half forgotten, therefore I will venture to refresh the reader’s
memory. Thérèse Daurignac, a rather plain country girl, daughter of
an evil-living old fellow of Bauzelles, near Toulouse, who claimed to
be Count d’Aurignac, was often shown by her father an old oak chest.
He was fond of telling her that it would, on being opened after his
death, be found to contain documents that should bring her a great
fortune and place her among the highest in France.
This impressed the girl, and no doubt turned her head, till she
became one of the greatest adventuresses in French history. When her
father died the chest was found to be empty! But in the meantime
Thérèse kept up her father’s fiction. My friend, Mr. Barry Richmond,
in a very able review of the case, says that among the wealthy folk
in the neighbourhood who befriended the Daurignacs was the Humbert
family, consisting of M. Gustave and Mme. Humbert and their son
Frédéric. M. Gustave Humbert was Mayor of the district, a Senator,
and a person of considerable distinction. Thérèse Daurignac’s first
connection with this family was humble enough, she being employed as
a washerwoman by old Mme. Humbert.
But the girl had her eyes open to eventualities, and she laid herself
out to attract the attentions of M. Humbert’s son Frédéric, a law
student. She contrived to surround herself with the air of mystery
and romance that by a twist she gave to the legend of the Daurignac
fortune. It impressed people, even the Humberts.
M. Gustave Humbert and his wife took up their residence in Paris,
leaving Frédéric behind to pursue his law studies at Toulouse. It
was Thérèse’s great chance, and she seized it. The Humbert parents
shortly afterwards learned with mortification that their son was
determined to marry his mother’s ex-washerwoman. The marriage took
place in spite of all their objections, which were considerable, for
Gustave Humbert was rising to the head of his profession, and was
shortly to become Minister of Justice.
For two or three years the woman lived as an adventuress,
when suddenly the Senator announced to his friends that his
daughter-in-law had inherited an enormous fortune.
At first the amount of Mme. Humbert’s inheritance was given out as
£80,000, but gossip increased it to £800,000, and finally it was
popularly credited with being £4,000,000. That was the amount that
Madame Sarah Bernhardt mentioned to me. The Humberts very cleverly
accepted this gratuitous estimate, and £4,000,000 remained for twenty
years the figure of the mythical fortune.
Details were soon forthcoming to substantiate the story.
According to Mme. Humbert, she was travelling on the Ceinture
Railway one afternoon soon after her marriage when she heard groans
proceeding from the compartment next her own. She climbed to it along
the footboard, entered, and found an old man suffering great agony.
She undid his collar, assisted him as best she could, and by the time
the train reached Paris he had sufficiently recovered to leave the
station without further help. Before he departed he made a careful
note of his benefactress’s name and address, and told her that he was
an American, called Robert Henry Crawford. This was the story all
Paris knew.
It was not long after the railway incident that, declared Mme.
Humbert, she received a copy of the old man’s will. He had died at
Nice, leaving a fortune of £4,000,000 to be divided between Mme.
Humbert and his two nephews on certain extraordinary conditions.
One-third of the £4,000,000 was left to his nephew, Robert Crawford;
one-third to Henry Crawford; and the rest to Marie Daurignac,
Thérèse’s sister, who was still a child at school. Out of the
inheritance the three legatees were to pay Mme. Humbert £14,400 per
annum.
It was on no firmer basis than this extravagant invention that,
says Mr. Barry Richmond, Mme. Humbert for the next twenty years was
enabled to borrow sums amounting to about £3,000,000, to live the
life of a _grande dame_, and to ruin thousands of people in all
classes of French society.
But soon Thérèse showed the touch of genius that lifted her
complicated series of frauds far beyond the level of an ordinary
commonplace swindle. She invented an interminable lawsuit over the
will, and in a few months’ time, with the help of her husband (and,
as many people believed, of Gustave Humbert), piled up a huge mass of
legal procedure that not even the lawyers could unravel.
The mythical Crawfords pleaded (through counsel, of course) against
Thérèse. They lost cases and won them, appealed and were appealed
against, paid heavy fees to famous lawyers, and wrote countless
letters of instructions. This sort of thing went on for years, and
to the ordinary mind it was proof positive of the Crawford brothers’
existence. Phantoms do not engage in long and costly lawsuits.
