There had been a sensational forgery in a certain Canadian town, and when the police announced that they had captured the criminal a huge crowd sought entrance to the Court where the case was to be tried. Those who managed to squeeze themselves in were astonished when they saw a slim, fair-haired girl, with dark, alluring eyes, standing in the dock, for Lydia Bigley, aged sixteen, was the forger!
The magistrates could hardly believe the evidence for the prosecution. It seemed incredible that such a beautiful girl could be an expert forger, but the police had accumulated all the facts, and there could be no doubt that the demure maiden who looked so modest, and who occasionally favoured the bench with a sweeping glance from beneath her long eyelashes, was the person who had tried to raise five thousand dollars by imitating a wealthy acquaintance's signature on a cheque.
The large-hearted men who judged Lydia did not intend to send her to gaol if they could help it, and after a brief consultation amongst themselves they acquitted her on the ground that she must have been insane when she committed the crime with which she had been charged.
It was a remarkable decision, and it did more credit to the magistrates' hearts than to their heads, but Lydia's magnetic eyes may have had something to do with Lydia's first escape from prison. For years afterwards those fascinating orbs were busy at work. There were to be greater triumphs in store for her ere she was run to earth. The girl developed into an extraordinary woman. When she stepped out of the dock with an alluring smile her brain was busy evolving a method by which she could live luxuriously without having to work, and she deliberately chose a life of crime. For a year or two, however, she contented herself with blackmail. It was always easy for her to persuade some rich man that she had lost her heart to him, then get him into a compromising position, and afterwards proceed to levy blackmail as the price of her silence. The money so obtained did not provide her with more than her current expenses, and she was anxious to launch out as a society woman.
She did not, of course, confine herself to Canada. The rich country of the United States presented a promising field to her, and in turn she visited many of the principal cities, where she posed in turn as the daughter of a British general, the widow of an earl, the niece of a former American president, and so on until she had at one time or another claimed close relationship with many of the mighty ones of the earth.
MRS. CHADWICK
All this, however, only prepared her for the great and final swindle, and a very brief career as a "society clairvoyante" in an Ohio town was merely an incident. Lydia was much more ambitious now. It took an immense amount of hard cash to coax fashionable dresses and fascinating hats out of the shops, and she simply loved both. In the hour of her desperation, when two former victims declined to part with any more cash, and her clairvoyance business was closed by the police, she remembered her first exploit in criminality, and decided to chance her luck again as a forger. But she was not going to be content with a small sum now. She was the most popular woman in the district where she temporarily resided. She set the fashion, and was determined to live up to her proud position.
Up to this time Lydia had not found a man sufficiently rich to make it worth her while to marry. She had had numerous affairs with married men, and not a few bachelors had actually proposed to her, but there was something against every one of them, and it was not until she met handsome and popular and well-to-do Dr. Leroy Chadwick, of Cleveland, that she consented to change her name. But if she had been dangerous as Lydia Bigley, she was doubly so as Mrs. Leroy Chadwick, because her status as the wife of the respected practitioner gave her almost unlimited opportunities for swindling, and she took full advantage of them.
Her extravagance knew no bounds. She bought on credit thousands of pounds worth of jewellery and furs. If she met a girl she liked she would take her to Europe for a pleasure trip. Once she brought four young ladies with her to London, Paris, and the principal Italian and German cities. The trip cost four thousand pounds, but it was none of her cheapest experiments in trying to get rid of money. For instance, she and her husband occupied a large house standing in its own grounds, which she insisted upon refurnishing, regardless of expense. A little later she decided to have it redecorated throughout, and she agreed to pay a fantastic price to the contractors on the understanding that they began and finished the work while she was watching a performance at the local theatre! They managed to keep their word, and Mrs. Chadwick's house became for the time being a show place.