RAYMOND AND HIS YACHT
Of course, I told him my instructions were not to accept a cent less than $75,000, and if he didn't want to pay that I would have to take them back to London. I was about to roll them up when I chanced to think of looking for my initials. They were not there—Sheedy was trying to palm off cheap copies on me in place of the originals. Quick as a flash, I pulled out the revolver I always carried in those days; shoved it right under Sheedy's nose, and said:
"Come, Mr. Sheedy—hand over the original paintings I left with you, or I'll blow your head off!"
He was considerably amazed at this warlike nerve on my part, but still had nerve enough left to argue that those were the pictures I had given him. But I was not to be tricked like that. Finally he went into an adjoining room—I after him with the gun in my hand—pulled open a drawer and took out the canvasses which had my initials on the back. I carried them back to London, where Raymond sold them for $75,000, of which he gave me $10,000. I sold many stolen paintings to Sheedy after that, but he never tried to take advantage of me again.
Raymond often used to tell me that all his bad luck dated from the night he stole the famous Gainsborough. If the portrait really was a "hoodoo" its evil influence was a long time in taking effect. The two or three years after his robbery of the Agnew gallery saw the most daring crimes of his life and the money they yielded made him a multi-millionaire. Even his heavy losses at Monte Carlo could not seriously affect a fortune which was being steadily increased by all sorts of illegal undertakings.
He lived like a prince in London and Paris, owned several race horses and maintained, besides a sailing yacht, a palatial steam yacht with a crew of twenty men. He liked to vary the monotony of his cruises by deeds of piracy as sensational as any Captain Kidd ever attempted. On one such occasion he robbed a post-office on the island of Malta; on another he attempted to loot a warehouse on the docks at Kingston, Jamaica. This last exploit would have ended in his capture by a British gunboat which pursued him for twenty miles had his yacht not been a remarkably speedy craft.