Lincoln Springfield (now the editor of that gay and flippant paper
_London Opinion_) at one of those many cheerful resorts that the
town no longer knows--Romano’s Bar, and Springfield pretended to be
broken-hearted over Mr. Asquith’s appointment. “Asquith would be
delighted to refuse to reprieve me were the occasion ever to arrive,”
said L. S., and when I asked him what Asquith had against him my
friend related this incident.
At the Parnell Commission, when Asquith was Sir Charles Russell’s
junior, he used to sit next Springfield, who, with T. P. O’Connor and
H. W. Massingham, reported the trial for the _Star_. Asquith and
Springfield had many an idle hour’s gossip together during the many
months of that trial. Stock Exchange flutters arising among other
topics, the journalist communicated to the barrister the fact that
a certain company, the White Lead Co., Ltd., was to be floated, and
was for a day or two to be rushed up to a substantial premium. Both
decided to improve their bank balances by venturing to the extent
of a hundred shares. Springfield the instant he got his allotment,
sold his hundred at a profit of £70 or £80, and forgot about the
matter. But Asquith had not grasped the necessity of seizing a rapid
profit, and in a week or two the engineered premium ran off into a
huge discount, and Asquith lost the major part of his £100 flutter.
This was no joke to Asquith in those early struggling days. Hence
Springfield’s mock fear of reprisals on the part of Mr. Secretary
Asquith.
“Lincoln” is an unusual Christian name, but it is not unique. Some
years ago there appeared in the Divorce Court a co-respondent named
Lincoln Jefferson. Dear old Harry Fenn, the Divorce Court reporter,
got to thinking of Lincoln Springfield as he wrote his report,
and he inadvertently recorded the co-respondent’s name as Lincoln
Springfield Jefferson. Thus it appeared in the _Daily Telegraph_.
Springfield was on the _Pall Mall Gazette_ in those days, and his
colleague there, Charlie Hands--afterwards the special correspondent
of the _Daily Mail_--cut out the report. He deleted the name
Jefferson by carefully sticking over it a piece of white paper that
rendered the deletion imperceptible, thus making the report declare
that the co-respondent was Lincoln Springfield. This doctored report
Charlie Hands hung up on the wall of one of the _Pall Mall’s_
editorial rooms, having first headed it “Serpent Springfield: How a
Man May Have Curly Hair and Yet Be a Villain.” He had barely fixed
it on the wall when Mr. Springfield’s wife called at the office, and
could not be restrained from reading the report. It took five hectic
minutes to restore Springfield’s unsullied reputation.
Charles Terry, the blue-eyed sportsman, beloved of every bookman and
publisher, and who has had quite as varied an experience as myself, I
first met when he was proprietor of R. H. Everett & Son, publishers.
He had then been manager of the London Opera House, and later became
manager of the book department of Messrs. Odhams Limited. He tells a
good story about books.
A few months ago, having prepared the balance sheet of his
department, he was chatting with Mr. Elias, managing director of the
firm of Odhams.
“Terry,” said Elias, “Mr. Harris, our chief accountant, says that
your accounts are extremely clear and well kept. You must be a jolly
good book-keeper.”
Terry, who began life as an accountant, was rather flattered, and
admitted that he knew a good deal about book-keeping.
“Yes, I thought so,” replied Elias. “But we want you to _sell books_,
not to _keep them_!”
Each time I enter the great offices of George Newnes Limited I
recollect the first day I put my foot across that threshold.
For about three years I had constantly contributed to the then
newly-established _Tit-Bits_, but had never seen its founder, George
Newnes. Being back in England, it struck me that I might venture to
call. So I did.
I gave my name, waited a few moments in the waiting-room, and
presently was ushered into the presence of the bluff, outspoken man
who, in common with other Lancashire men, had come to London by sheer
perseverance and hard grit.
But his reception of me! Well, it was so hostile that I stood
staggered in wonder as he paced up and down his fine, airy room,
denouncing me, and heaping on my head all sorts of vituperations.
At last I managed to get in a few feeble words.
“I really don’t understand you, Mr. Newnes.”
“Understand me! Can’t you hear?” he cried excitedly. “Don’t you
understand that you’ve done more harm to the firm than anybody else
has ever done?”
“Perhaps I have, but I’ve been paid for it,” I replied meekly.
“Paid? Who’s paid you?”
“The firm,” I replied.
