down with wealth, Nemesis appeared
and by means even more simple than our error in Rio stripped us of our
wealth and dignity and left us naked to every storm that blew.
CHAPTER XXIII.
SHOWERS OF GOLD FALL--AND THEN?
I shall try and condense into a single chapter the narrative of events
in London from the time of my departure until the day, some months
later, when our scheme exploded and all took to flight when Noyes was
arrested.
Our expenses had been so enormous that we were anxious to make enough to