Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison Part 6

So far all was well; that is, all was well from our point of view. The next two or three days Brea paid several visits to the Chemical Bank, getting small checks for $500 and $1,000 certified, and now had his account drawn down to $1,000. The day before he had called on Jay Cooke & Co. and told them he would take $240,000 in seven thirties, "Bearer"

bonds, and that he would call the next day and pay for them. At the same time he got them to give him a proforma bill for them.

The eventful day had come, and James, to get his head clerk out of the way, sent him to the Admiralty Court to take notes of the evidence in a case going on there.

At 10 o'clock Brea sent a messenger with a note to the bankers, requesting them to send the bonds to Edwin James' office, and he would pay for them on delivery. He could not come himself, as he was in consultation with the executors of the estate.

In the mean time a check for the full value of the bonds, $240,000, had been made out. It was drawn on the Chemical Bank, and was, in fact, similar to those always given between bankers on bond transactions.

Brea had drawn his own check for $240, and had it in his hatband with the $240,000 dummy check. The plan is palpable enough. When the messenger brought the bonds Brea, or Newman, was going to say: "All right, I have the check here; bring the bonds and we will go to the Chemical Bank and get them to certify my check." Then when at the bank he would take out both checks, letting the messenger only get a glimpse of one, and that would be the small $240 one, which Brea would pa.s.s in through the window with a request to have it certified. This would be done, and when handed out, of course, Brea was to change it and hand the messenger the big one of home manufacture.

It seemed impossible for the scheme to fail, and success in it meant on the surface comparative wealth for us all, with, perhaps, in the not distant future an entrance through the McAllister-guarded portals of the Four Hundred.

But here we have a vivid instance of how easily an elaborate scheme can by the merest accident fall to pieces.

The night before the expected coup we met James for a final full-dress rehearsal for the morrow, and after everything was settled adjourned to the uptown Delmonico's for supper. It so happened that Detective George Elder was there. This Elder was a bright fellow, was in a ring--but not in our ring--and, of course, had his bank account, diamond pin and turnout for the road. He had had some acquaintance with me, but the rest of the party were strangers. I did not see him at the time, but it would seem he was curious, even suspicious, from some sc.r.a.ps of conversation he overheard. However, neither his curiosity nor suspicion would have been of any consequence or concern to us had it not been that, in going out, Brea left on the table with some papers the memorandum or pro forma bill of the bonds given him the day before by the bankers. Strangely enough, the body of the bill alone was intact. The heading bearing the name of the firm and purchaser had been torn off and destroyed.

Elder picked it up and, having some vague suspicions of a plot somewhere, he determined to go around among the hundred or more bankers and brokers in and around Wall street and investigate quietly, without making any report to his superiors, his immediate superior being, of course, our honest friend, the worthy chief of the detective force, who was anxiously looking for his percentage of the deal. The whole force was split up into cliques, each intensely jealous of every other, each with its own stamping grounds, and each strictly protected his own preserves.

At 9:30 the next morning Elder started around carrying the fragment of the memorandum he had picked up from bank to bank and from one broker to the other. He had spent over an hour making inquiries, and walked into Jay Cooke & Co.'s office just as the messenger was leaving with the bonds for James' office. Fifteen minutes more and the game was ours!

Elder produced the memorandum, and they at once recognized it as their own. Elder asked them if they knew their man and were sure it was all right. They said it was perfectly right, that Mr. "Newman" had been introduced by the head of the firm in Philadelphia, and was also a client of Edwin James; but then it was strange the bill should be mutilated. Elder averred his belief that a fraud was intended, and suggested that he and the manager should accompany the messenger with the bonds. This alarmed the manager, and he directed Elder and the messenger to await his return. Seizing his hat, he started for James'

office to investigate. James was there, and Brea (the pseudo Newman) was in the private office with the two checks ready, anxiously awaiting the arrival of the messenger with the bonds.

Myself and all the other members of our party were nearby, watching and awaiting developments. The manager, considerably perturbed, entered the office, and James saw at once the business was a failure, for he knew, of course, that any suspicion as to good faith would be fatal to the success of the plot. Brea, hearing the voices and supposing it was the messenger with the bonds, opened the door of the private office and was vexed to see the manager, who, shaking him by the hand, told him the bonds would arrive soon, at the same time saying: "I suppose you will pay currency for the bonds?" To which Brea replied: "I will go to my bank with you now and get my check certified for the amount and give it to you, or leave it until the messenger comes with the bonds."