“The firm paid you!” he cried, glaring at me. “Are you mad? What do
you mean? This firm has paid you to do what you’ve done against me?”
I stood aghast.
Then I calmly turned to the door to go.
“No, you shan’t,” he cried. “We must have all this out. I won’t stand
it from you--or anybody else!”
“But there is nothing to have out, Mr. Newnes,” I said quite calmly.
“All the contributions I have made to your journals you have invited
and paid for.”
“Contributions? What the devil do you mean?”
“Well, you have published a good many under my name--William Le
Queux.”
“Good God! Are you Le Queux?”
“Certainly,” I said. “Who do you think I am?”
“Why, I understood that you were that cursed swindler H----, who let
me down so badly over some paper!”
The lad who had ushered me in had an impediment in his speech, so he
had understood that I was “Mr. H----”--hence his violent anger.
We laughed, shook hands, and ever afterwards he was my firm friend.
Soon after that incident I wrote for _Tit-Bits_ a serial, called _The
Tickencote Treasure_, and it aroused in the young men of the office
the idea of a real treasure-hunt. Golden sovereigns in iron tubes
were sunk into the ground at night, in odd places, by people who
travelled in motor-cars up and down the country.
A real treasure-hunt began. I believe Sir Frank Newnes, son and heir
of the late Sir George, was in the forefront of that new excitement.
Excitement! If you sent a postcard to your local paper that the
treasure was sure to be buried in Such-and-Such road, those who lived
in the road would find, ere it was light next morning, a gang of
people of all ages, digging up every front garden and casting great
bushes out on the pavements in their frenzied efforts to discover the
hidden sovereigns.
The hunt grew so fierce at last that somebody dug beneath a
telegraph-pole, on the Great North Road, near Hitchin, and tossed it
over, thus interrupting the whole telegraph communications with the
North of England. The Government remonstrated, and the merry game was
stopped. But while it lasted it was full of fun.
The Marquis of Exeter, whose lordly mansion, “Burghley House by
Stamford town” is described by Tennyson in his “Lord of Burghley,”
helped me to write _The Tickencote Treasure_. The little hamlet of
Tickencote is on his estate, and there has long been a legend that
great treasure is buried on one of the farms.
The Marquis helped me in my attempt to locate it, but, alas! we dug
without avail. However, we had many merry days over it, and the
Marchioness gallantly assisted us.
Only a few weeks before writing these lines, I lunched at the Reform
Club with my friend Mr. W. Grierson, who to-day so ably conducts
the great House of Newnes, and who, besides being a most successful
business man, is also a clever editor. He told me a typical story of
the troubles of publishers, who with authors do not always see eye to
eye.
“I had a funny letter during the publication of _The Outline of
Science_,” he said. “After the appearance in serial form of the
second part I had a letter from a correspondent earnestly begging me
‘to hold up publication till I heard further from him.’ He had just
discovered ‘the secret of the origin of the world.’ In a few days
he would send his article, in which ‘everything would be explained
and the _face of modern science would be entirely changed_.’ The
fact that this man’s masterpiece has not yet seen the light of day
only provides one more illustration of the short-sightedness of
publishers, and how slow we are to recognize originality!”
In the whole world of publishing there is no man with a more open
mind than Grierson. When I edited _The War of the Nations_ I was many
times annoyed by the way in which he mutilated my manuscript. Once I
remonstrated.
He smiled at me across the table, and said:
“Le Queux, you are an author. You know your subject and write with
authority. But it is my job to keep my fingers on the pulse of the
public, the readers of all our papers and magazines. I try and gauge
what they desire to read, and I provide it for them. Will you forgive
me?”
To gauge the taste of the public is indeed a hard task.
In the long years of authorship I have sometimes half-heartedly
executed commissions from publishers, when, to my surprise, my
work has met with great and instant success. At others, when I am
enthusiastic over an idea or the plot of a novel, I am frequently
doomed to disappointment.
Why? Who can tell the real reason of a book’s or a play’s success?
I have written much for the House of Pearson--in fact, continuously
from the day it was established to the present.
Peter Keary, who was partner with Sir C. A. Pearson, was a close
friend of mine from the first publication of _Pearson’s Weekly_ to
the day of his untimely death. He was a clever editor, and a shrewd
business man, with a keen sense of humour. We often spent a night in
town together. His bosom friend was Mr. George Griffith, who wrote
_The Angel of the Revolution_, and other notable books, and who held
the record for going round the world (before the construction of the
Siberian Railway) in seventy-one and a half days.