It never seems to have occurred to anyone that Mme. Humbert was
running both sides of the affair, that she was plaintiff as well as
defendant, and defendant as well as plaintiff, that she was inspiring
all the legal attacks made on her by the supposed Crawfords.
There, in the Humberts’ magnificent mansion in the Avenue de la
Grande Armée, for all to see, stood the famous locked safe containing
the £4,000,000.
It was when Madame Humbert was at the height of her success that
Madame Sarah Bernhardt introduced me to her. Her father-in-law’s
position as French Minister of Justice had, besides serving to induce
confidence in his daughter-in-law’s pretentions, gave her the
_entrée_ to the best Parisian society. Thérèse, the ex-washerwoman,
had now become a _grande dame_, and was living on credit on a scale
that no other swindler has ever approached. She was surely the queen
of _escrocs_. She and her husband Frédéric Humbert entertained
lavishly. How well I recollect those wonderful nights in her great
flower-decked salons, where I usually met Zola and his wife and
other French celebrities in art, the drama, and diplomacy. The most
prominent members of Parisian society considered it the height of
_chic_ and popularity to be photographed in company with their host
and hostess, either at the races or at one of the country châteaux
that the Humberts had bought and in which they constantly had smart
house-parties.
The cleverness of that arch-adventuress has never been equalled.
Financiers crowded about her and offered loans, while she exhibited
to any sceptical persons big piles of letters purporting to be from
the Crawfords, together with voluminous correspondence concerning the
lawsuits that ever and anon cropped up concerning her inheritance.
Madame’s extravagance naturally necessitated a great deal of money,
and at last a woman who was her rival in Society, a certain Madame
Guilbert, set about rumours concerning the famous safe. People began
to hesitate before they made loans, and slowly but surely the great
Action so cleverly built up by twenty years of double-dealing was
brought to a dramatic _dénouement_.
I remember a certain night when, walking past the Madeleine with Zola
and a lawyer friend of his, the latter told us that Waldeck-Rousseau,
the famous lawyer, who had been acting for one of Madame Humbert’s
creditors, had been making very careful investigations, and had
arrived at the conclusion that the whole thing was a colossal swindle.
“Surely not!” I said.
Zola laughed incredulously. He had been misled and bamboozled just as
all Paris had been. Both of us had looked with awe on that great safe
containing £4,000,000.
“Well,” said our friend, “you will see. Waldeck-Rousseau has been
to the director of _Le Matin_ to-day, and has placed all his proofs
before him!”
Surely enough, the famous lawyer had interested the _Matin_ to probe
the great mystery of the safe, with the result that a series of
trenchant articles appeared, and in the end a joint law-case against
Madame Humbert and the bulk of her creditors was commenced. After
many delays the judge decided, as the _Matin_ intended, that the only
way was to inspect the contents of the safe, and he fixed a definite
day for it to be unsealed and unlocked.
And, lo! when opened, the safe supposed to contain £4,000,000 was
found only to contain a foreign copper coin _worth a halfpenny_!
It was on such security madame had obtained some £3,000,000, and
ruined thousands of people!
Madame and her brother Romain Daurignac fled, but were arrested a
few weeks later in Madrid and brought to Paris, where a long and
sensational trial took place. During part of it I was present in
court. Madame Humbert, when pressed, declared that the mythical
Crawford was none other than Marshal Bazaine, the man who surrendered
Metz to the Germans in 1870, and that the four million sterling was
the price he received for his treachery. She further added that when
she discovered the true source of the millions she destroyed the
original will and all the bonds.
Such a fantastic story was, however, not credited, and madame and
her husband were found guilty--“with extenuating circumstances,”
strangely enough--and both sentenced to five years’ solitary
confinement, while Romain Daurignac received three years and Emile
Daurignac two years.
Surely it was the most colossal fraud ever perpetrated in Europe.
* * * * *
I frequently find myself in Nice about Carnival-time, for I served
for several years on the Carnival Committee at San Remo.
