Fraudsters and Charlatans (22 page)

Kurr now mobilised his gang, who opened branch offices in Fleet Street, Cleveland Row, Jermyn Street and Duke Street, which were all in the same postal district. The head office, which was rented from a Mr Flintoff, was at 8 Northumberland Street, not far from the back entrance of Scotland Yard. The plan was for all the incoming correspondence to be collected daily by Kurr and Benson's minions, usually Bale and Frederick Kurr, and brought to the plotters at head office. It had taken several weeks to plan the operation, but on 31 August 1876, 200 copies of
The Sport
were sent out, and Benson and Kurr waited for their wealthy dupes to respond.

The expected replies soon poured in, and each applicant received a personal letter from Mr Montgomery himself:

Your name has been favourably mentioned to me by the Franco-English Society of Publicity, and I consequently repose in you the most esteemed confidence. What I require of you is very simple indeed. I will send you for each race the amount which I desire you to put on the horse, which must, in my opinion, win. You will have to forward the money
in your name
but
on my account
, to the bookmaker, and thus will be able to get the real odds, which on account of my success and great knowledge are denied to me. The bookmaker will, on settling day, send you the amount added to the stake originally forwarded to him. This you will please remit to me, and on its receipt I will forthwith forward to you a commission of five percent.
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The dupes, flattered at having come to the notice of the non-existent Franco-English Society of Publicity and basking in the confidence of the equally fictitious great man, could see nothing in the letter that would entail risking their own money, and so readily agreed to the proposition.

The majority of those who were taken in by the scheme preferred to remain anonymous, but one lady who was unable to do so was the Comtesse Marie Cécile de Goncourt, a wealthy young widow residing at the Château de Goncourt in the Marne, whose trusting nature was the lure that would eventually draw the conspirators into the open. The Comtesse, now one of Montgomery's trusted agents, received a cheque for £200 and a letter with instructions that the money should be placed as a bet with a Mr Jackson, an English ‘sworn bookmaker'.
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The lady did not stop to wonder what a ‘sworn bookmaker' was – it sounded impressive and she did after all have £200 of Montgomery's money. The bet was placed, the horse won, and in due course the Comtesse received a cheque with the winnings and the stake money. This she sent back to Montgomery.

The Comtesse was not to know that ‘Mr Jackson' was one of Kurr's associates, that there was no such thing as a ‘sworn bookmaker' and that the betting office was a front. Nor were the cheques genuine: they had been printed by the obliging Mr Brydone at the order of Kurr and Benson and appeared to be from the impressively named ‘Royal Bank of London'.

Montgomery was pleased with the Comtesse – so pleased that his next cheque was for £1,000, which came with instructions to place the bet on a horse in the Great Northern Handicap with another ‘sworn bookmaker', Mr Francis. This time it was hinted that the Comtesse might like to adventure some of her own money. This she did, and as evidence of her trust in her benefactor, she risked £1,000. Benson's skilful letters painted Montgomery as a man of the utmost respectability, a true philanthropist, deeply concerned with the welfare of the Comtesse, ‘a woman without a protector' and her ‘little children'.
¹⁰
He advised her that the ‘sworn bookmaker' required a minimum of £2,000, and accordingly she happily sent the extra money. He then offered her the opportunity of insuring her bet against a loss, but this was only possible for a minimum bet of £4,000. She sent more money. Finally a change of venue increased the figure to £5,000. But the Comtesse's trust in her benefactor was rewarded with substantial winnings, which were paid over in the form of a cheque drawn on the Royal Bank of London. The Comtesse, delighted with her success, happily sent another £5,000, and won again. Her winnings now totalled between £80,000 and £90,000. Other dupes were making similar transactions, although not quite on the same scale. In just eighteen days the gang received a total of £15,000 (approximately £1 million today) and had written fake cheques for fictional winnings of £120,000.

The dupes were advised that, in order to comply with English law, they could not cash the cheques at once, but were obliged to hold onto them for three months. There was, of course, no such law, but the delay was essential to enable the gang to milk the scheme for as long as possible. It also meant that when the dupes wanted to place another bet they could not reinvest their winnings but had to send another personal cheque.

