Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison: Fifteen Years in Solitude
visit from one of the chief police officers, requesting us to
'legitimize ourselves.' I asked him his object for making this
demand, when he replied that a man named Warren was wanted by the
English police.
"In vain I showed him an old passport and letters addressed to me,
showing that my name was Warner; he informed me that I could not
leave my room, and placed two policemen at the door. At 1 o'clock
I remembered an influential inhabitant of the town who knew me, and
I sent for him. He at once went to headquarters and gave bond for
me to a large amount, and at 6 o'clock in the evening myself and
son were released. You will remember that in the case of Dr. Hessel
four persons swore to his identity before he was deprived of his
liberty. In my case a similar name to that required was sufficient
to deprive me of mine.
"I have since received, thanks to the strenuous and prompt action
of the British Minister at Munich, a very ample apology in writing
for the blunder that had been committed. It was signed by the
Burgermeister of the city, and as the intelligence of this worthy
seems to be equaled by his simplicity, he sends me a safe pass to
protect me in my further travels, in case Warner should again be
considered the same as Warren. I remain, sir, your obedient
servant,
"CHARLES W. C. WARNER,
"Ex-Sheriff, London and Middlesex
"I now return to my narrative. In the second-class compartment where I
sat were two burly, loud-talking, well-informed farm proprietors, one of
whom had imbibed a little too freely of the native distillation. The
sober one had just finished reading a column article on the 'Great Bank
Forgery' to his lively companion, who at length turned and addressed me.
I answered him politely in broken French, and he then went on to give
his opinion of the bank affair, as nearly as I can remember, as follows:
"'You, being a Frenchman, don't understand about our great bank; but I
tell you those Yankees did a clever thing when they attacked that
powerful institution. The one they have got penned up here in Ireland
can't possibly escape; indeed, according to the newspapers, he is
already in the hands of the police. I am almost sorry to hear it, for in
getting the best of that bank so cleverly the rascal deserves to get
off; and see, here is a description of him.'
"I looked at the paper and saw that it was a fair general outline of my
appearance, even to my ulster which I had with me in the valise, and
the Scotch cap which was in my pocket. Before we reached Drogheda I had
explained to one of my new friends, in broken French, that, owing to my
ignorance of the English language, I had purchased a wrong ticket, and
being liable to make a similar mistake, should feel obliged if he would
take the trouble to procure me a ticket at that station. He readily
assented, and by this means I procured it without exposing myself. The
hunt for me was becoming so extremely hot that I dared not show myself
again at a ticket office; and if I should be found on a train ticketless
that fact might lead to closer scrutiny--the rule in that country being
that every passenger must be provided with a ticket before entering a
car.
"The train arrived in Belfast at 9 o'clock, and I at once took a cab to
the Glasgow steamer. It was very dark, and I went on board unobserved,
two hours before the time of departure. Going down into the saloon
cabin, I saw the purser sitting near the entrance, to whom I said:
'Parlez vous Francais?' He shook his head. I then asked in jargon for
'une billet a Glasgow.' Surmising what I wished, he gave me a ticket,
putting on it the number of my berth.
"Expecting to be followed, I had taken that instant precaution of
impressing on the purser's mind that I was a Frenchman. I passed into
the washroom, just opposite where the purser sat, washed myself and
brushed my hair. Just at this moment I heard steps descending the cabin
stairway, then the words:
"'Purser, a cab just brought a man from the Dublin train. Where is he?'
"'Oh, you mean the Frenchman,' replied the purser; 'he's in the
washroom.'
"While this was passing I had put on my silk hat and taken up my valise,
and was standing before the glass (a la Francais) taking a final view of
my toilette, and snapping off some imaginary dust and lint, as the
two detectives stepped in, and after looking me well over went out, and
I saw them no more. That proved to be the last ordeal through which I
passed in Ireland. After being convinced that they had left the steamer
I went to my berth, and being thoroughly exhausted I fell asleep in an
instant, not awaking until the steamer was entering the harbor of
Glasgow.
"After my arrest a month later in Scotland, during the transfer to
London and afterward to Newgate, while awaiting trial, the detectives
told me that they were in Cork three hours after I had left, and one of
them related their adventures substantially as follows:
"'We arrived in Cork Saturday afternoon and were not long in finding the
temperance hotel where you stayed on Friday night, and the hat you left
behind. After a long hunt we ascertained that a jaunting car had left
the stand some hours previously and was still absent.
"'We had a good laugh at those blunder-heads, the Cork officers, letting
you slip through their fingers, and then showed them how we do things.
After some delay we traced the cab across the bridge to the shop where
you got the boy to go for it. The shopwoman was quite voluble about you,
saying she knew all the time that you were an American by the accent,
and described the bag and ulster which we had ascertained were in your
possession. Of course, we were now satisfied that we were on the right
scent, but could get no further trace or the direction taken by the cab.
