Odd People

by Basil Thomson

  Every now and then there was a sensational seizure at the house of a receiver of stolen property. In October 1913 a certain jeweller’s shop in Shaftesbury Avenue was raided and the contents were carried off to Bow Street, which resembled for some days an exhibition of wedding presents. It contained the proceeds of quite twenty known burglaries and even then only one-third of the plate had been identified because it has been found by experience that in these days, when people insure their jewellery against burglary and draw the insurance money, they take little interest in bringing the thieves to justice. There is also the fact that things are stolen from a house sometimes for many months before they are missed. Some of the objects in this exhibition belonged to a Lady H. and while she was going round she caught sight of a clock given to her by Lord Charles Beresford which she thought was still at home. Unclaimed stolen property is held by the police for a certain period and then disposed of by public auction.

  In 1913 there was an epidemic of safe-breaking. The capacity of the oxyacetylene flame for cutting through steel plates appealed to the safe-breaker, who had long deplored the weight and inefficiency of the tools on which he had to rely for his livelihood. For years there has been a competition between the burglar and the safe-maker and so far I believe the safe-maker has won.

  Two enterprising persons spent a Sunday afternoon in the summer of 1913 in a certain office in Regent Street cutting a great hole in the safe with an oxyacetylene apparatus, which they had transported to the house in a taxi-cab on the previous afternoon. Having secured their booty they left this very incriminating apparatus behind them.

  Not many weeks later the police were forewarned that an attempt would be made on a safe in a certain much frequented cinema hall, but here the burglars received a nervous shock. All went according to plan that Sunday afternoon. The street and the hall had the deserted Sunday look when, on a sudden, just as operations were beginning, from every corner sprang truncheoned men and the burglars were caught in a trap.

  CHAPTER 3

  THE LURE OF SOMETHING FOR NOTHING

  THE GREAT BUSINESS of transferring the contents of your neighbour’s pocket to your own is what more than nine-tenths of the world live upon. Society draws the line between what is legitimate and what is dishonest rather low down in the scale. A grocer may rob you by high prices but not by giving you short weight; a moneylender may fleece you by usury but not by picking your pocket; but I confess to a sneaking preference for the rogue who, without any pretence of respectability, preys upon your vanity or your cupidity and cheats you quite openly.

  The Spanish prisoner fraud has flourished for nearly half a century. It has the advantage over all other frauds in costing practically nothing for stock-in-trade and incurring no risk whatever to the practitioner. All he needs is a little stationery, a few postage stamps and the names and addresses of farmers in Scotland and England. The farmer receives a letter with the Valencia postmark from a Spanish colonel now languishing in prison on account of the part he played in a revolutionary conspiracy.

  My dear sir and relative,

  Having not the honour to know you personally but only for the good references my deceased mother Mary Harris, your relative, did me about your family, I apply myself to you for the first and perhaps last time to implore your protection for my only daughter Amelia, child twelve years age.

  Here the writer is banking on the fact that very few of us are in a position positively to say that no one of the sisters or cousins of our parents was called Mary and that no one of that name married a Spaniard. The letter, which is beautifully written in halting English, goes on to say that the writer, a colonel named Alvaro de Espinosa, at the direction of the revolutionary committee, went to Berlin to buy arms, was betrayed and went to England, but that while in London he heard of the death of his wife. In the first shock of grief he converted all his property into English and French banknotes and with the proceeds cunningly concealed in the lining of his trunk he set out for Valencia.

  Well disguised, I went out to Spain, arrived in this city. Arranged secretly some private business, took my leave from the martyr as was my noble wife and when I was very near coming in England again with my daughter but with my heart contrite by grief I was arrested. A wretch enemy had recognised and accused me. They proceeded me and after in a war court I was condemned by desertion and rebellion delinquency at one indemnification at twelve jail years and at the payment of the process outlays, a sentence I am undergoing now in these military jails, deprived of any intercourse.

  When I was arrested my equipage which is a trunk and two portmanteaux, was seized and sealed and folded before me and delivering me its keys without might be discovered the so well artful secret in which I hidden the said sum and it remained laid down in the same Court as a warranty for the outlays of process payment in the event of being condemned and as I am already unhappily sentenced it is indispensable to pay the court the amount of the expenses to be able to recover the luggage. Thereby necessary sum pay the tribunal by the process outlays since I would not see me in the debasing and shameful case to have to resort to my fellow countrymen; then I would be wretchedly betrayed again.

  That is why he writes to Harris. But what is Harris to get out of all this? You shall hear. When the trunk reaches him,

  you will see in its interior part and in its left side of Spain shield in its centre you will set upon your forefinger so that when an electric bell is pushed and quickly the secret will appear in full view in which you will find my fortune … I will name you as tutor of my daughter and her fortune trustee until her full age and as a right reward for your noble aid I leave you the fourth part of all my fortune.

  So there you have it – something for nothing – the bait which so few can resist; least of all when the something is £6,250 and a beautiful young Spanish ward.