One day Keary invited F. V. White, the publisher, Griffith, and
myself to dine at his house on Wimbledon Common, and we all went down
together.
Before dinner Keary said:
“I’ve got a new game to show you fellows. It’s quite simple.”
He took us out upon the lawn, where he put up cricket stumps.
“Now,” he said, “we put a shilling on each stump and the one who
knocks them off gets the shillings. Quite simple.”
We all three bowled, but had no luck, yet Keary--whom we afterwards
found was a very good cricketer--knocked off the shillings each
time either of us tried to bat. I believe it cost us about thirty
shillings each before we went in to dinner.
At table Keary turned to us and said:
“I told Everett that I meant you chaps to pay for your dinners!”
I remember that White was very annoyed.
Percy W. Everett, to whom he referred, is now head of Pearson’s,
and has also been a friend of mine for many years. He is a cheery,
merry-eyed man of untiring energy, and impervious to fatigue.
A few weeks ago, while chatting with him at the dinner of the
Crimes Club, of which he is a fellow-member, he told me of a most
humiliating experience he once had. He said:
“I remember very well how one day a short, good-looking, apparently
harmless gentleman strolled into my office, and began to talk
to me of a science of which nothing was then known in this
country--ju-jitsu. He explained how the weakest man who understood
the science could overcome the strongest man who knew nothing about
it. In the interests of truth, and to find out if my visitor were
really qualified to write an article on this subject, I challenged
him to prove his words. The next moment I was on my back on the
floor. I was allowed to rise again, but a simple though deadly grip
with but two fingers was responsible for an immediate and very
undignified editorial somersault. A most painful quarter of an hour
ensued. One by one, with fiendish science, my visitor subjected the
joints of every part of my body from head to toe to strains that,
as it proved, they were anatomically unable to resist. I suffered
every kind of known agony. But the result was that I obtained for
_Pearson’s Magazine_ a series of articles on ju-jitsu that created a
world-wide sensation.”
A. S. M. Hutchinson, author of _If Winter Comes_, tells an amusing
story of Everett, who was his chief in the days when he was editor of
_The Royal Magazine_, a post now filled by that writer of delightful
short stories, F. E. Baily.
It seems that one Saturday night Percy Everett, who, by the way, is
an outdoor man, and takes very long walks, even as far as Brighton,
invited Hutchinson down to his home at Elstree, as he intended that
night to destroy a wasps’ next. The nest, since it was under some
thick bushes, was difficult of access, and Hutchinson’s task was to
creep in on his hands and knees in the dark to pour paraffin into
the hole. It was a job that required considerable care and pluck,
for Everett, standing behind striking matches, told him that wasps
always kept a sentinel outside their nest, both by day and night and
asked him if he could “spot” him. He couldn’t, as he is near-sighted.
Everett was crouching behind him blocking the way out, and every
moment Hutchinson expected the whole swarm to attack him.
In telling the story he said:
“However, by the mercy of Providence the sentinel wasp was not up
to his work that night, and I squirted down my paraffin and backed
out praising heaven. Everett applied the match (I will say that much
for him) and I got as far away as I could in the darkness and stayed
there.”
Hutchinson also told me, referring to his early days on the _Royal
Magazine_, that:
“The thrill of the Israelites when entering the Promised Land was
a torpid yawn compared to my sensations as I first walked into
Pearson’s.”
Writing of Hutchinson, the present editor of the _Royal_ says:
“Hutchinson I remember as a tremendous worker. I can see him still at
a roll-top desk, working on doggedly amid a cloud of tobacco smoke,
turning out page after page in his careful, fastidious handwriting.
This careless world seldom takes temperament into account, preferring
to measure the ox-like type and highly-strung person of creative
imagination by a general rule of thumb. Nevertheless, the price of
success is a great deal higher to the second than to the first, for
he lives on his nerves, and his masterpieces are literally written
with his heart’s blood.”
