Knots Untied; Or, Ways and By-ways in the Hidden Life of American Detectives

by George S. McWatters

Yours, very respectfully,

Willis King.

The letters I saw all seemed to be written in the same rapid, half-clerkly, half-lawyerlike, but elegant scrawl, whether written to a Perkins or a King. It will be seen that the third partner—"J. Perkins Graham"—could represent both the Graham and the Perkins family, and I suppose he did. So there were in the scheme four families to be preyed upon,—Lord, King, Graham, and Perkins; and these families are numerous over the land, and many of them in high positions. I learned from the scamps, after their detection, that they received all sorts of epistles, from the lowly Lord up to the exalted one, who wrote on paper displaying flaming coats of arms, and their letters bearing a huge seal. So with the rest of the families. The swindlers had spent some time in hunting through all the directories of other cities and towns which they could find in New York, and gathered all they could from advertisements in newspapers for a year or so, before they launched out in their long-meditated scheme. Meanwhile they were practising their cunning arts in other swindles. They also wrote to the postmasters of a large number of towns, enclosing to one a letter for a King, to another a letter for a Perkins, to still another a letter for a Graham, asking each postmaster to have the kindness to "read the accompanying letter," and to pass it over to any King, Perkins, and so on, who might be within the delivery of his office, or in his vicinity. These letters they got copied by a clerk at a few cents (five, I think) apiece. So when they got a dollar back it paid for about twelve letters, inclusive of stationery and postage. A hundred letters and the postage would cost them about twelve dollars, and from a hundred they would probably get fifty, if not more, favorable answers. From several thousand letters they received several thousand dollars, aside from large sums which, by subsequent correspondence, they swindled out of such pompous, or other parties, as, judging by their letters, they thought they could further entrap. Some of these forwarding to the famous firm of Lord, King, & Graham as high as a hundred dollars to be guaranteed especial effort in their behalf! It is almost too preposterous to be believed, but such was the fact—such the credulity of some who occupied political positions of note; one of them, indeed, being at the time a member of Congress! But credulity in matters of this kind is a weakness, alike of the poor and the rich, the educated and uneducated. The device of these swindlers proved to be more profitable than one would have, on first thought, judged possible, so much greater is human credulity than we are wont to consider it. Perhaps credulity is the only thing in the world that we are not apt to overrate. But it is not strange that it should be great touching material things, when in matters of religion the most absurd fancies have, from time immemorial, down through the ages of Oriental, pagan, and other religions to the days of Mohammedanism and Mormonism, had possession of the human soul, ruled nations, gathered armies, and taught millions of millions of human beings to sacrifice each other in death, willingly and proudly. And in the matter of money-getting, where hope may be whetted, in order to inspire the actor,—as in reaching out for a fortune in chancery,—their credulity usurps a wondrous supremacy, and carries all along with it. So many of the most intelligent representatives of the various families addressed by "Lord, King, & Graham" fell as readily into the trap as the least intelligent. Now and then a man, a little more wary than the rest, wrote, wishing to make further inquiries about the property in chancery, how it came to be discovered, what was its amount, about how many, probably, it would have to be divided between, etc., etc. But he could not, after asking so many questions, neglect to enclose the small amount of a dollar; and the swindlers taking his measure by his letter, would generally reply in so cunning a manner as to finally elicit from him a "contribution" of from twenty-five to a hundred dollars, in order to prosecute the matter in England.

In some instances persons who had received letters wrote that they were coming on to New York in a few days, and would call and talk over the matter. Replies would be made to these, that "our Mr. Perkins," or "Mr. Lord," or whatever name the special letter-writer bore, and "who has exclusive charge of the matter in question," is away from home, gone to meet some of the family in—(Kentucky, for example); that he would proceed, immediately on his return, to England, etc., so as to keep the party from making investigations, and finding that there was no such firm as "Lord, King, & Graham," generally managing to conclude the letter in some such way as not only to win the one dollar at once, but to elicit more from the man; as, for instance, suggesting that some of the Perkinses were making up a sum, by the contribution of ten dollars each, to secure special legal talent in England, and intimating that the interests of those who took a generous and manly part in prosecuting the matter would be likely to be better looked out for than would the interests of those who are not so generous. The family pride of the correspondent would often be flattered in such a way as to make him go deeper into his pockets. The recital of affairs, as given me by one of the swindlers, himself a young man of fine education and genius, was very amusing. It was a pity, he said, that they had not preserved all the correspondence. It would have made a most remarkable book, as funny, in parts, as anything Thackeray ever wrote. It was serious and serio-comical; bombastic and Pecksniffianly humble. It represented all grades of society, from the "Lord" who "drove stage" for a living, up to the "King" who had a seat in Congress. Widows, whose deceased husbands' names had been culled from ten years old directories, wrote mournful stories about "the late Mr. William Lord," or "James Perkins," or whatever the names might have been, and declared that their late partners had always told them there was an immense estate in England for them, and so on. The pious and the less pious each wrote his peculiar letter. But what was most noticeable was, that almost all of them assumed the airs of "nabobs." And why shouldn't they? Were they not on the eve of becoming immensely rich? And what is there in this world, with its grievous labors and trials, comparable to riches? I presume this same sort of trick could be successfully played with almost any family in the land which has an American line extending back of the Revolution, say, for a hundred years, and with many of less age, so great is the desire to get riches. Indeed, there is a lawyer in Vermont who has made the matter of searching out estates in England a study. He spent ten years in England in hunting up genealogies and titles; has a regular partner in London to whom he transmits business from this country, and publishes a good-sized pamphlet filled with the names of families residing in America, and entitled to property in England. This lawyer now and then gets an important case, in which his fees amount to something handsome,—sometimes to twenty thousand dollars.

