A little before the exposure Sheridan quietly gathered all his assets together, divided the spoil, and crossed to Europe, carrying with him £40,000 worth of the forged bonds, some of which he put upon the European markets. Others of them were stolen from him in Switzerland by a girl who said she had burned them, believing the police were about to search the house for them. She had, however, given them secretly to her father, who also realised on them. Sheridan at last took up his residence in Brussels, where he lived like a prince, having forsworn his own country, to which he never meant to return.
But he could not keep away from America, and he presently went back to his fate, which was the entire loss of his ill-gotten gains. Under the name of Walter A. Stewart, he turned up at Denver as a florist and market gardener doing a large business. He presently established a bank of his own and was caught by the speculative mania; he took to the wildest gambling in mining stock, and by degrees lost every penny he possessed. After this it was believed that he intended to organise a fresh series of forgeries and he was closely watched by the Pinkertons. They arrested him as he landed from the Pennsylvania ferry-boat, and, brought to trial on no less than eighty-two indictments, including the New York forgeries, he was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment in Sing Sing. After his release he was arrested for stealing a box of diamonds, and yet again, as John Holcom, for being in possession of counterfeit United States bills. He received two fresh sentences, to follow one on the other, and as his health was already failing when he was last apprehended, it is probable that he did not long survive. Now, at any rate, the curtain has fallen upon him and his extraordinary career.
JACK CANTER.
Another born American, who, between 1870 and 1880, achieved much evil fame and high fortune, varied by long periods of eclipse, was Canter, a criminal who, like Sheridan, possessed many natural gifts. Although at forty-five he had spent more than half his life in gaol, he was still, when at large, a man of distinguished appearance, with good looks and pleasant manners, an accomplished linguist and expert penman. More, he held a diploma as a physician, and had taken high honours in the medical schools, while he sometimes contributed articles to the press written with judgment and vigour. While in Sing Sing he was treated more like an honoured guest than a felon “doing time,” and had the pick of the many snug billets provided in that easy-going prison for its most favoured inmates. At one time he kept the gaol records, and thus had access to the particulars of all other inmates, their antecedents, crimes, sentences, and so forth. He turned this knowledge to good account, and invented a system of tampering with the discharge book so as to reduce the term of imprisonment of anyone for a stipulated sum. By the agency of certain chemicals he erased entries and substituted others, all in favour of the prisoner. He was not subjected to any prison rule save detention for the allotted term, and this detention must have oppressed him little, for he went in and out through the prison gates much as he liked, drove a smart team of horses, and paid frequent visits to New York to see his friends. It was greatly suspected that some of the prison officials who winked at his escapades were also implicated in his frauds.
After one of his releases from Sing Sing, in the beginning of 1873, he created a Central Fire Insurance Company in Philadelphia, with a capital of £40,000. The stock was long in good repute, and was held by many respectable business men. Suspicion was, however, aroused, and the Pinkertons being called in to investigate, they soon ascertained that the assets of the company consisted of forged railway securities. The fraud had been cunningly devised. A small quantity of genuine stock had been purchased, and the figures had been altered to others much larger. A ten-dollar share was converted into one for three or five hundred dollars, and the whole assets of the company were practically nil.
ALLMAYER.
Among swindlers of the ’eighties the Frenchman Allmayer takes a prominent place, and may be regarded as a type of the nineteenth century criminal; one who, although fairly well born, undeniably well educated, and happy at home, where he was a favourite child, fell into evil courses early in his teens. He had been placed on a stool in his father’s offices, and one day came across the cheque-book, which he forthwith appropriated. There was a hue and cry for it, and it was soon recovered. But one cheque was missing, which in due course was presented at the bank with the forged signature of Allmayer’s father, and duly paid. By-and-by the fraud was discovered, and the author of it exposed and sharply reprimanded, but that was all. Soon afterwards he again swindled his father. He stole a registered letter containing notes, and laid the blame on a perfect stranger. Now M. Allmayer père ordered his incorrigible son to enlist, and the young man joined a regiment of dragoons, where he soon made many friends by squandering money belonging to other people. To pay his debts he robbed his captain. Although he managed to defer his trial by a clever escape from the military cells, he was eventually sentenced to five years’ imprisonment in the Cherche Midi Military Prison of Paris, and passed thence to a discipline battalion in Algeria.
On the expiration of his term he returned to Paris, and gained his father’s forgiveness. Taken into the bosom of the family, for some time he lived a steady, respectable life, and might have done well, for he had undoubted talents, and his friends were on the point of securing him a good situation. The Allmayers lived at Chatou, and going up and down the line to and from St. Lazare, he renewed his acquaintance with an old school-friend, Edmond K., who gave him the run of his offices in Paris. Monsieur K. about this time missed several letters, which always disappeared from his table after Allmayer’s visits. But he had no solid reason to suspect his young friend, till one day something serious occurred. Another Parisian banker, C., was asked through the telephone by Monsieur K. at what price he would discount a bill for £1,600, drawn on a London house and endorsed by K. The banker C. thought he recognised K.’s voice; at any rate, he was pleased to do the business, for he had often asked K. to open relations with him. C. accordingly quoted his price, and was told by K. that the bill should be sent by a messenger, to whom he could pay over its value in cash. Twenty minutes later the bill was brought, and the money handed over. Next day, however, C.’s London correspondent, to whom the bill had been transmitted for collection, returned it so that some small irregularity in the endorsement might be corrected. It was passed on to K., who declared at once that he knew nothing of the endorsement, but that the bill itself was one he had lost two months before. As for the cash paid by C., it had not come into K.’s hands. Clearly there had been a crime, but who were the guilty parties? Two clerks in K.’s office were suspected, and as these young gentlemen had been imprudent enough occasionally to imitate their employer’s signature, merely as a matter of amusement, they were arrested, and the case looked black against them. Allmayer, however, obtained their release in the following manner.