The plan was that in three months, when the dupes found that their cheques were worthless forgeries, the business would vanish, only to reappear in a new guise, targeted at another part of France, with a different fake newspaper and a different fake bank. There was, Benson believed, enough mileage in the scheme to keep them very busy for four years, by which time they would be multimillionaires.

In the meantime, Williamson, still suspicious of Meiklejohn, saw an opportunity at least to remove him from dealing with sensitive matters. The Midland Railway Company had asked for an experienced man to superintend their police, and so before long Meiklejohn was seconded and packed off to Derby, which did not discomfit him in the least since his senior position gave him more independence of action. While in Derby, he remained in constant contact with Kurr.

The racing fraud was prospering, and Scotland Yard was quite unaware of its existence when Benson made a classic error: he became greedy. Montgomery wrote to the Comtesse suggesting that she place a bet of £30,000 with another ‘sworn bookmaker', called Ellerton. The lure was irresistible. Seven horses had been entered for a race at Ayr and of these six were to be withdrawn, leaving Montgomery's choice the inevitable winner. ‘Never will you find a similar opportunity to win an immense fortune. If you have not the whole amount at hand see what you can stake and I myself will willingly advance the difference.'
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Benson's greed was only exceeded by that of the Comtesse, who was eager for another huge win. The only difficulty was that she had no more liquid funds. Anxious not to miss the opportunity, she went to her lawyer, Monsieur Chavance, for advice on how to raise the stake money. He at once suspected that she had been handing over her money to some clever villains and cabled Scotland Yard for advice. He received the reply from Williamson he had feared: ‘The scheme is a fraud.'
¹²

The London part of the investigation was entrusted to the Comtesse's perceptive and energetic solicitor, 52-year-old Michael Abrahams, who at once went to Scotland Yard and laid all the facts before Superintendent Williamson. Unable to trace any of the ‘sworn bookmakers', he determined to obtain a warrant for their arrest. The superintendent decided to put his best man on to the investigation. Calling Nathaniel Druscovich into his office, he advised him that he had been told of a swindle that involved the sum of £10,000 coming in from Paris, and instructed him to call on Abrahams the following day.

When Meiklejohn got to hear about this, he at once advised Druscovich that Kurr ought to be told what was happening. On the afternoon of 25 September, Kurr was driving home from the office in his gig with Harry Street, when he happened to see Druscovich outside Scotland Yard and stopped to speak to him. Druscovich advised Kurr that he had been asked to look into a foreign swindle involving £10,000. He was not at the time aware that it was a betting scheme, and Kurr did not enlighten him. Kurr did no more than advise him to keep matters in his own hands, but as he drove away he realised that it was time to shut up shop. When he got home there was an envelope waiting for him in his own handwriting. It contained a blank piece of blotting paper. He went at once to see Clarke, who said that he was both ‘frightened and alarmed'.
¹³
He told Kurr that there was just time to change any banknotes, but that it would be dangerous for him to go near the spurious offices.

Aware that immediate action was needed, Kurr drove as fast as he could to Benson's lodging house. It was now almost midnight, and, unable to persuade Benson's valet to awaken his master, Kurr threw a stone at the window and broke it. Benson, who was feeling unwell, remained in bed, and eventually Kurr gave up trying to contact him. He sent a message to Druscovich asking him to meet him at Charing Cross the following morning; he then drove home.

Druscovich was both distressed and agitated when he met Kurr under the Charing Cross archway. The policeman had by now been told all the details of the fraud, and when Kurr calmly informed him that he was involved realised what kind of man had a hold over him. To the cool villain it seemed that Druscovich hardly knew what he was saying as the inspector had convinced himself he was being ‘piped off' or watched. ‘I have told you now, and you will have to look out for yourself,'
¹⁴
he said. Kurr asked if the notes were being stopped. ‘I do not know what they are doing!' said Druscovich, who then turned and ran away.
¹⁵
Unknown to either of them, Abrahams was busy obtaining arrest warrants, but so far his investigation was hindered by not knowing the men's real names.

