SHOWERS OF GOLD FALL—AND THEN?
I shall try and condense into a single chapter the narrative of events in London from the time of my departure until the day, some months later, when our scheme exploded and all took to flight when Noyes was arrested.
Our expenses had been so enormous that we were anxious to make enough to recoup them, so it had been agreed that the first batch of bogus bills should not exceed the amount paid out since leaving Rio.
I left for Paris on Monday. On Wednesday, Noyes went to the bank and drew out all the money to my credit, except three hundred pounds. The same day he went to Birmingham and mailed lot number one of home-manufacture bills representing £8,000.
The next twenty-four hours was an anxious time for my friends. The bills would be delivered by the early mail on Thursday, and if all went right the proceeds would be placed to my credit by 12 o'clock, and the bills themselves would be stowed away in the vaults until they were due some months ahead. George and Mac waited with the greatest anxiety until 2 o'clock. They had everything packed for instant flight, when at that hour they sallied out of Mac's lodging and started for the bank to make the test. They had filled out two Warren checks, one for £2,300 payable to Warren, another for £4 10s., payable to bearer.
Noyes went on ahead, the others following, and took his stand on the steps of a hotel in a side street not far from the bank. Keeping his eye out for a suitable appearing party he finally stopped a uniformed messenger, and, telling him to take the £4 10s. check to the bank, bring the money to him there, and he would be paid for his trouble.
Of course, as soon as the messenger had turned his back Noyes bolted around the corner to a place agreed upon, while Mac followed the messenger to the bank and saw he was paid without question. He gave the pre-arranged signal to George, who went with all haste to notify Noyes, and when the messenger arrived with the cash, he found him standing on the steps as cool and unconcerned as possible. Paying the messenger, all three started to the bank, Mac on the way giving Noyes the £2,300 check, which he presented. Nodding good day to the cashier he asked for £2,000 in gold and the remainder in notes, which were handed him at once, and three very happy men sat down that evening to dinner, because the day's operations had conclusively proved that the Bank of England methods were fallible.
The next morning Noyes went to Jay Cooke & Co. and ordered $75,000 in United States bonds, giving a check for them on the bank. The same afternoon he went to Birmingham and mailed another letter, this one containing £15,000 in bills, and later drew £2,000 in gold from the bank. On Monday he went after the bonds, and the $75,000 was handed over to him without questions. The whole operation was a repetition of these tactics, but with an ever-increasing volume in the amounts of the bills. On some days the mail brought to the bank letters with bills for $100,000, sometimes for more, sometimes for less. So November and December passed away, and the bank continued day by day and week by week laying away in its vaults the worthless collateral of Mr. F.A. Warren in exchange for its gold.
But why not be satisfied and stop while it was all right? That is the question of a wise man, but who ever knew any man who wanted to do a thing, whether he did it or not, who could not find half a hundred good reasons why he should do it. But as Christmas came near Mac began to long for home. He had repaid his father every penny of the large sum he was owing him; there had been a reconciliation by mail, and each steamer that came bore many long letters from parents and sisters, all speaking of their joy over the happy turn of events that was going to bring the absent member of the flock home within its walls again. The father's heart, long estranged, grew very tender toward his boy, and with pride he thought his eldest had thrown off the follies of his youth, and in manful strength was making ample atonements for the thoughtlessness and the wanderings of his youth. He and they were all destined to a terrible awakening. For soon the press of the world was to teem with accounts of his son's arrest and incarceration for participation in a gigantic fraud. When the blow fell it came with crushing force on that home, and a shadow deep as night settled down on the household; all joyousness and even hope itself fled when the cable bore the news that their boy had been condemned to life imprisonment in a foreign dungeon. And one by one the members of that family passed away from a world that held no more for them since their good name had been tarnished.
In London the boys talked of spending Christmas at home, but the argument to stay—and it prevailed—was that since the money came in so easily and in such amounts it was a pity to run away from it. Then, again, by obtaining an enormous sum and putting it in a place of absolute security, the bank would be glad to compromise the matter in consideration of receiving a million or two back again.