On one occasion, while occupying my usual room at the Hôtel de
Luxembourg, on the Promenade des Anglais--which I always do in
preference to the far gayer and better painted ones, for I like quiet
for writing, and can always go to the dancing at the neighbouring
hotels. Paint means everything to a hotel, both here and everywhere
else. White and pale green paint will convert a farmhouse into
a country villa. I always look at the back of a hotel, and test
the qualities of the kitchen. As an old traveller, I think I have
acquired an unerring sense of hotels. They may put their photographs
in Bradshaw, or in their local brochures, and may present themselves
as “the perfect paradise,” but as soon as I cross the threshold and
speak to the reception clerk I can sum the place up. And I am seldom
wrong. The man who is ever travelling acquires the hotel-sense,
whatever that may be. He knows whether after the soup will come
the _lesso_. Perhaps my readers who do not know Italian will not
understand. But your _chef_ of any nationality will, and will smile
if you ask him.
But this is digression, for which I apologize.
Well, on that occasion, at the Luxembourg at Nice I noticed on the
day of my arrival a pinched-faced, grey-eyed little man, with a
despairingly sad expression, being wheeled out of the lift and in to
his meals.
The figure of the poor invalid was most pathetic amongst all the
gaieties of Carnival, the masked crowds, and the famous Battle of
Flowers. So on the next evening I chatted to him, and he drew his
chair up in the billiard-room, while I sat on the raised lounge. He
was forlorn, friendless, hopeless, a gloomy but well-educated man.
His name was Andrade, a Spaniard, but he spoke very good English. He
was a lawyer in Bilbao before he was compelled to retire owing to his
infirmity, he told me.
A week later I was suddenly recalled to London, and regretted leaving
him, as we had become friends and used to chat daily. Indeed, I had
several times walked by his side when his tall, thick-set male nurse
pulled his bath-chair along the promenade.
One evening, about three months later, I came off the Calais express
at the Nord station in Paris, and drove to the Grand Hotel. After
a wash I went down to dinner alone, when I saw across the great
restaurant, at a table in the corner, two very smartly-gowned young
ladies, with three smart-looking men. All were laughing merrily over
their wine.
One of the men I recognized instantly as my crippled friend Señor
Andrade. He was laughing merrily, his glass poised in his hand. Then
he set it down, and, after some words to the girl next to him, they
all rose, and walked out of the restaurant.
He had evidently been restored to health by a miracle! But how?
The situation intrigued me, and what I found out was certainly
interesting. While the two ladies and one of the men were staying
there at the Grand, my crippled friend--who had discarded his invalid
chair, and was apparently leading a gay life--was with his male nurse
living at the Continental, while the other man was a guest at the
Maurice.
I watched still further, and found that while the cripple of Nice
and his male nurse were inseparable, and spent their evenings in the
cabarets on the Montmartre, the little circle always met each morning
for some discussion, and in secret. They met either at the Grand, or
at the Continental, as though they were a party of visitors seeing
Paris.
One morning I had lunched at the Brasserie Universale, in the Avenue
de l’Opéra, and, on going out, I encountered quite unexpectedly
my friend Brigadier Gilliot, of the Sûreté. As we walked together
towards the Louvre, I told him of the mysterious cripple.
Early next morning with my café-au-lait the waiter brought me a note
saying in French:
“MY DEAR LE QUEUX,--Please take no further notice of your
crippled friend. I will explain why, later on.--Your friend,
JULES GILLIOT.”
Two days later the waiter ushered him into my room.
“Well, my dear friend,” he said, with a laugh, “you have done us
a very good turn, though you did it quite unintentionally. Your
friend Andrade is, as I suspected at once, Léon Albacete, the most
daring and expert jewel-thief in Europe. The moment you described
him I had my suspicions, and went back to my bureau to look at his
photograph. Yesterday a jewel-case belonging to the Duchess d’Ussac,
and containing half-a-million francs worth of jewels, was stolen at
the Gare de l’Est, and to-day, knowing what we do, and what was in
progress, we arrested the whole gang. In the room of your cripple
friend was found the jewel-case, with the whole of the contents.
Albacete is a slippery customer. When resting, he adopted the rôle
of invalid, and as a cripple he misled you thoroughly. He was not
arrested without a struggle. He fired two shots at my agents, and one
man has a bullet in his shoulder.”
He was sentenced at the Assize Court of the Seine to ten years’ hard
labour.