Kurr hurried to the Northumberland Street office, where the gang had assembled to wait for his instructions. He advised them to close the office and leave London at once. The French money had been changed into Bank of England notes, by a money-changer named Reinhardt, but Kurr felt they needed to cover their tracks further. He then made a fatal error of judgement, which was to be instrumental in the gang's downfall. English banks kept a record of the numbers of the notes they issued, but Scottish banks did not. He calculated that if the English notes were changed into Scottish notes they would not be traceable. Benson and two other gang members departed at once for Glasgow with £14,000 and began the process, obtaining some £10,000 in Clydesdale bank notes before their activities attracted attention.

Druscovich returned to Scotland Yard to declare that the gang had cleared out of their offices before he arrived. Williamson felt sure that the criminals had been warned, but this time it could not have been Meiklejohn, who had been in Derby for the last two weeks. It was almost unthinkable that another of his men was corrupt, yet there could hardly be another conclusion.

Abrahams had by now traced Reinhardt, who supplied him with the numbers of £12,000 worth of the English notes. Abrahams then passed on the information to Druscovich, which the officer had no alternative but to give to Williamson. Druscovich was now a very frightened man in a terrible dilemma, obliged to take action lest he excite suspicion, but afraid of doing too much in case his involvement should be revealed. He was able for a time to conceal his obstruction of the investigation under a guise of error, neglect and bad luck. Charged with the task of discovering the numbers of the remaining notes, he hesitated for as long as he was able before making them known.

Kurr was naturally anxious to find out exactly which notes had been stopped. Frustrated that Druscovich was supplying him with no further information, he had to rely on Clarke for news, and asked Meiklejohn to bring Druscovich to heel. Meiklejohn was confident that Williamson, whom he described as ‘a calf', would ‘never tumble to it in a thousand years'
¹⁶
and wired Druscovich to come to a meeting at the Midland Grand Hotel, St Pancras.

Druscovich arrived in a thoroughly agitated state. He told them of a meeting at which the police had studied the French documents, and remarked on the ‘clever fellow' Bill had behind him. ‘Talk about Victor Hugo, I never read such French in my life,' he exclaimed.
¹⁷
The Comtesse's brother, who had attended the meeting, was less impressed than appalled. Reading the Montgomery letters, all he could say, over and over again, was ‘Mon Dieu!'
¹⁸

Druscovich hinted that, in view of the warrants, it might be best for Kurr to go to America; but Kurr refused. ‘I must arrest somebody over this job,' said Druscovich pleadingly. ‘Arrest me if you like,' said Kurr. Intrigued by the audacity of this idea, Druscovich realised that, since Kurr had never been to any of the branches, no one would be able to identify him. ‘I think I will,' he said.
¹⁹

An appointment was made for the dramatic coup to take place at Kurr's house, but in the event Druscovich thought better of it. He was beginning to think that his best course of action was to have as little to do with Kurr as possible. When Kurr later asked Druscovich to supply him with the numbers of the stopped banknotes, the officer gave evasive replies, and it was Meiklejohn who ultimately provided the information, which was at once wired to Benson.

‘How am I to get any information from Druscovich?' Kurr complained to Meiklejohn. ‘He is frightened to come near me. Tell him to make all his business known at the office, and I am sure to know then from others.'
²⁰
Still, Kurr believed he knew how to ensure Druscovich's loyalty. He sent him a cigar box containing £200 in gold.

On 3 October some of the notes Benson had been changing in Glasgow reached the Bank of England. Druscovich was at once informed of this, and his obvious course of action was to wire the Glasgow police, which could very well have led to Benson's arrest, while to do nothing would expose his involvement. As a compromise, he sent the information to Scotland by letter, providing a delay that allowed Benson to leave Glasgow the next day. Clarke, who had by now guessed that ‘Mr Yonge' was involved, told Kurr he was a fool to have sent a man whose condition made him easily remembered and identified.

The day after Benson's return, he went with Kurr to Brighton. During this vist the
Police Gazette
published descriptions of the gang, the most distinctive of which was that of Benson under his various aliases: ‘5 feet 4 or 5 inches high, sallow complexion, black moustache, very thin round the waist . . . wears diamond studs and rings, pretends to be lame and carries two sticks, of Jewish appearance.'
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