There was a friend, a very old friend, of mine residing in Hartford, Edwin Noyes by name. We had known each other from our schoolboy days, and there was a warm friendship between us. Our paths in life had been wide apart, but we maintained a frequent correspondence and often met. He knew nothing of my primrose life, but supposed, of course, from the style of my living that I was the possessor of a handsome income from my business, which lay, as he imagined, in that mysterious precinct known as "The Street," which, of course, meant Wall street, and that my business was speculating in stocks.
He was a trifle older than myself, of a steady, reserved nature, and a discreet and safe friend. This was the new member of our firm. How he came to be so I must explain. Up to this time, as the reader will have noticed, I was the only one of the party known at the bank, and, of course, was the only one who seemed to be taking any risk. Even in the event of discovery it would apparently be necessary for me only to take flight. George and Mac, not being known in connection with the fraud, could remain in London until such time as they chose to go home. To make matters absolutely safe for me as well we got up this scheme.
I told the manager of the bank that I had bought an immense plant and shops in Birmingham to manufacture railway material, and that I should be there superintending the work a good deal; therefore I might occasionally send any bills I had for discount from there by mail. I had sent two or three lots of the genuine bills in that way. If I could send the imitation bills the same way, Mac and George could carry on the business through the mail in my name and I could be at the other side of the world while the actual operation was going on, so that, far from my ever being proved guilty, there would be proof of my innocence, for how could I be guilty of a crime committed in England at the very time I was on a pleasure jaunt in the West Indies and Mexico? Thus it was arranged. Mac and George could do everything and remain in the background themselves, provided we had a safe man whom I could introduce at the bank as my clerk or messenger, also to represent me in different places where I could introduce him as my messenger before I left England.
The reader will see the extreme artfulness of the plot, but in all wrongdoing there is sooner or later a slip up. Be the plot ever so artful, or however safe the wrongdoing may appear, the unforeseen something will happen.
Of course, Mac and George not being known at the bank need not care, but it might easily be serious for me.
When the explosion came, fifty people in and about the bank would remember my face. But if I brought Noyes on the scene to act as my clerk I need only introduce him to the paying teller of the bank, and to Jay Cooke & Co., the American banking house, where I proposed to buy enormous quantities of United States bonds, paying for them in checks on the Bank of England. Of course, the bonds being all bearer bonds, would, with our knowledge of finance, be as good as so much cash.
So, knowing Noyes, if he would embark in the enterprise, had plenty of nerve and could never be bribed or bought into betraying us should he by any failure of our plans happen to be arrested, we determined to send for him. A short time before we arrived at this conclusion I had sent this precautionary letter to him:
"Grosvenor Hotel,
"London, Nov. 8, 1872.
"My Dear Noyes: You will be surprised to hear from me from London, but the fact is I have been here with George and a friend of ours for a year, and have made a lot of money from several speculations we have embarked in. In fact, we have been so successful that we have determined to make you a present of a thousand dollars, which find inclosed. Please accept the same with our best wishes.