_Murder for a few shillings--living on their wits--The value of a
handshake--Where the money came from--The mystery of a large income
--Price of a lost letter--An unwelcome burglar_
|ONE half of the world does not know how the other half lives." That is
a stock phrase which has been worn threadbare by over-use. And if you
analyse it, it appears so self-evident that one wonders at the daring of
the person who first put it forward as an original observation. Very few
people really know how their next-door neighbours live. They may think
they do, but they are often entirely wrong in the conclusion they have
arrived at.
One of the great mysteries of a vast city is how all the people in it
manage to get a living. If you take a day of London life, apart from its
work, and consider the hundreds of thousands of people who are merely
amusing themselves and spending collectively a sum of money in the
process which, if put in round figures, would astound you, you are faced
with a greater mystery still.
Who are the people who during the working hours of the day can assemble
in their tens of thousands at the popular race-meetings, the great
cricket-matches, the afternoon performances at the theatres, the Palaces
of Variety, the concert-rooms, the exhibitions, and the side-shows?
I never see a great match at Lord's or at the Oval and look around at
the packed masses of spectators without wondering how the great majority
arrange to have the leisure on a working day, and how some of them
manage to have the price of admission to spare.
It would be a wild flight of imagination to suppose that to get the
money to attend a cricket match some of the spectators had committed
a crime. And yet, a few years ago, two little boys paid their sixpence
each at the pay-box at Lord's and passed in, enjoyed the game, applauded
the big hits, and in the evening went back to the room in which their
mother lay dead, and slept in it, tired out with the day's enjoyment.
These little boys were shortly afterwards, owing to certain suspicious
circumstances, arrested, and they then confessed that their mother being
ill in bed they had murdered her in order to rob her of a few shillings.
It was with a portion of this money they had spent a happy day at Lord's
watching a cricket match.
It is a gruesome idea to associate with cricket, but the trail of
tragedy passes even over the green patch on which the national pastime
is played.
I have in my possession the last letter a well-known groundsman ever
wrote. It was written in the condemned cell in Bedford Gaol the night
before his execution. The last words of that letter, written as a P.S.
after the unhappy man's signature, are "No more cricket."
Who that sat near those two little boys as they cheered a boundary hit
would have thought that they had that morning murdered their mother? Who
that saw this unfortunate groundsman bowling at the nets to some famous
batsman of the day would have imagined that he was shortly to end his
life on the gallows for cruelly and deliberately murdering his young
wife and her mother?
One of the spectators at a great football match at the Crystal Palace
was Alfred Stratton, the "mask" murderer. He paid his fare and his
admission money to the football ground with the cash he had obtained by
killing Mr. and Mrs. Farrow.
As we sit in the packed theatre or music-hall, or mix with the crowd
on the race-course, to how many of us does it present itself as a
probability that some of the people present are enjoying themselves with
money obtained by murder?
Here is a well-known West End café. In the same building is a
restaurant. The best people in London are among the frequenters of
both. The company present when we enter is not of a kind to excite the
slightest suspicion in our minds. The natural assumption is that they
are all good citizens of unimpeachable character, and that the money
they are spending is legitimately theirs.
But, looking round the crowded room, I can, from my own personal
knowledge of facts, select half a dozen specimens of the mystery of the
money spent.
A tall, military-looking man leaves one of the tables as we enter and
comes across and shakes hands with me.
It would be rude of me to say "I don't know you" in a public room. He
sees my hesitation and exclaims, "Ah! you don't remember me, I see. I am
Sir ----------. I used to see you very often at the old Pelican Club."
I make a conventional reply and pass to the other end of the room. My
impression of Sir ---------- is not a favourable one.
I remember having heard something about him, and I am a little uneasy at
this public claiming of acquaintanceship. The Baronet is with a lady--a
very charming lady, to judge by her appearance. I ask an _habitué_
of the café, who is a friend of mine, if he knows anything about
Sir ----------.
"I don't think much of him," is the reply. "He was here with that lady
the day before yesterday, and he got up and shook hands with Colonel
-------- just as he did with you. The Colonel told me afterwards he was
sure he had never met the man before."
Two weeks later the reason for this little comedy of acquaintanceship
was made clear. The Baronet appeared at Bow Street police court and
turned out to be no baronet at all, but an adventurer who had imposed
his title upon confiding tradespeople and unsuspecting women. He had
victimized half a dozen of the former and married two of the latter. And
from both he had obtained a considerable amount of money.
Sir -------- got his living by frequenting the haunts of well-known
people, shaking hands with some of them, and so establishing himself in
the confidence of his dupes, one or other of whom he was in the habit
of inviting to lunch at the restaurant and to sit in the café with him
afterwards.
