Douglas, Mrs. Wray, Mrs. Hughes, and finally, having joined forces with a German swindler whose acquaintance she had made in the Fleet Prison, she took rank as the Baroness de Menckwitz. This Menckwitz was a dismissed lieutenant from the Imperial service, who had committed many depredations in Vienna, and was much “wanted” by the Imperial police. A handbill circulated at the time described him as twenty-eight years of age, about the middle height, hair inclined to be reddish and worn after the English fashion “tied and in a bag”; in the face he was blotched, had grey eyes, was rather thin but well made, and he usually wore the cross of the Holy Order of St. Stanislas on his breast.
His associate, who had passed also as a Baroness de Kenentz, was described in the same handbill as five feet in height, rather thin, but of strong build, having quite black hair and eyebrows, somewhat brown complexion, black eyes, and wearing her hair “quite negligent or loose without powder.” To this physical signalement a contemporary account adds: “She has the tongue of a siren, the bite of an asp, and the fangs of a harpy.... She is devoid of every particle of gratitude, and would sacrifice the best friend the moment her turn is served.... Her art is so excessive that though you were warned against her, she would find out new ways to deceive you,” and more to the same effect.
Together this precious pair made a fine harvest for a time. They took a house in Somerset Street, Portman Square, for six months, and hired a set of servants; also a chariot, “the better to carry on their depredations.” They now pawned the plate they had obtained by fraud in Vienna. A most elaborate scheme of fraud was practised on a London merchant, to whom they presented themselves armed with a bill of exchange drawn in Hamburg, and on the strength of which they obtained a loan of £100. This they repaid, but obtained a fresh loan of £1,100, covered by the pledge of a diamond ring. This sum was needed, they pretended, to complete the purchase of a large stud of horses for the Grand Duke Ferdinand, which was on the point of being shipped at Yarmouth. They furthermore represented that the Baron was about to be appointed Austrian Ambassador in the room of Count Starenberg, on the eve of being recalled. On these pretences the loan was advanced, and only partly repaid. Other frauds were perpetrated upon jewellers, who parted with valuables, which the two Menckwitzes pledged. For this they were arrested; but the London merchant backed their bail, entirely to his own loss.
After this the woman deserted her companion and took the name of Douglas, to pursue her depredations her own way, and to meet with the requital at last that she deserved.
EMILY LAWRENCE.
Before passing on to more recent female swindlers, it may be interesting to mention briefly one or two who were well known between 1850 and 1870. Emily Lawrence, a dashing adventuress and adroit, daring thief, had few equals. She is described as a most ladylike and fascinating person, who was received with effusion when she descended from her brougham at a shop door and entered to give her orders. Her line was jewel robbery, which she effected on a large scale. At one time she was “wanted” for stealing “loose” diamonds in Paris to the value of £10,000. Soon afterwards she was arrested for other jewel robberies at Emanuel’s, and at Hunt and Roskell’s, in London. Imprisonment for seven years followed, after which she resumed her operations, now choosing for the scene of her depredations Brighton, where she stole jewels worth £1,000 while she engaged the shopman with her fascinating conversation. Apprehended as she was leaving Brighton, she asserted that she was a lady of rank, but a London detective who came down soon proved the contrary, and she again got seven years. It was always said that this extraordinary woman carried a number of valuable diamonds with her to Millbank penitentiary, and succeeded in hiding them there. A tradition obtains that the jewels were never unearthed, and that the secret of the hiding-place long survived among the fraternity of thieves. Women, it was said, came as prisoners almost voluntarily, in order to carry out their search for the treasure, and a thousand devices were tried to secure a lodging in the cell where the valuables were said to be concealed. Whether they were found and taken safely out of Millbank we shall never know. Probably the whole story is a fable, and it is at least certain that no jewels were discovered when Millbank was destroyed, root and branch, a few years ago (1895), to make way for the National Gallery of British Art.
LOUISA MILES.
Louisa Miles was another of the Emily Lawrence class, who kept her own carriage for purposes of fraud, and called herself by several fine names. One day she drove up to Hunt and Roskell’s as Miss Constance Browne, to select jewels for her sick friend, Lady Campbell. Giving a good West End address, and a banker’s reference, she asked that the valuables might be sent home on approbation. When an assistant brought them, he was told Lady Campbell was too ill to leave her room, and they must be taken in to her. He demurred at first, then yielded, and never saw the jewels again. After waiting nervously for half an hour the assistant found he was locked in. When the police arrived to release him the ladies had disappeared, and with them the jewels. The house had been hired furnished, the carriage also was hired, as well as the footman in livery. Pursuit was quickly organised, and Miss Constance Browne was captured in a second-class carriage on the Great Western Railway, with a quantity of the stolen jewels in her possession, and was sentenced to penal servitude.