  The poor old revolutionary colonel is in a dying state, as you learn from a letter from the chaplain, the Reverend Adrian Rosado, which is enclosed. This devoted priest has letter paper headed with a cross and has a markedly feminine handwriting. He is not in the secret, as the cautious old colonel has been careful to warn you. He ‘befriends me by his vocation and good feelings: he is a venerable priest and honest man and I do not think it necessary he knows the secret very extensively.’ The honest man regrets very much ‘that on the first time I write to you I may be herald of bad news, but the case so requires it and the truth must be said though it may be painful. Your relative’s health state is very bad.’

  Indeed, so bad that ‘we must have patience to suffer with resignation what God dispose and beg his help to accomplish the last will of the unfortunate Sr Alvaro de Espinosa.’

  The honest priest goes on to say that in a little while he will deposit Miss Amelia and the trunk at your door, always provided that the necessary expenses are defrayed.

  By your relative charge I think convenient to beg your aid for getting out the seized equipage to which end I am making steps in order that the Tribunal tell me the exactly amount to pay the cost and process expenses.

  Awaiting anxiously your reply to accomplish the sacred mission your relative has commissioned me.

  I am, dear sir, your most affected servant and Chaplain,

  Adrian Rogado

  Strange that this holy and disinterested man should have a delicacy about receiving letters at his presbytery. He, no less than the poor prisoner, adds in a postscript – ‘By greater security please answer to my brother-in-law, name and here as following: Mr Arturo Rivier, Maldonado 19, Entremets, Valencia, Spain.’

  Is it because a letter addressed to the presbytery would be returned through the Dead Letter Office marked that no such person as Rogado exists?

  The world may be divided into two classes – those who would reply to such letters and those who would consign them to the fire. In spite of the picture drawn of Englishmen by envious foreigners, the Britisher is by nature an imaginative and romantic person. That is why you find him in every part of the globe:
he goes abroad for adventure, to escape from the humdrum routine of his home surroundings. And the farther you go north the more romantic he becomes. That is why there are so few Scots left in Scotland. To judge from the correspondence filed by the police, nine out of every ten reply and because the Britisher is practical as well as romantic, the reply invariably asks how much money is required to pay the ‘process outlays’. On this the dying Espinosa, whose handwriting is unusually firm for a stricken man so near his end, rises to fresh flights of eloquence:

  ‘I will die peaceful,’ he says, ‘thinking of the good future welfare of my dear daughter near you.’

  His ‘health state is becoming grievous’ and so he makes his will:

  Here is my last will.

  I name heiress of the three-fourths parts of my fortune my alone daughter Amelia de Espinosa.

  I name you heir of the fourth part of my fortune and Tutor of my daughter and Manager of it until this one may reach her full age.

  As soon as the equipage may be in the Chaplain’s hands he shall go out to your home with my daughter and equipage in order that you may take away the money of my trunk secret to come immediately in possession of the sum.

  From the part belonging to my daughter you will deliver to the Chaplain £200, for I will make a present to him. I beseech you to grant all your assistance to the Chaplain since he is poor and he does not reckon upon any resource to pay these outlays.

  The equipage must be recovered immediately, for in the trunk is all my fortune.

  You will place my daughter in a college until her full age … I shall die peaceful thinking of her being happy near you and she will find on you some warm-hearted parents and brothers.

  Your unfortunate relative,

  Alvaro de Espinosa

  And still no mention of money: that was because the recipient was more than usually cautious and was, in fact, a wary fish that must be played. So wary was he that he took the letter to the police for advice. But I remember a case where a farmer in Norfolk was so much touched by the misfortunes of his Spanish cousin and so conscious of the sensation that would be caused among his neighbours when it became known that he was guardian to a beautiful young Spanish heiress, to say nothing of the things that might be bought with £6,250, that he sent £200 to the address indicated by Espinosa and sat down to wait. He waited so long that he became anxious about the safety of the chaplain and his ward and it was on their account and not from any doubt about the story, that he came to the police. He indignantly refused to believe that he had been a victim to the familiar Spanish prisoner fraud.

  The war was unkind to Espinosa, who had been lingering upon his death-bed for over forty years and I hoped that it had killed him, but the ink was scarcely dry upon the Treaty of Versailles before he broke out again. From time to time the Spanish government has been furnished with the address to which victims are invited to reply, but hitherto to no purpose: the game is too profitable to be easily killed.

  I can understand succumbing to the wiles of Espinosa better than I can understand the perennial success of the confidence trick, which is practised generally by Australians on American visitors to London. There are several variants because the tricksters are artists and are not above improving with practice. Here again the bait is ‘something for nothing’. Though the commonest form has been described in the police court it may be well to repeat it here. An American walking in Hyde Park sees an elderly man drop a pocketbook. He overtakes him and restores it. The old man, whom we will call Ryan, is effusively grateful. He would not have lost that pocketbook for the world: it contained the evidence of his fortune: his benefactor must come and have a drink. He holds him with his glittering eye and while they imbibe whisky he tells his story – how an uncle of fabulous wealth but eccentric habits has left him a couple of million dollars on condition that he can find a really trustworthy person to distribute one-eighth of the sum among the poor of London. The dupe mentions the fact that he has a return ticket to New York and hails from Denver. So, as it now appears, does Ryan, who takes from his pocketbook a newspaper cutting setting forth the virtues and the enormous fortune of the uncle and at that very moment a third man, Ryan’s confederate, drops in. Hearing the word ‘Denver’, he joins in the conversation, for he, too, is from Denver – George T. Davis, at their service. So there they are – three exiles from Denver – a little oasis in the vast waste of London. To George T. Davis Ryan relates his good fortune and the strange condition in the will.