Another ex-member of the Pearson staff is C. W. Shepherd, now editor
of the _Northern Newspaper Syndicate_. He told me the other day a
good story concerning John Hassall, the well-known artist. At the
time he was under Everett on the editorial staff of _Pearson’s_,
they were publishing an article on the influence of colour in daily
life, and he went to see one or two eminent people to get their
views--including Lady Duff-Gordon on dress and John Hassall on
art. He had a cheerful chat with Hassall in his studio, and, after
discussing various colours, he asked him what he would call the best
tonic colour. “The colour of a good port wine,” said he. “That is
why one instinctively holds up a glass of port to the light,” Some
spirit of mischief prompted Shepherd to try and trip him up. “But
surely,” he said, “you do the same with a bottle of Bass?” “Ah!” said
Hassall, as quick as lightning, “but that’s to see if there’s any
cork in it.”
My friend D. M. Sutherland, editor of the _Pall Mall Gazette_,
tells a good journalistic story of the great Horace Greeley, whose
handwriting was so bad that at one time there was only one compositor
in the office in New York who could set up his copy. This man seemed
to his fellows unduly puffed up by this fact.
One day, while the super-compositor was out, a bird that had flown
into the office walked into some printing ink and then on to a number
of loose sheets lying on the floor.
“Why,” said one of the printers, picking up a sheet, “this looks like
the old man’s writing.” So saying, he fastened the sheets together
and put them on the absent compositor’s case.
Presently the compositor came back, and, with all eyes turned on
him, picked up the sheets, and to the amazement of the room started
setting up the supposed “copy.” Presently, however, he jibbed at a
word and asked the man nearest him what it was.
“How should I know?” was the reply. “You know that you alone can read
the old man’s writing. Better ask him.”
Reluctantly the baffled compositor took the sheet to Greeley’s
sanctum.
“Well,” grunted the great man, “what is it?”
“It’s this word, Mr. Greeley,” stammered the man.
Greeley snatched the sheet from the man’s hand, looked at the alleged
word, and threw himself back with a snort of disgust.
“Why,” he shouted, “any fool could see what it is! It’s
unconstitutional!”
Stanley Paul, the publisher, tells a delightful story of a certain
well-known cosmopolitan writer. He says, “Returning from a trip to
the Gay City my friend (who is popularly known as ‘the master of
mystery’) asked me how I had enjoyed myself. I replied that I had
had a good time, and mentioned some of the gay places I had visited.
In his turn he sighed, and said that nowadays he never had time to
explore the modern Montmartre. In order to test the soundness of
this statement I referred to one notorious place, quietly stating
as a joke that I was very surprised to see the author’s caricature
by a well-known French artist adorning the walls, when the latter
exclaimed with much agitation, ‘Hush! No! No! No!’ I said, ‘Ah! I
wondered whether you had ever been there!’”
Mr. W. L. Courtney once referred to publishers as a “timid race of
men,” but are they also absent-minded? A story is told concerning
Stanley Paul, when he started business in Clifford’s Inn, and was
at the time prominent on the executive of several athletic clubs,
whose headquarters were at the Argyll Hotel. One day, when absorbed
in the prospect of a London-to-Brighton walk, which was then one of
Paul’s hobbies, the office-boy said a gentleman wanted to see him.
Asked who it was, he said he wasn’t sure, but he thought it was
“Argle,” and Mr. Paul, thinking of a “gentleman” he sometimes saw at
headquarters, decided to be “out” and couldn’t be seen till after
6 p.m. The gentleman left. Next day the correspondence contained a
very courteous note from His Grace the late Duke of Argyll, asking if
it would be possible for Mr. Stanley Paul to see him at Kensington
Palace in connection with his memoirs, _Intimate Society Letters of
the Eighteenth Century_, which Mr. Paul had previously commissioned
for publication.
Mrs. M. Chester ffoulkes, the well-known authoress--who, by the way,
was at one time private secretary to Douglas Sladen--once told me
how, while collaborating with Lord Rossmore, who was writing his
reminiscences, they quarrelled desperately. It was a case of Dr.
Fell with them both, all the time. But when the book was published
Lord Rossmore invited the popular Maude to lunch one Sunday at the
Stud House, Hampton Court, and in front of his assembled guests
presented her with a platinum and coral necklet.
“Isn’t it a nice present, Maudie?” remarked his lordship.
Mrs. ffoulkes took the necklet and replied pensively, “Yes, it is
very pretty--a clear case of ‘After Battles--Rewards’” (the motto of
the Rossmores).
It was Lord Rossmore who, when speaking to Mrs. ffoulkes about a
certain publisher whom most people will recognize, remarked:
“But, damn it! the fellow is a gentleman! I thought a publisher was
always a shopkeeper. It is the accepted idea!”
