The Mysteries of Modern London

by George R. Sims

One of the most brilliant adventuresses of recent years posed as a philanthropist, and visited town after town in furtherance of her philanthropic scheme. She was received with open arms by clergymen, and on two occasions was entertained by local mayors. She might have gone on posing as a philanthropist looking about for a deserving charity on which to bestow a vast sum of money, if she had not allowed herself the indiscretion of falling in love with and marrying a young man who was supposed to be the son of an English nobleman. It was when the police got on the track of the Hon. Mr. Dash, eldest son of Lord Fourstars, and made a descent upon his rooms at a fashionable hotel, that one of the detectives was struck by the resemblance the Hon. Mrs. Dash bore to a woman who had been through his hands some years previously.

The astonishment of the newly married couple, who were on their honeymoon, was not so much at the arrest as at the discovery that they had both deceived each other. In the lady's case the force of the blow was somewhat mitigated by the fact that she had not really lost a title. She had a previous husband somewhere in the colonies.

Both these swindlers met each other first at a fashionable hotel in London. There was some excuse for the man being taken in. When he met the lady she was in the company of a colonial bishop and his wife, with whom she had established quite a friendly intimacy.

With one dangerous type of hotel adventuress—the lady with a husband who arrives unexpectedly and late at night from America—I need not deal. But good round sums have been parted with again and again by quite innocent victims to avoid a scandal. It is at the hotel that the wonderful tale is frequently told which never seems to fail to find victims. It is the story of the fortune that is coming. The idea of great expectations appeals at once to the cupidity of certain natures.

I know at the present moment a simple-minded couple who have as their guest in their pretty country home a young lady who came to stay a week, and has already stayed three months. The parties met at a London hotel. The young lady made the acquaintance of the country couple, and gradually took them into her confidence. She was the niece of a wealthy Australian, an elderly widower, who had died in London without a will.

Her mother was the Australian's only sister, and he had no other relatives. Something like a million of money was involved. On the news of his death reaching Melbourne, the young lady—her mother being in ill-health—had come to London to claim the fortune.

The reader will guess the end of the story. It is as old as the hills. Every now and then it is told in the police court, but as a rule it continues to impose upon its dupes until the impostor has got all that is to be had, and conveniently disappears.

The plot is simple. There are trouble and expense. The available funds have run low, and unless a remittance arrives from somewhere a very long way off, the legal process of claiming the fortune will be delayed. The delay is dangerous. Another claimant who has no earthly right has turned up, and, having money, is forging ahead. A million may be lost for a hundred pounds or so of ready money. The dupes, encouraged by the promise of a bounteous gift when the fortune has been secured, find that hundred or so.

Then a further difficulty occurs. Lawyers' letters, sometimes deeds, are shown, and the victims are bled afresh. To save the loss of the hundred pounds parted with, hundreds more are advanced. Sometimes the bubble bursts in a few weeks. Sometimes it remains floating gracefully for a couple of years.

The people I know have advanced five hundred pounds, and the young lady is still their honoured guest. They refuse to have their faith shaken in her, or to request her to find hospitality elsewhere. They cling to their belief in the plausible adventuress. To acknowledge to themselves that they had been duped would mean to recognize that they had lost five hundred pounds. Human nature is always human nature, and hope springs eternal in the human breast. It is the hope of ultimate success that causes millions of good money to be flung after bad, and keeps the Bankruptcy Court busy.