This offer, along with Brea's coolness, apparently disarmed all suspicions, and he said: "Oh, all right, the messenger will go to the bank with you." He left the office, but stopped in the hall for a moment, then turned and hastily re-entering, said: "By the way, Mr.

Newman, please draw the currency from the bank, and pay the notes to the messenger upon delivery of the bonds."

So the grand coup had failed, ignominiously failed, and through what appeared a trivial accident. More such "accidents" at critical periods will appear before this history is ended.

The dummy check was still in our hands, and was at once destroyed, so, with nothing to fear, we coolly walked up Broadway to dinner, and talked of the future over a bottle of wine. At last we fixed upon a definite plan. Clinking our gla.s.ses, we drank to "Eastward, Ho!"

[Ill.u.s.tration: MERCHANTS EXCHANGE, ILLUMINATED.]

CHAPTER XI.

"CRACK THE LAWYER'S VOICE THAT HE MAY NEVER MORE FALSE t.i.tLES PLEAD, NOR SOUND HIS QUILLETS SHRILLY."

The Eastward Ho was a hint of a project we had frequently talked over as a possible speculation. Here we see how men are led on step by step from bad to worse when once they set out on the Primrose Way.

In returning from Europe with the $10,000 commission in my pocket, I vowed never again to engage in any unlawful speculation. I was through!

No criminal life for me! Then came the day when we struck for the $20,000 and won, and we were all happy in the thought that our last unlawful deed was over.

Then we took the third step we had vowed never to take, and had discussed the $240,000 project. We had spent money on it, had laid our plans cunningly and deep, and were confident of success. We had even planned how to invest our thousands in an honest business, and so win the esteem of all good men, and, of course, in some happy future would make rest.i.tution. But that is a future which never comes in the history of crime. These three wrong steps had been taken only after convincing ourselves that the circ.u.mstances justified each separate act.

Such is the contradiction of human nature that even when planning crime we not only intended to make rest.i.tution, but despised all other wrongdoers and reprobated their crimes. Each wrongful act of ours was to be the last, and it was with something like despair that we began to realize that there was no stopping place on the dangerous road we were treading.

My $13,000 commission from the European trip had melted away. Our share of the $20,000 got from Jay Cooke & Co. was fast going. Our deep-laid plot to win $240,000 had miscarried, and now the necessity was upon us of engaging in another illegitimate operation if we would continue in our life of ease and luxury.

For the next few days we did little but dine and plan. Discussion followed discussion, and through them all we clung to the general proposition that we would not do any more in our particular line in America. At last we resolved to go to Europe and realize the fortune that seemed to elude our grasp at home.

We resolved to tell Irving in a general way that we were going to Europe to make some money, and would pay him and his two fellows their percentage. Then we could (apparently) work with impunity; for, of course, if we committed a forgery in Europe and were recognised as Americans--as probably we would be--the foreign police would report the case to the New York police--that is, to Irving--and we should be safe in New York.

Edwin James and Brea had dropped out of our lives for good, but as my readers will be curious to know of their fate in after times, I will relate it in this chapter.

The morning our scheme on Jay Cooke & Co. fell to pieces, as soon as the manager left the office, telling Brea he was to pay cash for the bonds in place of the check, it was recognized at once that the game was up, and the only thing remaining was to s.h.i.+eld James as much as possible. So Brea left the office, but first instructed the clerk to tell the messenger when he came that he had gone for the money, and would call for the bonds. This was done, the messenger arrived, being accompanied by Detective Elder all the time, and took the bonds back again.

At 2 o'clock James went down to the bankers, where he was well known, and inquired for Mr. Newman. Being told he was not in, he said he had made an appointment to meet him there. Invited into the inner office, the manager asked him if he had any personal knowledge of this Mr.

Newman, and James said no further than that he had called and given him a retaining fee of $250, and had engaged him as legal adviser, etc. Then the manager produced a telegram he had received in answer to one he had sent to the Philadelphia house, inquiring about Newman, and asking if his letter of introduction was genuine or not. James read the reply; it said the letter was genuine, but that they knew absolutely nothing about the man, and warned him to be cautious. James pretended astonishment, and feigned to be very indignant, declaring that if Mr. Newman did not put in an appearance within half an hour he should begin to fear a fraud had been attempted. When the closing hour came at 3 o'clock, the manager announced to James that he should give the whole matter to the press, but would keep his name out of it.