“Well,” replied Maude, “the accepted idea of a nobleman is that he is
a gentleman, but it’s often wrong, isn’t it?”
Lord Rossmore was compelled to agree.
In the Bath Club the other day I heard a good story concerning my
old friend David Whitelaw, the well-known editor of the _London_
and _Premier_ magazines. He was walking one hot afternoon last year
on Brighton Pier with Herman Finck, the composer of so many popular
orchestral pieces, and as they passed the bandstand the orchestra,
under Captain Amers, was playing “In the Shadows.”
The irrepressible David complimented Herman on hearing his own
composition played to the pleasure of the great assembly of summer
idlers. To be polite, Herman Finck bet Whitelaw a level shilling
that if they continued their walk they would discover somebody
reading one of his novels. Whitelaw accepted, and together the
pair strolled along eagerly scanning every book or paper that
the seaside girls and fellows were reading. Every author except
David seemed to be represented on that drowsy summer afternoon,
beside the lazily-lapping waves. The well-known novelist-editor had
almost given up hope when suddenly Finck pointed out a very old and
shabby gentleman in steel-rimmed spectacles seated in one of the
pier-shelters. On his lap was a cheap edition of _The Little Hour of
Peter Wells_. But the old fellow was fast asleep!
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Criminals I Have Met--Sarah Bernhardt Introduces Me to Madame
Humbert of the Humbert Millions--The Pale-faced Cripple
who was a Jewel Thief--I Meet Pietro Rossi, who Murdered
the Baroness di Vinadio--I am Suspected of being his
Accomplice!--Delloye, the Paris Bank-clerk, who Worked at
His Desk by Day, and Posed as a Millionaire at Night--My
Pretty Friend Gabrielle Sohet--What M. Paul Deschanel,
President of the Republic, Thought of Delloye.
In the course of my wanderings up and down Europe, searching for
local colour and fresh ideas for my novels, and at the same time
continuing to act as secret agent of Great Britain, I have mixed with
all sorts and conditions of persons, both in the _haut monde_ and in
the underworld of the great cities.
Who goes spying must often keep queer company, associating with
swindlers, adventurers, _escrocs_, and undesirables of all sorts.
The criminal world is at least exciting. To a student of crime and
its psychology it is, of course, of intense interest. As one of the
oldest members of the Crimes Club of London--to which I have referred
in the chapter on my adventures in club-land--I have always taken an
especial interest in the criminally inclined. Curiously enough, I
seem to possess a magnetic attraction for criminals! Why, I cannot
imagine.
In the years that I have drifted about the smart continental hotels
I have had some strange and sometimes exciting experiences. Some of
these adventures I have, I confess, recorded in my romances, thereby
turning truth into fiction.
I well recollect one day being at lunch with Madame Sarah
Bernhardt--who was my friend through more than thirty years--at her
beautiful house in the Avenue Pereire, in Paris. The Divine Sarah,
in that sweet, musical voice of hers, introduced me then to a short,
stout, rather overdressed Frenchwoman, whose name I did not catch,
but whose manner was that of a _grande dame_. We chatted together in
the big salon, where with us were, among others, two of my oldest
friends, Madame Zola and Paul Deschanel, who afterwards became
President of the French Republic.
The stout lady was telling me that she had rented a summer château
in Brittany, somewhere near Quimperle, and that she and her husband
were leaving Paris in a month’s time. Before we parted she gave me
her card, and expressed a hope that I would call and join one of her
Wednesday evening parties. As I took her card I saw that her name was
Humbert.
Acting on her invitation, I found that she lived in a magnificent
mansion in the Avenue de la Grande Armée. Her salon was filled
by smartly-gowned _mondaines_, Senators, Deputies, and financial
magnates.
My hostess, in a magnificent black gown, with a wonderful necklace of
pearls, greeted me effusively, and introduced me to the attractive
daughter of Monsieur Lebaudy, the great sugar-refiner. Not till I
began to chat with my charming little friend did I identify the name
of my hostess, Madame Humbert, with the romantic story of the safe
that contained nearly four million pounds, and which by the terms of
a will she was forbidden to open.
That evening I was shown the huge dark-green safe, which stood in the
corner of a small room at the back of the house, the two keyholes
being covered with great seals of red wax.
As a novelist that locked safe interested me.