We therefore sent dispatches to all the telegraph stations within fifty
miles to put the police on the watch and sent messengers to the outlying
places, but somehow you slipped through our meshes, and nothing turned
up until the car man returned at about 11 p.m., as drunk as a soldier on
furlough. After putting him under a water tap until he was half drowned
we got him sober enough to tell where he had left you; but he swore you
were a priest, and his evident sincerity caused us all to roar with
laughter. This angered him, and he said: "Ye may twist me head an'
dhroun me intirely, but I wull niver spake another wurrud about the
jintelman at all, at all," and sure enough we could get nothing more out
of him.
"'We had a carriage ready, and, jumping in, we were at the wayside inn
by midnight and terrified the old woman half out of her wits in arousing
her out of bed. After a while she gathered them sufficiently to show us
that you had six hours the start of us. The boy who carried your bag
could give us no points, but we concluded you intended taking the branch
line at Fermoy for Dublin. We drove right on, arriving at the Fermoy
station at 1 p.m., but, getting no trace we telegraphed to all the
stations along the line to Dublin, and there as well to be on the
lookout. Who would ever have thought of your taking the opposite
direction, penning yourself in at the end of a branch line, at a small
inland town like Lismore? Why, you were, as we discovered the next
morning, at that moment sleeping quietly at the Lismore Hotel, and only
about ten miles from where we were working so industriously for that
L5,000! Well, you "done" us fine that time!
"'After you so cleverly threw us off the trail, we could get no trace
until Sunday morning, when we received a dispatch from Lismore, stating
that a man had come on the last train, stayed at the hotel and left at
daylight without paying his bill. "Hello!" said I, as soon as I read the
dispatch, "we never suspected Lismore; he has been there all night and
is off again!" We telegraphed to Clonmel, Waterford and other places;
then left for Lismore, where we arrived, paid your bill and took the bag
with us. Surmising that you might make for Clonmel, we looked for and
found the place where you got the car, but no news as to what direction
you had taken. It would have made you laugh, as it did us, to see the
old livery man stamp about and tear his hair when he found how easily
he could have made the L5,000--if he had "only known."
"'Starting on the way to Clonmel, we soon had news which satisfied us we
were once more on the right track. Shortly after we met, sure enough,
the cab you had sent back from the country store. Arriving there we took
the boy, who had just returned from driving you to Clonmel, with us,
and, feeling sure that we should soon come up with you, we made our
horses spin toward that town. Arriving there, we saw the inspector, who
informed us that he had sent a constable in pursuit of a man who had
hired a car to go to Cahir.' (This must have been one of the men in the
car whom I escaped by dodging into the ruined cottage.) 'It being then
sundown we drove to Cahir with all speed, arriving there just after
dark, passing the Clonmel mail car inside the gate; but it contained no
one but the driver.
"'We soon found the constable sent from Clonmel, who said you had
disappeared into the fort, where a friend must have concealed you, and
that you must be there still. He then took us to the fort, which was
closed for the night. As soon as my eyes lighted on the ruined cottages
I asked him if he had searched them and received an answer in the
negative. "Why," said he, "they are, as you see, all open to the day,
without roof, doors or windows, and no one would think of hiding in
them." "You are a fool," I replied. "Give me your lamp and come with
me." After a look around and seeing how easily any person could stand in
a corner out of sight, I remarked to him emphatically that he was the
biggest specimen of a goose I had ever seen in my line. "I think," said
I, "you had better go home and play pin. Here is where he dodged you,
and now he is off again, with an hour or more start." We worked until
after midnight and gave Cahir such a "turning over" that the inhabitants
won't soon forget, but could not get hold of the least trace, except at
one place (Maloy's), where a woman said a stranger came in at supper
time, who said he was an American seeing the people in their homes. We
cross-questioned the man, but could get nothing out of him more than
that you had departed.
"'At last we gave it up, went to the hotel to get some sleep, which we
needed badly, and the next day went to Dublin, heard about the finding
of your neck-wrapper at the Cathedral Hotel, and knocked about Ireland
for some time. During this time we arrested several persons, but soon
discovered none of them was the right party, and we never obtained a
genuine trace until you were discovered later in Edinburgh.'"
CHAPTER XXVII.
THE FLOWERS IN THE PRIMROSE WAY ARE SWEET.
As narrated in an earlier chapter, I left England two days before the
first lot of forged bills were sent in. I left serene and confident of
the future. My departure was a happy event in a double sense. All my
negotiations had been carried on at a considerable expense of nerve, and
in leaving I left everything in such trim that success seemed certain,
with all chance of danger eliminated from the venture. I felt that the
trying toil was now all over, with nothing for me to do but to reap the
harvest, and that without effort or care on my part.
So, when the late November sun looked down on me--I crossed by daylight