So they parted with warm congratulations over their escape, the manager pretending to believe James was an innocent tool, but no doubt with a shrewd suspicion that he intended to have a finger in this pie, had the pie ever been baked and divided. Had the bankers been victimized they would have striven with all their power to keep the fact a secret and forbidden their employees to breathe a word about it to any one. But now the case was different. All the morning papers had long accounts of the transaction. They were absurdly inaccurate, but all agreed as to the extreme cleverness of the manager, and noticed how he had suspected, etc., while poor Elder, who both expected and really deserved all the glory, was not even mentioned in the newspaper accounts. However, his feelings were soon after solaced, as Irving informed us that Elder had stood in on a deal that paid him well.

The $5,000 we gave James eased up matters for a time. Practice he had none, but managed to hold on in the hope of realizing on the Brea will matter, but getting deeper and deeper in debt. One night, four years later, the old lady, Brea's mother-in-law, had a more than usually furious outbreak of temper, and fell to beating the three daughters still living with her. Before it was over she had attacked and seriously injured the eldest, and then flew to her room in a pa.s.sion. Not appearing at breakfast the next morning her daughter went to her room, but she was not there, and the bed was undisturbed. Going to the room that served for office and library, they found the door, as usual, locked. Bursting it open the poor old maids found their mother huddled in a corner of the room dead.

Truly a happy relief for the daughters. Poor girls, theirs had been a hard life. Every suitor who tried to cultivate their acquaintance had been driven from the door by the mother, who never spent a dollar on their education, and her death found them all unused to the ways of the world. The result was that all became victims of fortune-hunters, and the unhappy ladies only changed the tyranny of an unnatural mother for the tyranny of a husband, who in each case wedded for wealth alone, and all three husbands were uncultured men. What an experience! Two of the three still live. How sweet the rest of the grave will be to them!

The genuine will was destroyed and the "family lawyer," James, immediately after the funeral, produced and read "the last will and testament" of the dead woman. The four sisters and a host of poor relations were present at the reading. When Sarah, Brea's wife, heard her name read as chief heir of the vast estate, she was stunned, but if she was stunned, the rest of the family were paralyzed. Legacies were left to many, small in amount, save in the case of the other three sisters, who were to have a certain tenement and land in Harlem and three thousand a year for life out of the estate. None of those present thought for a moment of questioning either the genuineness of the will or the validity of the testaments, save only a poor relation, a nephew, whose name was down for $500. He was indignant with the old lady and loudly declared that he would not put up with it. The next day he employed a briefless lawyer, one that had wit and bra.s.s enough and who had his way to make in the world, and was determined to make it.

Without waiting for the will to be probated or having legal authority to do so, Brea and his wife, the very day of the funeral, moved into the house and took possession. But before the week was out he had persuaded the three old maids that they would be happier if away from the scene of their parent's death, so he had them installed in their own house at Harlem, he remaining in undisturbed possession, waiting only for the will to be probated in order to take possession of upward of $200,000 in cash and bonds still in the custody of the old lady's bank. He had full possession of the house, and with entire confidence waited to be put in legal possession of all. But little did he dream that at that moment there was one poor torn sheet of foolscap in the library, casually thrust in a book, lying completely at his mercy to destroy, if he could only have known it, which was going to tear all his wealth from his grasp and drive him forth a foiled plotter, to become an adventurer and ultimately to perish a miserable outcast.

The executors of the will (the same in the forged will as in the genuine) were two simple shopkeepers living near. Eagan was the name of the nephew, and to the surprise of the executors his attorney notified them he should contest the will on behalf of his client, and warned them to dispossess Brea of the house until such time as the law decreed it to be his wife's property. The attorney knew the standing of James in his profession, and, being capable of pretty sharp practice himself, he, by some extraordinary intuition, boldly a.s.serted his belief that the will was a forgery. The three sisters declared they would not contest the will, and had Brea acted wisely by fixing it up to give the attorney a liberal fee, and Eagan a paltry thousand dollars, it would have ended there. But, feeling perfectly secure, no doubt he thought an appearance of firmness would strengthen his position still more, and he was so rash as to denounce the attorney as a shyster and blackmailer.