But this is wandering from the direct line of my story, though, perchance, it is far more interesting than the simple detecting part of the tale. My old friend King left the city, and went home a few days after I accepted the work; but his interest did not flag because he had handed over the matter to another, but rather increased. His letters were very frequent, sometimes three a week, none of which, except the first, did I take the trouble to reply to for a long while. I soon found that I needed more facts than I had in my possession to enable me to reach any practical result. It was impossible to find any job printer in the city who had ever done a job for "Lord, King, and Graham." Nobody had ever seen the letter-head before, and no one could suggest where the work was probably done. It was not recognized as like the style of anybody. Possibly it was done out of the city; but the fact was, as I afterwards learned, that it had been done privately by a firm which had meanwhile failed in business, and I was baffled on that point. I expected to fail, and so gave but little heed to the matter; but it finally occurred to me that if I could find some King, or somebody else who had received a letter and not replied to it, that he might at that late day make reply in such way as to get into a correspondence with the parties, and I could then have them followed from the post office, or in some other way trap them. About this time I went on to Louisville, Ky., and there encountered a gentleman, one of the King family,—we will call him Lemuel, for a name,—whom I had not met in some fifteen years before. He was a New Yorker by birth, and I had known him when a school-boy. Lemuel was a bright boy, and made a most acute man. When I asked him if he had ever done business with "Lord, King, & Graham," of New York, he laughed outright, and exclaimed, "No; but my George, you knew him, has, and got badly bitten." When I found out this, I disclosed to him my reason for inquiring, and found that he had on file somewhere the letter from "L., K., & G.," which was hunted out, and we coined a letter to the firm, which was calculated to wake up any one of them who should receive it. Mr. King's letter had been found, sealed and unopened of course, in a package of letters, and he wrote hastily, with great anxiety, to know if it was too late yet to be put in the genealogical list for the dollar; and intimated his desire to contribute anything of a reasonable amount to the prosecution of the search and claim for the estate. This letter was posted, and I hurried back to New York, suspecting that it would appear in the list of advertised letters, as it did; and thinking that it would meet the eye of some one of the firm who would be curious to get it, I had a man stationed in the post office, along with the delivery clerk, and when the man came, as I suspected he would, and asked for the advertised letter, the clerk delayed the delivery long enough to enable my man to get out near the fellow, and follow him. He found that the man entered a law office in Nassau Street, and that the real estate business was also attended to in the same office. So we devised a business call upon the office, and got well acquainted with the man who took out the letter. He caught at this bait, as I soon learned from Louisville, and I carried a letter in reply to his, which led him along till I was fully satisfied that the lawyers and real estate men were all of a piece. I "laid in" with the post office clerk to let me know when a letter bearing Mr. King's monogram, from Louisville, should arrive. The clerk delayed its delivery one day, and I made a call into the office at the time one of the partners went for their mail. He returned smiling, and passed the letter, which he had read, over to the other party. There was an amount of blind talk over it. Finally they excused themselves to retire into the "counsel-room," and coming out, the lawyer sat down and answered the letter. I left the office soon after, and had the letter intercepted at the post office, which I took into my possession.

I then sent to Louisville for the letters which had preceded this, and receiving the same, I now had the writing of two of them in my possession, and I had managed in a business way to possess myself of sundry documents written by each of these men, and I found other parties, too, who could identify the handwriting of each; and having secured these, I advertised in a Philadelphia paper, also in a Boston paper, in one at Utica, and one in Cincinnati, to the effect that any person by the name of King (that for Philadelphia), or any person by the name of Lord (for Boston), and so on, might hear of something to his advantage by calling on so and so any time during the week. I made arrangements with brother detectives in these places to receive their calls, and instructed them what to say. In this way I became, in the course of two weeks, in possession of abundant facts to convince the firm of Lord, King, & Graham that we had them trapped; and one day, taking an officer along with me, and setting watch till I saw that the two men I have spoken of were in their office, dropped in, and said, "Gentlemen, I have been here often on business affairs, and we have got along very pleasantly, and I have invariably found your advice good; but I've something now which I fear will puzzle you; perhaps you can help me out. By the way, if you please, as it's private, I'll lock the door," stepping towards it.

