From the first discovery of the fraud, Allmayer had taken a great interest in the affair. Being K.’s intimate friend, he accompanied him to the prefecture of police, and was called as a witness by the juge d’instruction. Taking the judge aside, he privately told him a story with that air of perfect frankness and plausibility which he found so useful in his later career. He would confide to the judge the exact truth, he said. The fact was that Monsieur K., being in pressing need of money for his personal use, had himself abstracted the bill belonging to his firm. Monsieur K. was then called in, and taxed by the judge with the deed. K., utterly taken aback, protested, but in vain. Allmayer, who was present, implored him to confess. The unfortunate man, still quite bewildered, stammered and stuttered, and gave so many indications of guilt that the judge committed him to Mazas. But as he was not quite satisfied with Allmayer, who, moreover, had a “history,” he sent him also to prison. Now the Allmayer family intervened, and, strongly suspecting that their son was really guilty, were glad to compromise the affair. Both the prisoners were then released, and Allmayer thought it prudent to cross the frontier. It was well he did so, for now the true inwardness of the story was revealed. Allmayer had secured the assistance of an old comrade in the Algerian discipline corps, whom he had taken with him first to a public telephone office, where the communication was made with the banker C. as though coming from K.’s offices. Then Allmayer sent this old soldier to receive the money on the bill, which he had appropriated some time previously. He pocketed the proceeds, and kept the lion’s share, for his comrade only got £200 and a suit of new clothes. Next morning he warned him to make himself scarce, declaring that all was discovered, and that he had better fly to Algeria. When Allmayer’s guilt was fully established, and he had been arrested and brought back to Paris, a search was made for the soldier, who was found in Algeria. In his pocket was a telegram from Allmayer warning him that “Joseph” was after him, and advising him to go to New York. Joseph, it must be understood, meant the detective-officer in pursuit.
It seemed unlikely that Allmayer would leave the Mazas prison as easily now as on his first visit. But he made one of the most daring and successful escapes on record, passing through the gates of that gloomy stronghold quite openly. As he had to be interrogated day after day by the judge in his cabinet, he was taken to the prefecture, and managed, while seated at the table facing the judge, to abstract, almost from under that functionary’s nose, a sheet of official paper and an official envelope. This he accomplished by scattering his own papers, which were very numerous, upon the table, and mixing the official sheets with his own. He had already observed that the judge, in transmitting an order of release for some prisoner in Mazas, had not used a printed form, but had simply written a letter on a sheet of official paper. This was enough for Allmayer, who, when once again in the privacy of his cell, concocted the necessary order to the governor of Mazas, signed by the judge. This was the first step gained, but such a letter must be stamped with the judge’s seal to carry the proper weight. One morning, as he sat before the judge, he entered into an animated conversation with him, and suddenly, with a violent gesture, upset the ink-bottle over the uniform of the Garde de Paris who stood by his side. Allmayer, full of apology, pointed to the water-bottle on the mantelpiece, the Guard rushed towards it, the judge and the clerk following him with their eyes, and at that moment Allmayer, who had already the seal in his hand, stamped his letter. This was the second step. The third was to get his letter conveyed by some official hand to Mazas. For this he devised a fresh stratagem. On leaving the cabinet with his escort, he paused outside the door and said he had forgotten something. He re-entered the cabinet, and came out with his letter in his hand, saying indignantly, “The judge thinks I am one of his servants. Here, you, Monsieur le Garde, you had better carry this, or see it sent to Mazas.” Allmayer had barely returned to his cell in Mazas before a warder arrived with the welcome news that the judge had ordered him to be set free. That same evening he reached Brussels. As soon as his escape was discovered, the French authorities demanded his extradition; but the legal forms had not been strictly observed, and Allmayer was not surrendered. Belgium, however, refused to give him hospitality, and he was conducted to the German frontier, whence he gained the nearest port and embarked for Morocco.
At this time Allmayer was a gentlemanly, good-looking youth,
with fair complexion and rosy cheeks and a heavy light moustache, and rather bald; his manners were so good, he was always so irreproachably dressed, that he easily passed himself off for a man of the highest fashion. He assumed many aliases, mostly with titles—the Vicomte de Bonneville, the Comte de Motteville, the Comte de Maupas, and so on. Sometimes he was satisfied with plain “Monsieur”, and was then generally Meyer or Mayer, which were his business names. His swindling was on a large scale. He bought and sold sheep and wool, and it was admitted by those whom he victimised that he had a natural talent for business. One wool merchant whom he defrauded declared his surprise at finding this smart young gentleman so fully at home in the quality and character of the wools of the world. All this time he moved freely to and fro, returning frequently to France from Morocco, passing boldly through the capitals of Europe, staying even in Paris. The police knew he was there, but could not lay hands upon him. It was at Paris, under the name of Eugène Meyer, that he carried out one of his largest and most successful frauds. He was arranging for a supply of arms to the Sultan of Morocco, when he mentioned casually that a sum of £30,000 was owing to him by one of the largest bankers in Paris, who held his acceptance for the sum. The people present were willing enough to discount this acceptance, but the amount was too large to deal with as a whole. Meyer solved the difficulty by saying he would have it broken up into bills for smaller amounts, which, in effect, he produced, and which were willingly discounted. By-and-by it came out that the bills were forged, and those who held them were arrested; but Allmayer was gone. All he did was to write to the papers exonerating his unconscious accomplices, and offering to appear at their trial if the police would guarantee him a safe-conduct. But the police refused, and his unfortunate confederates were condemned.
