For this important service Meiklejohn is believed to have received a douceur of £500. All these misguided men were sentenced to terms of imprisonment, and, as I have said before, the discovery of their faithlessness led to important changes in police constitution, and the creation of the Criminal Investigation Department.
I can remember Benson while he was a convict at Portsmouth, where he was employed at light labour, and might be seen hobbling on his crutches at the tail end of the gangs as they marched in and out of prison. He bore an exemplary prison character and was
released on ticket-of-leave in 1887, having fully earned his remission. He was not long in seeking new pastures, and soon used his versatile talents and many accomplishments in fresh schemes of fraud. It was his duty to report himself as a licence holder to the Metropolitan Police, but this did not suit so erratic a genius, and within a few months he was advertised for in the Police Gazette, a woodcut engraving of his features being accompanied with the following description of the man “wanted”:—
“Age 39, height 5 ft. 4 in., complexion sallow, hair, whiskers, beard, and moustache black (may have shaved), turning slightly grey, eyes brown, small scar under right eye, frequently pretends lameness, has a slouching gait, stoops slightly, head thrown forward, invariably smoking cigarettes.”
It will be seen from this that the use of crutches was not indispensable to him, but was probably assumed as a means of contusing his signalement. His many aliases were published with the description; some of the more remarkable were George Marlowe, George Washington Morton, Andrew Montgomery, Henry Younger (the name he went under at Rose Bank Cottage, Shanklin), Montague Posno, and the Comte de Montague.
Benson’s first act after release appears to have been to ascertain whether he had inherited anything from his father, whose death had occurred while he was in prison. Nothing had come to him, but his family did not quite disown him, for a brother offered to find him a situation. This Benson contemptuously refused, and took the first opportunity of reopening his relations with Kurr, who had been released a little earlier. Soon after this the police missed them, and they appear to have crossed the Atlantic and started in a new line as company promoters, mainly in connection with mines of a sham character. Benson seems to have done well in this nefarious business before he returned to Europe, when he made Brussels his headquarters and carried on the same business, the exploitation of mines. He appears to have gained the attention of the police, and the Belgian authorities communicated with those of Scotland Yard. Benson was now identified and arrested. At his lodgings were found a great quantity of letters containing Post Office orders and cheques, which seem to have been sent to him for investment in his bogus companies. Benson next did a couple of years’ imprisonment in a Belgian prison, and on his release transferred himself to Switzerland, setting up at Geneva as an American banker with large means. He stopped at the best hotels and betrayed all his old fondness for ostentation. Here he received many telegrams from his confederates, who were still “working” the United States, all of them connected with stocks and shares and the fluctuations of the market. He was in the habit of leaving these telegrams—which invariably dealt with high figures—about the hotel, throwing them down carelessly in the billiard-room, smoking-room, and other apartments, where they were read by others, and greatly enhanced his reputation.
At this hotel he became acquainted with a retired surgeon-general of the Indian army, with an only daughter, to whom he made desperate love. He lavished presents of jewellery upon her, and so won upon the father that he consented to the marriage. The old man was no less willing to entrust his savings to this specious scoundrel, and on Benson’s advice sold out all his property, some £7,000 invested in India stock. The money was transmitted to Geneva and handed over to Benson in exchange for certain worthless scrip which was to double the doctor’s income. Now, however, a telegram summoned Benson to New York, and he left hurriedly. His fiancée followed to the port at which he had said he would embark, but missed him. Mr. Churchward—Benson’s alias—had gone to another place, Bremen, to take passage by the North German Lloyd. The surgeon-general, trembling for his earnings, applied for a warrant, and Benson was arrested as he was on the point of embarkation. He was taken back to Geneva, but on refunding £5,000 out of the £7,000 he was liberated. It was now discovered that his presents to his fiancée were all in sham jewellery, and that the scrip he had given in exchange for the £7,000 was really worth only a few pounds. After this most brilliant coup Benson abandoned Europe, re-crossed the Atlantic, and resumed operations in America, He became the hero of many fraudulent adventures, the last of which led to his arrest. In the city of Mexico he impudently passed himself off as Mr. Abbey, Madame Patti’s agent, and sold tickets on her behalf to the amount of 25,000 dollars. This fraud was discovered; he was arrested and taken to New York, where he was lodged in the Tombs. While awaiting trial he committed suicide in gaol by throwing himself over the railings from the top storey, thus fracturing his spine.