Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison: Fifteen Years in Solitude

by Austin Bidwell

A traveler in my compartment proved a most entertaining companion. He described himself to me as one who "went about pottering over a lot of antiquities and fooling around generally."

But my friend, the pottering old antiquary, gave me something of a surprise. At Chalours all of our fellow travelers in the compartment left us. Two of them were voluble French women, and they kept it up with amazing energy for the six hours from Brussels to Chalours. At every unusual swaying of the car there would be a volley of "Mon Dieus!" and ear-piercing exclamations, and it was certainly a relief when they left.

Bringing out a box of cigars, and my companion producing a flask of wine, we soon became confidential. Presently, to my great amusement, my Old Antiquary, warmed by the wine, confided to me that he was a detective police officer and chief of the secret service at Antwerp, that he was then working on a famous case, and had been shadowing one of the ladies who had journeyed with us from Brussels. Before leaving Brussels, he had discovered his quarry was to quit the train, and as he had to go on to Mayence, he had turned the business over to a confederate.

I was young, and no doubt he thought me innocent; certainly he did not withhold his confidence. This is the case he was investigating:

There was a wealthy gentleman by the name of Van Tromp living in Antwerp, a widower, 70 years of age, the father of a grown-up family, and many times a grandfather. It had been his custom to go to Baden-Baden every Summer, spending money freely both in pleasure and in the famous gambling resorts there. The last time he had met a woman, the Countess Winzerode, one of the many adventuresses to be found there, and speedily became infatuated. This Van Tromp was a descendant of old Admiral Van Tromp, who, in the mighty life-and-death struggle between Holland and Spain, and in the two wars with England, the first when Cromwell ruled, the second when the Second Charles was on the throne, held up the fame and glory of Holland. In one case he swept the proud navies of Spain from the seas and carried the Dutch flag around the world. In the other, he was only vanquished after stubborn sea-fights lasting for days, and only ended then because the stout admiral lay on his deck with an English bullet in his heart. This Van Tromp was the heir of the fame and the wealth of all the Van Tromps, and both had gone on accumulating for 300 years.

The self-styled Countess knew all this, and, as the sequel shows, knew her man. She was 40, had been beautiful, was still comely, with good figure, fair-haired, but with steel-blue eyes. She spoke many languages and had dwelt in every land from Petersburg to Paris. It is needless to tell how they first met or of the intimacy that sprang up between them, but I will merely say in passing that within five days of their first meeting he had given her a magnificent diamond bracelet, which had been in his family more than a century. This alarmed his two daughters, who were terrified at the mere suspicion that their father was in earnest, and might possibly present them with a stepmother, above all, a comparatively young stepmother, and, so far as physique went, a magnificent animal, with promise of a long life—so long that her rights of dower would make a cut in the Van Tromp estates and treasures, which might well cause the old Admiral to rouse himself from his three-century sleep in Dordrecht Church and once more walk these glimpses of the moon in protest of the sacrilege. Then the scandal of a Countess-adventuress becoming a Van Tromp—- head of that family, too! They knew of his penchant for the Countess, and cared nothing for it, until, with a feeling akin to horror they observed at the dress ball one night the Countess airing the historic bracelet. It would require a volume to relate the scenes that followed in the Van Tromp domicile on this paralyzing discovery; but prayers, tears and histrionic touches were all met by the stolid reply of Van Tromp: "I please myself."

As a last resort the daughters appealed to the Countess, offering all their ready cash and a pension if she would only disappear. But visions of the Van Tromp diamonds and of the Van Tromp bank account were in her head and she was deaf to every appeal. In fact, she despised these heavy, matter-of-fact Dutch ladies, and rather gloried to think that she would soon be the female head of the Van Tromp house and stepmother to these two highly respectable dames, who would perforce have to live in her shadow. But then, of course, the Countess was a woman, and it is to be feared that even good women love to triumph over others. She, of course, could have no love for this portly old gentleman of seventy. But it is pitiful to think he was madly infatuated. The poor old man, in spite of his unromantic appearance, had warm blood in his veins and plenty of romance in his heart. At last, in spite of gossip and opposition, they were married, and then, instead of settling down, as the happy groom had hoped, to a life of wedded bliss in one of his country houses at Dordrecht, Lady Van Tromp insisted on spending her honeymoon in Paris. There they went, and the very day of their arrival the bride resumed a liaison with a beggarly count, who, not being an actual criminal, yet was written black enough in the books of the Paris police, and for whom the Countess had as warm an admiration as one of her cold, calculating nature was capable of feeling.

Van Tromp speedily found his dream of bliss blown to the winds, but he was not so blind as not to see that his wife not only did not love him, but was false to him as well. Poor old Van Tromp felt he had made his last throw for happiness, and hoping against hope, dreamed she in time would learn to appreciate his devotion and would love him, and so tried to persuade himself of her truth. The first anniversary of the marriage found them at Baden-Baden, and there the unhappy husband, thinking to give his wife a pleasant surprise, entered her chamber at an unusual hour bearing a diamond necklace for a present, and found her in a position which could no longer leave any doubt as to her faithlessness. Seizing a chair he felled her companion, who never stirred again; but the shock was too great for the husband, who himself fell to the floor and instantly expired—the doctors said of heart disease, and I think they were right. This event was only a few weeks old. The will had been read, and it was found that he had literally left everything "to my wife, Elizabeth."

Here my friend, the chief of police and a distant relative of Van Tromp, came to the front, determined quietly on his own account to investigate Lady Van Tromp. He found this last was at least her third venture on the stormy sea of matrimony. He had a fancy that some one of her husbands might still be living and undiscovered. If this could be proved, then her marriage to Van Tromp was no marriage, and the ducats, dollars and diamonds bequeathed by Van Tromp to "my wife, Elizabeth," would instantly melt into air—into very thin air, so far as the Countess was concerned; provided, of course, they had not actually passed into her clutches. In fact, they were legally hers, for the will had been admitted to probate. Those of the family objecting could offer no valid opposition, and she had been put in possession, but, by a strange neglect on her part, left everything intact, save a deposit of 300,000 gulden in the Bank of Amsterdam, which she secured and set out for Naples with a new lover.