Some readers may know the beautiful Villa Igiea Hotel at Palermo,
in Sicily--that great white building facing the blue bay, where the
clear, tideless Mediterranean laps lazily on the brown rocks of the
long terrace.
The lounge, which runs the whole length of the hotel, has long
windows, giving a beautiful view of the sea, and is carpeted in
green, a soft carpet into which one’s feet sink as one walks. It
is one of the most luxurious hotels in all Europe, where one may
exchange the English winter for delightful spring.
In that lounge I met a wealthy, middle-aged Italian nobleman, the
Count Ugo Rizzetti. The hall-porter whispered to me that he was one
of the most wealthy men in Italy, for he possessed in Umbria the
great mediæval Castello Rizzetti, and broad wine-lands around the
neighbouring hills.
Your Italian nobleman is ever the same; elegant, well-dressed,
extremely affable, with sallow face, and in middle-age usually grows
a dark beard.
The Count was very popular among the ladies in the hotel. He had been
there a fortnight when I arrived. In speech he was full of quick
gestures, his eyes were dark and brilliant, and his face was rather
sallow.
He was a heavy cigar-smoker, and always had excellent Havanas. He
told me that he loved golf, and played frequently on the Florence
course, and when he was in England he had played at Ascot with some
friends named Walker.
Ours was quite a pleasant friendship. We took many long walks
together along the picturesque sea-road to Arenella and the Vergine
Maria, or up to Monreale, with its wonderful view across the sapphire
bay, or perhaps to the summit of Monte Pellegrino. Then, before
dinner, we usually took our _apéritifs_, either at the big Trinacria,
on the Quattro Canti, or at the Italia.
Count Rizzetti was a charming man, more refined than most Italians,
and he seemed quite well versed in Cinquecento art, and that of the
Proto-Renaissance, of which I had very little knowledge. He evidently
moved in the best Italian society, and talked to me of the Strozzis
as his intimate friends.
One afternoon, after we both had been out at a picnic with
Henniker-Heaton, of Post Office reform fame, I returned to my room,
and was much surprised to find unlocked the leather despatch-case
that I always kept locked because I had a certain private
telegraph-code inside.
I knew I had locked it with my own hand. Who could have a second key?
I called the chambermaid, but she denied all knowledge of the matter.
It was, to me, a most mysterious affair.
At dinner I mentioned it in confidence to the Count, and he seemed
most perturbed that anybody had tried to penetrate into my private
affairs.
That night, immediately after dinner, I went out to meet a lady at
the Hôtel des Palmiers.
Next morning I had occasion to go to the General Post Office in
Palermo, when, on entering, I saw the Count at the _guichet_ of the
_poste-restante_, and, as I approached him from behind, the clerk
handed him a letter that I saw was addressed, not to Count Ugo
Rizzetti, but to “Signor M. Carava.”
I noticed that he was much confused at our encounter, but I took
no notice. It was not a crime for a man to receive letters at a
_poste-restante_ in a name not his own. I had done it myself. But,
ever since I had mentioned the mysterious search of my belongings,
the Count had seemed to have avoided me. Perhaps, however, it was
only my fancy.
I saw little of him that day except at meals, but that night, while
I was sitting alone in the beautiful palm-garden facing the sea,
enjoying the bright moonlight and watching the brightly-lit mail
steamer crossing the bay on its way to Naples, the _maître d’hôtel_
approached me, and in a low, confidential tone said:
“There is a gentleman at the front door of the hotel, signore, who
wishes to see you privately. He prefers to remain outside.”
In surprise I rose and followed the man through the hotel to the
front entrance, where I was met by a well-dressed, thin-faced,
middle-aged Italian, who raised his soft grey hat, and, after
inquiring my name, politely said:
“I believe you are a friend of the Commendatore Pavolini in Rome,
signore?”
The stranger had mentioned the name of the Chief of the Italian
Secret Police, who was an old friend of mine, and whom I had more
than once assisted in some delicate inquiries.
I replied in the affirmative, whereupon he said:
“I am Questore (Chief of Police) of Palermo. The Commendatore sent
me a telegram in cipher an hour ago, asking you to pack your things
and leave this hotel at once. Go anywhere you wish--anywhere out of
Palermo---to Messina, or across to Calabria. But do not remain here.
