When he raised three hundred pounds in two days by means of worthless cheques he celebrated the "triumph" by writing in his diary:
"My labours ended for the week. Over three hundred to the good. Paid off local tradesmen—genuine cheques. Gave notice to cook. Must get some one who understands serving fish. Looking forward to a quiet week-end. Must read Bible regularly."
He was really fond of reading the Bible, and he spent his leisure at his home in studying it and keeping his diary up to date. When his sons went off to the races he would potter about in the garden, apparently the most respectable and virtuous man in the kingdom.
But every Monday morning Douglas would descend upon London, and when the diaries were bulging with records of swindles of all descriptions, and almost every tradesman in the West End was on his guard, he turned for a time to begging-letter writing, at which he proved himself an adept. He was the starving widow with eight children; the lonely widow of an Indian officer; the one-legged and one-armed hero of half a dozen campaigns; the old woman who had worked for the poor all her life, and was now in poverty herself; and a dozen other characters. These rôles produced plenty of money, not large sums, but enough to pay expenses at Ascot and pass the time until "Sir Richard Douglas" and his greater misdeeds were forgotten by the public if not by his victims.
On one occasion he resumed his clerical garb, and went round collecting subscriptions for an aged missionary and his wife. By working ten hours a day for a fortnight he collected several hundred pounds, and he even persuaded two bishops to contribute through their chaplains, although as a rule bishops are very careful to make inquiries before patronizing anything of this sort. Douglas' sympathetic air, however, clinched the matter, and by showing the bishops' subscriptions he was able subsequently to swindle scores of persons who would not otherwise have been taken in.
By now the police were on the look out for the bogus baronet who had ruined more than one shopkeeper by his frauds. But Douglas was a quick-change artist, and his keen eyes were ever on the watch. He walked freely about London, and he always spotted the detectives, and decamped before they recognized him. Some of the best sleuths were put on his track, but he fooled them all.
He was once tracked to a house where he was trying to persuade the occupant, a rich old lady, to buy a tract of land in Scotland which he did not own, and it seemed certain that the impostor would be captured, but, scenting danger, he ran upstairs into a room, where he found some female clothes, and shortly afterwards he walked through the kitchen—where a policeman was keeping guard—and out of the house by the side door. The policeman explained later that he thought "she was the cook going for her afternoon out."
This escape, however, was so narrow that the "baronet" returned at once to Ascot, and lay low for a month. Meanwhile, his sons had been making the money fly. Thousands of pounds went to the bookmakers at Ascot and other racecourses, and all three of them were engaged to girls with expensive tastes, which had to be satisfied. No wonder the old hypocrite recorded in his diary:
"It is sad to think of the extravagance of youth. If we misuse the money Providence has given us we will experience poverty. I have spoken seriously to the boys, but they will not heed me. Note. Special hopes for the success of the A.T. scheme."
The latter was, however, not successful, for it was an attempt at a religious swindle which failed owing to the activities of the police.