The attorney's blood was up; he frightened the sisters into supporting him in disputing the will, and had Brea and his wife ousted from the house and the sisters reinstalled. Brea then attempted negotiations with the attorney. Cautious as he was, he said enough to convince the lawyer that for some reason he did not want the case to come before the courts; still the attorney was half inclined to join hands with Brea. In the mean time Ezra (this was the name of the man of law) had acquired great power over the sisters, and they all looked to him both as champion and protector. He resolved to be protector to one, at least, paying a.s.siduous court to Jane, the youngest. Although past 30 and without education or accomplishments, she was warm-hearted and extremely sentimental, and a thrill went through her tender heart when it became evident that Ezra's attention pointed at her. She quickly made him a hero, and invested the thin-shanked, narrow-chested, waspish attorney with a thousand tender attributes, and when, after one month's acquaintance, she found herself alone with him in the poky little parlor and he asking her to be his wife, her woman's heart overflowed, and telling him she had loved him from the first hour they met she threw herself into his arms, crying she was the happiest and most favored woman in the world. In the midst of the happy lovers' talk she ran to the shelf, took down a book, and, opening it, revealed a soiled sheet of paper and asked her lover what it was. His love had given him a gift, indeed. His trained eye recognized it at once as a draft of a new will, in the handwriting of the deceased mother, and dated the very night of her death. It was a rough draft, but across the bottom was drawn the bold, masculine signature of the old lady. There were no signatures of witnesses, but Ezra was lawyer enough to know it would stand and that it revoked all previous wills. Calling in the two elder sisters he read the will to their amazed ears, and then and there wrote out a full statement as to the circ.u.mstance under which it was found. All four attached their signatures to the doc.u.ment, and when Ezra kissed his love a tender good night and went home, he hardly felt the paving stones under his feet, for he had carefully tucked away in the inside pocket of his vest, just over his heart, the little soiled piece of paper which told him in unmistakable terms that his fortune was made, and the wedding ceremony once over, that it was beyond all chance of change.

It would seem that the old lady, after her quarrel with her daughters, went to the library in a rage and made the draft of a new will. The chief change in it, as compared with the old genuine will which the conspirators had destroyed, was that it was more favorable to Jane, Ezra's wife to be. But what gave Ezra the greatest satisfaction was the fact that Brea's wife was down by name in the new will for one dollar lawful currency. The will was promptly filed and probated. Ezra gave bonds and was appointed one of the executors, and he had what to him was the immense satisfaction of denouncing Brea to his face as a forger and villain.

Before the discovery of the new will, while it was believed that Mrs.

Brea was an heiress and her credit good, she and her husband had made use of the fact, and had incurred debts to a large amount. Brea got his wife to indorse his note for $10,000, and he borrowed that sum from the bankers, but as soon as the true state of the case was known, his creditors became clamorous and had him arrested on civil suits. Unable to give bonds, he was locked up in Ludlow Street Jail, and there he remained six months, until, acting upon Ezra's advice, the sisters agreed to pay all his debts and give him and his wife $1,000 each if they would live west of Chicago. This they were forced to accept, and went to Montana. Brea opened a saloon at b.u.t.te City, but he never recovered his spirits again. He became his own best customer, and that, of course, meant ruin, but what, after all, killed him was the knowledge that he had been for more than a score of days in full possession of that old house and had spent scores of hours alone in the old library, and yet had not discovered and destroyed the new will lying there at his mercy.

The Sheriff soon sold out his saloon, while his wife eloped with his best friend. Ruined in pocket, health and character, poor old Brea was left bare to every storm that blew. One morning, as the sun was rising over the town, surprising half a dozen belated gamblers in Ned Wright's saloon as they were getting up to leave, they found lying across the threshold the body of a man, ragged, emaciated, forlorn. It was Brea.

As soon as James had read the will he insisted upon having $5,000 from Brea at once, and he got the money. But when that thunderbolt of the new will fell on the two men, James sadly recognized that fortune and he would shake hands no more, so far as this world is concerned, and he resolved to chance returning to London before the whole of the $5,000 he had from Brea was gone. To London he went; he lived a few years in extreme poverty, driven to all manner of miserable s.h.i.+fts, and at last died. This man died who ought to have been buried in Westminster Abbey, so adding one more brilliant name to the long line of ill.u.s.trious Lord Chancellors from Thomas a Becket and Cardinal Wolsey down; but he, hating his own soul, took the first step in wrongdoing, and, instead of resting in the mighty Abbey and bequeathing his dust as a precious legacy to succeeding generations, perished forlorn and alone, and was buried in a pauper's grave.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GARRAWAY'S.]

CHAPTER XII.

RESTEZ ICI, MES ENFANTS.

We all landed in Liverpool in the highest spirits, and at once took the train for London, enjoying the novelty of everything.