"O, certainly, certainly," said both of them at once. I locked the door, and putting the key in my pocket, said, "Perhaps, gentlemen, you think I am over-cautious in pocketing the key; but my business is serious, and—you are my prisoners." There was astonishment, and differing shades of color going and coming on their cheeks.

"Give me the key!" exclaimed the lawyer, finally, resuming his composure in a measure. "'Twouldn't do you any good," said I, "for I have brother officers at the door, and the best way is to sit down and talk over the matter coolly. You naturally wish to know why you are my prisoners. I'll tell you. Some months ago you carried on a system of frauds under the name of 'Lord, King, & Graham.' I was lately employed to work up the case. I've all the facts necessary for your conviction; your handwriting, and so forth, and so forth, in my possession;" and then I read them a series of names of those they had swindled, and said, "although I don't need to do so, yet I am going to cause your back office there to be searched." One of them started to rise in his seat. "Sit still, or I shall handcuff you," said I; and I stepped to the door, called in the officer, relocked the door, and put the key in my pocket, and directed my man to go into the other room and possess himself of all books and papers which he could find there, and search especially for anything bearing on the "Lord, King, & Graham" business—(I had told him all about it before); "and, gentlemen, I propose to take possession of all your papers here." My man was hunting over matters vigorously in the other room while I was at work briskly searching the larger room, when the lawyer rose, and said, "Gentlemen, I see you've got us. I'll give you up what books there are left, and you can make what you please out of them; they won't do you any good, however." "Please to deliver them up, and I will see as to that." They were produced—journals of accounts; and fortunately in one I found three letters written out, but which, for some reason, had never been sent, in the writing of "J. Perkins Graham," which I discovered to be that of the letter written by the lawyer to my friend in Louisville. I also searched the books, and found entries therein in his hand. Taking out his letter from my pocket, "There," said I, "is your late letter to Mr. King, of Louisville. I saw you write it, can prove your hand by a half dozen persons in this building; and that" (taking up a newly-found letter), "is yours, and here are entries in your hand, and I have your friend caught still more firmly. Now you see the relation of things, and we needn't dispute; how will you settle this business? All the expenses I have been to must be met first, and you can't object to paying a handsome sum for the education, discipline, and experience you have had in this business. You've learned a good deal of human nature. I don't propose to be hard with you, but my instructions are to expose you through the public press,—you two, and the rest of you,—for I know you all." There was consternation in their countenances, and I had no great difficulty in bringing them to terms, for I informed them that I knew all about their social standing, and that of their relatives, especially dwelling upon the relatives of one of them who was at that time absent, but whom I had inextricably caught with the rest. The lawyer was willing, and so was his friend, to submit to "any reasonable terms," an item of which was the returning to those whom they had swindled out of ten dollars and upwards the money they had defrauded them of, as nearly as from the books and memory they could make out, and to bear the expense of such correspondence as I should think necessary. They were also to pay all expenses I had been to, and to give me full wages for the time I had been at work, the account of which made no small sum. There was no need of my holding them under arrest, for they could better afford to come to my terms than to run away and be exposed in the public papers. Besides, they could not think of such a thing on account of their relatives. The father of one of them was a clergyman, in high standing, and the rest held higher social position than he, and the terms, were duly complied with on the return of the third party the next day.

I kept possession of the books, had a short letter, in the form of a circular, printed and sent to all the parties whose names were on the books, and were marked with a little cross, which they told me meant those who had responded, in which was set forth the fact of the swindle, with a request that each party should reply as to how much he had lost, especially over ten dollars, and make affidavit of his loss before some notary public or other officer in his vicinity. The amount thus heard from was over three thousand dollars (not counting the several thousands which came in one dollar at a time). On the three thousand and upwards I charged, as permitted to do, ten per cent. for "collecting;" but it was a bothersome business, and vexed me more than it profited me. My acquaintance got to be somewhat intimate with those sharpers, who were all men of education, and very adroit, as the reader may well conceive, from the fact of their perpetrating their frauds on some of the shrewdest and most important men in the land. They kept files of some of their letters, as well as copy-books, which revealed the most consummate skill on their part. Indeed, as I said before, I sometimes hardly knew whether to swear, to laugh, or be indignant over this subtle fraud.

Old Mr. King, who first employed me, was delighted with the detection of the villains, but could never forgive me for not exposing them to the public. However, he took all the credit which was fairly due him, if not more, and considered that the good name of King in America was at last preserved from the shame which easy imposition had brought it, and used to say that the Lords, Perkinses, and Grahams of the country all owed the Kings a great debt of gratitude. But as my name is not King, I sometimes used to reflect that perhaps they owed gratitude to some others than Kings as well, for the largest share of the money returned went to Lords and Perkinses. Not a Graham, save one in North Carolina, had been defrauded of over one dollar. For many it proved better to have been swindled out of ten dollars or more, than it would have been to have lost only a dollar,—a paradox, with a moral in it, which I leave to the reader's solution.