He asks you to do this at once.”
“But why?” I inquired, much puzzled.
“Unfortunately, signore, I am not in a position to explain,” was the
police official’s polite response. “Of course, our conversation is
strictly private. When you leave here do not leave your address. The
Commendatore will tell you the reason in due course.”
“But it is late,” I remarked.
“The express to Messina leaves at a quarter to eleven,” he remarked.
“Very well, I will go by that to Messina,” I said much puzzled. “I
will stay at the Regina Elena for a day or two. Will you let the
Commendatore know?”
“Certainly,” he replied, and, raising his hat, turned, and was
quickly lost in the darkness.
During that night I lay in the _wagon-lit_ between Palermo and
Messina, wondering why my friend had sent me that mysterious message.
Signor Pavolini is well known in London, for at one time he was
Commissary of Police at the Italian Consulate-General, after a
brilliant police record as chief of the detective service in Florence.
Next evening the concierge of the hotel at Messina handed me a
telegram, which I found was from the great police official. His words
were: “_See newspapers--Pavolini._”
I dashed out and bought an evening paper, when a glaring head-line
caught my eye: “Arrest of Pietro Rossi.”
Pietro Rossi! At last the assassin, who had been hunted for nearly
a year, had been caught. Readers of the continental newspapers will
no doubt recollect the sensational case. The Baroness di Vinadio, a
wealthy old lady who lived in a great cinquecento palace in Bologna,
was believed to have gone to Paris, for the servants had been sent
on holiday and the place closed. When it was re-opened by a relative
who could obtain no news of the Baroness, the body of the unfortunate
lady was found on the floor of her dressing-room. She had, according
to the medical evidence, been dead about three weeks.
A steel despatch-box, containing the Baroness’s jewels and a
considerable sum of money and negotiable securities, had been opened
with its key, and the contents extracted, while the whole place
was stripped of its plate and pictures, among them a small ancient
painting of S. Francesco on a panel about six inches square.
After much investigation two servants, the Baroness’s maid and a
footman, were arrested, the little painting being found concealed at
the house of the footman’s father, while among the maid’s belongings
was a brooch that was identified as the property of the dead
Baroness. The maid protested that the brooch had been given her by
her mistress before she left for Paris.
The pair were tried and convicted, and, while the footman was
sentenced to solitary imprisonment for life, the woman escaped with
ten years’ penal servitude.
My friend the Commendatore Pavolini was, however, not quite
satisfied. The trial had caused a great sensation, but, expert
criminologist that he was, he felt that there was something further
behind it all. After long and diligent inquiry he discovered that
the Baroness had met in secret and been courted by Pietro Rossi, a
good-looking, well-educated clerk employed by her lawyers in Milan.
Perhaps this man was scheming to get the old lady’s money, but it is
evident the woman was flattered by the man’s attentions, otherwise
she would not have met him clandestinely, as she did. No doubt he
proposed marriage to her and was refused. Whereupon he formed a
deep-laid and diabolical plot. He knew that the brooch had been given
by the Baroness to her maid, and, having first made the acquaintance
of the footman’s father, a gardener, he took the little picture,
and succeeded in one of his visits to the house to slip it behind a
wardrobe.
Later he made a secret rendezvous with the old lady at the palazzo,
after the house had been shut and everyone thought she had gone to
Paris, as indeed she had done and returned to Bologna unnoticed.
He calmly and callously murdered her, and decamped with all her
property, disposing of the securities in Brussels a week later. He
gained by his crime nearly twenty thousand pounds, therefore he
assumed the title of Count, and led a life of luxury, while the
innocent pair were tried and sentenced.
After six months, however, the maid and footman were suddenly
released, and the police of Europe and America were raising a
hue-and-cry for the lawyer’s clerk Pietro Rossi, who proved to be no
other than my fascinating companion, Count Ugo Rizzetti.
It was not long before I learned that the mysterious visitor to my
room was a police agent who was inquiring into my identity as an
associate of Rossi; and my old friend’s warning was in order that I
should be able to slip away from Palermo and not be called on to give
evidence.
Rossi was tried at Bologna, and sentenced to solitary confinement
for life. He died in his cell about a year ago.
Another famous _escroc_ I met was the Comte de Rebecque.