“Yours,” he continued, addressing the great serjeant. “Quite so,” he added, on being told, and nothing but the entry of an official who recognised them prevented the two great legal luminaries from spending a night in the cells.
As every one is aware, neither of these distinguished men were saints, but they respected the ordinary laws of humanity, and did not admit that every poor wretch who had stooped to folly was the legitimate target for kicks and cuffs and lying testimony.
Although a leap into the seventies is necessary, the sensation that the so-called “Great Turf Fraud” caused must excuse a brief reference to it. It was in 1877 that an old lady with ample means conceived the brilliant idea of adding to her income by speculating on the Turf. Her choice of colleagues, however, was not a happy one, and before long she was led blindly by a genius known to posterity as Benson. Amongst his staff was a brilliant phalanx, the two brothers Carr, Murray, Bates, and the inevitable solicitor, one Froggatt.
A house in Northumberland Street, since pulled down, was where these worthies matured their plans, and by the irony of fate, in the very next house lived Superintendent Thompson, of Bow Street, who, astute as he was reputed to be, was oblivious of the cauldron that was simmering for months under his very nose.
It was in the suitable month of April—possibly the first—that the old lady (Madame Goncourt) opened the ball by paying out in driblets £13,000. When the sum rose to £40,000 she became sceptical, and took her first sensible step and consulted a lawyer.
At this point the police came on the scene, and again the genius of Benson appears, for he, grasping the situation, bought up certain Scotland Yard inspectors who, for a consideration—and a large one—undertook to warn the chief culprits how and when danger was to be avoided.
Consultations in Northumberland Street were now deemed risky, so the venue was changed to the “Rainbow Tavern” (now known as the “Argyll”), a pot-house abutting on Oxford Street, and there the original conspirators and their solicitor, augmented by Inspectors Druscovitch, Meiklejohn, and Palmer, arranged for telegrams and other details to defeat the ends of justice.
The commonplace sequel will suggest itself to most people. Benson, the two Carrs, Bates, and Froggatt were sent to penal servitude for fifteen and ten years respectively. Later on Benson “peached” on his police allies, who in November were tried, Druscovitch and Meiklejohn receiving two years each, and Palmer being acquitted.
Madame Goncourt, it may be added, was still without her profits.
After his fifteen years, Benson was currently supposed to have burst out as the director of numerous shops in the metropolis, where electric appliances for the instant cure of gout and inhalers warranted to contain “compressed Italian air” and to make everybody a Patti or a Mario were to be had for a guinea; whilst a further guinea entitled the purchaser to a consultation with the specialist.