The "trick" is not a new one. A high police official whose features are
well known once told me of a case in which he had been selected for the
"old acquaintance" dodge. A gentleman in a restaurant came up to the
official and shook him warmly by the hand. "Ah! my dear --------. How
are you?" he said in a loud voice. "I hope Mrs. -------- is better."
The official's wife _had_ been very ill, and the question at once
disarmed him. He returned the hand-shake, imagining that the man really
_was_ an acquaintance whose face he failed to recall.
On the strength of that hand-shake the "acquaintance" succeeded in
victimizing a gentleman who witnessed the interview to the extent of
£500. A high police official would hardly shake hands in a public place
with a swindler.
But let us take another look round the café in which the sham Baronet
claimed acquaintance with me.
At a table in the far corner three smartly-dressed men are seated. They
are smoking the most expensive cigars and drinking the oldest liqueur
brandy in the establishment.
To them there enters presently an elegantly-dressed lady. She is
past her first youth and is inclining to stoutness, but she is still
attractive, and her manners are perfect.
The three men rise and salute her with almost Continental effusiveness.
They address her as "Countess." Presently the little party of friends
are conversing earnestly together, but in an undertone, as is the custom
with people in good society who talk together in a place of public
resort.
The three men are accomplished and clever rascals. One of them is a
card-sharper of "distinction," another has made blackmailing a fine art.
The third is a solicitor who has not yet been struck off the rolls. The
lady is a "Monte Carlo Countess"; it is possible that she may have been
married at one time of her life to a Polish Count, but her present
occupation is that of a professional _fiancée_. The solicitor at the
little table has settled three breaches of promise for her without any
of them coming into court. Both in this matter and in the little parties
which the Countess gives at her luxuriously-furnished flat the other
gentlemen at the table are exceedingly useful to her. It is needless to
add they receive their share of the stakes for bringing down the bird
which the Countess "puts up."
In the days when the Vaudeville was a burlesque house a popular
burlesque actress appearing there became engaged to a young gentleman
who was lavish in his generosity in the matter of presents. He hardly
allowed a week to pass without giving her some costly article of
jewellery.
The sudden wealth of this young gentleman astonished Mr. Robert Reece,
the author of the burlesque, who had known him as a clerk in a West-end
bill discounter's office. Mr. Reece spoke to the young actress and
begged her to make sure of her _fiancées_ position and prospects before
she married him.
She had no necessity to act on this advice, as the very next evening the
young gentleman was arrested while waiting at the stage door for her.
He was accused of having forged and discounted bills to the amount of
£15,000. His legitimate earnings at the time he was making the young
lady such costly presents amounted to £3 a week. In her dressing-room
at the Vaudeville Theatre the actress handed over to the police all the
jewellery she had received. It was valued in court at several thousand
pounds.
The sudden possession of funds by a thief known to the police always
attracts their unpleasant attention. Such a man must carefully avoid
ostentation in his own neighbourhood. He does not even risk changing a
sovereign in the public-houses that he "uses" lest the action should be
observed by a "nark."
But there is a class of more or less "shady" individuals who, being
habitually in possession of money, can indulge in extra extravagance
without running any extra risk.
*****
The Bogus Charity Collecting Brigade has all classes in its ranks.
There are men and women of decent appearance, good manners, and good
education, who make this form of fraud their means of livelihood. They
have no other occupation and no other source of income, and every penny
of the money they spend in food, clothing, and rent, is earned by false
pretences. But it is only those who practise frauds upon the benevolent
upon a large scale, live luxuriously on the proceeds, and generally,
sooner or later, find themselves the subject of a personal memoir in
"Truth," who are interesting to the public.
When a director of the Great Northern Railway saw a peer shake hands at
a railway station with a man whom the director knew to be a clerk in the
company's office he was astonished. He was considerably more astonished
when the peer explained that the friend he had just greeted gave the
best dinners in London.
It was that accidental meeting that brought the famous Red-path
forgeries to light.
The mystery of the money spent disappeared when a well-dressed,
well-groomed gentleman came up the steps into the dock at Clerkenwell
Police Court.
I knew a man for twenty years who was respected and beloved by a wide
circle of friends. He was an unostentatious man, but he had a beautiful
house, he spent large sums in collecting works of art, and his
benevolence was unbounded. He was secretary to a charitable institution,
but it was supposed that he only retained the office because he loved
the work.
The salary was a small one, but that did not matter. He had acquired
riches by marrying a wealthy wife. He married this wealthy lady when he
was five-and-thirty, and he was over sixty when he was one day called
out of his dining-room just as he was sitting down to entertain a large
party of friends, and failed to return.
His wife, who had taken her seat at the table, was sent for a minute or
two after her husband had quitted the company, and she also failed to
return.