Much astonishment and some indignation were expressed in Paris at the carelessness of the police in allowing Allmayer to remain at large. Yet all the time the detectives were at his heels, and followed him all over Europe—to Belgrade, to Genoa, back to Paris. At Marseilles he robbed a merchant, Monsieur R., of 20,000 francs by pretending to secure for him a contract for the French Government for sheep. It would be necessary, however, as he plausibly put it, to remit the above-mentioned sum anonymously to a certain high functionary. Allmayer attended at Monsieur R.’s office to give the address, which he himself wrote upon an envelope at Monsieur R.’s table. This done, Monsieur R. inserted the notes, and the letter was left there upon the blotting-pad—at least, so Monsieur R. believed, but Allmayer by a dexterous sleight of hand had substituted another exactly similar, while that with the notes was safely concealed in his pocket. It is said that the high functionary received a letter containing nothing but a number of pieces of old newspaper carefully cut to the size of bank notes, and did not understand it until, later on, Monsieur R. wrote him a letter of sorrowful reproach at not having kept his word by giving the contract in exchange for the notes.
Still Allmayer pursued his adventurous career without interference, and the police were always a little too late to catch him. They heard of him at Lyons, where he passed as a cavalry officer and gave a grand banquet to his old comrades in the garrison; again, at Aix they were told of a sham Vicomte de Malville, who had played high at the casino, and unfairly, but he was gone before they could catch him. At Biarritz he signalised his stay by cheating, borrowing, and swindling on every side. The commissary of police at Bordeaux was warned to keep his eye upon this person, who passed as Monsieur Mario Magnan, but the commissary imprudently summoned the suspected person to his presence, and blurting out the story, gave Allmayer the chance of escape before the Parisian police arrived to arrest him. He had gone ostensibly to Paris, but his baggage was registered to Coutrai. The detective followed to Coutrai, and found that his quarry had gone on to Havre with several hours’ start. The man wanted was hunted for through Havre, but the covert was drawn blank till all at once, by that strange interposition of mere chance that so often tells against the criminal, the detectives came on him on the Boulevard Strasbourg, a perfect gentleman, fashionably dressed, with a lady on his arm in an elegant toilette. They laid hands on him a little doubtfully at first, but it proved to be Allmayer, although he vigorously denied his identity. This was practically the end of his criminal career, for he was speedily transferred to Paris and committed for trial, being located this time in the Conciergerie, under the constant surveillance of two police officers. Even there his mind was actively employed in planning escape; the scheme he tried was that of confiding to the head of police the whereabouts of a hidden receptacle of certain thieves, who had collected a quantity of plunder. If the officers would take him there, he would show them the place; it was in the Rue St. Maur, at Ménilmontant. But the authorities were not to be imposed upon, and, by inquiring elsewhere, learnt that the whole story was a fabrication. Allmayer had arranged that on arrival at the ground he should be rescued by a number of friends assembled for the purpose.
The secret of his many successes was that he was a consummate actor, and could play any part. Now an officer, he was cordially welcomed by his brothers in arms; at the watering-places and health resorts he posed and was accepted as a gentleman of rank and fashion; in commercial circles he appeared a quick and intelligent man of business. He practised the same art, but in quite a different direction, at his trial. A great interest was excited in Paris by the arrest of this notorious swindler, so clever at disguises, so bold in his schemes, who had so long set the police at defiance. Yet when he appeared in court he disappointed everyone, and showed up as a poor, timid, broken-backed creature, half imbecile, surely incapable of the daring crimes attributed to him. He told a rambling disconnected story of how he was wrongfully accused, that the chief agent in all these affairs was an old prison-bird whose acquaintance he had unhappily made, and who had bolted, leaving him to bear all the blame. His abject appearance and his poor, weak defence gained him the pity of his judges, and, instead of the heaviest, the lightest sentence was imposed upon him. All this was a clever piece of acting; he had assumed the part for the purpose which he had achieved.
Allmayer was sentenced to twelve years’ transportation, and he was last heard of in the Safety Islands, where he was employed as a hospital nurse, and had made himself very popular with his keepers. Someone who met him not long since describes him as still prepossessing, bright, intelligent eyes, fluent as ever in speech, but with a singularly false face. By-and-by he may reappear to despoil his more confiding fellows once more, and be the despair of the police.