OUR EXPERIENCE IN LONDON
The clerk smirked his gratitude, promised prompt delivery, and we drove on to a fashionable dressmaker's. There we secured on credit, which had nothing more substantial for its basis than the stolen crest our hired carriage bore, several costly gowns.
This sort of thing went on for two weeks. The magic of my friend's methods opened to us all the treasures of London's finest shops. A never-ending line of messengers brought to Claridge's the most expensive goods of every description—and not a penny of real money was involved in any of the transactions.
I discarded all my old gowns and had to get additional trunks to hold the new ones. Soon I had accumulated three or four times as much jewelry as I could wear at one time. With the prudence for which I was always famous, I put the surplus rings and brooches in a safe deposit box.
All this time you may be sure I felt considerable apprehension. Although I took no active part in these swindling operations, I shared in the plunder, and knew I would be held as an accomplice in case there was trouble.
The trouble came sooner than I expected. We had been "buying" some linens—making our selections, as usual, without leaving our carriage. Just as we were about to drive away the clerk who had taken our order came rushing out.
"Your ladyship's pardon," he stammered, "but would you please step inside the store. The manager thinks there's some mistake—that is, he thought Lady Temple was in Egypt."
I gave a gasp—now we'd be arrested!
But my friend showed not the slightest emotion, except a little annoyance, such as was quite natural under the circumstances to a lady of rank. She calmly walked into the store—and I have never laid eyes on her since.
After waiting an hour I decided she must have escaped by a side entrance. I returned to Claridge's and found she had been there before me. She was gone, bag and baggage—and in a great hurry, as the disorder of the rooms showed.
I lost no time in arranging my own departure and did not feel safe until I was well on my way to New York with my trunks full of more finery than I had ever possessed.
Two or three years later Helen Gardner, alias Lady Temple, was convicted in France for obtaining money under false pretenses. Her prison term brought her to her senses—showed her how foolish it was to waste her life in crime. When she was released she settled down to an honest career and later became the wife of a prosperous merchant.
The account of my experiences with famous women swindlers would not be complete without some mention of the greatest of them all—the notorious Ellen Peck, long known as the "Confidence Queen."
Mrs. Peck's exploits during the many years when she defrauded everybody who came within her reach would fill a book. One swindle would hardly be finished before another would be begun, and often she would have several entirely different schemes under way at once.
She paid her lawyers several fortunes in her persistent efforts to keep out of jail and to retain possession of the property she had stolen. At one time, when she was in her prime, she was defendant in twenty-eight civil and criminal suits.
One of Ellen Peck's many peculiarities was her fondness for practicing her skilful arts on her fellow criminals. She found more satisfaction in cheating a thief out of a ten-dollar bill than in defrauding some banker of $1,000.
Even I, trained in crime from childhood, was not proof against Ellen's wiles. Several times I became her victim as completely as I did Carrie Morse's—and I can vouch for the fact that no shrewder fox ever lived.
Each time she tricked me I would make a solemn vow never to have anything to do with her again. Then along she would come with some story, oh, so plausible!—and I would swallow it as readily as I had the previous one and as much to my sorrow.
Once she actually cheated me out of the very shawl on my back. It was a fine cashmere shawl—one I had secured in Europe at a great bargain.
"Come," said Ellen, "let me have that shawl. I know a rich woman who will give you $500 for it."
"No," I said, grimly, "I don't want to sell it." But Ellen turned her hypnotic eye on me, began her irresistible flow of smooth argument and—got the shawl.
That was the last I saw of her for six months. When I did succeed in running her down she said she had been able to get only $100 for the shawl—and she had left that at home on the sideboard!
Grabbing her by the arm I told her I would not let her go until she gave me what money she had. After considerable argument she emptied $37.50 out of her purse—which was all I ever got for my $500 shawl.
Ellen Peck conceived a very simple scheme of piano swindling, and I was in partnership with her in it. She had been working this swindle alone until she had become known to all the piano dealers. Then she invited me to join her. Here is how we managed it:
I would go to a store and buy a piano on the installment plan, paying five or ten dollars down. The instrument would be delivered at some one of the twenty furnished rooms which Ellen had engaged for just this purpose in various parts of the city.
As soon as the piano was installed at one of these rooms we would promptly advertise it for sale at a greatly reduced price. If the first purchaser did not move the piano at once we would sometimes be able to sell the same instrument to five or six different persons. When we had squeezed as much money as we could out of a piano we would disappear—only to repeat the same trick at another furnished room and with a piano from another store.
It sometimes happened that, when the several persons to whom we had sold a single piano came to claim it, the merchant from whom we had secured it and to whom it still belonged would also put in an appearance. Then there would be the liveliest kind of a squabble, which would have to be settled in the courts.
Crafty Ellen Peck supplied the brains for this enterprise but made me do most of the hard work and gave me only a meager share of the profits. It was a despicable swindle, for the loss did not fall on the dealer, but on the poor families to whom we sold the pianos and who could ill afford the money we took from them. I am thankful to say that I did not long make my living in this mean way.
I hope that Ellen Peck may be alive to read these lines. In her declining years wisdom and charity have doubtless come to her just as they have to me. I feel sure that she shares my sincere repentance for past errors, and that she will give me her hearty indorsement when I say, as I constantly do, that under no circumstances does crime pay.