  ‘I know no one in this city. How am I to find a man in whom I have confidence to distribute all this money? Now I like your face, Mr Davis, but I don’t know you – never saw you till this afternoon – how can I say I’ve confidence in you?’

  ‘Confidence for confidence,’ replies Davis. ‘I’ve confidence in you anyway. I’d trust you with all I’ve got, and I’ve got more than what I stand up in. Why, see here! Here’s what I drew from the bank this morning’ – he thrusts a roll of bank (of engraving) notes into Ryan’s unwilling hand – ‘and here’s my watch and chain! Take them all and just walk through that door. I know you’ll bring them back because I’ve confidence in you.’ But Ryan still looks doubtful. ‘No good,’ whispers Davis. ‘He don’t take to me. Why don’t you have a shot at the money? He takes to you.’

  And so by appeals to the vanity of the man from Denver, by playing on his cupidity, under the softening influences of liquid refreshment, by the force of example, Davis succeeds at last. Into the still apparently unwilling hand of Ryan the victim presses all the money and valuables he possesses and out goes Ryan into the street. The two men continue drinking: George T. Davis is the first to betray anxiety.

  ‘The old man ought to be back by now. Can’t understand it – man I’d have trusted anywhere. Couldn’t have been run over by a taxi? You stop here: I’ll just step out and see where he’s got to.’ And that is the last that the victim sees of either of the rogues.

  Before the war most of the confidence men lived in Ealing. Each pair have their own pitch and there was a tacit understanding that neither should poach on the ground of the other. Northumberland Avenue belonged to one; the Mall to another; a third worked Hyde Park. The essence of the trick is that the victim should be a bird of passage, for as soon as the trick is played the actors leave for Rome. Why Rome was chosen I never understood. There they stayed until a confederate reported that the victim had sailed for home and the coast was clear. During the war the poor confidence man fell on evil days: there were no American tourists to prey upon and if there had been any, one could not fly to Rome. The passport people saw to that. The absence of a prosecutor is a bar to police action, but occasionally one or other of the fraternity is run to ground.

  I have sometimes doubted whether the police should be called upon to protect people so simple that they ought not to be allowed abroad without a nurse. I remember a prisoner making the same complaint to me. ‘It’s cruel hard on us chaps,’ he said, ‘when mugs like them are at large. It’s a temptation: that’s what it is.’ But he was not doing his profession justice. Like all artistic callings – like the stage for instance – the reward lies not in the emoluments, but in the satisfaction of playing on the feelings of your audience until you hold them.

  Given impudence and the artistic sense and a man may remove mountains – at any rate he may remove houses. At Dartmoor there was a man who boasted that he was ‘the lad that stole a row of houses’, and it was no idle boast. In the City there was a row of derelict eighteenth-century cottages which in these days would have been condemned as unfit for human habitation. Tenants must have come to a similar conclusion about them, for an agent’s board, already weather-worn, announced that they were to let. One morning a young man called at the house agent’s and got into conversation with the clerk. ‘So those houses in Paradise Row are to let. I’d like to have a look at them and see whether it would suit my governor to make an offer.’

  ‘Right,’ said the clerk, ‘come tomorrow and I’ll take you roun
d. I can’t come now, I’m alone in the office.’

  ‘Don’t you worry, old man. Lend me the key and I’ll be back with it in half an hour.’

  The clerk was glad to be rid of him on such easy terms.

  A week later an old client happened to look in. ‘I see you‘re pulling down those old death-traps in Paradise Row. It was about time you did.’

  ‘Pulling them down? What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean what I say. I passed there just now and there’s not much left.’

  The clerk glanced hastily at the nail where the key was wont to hang. The key was gone and then he remembered how he came to part with it. He tore out of the office without his hat, risked a hundred deaths from buses and reached his goal breathless. He would have been breathless in any case at what he saw. The housebreakers had done their work thoroughly and at the moment were dealing with the ground floor. The lead, the guttering, tiles, cisterns, woodwork and bricks had all been carted away and gold to the order of the man ‘who stole a row of houses.’ He considered the months he had to spend in prison a cheap price to pay for the prestige he won in the only circles whose opinion he respected.

  But his impudence paled beside that of the bogus doctor whose only claim to medical knowledge was the possession of a stethoscope. His method was to select a little artisan’s house in a quiet street in south London on a Sunday morning, ring the bell and when the tenant opened the door ask for Mr Smith.