The guests sat for a time, wondering what had happened. They wondered
still more when a servant came back with a message that Mr. ----------
had received a very important communication which compelled him to ask
his guests to quit the house.
The next day the wealthy secretary of the charitable institution
appeared at the police-court, and the evening papers contained the
statement that he was charged with having robbed the institution of
over sixty thousand pounds, the defalcations extending over a number of
years.
At the trial it was elicited that the lady he had married was a young
woman to whom he had been left guardian, and that he had spent every
farthing of her money before he proposed to her, and made her his wife
in order to cover up his crime.
Some years ago I knew a man who used to hang about racecourses and
outside certain sporting clubs when any sporting event was on. He had
a bad record, and used it to get his living. If, on a race-course, you
lost a valuable article of jewellery--a gold watch or a diamond pin,
or something valued for its associations--this man could generally be
relied upon to trace it and get it back "at a price."
I saw him one night loafing about outside a sporting club, evidently
hard up. A year later I saw him in fine feather and quite the "sporting
gent.," as he would have said, at Nice races, and that night I met him
again in evening dress at the roulette tables at Monte Carlo. He was
living luxuriously at one of the best hotels. I met him a year or
two later in a railway carriage coming back from Newmarket after the
Cambridgeshire, and I gathered from his conversation with another
passenger that he was going to try Egypt for his winter trip.
The "mystery of the money spent" in this case was not to be accounted
for by any sudden stroke of luck on the Turf. The man had a good, solid
income which enabled him to live at ease all the year round. His
change of fortune dated from the day he was put on to try and recover
a pocket-book which had been stolen from the rooms of an exceedingly
wealthy young man, well known in sporting circles.
The pocket-book was recovered, with the bank-notes which it had
contained missing, but a certain letter which the owner had placed in it
still there. The letter must have been a very important one. The bargain
struck for its restoration started the restorer on the road to fortune.
A professional burglar--a man who had been a skilled mechanic, earning
good wages, in early life, but had taken to evil ways--broke into a
West End mansion in the small hours. It happened that the tenant of the
mansion had been making a very late night of it with some friends, and,
entering his house with his latchkey at 4 a.m., he came upon the burglar
in the dining-room.
The next morning the burglar went to the tenement house in which he was
living with his wife, flung a handful of gold into her lap, told her
to go and buy herself some good clothes while he went and got himself
decently rigged out. She was to meet him in the afternoon at a given
place. The husband and wife met, well dressed, and set out to look for
a villa residence in the suburbs. They took a nice house, furnished it
elegantly, if somewhat showily, engaged servants, and settled down
into easy suburban well-to-do-ness. They had a horse and trap, and were
looked upon by their neighbours as retired tradespeople, who had made
their money and were living on a well-earned competency.
The ex-burglar and his wife enjoyed themselves. They had an occasional
week at Brighton, or Margate, or Yarmouth; and in the summer they went
away for a month or six weeks.
How did their change of fortune come? How did a burglar who was so badly
off that he lived with his wife in one room in a tenement house suddenly
develop into a well-to-do retired tradesman with plenty of money to
spend?
The secret of the sudden access of wealth lay in the chance meeting of
the burglar and the burgled in that West End mansion.
The tenant was a man of fifty, who had recently returned with a large
fortune from South Africa. When he found a burglar on his premises he
seized him by the throat. But as the light fell upon his assailant the
burglar uttered a cry, not of terror, but of astonishment.
"Jack!" he exclaimed.
Five minutes later the two men were quietly discussing the new
situation.
Twenty years previously they had met in a convict prison, where both
were undergoing punishment--one for breaking into a jeweller's shop, the
other for embezzling the money of his employer. They had been "pals" in
prison, and had remained pals for a time after their liberation.
The burglar continued in his evil courses, but the clerk, getting
assistance from some relatives, went out to South Africa. Being a
ticket-of-leave man who had neglected to report himself at Scotland
Yard, he was liable to be arrested on his return and sent back to prison
to complete the remitted portion of his sentence. He had taken a new
name in South Africa, and in this new name had made his fortune.
The police were not likely to associate the wealthy tenant of the West
End mansion with the ex-convict who had failed to observe the terms
of his license, and he was safe. That is to say, he was safe until the
burglar who had broken into his house recognized him.
The silence of the old fellow "lag" was worth a good deal to the
millionaire, and he paid it. This is how the ex-burglar was able to
settle down as a respectable citizen in a pretty villa residence and
deny himself nothing in the way of comfort or enjoyment.
Hush-money as a source of income is not confined to the class we usually
associate with it. There are plenty of men and women moving in what is
called good society who find it a profitable occupation to hold their
tongue.